Messages

1

Show Discussion / Re: Ask and you shall recieve: Rogue Trader is BACK!

« on: April 18, 2017, 02:01:24 PM »

Dude, if I start it back up, of course I'll call you back for it. I don't currently have any inspiration for further plots with it, unfortunately, but I'll let you know if I do.

Cool, thanks. I miss that campaign, and the characters, quite a bit.

I don't know if a 'Hot Springs' episode would translate well into the 40k 'verse, but dammit, we're willing to try.

I will make it work.

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Show Discussion / Re: Ask and you shall recieve: Rogue Trader is BACK!

« on: April 15, 2017, 12:43:22 PM »

Hopefully that's a sign that the old RT campaign might come back.

And also that James will call me for that one. >_>

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Show Discussion / Re: Ask and you shall recieve: Rogue Trader is BACK!

« on: April 03, 2017, 02:35:30 PM »

Whoa. Never knew this was a thing!

I am kind of curious why James's previous RT campaign was never continued, though. I'd have loved to play Avi again.

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Forum Roleplaying / Re: Post here if you are looking for a forum game, and what kind of games.

« on: October 28, 2016, 12:06:53 PM »

Oh, also: ghost/echo. I think I finally know how you're supposed to run this game, and I'd love to try my hand at it someday.

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Forum Roleplaying / Re: We are our Avatars

« on: October 20, 2016, 01:58:53 PM »

"Oh my God, Sab," Emma groaned, "Go bone yourself."

There we go.

She lounged in her chair as if Sab's display didn't bother her: slouched down, arms outstretched across the rests, and giving Sab the most bemused look she could manage.

"I'm just trying to rationalize why I'm here, in magic jail, with the two of you," she said, "I remember things, but not events; I'd really like to know what I did, and if there's some kinda magic lawyer I should be contacting to get outta this place."

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Forum Roleplaying / Re: We are our Avatars

« on: October 20, 2016, 01:25:08 PM »

She felt a little more heat rise to her face at the teasing, but didn't let herself respond to it. She had no idea how to respond, anyway. What was she going to do, tell him to go bone himself?

Actually, that would've been pretty funny. Oh well. I'll save that for later.

"I dunno if I had a specialty. Or . . . I guess if I was even accredited? Like a title or anything. But Dr. Emma does sound nice," Emma mused, "I just-- I dunno, I don't really remember anything before all this? Or how I got to this place-- this prison, right? I kinda just realized that I've been picking it apart like a logic puzzle since I got here. And more than just this place. Like . . . for example, I don't know how old I am, but I somehow know all the physical stages of childhood development, so I could actually tell by looking in a mirror. Plus I know a little about architecture. This place is pre-Renaissance. Tudor architecture. The death throes of medieval gothic."

"I even know the history of science fiction, and just literature in general. I know Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus and The Tempest like the back of my hand--even that the former was his first big production, and the latter was his final big production," Emma paused and took a breath. "I dunno how I know any of that. I'm, like, what . . . between eleven and thirteen, I'd guess, and I really don't think the average middle school teaches those things. So I have to be college educated . . . or . . . or something. And judging by how I absolutely can't help but pick every little thing apart to its most basic elements, I can only assume I'm, like, a scientist. Or something akin to one. Maybe studying to be one?"

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Forum Roleplaying / Re: We are our Avatars

« on: October 20, 2016, 11:11:31 AM »

Emma nodded her head, briefly enraptured by the experiment. It was only after the theory was proven--that the damage would be undone within three and a half seconds--that she realized she'd been staring. Emma leaned back, arms crossed over her chest, a myriad of thoughts invading her mind.

Experiments. Theories and hypothesis. Thought exercises. That had dominated her life before all of this, hadn't it? Beyond the boasting and false bravado, she had to have actually been well educated. As far as she knew, kids her age didn't think like that. Right? How . . . old was she, anyway? Young, definitely. Teenaged? Probably teenaged. On the younger side of the teenage years. Eleven through thirteen, one of those. Probably. There was a way to tell, a particular developmental scale, but she'd have to check that later. Once again, though: science. Biology. A theory ("I must be this old") and a process to prove it.

"I think I'm a scientist," Emma blurted out.

Soon after, though, her cheeks flushed. She was so excited to conclude something about herself that she kind of lost the topic they were looking into. Mysteries of the Inn. Not mysteries about herself.

