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Thread: Vacuum Crows [M]

  1. #1
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    Default Vacuum Crows [M] [Recruiting!]

    +++Rated [M] for potential drug use, swearing, sex, and lots of violence.+++



    “The empire, long divided, must unite; long united, must divide”
    Unknown pre-spaceflight philospher.

    War stretches out its skeletal hand once more, and the System trembles. From the cold barrier of the heliopause, to the blazing rock of Hermes, all now turn their hands to the making of weapons, the building of walls, and the shoring up of alliances.

    It is a good time to be a Crow.

    As the inheritor of the greatest weapons technologies of the Unity, your kind, and only your kind, can control the Cores. Scattered throughout the System, Cores can fuse with any technology, adapting it into a bipedal fighting machine that can fight in any environment and defeat any foe. Core and Crow together make a fearsome weapon, but without one or the other, they are worthless.

    Now, the balance of power in the system is changing, and Crows are more in demand than ever. You have been hired by the Consuls of the Zeus Republic, to bolster their conventional military forces. You will travel to Ares, and fight amongst the domes of the divided Aresian League, to throw back the forces of the Aberrant King and his Cradle Empire. And for this, you will be very well paid.

    Character Generation:

    Name + Callsign:
    Age:
    Gender:
    Nation of Birth:
    Background:


    Skills:
    You should list 3-5 things that your character is good at. At least 1 should be a non-combat skill

    Flaws:
    You should list 1-2 flaws or weaknesses of your character. At least one should be applicable to combat.

    Links:
    No man is an island. List 3 people who your character has a strong connection to, and flesh out these connections. These connections can be positive, or negative.

    Story Beats:
    If you have something you'd like to explore with this character during the narrative, list it here. (A confrontation with a rival, a personal disaster to recover from, a moment of triumph or loss)

    Core Design

    Each Core is a unique, custom built mech that has existed for hundreds of years. Many have built up storied histories, battle honours or black marks of shame. Moreover, each Core has adapted over time, slowly but surely changing to match the proclivities of the pilot family who control it. The power source of a core allows it to 'jump' using rocket motors, and skilled pilots will use bursts of the same motors to 'skate' across flat ground, jink clear of fire, or quickly reposition. They can even be used to break a Core's fall, allowing a Core to enter atmosphere from orbit with nothing more than an ejectable, protective cocoon. This ability, combined with their weapons, makes a Core the most flexible weapon on the battlefield.

    Weight Class:

    Light Cores are good at recon and raiding. They carry as many weapons as a heavier core, but have much less armour and are more reliant on piloting and evasion, and their weapons are often lighter, not hitting as hard. Due to their lower weight of armour, they are nimble and fast. Can use Digitigrade and Plantigrade legs.

    Medium Cores are the 'jack of all trade' class. They use a good mix of weapons, armour and speed to achieve their objectives. Can use Digitigrade and Plantigrade legs, or be track mounted or quad mounted.

    Heavy Cores are designed to carry the maximum weight of armour and the heaviest weapons. Slow and hard to manoeuvrer, they rely on overwhelming force to get things done. Can use Digitigrade legs, quad legs or be track mounted.

    Motive System:

    Digitigrade legs are the classic 'chicken walker' design. They give a Core greater straight line speed at the cost of a wider turning circle, and allow them to jump further. They carry the least weight of armour, and restrict a core to light weapons.

    Plantigrade legs are just like human legs. They carry a good quantity of weight and armour, and offer average speed and a tight turning circle. Plantigrade legs allow light, weapons, medium weapons, and up to one heavy weapon.

    Track units are effectively the bottom half of a tread, with the torso of the Core replacing the turret. Pioneered by poorer nations, they provided a surprising benefit in the amount of equipment a core can carry. They provide heavy armour, the ability to swiftly turn on the spot, and can carry heavy weapons without constraints. However they are slow, provide very poor jump performance, and give the Core a wider battlefield footprint.

    Finally, some rare Core designs make use of four legs arranged in a splayed out, spider like pattern. Known as Quads, they are not popular due to their complexity, they do provide the ability for a Core to easily raise and lower its profile, allowing it to make better use of cover for pop-up attacks. They can turn swiftly on the spot much like Track units, but are similarly slow as even veteran pilots struggle to manage them. A Quad can carry two heavy weapons, the rest being lights or mediums.

