Mother Nyx
Mother of Elpis
- Location
- The Kei Klub
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Just woke up, thoughts is fine!
A Game of Supers (The Gamer/Original Superhero Setting)
- Thread starter Kinni
- Start date
- Superhero
@lazyminx Now can you tell me why you don't trust the self-hypnosis skill?
Mother Nyx
Mother of Elpis
- Location
- The Kei Klub
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Because I don't blindly trust us either? The fact that it is even remotely a concern makes it something low on my list when we have other skills to consider that are more certain.
I understand if you like the skill but for now, let's focus on other things. We're currently voting for update 5, and I am happy with my vote but on update 6, I am definitely throwing everything into Disguises, Sneaking, and Cold Reading.
Not this time, but the next time.
Someone proposed Visualization itself as a skill, I wonder how that would work out. Like, would it augment all of our Mental Out skills like Shadowboxing (and fucking Self-Hypnosis too, I guess.)?
Visualisation seems pretty broad,but I feel Shadowboxing already covers that,at least for the martial arts aspect. It would help us pretty much everywhere else though. I don't see a reason not to get it.
I want to get all the training modifiers early game so that in the mid game we can grind and be op in the late game. Of course things aren't linear like that but thats the basic plan for me.
Umi-san
Procrastinating.
- Location
- ꙮ
I don't really consider visualization part of Self-Hypnosis. Like, there's the whole "visualize your success" thing but afaik that actually demotivates people because then they've already experienced that success. But then again, maybe some hypnosis methods use visualizing the path to success or something. *shrug*
*shrug* I guess we can do Self-Hypnosis, but it seems pretty clear that the distraction-vulnerability of the training hypnosis we made will need to be countered by better meditation, or whatever. I'm also just not sure how open the suggestible state of mind leaves us. Would you happen to know more about that?
NúmenoreanNazgûl
Witch-King
- Location
- Minas Morgul
[X] Cloth Work. You can do a few things under the table.
[X] Infiltrate a gang. The Inscrutables had a surprisingly lax policy for accepting new members. You could potentially infiltrate the gang and eventually deal with Inscrutable directly.
[X] Focus on raising the level of the skills you already developed.
[X] Learn a useful miscellaneous skill.
-[X] Acrobatics/Parkour
[X] Infiltrate a gang. The Inscrutables had a surprisingly lax policy for accepting new members. You could potentially infiltrate the gang and eventually deal with Inscrutable directly.
[X] Focus on raising the level of the skills you already developed.
[X] Learn a useful miscellaneous skill.
-[X] Acrobatics/Parkour
I approve of this choice. Even if for just one persona. Wonder if the MC will know about it when making the choice, or if it'll take somebody assuming we're taking the name of a god for us to figure it out. We need a blue suit with optional tiger print, and learn how to wield a trident. Bonus points if our tagline is "the Destroyer". Also: maxing out the Dancing skill because Shiv is also the God of Dancing.
Okay, time for a ruling about self-hypnosis.
You are never going to be able to use self-hypnosis while other people are nearby. What you can do is, while you're alone, create triggers that only you can activate that have different effects, and then you activate them when you need, like in combat.
About visualization, it is indeed already covered by shadowboxing.
Edit: And about multiple identities, you can indeed do it if you want. It will have its own advantages and problems, just like everything else.
You are never going to be able to use self-hypnosis while other people are nearby. What you can do is, while you're alone, create triggers that only you can activate that have different effects, and then you activate them when you need, like in combat.
About visualization, it is indeed already covered by shadowboxing.
Edit: And about multiple identities, you can indeed do it if you want. It will have its own advantages and problems, just like everything else.
Last edited:
- Location
- PA
New to the Quest, but liking what I've seen so far. I'm guessing that since we are generally going for the ninja theme, our End Goal would be something like the League of Shadows from DC. Or pulling a Lex Luther and forming an international company that rules from both the light and dark with our personas. In the end we should look into a business, criminal justice, and public speaking skill to complete our Mob Boss/Villain persona.
My personal standing on self hypnosis was that it would only help us against telepaths and mages. However, it could also help us in special types of rituals if we ever get magic or help develop psychic abilities that deal with anything of the mind i.e. mind control, mental shielding, etc...
My personal standing on self hypnosis was that it would only help us against telepaths and mages. However, it could also help us in special types of rituals if we ever get magic or help develop psychic abilities that deal with anything of the mind i.e. mind control, mental shielding, etc...
