Aberrant: Stepping from Eden - Stepping from Eden

[SkyLion]

"Senior" is the right word. Apollo is AT LEAST Q8.

Q 8 is a minimum of 4 taint, and given that Apollo has only one aberration IIRC (glowing eyes), this seems to me to be about right...

[Rorx]

Maybe, but I tend to think that Apollo is a 2nd Gen True and so from ABA gets :

"Increased Taint Resistance: Trues cannot gain Taint

from purchasing high Quantum, and automatically have the Taint

Resistance Merit (Aberrant Players Guide, p. 76). Trues use the

“Very Low Taint” rules on p. 68 of the Aberrant Players Guide,

as they can gain temporary Taint from Power Strain & Rapid

Recovery, but only in the most extreme cases (such as Power

Strain caused by maxing a Level 4 power several times in the

space of an hour)"

Which suggests that 2nd Gen (Trues at least) don't get the automatic Taint levels as they increase their Quantum

[Alistaire]

Actually Alistarie the Nihon know that noetic biotech and psion DNA has aspects of alien DNA in it, that is why one reason why they have banned noetic biotech from Nihon entirely and are relcutant to let Psions into the islands. Due to Nhon's retreat from the rest of the world relatively early in the conflict (with trustworthy non-Tainted Novas) they didn't lose the data that the rest of the world did. In fact from canon or semi-canon there are 3 places/areas that have the genome data Eden, Nihon, and the 'illega' biolabs in the Shan region.

Yah, I knew about those. But since the Nihonjin are keeping it secret (else the rest of the world would have it), and the Shan stuff is illegal, the rest of the world doesn't, which means by and large, the UN. I was just speculating about their reaction to this knowledge if/when it came out, to say nothing of Aeon. Can you see the hysteria now: psions as pawns of unknown alien race! Now in league with so-called "sane" aberrants from space! You know that at least someone's going to say it. ::sly

[Alex Green]

1. Fighting the Aberrants attacking Earthspace, and by extension Qinshui if the Qin are open to those negotiations.

2. Clean up the Blight zone

3. Assisst in clearing the Aberrants from Khantze La Gu, and their Taint from the land.

4. Help clear the Taint and toxic debris from Europe.

5. Share scientific/technical data lost in the Crash for data discovered since the Ultimatum (Partially done)

Can anyone else think of anything else Eden has to offer the rest of humanity?

Curing the various tainted diseases (and untainted diseases for that matter).

Q 8 is a minimum of 4 taint, and given that Apollo has only one aberration IIRC (glowing eyes), this seems to me to be about right...

One that we know about.

Maybe, but I tend to think that Apollo is a 2nd Gen True...

Ah, yeah. So he might be even higher than Q8. He might even be Q10 and just still have theme limiting him to fire powers (Q-Inferno counts).

[Heru]

Rorx,

I have said this before, just because I disagree with you in general doesn't mean I am not totally and willing and fine with doing it the way you want in game. Its not a hard thing for me to do it the way you want it done.

Well, you saw your presenting of the game as clear, I did not. Its done and over with. I now fully understand the way that your running the game. What the goals are, the plots the points and all that.

The background of my character does not need to change. He was a nova who erupted in a small town, helped the miners get out of the situation through elemental earth mastery. He then gained more and more power over the town. At some point he joined the Eden mission, packed up his belongs and most of the townspeople and moved to Eden. On Eden he worked to create the structures and stuff of the society using his control over stone. He also has a lot of influence and whatnot in the government. And so when the diplomacy team was established he said he wanted in on seeing what happened to earth. and thus the game begins.

And the only reason I wrote my experience was because you asked me in a previous post. So, because of the asking, I felt it fine to present the post. I would not have said anything otherwise as it doesn't matter. But you asked, I answered.

Finally, thanks for providing information on the nature of the game. Its appreciated to know what I will have to be doing as the game progresses. What the point of the game is and what the various goals are.

[SkyLion]

*cough*

[Forge]

Q 8 is a minimum of 4 taint, and given that Apollo has only one aberration IIRC (glowing eyes), this seems to me to be about right...

