#electroplasm

[robsheridan]

Members of London’s 1981 electroplasm scene, a fusion of extreme body modification, mortality edging, and electronic music, where specific frequencies generated by custom modular synthesizer hardware were found to stimulate spectral wavelengths enough to generate ecloplasm and control its psychokinetic growth into electronic wiring, creating sounds unlike anyone (living) had ever heard before.

The most hardcore electroplasm musicians, flatmates at a warehouse space they called The Cortex, began fusing their nervous systems to the hardware such that the electroplasm could flow through their bodies, syncing with their biorhythms, turning them into electronic posthuman processors in a chain of spirit-charged flesh modules. As the ectoplasm rewired their brains and warped their forms, they were no longer technically “alive” by standard definitions, but held on the bleeding edge of the mortal plane by the spirits trapped in them, howling supernatural tones they shaped with their body instruments.

As the niche scene grew, more devotees joined the chain of spirit vessels in The Cortex, giving their bodies to the rhythm, building the beat, forming new otherworldly sounds with each new human instrument. These “beat zombies,” as NME coined them, could only continue “living” as long as the sonic frequencies continued through the chain, and so the beat at The Cortex ran 24/7, their “musical life support.” Hundreds of fans gathered to dance at the undead rave, the most unique performance art ever seen; some predicted the sound would last forever, growing so big that one day every human who ever lived would become connected to it, a jam session across all souls, here and beyond.

Unfortunately, the entire electroplasm scene ended abruptly just a few months after it had begun, when the power was cut to the warehouse space, killing all 78 posthuman vessels instantly and releasing all of the spiritual energy trapped within them at once in a psychokinetic blast that razed four city blocks. It turned out that when the musicians gave their minds & bodies to electrically-charged ectoplasmic sound, they never thought about who would pay the utility bills.

---------

NOTE: This alternate reality horror story is part of my NightmAIres narrative art series (visit that link for a lot more). NightmAIres are windows into other worlds and interconnected alternate histories, conceived/written by me and visualized with synthography and Photoshop.

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[gengargastly]

FUCKYOUFUCKYOUFUCKYOUFUCKYOU

Gengar is so cute as a loaf x3

How about a slice?

[pythosart]

I'll draw these better later The crew in the Blades in the Dark game I'm running tangled with this watchdog hull and didn't have a great time! Its gaze is paralyzing.

A few actions, an electroplasmic bullet, and a lot of migraines later, the cutter twisted its entire head off and took it as a trophy

[unclegrumbles]

ULTIMATE DANNY PHANTOM

DANNY PHANTOM

Yo, Danny Fenton, he was just fourteen, when we did this bit already. Danny is just your average kid, which ironically makes him stand out given the exceptional intelligence and aptitude of his family and closest friends. One day at his parents' laboratory, Danny was exploring inside of a colossal energy siphon (without his parents' knowledge or permission) when he accidentally activated it. He survived, miraculously unharmed. Over the next few weeks, he began experiencing strange phenomena. He knew it was somehow connected to the lab accident, but he was too scared to ask his parents for help and instead confided in Tucker and Sam. Over time, Danny would learn to control the phenomena and channel them into many strange and fantastic powers in order to combat the strange creatures that threatened the safety of his town.

Powers and Abilities

IIF: The first three powers Danny developed were intangibility, invisibility, and flight. With intangibility, he can walk through walls. Using invisibility, he can disappear. With flight, he can fly. At first, Danny struggled to use these abilities for even short amounts of time. As he got stronger and more comfortable with these powers, they came as easy to him as walking or breathing.

Ghost Form: All of Danny's powers are available to him in his human form to some extent. With intense concentration, or under extreme duress, Danny can trigger a transformation sequence into an alternate form. In this ghost form, Danny can use all of his abilities at their full power. If he expends too much energy too quickly he becomes exhausted and reverts to his human form. The Ghost Form was a challenge to master, and at first Danny could only transform under serious emotional duress. Some of his first battles were fought in his human form.

Ectoplasmic Projection: When Danny is losing a ghost argument, he accuses his opponent of having flaws that he himself possesses. Danny's ectoplasmic abilities come with one critical drawback - he must discharge excess energy or it will build up inside him to critical mass and leak out of his body. Sam calls this the bleeding effect. Before Danny knew about this issue, it manifested in power hiccups like turning invisible or intangible at random (and often inopportune) moments. While the excess energy can be burned off by doing things like flying around, staying invisible or intangible for a long time, or just hanging out in his ghost form, Danny would learn to channel this energy into concussive ectoplasmic energy blasts which he could fire out of his hands, feet, eyes, and even his ass in one unusual incident. Danny would develop his own techniques to manipulate his energy blasts for specific functions, like the target-seeking Ghost Stinger, superheated Pyroplasm, high-voltage Electroplasm, and sub-zero Cryoplasm. Many more powers utilizing manipulated ectoplasm would join Danny's impressive arsenal in time.

