Posts: 970
Joined: Jul 2011
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Location: Out of Sight, Out of Mind
Petty Squabble [ROUND 3] [Goldhenge]
04-02-2011, 03:57 PM
Originally posted on MSPA by Not The Author.
“Man, they never let me in on the fun stuff.”
A pair of oddly-dressed men sat in an unnecessarily large, otherwise empty movie theater.
“How many of these things…?”
“Nineteen.”
“Damn, that’s-”
“Nineteen official battles.”
There was a pause, and the theater faded from existence. The odd couple strolled across an inexplicably well-lit infinite black plane to nowhere in particular.
“…How did they manage to keep all this secret for so long? I thought I was good at being nosy!”
“Well, you have been gone a while. I don’t suppose you’d care to tell-”
“Maybe later. I’ve got work to do!”
The man in blue placed a hand on his companion’s shoulder as a comfortable lounge materialized around them.
“I’m glad you’re eager to begin, but don’t step on the others’ toes. They take these things very seriously. At least three Gentlemen have already been Erased; they’re just waiting for an excuse to do you in. Don’t do anything rash, alright?”
There was a tense pause, before the two simultaneously erupted into gales of laughter.
“Haaa… You are a card, Fool. Really, though, for all their politics and conniving, and now these battles… They think so damn highly of themselves, but their stupid feuds just amount to one big…”
:: So what the hell is this?
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SpoilerThis is Petty Squabble, the fourth battle of the third season of "canon" Grand Battles.
:: So… what… the hell… is this?
Okay, yeah. I should probably start at the beginning.
Petty Squabble is a Grand Battle. Someone said it better than I could:
Akumu Wrote:The gist [of a Grand Battle] is that eight people come up with interesting characters and then write about them interacting and they die off one at a time based on who is the worst or most inactive writer. :: Woah wait hold up what’s this about dying
Yup! This is an eight-man battle to the death. You will probably die!
:: But I don’t want to die!
Well then you’re gonna hafta write well.
:: …Write? I thought we were fighting.
Despite their trappings as slaughterfests, Grand Battles are all about story and character development. Each round, the contestants are put in some bizarre locale and muddle along until an arbitrary point at which the round’s end is announced. I’ll solicit opinions as to who ought to be offed, and once I’ve made up my mind, someone (usually the to-be-deceased) will send up a deathpost and the game will move on to the next round.
:: How do you decide who’s going to die?
Contestants are eliminated based on how well (or how poorly) they write. Judging writing quality is not always the easiest of jobs, so I may ask for others' opinions at that time. Frequently, though, players are eliminated for not writing anything. At all. Really ruins it for everyone. Don’t feel bad if you want to forfeit, though! Life intervenes, or it stops being fun, or whatever; I understand! But don’t just drop off the face of the round if you can help it.
:: So, I can’t just kill other players?
Killing other players before the end of the round is strictly forbidden. Hell, doing anything that would seriously impair another character without the permission of that character’s author (chopping off their limbs, destroying their weapon, etc.) is Not Cool. If everyone could just kill everyone else, then the game would be short and boring. This is not a combat-oriented thing. This is a story-oriented thing. I cannot say that enough.
:: Must take a while to get going, if you have to wait on everyone to advance the plot.
Ah, but that’s one of the great things about Grand Battles! Unlike in traditional roleplays, you can write what other characters are doing, so long as it makes sense. I’ve seen posts where an author barely even mentions their own character, but does a bunch of stuff with the other characters. Hell, one time an inactive player was carried through, like, two rounds on others’ writing alone! …Then they died. But that’s not the point.
:: That's cool and all, but what if someone puts up a post before me that ruins all my plans?
Never fear! Just post a... post containing RESERVE or some clever variant thereof and you'll have four hours in which no one else is allowed to post. Beyond those four hours, though, it's fair game again.
:: Four hours? That's not really much time.
Well, it's not really Four Hours as much as it is "four hours." Most people understand that writing takes time, and are willing to be lenient. Frequently those four hours will extend into four days, or (if you're in round three) four weeks. Bear in mind that these "extended reserves" are a gentleman's agreement, i.e. if you've gone well over four hours and someone wants to post, you'd better bet they're going to post. Best to be certain you can finish your post within the reserve limit.
:: Oh, I see how this works. One guy reserves, and then another guy, and then another guy-
Lemme just cut you off right there. Consecutive reserves are not allowed. Nobody like waiting indefinitely for posts which may or may not come. The only time concurrent reserve posts should appear is if the earlier ones are void. Nor can the same person try to cheat the system and repeatedly reserve multiple times in a row. That's just being mean.
:: Right, okay. So what’s this about rounds?
The game is divided into rounds, which have two basic criteria: Each round must end with the death of at least one player, and each round must take place somewhere new. There will be seven rounds, barring any multiple-eliminations. The description of each round will be pretty vague, so be creative!
:: Anything else I should know?
Talk to the other players. You want a coherent plot? You want this to be interesting? You damn well better talk to the other players. Ask what their plans for their character and the environment are, and work together to make this interesting. You don’t have to have everything approved by committee, of course, but lone-wolfing it tends to present problems here and there. I strongly recommend using the Grand Battle IRC channel, #grandbattle on Esper.net. Failing that, you could always PM people via the forums.
Oh! I would also suggest reading some of the other battles so you have an idea of what you're getting into.
:: Okay, fine. I guess I’ll try this thing. Where do I sign up?
The character sheet can be found at the bottom of this post. Signups will be open about a week to give entrants time to work on a character. While newcomers to the Grand Battle scene are always welcome, I will be picky with my selections. Only eight players will make it in, so make your profile good.
:: I might not make it in?! What do I do with this guy I made, then?
Never fear! Grand Battles are A Big Thing around these parts. If you aren’t selected for Petty Squabble and don’t want your character to go to waste, you’ll have four more battles this season to try for – though there is a three-battle limit per author this season. But there are five more seasons with eight battles each planned after that. Oh, and “non-canon” battles spring up from time to time. Basically there are a lot of these okay.
:: tl;dr
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SpoilerThis… might not be the thing for you, then. Nevertheless, here’s a condensed list of guidelines.
- Writing is God. Grand Battles are, first and foremost, about writing a good story. If you can write well, you’ll go far. This rule sometimes overrides other rules.
- This is still part of the MSPA Forum, so all the rules of the forum still apply.
- No godmoding. No doing things to other people’s characters that they don’t want you to. No killing other players until the end of the round.
- You can write for characters that are not your own, so long as it makes sense in context.
- Work together with other players. This is, again, a story, and if other people don’t know what you have planned, events may seem disconnected and random. Make something you’d want to read, and would want others to read.
- Relatedly, ask questions if you don’t understand something about the story or rules. Preferably via PM or IRC.
- If you don't want others ruining your plans, place a reserve and you'll have four(ish) hours to put up a post.
- Don’t forget to have fun! This is not a serious, intense competition. This is a bunch of friends getting together to write a story. So enjoy yourself!
- Visit the Grand Battle IRC at #grandbattle on Esper.net and the Grand Battle Introduction/FAQ/Planning Thread for more information.
:: Where the hell is that character sheet already
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SpoilerYeah yeah fine whatever. Let’s get this show on the road!
Username: Sign here to die.
Name: You character’s name. Arguably the hardest part of filling out this form.
Gender: If it’s unusual, make a note of it.
Race: The Savage Brawl alone had: a human, another human, a demon, a cyborg, a cyborg lich, a fallen God of Death, another fallen God of Death, and a giant cancerous meatball. Yes, as in the food. Go nuts.
Color: For quickly telling authors and characters apart. Your color should be easily distinguishable from the other players’, but any serious problems can be sorted out after the eight have been picked. Green is reserved for my own use.
Equipment/Abilities: What your character has with them and what it can do/anything character can inherently do that isn’t reliant on a piece of equipment.
Description: A physical and mental description of your character. Important for helping other people get a feel for how to write them.
Biography: What your character did before they were plucked from their reality and entered into this thing. This is probably where you’ll convince me you’re good at writing, though if you’d rather this section be brief, I would appreciate some example of your literary prowess.
** Players **
Planning Document (courtesy of Fogel)
Also, fanart!
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SpoilerAgent1022
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Godbot
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Malkytop
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Not The Author
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Pharmacy
Schazer
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TimeothyHour
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Posts: 478
Joined: Jul 2011
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Re: Petty Squabble [It's another Grand Battle] [Signups open!]
04-02-2011, 04:07 PM
Originally posted on MSPA by Pinary.
Username: Pinary
Name: John Smith (supposedly)
Gender: Male
Race: Human (or close enough, at least)
Post Colour: #802000
Equipment/Abilities: John is clever, resourceful, and observant. He's got lifetimes of experience with any number of technologies, and he can recognize the function and purpose of many devices at a glance and most others with a bit of examination. In fact, it's not just technology that he can figure out quickly- he excels at putting things together from clues others would normally overlook, leading him to conclusions that would normally leave others completely baffled. Once he explains it, it's all quite plain, but his tendency to spot and connect relevant details, plucking signal from noise, is what sets him apart.
Since escaping Escape (as detailed below), John has received a few items of note from his erstwhile employer (also detailed below). The most obvious of these is his change in attire- he still wears a rather sharp black suit, but his original one has been swapped out with one made up of woven metal, rather than string. The fine steel mesh is, in function, similar to a weak chainmail- it won't do much against a straight-on puncture, but its hard, smooth surface will do a much better job of deflecting things. It's generally more resistant to wear and tear than normal cloth as well, but ultimately, these uses and benefits are just secondary to its prime purpose. The suit is wired to serve as an integrated transceiver, originally intended to allow John to report back to his employer several dimensions over. A small headset wired into the collar allows him to send and receive vocal communications, and the underside of the jacket's left wrist has a small, flexible touchscreen integrated in it to allow for visual communications and systems control. There is no camera present.
His ex-employer also provided him with a small multitool, its design similar to classical Swiss army knives. It differs in the specifics (a few more knives than is typical, for example), but the largest change is the internal locator beacon.
This beacon, along with the suit's transceiver, are tied into the third gift provided by John's previous employer: the bone splinter embedded next to John's heart. The three items are inextricably linked together; if one of them is isolated by a distance of more than 50 meters or so, all three will detonate. The explosive power is that of a small grenade- not enough for serious damage to a structure or landscape, but quite sufficient to deprive John of his torso. As the distance between the bone splinter and either of the two other objects increases, it begins to generate an electrical charge, minor at first and building to the point where John might almost prefer it to detonate once it nears the 50-meter mark.
He's not really a fan of the third item.
Description: John looks like a normal, everyday human. He's just far enough from average to look normal- maybe half an inch shorter than most, maybe five pounds heavier. His face is unique enough to be recognizable but normal enough to just slide over in a crowd. His hair's a shortish brown with flecks of grey, of the sort of length that can be dealt with with a comb and (in extreme cases) some water, and his skin's a vaguely middle-of-the-road brownish-white that speaks to a thoroughly mixed heritage.
John is not the sort of person one would describe as "stable," mentally. At best, he can be said to not care about the lives of others, though it would probably be more accurate to say he rather enjoys interfering with and ending them.
He derives other entertainment from excitement, risk, and challenge. He purposely puts himself in dangerous situations, living and thriving on the thrill of escaping or coming out on top by the skin of his teeth. If he gets bored with something, he's been known to give an opponent an advantage just to liven things up.
Biography: A bit long.
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SpoilerFor centuries, John travelled through time, moving from one place and time to the next at will. Some places, he'd stay for just days; others, he'd stay for months or years. It depended solely on his whims- with the aid of his Temporal Energy Displacement Device, he could just punch in a few controls and end up on a whole other world in a whole other era. It was, for him, a paradise. It meant that he could see amazing new things, meet amazing new people. It meant that he could do a vast array of things, both with and to those amazing new people. It meant that if the authorities came too close to catching up to him, he could start anew somewhere else, free of any sort of criminal record.
Unfortunately for him (though not for a great many other people, truth be told), one set of authorities came rather closer than the rest- with the aid of EMP-based weaponry, they nearly captured him. He was forced into a jump with his TEDD damaged, and on arrival, he found himself stranded.