Worldbuilding: Masks and Killing
Worldbuilding: Masks and Killing
The use of masks, as well as the Names for alternate identities actually has a shorter story than you'd imagine. While there are reports of supers doing that in the 1800s, they did not become mainstream until the 20th century, where the two most notables supers of their age, Gestalt the heroine and Century the villainess, used masks and hid themselves under those names due to their own reasons.
The two started their activities at the beginning of the century, and only died in the nineties, allowing their influence to spread around the super community, which also started exploding around that time. By the 30s, it was common to see masked supers, and by the 50s, it had become an unwritten rule, best shown by the fact that Darkness Princess, the first heroine in history, who had been active for centuries (and is in fact still active), received that title and started introducing herself like that, when she had spent the previous centuries going by her real name, Isabella.
Still, unmasking is a pretty common issue. Villains are always unmasked when they get caught, and there are many heroes who also lose their secret identities due to various issues. The game of the double life is a dangerous one.
Now, onto the matter of killing. Low-level superbattles rarely result in killing, with only some villains on that level making it any sort of practice, and heroes who do so are definitely criticized.
However, things are different on the higher levels. Killing becomes much more common for both heroes and villains. There is even a villain with a 100 million dollar bounty on her head and that is considered normal. The top superhero team, The Yellow Force, has multiple members with kill counts, including their leader. The Four Guardians, who are some of the top in the hero world, frequently kill villains who they consider to have "crossed the line".
On the other hand, the top 2 superheroines in the world, Darkness Princess and Maelstrom, are on the other end of the spectrum. Maelstrom has only killed once (a villain called Mother of Darkness that definitely deserved it) while the Darkness Princess has managed to avoid killing even once in centuries (mostly because she can seal people's powers, and many of her captures ended up being judged and executed). This is part of the reason why they are seen as the best in the world, because they are good enough to not need killing.
The use of masks, as well as the Names for alternate identities actually has a shorter story than you'd imagine. While there are reports of supers doing that in the 1800s, they did not become mainstream until the 20th century, where the two most notables supers of their age, Gestalt the heroine and Century the villainess, used masks and hid themselves under those names due to their own reasons.
The two started their activities at the beginning of the century, and only died in the nineties, allowing their influence to spread around the super community, which also started exploding around that time. By the 30s, it was common to see masked supers, and by the 50s, it had become an unwritten rule, best shown by the fact that Darkness Princess, the first heroine in history, who had been active for centuries (and is in fact still active), received that title and started introducing herself like that, when she had spent the previous centuries going by her real name, Isabella.
Still, unmasking is a pretty common issue. Villains are always unmasked when they get caught, and there are many heroes who also lose their secret identities due to various issues. The game of the double life is a dangerous one.
Now, onto the matter of killing. Low-level superbattles rarely result in killing, with only some villains on that level making it any sort of practice, and heroes who do so are definitely criticized.
However, things are different on the higher levels. Killing becomes much more common for both heroes and villains. There is even a villain with a 100 million dollar bounty on her head and that is considered normal. The top superhero team, The Yellow Force, has multiple members with kill counts, including their leader. The Four Guardians, who are some of the top in the hero world, frequently kill villains who they consider to have "crossed the line".
On the other hand, the top 2 superheroines in the world, Darkness Princess and Maelstrom, are on the other end of the spectrum. Maelstrom has only killed once (a villain called Mother of Darkness that definitely deserved it) while the Darkness Princess has managed to avoid killing even once in centuries (mostly because she can seal people's powers, and many of her captures ended up being judged and executed). This is part of the reason why they are seen as the best in the world, because they are good enough to not need killing.
Taking a Look: Iara Medea
Taking a Look: Iara Medea
Iara is a short girl, only five feet tall. She is a brunette with green eyes that weights around 105 lb. Since her mother died when she was young, Iara has been raised only by her father, who spends a long amount of time working, leaving her alone at home.
Her financial situation is well-off, and she never had any particularly close friends. At school, she moves between several groups, without really being a part of any of them. Her reputation is that of a smart girl who is pretty introverted.
In terms of clothing preferences, Iara likes variety. She doesn't like to use the same sort of clothes for too long in a row, and instead changes from dresses to pants and from shirts to vests with a high frequency.
Iara is a short girl, only five feet tall. She is a brunette with green eyes that weights around 105 lb. Since her mother died when she was young, Iara has been raised only by her father, who spends a long amount of time working, leaving her alone at home.
Her financial situation is well-off, and she never had any particularly close friends. At school, she moves between several groups, without really being a part of any of them. Her reputation is that of a smart girl who is pretty introverted.
