Rumpelstiltskin

"None of us choose our destiny. And none of us can defy it." ~ Artakha

~ Rumpelstiltskin

IC: (Loadstone)

Loadstone shifted his weight backwards, shielding himself from the ice needles with his magnaboard. He blasted electricity back toward Triple-Helix's crazy form, but she was gone by the time Skyra's wind currents parted the blizzard.

Where do they find these people? he thought to himself as his gaze swept the chamber, looking for the telltale blur. There! Epsilon was tackling her, but she made short work of him before shifting and launching an attack at Skyra. With a wave of his arm, Loadstone brought one of the inactive machines between Skrya and the fireball, absorbing the attack and giving the aerokinetic a chance to retaliate.

He scanned the room again, looking for anything that they could use to gain an advantage over the shapeshifting scientist. His eyes were drawn to the giant cylinder that Danielle was floating in, and more importantly the bubbling blue liquid within. Liquid that could be useful for quenching a pyromaniac, or tripping up someone with superhuman speed...

Loadstone began to formulate a plan, wishing that they hadn't been separated from Mystic so that he could coordinate it without alerting Triple-Helix. He sped around the room, hunting for Ultionis while magnetically hefting a machine and hurling it toward Triple-Helix. At least, in her direction; it was intended to fly over her shoulder and strike the cylinder, hopefully cracking it and causing the liquid to spill out onto her. If he could get Ultionis to Danielle, he'd have the supersoldier try to smuggle her out of harms way while the other Heroes held off eccentric Coalition member.

~ Rumpelstiltskin

IC: (Loadstone)

X-Calibur's yell alerted Loadstone to the fact that something was going on; subjecting one of the Quads to a voltage lethal to a human but probably only debilitating to the mutant, he scanned his surroundings. Triple-Helix was missing; he had a feeling she'd shifted form again. A slight tinkling in the air, a flash of light reflecting off of a crystalline substance, alerted him to the ice needles. A sense of normalcy descended upon him; his first months training with his powers had been against his brother. Cryokinesis was a power he felt comfortable facing.

Though he was far from a contortionist, Loadstone was far more limber and capable of bending himself than the average person - with the way he enjoyed all manner of convoluted flight patterns on his magnaboard, he often had to hold his body at strange angles to remain upright on the shifting piece of metal. The spray of needles was at chest level on him, approaching too fast to duck underneath them. Magnetically calling for his magnaboard, Loadstone bent himself backwards, keeping his feet planted and bending at the knees, arms back to catch himself on the floor should he lose his balance. The spray of needles flew over his chest, passing harmlessly through the space he had just occupied. Deciding to show off, he planted his hands on the floor, flipping himself backwards into a handstand as the magnaboard flew towards him. The metallic soles of his boots clicked onto the board as it passed, flipping over and righting the hero in mid-flight.

Loadstone crouched as he regained his balance, studying the room as he retreated to a safer height for a better vantage point. The blur that was Triple-Helix would have been indistinguishable to anyone without his enhanced sight; you were likely to miss her in a blink or imagine her some trick of the light, something seen only in the corner of your eye. He traced her around the room several times before determining her next path and magnetically tipped one of the nearby machines onto its side, obstructing her apparent path in what he hoped was too little time for her to see what he had done and change direction. With super speed, you could never be sure...

~ Rumpelstiltskin

OOC: *tumbleweed rolls by*

IC: (Loadstone)

The effort of siphoning air out of such a large space and keeping it out was exhausting, and Skyra wasn't sure how long he could hold onto the barrier. He tentatively shrank the vacuum, keeping it around Triple-Helix's general area but easing the stress on his mind.

With a muffled thwack, a man-sized hunk of metal hurtled into X-Calibur's Quad, causing it to stumble backwards away from the Hero. The magnaboard hovered back from the Quad, then slammed into it again. Loadstone, now at ground-level with the other combatants, caught X-Calibur's glance and nodded toward where his Energy Machete had fallen. Then he returned his attention to the Quads, assaulting X-Calibur's with the magnaboard and the one Skyra had been fighting with blasts of electricity that had it writhing on the floor with uncontrollable muscle spasms.

OOC: Hurray for defeating writer's block!

