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Cracking Masquerade, a Dresden Files/MCU Second World War quest

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mouli said:
Directed, shaped kinetic energy. So more pure 'force' as a concept. Not really all-powerful, since you need to both land a hit to get an impact, and you need to invest quite a bit of energy into shaping the force right. You don't get the blinding flare of lightning, the burn and heat of flame, or the way wind fucks with other wind patterns in the area and disrupts scent-tracking. You just get a really big punch to whatever you don't like.
Somewhat versatile, but a bit of a hammer.
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Thanks, yo.

[X] Plan What's a Jedi?
-[X] Name: Luke Koto
-[X] Gender: Male
-[X] Artifice
-[X] Evocation
--[X] Force
-[X] Technology
-[X] Tactics
-[X]Shaman's Knives: You're a Nisei with a Chumash shaman's ritual knives. When the old man you pulled out of a smuggler's truck gave 'em to you, you didn't ask where he got them either. All you said was thanks. Adds +2 to all melee attacks, evocation focus with no magic limit. +1 to Ritual actions.
 
mouli said:
Directed, shaped kinetic energy. So more pure 'force' as a concept. Not really all-powerful, since you need to both land a hit to get an impact, and you need to invest quite a bit of energy into shaping the force right. You don't get the blinding flare of lightning, the burn and heat of flame, or the way wind fucks with other wind patterns in the area and disrupts scent-tracking. You just get a really big punch to whatever you don't like.
Somewhat versatile, but a bit of a hammer.
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Also it doesn't really do conceptual stuff much. Its the best for anything F=MA works on, but where the other stuff has exploitation of natural phenomenon and conceptual links, Force is pretty much raw motive force
 
veekie said:
Also it doesn't really do conceptual stuff much. Its the best for anything F=MA works on, but where the other stuff has exploitation of natural phenomenon and conceptual links, Force is pretty much raw motive force
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You can do stuff like store some of the energy from your movement to use in a shield or an attack, as Dresden did. But being a minor power I doubt it ever reach his level of holding back an explosion.
 
[X] Plan Marks Man
-[X] Name: Mark Shirokawa
-[X] Gender: Male
-[X]Artifice
-[X]Evocation:
--[X]Wind
-[X]Combat: Ranged
-[X]Tactics
-[X]Mauser Focus: Other magi like to have staves, blasting rods, and so on. Too much magic through any focus that's got moving parts kills it - but joke's on them, you don't have that much magic. You've got a trickle, and that trickle plays well with a Mauser's reliable action. Adds +2 to all attacks at range, slow-firing bolt-action, long range. Ammo is plentiful, common-caliber with NRA weapons. Scoped. Acts as evocation focus.
 
[X] Plan Marks Man
-[X] Name: Mark Shirokawa
-[X] Gender: Male
-[X]Artifice
-[X]Evocation:
--[X]Wind
-[X]Combat: Ranged
-[X]Tactics
-[X]Mauser Focus: Other magi like to have staves, blasting rods, and so on. Too much magic through any focus that's got moving parts kills it - but joke's on them, you don't have that much magic. You've got a trickle, and that trickle plays well with a Mauser's reliable action. Adds +2 to all attacks at range, slow-firing bolt-action, long range. Ammo is plentiful, common-caliber with NRA weapons. Scoped. Acts as evocation focus.
 
One thing I think folks might be ignoring is that out of all our options? Fire is probably the best at dealing with esoteric shit since we can use water (god entropy magic would have been nice, even if we weren't at Carlos' level). In DF, fire purifies. Dealing with a nasty gribbly? Chances are it dislikes fire at least as much as a person is. Dealing ghosts, ghouls, or anything with too much regeneration to know when it should die? Fire isn't a bad call. Being a wind mage is pretty damn neat and I have no qualms with it, but there's definitely something to be said for fire.

And I wouldn't necessarily discount Culture either. Chances are the IJA has alienated quite a few supernatural locals and they probably won't be quite as discriminatory against us specifically as other mortals might be. If we can get supernatural collaborators? Great. If not, we can almost certainly bribe some pixies and whatnot to help us scout and identify the super soldier facility. You can get an absolute ton of mileage out of pixies and lesser fae.

@mouli how hard and fast are we playing with the Laws of Magic here? Is it a case where if we guide a shot with wind magic we've broken the laws like it would be in canon?


[X] Plan Burning Bribes
-[X] Name: Mark Shirokawa
-[X] Gender: Male
-[X] Culture
-[X]Evocation:
--[X]Fire
-[X]Combat: Ranged
-[X]Tactics
-[X]Mauser Focus: Other magi like to have staves, blasting rods, and so on. Too much magic through any focus that's got moving parts kills it - but joke's on them, you don't have that much magic. You've got a trickle, and that trickle plays well with a Mauser's reliable action. Adds +2 to all attacks at range, slow-firing bolt-action, long range. Ammo is plentiful, common-caliber with NRA weapons. Scoped. Acts as evocation focus.
 
Karugus said:
Fire is probably the best at dealing with esoteric shit since we can use water (god entropy magic would have been nice, even if we weren't at Carlos' level). In DF, fire purifies.
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Why do you think I went with Sniper Shrine Maiden? The IJA project is almost certainly going to be magical in nature, or at least have a magic way of thwarting it.