A random passerby informed him that he was in New York City. It was April 8th, 1920, John learned, and as he rifled through the man's possessions, taking for himself the man's assorted currency, he reflected on his situation. It wasn't a particularly dangerous place, it would seem- primitive, certainly, but that could be appealing. He'd once spent several weeks relaxing in a hut on an isolated hut in a planet's very early history, shooting down some of the first species capable of flight.
That, however, was a very different situation. Here, he quickly realized, he was stuck. With his TEDD broken, he was going to have to live a normal 1920's existence.
Two days after arrival, he was being dragged down to the police station for possession of alcohol, public drunkenness, and assaulting an officer. He didn't go quietly- he ranted the whole time about all the many wonders he'd seen over the years and how they had no right to take that, give it back, or he swore, he'd... do something. Yeah.
After another few weeks of drunken antics (which led him back to the station half a dozen times more), he eventually settled down a bit and started to apply himself to the problem. Yes, he was stuck on an archaic planet with a damaged time machine and no access to the tools used to build the device in the first place. Ultimately, though, tools could be built- any society that could develop a time machine had to start somewhere, and he figured that with his knowledge, he could go from industrial-era to decently-civilized in five or so years. With his goal in mind, he settled down, opened a small printing press maintenance shop to pay the bills, and started his work.
More than twenty years later, he was nearly done. He'd fixed all but one of the systems, and while it may have taken a bit longer than he'd planned, he was satisfied with the result.
Of course, that last system was rather important- the power supply. Normally, an artificially-stabilized micro-scale wormhole would generate the energy needed, but he couldn't jump-start one of those without a miles-wide particle accelerator, and his knowledge of this planet's history was sufficient enough to tell him that he wouldn't have access to one of those any time soon. It was September of 1943 when he finished the last of the other systems, and from then on, all of his spare time was dedicated to thinking of a solution.
By October, he'd got it, and he was on a boat within three days, bound for the Land of the Rising Sun. It didn't take him long to find an apartment that would suit his needs, and soon enough, he had signed a two-year contract for one in downtown Hiroshima.
When August of 1945 came around, he was ready- the walls of the apartment were lined with a sophisticated energy-collection grid, all tied directly into the TEDD. It wouldn't be enough to jump-start the wormhole, not by a long shot, but it would at least give him one jump. He'd set the coordinates for the closest thing he had to a home (a flashy space-going city that wouldn't exist for several hundred years), and he was ready.
At 8:15 AM on August 6th, the first atomic weapon wielded by man was dropped. Just less than a minute later, John's energy-collection grid harnessed the unleashed power of the atom and channelled it into the TEDD, sending it careening through time.
He didn't arrive aboard fabulous Las Orbitas, though- instead, he was in a small, electronics-lined room. A redirection chamber, he quickly realized, and the implications set him laughing. He'd made it more home than he could've ever gotten to on purpose- he was on the road again, flying by the seat of his pants and doing his best to survive.
Unfortunately, the competition he'd been stolen away to be entered into didn't hold his attention long, and he quickly tore apart some of the technology the competition's developer had left sitting around the maze John and his fellow competitors had been left in. The power core from a Camarian combat drone, when set to overload, provided enough power to jump-start the wormhole, and despite a last-minute scuffle and an unexpected tagalong (which he was soon rid of), he was free.
Actually, free might not be the best term. His next jump was redirected by a stray causal string (one of the things that would normally be diverted by the safety systems he hadn't bothered to repair just yet), and he ended up face-to-face with a rather annoyed interdimensional being. Rather than expressing his annoyance in a multitude of painful ways (a few of which he took the time to describe to John), he offered the time-traveller a deal- if John agreed to do a few jobs, then he'd repair John's TEDD and send him on his way. He'd even throw in a few treats- a suit wired as a communicator that could call across dimensions, a multi-tool specifically designed with John in mind, and something that was more of a treat for his employer than for John himself, the bone fragment in his chest. The being packed him up, started fiddling with the TEDD, and sent John on his way, and after a few moderately-entertaining tasks, he deemed John's work complete. With the flick of a switch, John was sent off on his way. The being, satisfied with the work, placed the repaired TEDD to one side and watched the time-traveller vanish without it.
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Re: Petty Squabble [It's another Grand Battle] [Signups open!]
04-02-2011, 04:15 PM
Originally posted on MSPA by MalkyTop.
Username: MalkyTop
Name: Yanis Carnea. Though that’s usually what stuffy poets call her. You’re allowed to just call her Carnea.
Gender: Female
Race: Goddess, so show respect.
Color: Oh Smyrna, Smyrna, Smyrna purple.
Equipment/Abilities: Carnea happens to be goddess of doorknobs and locks. This may seem limiting, but as she puts it, power over doorknobs allows her to open practically any door and power over locks allows her to practically unlock anything. This still doesn’t sound good, but Carnea also enjoys looking at things metaphorically, and so can manage to see doors in practically anything. All the other gods say this is cheating. She calls it being creative. As a goddess, she’s also pretty tough to kill, able to heal quite quickly, blah blah blah. She’s not really the omniscient type, though, but she has heard about and learned of many things.
Description: Carnea stands rather tall and proudly, which is quite a feat for a goddess without legs. She’s sort of a sharp-faced cat-like floaty thing with arms that aren’t really connected to the torso. Her fingers are long claws and she has a rather thin and ratty tail. Her face is rarely stern (though it’s usually hard to express much when all you have are rather slitted eyes), but mostly shows some sort of amusement. A dress hangs off her shoulders and just disappears at the legs (just like her legs). She glows a rather light purple. She has a large lock that appears to be hung around her neck but is actually firmly attached to her chest. She also often holds a rather ornate doorknob. If she had a smell, she would probably smell of smug.
Carnea herself is indeed quite a cheerful goddess. She enjoys a good metaphor, especially if it involves doors and locks, and most of all, just likes screwing around and having fun, poking at things until they explode or going for the more subtle plotting and scheming behind various backs. Basically, she’s a trickster goddess, the type that just wants to mess with something to see others’ reactions. She can’t help but be curious about other people, and actually, anything that happens to be unknown to her, she holds some interest in. Unlocking secrets, though, is just too easy. She’s a little more personal in that sense, poking her nose in anything interesting and cozying up to certain people and then immediately dropping them once they’ve become uninteresting or dead. It’s hard for her to even look slightly trustworthy though, and the usual tone she takes on, that of a person who really can’t take the world seriously and really views most everything as some sort of joke, really can make it hard for many people to be close to her.
She also really hates doorhandles. And even worse, push doors.
Biography: One day, a gostak was distimming the doshes. But when it pelled at his humble bewl in beautiful Yanis, he found that he couldn’t dislello the stike. The gostak’s stumpy arms found that, for whatever reason, his own bewl was made inaccessible by a strange device later known as a stiketunder. Possibly, some cruel gamda was playing a trick on him, as well as every other gostak he knew. The gostak, knowing he just would never be able to tund the stiketunder itself, had no other choice but to pray.
And so, Carnea of Yanis (or Yanis Carnea) was created.
It was no problem for her to turn the doorknobs for the blighted gostaks, and that was pretty much what she did for the first few years of her life. The other gods scoffed at such a ridiculous background for a goddess, but she mostly ignored it, remaining quite proud and haughty, maintaining all the while that she was on par with the rest of the pantheon. The rest seemed too amused to kick her out. Every time a gostak door was closed, she just opened it, and she was praised. She had to admit, she was getting bored.
Then the gamda added locks, apparently to spite the gostaks even more, and her help was called upon yet again. She wasn’t quite sure what she was supposed to do, but she experimented, and with the help of her rather thin claws and the power of belief, she sprung the gostak locks open and thus, became the goddess of doorknobs and locks.
Now, she was really curious about all the other things she could do, and so, in between opening and/or unlocking doors, Carnea experimented with anything she saw as a door. Then she experimented with anything she saw as a door metaphorically. Then she experimented with things that she didn’t even see as doors, but just thought of as things she could lock or unlock. When she accidentally caused a land to suddenly break off (or ‘unlock’ as it were) from the mainland, the other gods started to get worried. Some of them got angry and asserted that that wasn’t what a goddess of doorknobs and locks was supposed to do and that Carnea was breaking the rules. Others wondered if Carnea was really something more than just a goddess of doorknobs and locks and started murmuring amongst themselves that it may be possible she would try to lead an uprising. Carnea, knowing that others’ opinions of her were changing, started to walk about even taller and even confidently chatted with the others as equals. The god of the sky was starting to wonder if he would really have to go so far as to stand against her when she suddenly left without warning.
Aaand these are some old, crappy doodles but yeah, basically what she looks like. And some other random things that aren't related to her much.
Though considering things I'm totally probably not gonna get in.
Posts: 1,084
Joined: Jul 2011
Pronouns: She/Her/Hers
Location: ~Misery~
Re: Petty Squabble [It's another Grand Battle] [Signups open!]
04-02-2011, 04:21 PM
Originally posted on MSPA by Pick Yer Poison.
Username: Pick Yer Poison
Name: Titan
Gender: Technically none, but identifies as a male
Race: Construct
Color: White on dimgray
Equipment/Abilties: Crazy strong, crazy tall, crazy tough. May or may not be crazy.
Description: Titan is 8'4" at his full height. His legs are large, metal poles, as are his arms. They are quite thick and very sturdy. His torso is similar to a rounded rectangle, but it slopes inwards near the bottom. His head is another rounded rectangle, with the back sloping sharply down. The front features his eyes, two round circles of light. They serve a dual purpose, acting as both sensory input ports and, when required, flashlights. The bottoms of his legs end in flat plates, but he has hands with opposable thumbs on the ends of his arms that are flexible enough for rudimentary actions. They are oversized, however, so fine manipulation of anything smaller than a bread box is difficult at best. They also contain strong magnets, allowing him to pick up magnetic objects with ease whenever he turns on the current to them.
Titan packs a lot of force behind his punches, and is capable of easily crushing a human's bones (or a solid steel wall) with a single solid hit. Precision booster jets on his back are used for providing extra force while pushing objects, an invaluable thing while moving extremely heavy cargo. Titan's body is in remarkable condition, largely free from rust or wear and tear. Evidence of on-spot repair jobs can be seen in a few places, but they have been patched up expertly, rendering Titan an almost literal iron giant.
Titan is, arguably, sentient. His style of speaking differs depending on how much stress he's dealing with; the more stress, the shorter the responses tend to be. He shows no emotion, speaking with the bare minimum of voice inflections, but he is capable of logical decisions, which tend to favor calculation over emotion. He often takes a "don't fuck with me and I won't fuck with you" mentality, leaving things that don't interfere with or concern him alone.
Biography: Titan's creator was a highly skilled engineer with a lovely wife and two baby girls. He constructed the automaton over a period of several years, and then put him to work shifting cargo. Capable of lifting hundred-pound crates with ease, he soon became well-known, and someone inevitably attempted to steal him. In the morning, the thief was found dead next to Titan, with his skull caved in and his blood on Titan's fist. Titan was deactivated and shunned after a public scandal which ruined the shipping company's publicity for the next several months, left to rust away in an abandoned warehouse.
Fast-forward about three millenia.
Having destroyed itself several times over through nuclear warfare, mankind is now a nomadic species wandering barren deserts and wastelands, trying to survive as best they can. As was bound to happen, tribes occasionally wandered across pre-apocalyptic tech, or purposefully searched and uncovered him. Titan was discovered lying dead and motionless in a pile of discarded junk by some scavgengers from a tribe that was passing through the area. The scavengers cleaned him up and turned him on, and Titan rose again for the first time in 3000 years. He gazed down emotionlessly at his finders. "Functional."
With Titan's help, the nomadic tribe the scavengers belonged to thrived. None dared attack them with their iron watchdog keeping a sleepless guard on their camp, not after he had calmly strode through the gunfire of three combined gatling guns, ripping the mobile platforms up from the ground as he reached them and throwing them at each other, coming out no worse for the wear. Eventually, the tribe accumulated large numbers of enemies, who banded together and tricked the tribe's metal guardian, leading Titan into a trap (all members of which were killed), while the main force slaughtered the villagers. Titan returned to find the village in ruins, and the enemy leader standing triumphant before it as he lit a torch to the lead hut, setting it aflame. His forces quailed when they saw Titan's form on the horizon, but Titan took no action against them. He paused as he reached the village for a few moments, then calmly continued walking, passing through the enemy formation like Moses through the Red Sea. The story goes that he is still walking to this day; however, Titan was simply abducted several days later, vanishing from that world, possibly forever.