Superhuman Augmentation: Danny's human form remained the same after his accident. In his ghost form, Danny's strength and durability have been increased tenfold. As Danny grew more powerful, his strength and durability increased at a commensurate rate. He is also super-humanly agile with heightened reflexes, reaction times, and physical speed. As time went on, Danny realized his augmentations weren't just physical. His mental acuity, observational skills, and creative problem solving abilities had also become enhanced.

Regeneration: Among Danny's many, many powers and abilities, none is so valuable (and perhaps none is as taken for granted) as his regenerative healing factor. Danny can take a serious beating thanks to his increased durability, but when that fails, his body can put itself back together almost as quickly as it gets ripped apart. Danny has survived having the his skull caved in, his neck snapped, his guts getting ripped out, and many more horrific injuries that would easily kill a human, including having his head cleaved clean off his shoulders by Aragon's optic blast. Not only does his healing factor repair all of the damage, it also massively increases Danny's pain tolerance. The attacks from his foes still hurt quite a bit, but nowhere near as painfully as they would normally feel. Other ghosts have been known to possess regenerative powers, but none are as efficient as Danny's.

---

Most nights, Danny sleeps the sleep of the dead. But there are times when sleep won't come. On those nights, Danny takes to the skies over his quiet town. The power of flight is among the first of mankind's fantasies, and under normal circumstances, it is an almost spiritual experience. But on those sleepless nights, it makes him feel uneasy. Not because of the impossibility of it all, but because of an inescapable feeling of familiarity. Something whispers to Danny from the darkest corners of his mind at the intersection of the subconscious and imagination. His heart pounds in his chest. He can hardly breathe. Pressure tightens around him like the coiling of an unseen serpent. This is more than just déjà vu. Danny can't explain how he knows it, or why he believes it, but in that moment, he knows that everything his future holds has already unfolded. The unintelligible whisper sharpens; a horrible rasping sound attempting to imitate human speech. Finally, it speaks.

There you are...

Danny jolts awake in his bed, drenched in sweat. He draws ragged breaths and wipes tears from his eyes; he was crying in his sleep. Sobbing, even. He tells himself it was just a nightmare. But a nightmare would have ended when he woke up. The rasping whisper repeats itself. It is quieter now that Danny is awake.

There... you... are...

The voice fades away eventually. The fear lasts longer. Dread grips Danny as he realizes he will someday confront the voice in his mind. And he can't help but shake the feeling that he has done so before...

[gengargastly]

AAAAA THANK YOU

I didn't expect a gift at all at this point in time!?

Also the fact it's Haunter related! Not only I axed it due to increasing inactivity but also could've sworn that part was the most forgettable part (again due to inactivity) but apparently not!

Thank you so much for the edit!!

Edit I made for @gengargastly for their haunter arc

:3

[honourablejester]

Blades in the Dark Character Concept: Deathlands Hound

Okay. So the thing with the Hound playbook is the trained hunting pet, right? You get a cool animal companion. So the thing I’m noodling around with is what kind of animals you get in Doskvol. Given, you know, the whole cataclysm, destroyed sun, collapsed/reformed ecosystem thing. The main ones mentioned are usually various sea creatures, rodents, birds, and then the domesticated goats and chickens. Severosi have horses, and presumably dogs are a thing given the name of the class, so hounds are still a recognised concept. The ‘aliases’ sections also mentions vixen and frog, so again, recognised concepts. But, you know, I’m not really feeling a dog or a rat?

And then, since I was noodling around the Hound anyway, I was looking at the Survivor special ability, the one that enables you to survive the poisonous miasma of the deathlands and subsist on the strange flora and fauna there. Strange flora and fauna, huh? And the faction entry for the Deathlands Scavengers also mentions that they have ‘hunting grounds to feed on the few strange animals that survived the cataclysm’ as part of their turf.

So. The deathlands have strange animals. Normal animals that turned weird, maybe? So how about a Hound with a strange, fucked-up deathlands companion?