~ Rumpelstiltskin

IC: (Loadstone)

"Where's Jason when you need him?" Loadstone muttered angrily, zipping across the room toward where the others were fighting. "Yo, Skyra!" he called out. "I don't fancy being turned into barbecue! Trade-off!" A surge of electricity coupled with the floor buckling underneath the Quad that Skyra was fighting blasted the creature off its feet. "Fire needs oxygen, right? Make some vacuums or something!"

Nodding, Skyra turned his attention to Triple-Helix. His brow furrowed, and the Villainess' tornado of fire was suddenly sheared off as it encountered a void in the air with nothing for it to burn. That void pushed toward her, extinguishing the flames at it went...

~ Rumpelstiltskin

IC: (Loadstone)

With few options of dodging, Loadstone crouched against the magnaboard and flipped backwards, using the metal as a shield against the molten rain. The board absorbed the brunt of the attack, but seemed to "slip" slightly in midair, dropping downwards a foot or two as the heat lessened the effects of the magnetism holding it aloft.

As his counterattack, Loadstone tipped the magnaboard forward again - partially using his weight to move it - and let loose with a barrage of electric bolts hurled both at Triple-Helix and the area surrounding her.

~ Rumpelstiltskin

IC: (Loadstone)

"Oh sh..." was all Loadstone managed to say before yanking the magnaboard downwards, narrowly avoiding the fireball as it flew inches past his spiked hair. The moniker "Triple-Helix" suddenly took on a whole new meaning; did she have a third appearance/personality/ability? He sure didn't have any resistance to fire, at any rate.

He lashed out towards the dented machine she had attempted to throw at him earlier and magnetically heaved it sideways, the metal screeching along the floor as it moved.

~ Rumpelstiltskin

IC: (Loadstone)

As far as Loadstone understood his powers, the mutation he had suffered at the Solanum Corporation had rendered him completely immune to electricity. He'd done some experimenting in the aftermath of the invasion, and had come to the conclusion that he was now a walking generator; he could generate large quantities of bioelectricity and manipulate it via his magnetic fields, creating the illusion of electrokinesis. His body was capable now of withstanding extremely high voltages, and when he came in contact with exterior sources of electricity he either absorbed them or dissipated them, no conscious effort required. In other words, aimless bolts of electricity held no fear for him.

He was intrigued by what Triple-Helix had said about the new leaders, emphasis on the plural. As far as he knew, no one in the League had any intelligence on who had managed to revive the Coalition; with Midnight gone, the power vacuum could have sucked in any number of veteran Coalition members. If the Coalition had more than one leader, it would be even harder to bring down. Did the founders (sans Dr. Danger) join forces again to reunite the Coalition? They hadn't openly led the Coalition in a decade; Danger had become both the face and brain of the Coalition after the League had been founded. Or did a number of Villains decide to form some sort of council, brainstorming new schemes in a think tank and leading the Coalition by popular vote?

One of the blasts hit him in his pondering, and he was brought back to the present. His enhanced eyesight was useless with this smoke, and his hearing was still slightly impaired from earlier, so there was no chance of locating Triple-Helix the conventional way. Forming a ball of electricity in his hand, he lobbed it toward where he thought the source of the bolts was, given their random angles and various trajectories. Before it had gone a yard he began forming another one, this one aimed farther to the left, and then another to the right.

~ Rumpelstiltskin

IC: (Loadstone)

"Whoah," Loadstone muttered, eyes widening as Triple-Helix showed off her superstrength. He threw his arms out again, catching the machine with magnetic fields until it hovered motionless in midair. "Do you not see the floating metal surfboard?" he called through gritted teeth, yanking one hand back while pushing the other forward. The machine hurtled back toward the Villainess, spinning wildly as it did. "A for effort, though."

~ Rumpelstiltskin

OOC: *rofl*

IC: (Loadstone)

The sane reaction when a blast of electricity is hurtling toward you is to try to dodge it. Loadstone never budged.

The electricity hit him square in the chest, crackling across his shoulders and arms as his body naturally dissipated it. He sighed rather ostentatiously, then shook his head. "Like I said," Loadstone said in a disappointed voice, "pathetic." He threw his hand out toward Triple-Helix, much as she had just done to him, purple electricity crackling from his fingertips Emperor Palpatine-style. He was careful to aim toward the Villainess' feet; he didn't dare short out any of the equipment yet, not while Danielle was still attached to it. Hopefully he could drive Triple-Helix away from the machine and buy the others enough time to rescue the kid. He'd probably fare better against Triple-Helix than the others would with the Quads.

