Slivers & Shards Plot Role Info

[powersthatbe]

If you are not a plot infiltrator or someone with IC reasons to share knowledge available to plot infiltrators, please do not read the comments of this post.

If you ARE a plot infiltrator, please comment under your toplevel to let us know you've read it; please also pop over here to announce your plotroleishness to the game at large. We prefer that you do any confidential plotting with other plot-important folks in the comments here, rather than on plurk, and please comment no later than December 9th, January 3rd, and January 13th with a brief (as brief as 1 sentence; as long as you like) summary of your activity during the week & plans for next week. These comments will help the mods shape mingles and plot events to keep the story dynamic and player actions important to the outcome. Likewise, comment at any time with any questions you may have, and a mod will get back to you within 36 hours at the outside.

Comments

CABALIST CONSPIRATOR - NAOYA

[powersthatbe]

Cabalist Conspirator - a sinister but powerful psychic whose believes their knowledge is the key to salvation for the world, and walks the line between mentor and villain.The player taking this role must be comfortable with disturbing ruthlessness for the greater good.
Background: You have a reputation. A child prodigy, you’ve been moving from Spire to Spire since you were a teenager, leveraging your knowledge for the good of the communities. Part of that is just you - you do want to help people, and you did earn your reputation for intellect, wisdom, and canny advice. But also… you have a ride-along. Thrasyllus, a Cabalist from before the fall of the Protectorate, chose you as a host, and so you remember what so many do not - telekinetic irrigation, electrical power, diagnostic medicine, levitating trains - you have seen those things through his eyes, and know what good they can do for the world again. Thrasyllus wants the Protectorate to return. You want the power and unity of the past to return… whether it’s the Protectorate, something older, or something new, you are less particular.
Goals: Unite the surviving Spires and recover the lost glories of the past, under the Scion or under any other leader who people will follow. Be the adviser at their elbow. Do the things they are unwilling to do for their sake.
Allies: Cabalists are all allies. You’ve all seen the inside of each other’s skulls. Also, you’ve maintained good relations with Magnators, Cleritors, and Vocators in general - they may be wary of you, but you’ve helped their spires in the past. The Magnator Scion in particular has been a student of yours and trusts your advice - he is the kind of charismatic leader others focus their attention on, leaving you to do the hard, necessary, and unseen things that maintain power.
Thrasyllus: Thrasyllus understands psi technology as well as metallurgy, medicine, chemistry, and engineering at what is essentially a twentieth-century level. He can be consulted, through the mods, for insight into any information on these subjects you need. In normal threading, however, you should feel free to play him. He is irascible, arrogant, venal, petty, and vicious. Think Saruman in Lord of the Rings, Khan in Star Trek, Grand Moff Tarkin in Star Wars. You’ve spent years with his voice a constant influence in your mind.

Thrasyllus does not know that the Travelers exist, but he does remember the Portori, a group of Vale Adepts that appeared and disappeared just before the Fall and who could use what he perceived as psychic skills to teleport and manipulate energy from outside normal space. Some among the Portori were involved in an attempt to steal a Hellstone from Protector Malion, and when they vanished shortly thereafter they were remembered as martyrs. If he sees Liminal skills used, he’ll recognize the usage as the Vale Art of the Portori.
Mod Expectations: Two threads of five+ comments a week. Report
Weekly Reporting: Any conflict between you and Thrasyllus. Any time you steal, murder, reave, or cheat in the defense of a leader you’re supporting.
Skill: Double Image. You may use two psionic powers simultaneously. When Astral Tripping, either you or Thrasyllus can remain with your body. When either Thrassylus is burning psi, powers used by the other are undetectable, but Thrasyllus can only burn psi for a minute a week, or risk destroying the continuity of his mind.

After the Jaunt, you maintain this ability, but do not automatically have a ‘ride-along’ spirit. Any currently dead, astral, or dream-communicating Traveler may be recruited to be your temporary partner. Alternately, it’s not impossible to find a way to keep Thrasyllus, it’s just not automatic with this skill.

[crouching_sin]

This is almost literally Naoya, this is great.

A few questions:

Are the other Cabalists aware of Thrasyllus?

How hidden should I keep him in threads in terms of descriptive narration? I don't want to hide things from players if they should know it, but I understand the secret is the point.

Also his name is Qabil because I'm lazy and y'all are enablers.