Which begs the question of why the generic dude?
Karugus said:
-[X]Tactics
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I'm more flexible on the tactics vs. speech thing. Hell, given I want to turn this city in Fallujah tactics would probably serve me better. But the character for "Manly Mark" I'm just not seeing vs. Mikasa.
 
Always Late said:
Why do you think I went with Sniper Shrine Maiden? The IJA project is almost certainly going to be magical in nature, or at least have a magic way of thwarting it.

Which begs the question of why the generic dude?
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Eh, because I mostly copied most of another vote because I assumed clearly I was the only one with a good and novel idea :V. And I'm not sure being a shrine maiden in San Fransisco with all the racial issues of the times in addition to the gender issues could be any more of a clusterfuck on the homefront. To say nothing of the fact that with the discrimination of Christian Japanese in Japan during this time period (IIRC), it would also make sense if our character didn't practice a lick of Shintoism.

On the other hand, I literally did not notice it in my tiredness. So why not.

[X]Plan Rad like Rei Hino
 
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Karugus said:
I'm not sure being a shrine maiden in San Fransisco with all the racial issues of the times in addition to the gender issues could be any more of a clusterfuck on the homefront.
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I interpret it less as 'literally fire purification', more 'our family comes from priestesses and holy men'. It's the stories and tales she was told as a little girl, a mental construct to help her do magic. Not the actual divine stuff.
 
Karugus said:
One thing I think folks might be ignoring is that out of all our options? Fire is probably the best at dealing with esoteric shit since we can use water (god entropy magic would have been nice, even if we weren't at Carlos' level). In DF, fire purifies. Dealing with a nasty gribbly? Chances are it dislikes fire at least as much as a person is. Dealing ghosts, ghouls, or anything with too much regeneration to know when it should die? Fire isn't a bad call. Being a wind mage is pretty damn neat and I have no qualms with it, but there's definitely something to be said for fire.
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Wind is focusing more on the mundane angle, Wind Carried Words doesn't take a whole lot of energy, but could do a whole lot of info gathering to roll into a Tactical assault.

That said, fire's main drawback for me is that we're supposed to be low power, and a low power pyromancer has trouble actually doing more than horribly wounding people and gribblies.
 
Karugus said:
@mouli how hard and fast are we playing with the Laws of Magic here? Is it a case where if we guide a shot with wind magic we've broken the laws like it would be in canon?
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I'll say yes. Killing with magic in that way is frowned on, but the definition of 'human' varies...some of the things you'll fight are fair game, even some of the super soldiers.
 
[X] Plan Burning Bribes
-[X] Name: Mark Shirokawa
-[X] Gender: Male
-[X] Culture
-[X]Evocation:
--[X]Fire
-[X]Combat: Ranged
-[X]Tactics
-[X]Mauser Focus: Other magi like to have staves, blasting rods, and so on. Too much magic through any focus that's got moving parts kills it - but joke's on them, you don't have that much magic. You've got a trickle, and that trickle plays well with a Mauser's reliable action. Adds +2 to all attacks at range, slow-firing bolt-action, long range. Ammo is plentiful, common-caliber with NRA weapons. Scoped. Acts as evocation focus.
 
Does anyone mind if I close votes in around three hours? I need to go out this evening, and I have a skeleton written up - so it's really a short update today or none today. Let me know if the early closing sounds alright.
 
So just reviewing the choices as the next vote wraps up, I'm sensing that the earlier 'Red' option might make another play. Essentially, while Black Chamber (US cryptoanalysts) assets are tasked to locate the super-soldier labs in and around Shanghai, who are they going to call for blowing up the darn thing? The semi-neutral National Revolutionary Army could be inserting Soviet agents in the roster. This is partly because right around late 1934, Russia was already sending simply far too many troops to the border with Japanese Manchukuo for the Imperial Japanese Army to contend with. At that point they could smuggle all kinds of personnel through. Then there's the matter of all the WW1 vets who were sent to China for peacekeeping (mainly Germany and Britain lingering with no clear instructions), all their manpower and Japan's garrison details for that matter, are due to be retiring in 1936. Just food for thought.
 
Calling votes in an hour or so, please vote and finalize. This post will be edited upon final tally. Votes are called.
 
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mouli said:
I'll say yes. Killing with magic in that way is frowned on, but the definition of 'human' varies...some of the things you'll fight are fair game, even some of the super soldiers.
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Knew it. There's magic involved in their creation.
waito_x said:
who are they going to call for blowing up the darn thing?
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Probably someone we'd know from Marvel.
waito_x said:
The semi-neutral National Revolutionary Army could be inserting Soviet agents in the roster.
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Given this isn't just Stalin's USSR, but Marvel Stalin's USSR, there's no doubt we're facing MGS3 shenanigans.
waito_x said:
This is partly because right around late 1934, Russia was already sending simply far too many troops to the border with Japanese Manchukuo for the Imperial Japanese Army to contend with.
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Plus Japan had too few resources to manufacture any number of AT guns or tanks, much less good ones.
 
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