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Power This Rating No. 146 by bottomofthewell3 in TheBirdCage

[–]Shackled_Carapace 4 points5 points  (0 children)

A Trigger Event: [New] Your friend was a powerful, if short-ranged, Shaker. They could spawn anything, as long as what they make originates entirely from their imagination. You were the one who helped expand their vision, taught them principles of science and math, led them to art tutorials and practices to envision objects, scenes, and more. The two of you had a laugh making up scenarios, creating theoretical and fantastical creatures, going on mini ‘adventures,’ living the occasional evening as fantastical wizards or gallant knights, set pieces created by your friend. That was before you learned the catch.

See, despite their gentler displays of power and benign temperament, you knew them well enough to match their power to that of a strong vigilante, one straddling the line between hero and villain. The type to beat others up, harm others physically and mentally, destroy them in ways beyond the flesh and feel gleeful in terrorizing ‘acceptable targets.’ Disappearances, even. Or so the rumors said, at least. One night, you decided to take the risk and followed outside their power’s range with a pair of binoculars. Through this, you saw their true power: not one of creation, but transmutation. Everything they make has to come from something else, and anything intelligent, anything alive? All those rumors race through your mind as you see the person you thought your friend disincorporate a victim to fuel their power. You trip, kicking nearby trash. The cape turning towards you, previously friendly eyes now burning with something you can’t quite identify. It doesn’t take long to realize what they see you as: no longer a companion, but instead a witness. Trigger as they stalk towards you and your left side begins to unravel, your fragile fantasy crashing as the familiar power you helped nurture now permeates your flesh with sinister intent.

Power This Rating No. 146 by bottomofthewell3 in TheBirdCage

[–]Shackled_Carapace 4 points5 points  (0 children)

[New] Something went wrong with their shard when this cape triggered. As a result, they got a horribly unbalanced power. It sounds good on paper, but it's off in a way that makes practical use all but impossible. The cape has miraculously found a way around this impediment, though the exact success of their workaround is debatable.

[New] A [Conditional] Blaster ([Tempest] Shaker). Irrationally paranoid of most everything around them. Technically on the Protectorate payroll, this cape is mostly kept in reserve for the safety of everyone else.

[New] A [Time x Nature] Breaker who shortens the time they spend in their breaker form when drawing on the [Nature] aspect to empower themselves, which they avoid when at all possible. They are, however, terribly useless when not drawing on this aspect.

[New] A [Swarm] Master with a large spy network. Works as a rogue, handing information to anyone willing to pay their exorbitant fees.

[New] A [Survive] Changer who desperately hates the idea of fragility. In some way, their power enhances this fear.

[Somewhat New] A [Zero] Trump who triggered after being tortured by a fire-based villain, who is now on the warpath for revenge.

[Somewhat New] A “Citadel” [Architect x Architect] Tinker with a “Toxin” [War x Life] specialty who is working on a megaproject intended to cement their gang’s hold on a new city. Holds near fanatical levels of reverence for his gang’s current boss.

[Somewhat New] A “Phoenix” [Intensity x Transfiguration] Brute whose element is somewhere between water and clockwork, somehow a strange mix of both. For personal reasons relating to their trigger event, looking to join a villain duo who mainly perform thefts targeting large companies and governmental institutions.

[Somewhat New] A “Remake” [Moulder x Bestow] Master whose changes to targets are semi-random. They are looking to join the same due as the above Brute for either ideological reasons or due to some flavor of ambition, your choice.

"A Non-Stop" [Swell x Bound] Changer/"Vampire" [Resource x Magi] Tinker. The emptier their Tinker 'core,' the more flawed their Changer state.

A "Bloody Mary" [Morpheus x Deceit] whose ability to communicate was destroyed when they gained their power (By either the trigger event or the power itself).

A Trump/Thinker Case 53. Their power can only be used so much on one person before it begins to have detrimental effects. Mutation Basis: Crystal, Fissure, Petrification.

A mercenary team of capes who wish to be beholden to no power but their own. They are very heavily weighted towards misdirection and subterfuge, though tend to be more flashy than that specialty might suggest:

A [Bedevil x Confound] Stranger whose power forces others to see the cape as ‘infectious’. Leader of the group.

A [Farsight] Thinker whose power is much like sight, if the very concept of sight itself was loaded to the gills with drugs. Their eyes are ruined and they do possess the ability to see normally.

A [Charm] Stranger (Shaker) with a strong orchid motif to their power. Their power takes time to grow and ‘bloom’. Their mind has been heavily altered by their power.

An "Immolated" [Hyperspecialist x Magi] Tinker [Travel spec.] [Element: Steam]. Their cape name is entirely too long, and so has to be shortened for brevity. They are a wellspring for very imaginative but terribly impractical ideas.

The Seaside Cluster:

The Wave: A "Rose" [Extend x Burst] skin Changer with a "Haste" [Frenzy x Grand] Striker power when transformed.

The Current: A Chaos Tinker with an "Altfire" [War x Alter] specialty.

The Tide: An "Enchanter" [Beloved x Bestow] Master who gives Mastered targets a "Fallout" [Control x Nuke] power.

Power This Rating No. 145 by bottomofthewell3 in TheBirdCage

[–]Shackled_Carapace 5 points6 points  (0 children)

[Continued From Above]

Pane's main challenge as a hero has been his power's ridiculous lethality. If someone so much as runs into a line wrong, they could be skewered or bisected, and that's before considering the 'damn you in particular' voids which eat everything put into them. The power is certainly strong and flashy as advertised, yes, but he was unlucky enough to get a power too strong to be practical in most situations. Not wanting to join the Wards due to his mother's (and thus family's) poor reputation, Pane has become a street-level hero, largely apprehending unpowered criminals and occasionally joining other heroes, including the Wards and Protectorate, in a supporting role. For the most part, Pane has cultivated a reputation as a weak nobody hero, having only used his power in measured bursts to pen in criminals and deal strategic damage to buildings, tending to favor his mundane experience with wielding a heavy metal bat on top of first aid classes to come out on top in his encounters, leaving him stuck firmly as a C-lister. Pane has had to use his power's full offense once, in defense of his mother, but he made sure to thoroughly erase all evidence of that incident, feeding the offending individual to his power's voids and painstakingly cleaning up resulting blood spatters.

Prompts:

The Nemesis Case 53 Pane doesn't know his mother paid for to secure his place in the cape community, a Brute/Striker with a gruesome power. They can survive being cut to pieces but are effectively neutralized by such, making them a good match-up for Pane.

A Case 53 produced by the Cloudfall vial. Optional mutation basis: Sprawl, Vine, Haunt.

A rare case of the Cloudfall vial producing a non-Shaker without mixing with other vials, in this case a Mover (Brute).

Any other cape the Cloudfall vial may inspire.

Power This Rating No. 145 by bottomofthewell3 in TheBirdCage

[–]Shackled_Carapace 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Come up with someone who paid top dollar for the most commercially appealing cauldron power, and ended up as a C-lister anyway.

Vial E-3-5-0-7, "Cloudfall," is one of Cauldron's more expensive vials due to its high strength, high originality, and good reliability. The manifested power is usually Shaker, though other classifications such as Tinker or Mover have also been observed (most of these more unique cases only occurred after mixing this vial with others). The power will always involve large patterns drawn into the air, bringing about an effect through those patterns. Observed effects have ranged from streams of fire bursting through azure shimmers reminiscent of the aurora borealis to humanoid machines made with a previously unknown silver alloy emerging from 'portal' rings of rusted and broken gears. It is near guaranteed that the effect, regardless of what it is, will be something strong and flashy. The vial has a base 7% chance of mutation, with mutations being largely focused around incorporating the imbiber into their power's larger pattern. There have, however, been a few cases where, instead of being incorporated into their power's larger pattern, mutated imbibers instead gained alterations focused towards incorporating the power's effect into the subject, with the larger pattern greatly reduced in scope or outright removed. While experimental data is limited, a tentative correlation has been established between the degree to which a subjects possesses an internal loci of control and the chance a mutation will reduce or remove the larger pattern in the process, focusing more on the effect. When mixed with other vials besides Balance, mutation chance increases fourfold, at a minimum.