[thornsofmalkav]

Okay so! Re: Delaunay and his support of Qabil's bullshit, I feel like he's probably v much in favor of reestablishing the Protectorate under Ghalib since he's the rightful heir and that does matter, maybe more into it being Ghalib or Ghalib's eventual niece or nephew to do that uniting than any other leader. (I figure he knows about Ghalib because Cabalists are all up in each other's business.) But like, he'd also be in favor of Qabil molding Ghalib into being the Right kind of god-king.

(I don't think Delaunay/Anaf has a ride along of his own.)

[powersthatare]

1: Other Cabalists would be aware!

2: The best course might be treating Thrasyllus like someone you are in psychic contact with during a thread? But you do not have to hide it at all on the meta/ooc side. If you wanted, you could write it as though he was simply someone you were in psychic contact with; but that is a matter of preference, you are equally welcome to make it plain in tags you have a voice in your head!

[crouching_sin]

Does everyone have access to reaving or is it very specialized?

Qabil Information Station

[crouching_sin]

- Parents were Vocators, dead but he's not 100% sure.
- Brother Habil was training to be a Vocator but got fuckin dead from a blight quorn poisoning. People thought Qabil did it but for once Naoya didn't try to kill his brother.

Week 2 Report

[crouching_sin]

So Qabil started a fire to see what Ghalib would do in this situation. He failed according to Qabil's standards, so he decided to move towards instating Chara as the leader.

And then Ghalib fucked up Hana and Qabil caught him tending his wounds and reaved him for the info, so he pulled an intervention with Chara and Samel. Ghalib got himself killed and Qabil tried to start pulling shit together when the Nation-Eaters attacked.

MAGNATOR SCION - GIL

[powersthatbe]

Magnator Scion - a direct descendant of the last Umbrian Protector, raised in secret to have great psionic power and believe in their destiny as a leader, but knows many would kill them on sight. Can be played as an innocent idealist or an entitled aspiring tyrant.
Background: Malion, your great-grandparent, was the last Umbrian Protector. You haven’t been raised either to worship or reject Malion - but you can’t help but know that if Malion hadn’t screwed up, today you would be in charge of the Vale. And whether the Protectors and the old Magnators were monsters or gods, admitting to a direct blood tie is a death sentence, and you can’t help but resent that. You’ve never scooped out anyone’s free will. And it’s undeniable that before the Protectorate began to crumble, the Nation Eaters weren’t a known threat. Either the Ancients, Mystics, and Protectors knew how to keep them asleep, or knew how to defend against them. And that knowledge being lost doesn’t mean it can’t be found again. It’s taken time, but you’ve convinced your mentor of this, and a few other Magnators and Vocators in other Spires. But Fallenheart is the center of trade, the place that has to be convinced if your ideas are going to spread.
Goals: You’re convinced that the only way to protect against the Nation Eaters is to start running Shades again, to collect Dreampushed power again, under Magnator direction. Not necessarily to resume right-think and the Protectorate as they were, but certainly not to throw away the power and potential of the community in exchange for the freedom to die as individuals.
Allies: The Cabalist Conspirator has been a mentor and adviser for years. Other Magnators who know your bloodline may defer to you - or despise you.
Mod Expectations: Three threads of five+ comments a week.
Weekly Reporting: Any time you persuade someone to try Dreampushing. Any time you convince someone to act on your authority. Any time you reveal your heritage to someone, however they react. Any time someone tries to kill you.
Skill: Taste for Glory. Any time you touch someone’s mind deeply - whether Reaving or Kything - you come away with a sense of what motivates them and what their ambitions are. You don’t gain any mystical powers of persuasion, but it certainly doesn’t hurt with ordinary diplomacy - or knowing when to cut your losses and talk to someone more in line with your priorities.

[breakaleginhalf]

heck yea

PRIME FACTOR - CLAUDIA

[powersthatbe]

Prime Factor - mathematical savant, most respected member of Fallenheart’s Calculator Council, struggling to be a person and not just a role.
Background: You’re the youngest and most respected member of the Calculator Council. When you were still an orphaned child, spending all your time at the Factor Tower studying (because it won you food and praise), you learned that the secret to superior calculation is to account for variables no-one else considers. That simple truth is the basis of your reputation as a savant - whenever something doesn’t work, rather than looking at the things everyone knows might be causing the breakdown, you look immediately for the unknown and unprecedented. You started looking to learn more, have new experiences, because breadth of experience is what helps you solve those calculations, but soon enough the new experiences became their own reward…

And when you were elected to the Calculator Council, you lost all that. You became too valuable to go on caravan trips across the Wastes, to explore the depths of the Caves, to go out alone in storms and see what the wind and static lightning were really like. Now you’re expected to be wise at all times, to solve everyone else’s problems, and you still have a problem not doing what you’re expected to. It’s what gets you food, gets you admiration, and those desires have been hardwired in you for some time.