In terms of clothing preferences, Iara likes variety. She doesn't like to use the same sort of clothes for too long in a row, and instead changes from dresses to pants and from shirts to vests with a high frequency.
Mother Nyx
Mother of Elpis
- Location
- The Kei Klub
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Thank you so much for all the work done worldbuilding and etc.
I am so into this, honestly. Like, is Mother of Darkness' Darkness Princess' mother or was that just an unlucky coincidence?
If she was, did the daughter not take down her mother because they were family was was she too strong even with her ability to seal powers?
Who is the 100 Million Dollar Villain and how has she lived so long?
Don't tell us, Kinni we can find out later through the quest. These are just things I am hyped about discovering.
I am so into this, honestly. Like, is Mother of Darkness' Darkness Princess' mother or was that just an unlucky coincidence?
If she was, did the daughter not take down her mother because they were family was was she too strong even with her ability to seal powers?
Who is the 100 Million Dollar Villain and how has she lived so long?
Don't tell us, Kinni we can find out later through the quest. These are just things I am hyped about discovering.
- Location
- PA
I wonder if we can get any skills that give us more gamer-like abilities or does MP/Psi give the more obscure parts if we get access to it?
Mother Nyx
Mother of Elpis
- Location
- The Kei Klub
- Pronouns
- She/Her
A skill to gain skills that are more aligned to the actual Super in the Super Hero/Villain name?
We'll get there. I want to be able to do fucking Inuyasha Wind Scar level air cutters with our knife by the time we hit the Dark Princess and Maelstorm big leagues.
Mother Nyx
Mother of Elpis
- Location
- The Kei Klub
- Pronouns
- She/Her
That is gonna be us soon.
Post 5
Author's Note: I wanted to have this done yesterday, but had to do a thing with family (we went to watch the new Blade Runner. I didn't like it, found it far too plodding and meandering, with many subplots seeming tacked in)
[X] Meditation. Trying to block out the distractions would be good.
[X] Infiltrate a gang. The Inscrutables had a surprisingly lax policy for accepting new members. You could potentially infiltrate the gang and eventually deal with Inscrutable directly.
[X] Focus on raising the level of the skills you already developed.
[X] Learn a useful miscellaneous skill.
-[X] Acrobatics/Parkour
No one even noticed it as you spent less and less focus on the classes. You made sure to test yourself once in a while just to make sure you still were doing good enough academically, but the classes were no longer a place for studying for you.
Instead, you used them to train yourself. You slowly trained your skills in ignoring the distraction in class (mostly the teacher) to the point where you were able to achieve actual meditative trances even in the middle of the classroom, something which was almost unbelievable given the way you started.
And you were getting better and better at it, with your focus sharpening even more, and your meditation reaching a point where it was having appreciable effects on all your other efforts.
It was actually enlightening to feel it happening. You hadn't even realized that you had been getting more and more stressed in recent weeks due to your constant training and planning, but your new abilities in meditation alleviated almost all of that invisible stress, and you that led to an amazing increase in the efficiency of everything you were training.
Of course, all that improvement wouldn't have been possible if you were only meditating during class, but you also trained it during your free time, and the final result for your skill at the end of the week was:
Meditation Level 15
- The skill to reach inside yourself and obtain a better understanding of your own mind and behavior. At this level, you can relieve even deep seated stress as well as easily filter out distractions while focusing. Your mental abilities are also significantly improved, even outside of meditation.
You again decided to try a broad approach on your skill training during this week. You were actually trying to train every one of your skills, and the results were good.
First, there was your initial skill, Muay Thai. It was definitely your best combat skill, and it was getting harder and harder to train as you reached ever closer to perfection. Still, there were some things you could do. You got one of your dad's old cameras and recorded yourself performing all sorts of different moves, then you watched the tapes.
By looking closely, and imagining yourself in the role of an enemy, you could see all sorts of small flaws and wasted movements that could be taken advantage of. You repeatedly visualized all sorts of different ways you could improve these movements, and slowly optimized your skills based on it. The results were undeniably impressive.
Muay Thai Level 18
- A martial art developed for warfare, born in the country of Thailand, then known as Siam. At this level, while you haven't become the best of all time, your skills are already enough to classify as master level.
One of the things that helped with it were your training in two of your other skills, Shadowboxing and Ambidexterity, which was normal, considering they were skills you originally got by training your Muay Thai.