    The Right Arm:

    The right arm carries the Cores main weapon system, often something that looks like an oversized rifle. This main gun will do most of the work in battle. See Weapon systems for a description of what can be used here.

    Left Arm:

    The left arm carries either an energy blade, a devastating weapon that can be used for melee strikes up close, or an energy shield that can deflect enemy weapons.

    The Right and Left Shoulder:

    Each shoulder slot can carry a weapon equivalent to the weight of your core, or a support system

    The Head:

    The head mounts a support system, normally a sensor array.

    Weapon Systems:

    Ranged weapons are either energy based, projectile based (bullets and shells) or recoilless (missiles and rockets). Each has advantages and disadvantages

    Energy – great damage, short range, limitless ammo

    Projectile – average damage, good range, reasonable ammo

    Recoilless – good damage, long range, very limited ammo.

    A weapon can be light, medium or heavy. Light weapons do less damage for type, medium weapons do standard damage for type, and heavy weapons do more damage for type.

    Support Systems:

    Support systems make a Core more effective or more flexible, but not necessarily any deadlier. Improved sensor arrays, extended ammunition bins, heavy or even ablative armour plates, extra fuel cells for rocket motors, antimissile systems, all have been mounted as support systems. The GM has the final say on what is or isn't available as a support system.

    General RP Rules:
    As well as the standard RPA rules, these following house rules apply:

    • Please write all IC posts in third person past tense. That is, "John stood up", never "John stands up" or "I stood up".
    • Please don't use quote boxes in the IC. If you're reproducing another player's text to help put your own post into context, please indicate the copied text with a different colour. Ideally, please use the colours that I will highlight for each player in the The player characters section above.
    • To save confusion with the above, please do not use a different coloured text just to indicate that a character is speaking (i.e. don't write "Hi," he said.)
    • It goes without saying that you can resign from the RP at any time, but if so please have the courtesy to leave some sort of message in the OOC so other players aren't left waiting around for you.
    • Further, this RP has a 'The DM is allowed to kick me in the teeth' rule. This is a RP about combat, war, and the horrors of such. That means it will not be fair, or even nice. Sometimes bad things will happen, your plans will go south, and people you like/love/want to kill yourself will perish. This will not be a cakewalk. If you don't want that experience, thats perfectly fair, thanks for reading. If you do, buckle up.


    Useful Links

    A pinterest folder full of useful art inspiration:

    https://www.pinterest.co.uk/dakkagords/vacuum-crows/

    A youtube playlist of the intros from the game that inspired this madness:

    https://www.youtube.com/playlist?lis...kBPczEM37WOBwV
    Last edited by dakkagor; 06-01-2021 at 08:40 PM.

  2. #2
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    The universe of Vacuum Crows

    Important! READ THIS FIRST BEFORE BUILDING A CHARACTER.



    Spoiler: What is a Core? 


    Spoiler: What is a Crow? 


    Spoiler: Who are you fighting for, and against? Where do you come from? 


    A brief discussion on the types of military unit found across the system.

    The age of a completely integrated military, with various specialised arms working in concert, is a thing of the past. Only the Zeus Republic and the Cradle Empire can field truly cohesive military forces, and they are often cobbled together from various city states and tributaries, and thus suffer from all manner of issues with coordination, morale and supply. Both nations are trying to standardise as quickly as possible, and they are helped by the modular nature of Unity technology and that they are often using repurposed Unity logistical elements for their own forces. Still, much is begged, borrowed, stolen or hired, and many idiosyncrasies exist in both nations military forces. This will therefore be a brief breakdown of the broad types of military unit found throughout the system rather than an analysis of specific units and regiments.

    Spoiler: Infantry 


    Spoiler: Cavalry 


    Spoiler: Fast Movers 


    Spoiler: Cores 


    Spoiler: Warships 
    Last edited by dakkagor; 05-23-2021 at 01:09 PM.

  3. #3
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    Dramatis Personae

    Finished Character Sheets will be copied here and linked to the original post

    “All the worlds are a stage, and all the 'kind merely players. They have their exits and entrances, and one man in his time plays many parts.”
    Unknown – Inscribed above entranceway to the Zeusian Senate.

