no, he's just an anarchist

'course now if he was a sociopath too...

But if he creates the utopian world, and he enforces the non-subordination rule, then by default the entire world is subordinate to him. It isn't possible to accomplish his stated goal while there is more than one metahuman living in what he defines as the 'world'.

If that's what it takes.

Shen's da man!

Ahh ... but then again, was he acting upon a higher will all along?

Hmmmm ....

Maybe Shen is Horror-Marked.

I think he's very anit-social. And self-righteous. And manipulative.

He's also very generous and open-minded to the lives of others. He believes that outside of very reasonable parameters, people should be able to do what they want.

He'll be fun to play.

I like that you're honest, and yet contradictory.

They should be able to do what they want, as long as it's within his views of allowign others to do what they want *Not sarcasm*.
You're right, should be very interesting

Okay, show of hands, who reads this thread? There seems to be a lot of people who read but rarely post.

Well I certainly wouldn't be caught dead reading this thread! And I resent any implication to the contrary.

What he said.

When I need ideas for "weird" NPCs, I have a look at your topics.

You know the topic I started about wanting to bind an insect queen and have her good merge people? That was my idea for Shen to do, doing that to yakuza oyabun and shit.

How would a non-insect shaman do that? I don't have Street Magic, so I'm honestly curious if that's possible, or another house rule.

Doing something like that would put him in the same category as a toxic in most people's eyes (especially after Chicago). Also, messing with major organizations such as the Yakuza is far, far more dangerous (and difficult) than setting yourself up as a petty warlord in part of the barrens. Are you leaning towards playing him as a PC or an NPC? Right now, it seems like the latter - he seems more like a plot device than someone running the shadows.

I'm thinking of retconning Shen so that he's the student of a much more powerful great eastern dragon that's also named Shen. Shen the elf took on the name of Shen the dragon once he entered its tutelage. Shen the person left China for all the reasons enumerated on earlier in the thread.

Shen the dragon was a top government advisor for Szechuan and had a weird way of making the people fight for their freedom. He'd enact brutal government policies, but would then foment rebellion amongst the peasants, acting as their secret backer and leader, funding them with his lackeys in the government. He thought that by making them fight for freedom, the peasants would value freedom all the more. This was not the case, since the rebellion failed to take hold despite brutal oppression. This made a fundamental change in his philosophy, since he stopped believing that the little people want their freedom.

The man on the throne got up one day to find that there wasn't a shadow behind it, dictating his every move. This was because Shen had left, searching the world for truth.

Then he found the GMPC Shen, whom I shall from here on out call Kwan Lin, since that's his real name. Kwan Lin was found because of his spirit bane, which put him out of favor with the spirits of the Celestial Bureaucracy. Dragon Shen thought Kwan Lin would be a good student, since he had similar propensities.

Shen Lung is not an official citizen of the NAN, but Kwan Lin is. Shen Lung uses his house and provides for Kwan Lin. In return, Kwan Lin acts as Shen's intermediary.

How does that retcon sound? Shen's the one with the freaky world-takeove plans, and Kwan Lin's the wide-eyed student who got burned. Kwan Lin's not the master, he's just the front.

I will, of course, pay for this as a 6/6 contact.

Actually, the dragon is now a free spirit.

But, of course he is.

The spirit will be completely AWESOME, he'll have a 20 BP dream pact with Kwan Lin, and he'll be a 6/6 contact. Shen'll constantly be giving Kwan Lin the spirit formulae of his enemies, and he'll tattoo his spirit formula to Kwan Lin's right arm. He'll have Possession, and he'll have a little racket where he sets up his formula as an altar in the Barrens and a paid guard will give out 1000 per karma point fed into the formula. He'll only let people in if they're naked so that nobody brings binding materials. I'm thinking the spirit'll get 40, 50 karma a month this way.

Shen will run a spirit lodge, a sort of summit meeting area for conflicted spirits, and mediate conflicts between metaplanes. Kwan Lin will play secretary and store things on a comlink for them, gaining access to forgotten lore and formulae of wayward spirits in return. It will meet on the full moon of every month, with new moons allotted as emergency dates.

I think Kwan Lin will be a rather sad, but still very kind person, and Shen will be the one with draconic ideals of large-scale order, bringing people around to the idea of freedom through massive manipulation of the people. He'll have Kwan Lin do things that are progressively inhuman in striving for this ideal in order to bring him around to his side.

Okay, I just got back from an IRC game with Ophis, and it's the first time I've run Shen continuously for an extended period of time.

He's... nice. He's fluffily and self-deprecatingly nice. I don't know how to make him conspiratorial and amoral... AAAAARRRRGGHHHH!!!

I guess it's the role he's been put into, the role of protector and guide. When you're protecting to girls who've been sexually abused and spend most of your in-game time counseling them, you don't have much room for plotting to change the world one diabolical scheme at a time.

The Shen Lung spirit thing will probably be really amoral. But I don't know how he'll corrupt Shen himself.

Phoenix will have to each him how to be conspiritorial and moral then (it looks similar but feels better...) If I could convince the other players to do IRC gaming I could have a lot o fun with the big spirit.

COOL!

And if you can't, could you GM my game, or co-GM it? I need somebody to handle the conflict of interest issues that would arise if I GM'd a GMPC, but I don't want to give up on my kickass storylines.

Oh, and his new character sheet based on my houserules is here:

Shen Lung

Race: Elf (30 BP)

Attributes(300)


Skills (150)


Qualities(+80 BP)


Knowledge


Spells(36)


Equipment(1 BP)


Contacts(14 BP spent)

I know you house rule that the last point of an Attribute only costs 10, not 25, but:

Body: 4-------> 30
Agility: 2------> 0
Reaction: 4---> 30
Strength: 1---> 0
Charisma: 5--> 20
Intuition: 6----> 50
Logic: 6-------> 50
Willpower: 6--> 50
Edge: 4-------> 30
Magic: 6------> 50

That adds up to 310, not 300.

The skills would add up - 2 skill groups of 6 for 120, plus five skills of 6 for another 30, but I am wondering what the "Influence" skill is. I am familiar with the Influence skill group, but not an individual skill with that name.

Forgot to turn his Logic to 5. Thanks.

And skills and skill groups cost 1/2 in my houserules.

Ophis just dumped 15 karma on my character for completing his quest to help Wing and Hannah with their personal lives. And he's decided to live in Denver and let the people in the Barrens be for the most part except for basic provisions of food, water, and commlinks and teachsofts.

So what should he spend his 15 karma on? He has enough for initiation, but Ophis is using his lame-ass magical group rules instead of my AWESOME ones. And he's ambivalent about having Shen be both a GMPC and a character he runs. Or at least I THINK he is.

So what should I do?

Actually, I'm thinking I shouldn't bring Shen into my game; I'm thinking Shinigami, hunter of corrupt company men, should go into my game. He'll be AWESOME.

So actually, maybe I just need advice on what to do with Shen's newfound karmic wealth.

Well, what does his current sheet look like?

Shen Lung

Race: Elf (30 BP)

Attributes(300)


Skills (150)


Qualities(+80 BP)


Knowledge


Spells(36)


Equipment(1 BP)


Contacts(14 BP spent)

A number of things you could do with 15 Karma:

>>You could raise Agility to 3 and Strength to 2, making those stats slightly less of a potential weakness.

>>You could learn 3 new spells. And spellcasters never have enough spells, so I'm sure there are plenty that would be good for your character to have.

>>You could raise Reaction to 5, improving your initiative and making it harder for people to hit you.

>>You could raise Edge to 5. A nice, high Edge can be useful for sooo many things.

GOOD IDEAS.