It’s not that it’s impaired your calculation to act as a lawgiver… it’s that the exploration is what you want to be doing, so much more than this. But like the other Calculators, you’ve run the math, and any other Factor who could take your place wouldn’t be able to do what you do, provide your perspective to the Council. They’re right that you belong here… unless you can find something more important.

For a while, you’ve been working on a way to find such a project. An exploration beyond anything else that’s been attempted in centuries - to one of the broken Mystic Spires on the High Tables. There’s one visible east of Scatter-Spore, and another one North of Cabal. Of course, you’d have to find a way to breathe up there, in the choking clouds and caustic vapors, but think of what you might find!
Goals: Leave Fallenheart Spire for more than a few days without disappointing the people around you. Have new experiences you’ve never encountered.
Allies: Other Factors respect you automatically, but you’re much more interested in meeting anyone who’s from a far-away spire, and especially about Cabalists, whose whole Art is delving into the unknown somehow.
Mod Expectations: Three threads of four+ comments a week.
Weekly Reporting: Any time you find a way to escape the restrictions of needing to be wise and measured. Any time you give up what you want to make sure others don’t think less of you. You should try to do some of each!
Skill: Mimetic Reaving. Any time you read someone’s mind or intrude deeply in their thoughts (guiding a Dreampusher would also count), gain the ability to use one psionic skill they possess and you do not, at half its normal power, until the next time you use a Reaving or mind-reading ability. After the Jaunt, this ability may only be used once a week. If there is no obvious way to use an ability at one-half power, that ability may not be accessible. Consult a moderator if you are uncertain.

[claudiometer]

THAT SURE IS A PLOT SKILL CLAUDIA WILL NOT BE KEEPING. XD

week 1 check-in

[claudiometer]

Hypatia did not go on the caravan rescue, as much as she wanted to.

Buuuuuuuuuuut she's even more set on 'poke the High Tables' now that the Nation-Eaters are back in play, and recruiting Kleio to the cause. Ghalib's passed on the 'what a Nation-Eater do, as far as we know' info, and she hates it but hasn't reacted in-thread yet.

LET'S AT LEAST DIE TRYING SOMETHING NEW INSTEAD OF LETTING OUR FACES BE EATEN

week 2, before I forget

[claudiometer]

You can pry Hypatia's participation on her own fucking expedition from her COLD DEAD FINGERS. You know, assuming there's anyone alive to do that. In trade, she's not poking the Shadow District or the ruins for their current crop of unknown variables.

Truffle's half-approaching the Council with what I suspect are some of her specific insights from Scatter-Spore, but that's literally one comment from each of us right now. Meanwhile, Cassandra and the cultist she started deprogramming have come to the Council about Ghalib - and so did Mori, after Ghalib's death, with the 'he totes tried to cavosophia' detail.

Hypatia and Mori's discussion touched on Ghalib Telling about 'shit it's a Nation-Eater' but that's Probably A Coincidence. ...Right? After that discussion, Hypatia's keeping as much crucial equipment/sentimental objects on her person as she can at all times, for better odds of getting out prepared if it's not a coincidence. These aren't numbers you chance being wrong about.

week 3!

[claudiometer]

Tagout brain is fake, much like the month of January, and no one's tagged me, but I did crank out a toplevel. Hypatia is madly recalculating with the Portoris' existence hardcore Confirmed, as well as the possibility of damaging the Nation-Eaters.

But now she's thinking their best odds of survival are to leave the Vale entirely, so hopefully the High Tables will have something helpful to that end.

WASTELANDS SURVIVOR - CHIE

[powersthatbe]

Wastelands Survivor - a Nector or Katador who has settled in Fallenheart and now leads caravans and rescue teams, comfortable in the open wastelands.
Background: You don’t really think of yourself as being from a Spire, not any more. You’ve spent so much time in the Wastes you feel like they’re yours, in a way. You know how to follow mildew or dowsercrabs to water; know how to find the leeward side of a rock to bury yourself by before a storm; know each creature of the Wastes and its habits, each plant and fungus.