Maybe, but I tend to think that Apollo is a 2nd Gen True and so from ABA gets :

"Increased Taint Resistance: Trues cannot gain Taint

from purchasing high Quantum, and automatically have the Taint

Resistance Merit (Aberrant Players Guide, p. 76). Trues use the

“Very Low Taint” rules on p. 68 of the Aberrant Players Guide,

as they can gain temporary Taint from Power Strain & Rapid

Recovery, but only in the most extreme cases (such as Power

Strain caused by maxing a Level 4 power several times in the

space of an hour)"

Which suggests that 2nd Gen (Trues at least) don't get the automatic Taint levels as they increase their Quantum

I know this is somewhat after the point, and Rorx can do what Rorx wants, but in the back of Stellar Frontiers we get some stats for Apollo. Mind you, they are the quirky Trinity stats for a nova, but it should answer some points of contention.

He was born in London, 2002 as Colin Ingells and worked as an astronomer until "his powers manifested" in 2025. While I suppose its possible that he is 2nd gen, I find it highly unlikely.

It states that he has 7 Taint, but Trinity uses Taint instead of Psi for Aberrants which would I guess be their equivalent for Quantum as well, since he spends Taint points for effects.

Powers he has equivalents of: Photokinesis, Telekinesis and Pyrokinesis 5 and Telesthesia 4 that cost nothing to use.

Radiant conversion: matter into energy, any target 3 Taint/use.

Remote movement: 10 tons / Taint spent within sense range.

And not that anyone argued this, but he destroyed the Chromatics along with 3 other unnamed novas.

[Heritage]

This reminds me of a debate on the old WW Trinityverse forums about converting Aberrant Quantum to Trinity Taint, at least for the purpose of having psions detect them with Attunement; I think I remember prefering to average an Aberrant's Quantum score and permanent levels of taint to get the Trinity Taint Total (aka 3T). Other folks thought you should just add taint and Q, but that yields some insane numbers.

p.s. I just made up the terms 'Trinity Taint Total' and '3T', but I like 'em, and am therefore patenting them right now, so cough up some money, suckers! ::tongue

[metaphysician]

I'd favor 'averaging', as IIRC, non-taint monkey novas were harder to detect clearly by psions than the typical aberrant.

[Forge]

This reminds me of a debate on the old WW Trinityverse forums about converting Aberrant Quantum to Trinity Taint, at least for the purpose of having psions detect them with Attunement; I think I remember prefering to average an Aberrant's Quantum score and permanent levels of taint to get the Trinity Taint Total (aka 3T). Other folks thought you should just add taint and Q, but that yields some insane numbers.

p.s. I just made up the terms 'Trinity Taint Total' and '3T', but I like 'em, and am therefore patenting them right now, so cough up some money, suckers! ::tongue

So based on the average method, you can reverse the 3T, (check's in the mail) if you have Trinity stats and want the Aberrant equivalent, by process of logical elimination.

With Apollo's Taint stat of 7 from SF, assume that figure is an average of two numbers, the realistically possible outcomes would be:

Taint / Quantum

8 / 6

7 / 7

6 / 8

5 / 9

With my money being on the 7/7 or 6/8.

[Alex Green]

Or Taint 5 / Q 8 with rounding.

But I think we're *deep* into "ST must make up the NPC with stats he thinks are appropriate" territory.

[SkyLion]

Since he pays nothing for his powers I would guess Q7, mastery 1+RQC or Q8, Mastery 2. The latter would certainly make him "big" in comparison to the PCs...

Heh. When your Q6 PCs are "average" it's a scary uninverse!!!

[Alex Green]

Q6 isn't "average", Q6 is "high end".

But Apollo's game role is the same as Pax's or Mal's, i.e. he's a plot device designed to step on the PCs if they get too far out of line.

He can't do that without being *much* stronger than our highest, high end character. Ideally he'd be able to take on the entire team without too much trouble. Considering in Cannon he was able to destroy an entire fleet of hostile aliens with a wave of his hand, I'd say it wouldn't be a problem.

