Now I feel even worse. The spells were justly-earned loot from Butcher and the staff was a giiiiift(?), but these are loans! Heroes aren't supposed to steal from civilians... Hopefully we'll return the undamaged talismans off before the final jump home. I absolutely love the way you treated these characters. I'm sad we didn't get to see Jackie acting adorably awkward. On the bright side our heroine got a few valuable lessons about magic that'll leave her wiser for the Jumps ahead.
Questions for the lovely, overworked author: is our costume repaired? Are we in a patient's gown? Do we have our staff?
Looking back at page one: did Ochako start using her E-grade pocket for this stuff? According to the Tower of God wiki it can "store objects." Does she even know she has the pocket on her person or is it in hidden mode?
Next Jump! So we have two manga/anime, one webtoon, one video game, and now one western cartoon. What qualities could make the next one stand out: genre (science fiction?), Ochako's familiarity (or biases), how well the setting's logic meshes with actual people, who we could meet, will there be any other jumpers, will Kurogiri/Black Fog wake up, and will there be any crossovers? I'm talking about fused settings.
Now! More important than the next world: let's buy some merits! I apologize if my suggestion is "too meta" for this story. I think it will still be useful after Arc One, which was described as "rapid jumps leaving in less than three updates."
[x] 3xp Focused Feet (Minor): Adds one die to Speed checks to approach or avoid the Kurogiri portal.
If we have business to take care of, then we can try to dodge it using our poor speed. Sometimes that'll let us grab an extra X or do an important task. Other times we'll be able to get out of hot water a little easier. Fewer repeats of Tower of God. Obviously we must be aware of the portal's location and behavior in order to make this check.
[x] 6xp Sherlock Scan (Major): Adds one die to Intelligence when searching the environment.
From a moment in battle to a search in the largest library: you can find the smartest tool for the job at hand. Villain using lasers? You'll figure out the barber shop will have a mirror (that you can use your power on to reflect attacks). You will know sensible hiding spots when scent-based predators are active nearby. You will know the safest spot to organize people during an earthquake. Obviously the attack reflection would still require a Technique roll, there's still a risk of predators finding us, and who knows what traps lie within the unknown landscape. We won't have the right tools on hand, but Ochako will prove resourceful until the last speck of dust has been thrown at Goliaths.
Everyone else please suggest your own Merit ideas. The theme I suggest for naming merits are tropes from TvTropes. The rules for Merits and rolls are on the first page.
Questions for the lovely, overworked author: is our costume repaired? Are we in a patient's gown? Do we have our staff?
Looking back at page one: did Ochako start using her E-grade pocket for this stuff? According to the Tower of God wiki it can "store objects." Does she even know she has the pocket on her person or is it in hidden mode?
Your costume is not repaired, but you do have a new black Bavarian T-shirt beneath your costume that doesn't quite mesh seamlessly with your costume, but does hide your wound and takes some looking to figure out is even there. Your staff is currently in its key shape (basically a keychain charm). The pocket has been spotted intermittently rotating around her head for the past few updates because I kept remembering and forgetting it was there, so now it's in hidden mode so we can all conveniently remember it only when necessary.
Since I didn't know a pocket could store objects, Ochako doesn't either.
Your costume is not repaired, but you do have a new black Bavarian T-shirt beneath your costume that doesn't quite mesh seamlessly with your costume, but does hide your wound and takes some looking to figure out is even there. Your staff is currently in its key shape (basically a keychain charm). The pocket has been spotted intermittently rotating around her head for the past few updates because I kept remembering and forgetting it was there, so now it's in hidden mode so we can all conveniently remember it only when necessary.
Since I didn't know a pocket could store objects, Ochako doesn't either.
Maybe that's mostly a feature of higher grade pockets. So right now it can serve as a universal translator, communicator, method to contract bosses/guardians, and a way to store currency. Plus the invisible mode.
I understand if you want to withhold opinions about the merits, but did I format them correctly? Is this the kind of participation you want from us?
Maybe that's mostly a feature of higher grade pockets. So right now it can serve as a universal translator, communicator, method to contract bosses/guardians, and a way to store currency. Plus the invisible mode.
I understand if you want to withhold opinions about the merits, but did I format them correctly? Is this the kind of participation you want from us?
"Well, yes, we could," Uncle said, sounding rather put out that Ochako had discovered this flaw to his argument, like a crotchety grandpa responding to a child pointing out that you could very well take your hearing aids out if the music bothered you so much, "but... it's probably best if we didn't. Only magic can be used to defeat magic, but really, magic shouldn't be used in the first place. There will be no end to it if we started using magic to fix everything."