But it’s lonely out there. You keep finding caravans or leading rescue crews because, as much as you love the Wastes, you love sharing them more. It’s exhilarating, away from the social expectations of a Spire, at which you were always so clumsy, to be yourself in the unbounded wilderness.
Goals: Lead others into the Wastes to do things they have never done before.
Allies: You’re respected by those who practice the same Vale Art you do, and well-known within Fallenheart. Your only close connection, to your regret, is to Kaigetai (see Skills).
Mod Expectations: Two threads of four+ comments a week.
Weekly Reporting: Any expedition outside a Spire, who is with it, and what purpose! An expedition you lead can make twenty-five miles in a day, so in the length of one Mingle, you can travel at least a hundred miles out and back. Let the moderators know if they need to describe a new location or set up a new log!
Skills: Disrupt Concentration. When someone within thirty feet of you uses a psychic power or Vale Art, you and Kaigetai can coordinate action to disrupt them before they can focus long enough to make the skill work.
Kaigetai. In your years in the Wastes, you’ve come across and befriended a number of animals, but the only one that has stayed with you is a burncat you call Kaigetai. She is psychic but not sentient; around the size and build of a cheetah, the color of a sable Burmese cat, and can kythe, pin, and burn psi. She does not have the intelligence necessary to Tell or Teke, and does not understand speech.

Re: WASTELANDS SURVIVOR - CHIE

[highsteaks]

KAIGETAI IS THE BEST KITTY.

But no, this is great. This is wonderful. I need to figure out which Vale Art she does. She's def an ex-katador, but she's a lot more chill than she used to since she left to be a ranger.

Her name is probably Kleio, though.




PS Is Kaigetai a second plot skill??? Or part of Disrupt Concentration???

GRAFTED GENITOR - POD

[powersthatbe]

Grafted Genitor - a refugee and reluctant witness to trauma whose homegrown bioweapons include a potentially world-changing secret. The player taking this role must be comfortable with moderate body horror.
Background: Until the fall of Scatter-Spore, you were just another Genitor. But unlike every other refugee you’ve met, you were not out in the terraces when the Spire was hit.

You were in the Spire. You saw what happened. And it wasn’t Nation-Eaters… or at least, you think it wasn’t. The creatures had the arrowhead-shaped skulls, six legs, crystal fins, and keeled scales… but they weren’t hundreds of feet long. Ten to twenty feet, at most. And there weren’t just one or two of them. There were dozens. Maybe a hundred.

And they can do something else no Nation Eater has ever done.

They can die.

You and your kythemates killed one, semi-accidentally. That is, you all started to wake up the war colonies of fungi that live in your lungs and on your skin, and after eating the rest of your kythemates, the twenty-foot creature died at your feet, blood foaming from its mouth. You cut it open to see what had happened, and it was simple. Just blight quorn - which, in large enough quantities, causes every cell it touches to fall apart.

You don’t think you’re likely to volunteer to be one of the four dissolving genitors who gets eaten for each Nation Eater that dies, however. And they might make you - you’re afraid to tell anyone. And even more afraid to tell them what you did next.

The cranial fins of the Nation Eater were made of primed crystal - like Moonfall crystal. Nation Eaters must be naturally psychic, like humans and burncats.

So you did what a Genitor does with a strange biological sample - you clipped off four spines of the crystal growing from the Nation Eater’s brain, and you implanted them subcutaneously, one behind each ear and two in the back of your neck. Then you ran.
Goals: Stay alive at any cost. Understand what is happening to you. Another Genitor might understand - certainly they’d understand why you did what you did. But if they think you’re a danger, they might still act to destroy you.
Allies: None. All your allies were eaten. And anyone might kill you for what you know, or what you might be becoming. You know the Cabalist Conspirator is using a psychic power you’ve never seen before, and is using it constantly - you’re afraid of what that might mean, but also afraid to ask.
Mod Expectations: Three threads of four+ comments a week.
Weekly Reporting: Does anyone know your secret? How are you using your new powers? What are you doing to explore the limits of your capabilities?
Skill: Esthepathy. Since implanting the cranial spines and encouraging them to bond with your nervous system, you’ve discovered you can Pin all the time, without conscious effort, to a distance of about eleven miles. And it’s stranger than that - you can see and hear psychic powers used, as auras and ringing noises. Once you’ve identified a particular power’s sound and aura, you can tell infallibly when anyone within sight or hearing uses it or has it used upon them.