Posts: 3,283
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Re: Petty Squabble [It's another Grand Battle] [Signups open!]
04-02-2011, 04:35 PM
Originally posted on MSPA by TimeothyHour.
Username: TimeothyHour
Name: Gamehost 6 (Six for short.)
Gender: No Gender, although with masculine qualities and pronoun.
Race: Robot.
Colour: Lime with black background.
Weapons: Gamehost 6 has a few built in weapons, solely for the purpose of eliminating game show contestants. Instead of a left hand, Six has a circular saw blade that was used for eliminating contestants, and a lethal laser mounted in his lapel masquerading as a button.
Abilities: “Gamehost 6 is the state-of-the art forefront of conversational recognition and machines taking roles in our everyday lives. Six, the fruits of over fifteen years of work and innovation, is the pinnacle of game show technology. Six’s advanced language recognition programming allows him to understand and create conversational speech, and with over 6 Exabytes (6 million Terabytes) of information spreading across almost all topics at his fingertips, Gamehost 6 can computationally create questions on the fly! Armed with a circular saw and a laser for when they RUN, your bloodthirsty urges will be immensely satisfied! Check out Gamehost 6 during DICE OF DEATH on Fox 9 at eight o’clock!”
–Ad for DICE OF DEATH.
Description: Six’s most immediate and noticeable characteristic is his head. In order to thematically fit with the dice motif, Six’s head was modeled to look remarkably similar to a six sided die. The pips throughout Five’s head serve a dual purpose, serving as his sensory imagery as well as being aesthetically correct. The “1” side serves as Six’s eye, and therefore faces forward, while the sides 3-6 serve purposes such as hearing, temperature detection, and analyzing air composition. Side two faces downward and serves as Six’s neck. Six is bipedal and stands at an average human’s height. In keeping to acting as the host of DICE OF DEATH, Six wears a vertically striped, green-and-black suit. Additionally, instead of a left hand, Six is armed with his circular saw.
Personality-wise, Six comes off as rather emotionless, although his programming gives him limited range of available emotional states. Six has a database of much of human knowledge in his memory and can rapidly learn new things, and using his knowledge is one of his greatest pleasures. Being designed as a game host, Six’s programming gives him a sort of programmed high for asking questions, and does so often. This may have inadvertently caused workaholic tendencies, as Six is often buried in his work, despite the fact he is arguably sentient and therefore has a life outside of DICE OF DEATH. When confronted with situations wherein he cannot find the proper words, he will often quote one of the Great Bards or Philosophers of the past.
Biography: Created in the Golden of MediaPolitics, Gamehost 6 was the robotic marvel of his time. Famous for his strange appearance and satisfying the audience’s desire for gruesome deaths, DICE OF DEATH had extraordinarily high ratings for decades… until one mysterious day, when Six disappeared on live television.
(He totes has a bowtie)
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Re: Petty Squabble [It's another Grand Battle] [Signups open!]
04-02-2011, 05:48 PM
Originally posted on MSPA by Lankie.
Oh why not, reserve.
Scrap that, Grand battling in a sling is not recommended.
Posts: 291
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Re: Petty Squabble [It's another Grand Battle] [Signups open!]
04-02-2011, 06:12 PM
Originally posted on MSPA by Aryogaton.
Username: Aryogaton, bluh
Name: The Blank
Gender: Technically genderless, but since most assume he’s male, he adopts it for simplicity’s sake.
Race: Diplomatic construct
Color: #888888 on #FFFFFF
Equipment/Abilities: Blank’s defining ability is to passively absorb knowledge from any viable source around him, including living beings. This means that, after a few minutes, Blank will learn extensively about the backstories, abilities, etc. of nearby characters, data-storage devices, etc. This extends to simple objects and machinery, where Blank can learn its properties or inner workings. Blank cannot stop using this power, and if he spends too long with a certain character, then that character’s personality may begin to influence him.
The knowledge-absorbing power extends weakly to abilities, such that after a while, Blank would gain some of the abilities of the people around him. However, this only extends to non-character-specific abilities (strength, marksmanship, ritual magic, etc.); abilities that Blank would not be capable of after potentially intense training (innate magic, godlike abilities, item-specific abilities, etc.) Robots and other artificial beings are treated as objects, and Blank can’t learn anything other than knowledge from them.
Description: On the outside, Blank looks like a lanky, pale, and bald human, of ambiguous age, gender, and descent. He wears a simple white shirt and pants, which effectively makes him practically entirely monochrome. On his personality, Blank is very much pacifistic, overwhelmingly preferring to discuss and solve a conflict rather than end it with physical force—not that he has much of it, except in rather specific circumstances. He is designed to get along with any single character he meets, which is usually made possible because of his knowledge-absorbing power. In order to do this effectively, Blank alters his personality to match that of the character he wants to be friendly with.
Blank refuses to use or share most of the knowledge he absorbs, mostly to respect the characters’ privacy and to avoid generating conflicts. He will make exceptions when his or other people’s lives are in danger, or if the situation demands it. He often shares his own backstory as compensation for absorbing someone else’s.
Biography: In a human’s imagination, advanced aliens exist as warlike imperialists, entities we cannot comprehend, or otherwise beings that are rightfully entitled to their superiority, a fact that they must know and that we must fear.
The reality is quite far from such fantasies. The alien society that has visited Earth are, indeed, quite advanced and have surpassed the societal and technological limitations that humans struggle with. However, rather than the clearly superior mindset we imagine they have, it is they who fear us.
They have been watching for much of modern history, and have been eager to make peaceful arrangements for the betterment of both civilizations. However, the warlike and self-destructive tendencies of the human being have seeded paranoia.
If they do not hesitate to destroy themselves, what will make them hesitate to destroy us? We must be prudent! We must show them that we are not the imperialists depicted in their legends. Cooperation is vital!
Thus, they waited. They waited for a time when human civilization had made peace with itself. However, such a time never came. It began to seem clear that active intervention was necessary, yet the fear that the humans would declare war on such a strange and unfamiliar civilization held steadfast.
So they created an ambassador. It was designed to dissolve any violent tendencies of humans it met, and to sow the beginnings of a true interspecies friendship. But most of all, it was designed to be human, to be familiar and true to human culture, accomplishing what the aliens fear they cannot.
The first phase was, of course, developing a familiarity with human culture. The ambassador lived and traveled anonymously, until it deemed it knew enough to begin diplomacy. Getting the attention of every sovereign leader was rather simple, and the lack of any cultural or linguistic limitation made communication smooth.
But there was one flaw. In attempting to be as human as possible, the ambassador had developed something of an uncanny omniscience. It was a subtle aspect that wasn’t quite right, a basic instinct of humans that saw unnatural a certain aspect that all humans are supposed to lack: perfection.
And then he disappeared.
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Re: Petty Squabble [It's another Grand Battle] [Signups open!]
04-02-2011, 06:12 PM
Originally posted on MSPA by Lord Paradise.
Name: the Broderburgs (Tom Broderburg, Clarice Broderburg, Alison Broderburg, Ethan Broderburg, and Baby Emma)
Gender: Male female female male female
Race: Human human human human baby
Color: In the general case, Background=#FFFFCC color=#00CC33. If you want to get fancy with it, background=#FFFFCC and then #FF6666 for Tom, #3399FF for Clarice, #CC66FF for Alison, #CC9900 for Ethan, and #00CC33 for Baby Emma, though I don't encourage that level of micromanagement unless absolutely necessary.
Weapons/Abilities: RV, overpacked with a couple weeks camping supplies and food. Tom, a middle-management cubicle farmer for a yo-yo company in a past life, carries a hunting rifle and has the powers of vague awareness of Earth wilderness survival strategies, while also being the heart of the family. Clarice, reporter for a local newspaper, has a disposable camera and a pen-and-paper she carries around with her at all times; she is cleverer than one might give her credit for, and carries a commanding presence. Alison, thirteen, has a cameraphone (with a charger), is generally good with technology, and prone to spew out random helpful factoids which seem to make up her entire middle-school education. Ethan, eight, elects to carry around a Game Boy Color, an aluminum baseball bat, and a baseball cap (backwards); he is scrappy. Baby Emma has no possessions and no powers, yet.
Description: The RV is white and beige and somewhat banged up. Tom is tall and beefy, having gotten a headstart on his mid-life by beginning to work out obsessively in his early 30s. He sweats a lot and wears t-shirts that are not quite red. Clarice has long blond hair in scrunchies and has perpetually wide eyes that betray both stressed-out exasperation and constant awareness of her surroundings. She packed a lot of jeans and flannel shirts for the road trip. Alison, in her first of many acts of rebellion, has betrayed all the genes of her parents by having straight black hair, blue eyes, and a round face, but her personality is more reminiscent of her mother’s than she would admit. If she had yet learned how to dress sluttily, she would, but in her current adolescent period settles for a variety of black-and-red ostentatious thrift store numbers. Ethan has his mother’s hair, his father’s eyes, and his own denim jacket with a decal of his favorite cartoon heroes, the Archetypes, on the back. He is “scrappy;” Tom and Clarice easily could have gotten him on ADD meds but weren’t really comfortable with the idea, and he does well enough in school, if not as well as Alison. Baby Emma is a baby.
Biography: Um. Tom and Clarice met at state college, married at 25 and 23 respectively, and had Alison a year later. Alison and Ethan were planned but Emma was an accident. Not being the youngest anymore, Ethan began acting out, so shortly after Emma’s first birthday Tom and Clarice agreed to fulfill one of the kid’s long-time wishes and take the whole family camping. This of course made Alison start to act out; it was a stressful and eventful few days as they drove the rusty old RV down to the campsite, and it only got worse once they were teleported across the multiverse to participate in a battle to the death with seven absurdly powerful and dangerous individuals.
Posts: 1,776
Joined: Jul 2011
Pronouns: Her, but They is also okay
Location: The Frigid Northlands
Re: Petty Squabble [It's another Grand Battle] [Signups open!]
04-02-2011, 06:30 PM
Originally posted on MSPA by MrGuy.
Name: Doplio
Gender: N/A
Font colour: #8B668B
Race: Fungus
Weapons: Naturally produces caustic puddles; can mimic teeth and claws
Abilities: Able to copy the form of other living beings, as detailed below.
Description: In its natural form, resembles a grayish-purple moss. Otherwise, functionally identical to whatever it copies in terms of visual appearance.
Biography: Aspergillus dopliospium was first recorded in the year 4254, having developed on a planet that had been terraformed for experimental purposes roughly 2000 years earlier. The environment varied wildly, and satellites often bombarded the planet with intense radiation, so that both mutations and natural selection would be maximized. When the research team came to investigate, most of the planet appeared as expected (if one can really have "expectations" for such a thing), except for a 60-meter area around a small cave in a forest. At first, it seemed perfectly ordinary-- many different species, some evidently carnivorous, some evidently herbivorous. However, one of the team spotted a strange orange liquid, both caustic (pH 12.8) and poisonous; this made it rather odd that the animals seemed to take no steps to avoid it, often slogging right through it with practically no harm evident. Further investigation found that the apparent carnivores never ate any herbivores, and for that matter, there didn't seem to be much consumption of plant life either. In fact, inside a certain radius, no animal could be observed eating anything whatsoever.
Due to the mysterious conditions, the entire area was designated Threat Level 6~8, "Potential For Very High Danger." The team quickly did their best to escape, with the very one who had discovered the mysterious toxin not noticing the spores that had crept into his suit. A few weeks passed, with that one oddly silent; eventually, the medic went to check on him. Immediately upon entering the room, he discovered several pools of the orange liquid throughout, as well as mold coating the walls. Luckily for the astronauts, he was able to activate the emergency recording unit, allowing the rest of the team to see the mold bearing down on him, coating his body, and nearly devouring him. The captain barged in and blasted it with a phaser, only to find two medics standing there before him. Determining which was real was simple enough; when he posed a question, one answered in perfect English, the other in nothing but a strange gurgling noise. The mold, along with the copies it had made, were quickly eradicated from the ship, save for a small sample placed in an airtight container to be considered for military purposes. Tests were performed on the mold for years, and over time, it gained a slight grasp of language, enough to speak when given vocal cords; but before it could be fully developed as a feasible bioweapon, it disappeared mysteriously, leading to theories of espionage...