[Rorx]

Or Taint 5 / Q 8 with rounding.

But I think we're *deep* into "ST must make up the NPC with stats he thinks are appropriate" territory.

I'd go with T5/Q8 myself. ::biggrin

It may be ST territory, but I still like to see what you think of the subject. Personnally I'm more scratching my head about the other powers etc.

Sounds like TK + Mastery at least.

Photokinesis 5? Perhaps a EM:Light?

Telesthesia suggests to me; M-PER with a couple of enhancements, Intuition, ESP and similar?

Q.Bolt with Area, Mastery and others to wipe out Chromatic fleet?

[Alex Green]

Powers he has equivalents of: Photokinesis, Telekinesis and Pyrokinesis 5 and Telesthesia 4 that cost nothing to use.

5+ dots in Elemental Mastery: Fire/Light (extra: Extra Range) + Mastery x2.

His "storm" technique does 10 levels of damage per dot as an area effect thing, so call it 50 to 80 levels of damage. I'm pretty comfortable saying this rips through even star ship armor.

On top of that give him Mega-Perception 4 (Enhanced Vision) and he has the telescopic ability to zap things in space.

[Forge]

I agree with the thoughts on the psi-> quantum powers conversion, as far as the unique powers...

It says he used the Radiant Conversion to defend Karroo.

Pg 125 of SF, "Radiant Conversion: Milliken can convert anthing from a milligram to several tons of matter into pure electromagnetic energy. This process results in an enormous blast of light and heat. Milliken and three other novas destroyed the Chromatics fleet attacking Karroo by converting part of the ships into pure energy. Milliken can use this ability on any target he senses."

Disintegrate with Extended Range and Mastery

"Remote Movement: Milliken can move 10 tons for every Taint point expended. He can move this mass at any range he can sense."

Hmm, a seriously modified Teleport or Warp since he can't use it on himself, my best guess.

Affect Other

Cannot affect self

Extended Range etc

[metaphysician]

Sounds like the Disintegrate should have a Linked Q-Bolt ( Area ) attached to it, with limits such that the size of the Q-Bolt is based on the levels of Agg inflicted by the Disintegrate.

[Alex Green]

It says he used the Radiant Conversion to defend Karroo.

Pg 125 of SF, "Radiant Conversion: Milliken can convert anthing from a milligram to several tons of matter into pure electromagnetic energy. This process results in an enormous blast of light and heat. Milliken and three other novas destroyed the Chromatics fleet attacking Karroo by converting part of the ships into pure energy. Milliken can use this ability on any target he senses."

Converting matter to energy is a theme, but the effect certainly does sound like Q-Bolt or Disin. I'd go with Q-Bolt (or even EM's bolt) because it sounds like just a (very) big blast.

"Remote Movement: Milliken can move 10 tons for every Taint point expended. He can move this mass at any range he can sense."

Sounds like TK.

Powers he has equivalents of: Photokinesis, Telekinesis and Pyrokinesis 5 and Telesthesia 4 that cost nothing to use.

Telesthesia 4:

Probably Mega-Perception 4 (E-Vision) + Intuition.

In theory we could go with ESP but giving him high levels of telescopic vision is IMHO enough. Similarly an argument could be made for Pre-cognition but it doesn't seem to be strongly themed for him. Technically he doesn't need Intuition since with Mega-Perception 4 he's going to make an awareness roll against whoever is trying anything. Note that telescopic vision is almost necessary to use Mastery level powers.

Pyrokinesis 5:

Elemental Mastery: Heat/Fire. All 5 dots match up pretty well. I suppose we could call it Elemental Anima.

Photokinesis 5:

1 dot sounds like Increase/Decrease Light.

2 dots matches well with E-Vision

3 dots could be a forcefield or simply shield from EM.

4 dots is a laser bolt.

5 dots is a hologram. Shaping technique for EM:Light or that Holo power.

EM:Light would work well.