How about a mink? A semi-aquatic mustelid that feeds primarily on fish, frogs, rodents, birds and eggs, all things that are mentioned as surviving, so they’ve still got a decent food chain. Plus the Dosk river is right there as a habitat. But a fucked up mink, because deathlands. Something mutated and strange. So let’s give it void-dark fur. Let’s give it a couple extra legs, so we’ve got a six-legged climber (and swimmer) of a creature. Let’s give it weird eyes, with a bit of an electroplasmic sheen. And let’s give it way too many teeth. Rows and rows of needle-like teeth, like with sharks, so whenever it loses a tooth the next row just gets pushed up to replace it.

So we’re going for a theme of deathlands, here. A Hound with the Survivor ability and a deathlands animal companion. So let’s go all in on that, then.

Heritage will be Severosi, because deathlands nomads. Let’s make her second generation, she grew up in Duskwall. There’s a note in Deep Cuts that there’s an imperial naval base at Thorn in Severos where the Navy is prone to making up excuses to ‘arrest’ native Severosi to use as press-ganged labour. That’s what happened to her parents, and how she wound up growing up in the naval bastion that is Doskvol.

And history is going to repeat itself. Because her background is going to be Deathlands Scavenger (Labor), and it’s going to be as a result of ‘mercy’ at Ironhook Prison. Now, the option to become a scavenger is usually offered in lieu of execution, because those are the only bastards desperate enough, so whatever she went down for, it was enough to earn the death sentence. And I think it’s going to have been murder. And I think, given the city that’s in it, it’s going to have been murder of an Imperial officer. A naval officer.

I think she tracked down and shot the bastard that press-ganged her parents. The guy whose name was on the arrest order. And then she got caught, and she really should have been shot in her turn for it, but she is Severosi. Deathlands native. So why not use her? Why not send her out to scour the deathlands on behalf of the city, and eventually die for it as nature intended?

Her enemy, I think, is going to be Casta, the bounty hunter. Because Casta was the one who caught her. Casta was the one who got her sent down.

And her vice, purveyor and saviour is going to be Sister Thorn at Gaddoc Station. Because yeah, her heritage is Severosi, but she was raised in the city. Duskwall born and raised. She had no experience out there. It was Sister Thorn and her Deathlands Scavengers who saved her, who taught her, and who she now goes out of her way to help in return. Her vice is Obligation, and I think a lot of how that expresses itself will be helping Thorn train other poor sods in how to survive the deathlands.

Because it turns out she was actually good at it. Maybe the deathlands are in her blood, and she’s a hunter by instinct and personality from a standing start. With just a bit of training and someone to show her the ropes, she got very good.

Enough to make a friend of a strange creature out there, a void-dark plyer of the haunted river.

Enough to earn her way (again, with Thorn’s help) to a pardon. Enough to be allowed back into the city, her own woman once more. Enough to ply her talents within the barriers once more.

She’s a hunter. We’re going to lean our Action Dots in that direction. She’s got two in Hunt and one in Survey from Hound. We’ll give her one in Skirmish from her heritage, she always planned and aimed to hunt and kill someone. Then one in Attune for her background, because you don’t survive the deathlands without it. And for her two free dots, we’ll put both into Prowl. Because she is, so much, a hunter. So a total of two Hunt, two Prowl, one Survey, one Attune, and one Skirmish.

Now then. Only her friend, look, name and alias to go.

For her friend, let’s say that she met Melvir, the physicker, through the Deathlands Scavengers. He’s got experience patching up weird injuries.

Her look …

She’s very tall. An absolutely towering woman, north of six feet, which probably made it that little bit easier to track her down after that one murder back then. She is a lean, gaunt, towering shadow of a woman, with snarled grey hair, and dark, hooded eyes that watch the world from hollow sockets. She’s got a rifle slung across her back, permit courtesy of Sister Thorn, and a strange … fur? Draped across her shoulders. An ink-dark creature that lifts its head to bare two hundred bloody teeth at anyone who gets too close.

Her name is Roethe Maroden. Alias ‘Fisher’, for her patience, and her partner, and the bloodied catch that sometimes winds up laid at her feet. She’s a murderess, a deathlands scavenger, a hunter, and a Hound. The city wanted her on a leash, to hunt at their command. Now, she hunts at her own.

[pkmntrainersquid]

🔄 7

"Oi, Rook! You almost got that doohickey working?" It's Squid's voice, but harsher than the Squid you know.

"I think so, it's lighting up and making noise. It's eating through electroplasm faster than expected though."

"Excellent! I knew we kept you around for a reason! Make a couple more of those, an' nothing like that mess with House Penderyn will happen to us again."

[raoulyossarian]

what if steve used his ability to change drastically his art style to make a pseudo human form? like his body is still made of electroplasm but visually he looks like a regular person

i imagine hed subject himself to peter griffin style violence though because it’s funny

[thevalicemultiverse]

🌌 How are you doing?

