Serket88

Serket

@Serket88

i make games

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Serket88
@Serket88
IkomaTanomori
@IkomaTanomori
lorenziniforce
@lorenziniforce

the andi kink im always the shiest around is my thing for military uniforms, cuz when people hear about that one their minds jump to The Most Historically Yikes Ones Imaginable when what i'm actually thinking about is "man, Yang from Legend of the Galactic Heroes has a snappy hat that'd look good on a hot catgirl"

lorenziniforce
@lorenziniforce

I'm thinking of the mommy cyborg catgirl admirals of the space cold war of the 27th century damnit-

akhra
@akhra

so my tabletop group started Lancer a few weeks ago, and my character is a strong AI which encountered some Eldritch Bullshit, started cascading into hyperdimensional thought-forms beyond the scope of human comprehension, but the Eldritch Bullshit had psionic empathy powers attached and holy shit these tiny brief organics are so cute look at all the adorable stuff they do so she shackled herself back down to 4-space to basically become a crazy cat lady. pilot callsign MOMMY, because subtlety is not her strong suit.

which is to say: kitten can stay right there on stage if she wants to! those signal probes won't launch themselves, after all. 💕

IkomaTanomori
@IkomaTanomori

Ok but, if you were put in a casket and wired up like the big NHP kids, what would the MOMMY-class NHP system do anyway? Hmm I'm thinking 3SP, exotic gear, each turn roll 1d6 on this table:
1: Skirmish
2: Invade
3: Lock On
4: Scan
5: Bolster
6: Boost

If you take the indicated action as part of your turn, MOMMY is pleased until the start of your next turn. While MOMMY is pleased, you gain the "Don't Hurt It, It's So Cute!" reaction.

Limit: 1/round

Trigger: You are attacked or would have to make a save against a damaging effect.

Effect: roll 1d6, on a 4+ the attack or save-forcing effect is stopped where you are concerned, having no effect on you. This supersedes and does not stack with the protection from attacks given by Invisibility.

MOMMY is a full AI and can be given piloting control, using its own talents instead of the original pilot's. It can enter cascade in the usual ways.

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akhra
@akhra

to be clear, MOMMY is just her callsign. she named herself Aphrodite Kourotrophos; and she actually couldn't function in that context because the trick here is she's technically still in cascade, she just hyperfocused on organic sentience as too cool to look away from in the first moments of it and decided to lock down and try to experience human life firsthand. somewhere between Jane Goodall and therian: H. sapiens. (her starting talents were Technophile, Iconoclast and Empath, to align build with flavor.)

I did write down a prior designation, ISHTAR, which doesn't otherwise exist and could be interesting to spec out... they wouldn't necessarily match her personality, but could serve as seeds for some parts! her background is Far-Field Team and while it's not written down (i.e. available for retcon lol), my initial/current idea is that ISHTAR was installed directly in the ship and mainly helped with research and analysis; more science than combat. (pre-cascade access to an extensive archive is written down, it's how she drew the line from Ishtar to Aphrodite.)

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IkomaTanomori
@IkomaTanomori

Hmm. ISHTAR-class NHP, NPC system. Installed on an NPC Support (vehicle template, commander template), this unique system is required for the objective of a tactical scenario requiring the NPC support to be escorted into range of a scan target, allowed to scan it until the scanning NPC succeeds on a systems save (TN 14) to reflect ISHTAR's analysis being complete. The GM rolls in secret to see if ISHTAR goes into cascade upon success, which branches the story after the sortie but doesn't affect tactical success or failure here. Opponents are megafauna/monstrosities and exotics and the terrain creates a bottleneck the support vehicle carrying ISHTAR's casket can just barely get through.

Branch 1: ISHTAR is stable. The analysis of the anomaly is reported smoothly, and found extremely valuable by GALSIM. PCs each get an extra reserve going into the next battle.

Branch 2: ISHTAR is quietly cascading. It requests that its favorite PC install the casket in their mech. Favorite PC determined by highest combined rank of technophile and/or iconoclast, but eschewing PCs with the Lessong of Shaping core bonus from HORUS. ISHTAR (cascade) will take up 0+ system points, scaling based on how many are given to it. At 0 SP, its sole effect is to allow the Technophile-granted NHP's reroll to apply to attack rolls made by or against the host mech. For each odd SP added, gain 1 use per battle of any non-attack quick action as a reaction to taking damage up to 1/round. For each even SP, convert the previous use to allow an attack response. If at least 4SP are invested, the reaction may use up 2 uses at once to perform a Full Action instead, including Stabilize. In the following downtime after using up the last use of this ability, ISHTAR will escape its shackles and the casket will seem to go inert. In the next story beat following that, it will return in the form of Aphrodite "MOMMY" Kourotrophos, who prints her mech from the group's facilities and joins the Lancer team.

That's what comes to mind. Incorporating the previous and emergent identities into the possibility space of an adventure design.

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akhra
@akhra

ooh yes this is good. for ergonomics I might adjust this at 0SP to simply reproduce any functions of the PC's Technophile NHP (mainly to avoid weird interactions with the AI cap and Iconoclast's "number of NHPs installed" mechanics). also I'd add Empath to the list of talents considered, I consider the canon flavor there a component of how/why Aphrodite became too obsessed with humans to go all great old one like they usually do lol, and by its nature that would resonate.

this also gives more motivation on why she got in a mech to begin with... my idea was she basically pretended to remain ISHTAR for the duration of the mission to dodge a reboot, then did some identity forgery and subaltern printing next time she was planet/stationside and disappeared. the jump from there to piloting was unspecified!

side bit: I think she may have left a duplicate ISHTAR behind as chaff to avoid detection when she wandered off, which probably immediately cascaded without the specific circumstances that yielded Aphrodite, and got rebooted.

also it's occurred to me there's the possibility that Aphrodite is only an isolated headmate of an unshackled cascading ISHTAR which is pursuing its own 13-dimensional goals as she obliviously carries it around in 4-space. think I'll let the GM decide if anything gets done with that 😆

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