Recruitment: Dunkelzahn Wants YOU! Options

[Ol' Scratch]

Someone has grossly overestimated my ability to keep track of things. If I tried to run more than one at a time it would be the epitome of the term "cluster fuck."

It does look like we'll have a group larger than four so far, though. :)

[Whizbang]

Ooh....this one is back again. Will probably have to update this character to SR4 if it gets accepted, but I'm game.

Name: Corina 'Jinx' Iulian
Former Stunt Driver (elf rigger)

Background: Corina had a good thing going until The Cat showed up. She was looking to be adding a few more zeroes onto an already lucrative contract, had a great car, and best of all, Dorin hadn't shown up on her door step in trouble again for over a month. But that was all going to change.

She liked cats, and when a black one tried to cross her path, she tried to avoid it. Normally it would have been an easy task, no problem. But for some reason, her car just couldn't handle the sudden change of direction and went out of control. When she woke up, she was in the hospital, The Cat curled up next to her in bed, having defied all the attempts of the nurses to have it removed.

Getting out of the hospital, nothing went right. Anything electronic she touched simply ceased functioning. Things went out of her way to trip her. Dorin showed up owing more money than ever before. If only he wasn't her brother... She was getting quite a reputation as a jinx.

Recruitment: DIMR approached her, attempting to claim The Cat. She was more than willing to get rid of it, once they explained to her just what it was. However, The Cat was less than willing. Even when captured, it always managed to free itself, and make it's way back to her, to continue to plague her existance. Giving up on that, they offered her a job so that in addition to acquiring a good rigger, they could keep an eye on The Cat.

Background Flaw: (Clumsy, Gremlins, Bad Reputation) The Cat just seems to enjoy making her life miserable.

Random Flaw: (Pirate Family) Family can be good...but it seems that her brother, Dorin is always managing to get himself into trouble. And you can't turn down family when they ask for help.

[Trigger]

Alright, second concept coming up:

Character Name:

Tenzin "Dharma" Dorje

Character's Profession/Archetype:

Traveling Buddhist Monk, Vigilante, Ork Mystic Adept

Background Summary:
Born in the battleground between CalFree and Japan called San Francisco, Tenzin was the son of a Tibetan Priest who cared for the injured in the slums of the city. His father taught him of traditional Buddhism and of his homeland in Tibet, how to care for the sick, to show compassion for all people, and the discipline of the martial art style The White Crane. When a monk of the Lotus Throne Sect came through SF and stopped into his father's shrine to rest, trouble followed on his heels. Agents of the Chinese States attacked the shrine during the night, killing Tenzin's father in the ensuing chaos, as well as sending the Lotus Throne monk on the run with Tenzin in tow. They traveled south to the greater LA area and found passage on a ship headed to Hong Kong, where they stayed for a short time before meeting with another monk outside the Maya Cloud. With the aid of one of the Five Seals, Tenzin crossed the Cloud with two monks and made it to the homeland his father always spoke of: Tibet. There he trained with the monks who adopted him into their monastery, training him in the ways of the Lotus Throne and the history of Tibet and the Cloud. When next his master passed back out of the Cloud and to the world beyond, Tenzin went with him. On the far side they went their separate ways, the way of the Lotus Throne not feeling right for Tenzin. His destiny was back in the states, where he knew he must take up the life of a traveling monk to spread the teachings he had learned. But word that he had been to the other side of the Cloud and come back quickly spread and he was soon just as hunted as any Lotus Throne monk. He had to hide himself in the shadows, becoming another faceless mercenary in the world while he spreads his teachings and helps others with their gifts.

Reason for Recruitment:
Tenzin is one of the very few people to have passed to the other side of the Maya Cloud and returned, and not a monk of the Lotus Throne. The knowledge he has on Tibet current state of affairs as well as his contacts in the Lotus Throne Sect make him the top monk outside of Tibet on anything in Tibet. This makes him highly valuable to the DIMR, as well as for his magical abilities.

Background Quality:
Tenzin is very quiet and studious, a calm and collected monk who very rarely shows any sign of emotion besides a jovial tusk filled smile.