Forgotten Vows!Victor: [holding his sketchbook] Fine -- just working on a new drawing of a butterfly.

Secundus!Victor: [holding a caterpillar, grinning] Checking on my latest experiment! This one's part of a new strain of bioluminescent butterflies -- should glow orange instead of yellow.

Catch Us!Victor: [wiping the blood off his straight razor] Well, Alice and I just ended the life of another arse who preys on the weak and innocent, so I'm doing well, but I do need to run very soon.

Cuddlepile!Victor: [holding some popcorn] Great -- it's movie night! We're having a Ghostbusters marathon in just a moment!

Inevitable High School!Victor: [being towed along by a small pack of dogs] I may have overbooked this particular Saturday! Heel! Heel!

Aperture!Victor: [doodling unflattering pictures of Cave Johnson on a clipboard] How do you think I'm doing? Just another day in "paradise..."

Londerland Bloodlines!Victor: [looking maybe a bit too happy for someone who is licking blood off his lips] Alice just gave me my blood for the fortnight, so I'm doing wonderful, thank you for asking.

Fallout!Victor: [working on his Two-Shot combat rifle] No one's shooting me right now, and I just found a whole pack of duct tape in that house over there, so life is pretty good at this moment.

Technicolor Phase!Victor: [painting a picture on an easel] Lovely -- just doing some painting. It's a lot easier now that I can see more of the colors.

Valicer In The Dark!Victor: [studying a vial of electroplasm] Trying to figure out how I infuse this into a butterfly...if I can just crack it, I could so much good with that greenhouse down the road...

[thelogbookproject]

The Unity of Skovlan, Entry 19: The Ground

The Unity of Skovlan is an upcoming unofficial supplement to Blades In The Dark about the fall and rise of the Skovlander people. This series explores what it is all about in the leadup to its September release.

The Ground is something entirely new, arising in Doskvol’s Charhollow neighborhood in a way that couldn’t happen anywhere else. In Entry 11: Calibri I laid the groundwork of the landpriests, the ancient Skov spirit-talkers who made deals with spirits to keep communities safe in the days before the lightning barriers, and were stomped out by a combination of Imperial persecution and simple obsolescence. It did not escape notice, however, that the Akorosi have made their Church of the Ecstasy of the Flesh and outright hatred of the supernatural into a part of their national and cultural identity, and that makes it something that the Skovlanders can contrast themselves against. The Ground, perhaps with a small group, but perhaps alone as the only one to dare stare into the dark, is reviving the old ways. The old ways of spirit-talking are lost, but by eschewing modern technology, attempting old Skov rituals, and delving into deep sorceries brought to Doskvol by other cultures (in particular the Severosi, who canonically have a long history of using arcane methods to fight ghosts directly), the Ground(s) became something new. They have become immune to the effects of electroplasm, and have gained the ability to solidify the ghost field, making the spectral corporeal. The Ground can walk fearlessly among ghosts and unleash them upon their foes, and none of the advanced technology of the Imperium can stop them. Everyone, ghost and man alike, is afraid of them. Their allies are likely as frightened of them as anyone else, but the Ground’s unique powers make them one of the best weapons against the Emperor in the world.

All Grounds start with two Abilities, Grounding and The Legacy (I’ll get to it). Grounding is the core of the Ground’s power, and lets a crew attempt jobs no one else could. While they are incorporeal, the Ground cannot be harmed by ghosts. But let’s talk about electroplasm. From the base book, electroplasm is the stuff that the ghost field is made of, and is a near-limitless font of death energy. Levianthan blood, by contrast, is a near-limitless font of life energy. Both are refined by the Imperium into a substance called plasm, which effectively can be used like an electrical source. In short, they’re big wet-cell batteries. As an aside, the refinement process to get to plasm is incredibly toxic, and the Imperium’s attempt to put such a processing plant into the Skovlan city of Lockport is what kicked off the Unity War. The Ground can handle plasm just as well as electroplasm, which means that the Ground effectively has the ability to shut down any electrical device. Considering the Akorosi use their plasm engineering as their biggest technological advantage, the richer and more impressive the target (in other words, the higher their Tier), the more likely they are to have a whole bunch of plasm devices, which means the Ground actually kinda scales with their foes. All of the lamps and lights of the city run on plasm, so the Ground is capable of plunging areas into darkness, increasing their reputation for being terrifying. Consider the possibilities if you were to ground out a section of the lightning rails, or a factory’s generator. The greatest of all: it’s not impossible to ground out one of the towers of the Lightning Barriers protecting the city from the swarming ghosts of the Cataclysm. Only puncture it if you’re really ready, but it’s basically the nuclear option in fighting the Imperium. A lot of civilians will probably be in harm’s way.