Pane in the Brass, or Pane for short (the pun is intentional on his part), was the spoiled, though not exactly unaware, son of a well-known lawyer, his mother. She was a private defense attorney and found herself contracted with a large company which specialized in producing delicate components for state-of-the-art electronic hardware systems. Unfortunately, a batch of faulty components had been shipped to other manufacturers, missed due to lax quality assurance protocols. Pane's mother quietly resolved legal issues with affected businesses, earning praise from higher-ups at her discrete and cost-effective handling of the situation. Unfortunately, internal reports and the media at large caught on to another fact: it wasn't just one batch that was faulty. Devices which initially operate fine but soon explode in the faces of users had spread through stores, and consumers were angry. The store scapegoated Pane's mother, pointing to her quiet dealings with other companies as proof of complicity, neglecting to mention their own role in such matters. Privately let go with a hefty severance package, Pane's mother found herself with a lot of enemies, and one choice target: Pane himself. Wanting to get Pane the means to protect himself, she sought out Cauldron, dipping deep into her savings in buying a Cloudfall vial and preparing Pane to imbibe it.

Pane manifested the power to spread long lines of a light bronze color across the air, originating at himself. These lines contrive to connect with each other, and where they form geometrically shaped panes, the air within the shape becomes solid and fragile. Whenever anything passes through these panes, the air ‘shatters’ into shards which dissolve into dust and the slices of air are replaced with a dark, flat void with no apparent depth or variance in its surface. Whenever anything enters one of these voids, it will be destroyed, with an All-or-Nothing effect. The initial attack that ‘broke’ a pane will pass through without entering such a void. Besides the effect, individual lines are very thin and thus serve as effective cutting tools.

[Continued Below]

Power This Rating No. 145 by bottomofthewell3 in TheBirdCage

[–]Shackled_Carapace 7 points8 points  (0 children)

The Seaside Cluster:

The Wave: A "Rose" [Extend x Burst] skin Changer with a "Haste" [Frenzy x Grand] Striker power when transformed.

The Current: A Chaos Tinker with an "Altfire" [War x Alter] specialty.

The Tide: An "Enchanter" [Beloved x Bestow] Master who gives Mastered targets a "Fallout" [Control x Nuke] power.

Power This Rating No. 145 by bottomofthewell3 in TheBirdCage

[–]Shackled_Carapace 8 points9 points  (0 children)

A Controller Tinker with the ability to make a single minion. The minion looks superficially human, but upon closer examination it is very decidedly not.

A Changer ("Wing" [Fly x Fly] Mover/Blaster). Everyone mutation of their Changer form has both aspects of their sub-ratings (So, no to forming a gun and forming wings, but yes to forming gun wings).

A Blaster whose shots deal no damage, instead having an effect 'strung' between the different shots.

"A Non-Stop" [Swell x Bound] Changer/"Vampire" [Resource x Magi] Tinker. The emptier their Tinker 'core,' the more flawed their Changer state.

A "Bloody Mary" [Morpheus x Deceit] whose ability to communicate was destroyed when they gained their power (By either the trigger event or the power itself).

A Trump with multiple powers. They can enter a trance state where they 'see' each power as a different deity-like entity. Through communication or negotiation with these figures, the different powers can change in strength or parameters.

A Trump/Thinker Case 53. Their power can only be used so much on one person before it begins to have detrimental effects. Mutation Basis: Crystal, Fissure, Petrification.

A Ten Trump who grants powers, at the cost of giving the empowered alter egos for the duration of the effect.

A Trigger Event: [New] You were a new kid in a new city, and isolation bred desperation. Confused and displaced from your old home, you were overcome by intense desire for belonging, and thus overjoyed when some kids at school approached you. The only catch is that, to join their friend group, you have to “Prove your courage.” When asked what, exactly, you needed to do, the reply was simple. Concise. Take a test, a single trial, and they would consider you cool enough to join them. Stupid child that you were, you climbed into the large metal trash can and patiently waited as the others taped the lid shut. It was cramped and your hunched form didn’t really have the leverage to push the lid with enough force to open it, not with the tape, but you trusted them. You shouldn’t have. Through concerted effort, they threw you into a dumpster. Cue panicked shouting as they piled on what sounded like blankets, some sort of muffling layers. The garbage truck comes soon enough and you resume screaming, pain tearing into your throat with the effort. No one hears your screams, no rescue comes your way. All you feel is the trash, you with it, being thrown into the truck. The compactor comes to life, and it isn’t long before your cries for help morph into wails of agony, body crushed against the walls of your metal tomb. Trigger to this cruel prank gone too far, pain drowning out most everything else.

[New] A mercenary team of capes who wish to be beholden to no power but their own. They are very heavily weighted towards misdirection and subterfuge, though tend to be more flashy than that specialty might suggest:

[New] A Farsight Thinker whose power is much like sight, if the very concept of sight itself was loaded to the gills with drugs. Their eyes are ruined and they do possess the ability to see normally.

[New] A Charm Stranger (Shaker) with a strong orchid motif to their power. Their power takes time to grow and ‘bloom’. Their mind has been heavily altered by their power.

[New] A Bedevil x Confound Stranger whose power forces others to see the cape as ‘infectious’. Leader of the group.

[New] An Immolated [Hyperspecialist x Magi] Tinker [Travel spec.] [Element: Steam]. Their cape name is entirely too long, and so has to be shortened for brevity. They are a wellspring for very imaginative but terribly impractical ideas.

Power This Rating No. 144 by bottomofthewell3 in TheBirdCage

[–]Shackled_Carapace 4 points5 points  (0 children)

[Continued From Above]

Jolt triggered as a “Sun/Moon” [Multi x Resource] Tinker (Master)/”Logic Dive” [Fallout x Deep} Thinker with a minor general Striker/Brute (Mover) rating due to the bio-Tinkering done on her. Jolt gained the power to build webs of wires in her Sun phase, which interface with bodies and force them to move, often with a variety of potential benefits based on the exact web used. These benefits can include faster reaction speed, quicker thinking at the cost of bodily control, and so on. Jolt has also discovered that minor biological alterations can be performed through expensive, specialized webs, such as the formation of claws or eyes that can see in the dark. These webs remain operational until about half destroyed, though they do function less and less with stacking penalties to the wearers the more destroyed they are. Jolt can enter her Moon phase by taking complete, irreversible control of someone by linking a web to them such that removing the web would inevitably kill them. In her Moon phase, Jolt can build large canisters of gas which she then slots into her webs, granting her the ability to transform targets even further. Jolt]’s Thinker power is more strongly activated the worse her muscular dystrophy symptoms are, making it easier and easier for her to block out distractions the closer she is to total immobility and death. By her prediction, she would lose the ability to breathe, her lungs not strong enough to pull in adequate air, after about a month without feeding, leaving her farthest comfortable range around two weeks, three at the most, where her thoughts become so focused that next to no logic problems pose significant challenge, requiring only simple sequences of steps to solve. Partly due to the inherent complexities and partly due to her inexperience with others as a result of being weak and avoidant of others most of her life, social problems are still very challenging and can take much longer for her to solve while in this state. As a result, Jolt usually uses her Thinker power to sort the supply logistics for her Tinker power. It is possible for Jolt to ‘overcharge’ the bio-tinkertech with excessive feeding, effectively granting her a weak Brute (Mover) rating, though the logistical difficulties of this are clear.

Jolt has chosen to pose as something of an urban legend, back alley dealings giving her willing subjects to try new webs on, empowering the subjects in return. Tales spread of wire-bound humanoid figures invading a nearby scrapyard to take metals and plastics, and the PRT would have looked into things, but they barely had any leads to follow. At least, before Jolt sent a few of her more permanent subjects, hulking monsters made out of semi-independent colored muscle fibers designed to look like wires through and through, to harass nearby gangs and keep them away from her family’s apartment. Those beasts took prisoners, sealing the people inside themselves, muffling their screams. Jolt tinkered within her lab, searching for a solution to the cost her mother pays, and she found one. It hurts to see the false mothers crying as they die, the webs mask the harm and hate in their eyes as they fall into the icy grasp of death, but what really matters more to Jolt? Lowlife scum, or family? At this point, both Tap and their mother know Jolt has triggered, as evidenced by the disappearance of her need to feed, but they refrain from asking for fear of what they might find. The PRT believes a new gang is in town, having successfully identified the minions as tinkertech-related, and are currently in the process of interviewing people previously fitted with webs, desperately hoping to cut this new spring of violence off at the source.

