Neon Shadows OOC 2.0

[Mollisol]

​

(Kickers and Major NPCs quick ref)
(Prior OOC)

Post Order:

1. @Quincunx
2. @daird
3. @Cresion Breezes
4. @Calypso Major
5. @Blighted_Agent
6. @Wolfsbane706

Initial Game Text

Hey @Wolfsbane706 , @Blighted_Agent and @daird :

This is the thread for us to discuss Kickers. I've had my nose in the PDF where they came from for a while today, so here I am with more complete information about them.

The game text (Sorcerer) does a really good job of describing them, and doesn't include too much game-specific info, so I've copied a few paragraphs here:

The Kicker is an event or realization that your character has experienced just before play begins. It catalyzes him or her into action of some sort. If your character has lived for years wondering what did happen to his father that stormy night, today is the day he finds a crucial clue. If he has quietly studied sorcery under his master until this moment, today is the day of his first mission. It can be anything as long as it gets the character going. Just imagine the first scene of a movie before the title comes up: "There's this guy. And then this happens to him!"

[...]

Kickers come in several categories, and at the very least the GM should tell the players what sorts are most appropriate for the story he or she has in mind.

• Shockers: "Today began like any other until you pulled aside the shower curtain to see the skinned body of your next-door neighbor hanging from the showerhead."
• Opportunities: "You open your suitcase after picking it up at the luggage carousel to find your clothes and stuff gone, replaced by a quarter of a million dollars."
• Mysteries: "A friend on the police force tells you that the scenes of each of the brutal crimes recently perpetrated in your neighborhood have been signed with your mother's maiden name."

Kickers should not (1) present a total mystery with no personal significance; (2) dictate a character's actions (e.g. in the suitcase example above, the character could respond in many ways, ranging from keeping the money, spending it right away, or going to the police); or (3) present something he or she may react to casually.

Clearly the player and GM should discuss the Kicker carefully. Some GMs will be happy to have each player come up with something independently, whereas others will want to link each character's Kicker carefully to events in the game's back-story.

My additions to that include:

• In this RP, kickers do not need to link to the history of Henzai no Kuni, or rebellions against it. They should, however, be personally relevant to your character, and be relevant to the setting somehow.
• I'd like to stress again that the kicker should be something that you need to respond to now, although it does not dictate only one solution. It shouldn't be just a background happening you can dread and wait on.
• Kickers can be intertwined between characters!

EDIT: Most appropriate Kickers are shockers (not necessarily gruesome like the one in the example) and opportunities. Mysteries are iffy with Henzai and hackers being privy to so much information, but I will listen to pitches for them.

 

[Mollisol]

If this was like Madoka then it means the GM is trying to kill us all.

Fortunately the almighty GM has assured us from the start that there's no Incubator figure. C=

Yep, I stated it once in the old OOC, but to be clear: the Shadows are supposed to be the good guys in this situation, Eri is not trying to kill or exploit them, and there's no big reveal that the girls have been monsters or waiting to become monsters all along. It's not quite a light story considering some of the kickers we have, but it's not Madoka.

Btw, since I think people are waiting on me to post:

Gonna get kickers (and an NPC list and/or relationship map up) hopefully tomorrow evening, and then my post will integrate Senki and Chouko.

 

[Wolfsbane706]

Yep, I stated it once in the old OOC, but to be clear: the Shadows are supposed to be the good guys in this situation, Eri is not trying to kill or exploit them, and there's no big reveal that the girls have been monsters or waiting to become monsters all along. It's not quite a light story considering some of the kickers we have, but it's not Madoka.

Btw, since I think people are waiting on me to post:

Gonna get kickers (and an NPC list and/or relationship map up) hopefully tomorrow evening, and then my post will integrate Senki and Chouko.

Yuzu!

 

[Mollisol]

@Wolfsbane706 @Blighted_Agent @Cresion Breezes @daird @Calypso Major please review this info and tell me if I have the info relevant to your character correct! Also, please tell me if any of these colors are hard to read on your Iwaku theme.

KICKERS

• Sakura/Blue - disconnected from many external pressures, Sakura is managing life as a Shadow until she is badly injured in an AR Henzai attack. If bodily harm doesn't alter her life, mental trauma does, truly driving home what Sakura is risking when she fights for Umbra. How will she regain her confidence? In the event of mental trauma, what will she do to cope?
• Anna/White - as the estranged daughter of Joseph Decarion, she received an e-mail inviting her to her father's wedding with Mikan - Yellow Shadow. How will she handle her father appearing in Mikan's life, and how will she keep herself ahead of her family situation, as well as her activities out of Henzai's sight?
• Mikan/Yellow - as the daughter of a connected and religious Inner Gear clan, Mikan is arranged to marry Joseph Decarion, a high-ranking HARP (Henzai Accordance Role Play) VR programmer who is also Anna's father. Knowing Joseph's position will make it harder for her to work as a Shadow, what will Mikan do about the wedding? If she goes through with it, how will she hide her Shadow work? If not, how does she sabotage it, and what will happen to her?
• Senki/Carmine - since she wasn't making enough money tutoring Mikan, Senki struck a deal with Umbra's local cryptocurrency miner, Osami, offering service as a Shadow in exchange for NyxCoin (convertible into other currencies if desired). However, this creates many opportunities for unwanted attention to be cast on Senki, as her illegal activities become closer and closer to Henzai's notice. Will she be able to hide her life and her sister from Henzai's eyes, and if not, who will she protect and how?
• Chouko/Rose - while delivering a "special request" to an area near the Inner Gear, Chouko witnesses an AR skirmish between current Shadows and Henzai creatures (incidentally, the same attack that wounds Sakura). Blackmailed into joining the Shadows, how will Chouko retain her agency and privacy from Henzai?