CLARIFICATION OF ABILITIES
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SpoilerAspergillus dopliospium duplicates other creatures, as far as scientists can tell, like a retrovirus in reverse: it takes a DNA sample, "adds it" to the DNA already present in a cell, and replicates from there. The important thing to note is that Doplio can only copy intrinsic abilities. For example:
-- Copying someone with intrinsic magical ability would convey it. Copying someone who had to study to gain it would not.
-- Copying a zombie created through necromancy, nanites, etc. would result in a copy of the person's living form. Copying a zombie created through a virus or parasite would result in a copy of their zombified form.
-- Copying a martial artist could allow Doplio to replicate their musculature with a bit of effort, but would not grant it their techniques.
-- Copying, for example, Superman or Spider-Man would convey superpowers, given that they stem from their alien/mutant DNA. Copying, for example, Green Lantern would not, since his power comes from an outside source.
-- Copying non-organic creatures, e.g. robots and golems, is right out. Copying a cyborg or something similar would result in the form they would have without cybernetics.
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Re: Petty Squabble [It's another Grand Battle] [Signups open!]
04-02-2011, 06:33 PM
Originally posted on MSPA by Dragon Fogel.
This is just a note that I finally managed to log in. Looking forward to seeing this start!
Okay, posting my profile here for, I don't know. Official purposes or something.
Username: Dragon Fogel
Name: Parsley Krose
Race: Human
Text Color: #666600
Weapons/Abilities: Parsley is armed with a blessed dagger, a small crossbow, some assorted holy symbols, and at any given time, about six small breadsticks and a large loaf of French bread.
Which brings us to his abilities. Parsley can create bread. He can make it out of any materials, including thin air, but it tends to taste like whatever he made it out of. Eating a roll created from air is essentially the same as eating air, nutrient-wise; it's just easier to chew. He mainly uses this power for ammunition, or for emergency rations.
His typical strategy is to create small breadsticks for use as crossbow bolts. (On occasion, he's been known to create pretzels for this purpose.) He also keeps a large loaf of stale French bread handy as a makeshift club. Sometimes he'll create a loaf in a particular shape, but it's mostly for stylistic reasons.
Description: Parsley is a tall, scruffy, middle-aged man in a longcoat and a hat. He carries his weapons - including bread-crafted ones - inside his coat, but he can take them out quickly when he needs to.
In terms of personality, Parsley is somewhat cynical, but nonetheless helpful. He feels it's his duty to slay demons to help people, not simply because of the grander battle between heaven and hell.
Biography: Parsley was born into a somehwat wealthy family. His powers manifested at an early age; when he started filling the house with bread, his parents began to worry that he was demon-possessed.
They hired a demon hunter to investigate. He soon realized that the boy was under no demonic influences, and told his clients as much. Unfortunately, the Kroses did not believe his explanation, questioned his competence, and decided hire another demon hunter, one who he recognized as being ruthless.
Fearing for the innocent child's life, the hunter abducted him before fleeing town. He trained Parsley in the ways of the demon hunter, realizing that his unique ability might be useful in the battle against evil.
Forty years later, Parsley Krose was renowned as the best demon hunter on the continent. He had also learned a thing or two about making real bread, because everyone needs a hobby.
It was this reputation (as a demon hunter, not a baker) which led him to investigate rumors of a demon in a small, secluded town. Based on reports from travellers passing through the region, he suspected the demon had the power to trap its victims in illusions, leading them to act very strangely.
Shortly after he arrived in the village to begin his investigation, he was summoned to take part in the Petty Squabble - and given the fact that he was chasing a demon of illusions, it seemed only logical to presume that was the cause of his sudden change of surroundings.
Posts: 3,283
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Location: Multiverse
Re: Petty Squabble [It's another Grand Battle] [Signups open!]
04-02-2011, 06:57 PM
Originally posted on MSPA by PlumFinder.
Yessss, I hope this isn't first come first serve.
Username: Plumfinder
Name: The Puppeteer (mostly, though, he goes by false names)
Gender: Male
Race: Human
Color: #7F5217
Weapons/Abilities: The Puppeteer is armed with one Standard-Issue BoltGun, fully charged, and therefore capable of firing twelve shots. When hit by a shot, the target is stunned for approximately ten minutes. The bullets have been upgraded with a Target Lock, which makes them able to alter their course slightly towards the target. This can turn near misses into hits, and makes the shots difficult to dodge, though not impossible. They are not homing bullets.
He also has a injector with Lox-venom up his sleeve. The venom kills instantly, but the injector can only be used once.
Mostly though, these two weapons are safety precautions, not supposed to be used. The Puppeteer has one weapon which should render all the others unneccessary: His brain. The Puppeteer is highly skilled in making other people do his bidding, knowingly or not. His plans rarely go awry.
Description: The Puppeteer is a portly man in his forties, with flaming red hair but an otherwise unremarkable face. He wears suits most of the time, as befitting of a man sitting in the president's chair, which is technically where he sits. Most of is manipulations happen from that spot, so he doesn't often wear anything else. He has, however, some experience with fieldwork, when he has to take on the role of a lesser man. On these occasions, he manages to dress quite stylishly in the required fashion.
The Puppeteer is the typical 'Man behind the screens', except he is much more than typical. He is the best. He can almost never be found in a position of power, preferring to stay in the background. However, he is, in practice, the one holding the positions. His most important seats include: President of the Universe, Leader of the Opposition (which frequently goes against the President's wishes), TribeLord of the Vengeance (a race of aliens who got driven from their homeplanet by the humans and seeks revenge), Director of Zuma Spacecrafts, and Supreme Judge.
He goes by many different names, obviously. His real name, the one he was born with, is unknown to mankind, and he went to great lengths to remove every mention of him from history. Some of his favorite names are: James Black, Brian Perator, Argl S'zin, and Violet Freehair.
Biography: The Puppeteer grew up as the heir to a small business making star cruisers (Zuma Spacecrafts). The business was floundering, and it was obvious to everyone his inheritance would be mostly debts with the space mafia. It was a wellknown fact that Zuma Spacecrafts had borrowed a lot of money from them, and it would be a matter of time before they went after the owner for retribution. The Puppeteer's father did all he could to transfer ownership to his son as soon as possible.
When the Puppeteer was 14, two weeks before ownership would be transferred to him, he used his position inside the business to bankrupt it, preventing it from becoming his. His father suffered the consequences, and was assassinated shortly afterwards.
The Puppeteer spent the next five years on the University of Farbank, studying Economy. His study was paid for by a trustfund of unknown origin. The University never looked closely into it, but if they had they could've traced it all the way back to the University itself. By the time The Puppeteer finsihed his study, he had honed his skills of manipulation. He submerged himself in the large and complicated economy of the Universal Alliance, and never resurfaced. At the same time, however, several cunning bussinessmen started gaining control of the entire economy. It was at this point that the Puppeteer shed his old identity, and became the multiple identities he still is today.
While he spent years and years rapidly gainign supreme control of every aspect of the galaxy, there's one plot that deserves special attention:
In the year 7834, when the Puppeteer was in his thirties, the Vengeance started striking major blows to the defence of the Universal Alliance. The president of the Universe met his end during one of these strikes, and a new one woul dhave to be elected, and fast. The choice would go between the two large factions in the Universal Politics: The Blue Party and the Yellow Party. Their views on how to govern the Universe were radically different, and the difference was predicted to be small.
One week before the actual voting started, a single journalist uncovered a horrible truth. The leader of the Blue Party, James Black, and the leader of the Yellow Party, Violet Freehair, were in fact the same person! The effects of this revelation were clearly noticable in the following election. A third Party, insignificant in the Universal Politics, and therefore free of corruption, was the big winner. Their leader became the new President of the Universe. The people never found out that they had been toyed with. The new President of the Universe had been the vicitim of blackmail by the Puppeteer for several years, and the moment he got his office, he signed a paper handing the position to the Puppeteer. The man still appears to be president now, but is not really in control of anything. There are very few people in the universe who are aware there is one man in control of mostly everything. The few who are, have no idea who he is or what position exaclty he holds. The two or three humans in the entire universe who do know that know better than to tell anyone. They have comfortable lives in high positions, helping the Puppeteer extend his influence even further.
As of now, the Puppeteer is getting bored with the universe. He has as close to complete control as he can possibly get, and spent the last two years looking into ways to enter other universes.
Posts: 92
Joined: Jul 2011
Pronouns: He/Him/That damm alcoholic
Location: New Zealand
Re: Petty Squabble [It's another Grand Battle] [Signups open!]
04-03-2011, 01:57 AM
Originally posted on MSPA by Airey.
Username: Airey
Name: Lunic 04
Gender:Female
Race:Robot (humanoid)
Colour: Indigo #2E0854
Weapons/Abilities:Besides being a robot with a titanium body Lunic 04 Uses rugs and mats to attack by rolling square or rectangle rugs and mats up, the thin ones become like whips that can attack at a range and with enough skill grab items out of reach. The thick rugs and mats become tree trunk like clubs capable of crushing and knocking back opponents. Rugs and mats in the shape of circles are not rolled up instead they are used like discus and in combination with her robot strength they can cut though most objects.
As for defense she unrolls the thin rugs and uses them like a matador skillfully evading on coming attacks, while the thick rugs and mats are also unrolled to be used as a shield wall to most block attacks.
Lunic often carries a arrangement of rugs and mats for her protection but also enjoys giving them out to people to make them happy. When ever she start to run low on rugs or mats she just simply eats any material she can fine whether it is cloth, metal or flesh and creates a rug or mat to fit the situation.
Description: Lunic 04 Is a robot standing at about 5ft10. Her titanium chassis is in the shape of a female human so that's why she identifies her self as a female. Her stomach is a fully automatic metal loom used for making rugs and mats, While the 2 atomic batteries in her chest make sure she always has enough power with solar panels on her back in case of emergencies. Covering most of her body is a collection of rugs worn like a poncho over her shoulders while still showing her mechanical stomach and with rugs around her waist like a long skirt. Her personality is mixed with the programming to make mats and rugs for everyone and is mostly happy go lucky but gets upset if her rugs are not enjoyed and even a tad homicidal if some one stops her from making them.
Biography: Lunic 04 Was made by a brilliant scientist who only wanted to create a item that every one in the world would use, this happened to be rugs and mats for every home in the world. While making the first 3 lunic models he mistakenly used up all the authorized wire and had to turn to buying some illegal AI wiring to finish Lunic 04. Unfortunately he got arrested shortly after and all the lunic models got sold to a greedy factory owner. The lunic model robots where seemingly doomed to just be another group of robot working in a factory making what they where programed to make, until the factory owner's son slipped and fell into the supply line and the Lunic model robots turned him into a pretty human rug.
Enraged by the death of his son the owner shutdown the factory and started destroying the robots. Lunic 04 was the the last up for destruction but due to the illegal AI wiring the EMP gun the owner was using to destroy her and her counterparts didn't shut her down, instead it removed the safety measures and made her sentient. After becoming aware and seeing all the other robots destroyed she lost it and then processed to make her second human rug out of the owner.
~no longer a bartender but still helping drunks
Posts: 3,283
Joined: Nov 2024
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Location: Multiverse
Re: Petty Squabble [It's another Grand Battle] [Signups open!]
04-03-2011, 07:14 AM
Originally posted on MSPA by Adenreagen.
Username: Adenreagen
Character Name: Elimine Fraze (If you want, she goes by Elli for short)
Gender: Female
Race: Human
Color: How about red?
Weapons/Abilities: A bladed trombone with a shoulder strap, the blades being on the slide and bell, a pocket music book and pocket incantation book, pet: black cat (She has the collar, just hold on).
As a band member, certain skills have been learnt over time, including heavy lifting, crowd dispersion, wiring and using electronics. Her day job of vigilantism has also led to heavy lifting and crowd dispersion, but also swordsmanship, in her own form. She also is an excellent trombone player, and has limited psychic ability which is a short way of saying weak energy blasts and short term power-ups (which come from playing in combination with “using” her power).