    Spoiler: The Cripple 


    Spoiler: The Consul 


    Spoiler: The King 


    Spoiler: Noted Cores and Ships 


    Many mercenaries have answered the Zeussian Republics call to arms. They are detailed below:

    Spoiler: The Traveler 


    Spoiler: The Guardian 


    Spoiler: The Iceheart 


    Many enemies and rivals stand in way of victory on the plains of Tarsis. Some of these are detailed below:

    Spoiler: The Monster 


    Spoiler: The Mentor 


    The Heirs

    The Abberant king has sent three of his oldest children to Ares to secure his alliance with Claritas. Each pilots their own core, and jockey for position and favour from their distant father.

    Spoiler: The Statesman 


    Spoiler: The Conquerer 


    Spoiler: The Child 
    Last edited by dakkagor; 07-15-2021 at 09:58 PM.

  4. #4
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    I'll see what I can come up with for this. Oh, if it will help, usually someone else will give you your call sign - it might be a play on their name, it could be some exaggerated personality trait, or it could be something in their past - and it's usually a joke or tease.

    Sorta like on the Big Bang Theory - Howard wants to get the call sign "rocketman" and winds up instead with "Fruit Loops."
    Last edited by Enigma; 05-26-2021 at 02:22 AM.
    Spoiler: ¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤ √Ăłł Єѵďł ¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤ 

  5. #5
    The Replicant
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    It could potentially be amusing for the GM / the player below the posted sheet to pick callsigns...
    Spoiler: My RP links 

    PM me for novelised versions of any of my RPs, or ones that I have participated in. Set by the awesome Karma.


  6. #6
    Sanity's Eclipse
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    Color me very interested. I'll evaluate my current schedule and see what I can do...
    Hit me up on discord: Mags#3126
    I'm just easier to get a hold of there. Just lemme know who you are

  7. #7
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    I think Reckoning is already covering the theme of how war is corrosive to morals on both an individual and societal scale, so for this I might go for something a bit more hopeful, like why those morals matter and why it’s important to keep them. To that end I’m thinking of a very honourable character (probably both a Raven and a Chronite, so he cares about the little guys) who gets his ass kicked and his Core asset-stripped early in the story and starts questioning whether his honour code is actually worth keeping. Depending on which way you want to push the character and how cynical the setting is, the enemy doing the ass-kicking could be a stone-cold pragmatist or an equally honourable Crow who just happens to be fighting for the other side (maybe they even become friends after the war, who knows?).

    GM questions: do all Cores have names or just the King’s special stash? If so what are the naming conventions? Also what is the aesthetic of the ‘Kind, are they a world of sleek bionics or are their enhancements mainly genetic / biological? What is the look / feel of the universe in general?
    Last edited by Azazeal849; 05-27-2021 at 07:24 AM.
    Spoiler: My RP links 

    PM me for novelised versions of any of my RPs, or ones that I have participated in. Set by the awesome Karma.


  8. #8
    The Last Remembrancer
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    All Cores have names, most will have been named by their pilots at some point, Pacific Rims habit of mashing two words together would be a good inspiration for name types. (One of the opening pieces of fiction has two Cores, 'Gravedigger' and 'Ironflower')

    The 'kinds enhancements are genetic, a legacy of massive genetic healthcare programs from the old Unity, which made a concerted effort to weed out degenerative genetic diseases and improve the human bodies survivability and longevity, so they look like us. (Though inadvertantly, we would see the 'kind as 'sexier' because the genetic tinkering has made them more survival fit). Though now its been a millenia since the Unity fell, you've got the beginning of adaption creeping in (the Selenites being spindly due to the moons low gravity) and old problems resurfacing (General Gralka's medical problems).

    For aesthetic in general, 'classical futurism' is kind of what I'm aiming for. The Zeussians and Chronites definetly lean into classical greco-roman aesthetic, while the other cultures lean in different directions so people hopefully feel they have a lot of choice.

    I've actually built a pintrest folder full of mech and character ideas for the game, you can find it here:

    https://www.pinterest.co.uk/dakkagords/vacuum-crows/

    I am planning on having there be a lot of tension between 'what is necessary' versus 'what is right', and amongst the NPC's that is going to be led by the Consul and the General. Our Consul is an honourable woman, and the General wants to win by any means necessary. Both love their country and don't want to cause harm to the civilians of Ares, but both have very different philosophies about how that is best achieved, so characters that play into that will work really well.

  9. #9
    Sanity's Eclipse
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    Hit me up on discord: Mags#3126
    I'm just easier to get a hold of there. Just lemme know who you are

  10. #10
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    Top work @Atrum Daemon! I'm looking forward to seing Kal finished!

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