MAJOR NPCS
Please note that most family members who have not appeared IC are purposely not listed. Major NPCs are identified and listed based on how prominent the GM currently thinks they are or could be, and the list is subject to change.

• Eri - master datamancer whose avatar is a fortune-telling cat that guides the Shadows through their powers and gear. She is ordinarily calm and absorbed in her work, avoids emotionally engaging with the Shadows' personal problems, and dislikes surprises.
• Osami - cryptocurrency miner, primarily connected to Senki. She pays Senki cryptocurrency in exchange for her work as a Shadow, motivated by her need to keep her economic base Umbra alive. The deal was approved by Eri, but Osami is rumored to have loan shark-like tendencies (see Senki's Kicker).
• Yuzu - rising star datamancer, primarily connected to Anna. The two struck a deal, where Yuzu would modify Anna's Shadow gear (yes, she knows) in exchange for Anna repairing Yuzu's vintage car radio. Yuzu was recently unbanned from Umbra for some currently unknown acts that she regrets.
• Joseph Decarion - Anna's father and Mikan's fiance, whose role is detailed in both Shadows' Kickers.
• Chiyo Ora - caretaker of Chouko. Chouko is indebted to her due to this, and due to how Chiyo nurtured her talent for pottery and ceramics.
• Nanomi Hoiken - a young girl with savant system adopted by Senki's uncle Densho. Senki's family secretly cares for her; she has amazing calculative abilities, but cannot look after herself.
• Megumi Fuyutsuki - a blind girl who is watched over (to prevent her from "usurping" even more resources) in a Fringe Gear hospital, and a friend of Sakura's. She is also an acquaintance of Eri's, due to occasionally accessing Umbra through a friendly orderly; the role she plays under Eri is an informant for Henzai's activities in the Fringe Gear (since the hospital is attached to a base of operations for Henzai in the Fringe Gear).
• Ryouji Urukawa - businessman, Mikan's older brother, and record-keeper for the Urukawa clan and the goings-on of the shrine (including work for Henzai).
• Yamato Urukawa - head patriarch of the Urukawa shrine, who strictly controls the family's descendants.

 

[Calypso Major]

@Quincunx
All the information concerning Chouko & Chiyo looks good, and I can see all the colors with minimum difficulty.

Concerning the skirmish, it'd be cool if the same skirmish was the one that injured Sakura -- this could possibly be (cough -blackmail-cough) a reason for why Umbra would want to recruit Chouko? I mean, if she had witnessed a potential rebellion, it's probably reasonable to assume that said rebellion would want her to either join them, or forget any of it happened?

What do the rest of you think?
@Wolfsbane706 @Cresion Breezes @Blighted_Agent @daird

 

[Mollisol]

@Quincunx
All the information concerning Chouko & Chiyo looks good, and I can see all the colors with minimum difficulty.

Concerning the skirmish, it'd be cool if the same skirmish was the one that injured Sakura -- this could possibly be (cough -blackmail-cough) a reason for why Umbra would want to recruit Chouko? I mean, if she had witnessed a potential rebellion, it's probably reasonable to assume that said rebellion would want her to either join them, or forget any of it happened?

What do the rest of you think?
@Wolfsbane706 @Cresion Breezes @Blighted_Agent @daird

Sounds good. I can edit that in after work.

 

[Blighted_Agent]

Responding to say all details are clear.

 

[Cresion Breezes]

Yep everything is clear, but just FYI Senki will most likely (she'd probably literally sell her life to Eri if she's paid enough) choose here sister over her own life because there is a bigger reason for why she was adopted.

 

[daird]

Let's go with it.

 

[Mollisol]

List edited and IC post up! I'd like Senki and Anna to show up before I post again, and after they've been introduced, to segue into the first AR fight (initiating Sakura's kicker and bringing in Chouko). Will be linking the lists a few posts up.

 

[Cresion Breezes]

I'm going on a 13 hour flight soon so I'll need a day or two before posting, sorry about the delay!

 

[Wolfsbane706]

This occurred to me while on vacation (sorry for not posting, things have been chaotic because spring break) but would some of the VR skills transfer over easily to AR? That is, Anna's main movement skill, which has her skating. She's an excellent skater in VR, but in RL, her skating skills are very much subpar.