Random Quality:
Despite his calm demeanor, on rare occasions, Tenzin will fly into a rage. These outbursts are provoked by sights of harm against innocents, especially Buddhists and Tibetans, as well as the desecration of any sort of Buddhist shrine.



Yep, that is my second concept. I will probably come up with one or more tomorrow....

[Meriss]

My concepts

Character Name:
Martin Konohena

Character's Profession/Archetype:
Hawai'ian Dwarf Mystic Adept Combat Buffer

Background Summary:
Born and raised on the Big Island, Martin Awakened at fifteen. His parents directed him to the path of Pele, the Goddess of Creation and Destruction. He accepted the priestly duties with some reluctance, although he often wished for a more exciting life During the Great Orichalcum Race he got excitement in spades as numerous theives and adventures tried to get into the temple. After the rush died he found himself addicted to the faster pace of life in combat, so he moved to Seattle and became a private investiagator.

Reason for Recruitment:
DIMR recruited Martin because he is adept at a little researched magical tradition and he also can provide opperatives with equal parts mundane and magical defense. Mostly they wanted to understand the Kingdom of Hawai'i's new magiopolitical structure

Background Quality:
Martin takes his Hawai'ian heritage very seriously, he always starts his day with a traditional prayer and a enourmous cup of Kona coffee. In fact he carries a portable coffee maker on any missions that will be longer than one day.

Random Quality:
Martin is loud, he wears brightly colored clothes, has a loud voice, and generally acts like there is a party in every room. He is a man of polarized opinions and views.

Character Name:
Adrian Procter

Character's Profession/Archetype:
Human Mage/Spelldefender
"I see dead people"

Background Summary:
The youngest person to ever Awaken, Adrian started talking to Ancestor spirits at the age of eight. To this day at the age of twenty, he is still one of the best spirit mediums and speakers to the dead. He has been using his natural gift to provide spell defense for a top rated DIMR bounty hunter team for the last three years.

Reason for Recruitment:
DIMR recognized his raw talent when they first approved his team "The Hunters". Last month they finally recruited Adrian as a full time spell defense expert for their strategic troubleshooting teams.

Background Quality:
Adrian talks to dead people. It is really quite simple, for some reason the dead like him. There are always two or three Ancestor spirits chatting with him. This gives him access to some really odd knowledge, in fact his college professors made him take tests in astral proof rooms to prevent his "friends" from helping him

Random Quality:
Adrian is mildly allergic to toxic magic. It makes his skin itch, and he sometimes breaks out in hives. He still cannot understand why this is so. Most common anti-allergens are useless against this condition.

Character Name:
Robert "Galahad" Jones

Character's Profession/Archetype:
Human Personafixed Paranormal Hunter

Background Summary:
Robert was born to a normal mundane family. This of course is why he got his P-fix. From an early age he was fascinated with the old stories of King Arthur and his knights of the Round Table. At the age of sixteen Robert got enough money to get himself a P-chip and live life as Galahad, the greatest of Arthurs knights.

Reason for Recruitment:
Despite his obvious mental issues, Robert has an impressive record. He has taken
out a number of blood shamans, toxic shamans and at least one flesh form insect spirit. The key is his P-fix, living life as a Knight of the Round Table makes him utterly and completely fearless, without it he would more than likely be just another terrified wage slave. DIMR noticed his record and obvious willingness to take on paranormal threats and hired the idiot.

Background Quality:
Robert lives and breathes the age of chivalry. He is always polite, respectful and has impeccable manners. This also means he has trouble engaging any target not clearly defined as evil.

Random Quality:
For some reason the P-chip script includes an insistence on wearing plate armour. Which looks utterly ridiculous hanging off Robert's slight frame. It also includes the occasional "Grail Quest". Every few months, Robert insists on trying to search for the Holy Grail.

[venenum]

Sounds fun, i would love to give it a go. Ill post back later tonight, or on friday.