And of course, you were also training those skills at the same time. For Shadowboxing, your new insights in meditation helped a lot, allowing you to reach the level of being able to visualize complex situations involving multiple opponents, all of them different. The sheer amount of detail you were capable of focusing on all at once astounded you.
And for Ambidexterity, you took to calligraphy, writing in incredibly precise and detailed forms, and you trained in doing it using both hands, and then using two hands at once, slowly improving your abilities.
Your skills leveled up satisfactorily:
Shadow Boxing Level 16
- The skill to create mental scenarios that help the user in training. At this level, you can create the images of any opponent imaginable, and also create the images of complex situations with multiple varied opponents.
Ambidexterity Level 15
- Some people are born being able to use both arms with equal dexterity. But what most people don't know is that it is also possible to develop that sort of dexterity with sufficient training. At this level, you can use both hands with more precision than most ambidextrous people.
But by far, the skills that most benefited from your new level of skill in meditation were acting and self-hypnosis.
Acting was specially impressive. It was an art of the self, of manipulating your own reactions, and as such it benefited from a greater self-knowledge and self control. You combined it with your Shadowboxing skill in order to perform some of the most impressive plays that had ever been written. You examined your own emotions and controlled everything about yourself, slowly reaching a level in which no performance was beyond you.
While self-hypnosis, while not quite as impressive, was still very much improved. You new level of self-understanding made you capable of predicting your own state of mind more easily, which allowed you to reach a new level of complexity in your mental triggers.
You redid your learning mental trigger, finally reaching the point where you could say it was worth using, and you had some ideas for possible new triggers to add, though you could tell it would be best if you increased your skill a little further before that.
All that said:
Acting Level 18
- The skill to act out a role, in a way that can fool viewers. At this level, you are one of the greatest actresses who ever lived, creating and performing roles that can fool even people who know the truth.
Self-hypnosis Level 12
- The ability to put oneself into a suggestionable state and implanting triggers to manipulate their consciousness. At this level, you still need to use external aids to implant suggestions, but their complexity is fairly great, capable of doing things even most hypnotists would consider impossible.
Besides that, you also worked on your newly gained weapon skills, using your recent martial arts training as a guide to approach the issue from the best path. You trained in mental scenarios against multiple opponents, and eventually decided to forgo the knife entirely, and train only with mental constructs of all kinds of different knives, to increase your experience.
The results were telling:
Knife Combat Level 15
- The skill to handle a knife effectively in combat. At this level, you are almost at a level of a knife master, having reached a level of precision of your knife work that makes it seem like it is part of your body.
Finally, you also trained in two skills that could not be any more different, Survey and Cloth Work.
For Survey, you hit the books, looking up any information you could find about residences, building codes, zoning legislation and related topics. You ended up learning a lot more about architecture than you ever wanted to know, and eventually you reached the point where you could tell quite a few things about a place just by looking at the outside of it.
For Cloth Work, you mostly followed instructions, doing a lot of needlework to create all sorts of complex configurations and patterns of cloth. You could already see a few ways to improve your costume, but you felt like it would be better if you waited until you had more than simple cosmetic upgrades in mind if you wanted to change it.
Cloth Work Level 10
- The skill to work with thread able fibers such as wool and silk, altering and manipulating designs to suit your purposes. At this level, you are capable of even complex modification, but you still have a lot to learn if you want to do things yourself instead of simply following designs.
Survey Level 10
- The skill to observe places and determine information from them. At this level, you can already be considered an urban recon specialist, but only a low level one.
And those were the skills you improved during the week, but there was something else you did: Developing a new skill in parkour.
It was incredibly fun.
Okay, like anything, the beginning was mostly work, you made your research and practiced the initial moves until you had them down, before moving on to more advanced stuff and little by little learning the ways in which each part could be applied.
However, once that was done, and you had reached the point in which you could start tracing your own routes through the city, the sense of exhilaration made it all more than worth it. You kept pushing yourself further and further, doing routes that included more and more difficult tricks and going through the routes faster and faster.
And it definitely paid off:
Parkour Level 13
- The skill to move fast through a complicated series of obstacles, like a city. At this level, you are an expert in the art of parkour, being able to move well even through places you've never seen before, while place you know you can go through with astonishing speed.
And finally, there was one last thing you did during the week, and it was probably the most important thing: You started the process to infiltrate Inscrutable's gang.
The reason you had chosen that was because it was a good way to start your interactions with the world of supers without revealing yourself unnecessarily. The gang didn't even require for their members to reveal their real identities in order to join, and that was the thing that really decided for you.