~ Rumpelstiltskin

OOC: I love the rationale of why the only PC left has to tackle her, Kumata.

IC: (Loadstone)

Loadstone puzzled the scenario for a moment, then nodded. "I can take her," he agreed, stepping silently onto his magnaboard and crouching. The surfboard-shaped panel rose into the air. "Keep those things off me, if you can." He propelled himself forward slowly and quietly along the ceiling, until he was in the perfect spot for a dramatic reveal.

Folding his arms and striking a nonchalant pose - weight firmly on one foot, arms folded, eyebrow raised - he began his descent, calling out in an authoritative voice. "Is this what the Coalition has been reduced to? Kidnapping little girls? What happened to the days of knocking the moon out of alignment, or attempts of mass-brainwashing? What I have seen within the past two days has been absolutely pathetic."

~ Rumpelstiltskin

Yeesh, I didn't mean to incite mass panic with that comment; I don't even think you could associate Dragonball with superheroes. That rule is in place so that you don't have two X-Men RPGs running at the same time, or two Pokemon RPGs, stuff like that. You wouldn't start a Dragonball RPG if one were already running, would you? Then you're not violating that concept.

As for player-stealing, that has nothing to do with the rules whatsoever, it's more of a personal standpoint of mine. Every running plot in TSTW! seemed to crash around the same time because players seemed to disappear, and a lot of the players in question appear to have taken up residence in X-Men, some with similar characters. That's not the X-Men RPG's fault, and I don't hold anything against the game or its staff - I attempted to run an X-Men RPG in the past, and I'm happy that universe is getting it's due. I blame the players themselves, particularly when I sent one of them a PM asking if they had any interest in returning to TSTW, and that individual didn't even bother to open the message, let alone reply saying they weren't interested anymore.

~ Rumpelstiltskin

My mistake - I thought it had started, but I scanned the forum and didn't see it. Apparently I wasn't looking closely enough, it's right there. *facepalm*

~ Rumpelstiltskin

X-Men's on a downward slide? TSTW! has five pages of gameplay from January 2013 to the present; X-Men had over three in the month of May alone - forgive me if I'm not sympathetic. X-Men's doing perfectly fine, and there's another SuperHero RPG on the way. In my experience people always favor the shiny new RPG to the older established ones, for that exact reason - "it's established, it should do fine without me." Fact of the matter is, we've never been able to hold people's interest; people have been doing that for the entire life of TSTW!, and it's suffering for it.

Ymper - I didn't say you were godmodding; I was saying that you were adamant that the attack should have been godmodding, and are still clearly upset that it wasn't. I meant that it can be considered godmodding in this new RPG...I'm not known for wording things greatly. I was essentially agreeing with you. The only problem I had with that scenario is that I think you need to give a little leeway to people who don't legitimately understand the finery of science in those scenarios, and fault them for writing it off - take if up with the godmodder, not the one who was defending against it.

~ Rumpelstiltskin

And, the people who do feel like doing that sort of thing will have to deal with the actual physics of the rest of the world - if someone throws a frag grenade or three in a tunnel, there will be no superhero RPG handwave to save them from the chunky salsa effect.

Wow, you're still gonna hold that against me, aren't you, Ymper? That's fine; you can have your scientifically-correct one-hit godmodding in SuperVillains: The Game. Personally, I'd like not to lose a whole bunch of PCs over an attack clearly not intended to wipe them out, thrown with clearly less scientific understanding of the scenario than yours.

Ultimately, Humva, I don't think there's room enough in BZP for four superpower RPGs. True, it has a different vibe from TSTW! and the other two, but I was a bit disgruntled when X-Men was approved, as 75% of our lost player base mysteriously turned up over there instead. I mean, we have one player who posts regularly, out of the eight who can still be counted as somewhat active. You can argue the technicalities if you want, but the fact of the matter is you're still inadvertently nailing shut TSTW!'s coffin. I seem to recall the standard was one RPG per topic/subject, and we've already had two RPGs weasel around the fact that TSTW! is (the) superhero RPG because it's generic, and it's now in it's death throes. I hardly think it's right to make another RPG about superpowers, regardless of whether or not Heroes are involved.

However, I'm not entirely sure how much I'm allowed to say *glances at TPTI* but if you want to go through with this RPG, hold off for about a month. I know we have something in the works that ought to give you more breathing room here.