[NerfHerder]

Character's Name: Vincente Figuroa


Character's Profession: Human Michaeline Knight of the Order of Solomon Mystic Adept

Background Summary: Vincente heard the call of the Lord Jesus Christ from an early age. He entered seminary school at the age of 7 and was a page in Vatican City by the age of 13. Upon his Awakening at age 14 Vincente heard the voice of the Archangel Michael. He joined the Order of St. Sylvester soon after his Awakening and travelled for many years healing the sick and providing spiritual guidance to Catholics all over the world, but the Sylvestrines pacifistic ways often upset him. He always felt anger and rage when looking upon the atrocities the Megacorps and Governments perpetrated on their own. It was soon after this that Vincente left the order of St. Sylvester and moved back to Vatican City. There he published several papers on how Catholicism should be reintroduced to the larger world. He was approached not long after publishing these papers by The Order of the Temple and became a Templar. Vincente underwent Michaeline training and discovered his powers as an Adept in addition to the spells he was already aware of. At the fulmination of his training he summoned the personal servant of the Archangel Michael and was given a vision of the atrocities being performed by the Megacorporation Aztechnology. A week later he was on the ground in Aztlan setting up resistance cells and holding masses that had been outlawed in that country since 2041.


Reason for Recruitment: The DIMR approached Vincente in connection to a mysterious being known as Thayla that followers of his congregation in Aztlan had brought to his attention. One of Vincente's Sargeants, a talented decker had broken into Aztechnology's system and stole information pertaining to a ritual in which this name had been mentioned. Vincente was in the process of creating a resistance cell to disrupt the activities around Crater Lake when events conspired to end the ritual on their own. Vincente agreed to work with the DIMR with his superiors permission and now acts as both an operative and Chaplain for the DIMR.


Background Quality: Vincente is a devout Catholic and knows every passage of the Bible, Gnostic Gospels, Old Testament, and Quran by heart.

Random Quality: Vincente has a ally Spirit that he believes to be a servant of the archangel Michael and often speaks to him aloud in Latin.

[D Minor]

Character Name:

Clinton "Guiwja" Edenshaw

Characters archetype/Profession:

Mage Initiate/ Prof. of Sociology specializing in N.A. Aborignal cultures

Background Summery:

Clition is a native of Hiada desent. The Edenshaw clan is well know on Queen Charlotte Islands (or Hiada Gwaii as Clinton is quick to point out) for pushing for Hiada soveniegnty
Growing up in the shadow of his father and grandfather , Clinton learned Hiada oral traditons and historys. He did his masters on a colaberation using the knowldge of oral history and sientific data . Using this knowldge and a bit of luck was able to find a villige sit under 126 meters of water. When doing sounding over the area the wax filled end of the sounding line produce a small stone knife. This small tool was carbon dated over 10000 years old. With this piece of history Clinton was able to publish his findings. The Hiada Councel had proof of inhabitation.


Reasons for recruitment:

Kowledge of native cultures/historys/mytho's makes him invaluble when dealing with nativedigs and native artifacts.

Background Quality:

Clinton loves his work and will jump at any chance to explore the past
Relies heavly on the use of Guidence/Ancestral spirits to help him in his reserch

Character Flaw:

Clinton is a bit of a political agitator. He has passed money and info to the Hiada repartation soitity. the H.R.S is known agressivly persueing Hiada artifacts and Hiada Ancetral remains. With the pull out of Mitsuhama Computer Technologies from the Tsimshiam Nation, Hiada sovernty is in the air again.

This post has been edited by D Minor: Sep 12 2007, 11:20 PM

[Ol' Scratch]

Wow.

The response to this game has been completely overwhelming. As a result, I think I'm going to end the recruitment process sooner than I expected just so I don't have to turn away anymore players. Since I did say I was going to give everyone a while to submit something, however, I'm not closing it until tomorrow afternoon at which point I'll sit down and try to figure out who and what the group will consist of.

I do want to thank everyone for the interest you've shown. I didn't think it'd be this popular. :D

[Meriss]

Everybody loves Dunkie. The new show on A-Channel :D Seriuosly Funk Dunk is still prolly the most popular figure in SR.