Cat’s abilities: A meow of doom that has been known to kill the weak and render the strong immobile. This alone has made the cat a dangerous weapon that is useful in almost any situation. Evaporating skills, which turns it into smoke and shadow, used to travel quickly. Because it is bound to Elimine, she is able to summon it at will and
can command it, sometimes even without dificulty.
Description: At just over 5’ tall, Elimine is rather petite-looking, but is far from timid. She has shoulder length wavy red hair, which is normal, and a black streak that appears to drift around, which isn’t. She is physically fit from an active lifestyle, and is rather slim from pulling all-nighters in the sake of music and justice. Elimne has never been afraid to speak her mind, and usually refuses to sugar-coat what she tells people. Being put in hopeless situations or events similar to past situations has pushed her into “overdrive” making her slightly mad (i.e. insane) and more rash than normal, but doesn’t make her stronger or more powerful in any way like many “berserk modes” do.
Being a jazz musician she wears what was originally a suit, but is now a white button up shirt and black suit coat with the sleeves torn off, black trousers, shoes and tie. Though she knows the value of stealth, the absurdity of being a sidekick has given her a tendency to yell during her attacks, and made her more of a follower than a leader though she knows how to act on her own. Aside from entertaining the masses with music, she feels her purpose in life is to fight her idea of “evil” wherever it may hide.
The cat is entirely black, lacking obvious eyes or, truly, any features at all. It looks more like a shadow with a shadow, and in fact that’s closer to its true nature than calling it an animal.
Backstory: Member of a famous Jazz band and sidekick to its leader (who is also a vigilante hero), Elimine has been exposed to many different situations from barfights and turf wars to two-headed guardian lions and one awkward event with an immortal. Over the course of her adventures she has learned how to wield a sword, trombone and toothbrush (among other ridiculous things) as weapons of deadly force. During her musical career she is used to hauling equipment, playing music and fighting evil. Elimine has become fairly strong and well versed in music playing and problem solving.
During one adventure, Elimine and her leader (whom she does simply call “Leader”) travelled to a realm far different from her own. Though they fought well in this shadow realm, she was overwhelmed and subjected to massive amounts of dark energy. Though Leader managed to fight his way to her, she had been in contact with so much dark energy that she had, in a panic, managed to harness it and bind one of the creatures to her: a creature of darkness so horrible that it is more shadow than animal. A Black Cat. As an ephemeral being it could only be stunned or contained but never truly, permanently killed. Her survival now tied to a creature that had once tried to kill her, Elimine instead used that bond to have the cat draw as much of the energy out is it could in an attempt to save her. It was unable to draw out all of the dark energy, however, and what remained was not only under Elimine’s full control an giving her an affinity for darkness, but had also altered her physical appearance in a minor albeit disconcerting way. Though they emerged from that adventure victorious, her personality from then on has always been more on-edge as noticed by her band-mates and friends.
Posts: 3,283
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Location: Multiverse
Re: Petty Squabble [It's another Grand Battle] [Signups open!]
04-03-2011, 07:48 AM
Originally posted on MSPA by Drakenforge.
Name: Rhett Myrddin
Gender: Male
Age: 1081
Race: Demon (Humanoid)
Text colour: Midnight blue
Weapons: A prototype ‘Zemthus’ model military prosthetic arm, which is basically a lightly armoured synthetic arm that replaces his left. He lost his real arm when his sister died. The bionic arm is cased in a thin, flexible metal that can fold, yet survive heavy impacts. While he can control it like a regular arm, he can also use the features that have been added. The biggest feature is the Tesla Railgun, a weapon that takes large currents of electricity, magnetises it, and blasts it out at incredible force. Of course, it was never designed to be built into an arm, and was supposed to be connected to a supply of energy so that it can actually fire. Rhett’s arm however has no such power supply, so he can only fire the Railgun when his synthetic arm is hit by the same amount of electricity as a bolt of lightning. Built into the arm are two smoke bomb launchers in the bicep which can be reloaded. A wide shortsword is strapped to his waist. As for his abilities, Rhett studied a human martial arts with his elder sister for several hundred years, eventually learning how to control the flow of human ki energy and convert it into lightning. It had been deemed an “Anti-demon” art of fighting hundreds of years ago and is therefore taboo. It is a strongly kept secret between them. His strength is greater than a human, and he can control lightning to a degree. Not “electrical current” lightning. This stuff is formed from the “Ki” that he has generated by practicing the martial arts for so many years, and more so absorbed from the air around him. He simply ejects the ki during an attack and converts it to lightning. Which is why Rhett has a non-connected Tesla Railgun in his arm, he is the only demon who can fire it like that.
Description: Rhett resembles a twenty two year old human. He wears a white formal shirt with a black waistcoat, a tie and black trousers. His left sleeve is missing. His hair is slicked back completely. His body is a muscular-athletic type due to the years of training. His personality is pretty laid back, but he is still a demon. He never refuses a fight, and is pretty defensive of his pride. He does not enjoy killing those who cannot fight back, and would always seek out more dangerous opponents that the weaker ones. He does love to work though, and he enjoys helping people. While he is unsure of what to think of humans, he doesn’t really care about the propaganda that he was subjected to. Demons or humans, he doesn’t care who he is fighting/who his current employer is. Saying that, he hasn’t actually met one yet.
A basic kind of image I have of him is this:
Biography: Spoilered for size.
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SpoilerThe Myrddin was a small Demon Lord class family, which entitled them so some prosperity, strength and a castle. Rhett was the second child of the current head; the first was his older sister Ilea. He was never jealous of this fact, as he was much more interested in his hobbies than being a Lord. Of course, it took many years to force his parents into appreciating his interest in jobs. He had a love of working, something demons are known for not doing for very long. Eventually however he just stopped caring for his parents consent and left for the city to find a job. He returned about a week later wearing a waiting uniform, and even though he was covered in bruises he had a huge grin on his face. To where his ki powers came from, it started when she came back from a short vacation with some internal injuries. Rhett investigated in private, and it turned out that Ilea’s arm was sparking with static whenever she touched anything. Rhett got too close and had his arm jolted, the shock reaching all the way to his heart. Lucky to be alive, Ilea explained that a demon hunter had broken into their world to kill as many demons as he could, and Ilea happened to be nearby at the time. She took a lightning bolt to the chest, and has since has electricity emanating from her body. She managed to kill the human, which didn’t help them receive any answers. It wasn’t until Ilea felt that she was absorbing energy from the air several weeks later that they made a breakthrough. Their bodies where naturally absorbing any human ki they could find in the air. This, according to Ilea is about as plentiful in demon air as there is gold in their tap water. So, about a hundred years later, Ilea forces Rhett to quit yet another job (he never manages to keep them for very long for some reason) because she had another breakthrough. Apparently she had managed to collect enough to waste some to show Rhett how to use the power. Rhett however, had not gathered enough. While Ilea could absorb ki with her whole body, Rhett could only manage with his chest and right arm. He assumed it had been something to do with the initial contact with the lightning, and that it must have ripped open some ki channels, for lack of a better explanation. While Ilea managed to use her ability to shoot a large bolt of lightning and destroy a large boulder, Rhett wasn’t able to do much of anything. In anger he punched the trunk of a tree, which caused his hand to unleash its own bolt of energy and blow the tree to smithereens. They learned that while Ilea could use long range attacks, Rhett could only unleash his power when he was punching something. After a few hundred years, Rhett had full control of his abilities. He was filling out another application form in his room when he felt a presence behind him. Assassination attempts were common place in the demon world, most demons would rather be assassins than bodyguards. This person seemed different, however. When Rhett turned to meet them, he felt the slightest of breezes, and his instincts forced him to throw himself out of the way. His desk was obliterated and shards of wood were strewn across the room. The only thing he could see of his attacker was a blurry dark outline. His door burst open explosively, revealing his sister charging in with a longsword. Rhett had enough time to circle the shadowy intruder and make his way to his sister’s side. However, even together the intruder didn’t seem to take them seriously. His sister attacked skilfully with her blade, yet the assassin simply sidestepped each swing. A quick swing if their arm and Ilea was knocked back outside. Rhett ran towards her, and near half dragged her to the main hall. She was hurt internally. Whoever was fighting them, they weren’t a normal demon. They both decided that if they had to choose between dying and having their powers found out, they’d take the latter option. Rhett knew of a third option, going out with a bang, but kept it to himself.
“So, what’s the plan sis?”
“Get that bugger in between us, I blast a bolt straight through his chest, and you throw it right back into his spine.”
“…Can I even do that?”
“Maybe?”
Rhett laughed a little, even in this crazy situation. To their backs was a large mosaic window. From the front comes a sword wielding super-demon. Rhett had no other word for them. The black shadow that seemed to make up their body didn’t give off any energy that he had felt before. He doubted it even had a life. He and Ilea sidestepped in opposite directions, the suddenly burst into a sprint to get to opposite sides of the shadow being. The shadow picked a target: Rhett. He braced his legs as he saw Ilea launch the bolt of lightning. It pierced the shadow in the back, dark blotches spraying onto the floor from the wound. Rhett caught the blast in his right hand, and the energy forced its way into his body with an intense pain. The shadow turned, prioritising Ilea as a danger. Rhett took his chance with the shadow turned, and used the energy as a rebound. It wasn’t his own energy, so he simply rejected it. Even though he could not fire lightning, the bolt shot from his palm, striking the shadow once more, this time in the spine. The bolt didn’t leave, but circulated to its brain and fried everything in its path. The shadow unleashed a volley of smoke and a horrible burning smell. The room became hazy and the air thick. Rhett called out to his sister, but never got a reply. She was probably keeping quiet to remain hidden.
The noise of a sword being swung.
The sound of blade meeting flesh.
The horrible sensation that something horrible has happened.
The thud of a body hitting the floor.
Rhett tried to run to his sister, but he collapsed to the floor after a few steps. He didn’t even feel the blade connect. He’d been hit in the shoulder, but he couldn’t move his left arm. A second later, it fell to the floor next to him, oozing blood from where it once connected to his body. He swore, and fought to get to his feet. He back stepped, but the smoke was clearing. He shadow lunged, and its sword pierced Rhett in the chest. It lifted his feet clear off of the floor. But he didn’t allow himself to bleed violently. Using the ki channels in his chest, he redirected the floor of blood away from his missing arm and around the wound in his chest. He was still losing blood, but nothing close to what he would have normally. He stared the shadow in the face, but couldn’t help but feel it seemed familiar. His body was close to the shadow, and he could still move his main arm. He fed a large amount of ki into his arm, and grabbed hold of the shadows sword arm.
“Never give a Myrddin a chance to think!” He screamed into its face as he caused the arm to explode with the lightning blast. He, the sword and most of the shadow’s arm were sent flying, making his back crash through the family mosaic window. He hoped his ancestors thought it was a good trade, his life for their window. He fell for several seconds before crashing down on something wooden. It was dark, he was in agony, and he had a very small chance of surviving. He didn’t know if he’d broken any bones on his landing. Most of the pain in his shoulder and chest was keeping him occupied. As he stared up into the stars, he wondered if this was the end.
“Tell me, Master Rhett, how long do you plan on lying there?” said a familiar voice. It belonged to Miralda, the Myrddin family healer. She had long kept Rhett’s family in good health through her magic.
“The heck are you doing out here Miralda” he replied, ignoring her question.
“I was on my way to the city to get some supplies. Your father he been restless of late and needs some good exercise.”
“Perfect.” He noticed that he had landed on the back of her old wooden wagon. Miralda was old fashioned and didn’t like to travel any other way. “Get the horses on the right path and get started and closing my wounds, would you? I’d appreciate it. I can’t keep the blood flow moved for much longer.”
Miralda sighed in response, but cracked the reins anyway. As the horses began to move, she stood from her seat and attended to Rhett’s wounds even as he began to pass out. Just before the void took him, he managed to say “Mick’s place. Leave me there. Have to…hide.”
When he awoke, he found himself in a decrepit storeroom filled with hunks of metal and unknown devices that seemed to be ripped to pieces. His shoulder and chest were bandaged. Since they were clean he assumed the wounds were closed. He was lying on some sort of thin comfy mattress. To his right lay the sword the shadow had used, hand still grabbing onto the hilt. He hadn’t noticed at the time, but the hand looks like a woman’s. A regular hand not covered in shadow. Rhett got himself out of bed, wincing the whole time. He casually walked out of the messy storeroom and into a workshop. A messy haired man sitting bent over a workbench, while another similarly messy haired man sat lazily on the end. All four of his limbs were metallic in colour.