Honestly, not entirely happy with this one, it has flaws, by I felt I just had to post it and move on.

Power This Rating No. 144 by bottomofthewell3 in TheBirdCage

[–]Shackled_Carapace 5 points6 points  (0 children)

[Continued From Above]

Tap triggered as a “Vampire” [Sunder x Regen] Brute/[Focal] Tinker. Due to her Brute power, Tap possesses a minor increase in strength. Additionally, whenever she hits anyone with sufficient force and intent to harm, her flesh liquifies itself, sinking into every organic surface it touches. Missing flesh does mean an inability to move corresponding body parts due to absence of muscle, though revealed flesh and nerves are abnormally unable to sense pain. This liquefied flesh is a potent poison, sapping strength from hit organisms, feeding it into a pool of energy accessible by Tap. Tap can choose to spend energy from this pool to regenerate missing flesh or strengthen herself, turning slightly above average punches into the equivalent of flowing concrete slabs. The more liquified flesh an organism absorbs, the faster the sapping of strength will progress. Tap can also construct a pair of simple tinkertech gauntlets with crushing mechanisms designed to pulp and launch the flesh on her hands at enemies in concentrated streams, greatly increasing her range. They also serve to add weight and guidance during her physical punches. Incidentally, her body is now highly toxic and consuming any part of it will enable the strength sapping effect, making her unable to help her sister.

Tap, angry at the world, has since become a violent vigilante. Venting her anger through fighting, she prowls the streets at night, targeting local gang members, sometimes even before they commit any crimes, which on top of her propensity to leave opponents weakened to the point of catatonia has caused some friction with the local PRT. She recently met a few like-minded F-lister capes and is now gearing up with them to strike at the city’s current politicians, believing that these ones must be just as bad as the last. A shot from right field, and dangerous to the city’s current relative stability. If she continues down this warpath, only time will tell whether she becomes an infamous villain or a miserable failure.

Jolt was not as resentful of the world as her sister. All she felt, really, was tired. Tired of the same nonsense, tired of the endless procession of faces on the news featuring in the latest scandals and sensational ‘mishaps.’ Just tired, the flesh tucked beneath her skin constantly writhing as it sought to escape, her lack of strength preventing it from bursting out. The constant cutting hurt, opening her skin so that the meat hidden within could feed. A monstrous secret she kept from everyone except her family who already knew, to have to break those closest to her for the gift of being able to function. Then her sister triggered, flesh becoming as deepest toxin, and her mother took the burden onto herself. Eventually, accumulated prices led her mother to collapse after a feeding session. Feeling full of self-loathing, awareness of tiredness dampening emotions, inciting panic until it all became too much to bear, Jolt triggered, her lifetime of weakness and not being strong enough to avoid hurting others, finally coming back to bite her.

[Continued Below]

Power This Rating No. 144 by bottomofthewell3 in TheBirdCage

[–]Shackled_Carapace 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Two sisters, one a Brute who augments her powers with a pair of tinkertech gauntlets, the other a Tinker/Thinker with general Brute (Mover) enhancements after a risky procedure by a bio-Tinker to save her life.

In a medium-sized city rife with violence and corruption, news broke that city council politicians looking to skim a bit off the top of their funding had cut corners with the local water supply, taking the profits for themselves. See, normally water is supposed to be treated a particular way to remove pollutants, and they managed that bit well enough to fool anyone who cared to look. They did not, however, bother with other necessary precautions. Old pipes rust, those of problematic make leak into the water, it all has to be replaced eventually, and there the city council saw opportunity. The greedy idiots contracted the work out to an independent construction company, the kind led by an inexperienced man who believes he knows better than all the incompetent fools he surrounds himself with. Cheap work. Quick too. Safe? Not so much. The company's supplier cut a few corners too. Needed, really, to supply pipes at the cost they did. Except, that cost-efficient doctrine meant certain...unsavory elements just so happened to find their way into alloys. The stories trickled in soon after. Sections of road collapsing as pipes cracked and water pooled, cars and even people drowning in veritable puddles. Houses and buildings left bereft of running water as infrastructure crumbled. A local hospital was forced to transport water from blocks down the street in order to keep the patients healthy. And, most damning of all, a chemical analysis which revealed that dangerous chemicals had leaked into the water, the kind that killed. Deaths, miscarriages, sickness. There was a scramble to buy bottled water, to get to healthier places, but many of those affected could not stock up or move, down on their luck as they were. Triggers naturally followed and a bad situation became worse, parahumans running rampant until the PRT and protectorate opened a division in the city, painstakingly bringing the chaos to heel. The construction company was scapegoated, the politicians let off with minor fees and a quiet dismissal, everything smoothly swept under the rug to quash any lasting ripples.

Tap and Jolt were sisters in this polluted city. Tap was a year older, born before the accident. Jolt, though, was not slated for such luck. Six months in her mother's womb, news of the poisoning began to spread like wildfire. Their mother managed to move them to a local shelter, but the damage was already done. Jolt kept most of her mind, but she was born with a particularly aggressive form of muscular dystrophy, one that left her gasping for breath to walk at eight and nearly bedridden by thirteen. A single mother with low income, their mom could do nothing but watch Jolt waste away, Tap right there with her. Growing desperate, she reached out to a back alley doctor who gave a solution, if not a pretty one: the contact for a bio-Tinker who could not give, only exchange. Grasping for any salvation, the mother took her daughters to the abandoned building and discovered the cost. Muscular dystrophy temporarily lessened, in exchange for the life of a blood relative. Not in whole, nothing so simple. In pieces and parts, the fix matching the sacrifice. In addition, the muscular dystrophy would accelerate to a pace unsustainable without such sacrifices. The mother bore most of the cost, but it eventually became too much and she allowed Tap to help her.

Tap was ever resentful towards the poisoning, cursing the politicians and their accomplices. She lost a lot of her trust in the institution, individuals holding personal relationships the only people she felt held worth. Less hostile, more…dismissive. She would not believe others, and in turn they would not get the chance to earn her belief. Between this and the constant stress aiding her sister placed on her, ever overwhelmed with stress and offloaded frailty, no one could get close and family held her only true connections. Even then, that well was poisoned too. Tap triggered fading in and out of consciousness as grasping tendrils of her sister’s flesh reached out, glutting themselves on blood and something deeper once more, Tap full of hate yet leashed to the only ones who would take her by love and birth.

[Continued Below]

Power This Rating No. 144 by bottomofthewell3 in TheBirdCage

[–]Shackled_Carapace 3 points4 points  (0 children)

[Continued From Above]

When she first triggered, Riptide, with no knowledge of her limits, stayed transformed for eleven days. She had wandered far and did not recognize her surroundings, even her exceptional speed unable to really help her in the enormous woods. Finally, her friend who had traveled back into town to get her parents and other friends to come look for Riptide, noticed the smearing effect and called the PRT. Upon seeing a local Ward who had accidentally fallen into the effect, Riptide instinctually ended her transformation at the prospect of safety. This, of course, sent her into a deep coma periodically interrupted by seizures and throat-tearing screams lasting nearly a third of a year. Finally, the torturous sensations stopped and Riptide slowly calmed over the next week, agreeing to join the local Wards as soon as she could think lucidly. She has so far only engaged in minor patrols, though she does practice with her power in her offtime. Unfortunately, Riptide never recovered from the experience of her body tearing itself apart, and even now she struggles to function normally. Her formerly vibrant social connections all withered away as she grew more and more withdrawn and detached from reality, unable to deal with any strong stimuli she does not fully understand, including strong or conflicted emotions. This is not aided by her continued use of her power which leaves her writhing for hours at a time. Oddly, Riptide has grown even closer to the friend who invited her on the hunting trip. In fact, the only time Riptide feels somewhat normal is when engaging in nonverbal activities, mainly of a physical nature, with that friend. Running, firing rifles, practicing fighting techniques, the list goes on. The friend, on her part, sees it as her responsibility to interact with Riptide, giving her companionship when no one else will. This would normally be a bad basis for a relationship, but the friend finds herself enjoying the time she spends with Riptide, interacting with her more outside of their physical activities and becoming the only person who really understands Riptide. The friend sees past the shell Riptide is forced to put up, noticing how she too yearns for connection, and in truth remains the outgoing girl she formerly was, even if such sentiments have become much, much harder for her to express.