Re: GRAFTED GENITOR - POD

[wolvering]

Yup, This Is Pod's Role :D

But I have one question: best species for Kiga to be? Because Pod should have her brother with her, and Genitor at least offers options.

Re: GRAFTED GENITOR - POD

[wolvering]

Question about the skill: is it only psychic skills she can sense, or liminal too?

Also: would it be reasonable to assume that the refugees from Scatterspore grabbed everything they could carry, and also ate as much food as they could in the limited time? (my thought is it would make sense to intake that energy if they could, in order to share it by kything)

Re: GRAFTED GENITOR - POD

[wolvering]

Another question!

Since it sounds like the others were eaten while kything... what is it like to have someone in your active kythe die?

questions concerning wk 2 mingle

[wolvering]

So, would Truffle have been able to pin anything that happened with the raiding party, the disappearances and/or the Nation Eater presence?

BANDIT - CHLOE

[powersthatbe]

Bandit - a jaded cynical raider & renegade, formerly either a Katador or Nector, self-serving.
Background: Once you were a proud and accomplished Vale Artist in your home Vale, but when you were caught skimming rations and other supplies (didn’t you deserve them, for protecting the people of your Spire?), you had to fight your way out of the Spire, and barely got out alive. In the years since, you’ve skulked around Fallenheart, picking off small caravans, fencing the goods in Lodestar, and seethed with quiet rage. Now, a group who’s never put a caravan together before is planning on putting together the strangest, wealthiest trip across the Waste you have ever heard of… and you want a cut of it, and some revenge on the side.
Goals: Persuade locals that diplomacy is useless, and raiding your home Spire is the only way to get the supplies they need. Earn your way into the trust of the expedition. Then, when the time is right, rob it blind.
Allies: Anyone else playing a bandit that you have a prior arrangement with! On the other hand, you’re notorious among the group of Vale Artists (Katadors or Nectors) who threw you ought, and it would be wise to avoid them if you can.
Mod Expectations: Two threads of four+ comments a week.
Weekly Reporting: Any time you use your plot skill, rob, stalk, or kill someone. Any fight with Vale Artists from home. Anything that makes you have a moral qualm about your actions.
Skill: The Scent of Crime. When Telling or Pinning someone, you have an instinct that alerts you when they’re actively considering doing something they shouldn’t. It doesn’t tell you what or when; it doesn’t work on sociopaths or psychopaths who have no concept of ‘should,’ and it doesn’t work if they haven’t been thinking of it within the space of your last encounter/conversation. You use it as a recruiting tool, mostly, trying to find others inclined for larceny.

Re: BANDIT - CHLOE

[desperate_times_right]

Guess who is probably not going to have a fun Christmas lol. (Can’t wait)

Week 1

[desperate_times_right]

Hana stalked the refugee caravan for a bit, but ultimately decided there were too many people involved to take on by herself so she left them alone.

Since then she's been checking out the refugees to see who might have valuables with them (Serif's crystals are something she's taken an interest in) and who might be someone she can work with - no one's directly pinged her plot skill yet though. She threatened Sento because he keeps giving out food and she thinks he's muscling in on her operation.

She's also putting on a 'poor me' routine with Kleio over losing her Lodestar route in the hopes that if Kleio finds out about anything good she'll let her know about it.

Iulian the Nector accidentally dissolved something near her and now she's losing her mind because she thinks they sent people to find her. We're planning on having her kill him but it hasn't happened yet.

Week 2

[desperate_times_right]

So! Hana was hoping to get on the High Tables expedition to hide from Nectors after killing Iulian, but during Week 1 Anaf sold information about Hana to the investigators and Kleio found out, so that was a bust. Right afterward, Ghalib stalked her to her hideout in the caves and destroyed her mind in an attempt to create a cavosophia so it's a moot point anyway.

(I don't know if I need to report it here but Chloe also schemed with Sento for him to "locate" Hana's bandit lair with a bunch of extra liminally created food/supplies to make him look less suspicious while trying to give food to people. Raidou and his overlay helped her record a crystal of Hana's murder that Almas planned to give to the Calculator Council)

Delauney promised that he'd get Anaf to help Chloe the Portori shade inside Hana get back on the caravan, and after the Nation Eater attack it's possible they won't be picky anyway, so I'm still right now planning to attach Chloe/what's left of Hana to that.