Augmenting the Ground’s ability to be basically an unstoppable ghost fighter is The Legacy, an Ability that drives you to seek out the genius loci of the city and forge pacts. If you remember Entry 11, the landpriests of the past differentiated between the vengeful ghosts of the Cataclysm and the spirits of the land, far older, that aren’t driven by the same hate that the ghosts are. The Church of the Flesh would definitely call them demons (like anything else spiritual that isn’t recognizably human), but the Ground is capable of seeking out such spirits for power. There are a ton of these, each bound up in the identity and nature of the District they inhabit. The power you gain is associated with the District they come from, so GMs can invent a spirit, but the Legacy benefit is set. Here’s a couple examples.

All of these Legacy benefits are really nice, and, critically, there’s no limit on how many you can get. However, each one requires a pact with the genius loci — they’re not gifts, the spirits want something in return, often ssomething ongoing. The more the Ground picks up, the more their life becomes about servicing their pacts. If a pact slips, they lose the Legacy benefit and likely need to forge a new pact for that District to get it back, but it can be so, so worth it. A Ground with a pact in every District is one of the most individually powerful people in the city.

I love how The Legacy gets the Ground to foster more than just an antagonistic relationship with the spirits, managing the violent and frightening needs of their revolution with the cultural history of their landpriest predecessors. I also love how it gets the crew doing jobs all over the city, which is kind of necessary as Fractured Unity could feel a little claustrophobic if the scope stays just in Charhollow.

I want to do one of the optional Abilities, and I was pretty darn torn between them. I really really like the Ground Abilities, but I eventually decided on Harbinger. As hinted at in the support text there, Harbinger is not the Ground’s only way to keep their Stress down. I’ve played sessions where we’ve basically accepted every Devil’s Bargain, and it’s the most chaotic and fun thing out there, and I want to encourage players to take Devil’s Bargains. Getting in way too deep and needing to take desperate measures (often literally Desperate) to get out is the good stuff. Make your crewmates as terrified when you act as your foes are. Speaking of terror…

We’re going to close on the Ground’s XP Trigger, which is pretty multifaceted. The easy one to work on is the fear one, but the others are so much more interesting (but sometimes hard to wedge in, so the fear is always an option). The Ground is, above all else, an iconoclast. They’re breaking every taboo of as many cultures as possible and forging something brand new, but making it out of what came before. Be traditional and be forward thinking — just don’t be of the now. Get weird. At the same time, consider the value of terror. When people look at your crew and call you terrorists instead of freedom fighters, they’re probably thinking of you. Make sure your fear has a purpose, and know that it can be alienating. A monumentally-powerful many-pacted Ground is the best way to gain individual power, but if you scare off too many potential allies, you’ll still never be as effective as if you had a coalition of compatriots alongside you. Make people question why they do things and think things, break the binaries they live under, and remember that holding up your hands as everything goes dark except your Spooky Lightstaff casting strange eerily-colored light across your face is always cool.

Next time, we’re wrapping up the playbooks with the Mend!

The Unity War releases for PWYW on September 1, 2023. Check out https://tinyurl.com/tuos-details for the rest of this series! Sign up for my Patreon at https://patreon.com/thelogbookproject for a preview, and full early access to the game! See you Wednesday!

[wid0wd-archived]

“ if  you  commit  to  this  ride,  there’s  no  turning  back. “

frank asked for an electroplasm rifle and natasha's delivered - two weeks away to gather everything and wrap it in a little neat bow as a sign of forgiveness friendship and a way to leave in the past their argument. avengers are frozen, natasha's current team already deployed to another mission in wakandan territory. "thought you'd appreciate something nice," rifle unceremoniously dropped by his side before taking a seat across the table, chin resting on clasped hands as soft smile forms on lips.

if you commit to this ride, there's no turning back. natasha is not exactly surprised by this turn of events - frank's stoic attitude failing to hide the soft scarlet on his cheeks and thus creating the perfect opening for her piece to be said. "i think you're mistaken here. you're the one who's stuck with me," doom's working overtime to ensure his one nation stays so, natasha's web can only cover so much territory when they're needed all over the world. "hope you don't like it here too much, we've got a plane to catch." always work, never fun.

gaze drops on the half finished bowl of noodles, half a mind to order something too if not for the fact that her gift has already gotten enough attention to the table as it is. "but speaking of rides," a moment of pause for theatrics as she gets up, hands shoved into pockets of bomber jacket. "unless you still want to act out about our disagreement, swing by the safe house." for gear and equipment, of course. "let's see how long you can last."