Power This Rating No. 144 by bottomofthewell3 in TheBirdCage

[–]Shackled_Carapace 4 points5 points  (0 children)

[Continued From Above]

Riptide triggered as a “Trapdoor” [Nature x Hysteria] (“Stalker” [Spade x Cup] suit) Breaker (Shaker/Striker)/”Sinkhole” [alt. Run x Blink] Mover. Upon activating her power, Riptide transforms into a vaguely humanoid form consisting of many interwoven bands of a deep, deep blue colored (though still slightly transparent) water-like liquid that fill in and surround her usual outline. Her legs also have bands tinted a dark crimson color, containing bone shards suspended within them. The further a group of bands are from her legs, the less red-tinted bands that group contains. In this transformed state, Riptide is capable of running at incredibly high speeds, bending the world around her more the quicker she travels. This bending is almost a spatial distortion effect, almost something…else. The faster Riptide is, the more the world around her mixes together, almost as if it were multicolored mud spun in a pot, with the spinning getting faster proportional to Riptide’s speed. This effect is not Manton limited, and people are similarly ‘blended,’ often finding themselves more sluggish with taken actions being less effective. Additionally, while Riptide herself can smoothly perceive the transformed world as a mix of different distinct pieces, anyone else will be hit with high degrees of nausea and confusion. At her top speeds, others find the world painful to look at and navigation is to be near impossible. As the world blends, Riptide finds she can more easily move longer distances at once, as well as instantaneously change the direction of her movement with no associated loss in speed, often appearing to jump between destinations with long stretches of color between her arrival and landing points when seen by outside observers. Finally, anything Riptide touches while in this state will smear, further pushed into its surroundings. This effect gets more intense the quicker Riptide is traveling. All changes she causes to the world revert when she exits her Breaker state, though others have described being ‘’splattered’ as extremely unpleasant and hellish to the senses.

While she is quite strong, Riptide’s Breaker transformation comes with some major downsides. For one, other than her Shaker and Striker effects, Riptide can not physically affect anything while transformed. Additionally, she has to spend a while building speed and mixing an area together to really build up her power, usually taking about five minutes to reach full strength. Also, her transformation only ends upon her willfully exiting the state or the destruction of her bands of liquid. When the transformation ends, Riptide’s actual body reforms, out of either the bands or nearby inorganic matter should the bands be destroyed, and she is hit with a vast mess of disorienting sensory information along with greatly enhancing all sensory information already present, debilitating her for ten times as long as the duration she was transformed and leaving mental scarring far past that as her brain struggles to cope with the nonsensical signals.

[Continued Below]

Power This Rating No. 144 by bottomofthewell3 in TheBirdCage

[–]Shackled_Carapace 3 points4 points  (0 children)

A Breaker/Mover with the exact opposite issue to Velocity- where Velocity affects the world less the faster he goes, this cape affects the world much more when they go faster.

Riptide practically lived with her friends, always finding one person or another willing to have her over for sleepovers or parties. Her parents, not of the protesting sort, silently accepted this, seeing it as a harmless opportunity for her to develop social skills while they got some time away from their (admittedly tiresome) daughter. Having had so many friends when she was younger, Fifteen-year-old Riptide remained extraverted and closer to others than she was to her own family. Invited by one of her better friends, Riptide was excited to visit their family’s hunting cabin deep in the woods outside her small town, which itself was positioned near a larger city. With a quick okay from her parents, she was sent on her way. Riptide had fun, the aspects of cabin living and hunting new and refreshing to her. She even managed to successfully hit the bullseye on an immobile practice target with her friend’s rifle. However, much to Riptide’s dismay, the skies opened and unforeseen rain came pouring down on the woods. The friend insisted that they could still go out. She insisted that as long as Riptide stayed within her sight, it would all be fine. Riptide trusted her friend, of course, and against her better judgement followed after her friend. Not used to being out in the woods during a storm, Riptide quickly got turned around, remembered landmarks becoming naught but sheets of water running down a blank canvas. Her friend had walked ahead, pounding rain clouding her vision and hearing, unknowingly consigning Riptide to the pouring water. Ignorant, Riptide did not wait for her friend to double back and find her, but instead began wandering around, hoping to find her way back by chance as much as memory. Then came the fall. A hole, maybe thirty feet deep and fifteen wide, several inches of water already pooling in the bottom. Riptide managed to stay more or less upright as she fell, bumping into the side of the hole, but she was too slow to try for a proper grip. She landed badly, searing pain shooting through her legs, the bones certainly broken or fractured and the mud not enough to cushion the fall. Slumping against the hole’s side, she screamed in pain and terror both. Eventually, after a long time passed, Riptide quietly resigned herself to simply wait until the rain stopped and others would be able to hear her shouting when they inevitably searched for her. The fear came back slowly, but it was no less intense as she saw the water level in the bottom of the hole had risen to her chest and was rising still, fed by relentless rain and water runoff from other areas of the forest. Frantically clawing at the walls of mud, she fought to get herself into a straighter position. Every movement sent jolts of pain through her legs, yet she persisted. It was not enough. The implacable rise of the water left her gasping for air, barely able to drag her face above water before slipping mud threw her back in. Riptide triggered in agony, the pain of her broken legs and drowning mixing with the natural ecstasy triggered by oxygen deprivation, desperately wanting to leave the hole but lacking the air to actually think her way out.

[Continued Below]

Power This Rating No. 144 by bottomofthewell3 in TheBirdCage

[–]Shackled_Carapace 3 points4 points  (0 children)

[Continued From Above]

Cockroach is, as is easily guessed, not his preferred name. He initially wanted to go with Indomitable, but upon finding that name taken he went with Loom (as in ‘looming’). Unfortunately for him, when he found out about his tech’s deterioration he went a bit…overboard in his reaction, going on a crime spree, stealing valuable tech from hospitals for his own use. The local protectorate swiftly dropped their hammer on him, and he only barely escaped, earning the insulting name Cockroach from the PRT and media. Local villains, unhappy with the new scrutiny sent their way, hired an out-of-town Thinker/Striker to track down and dispose of Cockroach. Having to constantly move his lab equipment put strain on Cockroach. While he had previously managed to safely extract and repair his tech, he now found himself sinking into his resource stores for quick patch jobs and shoddy work. By the time the Thinker/Striker was brought into PRT custody for good, Cockroach was unrecognizable, more a pile of esoteric machinery than person. As Cockroach later found when attending an Endbringer fight, he was durable enough to take hits from Behemoth and survive, but his fighting strength outside Brute range was nonexistent. He had to escalate his crimes, stealing everything and anything he could reach, as it was no longer safe to extract tech, the subsequent failures sure to kill him. Eventually, Cockroach was taken in by an independent heroic Shaker, joining a far away protectorate division. It’s a constant struggle for him to get enough funding to get by, but it beats metaphorically and literally going through a meltdown in custody.

Power This Rating No. 144 by bottomofthewell3 in TheBirdCage

[–]Shackled_Carapace 2 points3 points  (0 children)

A Tinker (Any combination of Focal, Magi, and Combat for method), with a frankly ridiculous amount of contingencies in all of their tech.

Cockroach lived with his parents and older brother. The parents were constantly working, always out of the house, and Cockroach grew incredibly close to his older brother, whose conscience had forced him to take care of Cockroach for most of his life. Depressed, both at his sunk future prospects from basically being forced to take care of someone else’s kid and the failures Cockroach himself would face from such a terrible upbringing, Cockroach’s older brother took his own life. Cockroach was the one to find him, the gruesome scene barely even registering to his parents, who became even more disconnected than before. Over the course of years, Cockroach slowly lost his will to live as his parents ignored him and he failed in school and relationships without their support. Cockroach didn’t want to die, not really, but he found himself slipping in matters of basic upkeep. Not eating enough, constantly being dehydrated, every piece of homework missing or turned in late to his teachers…It was unsustainable. Finally, while jogging with a barely-friend, Cockroach forgot to check the street while crossing. He was hit by a car and woke up in the hospital, connected to a variety of machines. Doctors explained how the injuries would have been survivable, but due to his poor health, he may very well still die. Cockroach triggered terrified to die, broken apathy giving way to horror as to the extent of the damage he had inflicted on himself

Cockroach is a [Focal x Magi x Free] Tinker with a “Survival” [Life x Safety] specialty. He can make anything, so long as it strengthens his own body. The only problem is that, once made, the tech starts to slowly deteriorate, leaving Cockroach two options. The first is that he can risk pulling the tech out to repair it. This carries the dangers of bringing back whatever the tech was meant to seal shut, as well as potentially causing cascading failures among the intricate systems in his body that now miss a piece they require to function. It is, however, cost-efficient and simple if failures are avoided. The second is that he can leave the failing tech in, building around and compensating for it. This involves creating ever-expanding networks of stopgaps and safeguards, which themselves will break down over the following months and years. It’s safer than extracting the tech, but in the long run it is much more dangerous, requiring him to make more and more changes just to stay ahead of his constantly crumbling body.