Of course, first you made some preparations. The members of the gang all used the same identifying mark, a mask of the same type as Inscrutable's (that covered the top and the sides of the face) but your age was a problem, so you bought a bit of makeup and watched some tutorials to learn how to apply it in order to make yourself seem older, adding to it by wearing clothes adequate to the age you were trying to pretend (around 24).
Perhaps inevitably, you got a skill out of it:
Disguise Level 3
- The skill to conceal your true appearance by faking another one. At this level, this skill is only enough to change a few things in you, but observant people will be able to see through it.
Still, joining the gang wasn't exactly straightforward. You had to talk with quite a few contacts, that would point you in the direction of other contacts, and you were fairly sure there was some kind of screening process involved. You had to go out at four separate nights and wander all around the city.
But eventually you managed to get right to the front door. You were inside an old, abandoned house. There was an actual member of the gang right in front of you, a woman who looked to be about thirty two years old and gave off an air of command.
"So. You are the one who wants to join our group?" She asked.
"I am." You answered simply.
"Why do you want this?"
"I want to feel less restrained." You said.
She looked at you and seemed to think for a bit, then she nodded "If that is what you truly want, I suppose I have to give you a chance." She looked at you piercingly "You will have to complete a task if you want to be counted among the ranks of the Inscrutables."
"What do I have to do?" This was also something you had heard about.
"You need to steal something." She said, then walked over to a bag on the floor "Specifically, you need to steal something from a member of the Red Claws.".
"Something specific?"
"No." She took out five pieces of paper from the bag "Just something valuable." She handed the papers to you "Choose one of those five targets and do it. I will be here to receive it in one week."
And after that, she left the house, while you were examining the papers.
There were five targets in all. Five different houses that went from rich to middle class. But "rich" was a relative term, even the richest house wasn't part of the rich part of town (though the owner actually had his main residence there).
After some thought, you decided to steal from:
[] The Richest house: It was one of the extra homes of a certain city personality called Ian Trevor (there were rumors that he was connected to the gangs, and apparently they were true). There was no one actually living there at the time, but there were pretty advanced security measures in place.
[] The second richest: A house in which a family of four lived. Apparently the mother was a drug supplier for the gang. There wouldn't be as many security measures, but you would have to deal with the people inside.
[] The well-off house: This one had only one person living in it, and that person was away for most of the day, but on the flipside, there were four guard dogs protecting the place.
[] The less well-off house: This one didn't have any extra security measures, but there was a family of eight living there, and there was pretty much no time in which the house wasn't occupied.
[] The middle class house: Probably the safest option for a first time thief. There were three people living there, but the house was left alone for long periods, there weren't any extra security measures, and the place it was in was reasonably private. However, since this was a test, you would probably not get a great grade with this.
That decision made, you had to think about how to actually execute your theft. You had an entire week to research and plan before then, and you decided that you would first obtain some extra information by:
[] Hiding a camera pointed at the house to record things. It would allow you to execute surveillance without needing to spend excessive amounts of time on watch.
-[] Write in the focus of your surveillance (comings and goings, security measures, etc)
[] Calling the owners and scamming them into giving extra information. The info you received about the targets included telephone numbers, so that was easy.
-[] Write in the focus of your information gathering (security measures, house schedule, etc)
[] Something else? (Write-in)
And since this would only take part of your time, you still had to decide what you would do for the rest of the time. It would be good to train something that would help in your crime... (Choose two)
[] Focus on raising the level of the skills you already developed.
[] Focus on raising the level of a specific skill (Write-in)
[] Learn another martial art.
-[] Taekwondo
-[] Jeet Kune Do
-[] Karate
-[] Write-in
[] Now that you have weapons, it would be good to gain skill with them.
-[] Learn baton combat
[] Learn a useful miscellaneous skill.
-[] Lock picking
-[] Urban tracking
-[] Cold reading
-[] Write-in
[] Write-in.
And you also had an important decision to make. Now that you had a hypnotic trigger that could help you learn things, you should use it, but it would only be effective for the training of a single skill.
Of the skills you're training or learning this week, which one you wish to help with the trigger? (Write-in)
(If the winning skill turns out not to be one of those that are being trained, the result will be the most voted among them, or chosen by dice)
[X] Meditation. Trying to block out the distractions would be good.
[X] Infiltrate a gang. The Inscrutables had a surprisingly lax policy for accepting new members. You could potentially infiltrate the gang and eventually deal with Inscrutable directly.
[X] Focus on raising the level of the skills you already developed.
[X] Learn a useful miscellaneous skill.