[victorluvsalice]

WIP Word Game: "Horror"

This one's from "Start At The Beginning...Sort Of," and might be familiar to you if you've seen a previous snippet of mine:

He shoved Alice and Smiler backward, down a gap between two stores, eyes wide with sudden horror.

It's Victor doing the shoving, and trust me, he has a good reason to do so!

[taiblogcomics]

My Little Taury: Friendship is Parodic

Hey there, sheep of your dreams. A rare update for Leap Day! Honestly, couldn't have picked a better series for this to happen during. Seems fitting, no?

Here's the cover:

All right, now you kind of see why I wanted to review this series, eh~? So here are the Taurs, the MLP/Smurfs hybrids that closed out last issue. We'll be getting to know them a bit more closely in this one, so that's all I'll tell you here. Instead, let's analyse these cutie marks. There's some classically evil stuff: skull and crossbones, inverted pentagram, Bill Cipher… A couple over here have Backstabber and Money=Power… Easily the most baffling one is the "stock woman on truck's mudflaps silhouette". What kinda traits does that confer~?

Our hero(?) Steve Harmon wishes to rid himself of his Slapstick persona, and to that end, he's hired tech goon Quasimodo to research a solution. Since Dimension Ecch gave him his powers, a trip back should undo it. They open a makeshift portal, but are detected and apprehended by SHIELD offshoot ARMOR before they can use it. Turns out there's been a rash of incursions from the dimension, including Bro-Man last issue, and they want to know the connection. When another incursion occurs and the Taurs invade, Slapstick volunteers to take care of it to throw ARMOR off his scent.

We actually join this issue by checking in with Slapstick's buddy Mike, who's working at an art supply shop in a mall in Paramus. He's recounting the events of last issue to his co-worker Jenny, noting how it'll make a great scene for his graphic novel. She's mostly feigning interest, privately thinking how it won't last six issues. Yes, very droll, a wink and a nod to the fourth wall. Except Mike's pitching a graphic novel. They aren't sold issue by issue. Maybe Jenny doesn't know that, but I do, and the distinction is something I love to nitpick~

While Mike continues to go on about presenting it at New York Comic Con, he suddenly feels a sudden sharp pain. He turns to find himself being attacked by one of the Taurs. He yells for Jenny that one of the high-end toys from Kay-Bee has gone Westworld, but that doesn't make any sense. Kay-Bee Toys went out of business in 2009! He seizes the Taur, berating it for breaking the First Law of Robotics, only to now have a view outside into the rest of the mall. The rest of the Taurs are running a slaughter over the other mall patrons.

Slapstick is teleported in, and he starts gleefully going to town on the Taurs. It's a fun fight scene, because keep in mind the Taurs are exactly as small as you think. Basically the size of a FiM brushable pony. Less than six inches tall, I'd say. So while Slapstick has the size on them, the Taurs have the numbers, evening the odds. They also have pointier weapons, at least at first. Once they jab him in the eyes, Slapstick utters the utterly immortal lines "No more Mr. Nice Clown! I'm reaching into my angry pants!" God, I love comic books.

Thankfully, Slapstick has no junk, so he won't be arrested for this. Instead, what he pulls from his pants is Bro-Man's sword. It's already been proven that this sword can cut through electroplasm creatures (but not actually kill them), and it's just as effective on the Taurs as it was at bisecting Bro-Man. In fact, it can cut through anything, and Slapstick's wild swinging unfortunately has him cut through a load-bearing support beam to the level above, collapsing part of the mall's walkway on top of him, losing the sword in the rubble.

Before the Taurs can advance again, they're halted by some weapons above. Mike and Jenny turn up, having raided the crafting store they work in to deck themselves out in post-apocalypse armour and makeshift weapons. This gives Slapstick the chance to haul himself out of the heap, where he finds another Taur in his hair. Before he can heave the invader, she has him halt. Introducing herself as Taurette (which thankfully does not lead to the joke you probably think it might), she offers to help Slapstick defeat her brethren if he spares her.

See, she's the only female among her people, and thus is constantly subject to taursplaining and the male gaze. So she requests asylum on the champion's world. Slapstick agrees, not bothering to tell her that his own people are just as bad. She tells them that the Taurs fear only one thing: the Sorceror Supreme of their dimension, Gorgonzola. He's a wizard who's out to capture the Taurs because they excrete gold. Well, at least he doesn't want to eat them. Slapstick gets a crafty look in his eye. Appropriate, since they're also holed up in the craft store.