 

[Mollisol]

This occurred to me while on vacation (sorry for not posting, things have been chaotic because spring break) but would some of the VR skills transfer over easily to AR? That is, Anna's main movement skill, which has her skating. She's an excellent skater in VR, but in RL, her skating skills are very much subpar.

That is an excellent question. My first instinct is to say there's a game-like system where you can point-buy to pick and choose certain skills to download into your brain, simplifying the action as if it's virtual.

So, you can transfer, say, up to 5 skills into AR (some magical girl, some not), or put more "points" into particular skills to be a freakin' ace at them instead of just good.

If that's overly complicated, we can just say "yes, some of them would". What do y'all think?

 

[Blighted_Agent]

Like the idea of a points system for this kind of thing, no idea how to handle it best.

 

[Cresion Breezes]

Speaking of the AR component, I have a question, Senki's main abilities are all environment altering abilities, in video game terms the place I gave her is field support, she creates areas where the laws pf physics itself can be altered (hence her motif). Her main skill is her particle prism that can bisect things, be a platform or a shield. So I'm wondering how that can be handled because breaking physics in VR is easy but in AR the best argument I can come up with is the manipulation of other people's perception of AR worlds. There's actually an anime called Dennō Coil that deals with this subject pretty extensively, highly suggested. I took this quote from the Wiki and I feel that could be used as something in this RP. TLDR: AR space is updated to be in sync with real space, if that updating can be controlled, the perception of AR space by others can be controlled.

In order to spatially synchronize virtual space and real space, users of internet-connected dennō eyeglasses constantly upload the status of physical space to the virtual infrastructure. In the fifth episode, the protagonists encounter a sparsely visited junkyard of buses on the fringes of wireless internet connectivity. Due to obsolete AR data, the buses are depicted by dennō eyeglasses as being in far better condition than they actually are. The characters sometimes exploit the discrepancies of desynchronization when dealing with metabugs and illegals.

Now another question is that I noticed from the old IC that new shadows didn't know their color and motif until they activated the powers, but both Eri and Senki herself seems to know about what Senki's whole theme is going to be, I did an IC reference that suggests Senki already striking some sort of deal or has put in a job application before the current IC events so hopefully that is ok or gets an explanation.

On side note I might redesign her shadow outfit since I feel like there's too much white and not enough red on her lol.

 

[Mollisol]

TLDR: AR space is updated to be in sync with real space, if that updating can be controlled, the perception of AR space by others can be controlled.

I hadn't really thought about how it worked, and this is a good way to phrase it. I think I need to introduce some new gear for this as well (as well as update the lore dump with the gear from the old threads - shouldn't require any modification of the new charas iirc).

Now another question is that I noticed from the old IC that new shadows didn't know their color and motif until they activated the powers, but both Eri and Senki herself seems to know about what Senki's whole theme is going to be, I did an IC reference that suggests Senki already striking some sort of deal or has put in a job application before the current IC events so hopefully that is ok or gets an explanation.

I don't see a problem with it - it's not a stretch that Senki's deal with Osami could mean Eri figured things out about her beforehand. This might've been a wrong assumption on my part, but it was my understanding that Senki and Osami made their negotiations before the IC events.

 

[Wolfsbane706]

What I had in mind has a lot to do with muscle memory. I'm not sure how well we can simulate that.

 

[Mollisol]

What I had in mind has a lot to do with muscle memory. I'm not sure how well we can simulate that.

Hmm, maybe we can figure it out. Can you elaborate?

 

[Wolfsbane706]

Hmm, maybe we can figure it out. Can you elaborate?

Skating is very heavily reliant on muscle memory, especially in the legs.

 

[Mollisol]

Skating is very heavily reliant on muscle memory, especially in the legs.

Okay, considering that this is the far future and we're taking some creative leaps with technology...

Maybe one can "download" muscle memory packages directly into their body? But the amount a person can download is limited because it's a lot of work (and/or money and resources) for a datamancer to port into AR, and perhaps because it's an experimental procedure that could have adverse effects on one's health, so it's not a privilege many can enjoy.

 

[Cresion Breezes]

Isn't the bigger problem here how she's suppose to skate everywhere, since creating ice (and any other elemental thing for any character) freely in an AR world that actually has physcial properties and acts like how it's supposed to is a big enough problem in itself.
Physical fitness is a thing too, regular teenagers would no way be able to do intense physcial activities like those battles in their actual bodies, at least not for extensive amount of times.
So maybe like a time limit would be interesting, the amount of AR fighting the character can physically sustain before needing to recover.
I understand that the notion of introducing AR is to introduce risk, but some risks could be added to VR too, like for the characters to retrieve special VR headset from the real world that allows full neurological connection to the VR world, boosting their shadow abilites, but sustaining too much virtual damage will cause actual pain, neurogenic dieases or permanent damage to the brain.