-[X] Acrobatics/Parkour
No one even noticed it as you spent less and less focus on the classes. You made sure to test yourself once in a while just to make sure you still were doing good enough academically, but the classes were no longer a place for studying for you.
Instead, you used them to train yourself. You slowly trained your skills in ignoring the distraction in class (mostly the teacher) to the point where you were able to achieve actual meditative trances even in the middle of the classroom, something which was almost unbelievable given the way you started.
And you were getting better and better at it, with your focus sharpening even more, and your meditation reaching a point where it was having appreciable effects on all your other efforts.
It was actually enlightening to feel it happening. You hadn't even realized that you had been getting more and more stressed in recent weeks due to your constant training and planning, but your new abilities in meditation alleviated almost all of that invisible stress, and you that led to an amazing increase in the efficiency of everything you were training.
Of course, all that improvement wouldn't have been possible if you were only meditating during class, but you also trained it during your free time, and the final result for your skill at the end of the week was:
Meditation Level 15
- The skill to reach inside yourself and obtain a better understanding of your own mind and behavior. At this level, you can relieve even deep seated stress as well as easily filter out distractions while focusing. Your mental abilities are also significantly improved, even outside of meditation.
You again decided to try a broad approach on your skill training during this week. You were actually trying to train every one of your skills, and the results were good.
First, there was your initial skill, Muay Thai. It was definitely your best combat skill, and it was getting harder and harder to train as you reached ever closer to perfection. Still, there were some things you could do. You got one of your dad's old cameras and recorded yourself performing all sorts of different moves, then you watched the tapes.
By looking closely, and imagining yourself in the role of an enemy, you could see all sorts of small flaws and wasted movements that could be taken advantage of. You repeatedly visualized all sorts of different ways you could improve these movements, and slowly optimized your skills based on it. The results were undeniably impressive.
Muay Thai Level 18
- A martial art developed for warfare, born in the country of Thailand, then known as Siam. At this level, while you haven't become the best of all time, your skills are already enough to classify as master level.
One of the things that helped with it were your training in two of your other skills, Shadowboxing and Ambidexterity, which was normal, considering they were skills you originally got by training your Muay Thai.
And of course, you were also training those skills at the same time. For Shadowboxing, your new insights in meditation helped a lot, allowing you to reach the level of being able to visualize complex situations involving multiple opponents, all of them different. The sheer amount of detail you were capable of focusing on all at once astounded you.
And for Ambidexterity, you took to calligraphy, writing in incredibly precise and detailed forms, and you trained in doing it using both hands, and then using two hands at once, slowly improving your abilities.
Your skills leveled up satisfactorily:
Shadow Boxing Level 16
- The skill to create mental scenarios that help the user in training. At this level, you can create the images of any opponent imaginable, and also create the images of complex situations with multiple varied opponents.
Ambidexterity Level 15
- Some people are born being able to use both arms with equal dexterity. But what most people don't know is that it is also possible to develop that sort of dexterity with sufficient training. At this level, you can use both hands with more precision than most ambidextrous people.
But by far, the skills that most benefited from your new level of skill in meditation were acting and self-hypnosis.
Acting was specially impressive. It was an art of the self, of manipulating your own reactions, and as such it benefited from a greater self-knowledge and self control. You combined it with your Shadowboxing skill in order to perform some of the most impressive plays that had ever been written. You examined your own emotions and controlled everything about yourself, slowly reaching a level in which no performance was beyond you.
While self-hypnosis, while not quite as impressive, was still very much improved. You new level of self-understanding made you capable of predicting your own state of mind more easily, which allowed you to reach a new level of complexity in your mental triggers.
You redid your learning mental trigger, finally reaching the point where you could say it was worth using, and you had some ideas for possible new triggers to add, though you could tell it would be best if you increased your skill a little further before that.
All that said:
Acting Level 18
- The skill to act out a role, in a way that can fool viewers. At this level, you are one of the greatest actresses who ever lived, creating and performing roles that can fool even people who know the truth.
Self-hypnosis Level 12
- The ability to put oneself into a suggestionable state and implanting triggers to manipulate their consciousness. At this level, you still need to use external aids to implant suggestions, but their complexity is fairly great, capable of doing things even most hypnotists would consider impossible.
Besides that, you also worked on your newly gained weapon skills, using your recent martial arts training as a guide to approach the issue from the best path. You trained in mental scenarios against multiple opponents, and eventually decided to forgo the knife entirely, and train only with mental constructs of all kinds of different knives, to increase your experience.