“Oh, the young master awakes” Joked the lazy looking man, faux bowing as Rhett walked in.
“Mike.”
The other man, who was called Michael, simply turned and nodded before getting back to his work. On the table lay another metallic arm.
“Took your measurements as you slept, did some work on the shoulder while we were at it.”
“We?” Michael commented.
Mike ignored him, and explained to Rhett in detail as to what surgery had been done. Rhett listened quietly. When he was finished, Rhett asked about what kinds of things he could get in his replacement arm.
“Well, seeing as this is rather short notice, not much I’m afraid. Hidden blades are all reserved, and we’re backed up with orders for guns, so no chance of getting one of those in it either.”
“What about prototypes?”
“We have a few. What are in the market for?”
Rhett thought about his encounter with the shadow. The smoke had distracted it, seeing as it didn’t pierce his heart. Rhett also knew more about the kind of items going in and out of these brother’s warehouse than he’d ever let on to them. They went back a few hundred years when Rhett helped them out with a few debt and hired muscle problems. Even as a bodyguard his employment didn’t last very long. But he heard rumours in his various jobs about prototypes.
“Something that can give me a smoke screen in a split second.”
Mike headed off into a backroom that was full of large metal lockboxes. He returned a short while later with a case containing several large bullet-tip shaped objects.
“Hot off the black market. Human’s call them “Smoke grenades”, and they just need to be launched out of something and connect with a surface. Instant smoke cloud.”
“That would take up a large part of the arm. I need something smaller. I already know exactly what is going to take up almost all the arm.”
Mike scratched at his head, seeming to be deep in thought.
“So, something really small then. I think we may have just the thing.”
He simply discarded the case into a corner of the room and went searching in the back room. Rhett turned his attention to the other brother who was hard at work on the prosthetic arm.
“So, what model am I getting?”
“Zemthus. TBN. Mk.IV”
Rhett was genuinely surprised. That was a hardcore military prototype. The only way to stop that kind of arm was to cut around it and sever it from the person using it, if you weren’t able to kill the owner anyway. It also allowed for a large amount of customization.
“Just to let you know, I want that Tesla railgun you keep in the back. I need it. I’ll double the pay for the whole package as well.”
His words caused Michael’s work to slow down some, obviously he wasn’t supposed to know that. When Mike returned, he had two crates instead of one. The first was smaller than a briefcase, while the other could easily fit a rocket launcher into it.
“AN13 smoke pellets” He said, placing it on the edge of the table, “And the Evangelic Hunter. Prototype Tesla railgun, just like you said. How you know about this monster is beyond me. Frankly I don’t give a damn. Nobody wanted it, because it doesn’t work.”
“Oh, it works. It just doesn’t have a power source.” Rhett countered.
Mike gave Rhett an annoyed look, but laughed it off a second later.
“Right you are. ‘Course, due to the lightshow you were giving off when you were out of it I assume you won’t have that problem.”
“If that’s everything, go back to sleep. You need it. The arm will be here waiting for you.”
Rhett assured them that is was, and took the hint to leave the brothers to their work.
He wasn’t worried about them finding out about his taboo breaking powers. Both of the Mick’s were complete renegades anyway. So long as he paid, they wouldn’t care.
When Rhett groggily awoke again, the brothers treated him to a very terrible and obviously instant breakfast. Luckily Rhett was used to buying this kind food himself whenever he was running low on pay on his long trips from home. Afterwards they began the painful operation of attaching the prosthetic arm to his shoulder. Like they had said, several obvious changes had been made to his shoulder when he was unconscious. Pieces of machinery showed up where flesh or bone should have been. Rhett soon let himself fall to the effects of the anaesthetic, leaving the ‘Mick’ brothers to work in peace. When he awoke for a third time, the operation was over. Michael was standing ready to walk him through the tutorial of using the arm. After two or three hours, Rhett was able to wiggle his fingers and move the arm slightly.
It took several months of physiotherapy for him to move it perfectly. But now he had full control. He was once again wearing his waiting outfit, minus the left shirt sleeve. He had also adopted a shortsword with a sheath which hung from his waist. He’d started staying at a medium rate hotel, the fancy ones were too obvious, and the low down ones were always where people who didn’t want to be found went. He’d taken to keeping toothpicks on himself, a strange quirk he picked up seemingly from nowhere. He’d heard news reports about his family. Every member assassinated, his corpse not found but his left arm being left behind didn’t give much hope of him being alive. He was saddened by the losses. Even as a demon, they shared a familial bond. Especially his sister. Most demons would have killed him for finding out about them breaking a taboo. But his sister helped him, and in return he helped her.
Rhett was going back to the Mick brother’s place to gather some more information. When he got there, however, he was startled to see a young girl in the middle of getting a replacement right arm.
A very familiar looking girl.
“Hey Rhett, don’t worry, she’s completely out right now. Came in with an assload of cash and wanted the ‘don’t-tell-anyone’ treatment. ‘Course, we saw that hand that came with the sword in your chest and we thought ahead. The arm’s got a bomb in it, up to you if you want to detonate it or not.”
Mike handed him a small remote with a single button in the centre. It had to be the same person that had killed his sister, yet the shadow was completely missing.
“You should have seen her when she was covered in that ‘shadow’ you were talking about. Seemed like the damn stuff had a mind of its own. She talks in her sleep, too. Sounds a lot different than the voice we heard when she came in though.”
Rhett assumed that she shadow was some sort of manipulator. There were rumours of such beings, though they were always baseless. Rhett decided to wait it out in the storeroom. An hour later, the he could hear that the girl had woken up.
“Ah, we thank you for you business.” It spoke, definitely not sounding like it should. It paused for several seconds before speaking again.
“Do you know why we came to this place?”
“For a replacement arm?”
“We smelled the blood of a dead man. Yes, but now we smell all that much more than when we came in.”
Rhett heard the sound of a sword being drawn and burst from the room. Mike was already sliced clean in two. Michael tried to move, but his head came clean off a split moment later. The shadow being stood between the bodies. Rhett pressed the button just as it lunged. Its left side detonated, losing even more of the arm than it had before. The shadow crashed into Rhett’s body, and he grabbed its head with his false arm and smashed it right into the wall.
“Why did you kill my family?!”
“Ha. Haha. Yes, this is why. I killed everyone at that castle, and more, because I want to die.”
“What?!”
“This world is coming to an end. It will simply cease to exist. Didn’t you know? There’s nothing that can be done to save it. But I, I do not want to simply cease to exist. I wanted to know death. But shadow beings cannot simply die, we posses, we fight, and then we may die.”
Rhett couldn’t believe his ears. End of the world, wanting to die, nothing the body of shadow said made sense. He twisted his left arm, changing it into the Railgun form. His hand slits down the middle to become the two end ’prongs’ that made up the barrel. Vents opened up to allow the heat to escape when he fired. He pressed the weapon into the shadows neck, savouring the crunching noises it made. With his free arm he charged enough ki to get the railgun working, before slamming it into the shoulder joint and letting the energy flow. The railgun lit up and began to whir. Sparks shot back and forth through the entire casing. It was a very uncomfortable feeling on his torso, but he didn’t care. He wanted his revenge, even if it meant killing the host of the shadow with it. He closed his eyes, focused his mind on the electrified arm, and fired.
He was no longer standing in that workshop when the blood splatter hit the floor, or when the girl’s corpse slipped to the floor.
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Re: Petty Squabble [It's another Grand Battle] [Signups open!]
04-03-2011, 03:00 PM
Originally posted on MSPA by Dragongirl30894.
Username: Dragongirl30894
Name: Lilith
Gender: Female
Race: Gargoyle, specifically the shadow and ice breeds, and a little bit of vampire too. Gargoyles are basically humans with draconic wings on their backs, reptilian tails, and small backward-curved horns on their foreheads, right at the edge of the hair. Variations on the species are actually very few, being usually on the tail, style of the wings and claws, feet, markings, and sometimes plated scales at some parts of the body. The breeds are actually the elemental powers each gargoyle has, the current number of "pure" breeds being 10. Those are Fire, Water, Rock, Wind, Ice, Shadow, Nature, Vampire, Light, and Mind. Breeds can mix freely and at different degrees in offspring, as shown by Lilith herself. Her main element is Ice, from her mother, who was a pure Ice gargoyle, and her "secondary" element is Shadow, from her father, who was a Shadow and Vampire gargoyle, which also gave her a few abilities of a Vampire gargoyle.
Color: #4D4FFE on #DBF2FF
Equipment/Abilities: weapon is a simple knife with three large "dents", sorta like a saw, that stays in a sheath tied to her right thigh. She has a "default" state her body naturally stays on, or would stay if she let it. On this state, her skin is surrounded by a cold mist, there's a dark fireball of Cursed Flames on the tip of her tail, her claws are covered in black ice, making them sharper and twice as long, and her freezing breath is constant. Her elements, or breeds, go like this:
Ice is the usual control over ice: She can make ice with the moisture in the air, keep it from melting, and she can make white and also a different black ice. She can also lower the temperature of stuff, and cover her own wounds with ice to stop the bleeding. Since her main element is ice, her body temperature is much lower than most creatures. She also has a misty and freezing breath she can use.
Shadow, being her secondary, lets her make and control Cursed Fire, flames that don't give off heat of light, just a very faint purple glow, only visible in almost pitch-black darkness, and the flames themselves are black colored with a few purplish wisps. These flames only burn blood. Normal unharmed skin is unaffected, but if the smallest cut, and you'll get burned from the inside, dying an extremely painful and agonizing death. If she doesn't just keep the flames confined in one place, instead of letting them spread, causing just intense pain instead, though that'll still lead to death from lack of blood if maintained long enough.
And the few Vampire abilities she has are rapid healing by drinking blood, and a very faint increase in her already sharp night vision and agility.
Description: Here, have a picture. Not shown are her claws, pure white and sharp, both on her hands, feet, and wing fingers. The left eye is actually a little sphere of black ice with a white swirl, she lost the "original" one. Her hair is kinda messy, but it just adds up to her overall beauty. Her ears are pointy, like an elf's. Her tail is actually very dexterous and flexible, and the tip is prehensile. And, like all gargoyles, she always walks on her toes.
Biography: She killed her parents at the age of 10 (she's 26 now), and so she's been living by herself ever since, detached from the world. This is how it went: on her tenth birthday, she was playing on a tree with her Fire gargoyle friend, and her dad came to take her to the Ice Clan, so that she could join their ranks, like all gargoyles do when they turn ten, and refine her abilities over the Ice element. But she didn't want to go, because she was having fun with her friend. Her father grabbed her tail and tried to drag her away, but, subconsciously, she made an ice spike impale his hand, and he let go. She was paralyzed by fear, so he managed to grab her under his arm, but as he walked away, a much larger spike impaled him through the heart, entering through his back. He let go of her again, falling to his knees, and she stayed there, too terrified to move, crying and watching as he collapsed, blood coming from his mouth. Her mother arrived as he died, and, seeing what had happened, she tried to comfort Lilith, but the latter turned away, simply too scared to think straight, and her mother got an ice spike impaling her through the eye. She fell down as well, and Lilith looked back, with tears still in her eyes, and then flew away, scared and lost. She's been living by herself ever since, flying from village to village, feeding from animals she hunts in forests, and sometimes other sentient beings (cannibalism basically), so she won't hesitate to eat someone's dead character if she gets the chance.
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Re: Petty Squabble [It's another Grand Battle] [Signups open!]
04-04-2011, 02:24 PM
Originally posted on MSPA by Een.
Username: Een
Name: Nancy Little
Gender: Female
Race: Human, in the 1920’s
Color: #28285F
Equipment/Abilities: Nancy’s only weapon is a Smith & Wesson model 60 Lady Smith Revolver. It’s a bit of a pea-shooter, but it fits nicely in her purse. Nancy is convinced that just by owning this item her life is at least 500 times more exciting. (It’s not.) She is also never seen without her most prized possession: a robin’s egg blue Remington-Rand Portable No.3 typewriter. Though it was issued to her from work and technically not her’s, Nancy carries it with her everywhere. She has already constructed an unnecessarily overly-complicated plan to steal it from the police station should she ever lose her position there and be asked to give it back.