I am surprisingly tempted to write an Exalted/Discworld crossover where it's mostly Granny, the light of the sun shining off her brow, big ol' stomping boots on her feet going: "I can't be having with this," all over Creation and Nanny right next to her enjoying her lunar exaltation in a way that would make Questionable Questing blush - or would if it weren't for Granny grabbing her by the ear and going: "Honestly, Nanny at your age."
"But I feel sixteen again! And I look thirty! Best of all worlds, far as I'm concerned."
"Respect yourself, woman."
"Respect yourself, Granny. Why I daresay you don't look a day over fifty. You could have your adventurous - wossname - girlhood all over again."
"You take that back Gytha Ogg! I earned every wrinkle on this face!"
"Yes, but do they know that?"
Granny's Motivation: Kick The Unconquered Sun in the unmentionables.
You have to go with the typical Discworld joke. Grannies Motivation: "Kick the Unconquered Sun in The Place The Sun Does Not Shine" "...you're going to drag him all the way back to Lancre? Fancy that" Nanny mused happily.
Hmm, somewhere where they have a awesome healer...
Worm has panacea,
Sailormoon has sailormoon,
Disney rapunzel, before she cuts her hair.
Maybe naruto tsunade if we don't care about the risk of orochimaru discovering the dog talisman.
Hmm, somewhere where they have a awesome healer...
Worm has panacea,
Sailormoon has sailormoon,
Disney rapunzel, before she cuts her hair.
Maybe naruto tsunade if we don't care about the risk of orochimaru discovering the dog talisman.
Warehouse 13 and xiaolin showdown would be good for power artifacts while suikoden runes would be good for magic. We can also try lengend of mana for enchanted instruments and elemental spirits
[x] Keep Dog Talisman Activated
[X] [world] Mistborn
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World 5: Mistborn (Luthadel)
'The Ruin'
-----
-----
"-aaaaaarn," Ochako said.
But she was already elsewhere. Uncle, Jade, Jackie were gone. In their place, wind, sharp, stinging and thick buffeted her face. Almost immediately, she began to cough, eyes forced closed, beginning to puff. She put a hand around her mouth - began to float, oops - coughed hoarsely and canceled her quirk, dropping back down on a sloping, metallic surface. What on earth...?
Her eyes stung as she opened them.
Ash fell from a blackened sky, whipped around by the wind. A lurid, orange sun sank towards the horizon, piercing the gloom of the dark clouds above. She stood on a domed roof.
It was like looking at a dying world.
In front of her, a steel edifice, built like videogame's final boss' idea of a citadel, rose from the ground, towering, soaring, scary. Whatever its original color, it had been blackened by ash, and now, backlit by the sun, it glowed menacingly around the edges, like a weapon of molten iron just before it cooled. Spiky turrets and towers surrounded one large central building that seemed to be hewn of one simple, if incredibly large block of metal.
Just looking at it made Ochako feel a little numb inside.
She grasped the dog talisman, rubbing it between her fingers before clipping the horse next to it.
Environmental Penalty: The air of Scadrial is incredibly polluted due to the Ashmounts. Unmodified humans take 1 level Bashing Damage per minute spent here, up to a maximum of five, and 1 level per round of heavy physical exertion. After a week of exposure, normal humans lose a permanent HL, after all HLs are lost, the humans dies.
They didn't both work, not both at once, she'd known that instinctively, so she had to choose which one to leave 'on'. The horse might mitigate the effects of the ash, letting her breathe normally, but the dog conferred immortality, right? So the ash was just... an annoyance. Pain. This place seemed dangerous. She had to be prepared for the possibility that someone would try to hit her with a bazooka or dragon or something. This place had that kind of look to it.
"A new tactic, Ruin."
Ochako pivoted on one foot, suppressing a scream. How were people sneaking up on her all the time?
Behind her, a man stood on the top of a nearby turret, his gaze studiously elsewhere. Ochako's first impression of him was... tiredness. Incredible, overwhelming tiredness. He was broad of shoulder and long of limb and stood easily upon the comparatively small metal roof, balancing upon it negligently, but despite his appearance of vitality and strength, you could tell he wasn't doing well. His clothes were fresh, his face well-groomed, but his eyes were... like...