"A-ahm, sorry," she quickly added, voice a little higher pitched from the slight embarrassment, "I didn't mean to deviate from the, uhm, Inn topic. Just, uhm, just now kinda realized what I was probably doing before this, uh, prison, I guess."

[Spoiler:]

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Beyond the Stellar Sphere / Re: [BtSS] TSS Approaching Dawn (Open)

« on: October 20, 2016, 08:56:25 AM »

Spoiler: show

Ergh, sorry; continually kept forgetting to reply to this. Nonetheless, with the inactivity, I think I'll skip ahead in time, if that's okay with all.

"Oh, about a week," said the bartender with a smile, "If you grabbed a ticket last minute, you might not know all the amenities we have here. The week goes by quickly, I assure you."

With that, he moved to the next set of customers, using his extra limbs to fill three orders at once. Darius caught his eye from a distance, the boy doting on a rather flamboyant guest. He squinted his eyes. Something wasn't right. Nothing disastrous. Just suspicious.


It was four days into the journey when the Approaching Dawn lurched uncomfortably. Captain g'Draal had been nodding off in his chair in the bridge, a skeleton crew handling the vessel's regular technical functions. A full crew wasn't needed during empty space; no precise maneuvering, no shifting of the engines, only a couple of people needed to make sure the ship didn't veer off course from the influence of something else's gravity well. It was easy. At least it should have been easy.

"Wha-- hnn?!" Captain g'Draal gasped as he jolted awake.

But before any of the other few crewmen could answer, the captain felt himself drift out of his chair. He grabbed for a nearby console and clutched it to his chest, keeping himself from floating aimlessly. Other crewmen weren't as quick, and g'Draal could see his navigator panicking as he fell towards the ceiling.

The sounds of distant screaming followed, and comm requests blared throughout the bridge by the dozens.

"What the hell just happened?!" g'Draal demanded.

"The artificial mass generator just shut down," replied one of the few who managed to buckle himself in before he could float off uselessly. "And . . . Oh, Jesus. The displacement drive just went out, too!"

"The hell?! Send a security team to the engine room. Now." Great. This was just great. The ship's gravity well just cut off--and now it was slowing down. Rapidly. That meant everything and everyone not buckled down drifting aimlessly into the air, and progressively mashing together into a useless heap against all sternward walls. He could only imagine the chaos down below. g'Draal grimaced as he pulled himself back into his chair, buckled in, and opened a comm line to the whole of the ship.

"This is your captain speaking," he forced himself to say as pleasantly as possible, "We're encountering a minor technical difficulty; please do not be alarmed. We'll have the error corrected posthaste. In the meantime, we suggest collecting any belongings not strapped down, and placing them within the locked-down boxes beneath your beds. Security personnel will be by each room shortly to offer assistance. Thank you."

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Beyond the Stellar Sphere / Re: [BtSS] Treasure Hunting (Closed, for now)

« on: October 20, 2016, 08:13:48 AM »

There came a sound of the airlock disengaging, followed by the familiar feeling of the ship lifting from the ground. Qara shut her eyes and focused for a moment, feeling out the sensors and charting a course. Away from asteroids, but somewhere close. Empty space. A perfect spot to situate the ship and begin the long haul to their next destination. Once they were on their way, and micro-impacts of pebble-sized debris were the only objects between them and empty space, Qara opened her eyes and issued a relieved sigh.

That done, she grabbed the tool she left floating in the air, and began opening up another section of Zen's body. Wherever they were going, they were looking at a week of travelling. Minimum. Longer if they were off towards a world currently on the opposite side of the solar system.

"Where should I set a course?"

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Forum Roleplaying / Re: We are our Avatars

« on: October 19, 2016, 07:03:00 PM »

Emma raised an eyebrow. She hadn't thought of that. Hadn't really put much of her attention on the fire, really, but honestly wouldn't have thought of it even if she had. She didn't answer Sab, not at first. She just looked at the fireplace and let another silence wash over the room. Hyperfocused on the fireplace, she began to hear it. Every three and a half seconds, the same noise. She let it pass a few times, just to make sure she wasn't going crazy.

"Huh," Emma replied, "It is. Like . . . Same image and everything."

She shifted in the chair to poke half her body out the side of it and look behind her, back towards the kitchen. Continually refilling food. Constantly repeating fire. Endless hallway of new rooms.