~ Rumpelstiltskin

IC: (Loadstone)

Loadstone rolled his shoulders, limbering up for the fight to come. His ears were still ringing slightly from earlier, so it took him a moment to follow the conversation - his initial understanding was something about Jack being prepared, Danielle Thomas holding someone captive, fighting ASAP, the Coalition in the corner as a hostage, and a person who was a machine that needed to be destroyed. He processed that for a minute, added in a few missing words, and it made much more sense.

"I've got dibs if it's a machine," he added casually. "Also, if anybody plans on throwing something that might catch one of us in the crossfire, now would be a good time to make it known." The hint was certainly meant for X-Calibur, though he it encompassed Ultionis as well.

~ Rumpelstiltskin

Gckgh! Trying to keep up with several threads on different forums is great until you have to leave your computer.

Since I'm dropping the ball all over the place, here:

Potterworld RPG - I suppot MMM's witch-hunting standpoint. Muggles have been so utterly trashed by the wizarding world that a group comprised of people who have been screwed over by them is an awesome idea. The leader of that group should have a prosthetic limb or an eyepatch, in a non-Mad-Eye-Moody way, of course.

Monster Hunter RPG - I do see your dilemma, Advent; give players an open world and characters can scatter to the four winds and never see each other again, but in a world so vast having all the characters come together in one location is a bit...odd. Not entirely sure how to go about fixing that, but I think you should definitely include at least some basic form of plot. Something for players to build off of - some sort of conflict or strife, be it growing tensions between two kingdoms or hordes of monsters attacking a certain area, or even some artifact for them to quest over. Just a general direction to aim players before they head off into the frontier.

Twisted Basilisk RPG - Instead of uber Tolkien elves, why not take the creatures back to their Germanic roots, where they were tiny little imps who helped shoemakers? Like Harry Potter's house elves, but more wild and sinister. Ooh, in that vein, make them little humanoid critters like that, but in the same vein as a monkey. Magical little woodland vermin who'll turn your hair colors and cackle maniacally. That'd be kind of fun, actually.

~ Rumpelstiltskin

OOC: Feel free to finish him off in your next IC and we can get the finale of this plot underway.

OOC: ~Hallelujah~

IC: (Loadstone)

Loadstone crumpled like a rag doll, writhing on the ground with his hands on his ears. With his sensitive hearing, the sound echoing off the walls felt like someone was driving metal stakes through his brain. Skyra nearly attempted his vacuum-around-the-head maneuver, but decided against it as it would block the sound from reaching Dragonfly and they would lose their only advantage. Seeing Loadstone's agony, he opted to block his hearing instead, allowing the electromagnetic Hero to relax slightly, though he still looked pained and now couldn't breathe.

In the end it was Ultionis, who had adjusted his mask's audio receptors to block out the trill, who made the move. Calmly reloading one of his pistols, he stepped forward, took aim at the Villain's neck, and fired. Dragonfly toppled over, eyes fluttering closed.

Oblivious to the others, the supersoldier walked over and tugged the tranquilizer dart from the Villain's carotid artery. He was down for the count - by the time he woke up, he'd be facing justice in a League Penitentiary miles away...assuming that the Heroes managed to escape this mine shaft, anyway. And if they did, that they'd be able to cart the comatose Coalition members with them...those weren't things to be taken for granted, after all.

~ Rumpelstiltskin

Fear not, there will be a map to go along with that intimidating list of locations. Keeping my fingers crossed that I can have it done before the RPG gets cleared for active duty.

~ Rumpelstiltskin

OOC: The Writer retired on April 25th, Kumata. Won't be getting any help from there.

IC: (Loadstone)

Loadstone had considered the same plan X-Calibur had, and the words were barely out of the Hero's mouth before Loadstone flung his arms down and inward. The electric field snapped like broken elastic, converging into a ball around the incoming missile. About halfway between Dragonfly and the group of Heroes, the missile exploded.

The Heroes cringed, even though the explosion billowed around a dome of whirling air that prevented it from touching them. As the smoke cleared, the winds died down and they had their first glimpse of the aftermath...

~ Rumpelstiltskin

OOC: Blast it! I feel like I've got TSTW! coming out my ears, and I still haven't managed to post in two weeks.

IC: (Loadstone)

The hall was bathed in a whitish-yellow glow. Loadstone halted the field just over everyone's heads, keeping Dragonfly grounded and forcing the Sharkmen to stoop or have their heads electrocuted. Having essentially robbed the Villains of their advantages, Loadstone held the field and nodded for the other Heroes to work their magic.