As the Taurs--led by their red-hatted, bearded leader, Patriarchy Taur--prepare to regroup, suddenly another bearded figure in red flies overhead. The wizard Gorgonzola declares the Taurs have no refuge from his magic in this realm. In close-up, however, it's clearly Mike being hoisted by a rope, while Taurette hides in his fake beard and feeds him lines. The Taurs all soil themselves in terror--which, I remind you, means they all shit out gold nuggets. The sight of all that wealth gets the better of Slapstick, and he drops the rope he's hoisting Mike/Gorgonzola with, right on top of the Taurs.

The Taurs fortunately don't grasp the deception, but they do notice "Gorgonzola" has Taurette, and attempt to recapture her back to their village. Slapstick re-seizes the rope and swings into the fray, pulling Mike aside. He grabs Taurette from the horde, and not knowing how else to protect her, stuffs her down his inter-dimensional pants. Being stuffed down a clown's pants would traumatise anyone, and Taurette snaps at having to cope with this. She declares she will never be a damsel in distress again and grabs a nearby pocket knife defiantly.

Cutting a hole to free herself, Taurette bursts out of Slapstick's pants, causing a load of his stored objects to also come spilling out. Though briefy embarassed at being in his briefs, Slapstick tells Mike and Taurette to run for it while he holds them off. He doesn't initially have a plan until he spots something among the junk: the robot gun-arm he took from Quasimodo in issue 1. The one that shoots a horrifying electroplasm-disrupting beam. He immediately begins scrambling the Taurs into colourful puddles of goo.

The beam only destabilises them, however, it doesn't kill them. They're still alive and aware, and the big pastel puddle begins swirling around Slapstick. Before he can drown in a pool of Taur juices, the ARMOR agents show up with a big vacuum containment device, sucking up the goo formally known as the Taurs. Taurette buddies up to the competent women who just saved the day, while Slapstick tries not to make an ass of himself despite being literally caught with his pants down. The agent he's crushing on gives him a number to call if another incursion happens, and he treats it like a personal number.

The agents depart with Taurette, and Slapstick and Mike leave with the Taurs' golden leavings. A few days go by, and Mike drops by Slapstick's (parents') house to show off having redrawn his comic pages again. At least he's perfecting his craft! He finds Slapstick hopped up on coffee, having spent the last few days re-creating the portal to Dimension Ecch, deliberately in spite of ARMOR's warnings. Unfortunately, as the comic ends, he didn't successfully remake the portal--he made a device that ports Dimension Ecch's nonsense to this dimension, bringing several inanimate objects to cartoony life~

Well, this issue's a lot of fun. It's the least excessively-violent so far, only a bit of blood at the beginning. The Taurs being hyper violent is an excellent joke, contrasting how gentle their two blending series (My Little Pony and The Smurfs) are. The issue is a lot of fight scenes, but it's a lot of cartoony fun in the fight scenes. Most of the comics I complain about just being an issue of fight scenes (see: The Culling or any given Suicide Squad issue) are just schlocky action movie fodder, while this one is more like a stereotypical episode of Tom & Jerry. And also, despite this series not being above lowbrow, crude humour--the jockstrap pile, the Taurs crapping gold, all the mentions of Slapstick's dingus--I applaud it for knowing where the line is and not doing the obvious joke regarding Taurette's name. Kudos, comic~

[honourablejester]

Blades in the Dark Character Concept:  Mad Scientist Leech

Because I was talking about how much the crafting and specifically inventing rules of BitD excite me. The gadgets and rituals especially, but let’s focus on gadgets for a moment, because I’ve got ideas. Let’s get some mad science up in here!

So. Our playbook is Leech. And we’re going to want the Artificer special ability: “When you invent or craft a creation with spark-craft features, you get +1 result level to your roll (a 1-3 becomes a 4/5, etc.). You begin with one special design already known. Follow the Inventing procedure with the GM (page 224) to define your first spark-craft design.” Straight out of the gate, that gives us one design we’ve already invented, with no need to study it, although we still have to successfully craft said design in-game.

And I think I want that design to be for … In Dishonored, there’s a power called Dark Vision, which allows you to see glowing orange outlines of people even through walls. Which, in Blades, probably should come under ‘Arcane’ rather than ‘Spark-Craft’, except that almost all spark craft is based on plasm, which is condensed life energy. So it should be possible to calibrate a sensor, to somehow treat a lens to place in some goggles, to react to the presence of plasm in living beings. To sense, via the ghost field/ether, their presence regardless of physical obstacles.

