Something Wicked (Villainous Magical Boy Quest)

[SillyLittleCoffe]

Name: Zaiyu Es Talis

Species: Estil

Age: Approximately 17

Magic Specialties: Thaumaforging (Expert), other branches of Estil space magic bar necromancy (Advanced).

Archetype: The Alien

Level: Advanced

Description: A slender teenager with bronze skin, an angled dark green bob cut, and a feline grin. Like most members of his species, Zaiyu sports retractable claws on his hands and feet, possesses a set of small fangs, and has the ability to fly. Unlike most members of his species, Zaiyu also has the distinctive shorn haircut and multicolored tattoos of a thaumaforge. Anyone remotely familiar with the Estil will know exactly what he is on sight. His fashion sense is distinctly otherworldly, ending up somewhere between Xianxia chic and CLAMP character. He never goes anywhere without his dendrite extensions--the assortment of floating magical scarves that he controls like additional limbs--or a massive collection of little dangly charms that manage minor, moderate, and sometimes major spells for him. His eyes glow a solid pale green. After an incident with a sample of the very magical and very dangerous plant Crystalvine, most of his right arm is composed completely of immobile white crystal. A pulse of white light is visible under the clear stone surface.

Goal: Take over the world. Eliminating humanity would be nice, but the most important thing is that humans not be able to stop you from recolonizing the planet. Planetary Threat.

Role: Elite.

Traits:

• Thaumaforge: Any Estil can use magic, but it takes a true genius to create life from nothing. You are one of those rare souls. Thaumaforge options unlocked.
• Knowledge Is Power: Magic is awesome, but you know what's more awesome? Actually knowing what you're doing. You're the information and stealth specialist on this team. That makes it your job to know things.
• Two-Faced Liar: You can pretend to be a human if you want, but you don't need a secret identity. And really, you probably shouldn't stick to just one disguise. Your mission requires flexible hours and locations, after all. Bonus to disguise roles, expanded disguise options.
• Trickster Archetype: You're having a ton of fun with this whole invasion thing. Your fiendish creativity terrifies your foes and your playful laughter gets under their skin. All opponents suffer a composure malus.
• Space Magic: Your powers are rooted in the vast depths of the cosmos, not the puny blue planet you're invading. Absolutely no one on earth knows how your powers work or how to counter them. The heroines will always be on the backfoot when fighting you.
• We Have the Power: Unlike some villains, you have the backing of an entire civilization. Sure, most of home is far away and out of reach, but you've received training from the best and you have an incredible array of tools to fall back on. There's no way the heroines will be able to infiltrate your base when it's on the moon! Expanded resource options.
• Teen Genius: You may be young, but you're one of the best your people have to offer. What other people take years to master, you learn in days; what takes them decades takes you weeks. You may not understand humans yet, but you're learning fast. You will learn rapidly.
• Tunnel Vision: You get fixated easily. This is part of why you were chosen for this mission—it makes you incredibly skilled and focused in your areas of expertise. It also means you can miss things that are right in front of your nose, or get obsessed with things you shouldn't. Reduced perception options.
• Fish Out Of Water: You studied up on earth for this mission, but reading about something is nothing compared to actually being there. You don't understand how things work here and you'll get confused easily until you get your bearings. Reduced general options until you learn more.
• Hopeless Romantic: You are an isolated teenager from a dystopian planet who just arrived on a seemingly peaceful world filled with people your approximate age. There is a 100% chance you will fall in love with the wrong person. This will definitely disrupt your mission.
• Not A Team Player: You've got three other people on the elite team to work around and share toys with. And you hate sharing. Malus to interacting with teammates.
• Impossible Dream: Deep down, you don't really want to hurt people. You try to hide this as much as possible, but it's the truth. And if you're not careful, that truth will get you killed by your own allies. Reduced villainy options unless character development kicks in.
• Traces of ???: Like all Estil, you have been reincarnated, and your soul was damaged in the process. Very little remains of your previous self… but 'very little' is miles from 'nothing at all.'

