October 7, 2008 at 11:24 am (character-related, setting-related) (metaphysics, o fortuna)
In the O Fortuna-’verse, gods appear to be pretty killable; it just takes a lot more investment of time, as well as one of several mostly obscure artifacts to do so. In fact, doing so is probably the easiest way to become a god, as it doesn’t require all that mucking about with belief or being enough of a Heroic Mortal to get upgraded in the first place.
A lot of the metaphysics in that ‘verse is mostly borrowed and patched together from any mythology with which I am even slightly familiar, really. The thing about being dependent on belief is pretty common in postmodern fantasy, but the interplay between all of the actual god characters is common to almost any pantheon in mythology, although this being the KMV it’s often more intellectual.
Some more detail on Xanatov himself, as he’s one of the two god characters to really get a good amount of history/character development… Originally he was a strategist/intellectual of some description (who is never canonically named, but is basically a Distaff Counterpart of Helena without as much obfuscation). I’m not actually sure how he would have ascended, but I’m guessing from his character that he used the basic idea outlined in the first paragraph. He was then essentially forgotten, as the previous main cleric he had was rather overly dedicated to the secretive bit of his domain and anyone judged by said cleric to be ‘worthy’ eventually died out.
Quite a while later, during her initial appearance in the O Fortunaverse, Helena somehow came across a number of sources describing the history of this particular sect, and decided that he was her best option for taking levels in Cleric. A bit of social engineering later, and it was revived rather quickly…
Both Xanatov and Helena are definitely True Neutral, with tendencies every which way but Chaotic Evil as other alignments become useful for their own ends. Xanatov himself is almost apathetic, preferring to create plans for any contingency and almost never using them, largely because it takes active power for divine-class entities to take physical form in this universe.
September 14, 2008 at 11:44 pm (character-related) (it is a blackgaard canon thing, lol trevelyans (extends to AU versions), oh no gurps again?)
So the GURPS writeup of Blackgaard-Serena* basically has a bunch of general thievery/other criminalish skills (…yay for an ST 9 character with an intimidation rank of 16.) until SUDDENLY a number of points in random engineering/mechanic re: mecha.
Why do I find this so funny?
Am assuming Blackgaard canons are TL8 with TL9 minor bits and TL7 larger bits until corrected; also assuming srs canon characters default to 125-175pt, as it’s not all that realistic. Just moreso in comparison to casual canon. (Which I do not believe is particularly impressive.)
[* Mostly casual version. Srs canon version seems to break 150 points in terms of skills and be less stealth-balanced, as she's more of a hybrid with Julien. And also a less clueless Otacon apparently.]
weapon tallies
September 13, 2008 at 8:40 pm (character-related)
just to assure myself that I’m not being as unoriginal as a lot of science / fantasy authors, mostly.
Barehanded or gauntlet: Harker, Ethate, Darian … two of whom really haven’t appeared in anything yet hmm
Double-edged sword(s): Ignatius (dual-wield), Lunedi du Clare (magic knight-style), Laura
Single-edged sword(s): Tobias, Julien, Serena (dual-wield), Darian (secondary), Antinomy (also secondary)
Rapier: Markellos, Helena
Axe: Sarisa, Elias
Spear or polearm: Kain, Lowen (… sort of), Lancer/Colette, that’s it? what? I’d expect to have a lot more in this category
Staff: Mikkau/Michael
Knife (melee): Kyle (Mycroft), Alita, Miles (secondary)
Knife/etc. (thrown): Antinomy, Janelle
Guns: Alexander, Dale, Mikkau (secondary), Miles (tertiary), Helena (tertiary)
Tomes of Eldritch Lore: Kyle (Moriarty), Miles
Morph Weapon: Dale, alt-Alexander, Helena (secondary)
Mainly Elemental Powers: Lowen, Dylan Colver
Killsat: HELENA.
September 12, 2008 at 4:48 pm (character-related, setting-related) (90% of this multiverse is shoutouts, iris is behind everything ever apparently, oh central administration)
The Telos series of Artificial Humans were some of the first created in the Multiverse, before it became a ridiculously common trope. It originated as a project of the Central Administration to create a sort of mostly-artificial supersoldier; considering two of three are pyrokinetic, I’d say they had access to some sort of data on Dylan Colver available to copy. Originally it was developed in concert with the RH series, but after the Super Prototype proved implausible to copy in large numbers due to feasibility issues with calibration, materials, Lowen being an outlier compared to most armor drivers, etc., the Telos project was discontinued and the RH project scaled back significantly.