A volley of concentrated blasts of air assailed the Sharkmen closing in on X-Calibur, knocking several of them off their feet and sending them flying toward Dragonfly. Ultionis targeted the Sharkmen who remained standing, using his precise marksmanship to target the creatures' dull eyes.

OOC: I figure that we've got these playerless PCs hanging around, we might as well convert them to NPCs so we can keep going. At this point, H-D will be back when he gets back, and I get the feeling Snelly isn't coming back at all, as he hasn't even read the PM I sent him...It gives us a little more RPing freedom than sticking with our two characters and waiting for interaction.

~ Rumpelstiltskin

A magical Interpol sounds like a pretty cool idea, actually. I'm not sure I completely like the idea of wizards being found out, though - I think it's pretty clear in the books that they have all kinds of spells and charms preventing Muggles from finding them. And if they do, that's when you break out the memory charms and all's right with the world. I think that's part of the series' charm - all this is going on, and we're completely oblivious to it. If you make Muggles aware of it, not only is it a huge betrayal of the story's concept, you're also making it like any other magic or even superhero RPG we've had bouncing around in here: Magic users are distrusted, bunch of laws regulating them, yadda yadda. Or magic's the new technology, and everyone wants in. There's nothing special about it anymore.

Not to mention, you'd be exposing one heck of a big universe. I mean, I think it was pretty heavily hinted at in the books that all those missing house numbers when you drive down the street are wizard addresses. Wrap your minds around that.

EDIT: Not trying to shoot down concepts, though. Conspiracy theorists and witch hunters are fantastic ideas.

~ Rumpelstiltskin

JiMing: It has absolutely nothing to do with you whatsoever - your perceived lack of experience least of all. From what I can tell, everybody here is absorbed in making their own RPG, and quite a number of people seem to want to help you. They just can't because they don't know a thing about Dragonball Z. Heck, I don't even know what Dragonball is, nor do I care. The lack of help you're getting is called a lack of RPing interest, and it is anything but personal. If someone else were to propose a Dragonball RPG, they wouldn't be getting any help either. The sooner you come to terms with that, the happier you'll be.

Basilisk: In regards to the post above, not all humans view things the same; why should any of Lovecraft's races (in this instance, the Mi-Go) be so one-dimensional that each individual has to believe and do things the same way? So what if there's a little diversity in interests?

In response to the Harry Potter RPG idea I completely forgot to respond to: Well, I honestly could never imagine an RPG set at Hogwarts working. I mean, for the movie and books, that's one thing. But really, we've seen pretty much all it has to offer, we sort of went there with Harry, in a way. None of us want to RP about going to school, even if that school is Hogwarts. A workable RPG would have to be set in the adult world of HP. I'd take playing as an Auror over playing as a student any day.

While I have no intentions of running an RPG, I'm just tossing out ideas for anyone else who might. I think that, given the dates of Harry Potter are firmly established - Deathly Hallows was in 1997 - we could get away with a modern setting, well after the books. And why on Earth stick to just England? Voldemort may have had the British Isles under his thumb for a time, but his influence barely extended into continental Europe. What were/are American wizards doing? How about the Chinese? Or South Africans? There's an entire world of witchcraft and wizardry, with room for dozens of Dark Wizards that, while they may not match Voldemort in terms of immortality or followings, certainly open up infinite possibilities for an RPG.

~ Rumpelstiltskin

For those of you still having a little bit of a hard time understanding the map physics of Multiversal Collision, here's a basic map concept explaining travel between the four worlds. The edges of each square are color-coded (Red=North, Green=South, Blue=East, Yellow=West) so that it's easier to understand walking south into the northern portion of the next world, etc. Each square is also color-coded, and the text is flipped in the proper orientation.

Technically this is just to explain the concept; the worlds may very well be flipped or reversed, etc. Nothing official, in other words, just a basic aide.

~ Rumpelstiltskin

Oh, I never said I was sane. I mean, my whole BZP persona is based around a man who calls everyone "dearie" and punctuates his sentences with high-pitched giggles. You're just not my kind of crazy, dearie.

I'm tempted to make my own world for MC, but I think I'm going to let the game progress for a little while before I try. See what everyone else is doing, how the game is progressing, that sort of thing.

~ Rumpelstiltskin