Telekinesis 5:

1 dots tow.

2 dots remote manip.

3 dots force barrier.

4 dots flight.

5 dots sling shot.

If we gave his EM power that technique from Gravity Manip that lets you TK things all of this looks pretty standard. He can already fly from EM:Fire (if we give him that).

Other requirements:

1) Ability to interact with baselines even though he has some aberrations.

I'd suggest 2+ dots of Mega-Chr and Mega-App. Actually considering what's he's done so far his Mega-Chr is probably higher. Mega-Wits (Lie Detector) would be useful.

2) Ability to push the players around. High attack and high soak.

3) Ability to survive in space. Mega-Stamina (Adapt + Hard body).

Pretty near everything he does could be done with...

6 dots in Elemental Mastery: Heat/Fire (extra: Extra Element: Light) + Mastery x2.

8 known techniques, Bolt (60d[60]), Storm ([60]), Shield (+60 soak), Imprison (fiery hands grab people), TK (fiery hands grab or whatever, see Gravity Manip), Flight (he's fast), Shaping (i.e. he can make Holograms), Increase/Decrease (Light).

The range on most of his powers is like 14,000k. If that's not enough for a space battle, then he could have the Extra: Extra Range instead and we could make this EM: Fire/Light.

He could and probably should have other things, Intuition, Mega-Perception 4, some mega-socials, more soak, some Strobe or Flash Defense, etc.

Of course I'm having one big power do everything, we could just as easily buy TK+Fine Manip (Firey hands) as a power. Hmm... that probably works better than what I have considering his TK would be pretty impressive if it had Mastery x2 on it... and EM:Fire doesn't really work well with TK.

[Forge]

Sounds like TK.

*slaps forehead* duh, I kept reading it as more of a transmassion thing instead of just TK.

[Rorx]

Hey guys good work.

Just a reminder that I'm still waiting on stats from Darklighter, Jackson, Heritage and Shade Sentinel, if they are still interested.

Please post 2 or 3 items into the Profiles topic each. These should be the characters true background as far as the other Pcs who have known them for years/decades know, what info you've given the UN, and anything provided for media release.

[SkyLion]

I would say PM Shade. He usually needs a kick in the pants to get him going...

[Alex Green]

Math Error in the above: Bolt's damage is 60[80] lethal or 90[80] bashing.

Misc: Sphere Technique would do 90d as an area of effect, nuke is usually thought of as 100d so maybe we should up his dots by one.

He pays *nothing* for his mastered techniques and one q for the unmastered.

EDIT: Whoops. "Remote Movement: Milliken can move 10 tons for every Taint point expended. He can move this mass at any range he can sense."

So the range on his TK is roughly the same as on his 'bolt's, so it *does* deserve to be inside his big power.

[Heritage]

Hey guys good work.

Just a reminder that I'm still waiting on stats from Darklighter, Jackson, Heritage and Shade Sentinel, if they are still interested.

Please post 2 or 3 items into the Profiles topic each. These should be the characters true background as far as the other Pcs who have known them for years/decades know, what info you've given the UN, and anything provided for media release.

Sorry I've been dragging my ass on this; I'm currently running two tabletop campaigns, plus working on my comic book (yeah, right) plus working two jobs, which has slowed my mental functions considerably. However, I have been doing research into my character's background, so I haven't been a complete slacker ::biggrin Look for sheet and background posts by the end of this weekend.

[Rorx]

No problem Heritage, I know what RL can be like, just a gentle prod was all.

[Alex Green]

He pays *nothing* for his mastered techniques and one q for the unmastered.

EDIT: Whoops. "Remote Movement: Milliken can move 10 tons for every Taint point expended. He can move this mass at any range he can sense."

So the range on his TK is roughly the same as on his 'bolt's, so it *does* deserve to be inside his big power.

Grumble. When I'm wrong I don't fool around.

TK+Mastery x2 means not only is his range pretty good, but he can toss around mountains (maybe even moons) and he pays no juice.

TK+Fine Control+Extra Range on the other hand has the right range, keeps him paying juice, and the mass is about right.