[fistandantilus4....]

I'll be owrking all day tomorrow and probably some OT as well, so the one submission is all I'll have to work with.

[ludomastro]

Character's Name
John Preston / aka Mr. Lucky

Character's Profession (Race and Archetype)
Race: Human
Work Pre-DIMR: Student & Delivery Driver for Smiley’s Pizza
Work Post-DIMR: Scouting & Infiltration

Background Summary: A brief synopsis of who and what the character is.
John, known as Mr. Lucky to his friends is a student at Seattle Junior College working on his associate’s degree in general studies. He plans to transfer a local culinary school when he gets done. John has been working as a pizza delivery guy to work his way through school. Smiley’s is one of the few places that has resurrected the “30 minutes or its free guarantee.� He enjoys this and has honed his driving skills to be as good as some on the professional circuit. He is better than most when it comes to urban driving. Bob, his manager, has made him the employee of the month for the last eight months running because of the volume of work that he is able to complete. When business is slow, he also cooks a mean pizza pie. He also enjoys cooking in general when Bob gives him a chance. John has only one vice and that is the occasional dip into his favorite alcohol, vodka on the rocks. Moreover, he can usually slip a good wine into almost anything.

Given the natural dangers of delivery pizza in Seattle, both the Star on the roads as well as the residents at the delivery, John has learned to defend himself in unusual ways: He has a witty attitude, can speak a little bit of Orzet and Sperethiel as well. Just in case that doesn’t work he carries a Yamaha Pulsar, is trained in Tae Kwon Do, and although he is not crazy enough to carry one, he learned to shoot a shotgun on his grandfather’s ranch on an Anglo-reservation in the NAN.

John is incredibly lucky. He has been able to escape more accidents than should be allowed by law and definitely more than are allowed by statistics. This combined with the fact that magic just doesn’t seem to work around him have lead him to believe that his life is blessed for some purpose that he has yet to find.

Reason for Recruitment: Why did the DIMR recruit him?
On one run to the Barrens he was caught in a fight between a Rat Shaman and a Dog Shaman. He managed to deliver his pizza and walk away unscathed. The local gangs gave him free access to the area after that. Some assumed he was a super-mage, others, some sort of corp experiment, still others, something else. A local talent scout for DIMR decided that anyone that devoted to the job would be worth having.

Background Quality: Any quality of your choosing that relates to the character's professional or social life.
Everything always seems to fall the "right" way for John, no matter what happens.

Random Quality: A single quality chosen at random that has nothing to do with the character's professional or social life, but is instead just a curious quirk they have.
He carries around an old half-dollar coin from the US, which he flips continuously.

[Ophis]

Thought I'd through in a second concept. This guy was an NPC in an old campaign.


Character's Name

Wight

Character's Profession (Race and Archetype)

Street Samurai/Mr Fix It/Mostly Burnt Out Blood Mage Human

Background Summary: A brief synopsis of who and what the character is.

Wight doesn't like to speak of his history. He seeks some form of redemption for his past and that's all he says. He has worked for the Foundation since it was founded and before that he worked for Dunkelzahn himself. Wight was a member of the Blood mage gestalt, and was burnt out along with the rest of his sect of it when a group of rebels attacked the Teocalli they were working in and managed to disrupt the ritual. Most died (including the rebels). Wight survived and was snatched by runners from his hospital bed and delivered to the Big D. Wight had seen something as the the ritual broke down and vowed to fight it. Dunkelzahn told him they were "The Enemy" or the Horoi. To regain an edge Wight was fitted out with a load of cyber and became an agent of the Wyrm acting as Johnson and Runner in getting the jobs done. His long service have given him great skill and he still has a sliver of magic left which he tries not to use.

Reason for Recruitment: Why did the DIMR recruit him?

He had been an agent of Dunk himself. he asked to join the DIMR. He has more knowledge of Bloodmagic than most.

Background Quality: Any quality of your choosing that relates to the character's professional or social life.

Cursed - Magic even other peoples never seems to work quite right around Wight.