Emma sat back in the chair again and looked to Sab. "According to Jack, the food refills infinitely. And there's infinite rooms to stay in. I bet if there were more people, there'd even be more lounges like this one."

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Beyond the Stellar Sphere / Re: [BtSS] Treasure Hunting (Closed, for now)

« on: October 19, 2016, 03:34:28 PM »

Qara wiped the screen away. From Zen's vision, at least. From her perspective, she just moved that process so that it floated in empty air. She could drag it back onto the screen at any time. It was times like this that she wished Zen could see her augmented reality. She could've just put together a 3D model of the prosthetic he'd found, floating it around in front of them. Well. She did do that, but only she could see it. With a flick of the wrist, it was on the console, and zoomed in to focus on all the grooves and little designs on the object.

It was ornate: a metal finger with intricate designs across it, all resembling a sun flare. Qara ran a scan on the designs, testing them against all accessible databases, but ultimately discovered no notable origin. No one with matching tattoos, no publicly posted photographs with such a design. Figures.

What was telling about it, though, was the design of the plates between the finger's joints. More contemporary prosthesis used flexible materials to permit a natural clench of the fingers, while still looking human. This one, however, used an older style of design: full metal frame with harshly rounded edges along the underside, letting it clench shut without resistance. This made the underside eerily thin compared to the rest of the finger, a common complaint about the design. It went out of circulation roughly fifty-six years ago. Qara made sure to scroll all of this information up the console, next to points of the finger she'd marked as important.

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Forum Roleplaying / Re: We are our Avatars

« on: October 18, 2016, 03:58:30 PM »

Once she'd sufficiently calmed, Emma wiped away the last tears in her eyes and set the sunglasses aside. She really didn't need them, not once she (unintentionally) had a good excuse why her eyes were red and puffy. That should go soon, anyway.

"Uhm, welllll . . ." Emma trailed off, about to admit that she'd gotten absolutely nowhere in the search.

But then he pulled out a gun. Which should have scared her a little. But he wasn't really pointing it at her, and seemed more surprised by it than she was. That also made him a skeleton in silly clothes holding a revolver. She should've taken that more seriously. A little serious, to be sure. Unless you were a hardened soldier, if someone brandished a gun around you, you'd feel the hairs stand on the back of your neck every time. But that was the extent of it here.

"Oh, okay," she said and shrugged, "I mean--cool gun, though, right? A-anyway," she paused and cleared her throat, "I, uhm, didn't really get anywhere. Well. I got to this chair, and the fire's real warm, so I've just kinda . . . been here."

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Forum Roleplaying / Re: We are our Avatars

« on: October 18, 2016, 02:40:32 PM »

Emma stuck her tongue out when Sab called her a dork. At least I've got a nose, is what she would've said, if the thought hadn't hit her way too late. Awh man. All this despair was sapping away at her wit and charm. That wouldn't do. Maybe after some light conversation and banter, she'd be out of this rut again. Bury that despair for another time. For some other day, some better day, when that hole in her could be approached with some measure of grace. Or not. Maybe she'd approach it sometime when she was alone in a room with a loaded gun.

Whichever came first, she supposed.

Those morbid thoughts were interrupted when the most absurd noise came from Sab's chair. She looked over immediately, mouth initially agape. Then the t-shirt registered. The Bone Zone, lovingly embroidered. Every ridiculous thing sunk in all at once, draping a loose cloth over the void inside her, occupying the whole of her attention.

And then . . . she laughed. Shoved both her hands over her mouth to stifle it at first, but gave up soon after. She laugh 'til she kicked her feet. 'Til she cried. 'Til her marked up cheek stung and ribs protested.

"Oh, God," she gasped between giggles, taking the sunglasses off and wiping away tears, "I can't-- that's-- okay-- okay, I'm good." The Bone Zone. That was actually on his freakin' shirt! "Ohhh, wow."

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Beyond the Stellar Sphere / Re: [BtSS] Treasure Hunting (Closed, for now)

« on: October 18, 2016, 01:39:55 PM »

Well that was an interesting conclusion. Qara hadn't considered that possibility. It brought her pause, made her consider the implications. If this wasn't something unique, something built here for this experiment, then there could be more instances of it elsewhere. Machinals wearing it like a fashion trend, controlling the mind of every Wyrd they meet, without the poor Wyrd ever knowing it.