As far as abilities go, Nancy displays most of the attributes necessary for someone who works as a secretary. She is very organized, types quickly, efficient when doing paperwork, and can get around in heels without tripping. This position as a secretary was also what granted Nancy her one and only supernatural talent.
Nancy earned the favor of the deity of fortune, more commonly known as Lady Luck, when she “accidentally” lost the file on the goddess’s extensive pileup of overdue parking tickets. Out of gratitude Lady Luck blessed Nancy with otherworldly good fortune. This gift has made Nancy the luckiest person to ever live. Things just always seem to go her way. She wins every lottery, aces every interview, dodges every bullet, makes every shot, and stumbles upon every possible good opportunity imaginable. Nancy’s life has the capacity to be unbelievably exciting, enriched, and full of everything she could ever wish for.
Description: …But it’s not. Nancy doesn’t buy lottery tickets. She doesn’t interview for new jobs. She never does anything exciting enough that would cause her to be shot at or to be shooting and, worst of all; she watches every opportunity thrown her way pass by with a vague disinterest. She exists in a state of limitless potential, but her own inaction and lack of confidence in her own abilities has ensured that she is going nowhere fast.
It isn’t that Nancy doesn’t want to do anything with her life. On the contrary, she dreams very big! What Nancy really craves in life is ADVENTURES! Despite her rather droll lifestyle, Nancy dreams of being a detective, sleuthing cases in grimy back-alleys and bringing down the most hard boiled of criminals. Gosh, now that would just be the bee’s knees! Unfortunately she doesn’t have the nerve to pursue this goal, and so she settles for doing absolutely nothing instead. Nancy finds herself to be untalented, boring, and overall incapable of accomplishing all of the things she fantasizes of doing. She is the very definition of unmotivated and, as a result, her life has become very static and fallow. Her head is filled with fantasies of what could be, but until she learns to respect herself and her capabilities they will stay just that: dreams.
Physically, Nancy is pretty in a plain, uninteresting sort of way. Her skin is fairly pale and short blonde hair frames her face in a mess of unruly curls. She has the kind of face that doesn’t just get lost in crowds; it drowns in them. She is truly unmemorable and average in every way. She generally dresses fairly formally because of her job with a neat blouse, below-the-knees skirt, and heels.
Her upper body strength is above average for a tiny police secretary due to her hobby of lifting weights. It is just so scandalous she can barely stand it! But, a gal’s gotta do what she loves. This practice is only done, of course, within the privacy of her apartment with all the shades down. If asked about her unusual amount of muscles Nancy claims it’s from hauling her heavy metal typewriter around all day.
Biography: Nancy is a police secretary living in New York City around 1920. She does a lot of busywork like filing reports, dealing with people who come in to the station, answering the phone, and any other odd, but simple, jobs that need taking care of. It’s tedious work, but comfortable and safe, so she is more or less satisfied with it.
Nancy has indeed classified most of her life as being tedious. She never left the city she grew up in and has never had a job that didn’t involve her sitting at a desk all day doing boring paperwork. In fact, there was only one thing Nancy has ever considered worthwhile in her life and that was Henrik. By society’s standards he was nothing special, but Nancy adored him. He also worked at the police station as a regular officer, and from the moment they met two got on famously. While Nancy’s friends and family discouraged her tendency to daydream about the fantastic, Henrik loved it. While he told her stories about what he got up onto while on the job, Nancy amused him with her own made-up adventures and fairytales. While many found Nancy’s wild imagination to be improper and strange, Henrik encouraged every aspect of it as much as he could. So maybe she couldn’t be a detective like she wanted, but what was stopping her from making her life more exciting in other ways? Henrik drew Nancy out of the colorless, dreary world she had been locked into and tried his best to let her dreams flourish. The two did everything together and it was no surprise to anyone when he decided to propose to her
Henrik had many admirable qualities, but luck was not one of them. Shortly after entering the jewelry store he picked to purchase an engagement ring, the place was robbed. Henrik was no coward. Despite being off duty, after the burglar fled the shop he pursued him down the street.
…Later that day, Nancy was told what happened. Henrik had died before he even hit the ground from a bullet to the heart. She supposed she shouldn’t have been surprised. When you worked as a policeman you tended to do dangerous things, such as chasing a man who robbed a jewelry store and subsequently getting shot by him. She didn’t even know why Henrik was in the store in the first place, oblivious to his plans, but she was heartbroken nonetheless.
If Nancy was considering seeking her dreams before, she certainly wasn’t going to now. The image of Henrik’s casket haunted her like a waking nightmare. Sure, having her way and going on adventures did sound exciting, but now it also seemed incomprehensibly dangerous. A world Nancy previously viewed as full of potential and thrilling things to discover now seemed dark and terrifying. She grew to fear the notion of doing anything out of the ordinary and settled in for a life of being exactly what she loathed: boring.
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Re: Petty Squabble [It's another Grand Battle] [Signups open!]
04-05-2011, 06:19 AM
Originally posted on MSPA by gloomyMoron.
I'm gonna plop down a reserve that I'm gonna write when I wake up.
Posts: 583
Joined: Jul 2011
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Location: The future.
Re: Petty Squabble [It's another Grand Battle] [Signups open!]
04-05-2011, 10:59 AM
Originally posted on MSPA by Godbot.
Name: Envoy
Gender: None
Font colour: #000000 on #D44545
Race: Unmanned space exploration robot
Biography: In a future vaguely analogous to our own, an unmanned alien space exploration probe crashed somewhere on a planet very similar to ours, and very nearly destroyed itself on impact. A lot of people in a world government very similar to Earth's were very excited about this, so they declared war, covered up the incident and then decided what to do. Once they realized they had just narrowly missed what definitely would have been first contact, they decided to do the next best thing and find out whatever they could from it. The Unmanned Alien Exploration vessel (or UAE vessel for short) was combed for any possible information on where it had come from, or what had sent it, but no one could come up with so much as a picture of two naked people and a hydrogen molecule, let alone a gold-plated phonograph record with whale sounds on it.
Actually, no one could figure out anything until someone asked a silly question: How did anyone manage to build this probe? The metal was tough enough to handle years of sustained spaceflight, atmospheric entry and uncontrolled impact with the Earth's crust – and it was still intact. Seamless, even. How had anyone crafted anything out of it?
After a lot of testing and a few fortunate accidents, researchers eventually figured out there was indeed a way to alter the shape of the metal: The probe's strange alien electronics were wired directly into the metal, and they reacted with each other. Not only had the metal been programmed into the shapes that made up the probe, but apparently, the probe had been encoding information directly into the molecular structure of the metal it was made out of, allowing it to store its findings indefinitely, even if it sustained damage or ran out of power. But unfortunately, during the crash, the metal took heavy damage, and the metal reverted to the shapes that made up the probe, erasing just about all of the data contained on it. There seemed to be just a fraction of data left, but no one had any idea how to read it, let alone extract it. Presumably, the data would include something like home coordinates, but that was as far as anyone could get.
The logical conclusion? Attach the highly adaptive Uae parts that they couldn't use to a robot that they did know how to use, and send it into space to follow the unreadable coordinates back to the aliens that sent it, where it could make first contact.
The result was Envoy, a robotic ambassador to the Uae homeworld, and a bizarre hybrid of the technologies of two vastly different worlds.
But there was still a problem – who owned it? Who got to operate it? Envoy had been a collaboration of various scientific institutes, governments and megacoporations – not to mention aliens. It was quite possibly the most valuable thing that the human race ever came into contact with – a machine that was more than capable of drastically changing the future of the human race. (Not to mention, it was made of the only known samples of Uae metal.)
The (debatably) logical conclusion? Everyone made a piece. Everyone gets to run it.
Envoy was sent into space under the command of the Council of First Contact Ambassadors (COFCA) [pronounced “Kafka”] – a committee of business leaders, corrupt government officials and lead scientists – only to be lost a few uneventful weeks of spaceflight later.
Weapons: Currently unarmed, but for maintenance and self-preservation purposes, Envoy was built for superior physical strength, and its chest can unfold into two extra arms. The Uae metal is basically unbreakable, but sustaining damage may cause other side effects, such as further data loss.
Abilities: Envoy can physically encode information into the Uae metal lining the majority of its body. The COFCA is uncertain of what this will actually do, but most importantly, it means Envoy might very well know where the Uae homeworld is. This also means that Envoy is highly adaptive, and able to receive just about any kind of upgrade.
Since Envoy is obviously not equipped to handle this sort of... excursion, COFCA will offer any support they can, from planning and background research of the current environment up to and including using airdrops and teleporters to keep Envoy properly equipped - but at the moment, all Envoy has is a set of rocket boosters, enabling it to fly if needed.
Description: Envoy is, as previously stated, a robot cobbled together from the parts of an alien space probe, with human-built parts to fill in the blanks. Like any good robotic human ambassador, Envoy is built to roughly resemble a human's proportions, with some subtle revisions here and there: Namely, it stands at a bit over six feet tall with broad metallic shoulders, and the extra arms folded into its torso make it rather look like its chest is perpetually puffed up heroically. Its face, upper body, shins and primary forearms are made of sleek red Uae parts that are darkened and weathered, but otherwise completely seamless. The rest of its body – most noticeably, its bulky hands and feet and its spindly thighs and upper arms – are made of the best human technology and materials that don't exist unless you can afford for them to.
The Uae parts are sleek and organic, and the human parts are bulky and unwieldy. Its “face” is little more than a curved sheet of Uae metal that resembles the contours of a human head, with some human circuitry and sensors filling in the hollow interior and two blank circles where the eyes might be. It has three bulky (but surprisingly dexterous) fingers to a hand, and rather compact rocket thrusters built into the soles of its feet and on its upper back.
Edit: Images! On notebook paper!
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Spoiler
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Location: Multiverse
Re: Petty Squabble [It's another Grand Battle] [Signups open!]
04-05-2011, 04:49 PM
Originally posted on MSPA by pugnaciousSchismatic.
Username: pugnaciousSchismatic
Name: Annie Le
Gender:female
Race: human, or rather, a teenager.
Color: Bright, friendly yellow.
Equipment/Abilities: Annie carries around a backpack that is filled with textbooks, her work uniform, and a can of mace, her lunch, keys, a small first aid kit, and her flute. On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, this is expanded to include her fencing sword. She has just recently won the title of master swords [wo]man, even though she is only fourteen years old.
Annie enjoys studying for her classes, and is currently sporting a 4.0 GPA. However, this is not enough. Every day, after school and before her job, she likes to go to the library to study on obscure subjects she wrote down during classes. Sometimes, she checks out a couple of novels and reads them during work at the local bowling alley.
When she was younger, Annie joined the girl scouts for a short period of time. There, she was taught basic navigation, first aid and tracking skills. Of course, over the years, this knowledge has greatly expanded. Now, she is a survival expert.
When she finally gets home, Annie has to make dinner for her three younger siblings. And, as you already can assume, this would make her an expert in the culinary arts. That's when you are wrong. Annie does not have any cooking ability what-so-ever. In fact, she has no talent in any sort of artistic field. So, when she gets home, Annie simply makes the children canned soup and leaves it at that.
So, with that in mind, she also carries around that flute. Why? Because she promised her mother that she'd learn a musical instrument. As of right now, she can play 'Mary had a Little Lamb' and cause only a minor headache for those that hear it.
Description: Annie is a small Vietnamese girl, who enjoys wearing vibrant, flowery clothes. Her glasses are a bright red, and she tends to squint out of them. Even though she'd rather wear sandals, a pair of sensible hiking boots [with flowers drawn on them] is always on her tiny feet. Her teeth are imprisoned by bright yellow braces that don't allow her to eat most of the foods that she likes.
Biography: Annie lives in a small apartment with her mother, her two younger brothers, and her baby sister. She is an over-achiever at school, but she often feels like she doesn't study as much as she should. To help with the bills, Annie got a job some time ago at the bowling alley down the street. There, she polishes the floor, organizes shoes, fixes the scoring machines, cleans the nacho dispenser, scrubs the bathrooms, rewires the faulty lighting, balances the speakers, and reads up on some books until 8 P.M. Then she goes home. Every Wednesday and Friday, after school, she drops off her laundry at the Laundromat where her mother works, and goes to her fencing class. At this point, she is an instructor more than a student, for she had surpassed her master in skill three years ago. Now, she simply attends for familiarity rather than learning, and always looks forward to being a tutor for those who couldn't grasp the skills they needed.