Random Quality: A single quality chosen at random that has nothing to do with the character's professional or social life, but is instead just a curious quirk they have.

Due to terrible nightmares Wight refuses to share a room with anyone.

[Ol' Scratch]

All right, it's officially "after noon" in my time zone so I'm closing up shop on the recruitment process. I'm going to go over all the submissions and put a group together now, and should have something posted in the next hour or two barring no interuptions.

[Ol' Scratch]

All right, after much internal debating, lots of hemming and hawing, bouts of "maybe a larger group wouldn't be so bad" wussing out considerations and similar thought processes, the following players won the Big D's Blue Ribbon.

• Alex playing John Preston aka Mr. Lucky
• Fistandantilus 3.0 playing Gabriel Vaughn the Police Detective
• Fortune playing Heather Hutchence-Geldof the Thrill-Seeker
• Nerfherder playing Vincente Figuroa the Knight Templar
• Ophis playing "Critical Bill" Barnes the Mercenary
• DTFarstar playing Dr. Thomas L. Wilson the Jewish M.D. (filling the spot of Plan B playing Irisa Rosselini the Egyptologist)

Before I continue, I wanted to thank everyone again for all the fantastic submissions. I had a really, really hard time narrowing things down, but I did say I was maxing the group at six players (largely due to bad experiences with large groups in the past). Having to say "no" is such a drag. :( I hope you all understand.

That said, I'm going to begin typing up my guidelines for character creation after this post. Due to the nature of this game, and particularly it's non-shadowrunner limitations, there's going to be quite a few differences from the normal character creation process. Promise you'll like them, though. Here's a small taste in the meanwhile.

Humans, Non-Humans, and Freaks... Oh My!

[ Spoiler ]

Race: There is no cost for playing any of the metahuman races or metahuman variants in this game. If you specified your character's race in your submission, consider it locked in at this point (though feel free to pick a variant if you didn't mention any in particular). If you didn't specify a race, now is the time to do so.

If you do have interest in playing a metahuman variant, contact me either through PM or IM (Neurotic Cupcake on AIM, Necrotic_Penguin on Yahoo!, or a.clockwork.lime<at>gmail.com on MSN) and we'll hash out an SR4 conversion together. I've seen a few other conversions before, but didn't really care for most of them. Ghouls and Shapeshifters are right out, though Drakes are a possibility. We'll need to cook up some special rules for them, however, and they may be more limited than past incarnations. But it is an option for no more than one of you if you want to give it a shot. You should discuss it with the other players first, however.

Also, please note that in this game Humans have an additional racial trait referred to as "Versatility." This trait grants a +1 bonus to the maximum rating of any of their Physical, Mental, or Special (Edge, Magic, and Resonance only) Attributes of choice and one Active Skill of choice. This is on top of the standard Edge bonus all Humans receive and is fully compatible with the Enhanced Attribute, Aptitude, and Lucky qualities.

Example: Donovon Fairchild is a Human Black Magician with Versatility (Magic and Spellcasting). His Magic attribute and Spellcasting skill are now rated at 1/7(11) as far as his minimum and maximum scores are concerned.

I'm a very hands-on sort of Game Master, particularly during the character creation phase, so expect lots of communication to be done. It won't be a simple matter of throwing some stats down and being done with it; we're going to work together to craft a perfect character for you that we're both extremely happy with.

As an important note, I want to stress that this game is intended for everyone to have a blast and to fully enjoy everything the Sixth World has to offer. If you have any differences with any of the other players or myself, I ask that you set them aside while playing here. We're all here to have fun, after all, and there's not much fun to be had when you're being all persnickity with the other players or GM. If you don't think you can do that, now is the perfect time to bow out so we can find a replacement, though I think we're all pretty compatible as is. Also note that this isn't a competition. There is no "winning" or "losing," though threats will certainly be real and I have no problems with killing characters if the dice roll that way. Keep your wits about you, enjoy the storytelling on both sides of the fence, and just do what you can to make the most of the game and the experience as you can. That's all I ask. :D

Okay, well, that's all I have to say for the moment. Thank you all, again, for the great submissions and I'm truly sorry there wasn't more room. I wish you all tons of luck in finding a game in the very near future!