She shuddered visibly at the thought.

Qara flicked her wrist to wipe away the contents of the screen in front of them, then tapped on what Zen might think an invisible keyboard. To her, though, it was quite visible, all part of her augmented reality. A lot of Wyrds relied on it to make sense of the things their brain was doing; a holographic keyboard, console, or controls to a ship, all visual representations of the things they were doing without wires or real console controls. Qara didn't actually need it. A lot of it was just habit. Things she picked up over the years because it made the Machinal colonists she lived with feel more at ease.

The console opens up a map of the Sol System, highlighting several worlds. Titan, Ganymede, Io, and three larger bodies in the asteroid belt: 951 Gaspra, 1467 Nelles, and 4570 Anjes. While were no permanent settlements on any asteroids, only temporary mining colonies, one name was interesting (at least to Qara, anyhow): Ganymede. Jupiter's largest moon--the largest moon in the entire Sol System, even--was one of the most attractive worlds for future terraforming projects, though the world's tremendous size and the manic nature of its topography made the prospect as difficult as working with Ceres.

Even still, a very small number of air-tight facilities existed on Ganymede. No widespread colonization plans (to anyone's knowledge, anyhow), but a few big name companies had set up shop there.

Alongside this information were a list of companies and corporations, all focused on the research and development of Machinalis upgrades. Zen's body had parts from at least half of them. Each one of them had an R&D facility on the locations she'd mapped out for Zen.

"All places of interest on known networks," she remarked, ". . . Unless you want to spend the next year running scans for secret facilities in Saturn's rings." She made no effort to hide how much she disliked that idea.

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Forum Roleplaying / Re: We are our Avatars

« on: October 17, 2016, 01:09:37 PM »

To Emma's credit, she hadn't wandered away anywhere while the two were gone. She could've. Was tempted to, even. But she hadn't. She told herself it was because she drank too much and that she didn't want to painfully crash into something. If it had been fear of getting lost or of unfriendly things creeping around these halls, she wouldn't have admitted it. Not to herself, and especially not to anyone else.

Introspection held her, though. Once she'd stumbled her way into the lounge and sunk into a way-too-big chair by a warm fireplace, she let her mind wander to all those places she wished to avoid. These scars were new, but not fresh. The stitches in her gums had yet to dissolve, so the teeth must've been removed recently. But the scars were starting to heal nicely. They were scabbed over and itched terribly (something numbed by the liquor, fortunately) both on the inside and outside of her cheek. She was going to have to rebandage that side of her face, though. It was going to become infected if she didn't.

Five tallies. Cleanly cut. Small near the corner of her lips, and growing larger with each tally mark up her cheek. Cut through the face, pierced into her gums, clawed through flesh and teeth and bone and left that whole side of her in ruins.

Who did this to me? Her heart ached at the question. She wanted to curl in on herself, desperate to warm that choking, desolate nothing deep in the pit of her soul. Her breath skipped and she sucked in a sob. Emma's eyes burned in that moment, a swell of despair wringing her heart like a filthy, mildewed rag. But she choked it back. Held her breath. Counted to ten. Twenty. Thirty. Thought about other things.

This place. The two people here. A skeleton and a strange man from another world. This other world. No, he--Jack--wasn't from this world. But she was here, now. And Jack had been to other worlds. Her own, maybe? Did he like it there? Had he met her before? Was her world too big for him to have had the chance? What about Sabwones? Who was he in life? What'd he do, how did he die? And why was he animated? It was all so . . . unreal. All so fantastic. Easier than a grim reality.

Emma quietly laughed at herself. How pathetic do you have to be, huh?

She had just finished wiping the tears away when she heard the others approaching. Thank God this way-too-big of a chair was facing the fireplace. This way, she didn't have to show her face to them. They didn't have to see her red, puffy eyes. Proof that she'd been crying--or almost cried, anyway. Little did she know, after a few clacking noises of a walking skeleton, there was a set of sunglasses in her lap. Before saying a word, she put them on. They were big on her. But that was for the best, maybe.

"Uh . . . Thanks?" Emma said, then leaned over the arm of the chair to get a visual on Jack and the now-walking Sabwones, still too distracted by all her erstwhile thoughts to notice Sab's shirt, "You found your body, huh? Nice."