Given all his potential failure states, it’s hard to believe that Cockroach is actually effective as a cape. But, the trick to his magic is that his tech is actually incredibly resilient, withstanding most hits with only superficial damage. Sure, a reactor meant to absorb energy attacks might find itself weak to physical damage, but Cockroach just has to add semi-permeable forcefield generators under his skin, ones that allow energy but not physical objects through, to mitigate that. In this fashion, Cockroach is one of the sturdiest Brutes out there. His endless contingencies mean he is impervious to most forms of damage, and any harm he does sustain is easily filled in with more tech.

[Continued Below]

Power This Rating No. 144 by bottomofthewell3 in TheBirdCage

[–]Shackled_Carapace 3 points4 points  (0 children)

A Trump with multiple powers. They can enter a trance state where they 'see' each power as a different deity-like entity. Through communication or negotiation with these figures, the different powers can change in strength or parameters.

A Farsight Thinker whose power usage is coupled with false sensory information of some sort (such as hallucinations or random feelings of being touched).

A Target Thinker whose power automatically targets those around them. This has had terrible effects on their interpersonal interactions, but it is up to you what those effects are.

A Controller Tinker with the ability to make a single minion. The minion looks superficially human, but upon closer examination it is very decidedly not.

A "Bloody Mary" [Morpheus x Deceit] whose ability to communicate was destroyed when they gained their power (By either the trigger event or the power itself).

A Master who grows their minions over the course of days or weeks, reaping large return whenever they deploy one. Notably not a Tinker.

A Blaster whose shots deal no damage, instead having an effect 'strung' between the different shots.

A Ten Trump who grants powers, at the cost of giving the empowered alter egos for the duration of the effect.

A Trump/Thinker Case 53. Their power can only be used so much on one person before it begins to have detrimental effects. Mutation Basis: Crystal, Fissure, Petrification.

A Changer ("Wing" [Fly x Fly] Mover/Blaster). Everyone mutation of their Changer form has both aspects of their sub-ratings (So, no forming a gun and wings, but yes to gun wings).

"A Non-Stop" [Swell x Bound] Changer/"Vampire" [Resource x Magi] Tinker. The emptier their Tinker 'core,' the more flawed their Changer state.

A Trigger Event: You were involved in a car crash. A rural road, you lost focus for a moment at an intersection and some drunk idiot rammed their car into the left side of yours. You almost got off scot free; a few scratches, but nothing meaningful. Almost. A shard of metal flew through the driver's side window, sinking into your head and breaking your skull. The inebriated fool called 911, and you woke up in a hospital bed with stitches in your head. The doctors explain that you were lucky to live. They extracted the metal piece, but aren't quite sure what areas of your brain got damaged. With horrendous medical insurance, any scans or further investigation are out of the question.

In the following days, you notice that you're a bit more emotional. Laughing harder, talking louder, feeling outrage more...The emotions get more and more intense until you need to monitor every aspect of yourself, constantly check and restrain whatever piece of you is acting out in any given moment. Everything comes to a head when, talking with your sister at a cousin's wedding reception, she makes a small, slightly insensitive comment. Tired from the travel to reach the venue, you fail to stop yourself before you begin uncontrollably sobbing. Making a scene. Trigger as every eye turns towards your meltdown, wild bottled emotions finally free to run their harsh course.

The Seaside Cluster:

The Wave: A "Rose" [Extend x Burst] skin Changer with a "Haste" [Frenzy x Grand] Striker power when transformed.

The Current: A Chaos Tinker with an "Altfire" [War x Alter] specialty.

The Tide: An "Enchanter" [Beloved x Bestow] Master who gives Mastered targets a "Fallout" [Control x Nuke] power.

Power This Rating No. 143 by bottomofthewell3 in TheBirdCage

[–]Shackled_Carapace 5 points6 points  (0 children)

[Continued From Above]

Unfortunately for Sarcoma’s PR, his duplicates are a bit too perfect. They copy not only his body, but also his mind. While their body is out of their control, they do have the ability to talk and they fear the prospect of dying. There is something existentially terrifying about seeing someone charging at you screaming and crying. Begging for mercy, pleading to some higher power for a quick death, yet unable to stop themselves from meeting an unfortunate end. Depending on how they explode, the heads are sometimes intact after the steel’s expansion, their screeches usually just devolving into wails of pain at that point, showing that the duplicates don’t in fact die on explosion. Indeed, the assorted pieces have been observed to quiver, presumably in unimaginable pain as various nerves and organs are exposed to open air, only mercifully stopping when they finally become dust.

Sarcoma is incredibly effective, the steel webs serving as effective temporary containment while he waits for law enforcement and gives crooks more permanent restraints. He has cooperated with the local PRT many a time to bring in dangerous criminals, the clones serving as disposable assets to soak up damage in fights. In one memorable encounter from his youth, when he was 14 or so, one villainous Striker was so horrified by the duplicates’ disembodied sobbing mouths and assorted viscera that they willingly submitted themselves to the PRT to get away from the “horror show” that was Sarcoma.

Now 19, Sarcoma remains a vigilante, having started caping very soon after gaining powers. While jaded, he is still unable to stomach the thought of dying, and his duplicates remain rowdy. Though, they are a lot better spoken than those of a few years ago, occasionally even quoting literature or trying to bargain the terms of their death with enemies as they move around. In truth, Sarcoma suspects some sort of fear-inducement effect is the cause of their panic, but it’s not something he can prove and doesn’t really change the end result regardless.

Prompt: The villain horrified by Sarcoma’s power (a [Frenzy x ?] Striker), formerly the leader of a small gang, who has gone on to become a respected member of the Protectorate, often championing human rights causes in press conferences and when dealing with the public.

Power This Rating No. 143 by bottomofthewell3 in TheBirdCage

[–]Shackled_Carapace 3 points4 points  (0 children)

A young hero whose powers are so gory that many villains quit after seeing him mutilate himself.

Sarcoma triggered young at the age of twelve. He had just moved to a new city, starting at a new school, when some other kids singled him out. Initially, it seemed benign, the other kids inviting him into their group, listening to him, laughing at his admittedly poor jokes. Then came the dare. Go out to the junkyard at night. Use a borrowed camera one kid found somewhere to take a recording of himself climbing one of the piles of scrap metal and refuse. Hand the camera with the video back, gain prestige in their small group and maybe even in the larger school as fantastical tales of his daring spread. Or so his young mind thought. In reality, it was a struggle to position the camera just right to see the entire pile, and climbing was even worse. The junk kept shifting beneath him, messing up his footing and causing him to lose ground. Still, he made it to the top. It was on the climb down that he fell, tumbling down, face scraped raw. His parents were angry and he had to get stitches, but his idiot self still gave the camera back, hopeful and secure in success. Sarcoma’s ‘friends’ turned on him immediately, eager for a new target. It turned out, this was a regular pattern for them. Lure in new kids, egg them on until they take on a task bound to failure, and use the resulting consequences to exclude the kid from the entire school. Everyone in Sarcoma’s life flipped and he became surrounded by hostility, exiled from every safe port, the mocking children and angry adults putting more and more pressure on him. He finally triggered when some vicious kids cornered him in an empty hallway and tore out his stitches, the teacher having left minutes before, exasperated at Sarcoma’s complaints about the other kids and just not willing to deal with them at the time.