The results were telling:
Knife Combat Level 15
- The skill to handle a knife effectively in combat. At this level, you are almost at a level of a knife master, having reached a level of precision of your knife work that makes it seem like it is part of your body.
Finally, you also trained in two skills that could not be any more different, Survey and Cloth Work.
For Survey, you hit the books, looking up any information you could find about residences, building codes, zoning legislation and related topics. You ended up learning a lot more about architecture than you ever wanted to know, and eventually you reached the point where you could tell quite a few things about a place just by looking at the outside of it.
For Cloth Work, you mostly followed instructions, doing a lot of needlework to create all sorts of complex configurations and patterns of cloth. You could already see a few ways to improve your costume, but you felt like it would be better if you waited until you had more than simple cosmetic upgrades in mind if you wanted to change it.
Cloth Work Level 10
- The skill to work with thread able fibers such as wool and silk, altering and manipulating designs to suit your purposes. At this level, you are capable of even complex modification, but you still have a lot to learn if you want to do things yourself instead of simply following designs.
Survey Level 10
- The skill to observe places and determine information from them. At this level, you can already be considered an urban recon specialist, but only a low level one.
And those were the skills you improved during the week, but there was something else you did: Developing a new skill in parkour.
It was incredibly fun.
Okay, like anything, the beginning was mostly work, you made your research and practiced the initial moves until you had them down, before moving on to more advanced stuff and little by little learning the ways in which each part could be applied.
However, once that was done, and you had reached the point in which you could start tracing your own routes through the city, the sense of exhilaration made it all more than worth it. You kept pushing yourself further and further, doing routes that included more and more difficult tricks and going through the routes faster and faster.
And it definitely paid off:
Parkour Level 13
- The skill to move fast through a complicated series of obstacles, like a city. At this level, you are an expert in the art of parkour, being able to move well even through places you've never seen before, while place you know you can go through with astonishing speed.
And finally, there was one last thing you did during the week, and it was probably the most important thing: You started the process to infiltrate Inscrutable's gang.
The reason you had chosen that was because it was a good way to start your interactions with the world of supers without revealing yourself unnecessarily. The gang didn't even require for their members to reveal their real identities in order to join, and that was the thing that really decided for you.
Of course, first you made some preparations. The members of the gang all used the same identifying mark, a mask of the same type as Inscrutable's (that covered the top and the sides of the face) but your age was a problem, so you bought a bit of makeup and watched some tutorials to learn how to apply it in order to make yourself seem older, adding to it by wearing clothes adequate to the age you were trying to pretend (around 24).
Perhaps inevitably, you got a skill out of it:
Disguise Level 3
- The skill to conceal your true appearance by faking another one. At this level, this skill is only enough to change a few things in you, but observant people will be able to see through it.
Still, joining the gang wasn't exactly straightforward. You had to talk with quite a few contacts, that would point you in the direction of other contacts, and you were fairly sure there was some kind of screening process involved. You had to go out at four separate nights and wander all around the city.
But eventually you managed to get right to the front door. You were inside an old, abandoned house. There was an actual member of the gang right in front of you, a woman who looked to be about thirty two years old and gave off an air of command.
"So. You are the one who wants to join our group?" She asked.
"I am." You answered simply.
"Why do you want this?"
"I want to feel less restrained." You said.
She looked at you and seemed to think for a bit, then she nodded "If that is what you truly want, I suppose I have to give you a chance." She looked at you piercingly "You will have to complete a task if you want to be counted among the ranks of the Inscrutables."
"What do I have to do?" This was also something you had heard about.
"You need to steal something." She said, then walked over to a bag on the floor "Specifically, you need to steal something from a member of the Red Claws.".
"Something specific?"
"No." She took out five pieces of paper from the bag "Just something valuable." She handed the papers to you "Choose one of those five targets and do it. I will be here to receive it in one week."
And after that, she left the house, while you were examining the papers.
There were five targets in all. Five different houses that went from rich to middle class. But "rich" was a relative term, even the richest house wasn't part of the rich part of town (though the owner actually had his main residence there).
After some thought, you decided to steal from:
[] The Richest house: It was one of the extra homes of a certain city personality called Ian Trevor (there were rumors that he was connected to the gangs, and apparently they were true). There was no one actually living there at the time, but there were pretty advanced security measures in place.
[] The second richest: A house in which a family of four lived. Apparently the mother was a drug supplier for the gang. There wouldn't be as many security measures, but you would have to deal with the people inside.