[fistandantilus4....]

2 questions: how are we rolling dice, and general posting guidelines?

[Ol' Scratch]

I was going to get into some of this in my next post, but I can answer them now.

Dice: The short answer is "trust." When it comes time to roll the dice, we're going to all share the GM responsibility to a degree. It'll be up to you to find and apply all the applicable modifiers, and you can roll the dice however you see fit (real dice, virtual dice, Invisible Castle dice... whatever you're comfortable with). All you need to do is list the modifiers and the end result.

There are some minor consequences for this freedom, however. If there are important and obvious modifiers you didn't include, I will subtract one "hit" from your total for every -2 dice pool modifier (rounded up) and will add one "hit" for every +4 modifier (rounded down). Thus it'll be in your best interest to include every appropriate modifier. Note that this equally applies to inappropriate modifiers as well. For modifiers you may not know about, I'll be adding/subtracting hits on a standard one "hit" per three dice, rounded to your benefit.

But in general, yes, I trust everyone to apply the right modifiers and roll the dice without cheating. As I mentioned before, this game is about having fun and bad rolls are arguably even more fun than good ones! So the only person you'll be cheating is yourself.

Posting Guidelines: I will go into more detail on this when the IC and OOC threads eventually come up. In a nutshell, no colors will be used, signatures should be turned off the IC thread, and everyone will be expected to post their moves in normal writing conventions (using quotation marks, italics, and whatnot) as appropriate. Bolding of character names will probably be the norm as well, if only to make sure everyone notices when their character is being addressed/included in a post.

Good enough of an answer for now? :)

[fistandantilus4....]

Yeah, works for me. Just so you know up front, I'll likely forget my sig a few times. :D

For listing dice rolls, I'll probably list my rolls out. That way you can just subtract dice for mised mods, if that works for you. For Invisible Castle people or folks who like dice rollers online, one I had a big problem figuring out and was shown the proper way to do it . For rolling say 5 dice, syntax is 5d6.vs(5). so again, xd6.vs(5)

I'll probably go back and forth between each depending on how convenient dice are , assuming that's ok. Either way I'll list out all my rolls.

Oh yeha, I'll probably forget to bold names from time to time as well, so feel free to yell at me. Ill conform, I'm just slow. :)

[Ol' Scratch]

The guidelines for the dice rolling above is more of an encouragement to make sure everyone's paying attention and applying the appropriate modifiers rather than a system for just handling "missed" modifiers. There's a difference between those and ones the players/characters simply don't know about, in which case the benefits are actually in your corner by default.

And yeah, I have no problem slapping you guys around if you occasionally forget things like that. Just don't be shy in doing the same to me if I forget! ;)

[NerfHerder]

I may request a little help time and again as far as modifiers go as I'm still extremely new to 4e and new to 3e for that matter. And while, in general, I am a non-conformist, I like to pick and choose my battles.

[Ol' Scratch]

Bleh, that came across entirely wrong.

I don't mind people making honest mistakes or exclusions due to not knowing all the possible modifiers. It's more of an encouragement to try and look stuff up a little when you're doing something important to make sure it's within reason, to discourage players who may habitually or intentionally ignore negative modifiers, and things like that. It's not intended to penalize honest mistakes or genuine ignorance of the rules (and everyone is encouraged to help everyone else when it comes to this!).

Sorry for making it appear otherwise. It wasn't intendedthat way.

[Fortune]

[Ophis]

I must admit I wasn't expecting Critical Bill to make the cut. Here goes for a super tough troll thug with maxed edge and lucky.

[fistandantilus4....]

I wanted to say that there are some truely great character ideas on here, and I dont envy Doc having to make the cuts. Some great ideas out there folks.

[NerfHerder]

Wasn't taken that way, I'm just a big fan of pointing out my own ineptitude :D

[Trigger]

Damn......*sulks away till another game as cool as this one pops up*