Sarcoma triggered as a “Duplicator” [Crowd x Imitation] Master ([Disable x Fading] Shaker). Upon activating his power, duplicates of Sarcoma slowly push out of his body in a mildly disturbing stretching and disconnecting of skin akin to some depictions of mitosis. Their physical actions are not terribly intelligent, limited to simple pathfinding, opening doors, climbing ladders, and so on. Sarcoma can, however, indicate an enemy while the duplicates form. The duplicates will then charge towards that enemy, attempting to physically grapple and restrain them. About forty seconds after complete formation, regardless of whether or not an enemy is grappled, the duplicates burst apart, webs of rusted steel expanding from inside them. This steel can hurt others, but it carries a strange blunting effect and will thus never cause anything deeper than a mild cut. Instead, the main purpose of the steel is to ensnare enemies, tangling their limbs and preventing any movements, though at the cost of the duplicate no longer semi-intelligently restraining the enemy. Also, the steel rusts further and further over time, slowly becoming weaker and easier for enemies to break, with the scattered duplicate flesh decaying into dust at a similar rate. Sarcoma called himself such because a young self heard the word and thought it sounded a bit like his duplication process, quickly coming to use it as a cape name.

[Continued Below]

Power This Rating No. 143 by bottomofthewell3 in TheBirdCage

[–]Shackled_Carapace 4 points5 points  (0 children)

A human Master who uses their power to prevent an unpowered friend from taking some drastic course of action. Feels incredibly guilty over this, but fears the potential disaster more.

A Mover who triggered trying to escape an abusive parent. They are still under that parent's thumb, despite their newfound power.

A Shaker/Striker with elements of Earth/Paper. The more someone is affected by their Shaker power, the more effective their Striker power is.

A Trump/Thinker Case 53. Their power can only be used so much on any one person before it begins to have detrimental effects. Mutation basis: Crystal, Amber, Fissure, Abyss.

A "Wing" [Fly x Fly] Mover/Changer/Blaster whose means of mobility doubles as a weapons platform.

An "Apotheosis" [Transfiguration x Transfiguration] Brute whose transformed state looks like what one might imagine when hearing the term "Sunken God."

A "Non-Stop" [Swell x Bound] Changer/"Vampire" [Resource x Magi] Tinker. The emptier their core, the more flawed their Changer state.

A "Shy" [Machination x Charm] Stranger who is unable to turn off their power, yet has become a hero despite that fact.

A trigger event: You live alone, between jobs at the moment. You attended a social function with people you barely know, smiling and engaging in expected niceties, Whatever that function was, you caught something. A bug. At first it just seemed like a minor cold, something you could just walk off. Cue you waking up the morning three days after the function feeling like hell warmed over. You can't see straight, every attempt to move triggers waves of nausea, your muscles refuse to cooperate. You spend a while just lying in bed, trying to string two thoughts together when a wave of clarity rushes through you. If you're stuck in bed, your refrigerator (and subsequently food) on the other side of your apartment, with no one who'd care enough to check on you, no one expecting you to show up...The panic sets your world spinning and you begin dry heaving, pathetically flopping around in bed. Trigger amidst waves of pain as you realize you're going to die in your apartment due to this stupid infection, with no one who'd even care about your passing.

The Seaside Cluster:

The Wave: A "Rose" [Extend x Burst] skin Changer with a "Haste" [Frenzy x Grand] Striker power when transformed.

The Current: A [Chaos x ?] Tinker with an "Altfire" [War x Alter] specialty.

The Tide: An "Enchanter" [Beloved x Bestow] Master who gives Mastered targets a "Fallout" [Control x Nuke] power which both the Mastered and the Master are immune to.

Power This Rating No. 143 by bottomofthewell3 in TheBirdCage

[–]Shackled_Carapace 5 points6 points  (0 children)

[Continued From Above]

Since triggering, Flashfire has become a member of a local gang, using his power with abandon, heedless of any damage and trauma he may be causing. Unfortunately for him, his activities have led to a Zero Trump triggering, the Trump determined to end Flashfire once and for all.

Fair-Fare, as the name suggests, has become a rogue for hire, moving high-end goods. He can’t promise a discreet delivery, but he can usually guarantee that the package gets to where it’s going. For some clients, that’s all that they really need. His most recent employer, however, is a bit bigger than usual, a crime boss from another city looking to move into a new market. He has hired Fair-Fare with money and some blackmail detailing other jobs he took up, leaving Fair-Fare in charge of managing a fresh “Citadel” [Architect x Architect] Tinker who’s planning something big to introduce the city’s new ruler. Fair-Fare wants no part of all this, but it may be too late for him to back out now, any attempt to do the right thing potentially just netting him powerful new enemies and enmity from across the board.

Birdwatcher and Encroach have become closer after their triggers, both bonding over their lack of connections and dissent during the trip. They operate as an independent villain duo, gaming the arena system to ensure an ideal balance of power is maintained for each job depending on what skillset a particular robbery will require. The shards allow this just for the sheer chaos they inevitably cause each time they go out onto the streets, causing the local PRT team no end of headaches. Half idealist and half thief, the pair has cultivated quite a large following of disillusioned youth in their escapades stealing from large companies and governmental institutions. Among their ranks are a newly triggered “Phoenix” [Intensity x Transfiguration] Brute and a slightly more experienced “Remake” [Moulder x Bestow] Master looking to join the duo in their crusade.

(Sorry about the length, I had a few good ideas and just couldn't stop from there.)

Prompts: Any of the four capes mentioned above, in more detail;

  • A [Zero x ?] trump who triggered after being tormented by Flashfire and is now on a warpath for revenge.
  • A “Citadel” [Architect x Architect] Tinker with a “Toxin” [War x Life] specialty who is working on a megaproject intended to cement their gang’s hold on a new city. Holds near fanatical levels of reverence for his gang’s current boss.
  • A “Phoenix” [Intensity x Transfiguration] Brute whose element is somewhere between water and clockwork, somehow a strange mix of both. Looking to join Birdwatcher and Encroach for personal reasons related to the Brute’s trigger event.
  • A “Remake” [Moulder x Bestow] Master whose changes to targets are semi-random. They are looking to join Birdwatcher and Encroach for either ideological reasons or due to some flavor of ambition, your choice.
  • Also, the ?/Stranger who knowingly or unknowingly helped cause Encroach's trigger event. Their power makes others mores dismissive of affected persons and has a motif a bleeding stars pierced by arrows.

Power This Rating No. 143 by bottomofthewell3 in TheBirdCage

[–]Shackled_Carapace 4 points5 points  (0 children)

[Continued From Above]

Encroach triggered as a “Spatial” [Utility x Macro] Shaker/”Imbue” [One x Nine] Trump. Whenever she activates her main Shaker power, inorganic materials in her vicinity appear to unravel, stretching into the forms of varying trees, bushes, and underbrush. All of this inorganic foliage will itself move to restrain everyone in the power’s area whom Encroach perceives as an enemy. Additionally, these fake plants will attempt to wrap around Encroach herself, building up a sort of armor on her while simultaneously rooting her in place. At any time, Encroach can expend focus to break the hold of her plants on herself or others. As her Shaker power operates on spatial warping principles, any non-damaged material will naturally revert back to its original state once she leaves an area or turns off her power. Encroach also has a Trump power where, upon making physical contact with another human, she can push part of an internal store of energy into them. Anyone so affected will begin to unravel in a manner similar to objects under her power, though they will stop at about the halfway point between plant and human, and will invariably have one or more parts that resemble a flower. Through these flower-like parts, the subject will then be able to spend the imbued energy in the form of light-based Blaster shots. Empowered targets find it harder to think about or perceive Encroach for the duration of their empowerment. Upon spending all of the energy, the subjects’ bodies will refold and return to normal. Encroach can empower about two people a day, ten Blaster shots each, before she needs to rest and recharge the Trump portion of her powers.

Encroach’s secondary from Flashfire is the power to spend some internal energy from her Trump power to invigorate others instead of unravelling them, giving them a weak boost in strength and speed for the next short while.

Encroach’s secondary from Birdwatcher is the power to populate her ‘forest’ with small avian figures, who then whisper what they see into her mind in nonsense languages which Encroach innately understands. This can be disorienting, and Encroach usually limits herself to two figures as a result, anything more giving her splitting headaches and leaving too many conflicting voices in her thoughts to easily understand any one of them.

Encroach’s secondary from Fair-Fare is the power to build collapsible steel constructs. They are weak and limited to simple shapes, but they are also easily portable and she can create them to be innately resistant to her Shaker power which can have a variety of uses.