Well, sort of like Todoroki at his moodiest. Now that she thought about it, the parallel was striking. The two were even built along similar lines: dark, handsome, brooding.
"Are you okay, sir?" she asked quietly.
He looked up at her, and Ochako felt the stirring of alarm in her gut. Then, without warning, the weight of the world descended upon her, an anvil forged of pure apathy. Her knees buckled and she fell, staring down at the roof. Her thoughts were fog and mist and a blank, pitiless absence. She couldn't care, and then she realized she couldn't care that she couldn't care.
He didn't seem to notice.
"You ask me if I am okay. You ask me if I am okay. I am their god, and behold my might! Behold what wonders I have wrought! Behold, Ruin, what you have made me do. All of them still live because of my actions. And still they come, these wretched skaa, still they ask me to slaughter them by the hundreds, by the thousands. When will it all just end. When will they finally listen?"
The pressure let up.
Ochako gasped, crying, choking on ash, on her tears, on her suddenly restored emotions. It was the sweetest, most painful thing she could imagine.
"Begone," he said, without looking at her. "Begone, Ruin, with this mummer's farce, and leave me to my work. It is very nearly done. You... are very nearly done."
----
[x] Leave. Right now. This man is too dangerous.
[x] Stay. Convince him that you're not Ruin.
[x] Warp. Try to use Kurogiri's card and get as far as you can from here.
-[x] write-in at least three worlds. QM will collect the complete list, assign a number to each and roll to see which one you land in.
QM Note: Scadrial's a tough place! I'm making this slightly AU in that if you can become buddies with the Lord Ruler, he can reward you handsomely, whereas getting involved with the canon crew will involve different rewards.
[x] Stay. Convince him that you're not Ruin.
-[X] "I'm not ruin. I don't ruin anything, or at least I've tried my hardest not to so far in my life and I don't plan to either. My name is Ochiko Uraraka and I'm a superhero in training. My job is to help people and, no offense sir but this world seems like it needs a lot of help. What happened here to make things so horrible?"
I can remember very little about Mistborn. Tell me if this might work.
[x] Stay. Convince him that you're not Ruin.
-[X] "I'm not ruin. I don't ruin anything, or at least I've tried my hardest not to so far in my life and I don't plan to either. My name is Ochiko Uraraka and I'm a superhero in training. My job is to help people and, no offense sir but this world seems like it needs a lot of help. What happened here to make things so horrible?"
[x] Warp. Try to use Kurogiri's card and get as far as you can from here.
-[x] Roshar of The Stormlight Archive.
-[x] Tabletop/rpg setting
-[x] Hyrule, The Great Plateau, circa Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
I haven't read Mistborn. This seems out of our league. We should survive this, but I'm worried about the mental manipulation powers here. Let's go somewhere else in Sanderson's cosmere like Roshar. I'm also interested in getting in another fight for loot. Saving Jade was heroic, but I want to get more experience with exotic foes before arc one ends. Later on we might try making a party and a base.
Second choice is a world like Numenera, Shadowrun, Savage World, and the World of Warcraft RPG, etc. I want Ochako to feel a bit of wonder and amazement at the environments from these worlds (Numenera and WoW). In addition with the right kind of magic or dimension-analyzing tech (Numenera, Shadowrun, other rpgs) we could learn about what's happening to us. Maybe get a clue for what we need to do to go to locked worlds.
My third choice is any version of Hyrule. This version/time period was suggested by people on an earlier page. Of course going to Hyrule means one thing: we're going to the Smash Bros world of Brawl! I was wondering how we'd get to a crossover/fusion world and now we have it. First Hyrule, then Smash Bros.
[X] Warp. Try to use Kurogiri's card and get as far as you can from here.
-[X] Mahora Academy (Mahou Sensei Negima)
-[X] Skyrim (The Elder Scrolls V)
-[X] The Castle of Lions (Voltron 2016)
[x] Stay. Convince him that you're not Ruin.
-[X] "I'm not ruin. I don't ruin anything, or at least I've tried my hardest not to so far in my life and I don't plan to either. My name is Ochiko Uraraka and I'm a superhero in training. My job is to help people and, no offense sir but this world seems like it needs a lot of help. What happened here to make things so horrible?"
[x] Stay. Convince him that you're not Ruin.
-[X] "I'm not ruin. I don't ruin anything, or at least I've tried my hardest not to so far in my life and I don't plan to either. My name is Ochiko Uraraka and I'm a superhero in training. My job is to help people and, no offense sir but this world seems like it needs a lot of help. What happened here to make things so horrible?"