[metaphysician]

No fooling. A quick calc has TK + Mastery x2 being at a minimum able to toss around Phobos or Deimos like hand balls.

[SkyLion]

Yo Alex! I dug the interview bit! As always another top notch character...

Anyhoo...Rorx, would you consider setting a deadline for launch to motivate the slackers and get this show on the road? No offesnse intended toward anyone specific, but even by PbP standards this one has been gestating for a really long time...

[Rorx]

Ok, as of now I have sheets for Ares and Ricochet.

JC, Darklighter (DL) and Heritage have all posted some suggestions as to their characters and background but I have yet to see a sheet.

Heru and I have agreed that his character doesn't really fit in with this game, although I'm sure there will be games in the future which will be more appropriate for him.

BertJammin has had to drop out of playing a Psion, so that just leaves Alistaire, whose character Liam is done, and Forge, who is working on it as PC psion Escort/guides.

I have outlines for two other NPC psion Escorts

As for a deadline, one might be an idea, but I wouldn't want to lse anybody because of it. In addition I'm just starting a MSc course (lectures start Monday), so it's going to take a while to settle down again anyway. Practically it means if I do put a deadline on it, it would have to be say 1st Monday in October (about 2 weeks Monday) to give people to weekends when they might theoretically have more time to get to it.

[SkyLion]

The deadline isn't to kick people out. It's the deadline for the IC narrative to begin. People can still come in late to the party if they want!

Anyways, still waiting to see what DL has cooked up for the monastery...

[Heritage]

I'm almost done with my character sheet and background write-up, but I did have a question about Taint, since I seem to recall some discussion about the maximum amount of taint and/or aberrations we're allowed as ambassadors. Also Rorx, do you allow physical aberrations to be temporarily hidden by Shapeshift, or do they always manifest? I've seen STs go both ways on that one. Both issues will affect the final version of my character.

[SkyLion]

Taint 6 max. That's what I have (although I have like 8 aberrations. 5 of them were used for the tainted beauty idea, but I had to buy them as flaws.)

Regarding shapeshift: Since it allows you to duplicate the effects of appearance alteration, That enhancement states that it can cover up minor aberrations like hair color and such, but not any gross ones or things involving non physical manifestations. Some STs T have seen allow you to spend SS success on a 1-1 ratio to cancel aberrations. Other I have seen rule against it, similar to how Beast Boy is green so his creatures are always green. Either way that's why I didn't give any aberrations to Esteban. ::happy

[Heritage]

Working on a major chest cold, guys, so don't expect to see much until tomorrow, which I will probably take off from work.

[Heritage]

Ok, I've finished my character (barring last minute tweaks), so I just need to input it into the Excel sheet and email it to Rorx - look for it by the end of the day tomorrow, sir!

Background soon to follow!

[SkyLion]

What's her astrology H? ::laugh

[Heritage]

What's her astrology H? ::laugh

Aw, you remembered! ::tongue

Actually not sure yet, but thanks for the reminder! ::biggrin

[Heritage]

Cancer ::wink

[SkyLion]

Yeah but what about her Rising and Moon Signs though? And what about the North Node? For love and War, what are sighns are her Mars and Venus in??? ::biggrin

[Heritage]

Yeah but what about her Rising and Moon Signs though? And what about the North Node? For love and War, what are sighns are her Mars and Venus in??? ::biggrin

If I decide to be completely anal and do her whole chart, you will be the first to know ::tongue

I sent my sheet to Rorx, just the basic stats, still need to finish her background and the 'press friendly' version and get them up here.

[Alistaire]

Ok, I've missed something here... ::confused

[Heritage]

Ok, I've missed something here... ::confused

A few years ago when I was posting here more regularly, I let slip the fact that I usually pick what astrological sign my player characters and sometimes even NPCs are, to help me get into character. I'm not a major proponent of astrology who like checks his daily horoscope or anything, but I find it to be a useful roleplaying crutch. SkyLion is just teasing me about it ::wink