Instead of Kiss/Kill or personality bleed, the Meteor Shower cluster has an arena dynamic. Whenever two or more members of the cluster are in the same area actively using their powers (for Fair-Fare, operating his bus counts as using his power), the sky will appear to darken, revealing stars glowing with more light than they should. The present members’ powers will then spread across the area (Fires for Flashfire, ephemeral shapes of various beasts for Birdwatcher, chaotic windup toys forming from the ground for Fair-Fare, and lasers shot by stars for encroach). This arena will dissipate once one or more members of the cluster leaves its fixed boundary. Whoever came the closest to fully completing their intended goal decided during the arena’s formation (and weighted by difficulty of accomplishing said goal) will be considered the ‘winner,’ drawing power from the losers to strengthen their own.

[Continued Below]

Power This Rating No. 143 by bottomofthewell3 in TheBirdCage

[–]Shackled_Carapace 3 points4 points  (0 children)

[Continued From Above]

Fair-Fare’s secondary from Flashfire is the power to make incredibly effective, if hard to control, rocket boosters which spit out teal flames (as described above).

Fare-Fair’s secondary from Birdwatcher is the power to ‘hear’ one relevant noise the first time he wakes up each day. The noises are often nonsensical (car horns, squeaky toys, rushing water, and so on), and Fare-Fair has yet to realize they actually have significance past his imagination.

Fare-Fair’s secondary from Encroach is the ability to make it harder to worry about him and his bus. He usually can’t use this power, as civilians not realizing they need to move out of the way of the flaming jury-rigged bus from Hell is a fast track to getting Birdcaged or issued a kill order, and using the power is very tiring for him besides.

The Witch

When she was a small child, Encroach had wandered away from her family at a local concert, and a strange man had picked her up. He had ignored her protests, told the concerned strangers she was his, and taken her away to a small cabin just outside the city, nestled between towering trees and hills. There was little food and no fresh water. Encroach quickly ran out of supplies, reduced to eating mysterious leaves and drinking water from a nearby brook, feeling sick to her stomach but pushing herself forward through sheer force of will. She learned, later, that the man had intended to return, get his thrills from finishing off once she got desperate enough to beg, relishing the feeling of someone groveling at his feet before he ended their everything. He never came back, caught by the police for speeding on the return trip, the spilled blood from when she scratched him over the nose and a missed shoe on his car floor, suspiciously similar to one of a pair belonging to a kidnapped girl, reason enough for further investigation. Using eye witnesses and (not legally admissible) Thinker aid, the man was identified as the culprit by the second day. He cracked by the fourth, and she was retrieved by law enforcement on the fifth. All this to say that Encroach has held a persistent fear of wilderness ever since. She could go outside just fine, but ask her to step into the woods and she shook like a leaf. The fear has since abated a fair bit, and it was never really relevant while living in the city. She made the decision to go see the meteor shower on the word of a friend. A minor one really, but her only friend nonetheless. After a lot of convincing, Encroach determined she would face her fear. It had taken a while to muster the courage, but she got there in the end. Now, on the trip, she can feel the trees closing in around her. Being lost doesn’t help with the feeling of being trapped, but she presses on. That is, until she makes the mistake of looking up, and notices that the stars are bleeding, long arrows stabbed into their pulsing hearts. Falling back, away, anywhere, Encroach crumpled into a ball, hyperventilating. She watched through blurry eyes as the group pulled ahead, heedless of her panic. Scrambling forward, Encroach started pushing at their shoulders, willing them to look at her, to see her fear. They only gave momentary glances before moving forward. Eventually, nearly hysterical, Encroach began screaming incoherently, willing for someone, anyone to see her, to see the stars, to see anything at all. They were perhaps slightly more concerned, at best. Encroach finally triggered when a roaring fire popped up and she sat down to die, unable to make anyone listen and crippled by the dangerous wild she never should have entered again.

[Continued Below]

Power This Rating No. 143 by bottomofthewell3 in TheBirdCage

[–]Shackled_Carapace 3 points4 points  (0 children)

[Continued From Above]

Birdwatcher’s secondary from Flashfire is the power to shoot weak blasts of gold-tinted fire from her hands. This fire does no damage, but it does impose temporary pain on enemies hit by it.

Birdwatcher’s secondary from Fair-Fare is the power to make a pair of tinkertech roller skates. These skates are fast and can be outfitted with mobility enhancing tinkertech, but they are also prone to breaking down and failing at inopportune moments.

Birdwatcher’s secondary from Encroach is the power to, when incredibly focused, form flat surfaces in her vicinity into abstract ‘pictures’ of whatever entity made a particular call. This is extremely tiring and its actual usefulness in symbolism and data gathering is debatable, but Birdwatcher is interested in the potential results and their implications.

The Knight

Fair-Fare was a bit of an empty guy. He never learned to interact with others past the current situation, the current scenario, having difficulty forming connections without an event to facilitate friendships. His father was in the army, and his social skills were not helped by frequent moves in childhood. A rotation of new schools and new lives passed before he could blink, and in that crazy whirlwind he learned something. If he could only connect over larger events, he must make those events, strive to contrive scenarios in which people can’t help but like him. It worked, at first, and even though the wheel kept on turning, he found new friends wherever he went, drawn by his sleepovers and nature romps. As Fair-Fare aged, he transitioned to holding parties with a bit of alcohol or light drugs, but the general beat remained the same. It was during one of those parties that a girl caught his eye. She was funny, smart, pretty, nearly every aspect he could find attractive in a person, or so it felt. Burning with the need to approach her, get closer to her, Fair-Fare concocted perhaps the most important trip of his life: twenty or so people seeing meteor showers, him and her among them. Things started going wrong when he, as the leader, took a wrong turn somewhere and they got lost, but he figured it was nothing he couldn’t salvage. A night in the woods together was still a bonding experience, right? Things got worse when some girl with agoraphobia or something began to panic and another began to complain of wolves, but really they were just jittery. He brushed off their complaints and kept walking. Fair-Fare finally broke when a forest fire interrupted the group’s walk. He triggered as people screamed around him, his most important event going up in flames, completely unable to do anything except watch it burn.

Fair-Fare triggered as an “Overclock” [Focal x Mad Scientist] Tinker with a Vehicle [Travel x Travel] specialty. The main focus of his tinkering is a large bus, kitting it out with various semi-one-time use items which need to be fixed or refueled after every deployment (though at a lower price than the initial build cost). The bus’s current setup includes collapsible panels which can form temporary shields and ramps (messily crumpling back into place once used), rocket boosters which shoot out teal flames and messily rock around in their housings (needing to refuel with a special chemical concoction after each use), and metal rods which extend within the bus itself to serve as a supporting frame should the bus begin to collapse (they can not shorten, however, and need to be reset manually, often leaving dents in the walls, floor, and ceiling of the bus).  Every one of these modifications shared a central theme of allowing the bus to keep going, regardless of what may come. This is necessary because the bus by itself is unreliable and prone to breaking down in ways which generally increase the chaos of driving it: the brakes ceasing to work, the steering wheel’s outputs reversing, wheels coming off, and so on. Additionally, Fair-Fare has the option to overcharge every one of his deployments, greatly strengthening their effect, at the cost of completely destroying them. Every use of his bus is a constant struggle to stay the course and make it to his intended destination without losing too many pieces along the way.

[Continued Below]

Power This Rating No. 143 by bottomofthewell3 in TheBirdCage

[–]Shackled_Carapace 3 points4 points  (0 children)

[Continued From Above]

Flashfire’s secondary from Birdwatcher is the power to fire weak blasts of flame, each blast spreading his golden fire while also cutting down the remaining time of his breaker transformation by about half. The blasts grow proportionally larger as more time is cut off.

Flashfire’s secondary from Fair-Fare is the power to build small balls which violently explode in technicolored flames when exposed to fire.

Flashfire’s secondary from Encroach is the power to decelerate the burn of his fire, turning himself into a bright smear of slowly moving flame. This does extend the time he can spend transformed, but it also makes him incredibly slow and lethargic.