Now. Potential downsides? It would also react to ghosts and demons, which would both show up much stronger, so if it’s calibrated to the much lower concentrations found in living humans, unexpectedly staring straight at ghosts or demons could have bad effects. Which I think under the invention rules would be classed as the ‘Volatile’ drawback (‘troublesome side effect’). Perhaps we could refine the design further later, to provide shielding? But for the initial prototype design we’re working with here, there may be some kinks to work out.

I think this item might be somewhere in the Tier IV/V ballpark. If we give it a range of a small building and a duration of a few minutes per activation. We might add on another drawback of ‘Consumable’ in that to activate the coating on the lenses involves burning through some electroplasm, hence why it has a duration.

Anyway. Pulling back a touch. This is our Leech’s pet project. Because she just has itchy tinkering fingers. She wants to make things. And then try them out. And yes, she could go for the official route, there likely is a military application there that someone would gladly have paid her for, but she doesn’t want her work to wind up in Imperial hands. She wants it for herself, and her chosen people, not the government. But that means she has to fund her own work. Which, well. What’s a putative supervillain to do but turn to a life of crime?

Her background is academic. Sparkwright Tower. She has a grounding in this stuff, an education. Natural talent, sure, but also study. But her heritage …

I think she’s Skovlan. She really doesn’t want the government, the Empire, to have her work. To rip something else from Skovlan minds and Skovlan hands and use it to oppress them all over again.

Getting into Charterhall University and Sparkwright Hall involves being sponsored to it. And she’s a kid from Charhollow, parents working the factories in Coalridge. Where’d she get the sponsorship? But she had a talent. A fierce, burning, oh-so-visible talent. So I’m wondering if the families of Charhollow, as well as possibly some of the union-agitators of Coalridge and/or the Skovlan independence movement, rallied enough to get her into the university despite her background. They paid for her to get in, to get at least the grounding of her education. But for a kid from Charhollow, that’s an uphill fight all the way, even before you get to her own fierce paranoia about letting Imperial forces use anything of hers. She didn’t play nice. Oh, enough to get a few years out of it. Enough to get a nice good glimpse at the science of the Sparkwrights. But not enough to graduate. Not enough to become a Sparkwright. She got drummed out well before then.

And turned to a life of crime. Because the taste she got … there are so many possibilities. Not just lightning barriers or etheric batteries. Anything. All those things considered ‘arcane’, the province of Whispers and sorcerers. Anything magic can do, science can equal. Surpass! See into the ghost field? Manipulate life energy? Those are the basics. Darling, we can do anything!

She’s gotten a little sidetracked. She was sent to the university on the assumption that she’d help her own people, Charhollow and the Skovlanders. In university, it was assumed that she’d help the Empire, the Sparkwrights. But she just. She got distracted. The work is its own reward, you know? She just wants to know how to do things. To try things out. To experiment.

And that requires money. And materials. And, too, some testing grounds. Which, in this city, can’t be in that short of a supply?

(And there’s nothing to say that she won’t share her research, once she has more of it, with the Skovlan independence movement. She does still believe in that. She’s just got to have something to share with them first, you know?)

So. A Skovlan Academic Leech. Her vice is her work, which I think would class as either Weird or Obligation? I’m leaning Weird. She wants to take the arcane and match it scientifically. That’s going to involve digging her hands into everything magic is capable of. She’s going to learn things, and take what she’s learned, and build things from it. Scientifically!

Enemies and allies. I think Jul, the blood dealer, is going to be an excellent ally. She needs plasm. And leviathan blood is a good source. She’s made sure to be friendly with him. And enemies … Let’s go with Malista, a priestess. Science vs magic, fight!

For her action dots, she gets two in Tinker and one in Wreck from Leech. For her Skovlan heritage, we’ll give her a dot of Finesse, from growing up in the crime hubs of Charhollow and Coalridge. For her Academic background, obviously we’ll go Study. And then for the two free dots, one more in Study, for science! And one in Attune, for digging into magic to make it science.

Her name is Sethla Kilscovan. She’s a tiny, compact, energetic woman with a self-cropped shock of bright red hair, hands stained with unknowable fluids, and a rather intense, wild-eyed expression pinned to her exuberant features. Her alias is Gleam, for the mad light in her eyes. She’s got ideas. So very many ideas! All she needs is just a little more money and a little more time, and maybe a test subject or two, and she be happy to show you them! Heh.

Yes. A mad scientist Skovlander Leech. Because inventing is a lot of fun in this game.

[electroplasm]

...Do dry leaves count as a gift.......?