Items of Note:

• Powered-up Edach Barrier Charm: Can reflect anything up to a small bomb without help from other charms. Blocks status effects, too.If you'd had this when Mitl started yelling near his dangerous plants, you'd still have the use of your arm. Currently equipped to Sasori.
• Restored Charm Collection: You've got the charms you used up—and petrified—during the Crystalvine assault functioning again. This means you can once again juggle practically infinite spells at once, provided you don't have to alter more than one or two or fifty at a time. If you want to expand your collection, you'll need to find more small, cute items to use as bases for additional charms.
• Daisy Ash Crystal: A powerful but unstable magic item found in the aftermath of Rose's explosive magical awakening. Could grant a monster the ability to use magic. May have other uses. Can only be used once. Concepts: Crystal, Poison, Awakening.
• Tournament Flyer: A magic item found in the aftermath of Rose's explosive magical awakening. Can only be used once. Concepts: Stone, Collision, Fierce.
• Arcade Token: A magic item found in the aftermath of Rose's explosive magical awakening. Can only be used once. Concepts: Hunger, Poison, Strive.
• Azurevine: A mutated strain of Crystalvine that no longer hunts or creates edach, but is an even better conductor of magic. Concepts: unknown.

Familiars (total mana 40):

• Sasori (Beginner): Cost 10. Remaining mana: 20
• Size-Shifting Bat (Beginner): Cost 10.

 

[SillyLittleCoffe]

These rolls... You should give traits for these.

Click to shrink...

Okay then. On a related note, here's Sasori's character sheet, finally.

---

ALLIES

Name: Sasori

Species: Mana Eater

Age: Unknown, appears young adult

Concepts: Destruction, Mimicry, Soul. This loadout is incredibly rare and makes him an ideal familiar for a thaumaforge.

Archetype: The Monster

Level: Beginner

Description: A tall and clearly inhuman teenager with an armored carapace, a scorpion-like barbed tail, fluffy hair and fur clinging to his shoulders, and an uncanny resemblance to an Estil. Sasori has ocean blue skin, sky blue hair and chitin, orient red eyes and markings showing through his armor, and a crown of white horns. Currently, he also has the claws of a liger, shark teeth, shifting stripy markings, a large black rhino horn on his forehead, an array of venomous scorpionfish spines, and an overall internal physiology well-suited to aquatic life based on a blue whale. His eyesight is quite poor and his eyes have black sclera.

Goal: To survive.

Traits:

• Cute Monster Boy: Although you are generally humanoid, you possess some very obvious inhuman traits—claws, fangs, markings, skin of a distinctly non-human shade, even a barbed tail. These traits will enhance your powers further and can be upgraded as you grow stronger.
  • Coloration: ocean blue skin, sky blue hair and chitin, orient red eyes and markings showing through your armor, and a crown of white horns.
• Base mimicry traits (1d10, min 6 = 9):
  • Scorpion Tail: You have a stinger tail. Your tail is moderately prehensile and highly venomous. Anything you sting is likely to feel incredibly nauseous and lose consciousness. You are venomous.
  • Scorpion Armor: Like a scorpion, you are covered in thick armor plating. This gives you an excellent defence against most attacks. It's also incredibly intimidating. Bonus to defence.
  • Liger Claws: Your hands and forearms have the appearance of large, clawed feline paws. This has impacted your manual dexterity significantly, but your power can't be understated. Bonus to attack.
  • Shark Teeth: You have row upon row of triangular teeth in your jaws. They fall out easily and are constantly being replaced. A bite from you would cause some serious pain. Bonus to attack.
  • Discus Camouflage: You possess shifting stripy markings that would break up your outline and make you hard to spot… in a coral reef. Bonus to camouflage in coral reefs, malus everywhere else.
  • Arctic Wolf Hide: Tufts of white and sky blue fur on your shoulders form a natural cloak of sorts. You are resistant to the cold. Bonus to wilderness survival, cold resistance, fashion.
  • Rhino Horn: On top of your collection of small white horns, you also have a very large black one jutting out from your forehead. You could do some real damage with this. Bonus to attack, special attack available.
  • Drawback: Rhino Eyesight. You can't see very well and have to navigate with other senses. Perception malus.
  • Scorpionfish Spines: You are dotted with highly venomous spines. These possess an entirely different kind of venom that causes delirium, paralysis, tremors, and difficulty breathing. You are venomous… again.
  • Aquatic Physiology (Blue Whale): You are surprisingly well-adapted to the water and can hold your breath for up to 90 minutes while diving comfortably up to 1000 feet. You also possess immense physical strength and speed. Bonus to defence, attack, and further aquatic adaptations.
• Weak: You're way stronger than a human and you could give most other species a run for their money, but you're the kind of foe a beginner magical girl could face evenly. You need time and luck to become a real threat.
• Uncanny Valley Boy: You are not a human, and you cannot really conceal this fact. Even in disguise, people find you… concerning, to say the least, and that's just the way you like it. Right? Bonus to intimidation, malus to disguise, huge malus to appearing harmless.
• Maimed Soul: You are a monster with no connection to your creator. This makes you terribly vulnerable. Huge malus to resisting soul manipulation. Mitigated due to contract with Zaiyu.
• Obligate Thaumavore: You rely on draining the mana of others to fill the hole inside you. This makes you a serious problem to anyone who doesn't have mana to lose. It also means you must manage your hunger responsibly. You must feed on souls regularly unless supported by a mage's contract.
  • Current contractor: Zaiyu
• Attempted Mimicry: After an initial great success at forming his body in the lab, Sasori has proven to be very bad at Mimicking others. Roll twice when attempting Mimicry and choose the lower result.