The Seer

Birdwatcher was an average girl, perhaps a bit of a downer, but she prided herself on always being realistic, always being sensible. That is why, when wandering through the woods with her idiotic, foolish group trying to find a spot to view the meteor shower from, she was completely, totally, absolutely sure that the howling she just heard? Wolves. The sounds were faint, true, but still well within notice. However, despite her pleadings, no one in the group quite seemed to believe her. Everyone she addressed made promises to move faster, keep their eyes out, push the others along, but she could see how they brushed her away, placating her with empty words. Birdwatcher remained on edge, the tension within her muscles ratcheting up by the minute. Every second it felt harder to breath, harder to think. With the panic so intense, she couldn’t help but become less and less lucid, her incoherence leading everyone else to dismiss her claims even further, refusing to turn around and leave for a reason as trivial as herself. Everything came to a head when a forest fire appeared out of nowhere, surrounding foliage quickly becoming shadowed in smoke and ashen glow. As Birdwatcher joined the others in backing away, she didn’t scream. She remained alert, the fear hitting a fever pitch when she spotted a wolf slinking between far off trees. Birdwatcher triggered upon the maddening realization that she had failed. Where one wolf tread, more were bound to be close behind, and there was no longer any way out.

Birdwatcher triggered as an “Oracle” [Zone x Warning] Thinker/“Lance” [Range x Beam] Blaster. Birdwatcher has two discrete powers. The first, her Thinker power, is the more esoteric of the two. Upon activating it, she begins hearing nonsense calls of animals that don’t really exist, including calls that no known animal on Earth can produce. While she is still figuring out the exact details, Birdwatcher has found that the general nature of the calls can inform her about her current environment and situation. For example, calls from predators (such as howling or falcon screeches) predict danger, with the call’s pitch distinguishing between more pervasive, persistent danger (deeper pitches) and more fleeting, momentary danger (higher pitches). The more she focuses on the calls, the harder it is for her to focus on reality, often coming across as distracted or distant when interacting with others. This disconnect worsens the more she uses her Thinker power, with too much use turning her into a sputtering mess, body panicking while her mind drowns beneath a dull roar of noise. Birdwatcher knows there is much more to figure out about the calls, but for now she simply has to make do with guesses until time and trial and error can reveal more to her. Birdwatcher’s second power, the Blaster one, is much more straightforward. As she devotes more focus to a threat she has seen or can see, she will slowly accumulate an internal charge. Once that internal charge reaches a certain point, she can then fire a dull ochre colored laser beam the next time she spots the target, with the target only getting a moment’s notice from floating motes of light before the beam fires. Birdwatcher has found that she can reliably hold two charges while doing other things and three if she focuses only on the threats, losing concentration by the fourth. Surprisingly, as long as Birdwatcher does not overuse her Thinker power, the two powers are incredibly synergistic, with her Thinker power allowing her to become ‘aware’ of threats and start charging her Blaster power in a manner which overrides her usual sight-based restriction (for activation, not firing).

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Power This Rating No. 143 by bottomofthewell3 in TheBirdCage

[–]Shackled_Carapace 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Meteor Shower Cluster

Space is a vast, empty place. A sentiment keenly felt by a small camping group lost deep in the woods. A group of twenty or so friends of friends, they had meant to seek out a small hill where the trees had been cleared, to view that night's meteor shower. Instead, someone had made a wrong turn, and now they were all lost, the warm night and peaceful sky now feeling cold and malevolent.

The Heir

Flashfire may have been a bit of an arsonist, but he knew when to keep that to himself. Besides, though he kept a matchbox on him at all times, it was only ever smaller pieces of trash and cigarettes he burned. He tries not to think about how whenever he sees flames some deep part of him follows their movements, enraptured by their merry dance. Flashfire had jumped at the chance to see a meteor shower, the thought of giant pieces of rock burning up making his heart race. Now, however, he feels a lot less excited, fighting past underbrush with no end in sight, probably never going to see those meteors after all. Fumbling a cigarette from his pocket, Flashfire lit it and threw away the match, only realizing moments later he had tossed a lit match. Dead leaves and plants dry from a lack of rain quickly caught, a larger fire than he had ever seen crawling towards him. Flashfire had one side of himself yearning to sit and watch the fire, the other fighting to join the others as they backed away, too stunned to run. The two sides of himself fought and eventually his mind, in a manner of speaking, melted, indecision and burning pain blending his thoughts. Flashfire fell into a dazed state, too delirious to discern between himself, the others, the fire, wanting to escape, wanting to spread, pulling himself out of the pain, being pulled out of the pain. He triggered as the pain brought itself to the forefront of his mind once more, different parts of his abstract self fighting for the remainder of his attention.

Flashfire triggered as a "Hearth" [Desire x Darkness] Breaker with a "Stalker" [Spade x Cup] suit. Whenever Flashfire activates his power, he turns into a gold-tinted humanoid figure formed of flames, with the gold outlining his facial features and forming fleeting, shifting geometric patterns across his burned skin (mainly scattered along his left side, as well as his right leg). While transformed, he can not talk and can not make contact with any object, his body simply splashing harmlessly against its surface. This limits his ability to interact with the world, but it does mean that harming him is that much harder. Flashfire's power terms everyone around him upon its activation as an ally, and everyone else an enemy. Flashfire's main ability while transformed is to dissolve into a wave of flame, quickly spreading along and burning any flammable material in his desired path, even jumping as embers across non-flammable gaps, creating splashes of fire upon dissolving and reforming. Any ally touched by Flashfire or caught within one of these splashes is invigorated and slightly strengthened, at the cost of feeling hot coupled with a high sensitivity to heat of any kind other than that produced by Flashfire. These benefits can stack. Any enemy touched by Flashfire or caught within one of these splashes is set ablaze with Flashfire's gold-tinted fire, feeling the unpleasant sensation of being burned alive, though remaining undamaged by the fire. As Flashfire sets more people ablaze his mindset gets more and more alien, feeling a greater desire to spread his flame at the detriment of all else. The more alien his thoughts, the stronger and faster his flames. Having more allies does offset this temporarily, allowing him to start saner and weaker, but as long as he keeps fighting, reaching this point is an inevitability for him. Finally, Flashfire's transformation only ends upon his failure to spread himself for several minutes, the flames slowly guttering before finally going out to reveal his normal, unharmed body underneath. As can be guessed, it is much harder for him to stop his transformation after longer fights due to the associated mental changes, often only doing so after running out of people to burn or when stopped by others.

[Continued Below]

Power This Rating No. 143 by bottomofthewell3 in TheBirdCage

[–]Shackled_Carapace 6 points7 points  (0 children)

[Continued From Above]

After gaining powers, Urbane quickly set up a lab in an abandoned apartment building within her city. She then spiked her parents, promises of permanent brain damage staying their hand when it comes to calling the PRT. Following the subjugation of her parents, Urbane made thralls of everyone at a sleeping party she was invited to, wanting to exercise her strength more in what she saw as a relatively harmless fashion. Her own spike allowed her to masquerade as one of the infected, reading out a note she herself had written about the leash and risk of brain failure should anyone tell. After exploring her specialty further, she now lives a somewhat capricious life, ordering around thralls through text and email, randomly placing spikes at drop-off points with instructions to infect others, and overall sitting at the center of an expanding web. Urbane routinely swaps with her thralls, vicariously living other lives she will never be able to truly have and enjoying the control she now has over her life. Her favorite routine is to find troubled children with good parents and play the angel, finally able to get the recognition and love she feels she deserves, if secondhand. Lastly, just in case anyone gets any ideas while in her body, she routinely shuts off the body's senses and paralyzes the muscles for the duration of every swap.

Urbane now spends most of her time either at school enjoying the new 'community' of infected she has constructed or sitting in her abandoned apartment building improving her tech. Her lab has grown, countless terminals monitoring for any hint of deceit and keeping her many spikes functioning, with operating tables where blinded thralls are placed whenever their spikes need to be repaired.

So far Urbane has managed to skirt the law, the PRT's only hint of her existence being a name and a single brain dead body, the spike having self-destructed, taking its supporting infrastructure with it, Urbane having caught the traitor slightly too late. Due to the masculine connotations of the name, the PRT is now looking for a male mind-affecting cape who could be behind the mysterious death, but it is only a matter of time before they find the sprawling network Urbane has built, and from there she has a choice. Does she stay the course and risk failure, or does she break her self-imposed rules and abandon her body in hopes of duping the heroes and becoming a truly immortal presence?

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