[] The well-off house: This one had only one person living in it, and that person was away for most of the day, but on the flipside, there were four guard dogs protecting the place.
[] The less well-off house: This one didn't have any extra security measures, but there was a family of eight living there, and there was pretty much no time in which the house wasn't occupied.
[] The middle class house: Probably the safest option for a first time thief. There were three people living there, but the house was left alone for long periods, there weren't any extra security measures, and the place it was in was reasonably private. However, since this was a test, you would probably not get a great grade with this.
That decision made, you had to think about how to actually execute your theft. You had an entire week to research and plan before then, and you decided that you would first obtain some extra information by:
[] Hiding a camera pointed at the house to record things. It would allow you to execute surveillance without needing to spend excessive amounts of time on watch.
-[] Write in the focus of your surveillance (comings and goings, security measures, etc)
[] Calling the owners and scamming them into giving extra information. The info you received about the targets included telephone numbers, so that was easy.
-[] Write in the focus of your information gathering (security measures, house schedule, etc)
[] Something else? (Write-in)
And since this would only take part of your time, you still had to decide what you would do for the rest of the time. It would be good to train something that would help in your crime... (Choose two)
[] Focus on raising the level of the skills you already developed.
[] Focus on raising the level of a specific skill (Write-in)
[] Learn another martial art.
-[] Taekwondo
-[] Jeet Kune Do
-[] Karate
-[] Write-in
[] Now that you have weapons, it would be good to gain skill with them.
-[] Learn baton combat
[] Learn a useful miscellaneous skill.
-[] Lock picking
-[] Urban tracking
-[] Cold reading
-[] Write-in
[] Write-in.
And you also had an important decision to make. Now that you had a hypnotic trigger that could help you learn things, you should use it, but it would only be effective for the training of a single skill.
Of the skills you're training or learning this week, which one you wish to help with the trigger? (Write-in)
(If the winning skill turns out not to be one of those that are being trained, the result will be the most voted among them, or chosen by dice)
- Location
- USA
[] Focus on raising the level of a specific skill (Write-in) Disguise
[] Learn a useful miscellaneous skill.
-[] Lock picking
These seem to be a useful combo for thieving
[] Learn a useful miscellaneous skill.
-[] Lock picking
These seem to be a useful combo for thieving
For some of the targets we won't need much info beyond if anyone is currently there.
How about the rules question I edited in? Is there any limits on how we go about getting the items?
The Froggy Ninja
The Blade Will Never Die
Would teaching be a single skill or would it be a separate skill for each or for general categories or what?
I'm kinda wanting to hit all 5. For the lesser 4 we can get by with just that, but the hardest target we almost definitely will need Hacking.
Alright, so punching everyone in the face is a option if our first idea doesnt work out.
Does our info tell us some of the valuable items we can find, or will we have to find out what's valuable ourselves?
- Location
- Brazil
[X] The well-off house: This one had only one person living in it, and that person was away for most of the day, but on the flipside, there were four guard dogs protecting the place.
[X] Calling the owners and scamming them into giving extra information. The info you received about the targets included telephone numbers, so that was easy.
-[X]Prioritie is security measures(with atention to the dogs skill), folowed be location of valuables, folowed be schedule
[X] Focus on raising the level of the skills you already developed.
[X] Learn a useful miscellaneous skill.
-[X] Lock picking
[X]Of the skills you're training or learning this week, which one you wish to help with the trigger? (Lock picking)
Okay, since turns take a week we won't realy have the time to build the skills for the two best houses, wich isn't that big o a problem since as an iniltrator we don't want to start with that much atention.
I chose to get info be calling since it takes advantage of our acting skill.
For other action while disguise may be usefull we realy need good lockpicking, so I focused the triguer o that, hopefuly that plus the general training should be enought
[X] Calling the owners and scamming them into giving extra information. The info you received about the targets included telephone numbers, so that was easy.
-[X]Prioritie is security measures(with atention to the dogs skill), folowed be location of valuables, folowed be schedule
[X] Focus on raising the level of the skills you already developed.
[X] Learn a useful miscellaneous skill.
-[X] Lock picking
[X]Of the skills you're training or learning this week, which one you wish to help with the trigger? (Lock picking)
Okay, since turns take a week we won't realy have the time to build the skills for the two best houses, wich isn't that big o a problem since as an iniltrator we don't want to start with that much atention.
I chose to get info be calling since it takes advantage of our acting skill.
For other action while disguise may be usefull we realy need good lockpicking, so I focused the triguer o that, hopefuly that plus the general training should be enought
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