(Additional traits locked until further study can be conducted.)

 

[SillyLittleCoffe]

Research rules: Zaiyu is a Teen Genius, so he will never fail a research action. However, he can make advances more quickly. Each turn a research project is in progress, you get to roll for bonus understanding. The results will be added to your default progress. As you become more familiar with a certain subject, you will acquire extra research dice for that subject.

You can juggle three research projects at a time. Choose wisely.

Active Research Projects:
[X] Research Project: Crystal Arm Transformation. Associated Fields: Estil Biology, Botany, Geology. +3 bonus dice.
3 turns remaining. Teen Genius research bonus: 45/100.

• Side effect found: petrification dormant, not shut down.
• Side effect found: possibility of re-activating petrification.
• Side effect found: no inherent method of focusing mana flow through edach.

[ ] EMPTY
[ ] EMPTY

Completed Research Projects:
Crystalvine Basics. Associated Fields: Estil Biology, Botany, Geology. +3 bonus dice. Default Time: 1 Turn. Teen Genius Autopass.

Known Reagents

• Crystalvine. Plant/Stone. Spell keywords: Crystal, Petrify, Counterattack, Transformation, Sound.
• Greater Shatterleaf. Known Reagent. Spell Keywords: Poison, Counterattack, Attack, Growth.
• Shredderflower. Known Reagent. Spell Keywords: Ranged, Explosion, Attack, Force.

 

[Happerry]

[X] PAY YOUR DEBTS – YUU SEIKI

[X] FANTASY
[X] ROMANCE

Edit:

Clearly I don't know enough about the tally program to fix this. We're just voting for the genres now and I'll pick the characters. 😔

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The best/easiest way to format it probably would have been to have done two different book vote sections, one per character, so you could format the votes properly to have the votes be categorized by character.

Like This.

Zaiyu's vote.
[ ] [Zaiyu] FANTASY
[ ] [Zaiyu] SCI-FI
[ ] [Zaiyu] ROMANCE
[ ] [Zaiyu] LITERARY FICTION
[ ] [Zaiyu] HORROR

Sasori's vote.
[ ] [Sasori] FANTASY
[ ] [Sasori] SCI-FI
[ ] [Sasori] ROMANCE
[ ] [Sasori] LITERARY FICTION
[ ] [Sasori] HORROR

Which would separate the votes by characters and prevent the need to have any write in stuff make the vote counter get very confused.

 

[SillyLittleCoffe]

I must say. When the Titan presents itself as the Final Boss of the quest, the music of the final battle against it must be at least as epic as this XD.

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Thanks for the music rec! Now I'm halfway to assembling a playlist for the Titan. Because I totally have the time and energy for that right now. 😂

Well, if nothing else, it'll be good for quest inspiration.