Posts: 3,283
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Location: Multiverse
Re: Petty Squabble [It's another Grand Battle] [Signups open!]
04-05-2011, 11:29 PM
Originally posted on MSPA by Jakester390.
Username: Jakester390
Name: Quantos Xodarap
Gender: Male
Race: Time Travelling Cyborg
Color: #33CC99
Time Travel:
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SpoilerAs stated in the race, Quantos has the ability to time travel, induced by the time travel apparatus in his arm. This power however is difficult to manifest and requires a bit of concentration to pull off. He can also slow down or speed up time of an object other than himself, effectively allowing himself to slow air to create spontanious shields, or speed up walls so they can passed through. Of course as any action in space-time has an equal reaction, this causes his time travel apparatus to heat up, and too much will cause it to explode.
Equipment/Abilities:
Staff that conceals a nano-moleculear slicing blade
Robotic Arm with Time traveling apparatus and laser cannon (low power).
Reduced effects from entropy (he damages and ages slower)
Description:
Mental:
Highly deductive and logical mind
He's seen a lot and is unfased by most abnormalities
Holds extremely strong to contracts
Physical:
Human in appearance other than his glowing green left eye and clearly metallic right arm, which crackles with electricity whenever he is preparing or using his time travel aparatus. Appears to be around 25, dark brown hair, his left eye is also green. Often wears a green labcoat withe a black shirt and jeans.
Biography: Back when Quantos was an average human, he had an insatisable desire to discover the secrets of time. Spending most of his time studying the effects and nature of time, Quantos realized that it would be possible to time travel using a modified PDA. Upon his first time entering the time stream, he met an aged time traveler wearing a gold watch. This man stated his name as Septom, and that he was nearing the end of his life. He stated several facts about time travel, which were:- There is only one time traveler at a time
- It is a time traveler's duty to protect the timestream from paradoxes
- Whenever a time traveler is about to die, they meet the next time traveler to inform them of these rules before passing on to the next life
Septom then asked if Quantos he would take up the mantle of the time traveler. Quantos agreed and Septom nodded solemnly intoning, "I am glad you have agreed, else the time stream would have passed your life to mine. Now I can finally rest in peace."
Septom dissolved into a cloud of dust and Quantos assumed his duty as the time traveller. On one of his missions to prevent a paradox, he lost his arm and eye, and had them replaced with cybernetic implants from the year 4013. He then installed his time travel apparatus in his arm, realizing that this would prevent anyone else from ever getting their hands on it.
Posts: 3,283
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Location: Multiverse
Re: Petty Squabble [It's another Grand Battle] [Signups open!]
04-06-2011, 01:35 AM
Originally posted on MSPA by gloomyMoron.
Username: pooplordZoosmell gloomyMoron
Name (as known by the character): Markus Waisehaus
Real Name: Markus von Stahlh
Posts: 2,172
Joined: Jul 2011
Pronouns: she/her!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Location: Imagine Cucumber
Re: Petty Squabble [It's another Grand Battle] [Signups open!]
04-06-2011, 08:38 PM
Originally posted on MSPA by Solaris.
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SpoilerUsername: Solaris
Name: Grace Knoll
Gender: Male
Race: Homo Sapien
Color: Let us go with nice, historical Black on Beige
Equipment/Abilities: Historian Thief partnered with an amateur sorcerer, a holy man, and an artifact specialist.
He has knowledge of the history of his world, from the birth of civilization to the more present times. This includes Holy Scriptures, constitutions, shipping records, strategies used by powerful leaders, secret passages, a bit of magic, all of the usual historical fare. In addition to this, there is a selection of items on hand “on loan” from a few “friends.” This includes two aptly named Chaos Dice, bringers of destruction to those who are on the other side of the roll, a ring of insight, able to bestow the user with knowledge of the powers of another, three uses of smoke pellets, used for obvious reasons, and finally a pistol that shoots cursed bullets, capable of inflicting a delayed death and nothing else. In addition to all these, is a otherwise normal human arm bone, stolen from the corpse of AFIAM THE INFAMOUS. He likes to bludgeon things with it. Beyond that, Grace has a rudimentary knowledge of runes and dead languages, and can recognize simple magic and artifacts, thanks to coaching from his peers. Finally, he was apparently blessed by a former member of the clergy, for all the good that will do him.
Description: Just a normal human in a trench coat, prepared to do whatever it takes to maintain the integrity of history intact. He has a nice clean cut of brown hair, fair skin, lanky, not too tall or short. He is quick and quiet as he has to be, careful with his hands and is always sure to clean up after what he does. His face usually holds a smile, both because of his truthful love for his profession and desire for better things, and to prevent others from prying into his darker secrets. A good liar, very good at making himself seem helpless when he needs to. He has a sense of justice, and would defend the innocent, but he knows when it is too late to do anything and when it is time to nip the bud.
Biography: Once in a time where he was more innocent, Grace Knoll was following his professor into a tomb of an ancient warlord. Grace followed intently with hopes of learning more about the various secrets that lie in the past. What he did not know was that his professor visited the tomb for more nefarious reasons.
As the pair descended deeper into the crypt, Grace found himself pinned to the wall by his professor.
"Listen Grace, you must be surprised. So trusting, so pure. I am sorry that I had to do this, but everyone needs to learn."
The professor shifted his foot a bit while Grace stayed there, paralyzed in fear.
"As you know many of these tombs are cursed, built by the finest architects of the time, they of course had magical help. Years ago I discovered this secret passage, but in order to open it, I needed a sacrifice. A human one."
The professor moved the terrified Grace on closer to the new passage, as he dragged him through, he exclaimed stories and stories of all of the horrors he had witnessed as a historian.By the time that the pair reached the bottom of the passage, Grace knew of all of the corruption in the historical world.
The two were in a new room, where only a single door with a rune that Knoll did not recognize stood. The professor ceased dragging his student and walked to the front of the door. From his corner, Grace desperately yelled.
"But why me? Why me if you thought I wasn't like that. That I wouldn't be like that? Why are you sacrificing me?"
The professor looked shocked at the accusation. He put down his head and moved to the door. He looked at his student and said, "You are a smart young lad, the past and future are in your hands. Hopefully, the secrets of this tomb will be more than enough to give you some standing, a jumpstart on the historical world."
He stands in front of the door and cuts himself. Suddenly a large flash of light goes off, as from that cut, goes all of the professors life force.
The door opens, revealing miscellaneous scrolls and priceless texts. Grace crawls to the professors body, only to find his clothes and a satchel as all that remains. Grace quickly takes the contents of the tomb in to his professor's satchel.
Years pass.
Grace has seen first hand the horrors described by his old professor. Lying and cheating as little as he could got him no where except in a position to be stepped on. He sought to seek the truth, but only found scum and villains, malevolents who only wished to abuse the gifts of the past. The forgery, lies, and just sickness of the world around him led Grace to hate the world around him. Learning all kinds of nasty tricks, he became a thief, saving the abused relics and retrieving them from the many evil and greedy monsters who held them. As he continued in his trade, he learned all about the ways to lie, and put on a facade of wicked helpfulness under a rightful saboteur's scowl. Then, one day, he met up with Daft Paul, a former holy man who had found two other similar individuals who wished to purify the world around them. However, once more Grace would find that sacrifices would have to be made for the cause, only this time, his life was in even more danger. But the fruits of the groups labor would never come, because he was whisked away by some grand being.
Voided for irl stuff.
Looking really forward for this.
Posts: 4,190
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Pronouns: ask
Location: Sunshine, Lollipops and Diabetes
Re: Petty Squabble [It's another Grand Battle] [Signups open!]
04-08-2011, 12:01 PM
Originally posted on MSPA by Agent1022.
Username: Agent1022
Name: Ashley Hayden
Gender: Confused
Race: Posthuman, Homo superior, genetically engineered human.
Color: Ashley, Ashley
Equipment/Abilities: Ashley was engineered to be a metamorph – a posthuman capable of manipulating one’s body to change one’s appearance as desired. However, due to circumstances detailed below, Ashley’s genetic advantage is severely limited in this manner. In addition to this, Ashley has somewhat enchanced stamina and healing factor, but lower than average strength due to the frequent changes the muscles must undergo when shapeshifting. Ashley also carries two knives for self-defense purposes on a belt slung over the shoulder, which also holds rations and ammunition for a gun long misplaced.
Description: Perhaps some explanation is in order: From a very young age, engineered superhumans begin their training in the very organization that produced their embryos and nurtured them: The Entente Posthuman Training Corps. Ashley was born male. But during his formative early years of cognitive development, he suffered enough stress under the military training that he eventually became a withdrawn child – he would only open up when returning from the ‘Academy’ to his foster home. He found a still, small voice in his mind, speaking back to him. Her name was Ashley, and she was everything he wasn’t – outgoing, personable, charismatic...
Ashley’s shifting is limited because of the stress he underwent as a child – essentially, there are only two forms they can take, excluding some minor details which still can shift as necessary, e.g. eye color. Through general agreement, one form is Ashley’s, the other… is Ashley’s. Shifting also conserves mass.
The first form, Ashley’s, is that of a young adult male, approximately twenty-two years old in appearance, even though he has been alive for at least thirty by now. He has a sullen, angular face which speaks of troubles beyond that of normal man, and often speaks softly, tending to mumble. He tends to listen to others, watching them as they pour out their troubles, learning, always learning. People are often uneasy when they see his eyes, which are ordinary hazel…sometimes. They often find themselves wondering whether they were blue or green or some other color a split second ago. He wears grey and black a lot, holding himself stiffly much of the time. You could know him for a year and never see him slouch. His hair would be jet black if he bothered to put conditioner in it. It’s usually dry and rests in impossible-to-comb tangles.
The other form, Ashley’s, is a college-age young adult female. People often wonder why they didn’t feel uneasy around her – surely no one should have that much vivaciousness? Personality aside, her body resembles what Ashley’s male one would have been, sans Y chromosome. Her chin is sharper than that of (technically) her brother, and so is her tongue, some would say. Her figure is willowy, curving where Ashley’s is straight, and not displeasing. She is very acutely aware of that fact. Despite her own ability to shift making such points moot, she still has a poor body image of herself, and it is usually the only thing that can dim the sunlight of her personality. She did date another posthuman at the Academy, but that ended due to Ashley’s objections. She prefers to dress in red and black and white, claiming that those are ‘her’ colors. Her hair is jet black, straight, conditioned and combed down to her mid-back. Her eyes commonly have red irises, but depend on her outfit. This is one girl who takes clothes seriously.
Biography: Years of therapy did nothing for Ashley or Ashley, and the Posthuman Corps soon conceded that there was likely nothing that they could do. So once he was old enough, they assigned him to Homo sapiens army forces on the assumption that a superhuman would be capable of excelling among inferiors – an assumption that was scientifically proved wrong as he often spent his time hiding from much stronger members of the armed corps who liked beating on those physically weaker than them. Ashley was definitely no fool, and not once since his conscription had he allowed Ashley to take her body – for obvious reasons. The sheer resentment and conflict generated by this was unimaginable; the skirmishes Ashley physically participated in never came close to the mental standoffs he would have against Ashley within his own cranium.
Though one battle would have come close, had both of them not disappeared without a trace as the troop loader prepared to land.
Posts: 970
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Pronouns: he/she/they
Location: Out of Sight, Out of Mind
Re: Petty Squabble [It's another Grand Battle] [Signups open!]
04-09-2011, 12:38 AM
Originally posted on MSPA by Not The Author.
Whelp, that's it! Registration is now closed. I'll give a bit of tomorrow for reserve...s to be filled, then make my selection and hopefully get this started with some modicum of expedience.
Knowing me, no.
-_-;
Posts: 970
Joined: Jul 2011
Pronouns: he/she/they
Location: Out of Sight, Out of Mind
Re: Petty Squabble [It's another Grand Battle] [REGISTRATION CLOSED]
04-12-2011, 01:39 AM
Originally posted on MSPA by Not The Author.
Placeholder post! Battle starts next page. What're you hanging around here for?
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