Three models of the Telos type exist, then; one was created in part using IRIS-level data (Ignatius) but proved ever-so-slightly impossible to control or monitor, and thus sort of exploded a considerable amount of the project and left, so they also decided to scale back. The second (Mona) removed the IRIS component, and the third (Molotov) removed the somewhat unstable pyrokinetic factor in favor of general enhancements to speed and combat strength. Ultimately, neither of these removals really helped the controllability all that much…
All three models of Telos are comparatively high-Constitution versus more normal psuedohumans. They also use a more copper-based artificial blood system, which mostly adds to clotting and is artifically modified to boost air circulation capacity; the downside of this is that it’s blue rather than red. (Ignatius has a visible sort of pale bluish-grey tone to his skin, not to mention his normal hair color, which was later adjusted in Mona/Molotov to look more typically human.)
The only real ‘tell’ apart from endurance is the different blood color; they’re still biological, although Molotov has some degree of cybernetic add-ons.
September 10, 2008 at 9:29 pm (character-related) (90% of this multiverse is shoutouts, i have read tvtw too much, if i were a better writer this wouldn't happen this often, kmvrpg mechanics, sigurd-future, spherian backstory arc)
I have no clue how to balance J. Costley-Donovan. In the Spherian Backstory Arc timeframe it was pretty possible to kill her, but in the present/Sigurd timeframe although she has low hit points if you just leave her alone long enough she’ll recover. And possibly have time to launch a Macross Throwing Knife Massacre at your retreating back, depending on how low you’ve gotten her health bar.
The only way to actually remove her as a threat permanently would probably be locking her in some sort of attack combination which would just continually damage her until she reached about -50x HP… that or damaging her multiple times in the heart (or other core segment, considering I wouldn’t be surprised if she was an Artificial Human of some sort) with gold or something*.
Admittedly this isn’t much of an issue when writing, and most stories don’t give her enough time to recover from something that traumatic, but it still bothers me**.
[* Wait, wrong weakness.
** Much like Lowen's ridiculous balance towards combat. But that's justifiable, if only on grounds of no fourth wall-type continuity reference...]
September 1, 2008 at 3:30 pm (character-related) (collected bio nonsense v2.0, i have read tvtw too much)
Also, considering that I won’t really post character bios here due to WALL OF TEXT: Lowen! More of a general personality/ability draft, considering he is from Sigeki of time paradoxes. On the other hand, I am inexplicably bad at describing character personalities, thus rendering this pointless! Yay.
a pronoun rundown
August 20, 2008 at 4:16 pm (character-related, fiction) (fangirl japanese liek whoa, i have read tvtw too much, nobody except me will care about this post, people in my brain shut up)
… so I came across some stuff regarding Japanese pronouns and their use in anime as a character tool (at least from the view of the TVTW hivemind). Naturally, I started devising uses for it in the KMV. Also naturally, said uses are completely useless as it’s in English seriously me get a hold on things.
Tobias uses ‘ware’, and most of the time Mikkau does too as a full-on adult (hero worship what). Julien generally uses ‘watashi’ but if she really wants to point out her Superiority will switch straight to ‘ore-sama’ with no provocation whatsoever despite its being seriously unfeminine; Serena doesn’t usually feel any need to prove her Superiority, apparently (although I am absolutely sure she believes in it). Sterling mostly sticks to ‘watashi’ as well, but would use ‘boku’ in a nonformal situation. (I firmly believe that Sterling considers everything a ‘formal situation’, though.) Laura, Miles, and Mona I’m not at all sure about.
Lowen tends towards ‘jibun’ (which is kind of odd, considering his characterization) but will use ‘ore’ if it seems like someone’s doubting him. (…I can’t help but think that he and Julien have somewhat similar personality issues.) Helena uses ‘boku’ in her Obfuscating Cloudcuckoolander personality and ‘watashi’ otherwise, but in discussing plans which involve her she refers to herself in the third person for various psychological reasons. Alexander and Dale mostly use ‘jibun’. Ignatius is unusual (and probably the most distinctive) in that he appears to try to avoid using non-reflexive pronouns for himself–in English, this translates as him either making it obvious from context or using constructions which replace ‘I’ with ‘myself’. Which in Japanese would probably mean he’d use ‘jibun’ too, which makes it probably lower-key strange (at least in a psuedo-anime) as opposed to how it renders in English.
James pluralizes every pronoun he ever uses for himself, because of his rather strange origin -> mindset -> general worldview. Typically he also uses ‘wareware’ but occasionally switches to ‘watashitachi’, which I am not at all sure is spelled correctly as I’ve only heard it.
In conclusion, I have a lot of semi-militaristic characters, Julien speaks in a nonfeminine way, and James is weird.