Sample tracks, if anyone is looking for the Titan's overall vibes:


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cCHy1rf9Yk0

Existence - Granblue Fantasy Versus Original Soundtrack


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W8cEueHSZr4

Uzuki - 装甲悪鬼村正 OST


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rGetImTgyFA

Holy Orders (Be Just Or Be Dead) - Guilty Gear X2 OST


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nZVpt2zPdNo

The One And Only - (Mega Man X Opening Stage Remix)


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BK5gNBfAEAg

Soldiers of Sorrow - Andrew W.K.

 

[SillyLittleCoffe]

The more we interact with the Captain, the more intrigued I am. He's so absurdly powerful, is he the best navigator among all the Estil? If so, it's a hell of a risk sending someone so important with such a sparse team, and if not I shudder to imagine what the actual strongest of the Estil can do. And they're so young, too, I bet all of them can still grow further which is frankly astounding. Shayin can literally bring an entire spaceship to FTL, what the heck.

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Most of Shayin's deal is under wraps until you have a better relationship with him, but I will confirm he's one of the best/most powerful pilots in the fleet. He's the son of the current Estil Prime Minister and he used to fly the capital flagship, which is one of the most prestigious positions in the fleet, period. As mentioned before, Shayin is basically royalty, and Zaiyu doesn't know what he's doing out here with a tiny scout ship. He suspects politics were involved.

As a general rule of Estil combat, pilots do not fight directly because it's too easy for them to cause massive collateral damage (bad) or start messing with the fabric of space-time enough that void denizens get interested (worse). This means Shayin will remain out of the direct line of action for as long as possible so he doesn't accidentally break the Earth.

Once Zaiyu manages to set up some solid magical defenses to prevent that collateral damage from hitting anything important, though, all bets are off.

 

[SillyLittleCoffe]

I will confirm that Mithos is something of a mythologized god-king in the mountain. He's considered to be the father of both thaumaforging and pilotry. Supposedly, he exhausted himself facilitating the Estil's evacuation from Earth in the distant past, and either died, ascended to a higher plane of existence, or went into a deep slumber once everyone was safe. Like King Arthur, he's meant to rise again someday. Supposedly, the royal family is his descendants. However, his life has been highly mythologized in the time since the exodus, so Zaiyu doesn't actually know what's truth and what's fiction.

 

[SillyLittleCoffe]

I have an question, how Estil family units work? Like they work at all and taumaforgers and pilots are a separate case or is just you are a child of the ship you are born...
The second one i can see everyone having daddy an mommy issues not just the 2 overpowered idiots.

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Estil family units are... not great. The kids generally stay with their parents/extended family unit until they're about 8 or 10, at which point they're taken away for education and funnelled into various professions. Typically, you fall out of contact at that point and only start communicating again after graduation. This is what happened to Mitl and may explain his exceptionally poor social skills. But royals operate on their own rules, so who knows how Shayin's childhood went.

One way to get around this forced separation is to apprentice the kid to a family member or friend, which allows you to skirt around the mandatory boarding school period since the kid's specialties have supposedly already been found and they're receiving on-the-job training. They still have to undergo schooling a few days a week, but they can live at or near home and remain in contact with family. This is what happened to Rins, which is why they're more well-adjusted.

Zaiyu himself was drafted early at the age of 5 or 6, when he first began to show the potential of a thaumaforge. He hasn't seen his family since then and has been heavily discouraged from contacting them in any way. According to his teacher, thaumaforges must only be tied to the fleet as a whole. Individual connections will only bind their hands. But Zaiyu is an extrovert, so he kinda has to ignore that in order to stay functional.

 

[SillyLittleCoffe]

Another question on the same line, how do Estil marriages work if they do exist? Or the Estil just have children out of duty?

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That's a very broad question. TLDR, marriage does not exist as an institution, but people definitely still pair off (or separate off in larger numbers, as the case may be) and celebrate entering relationships. It's definitely way less of a focus/priority for most, though. This isn't just because the fleet is running out of the magic needed to keep everyone alive, but that definitely plays a role.

 

[SillyLittleCoffe]

Mitl could help if he learn to not be an risk to everyone near him...

Also i wonder what is Mitl's approximate age, his description basically eiter say he is about the rest of the cast age or older.
If he is the cast age i have one good image in kind trought its a human.

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The main four's approximate ages are: Rins (roughly 16), Zaiyu (roughly 17), Shayin (roughly 18), and Mitl (roughly 19).