List of Possible Worlds
Here's a tentative list of places you can choose. The difference between low effort and medium effort is negligible so don't worry overly much about it. Max effort places I'd avoid though, either they're too complex to keep all the parts working or I've tried to read them and failed.
Low-to-Zero Effort
1984
Adventure Time (I'm not caught up, but if you need me to watch an ep I will)
Agatha Christie
Animal Farm
Animorphs
Asura's Wrath
Ava's Demon
Bleach
Brooklyn Nine-Nine
Bob's Burgers
Butcher (Codex Alera or Dresdenfiles)
Cherryh (Foreigner series)
CIAPHAS CAIN HERO OF THE IMPERIUM
Code Geass (season 1 and 2. Also Nunnally of the Nightmare)
Craft Sequence (by Max Gladstone)
Cucumber's Quest
Deadpool (movie)
Diablo (1 and 2)
Discworld (any book)
Disgaea (1st game)
Disney (a lot)
Dragonlance (original trilogy)
The DUFF
Dungeon Keeper (notable fanfic: Dungeon Keeper Ami)
Dungeons and Dragons (notably, Order of the Stick, Planescape Torment and Pathfinder's Wrath of the Righteous. If you've heard of Peldor.com I once read most of that thing too)
El Goonish Shive (stopped reading a few years back though)
Erfworld
Exalted (notable quest: Ebeli Quest)
Fast and the Furious 8 (haven't seen any of the others)
Final Fantasy (VI, VII, X, XIII)
The Forever War (by Joe Haldeman) Forge of Destiny (a xianxia quest by yrsillar)
Frozen
Fullmetal Alchemist
Gaiman (American Gods, Coraline, Neverwhere, The Graveyard Book, Good Omens, Stardust (movie))
Goblin's Comic (including the donation comics)
Gundam SEED (the other gundams are a lot shakier)
Gundam Iron Blooded Orphans (1st Season)
Gunnerkrigg Court
Halo (basically anything pre-Halo 3, game or novel or short movie)
Hardy Boys
Harry Potter (notable fanfics: the Natural 20, the best revenge, Hogwarts Houses Divided)
Hawaii Five o
Hellsing
Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Hobb (Assassin, Liveship, etc.)
Homestuck (notable fanfics or fanworks:
Hunger Games
The Incredibles
Kill Six Billion Demons
Kingdom Hearts
Kubo and the Two Strings
Legion (series)
Logan (I can't say I remember the other X-men movies, but I just watched this one and it's fresh)
Lord of the Rings
Lucifer (TV Show)
Magi
Mahou Sensei Negima (also Love Hina and UQ Holder, though fair warning, I'm so not here for the fanservice that I actually found it too difficult to continue reading UQ Holder despite Love Hina being literally the first manga I ever read back when I was like 14 or so)
Manly Guys Doing Manly Things (webcomic)
Marvel
MCU (TV series and movies)
Mean Girls
Megaman Zero and Battle Network
Megamind
Moana
My Hero Academia (duh)
Naruto
One Punch Man
Orphan Black
Overlord (light novel)
Pacific Rim
Paranatural (webcomic)
Persona 4
Person of Interest
Pokemon
Pride and Prejudice
Prototype
Puella Madoka Magica
Rick and Morty
ReBoot (TV Show)
RWBY (haven't watched fourth season yet though)
Sanderson (anything)
Salvatore (Icewind Dale, Dark Elf Trilogy - I read a lot of Drizzt books when I was a kid ok)
Sense8
Sherlock Holmes (original books, BBC, Film, or Elementary version)
Spice and Wolf
Starcraft (somewhat. my lore's not great tho)
Stargate SG-1
Star Wars (no games or cartoons, but movies and EU books are fair game)
Steins;Gate
Steven Universe
Sword of Truth (tho tbf, this series became complete garbage pretty quickly)
Temeraire
Tower of God
Transformers (but only Beast Machines)
Undertale
Unsounded (webcomic, not caught up though like AT ALL)
V for Vendetta
Voltron (Netflix cartoon)
Warcraft (but nothing WoW)
The Walking Dead (seasons pre-Glenn's death)
Worm (notable fanfics: Cenotaph, A Cloudy Path, and many others I'm forgetting. Notable quests: my gamer one)
Zootopia
Medium Effort
Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Card Captor Sakura
Hunter X Hunter
Mass Effect
Pokemon beyond Emerald
Sonic
Zelda