Grief In the Shell: Madokapunk FFRP OOC/Recruitment

[KnightDisciple]

Are you sure the universe can handle that much HOT BLOOD in the same space?

SCIENCE! demands we find out.

[Epinephrine_Syn]

Okay so, interested. Started with the idea of a wish for Knowledge and an understanding of how Magic worked. Ended up with the idea of two upper echelon Zeal executives grooming their child to be a magical girl, home grown style.

I'm not precisely sure what plot threads are going on, but I'm doing a preliminary check while fleshing out the concept. Also being a little jealous of all the fun character concepts, where I just have a young, high and mighty heiress, socially isolated, looking to explore the nature of magic (and prepare for the potential next magical war, since we're basically in a Cold War right now).

Note: Character is about 60% done, with a lot of WIP stuff. Posting now so I can ask comments and clear the basic concepts.

Spoiler: Main Character Sheet: Still deciding her heritage, so name on hold until I figure out her ancestry.

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Name:
Codename: The Perfect Majo

Age: Physical 16 or 18
Time Since Contracted: Approximately 7 Months
Gender: Female
Height: 5 Foot Eleven.
Weight: 143 Pounds.

Faction: Zeal, Wishcraft
Rank/Station:
Research Specialist, Executive Heiress
Mashou Team Coordinator, Information Organizer

Spoiler: Physical/Personality Description:

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Physical: Also waiting on ancestry.

Psychological: to be done

A physical description of your character. Be as sparse or detailed as you like, but you should have the basics.

Spoiler: History:

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Born from the romance of a high Zeal executive and a Researcher with a Ph.D. in Magica. Groomed from birth to become a maho shojo, the perfect maho shojo in every respect. From genetics to education to temperament to social exposure. Nothing less for their daughter. In her time of growing up, Zeal grew larger than anybody could have known, with the power base to accomplish nearly anything.

She uses her information and intuition to help other squads of Mashou, and yet has never graced the battlefield herself. She is raised to be the heir of both of her parent’s legacies, to the extent of forgoing a college education in favor of guaranteed job at Zeal and hands on research and practice, and having very little in terms of ‘casual friends’. It is a luxurious yet lonely life, but at least for now, she has friends within the internet, her squads, and her parents.

One would think that such an experiment would go off with problems, but her parents raised her in a healthy way, and minus the high class isolation, with a normal life. So far everything has gone off without a hitch, and the thesis of ‘can you genetically groom MG potential’ has sprung true. Whether this process is replicable on a mass scale is another question entirely. Regardless, their daughter is perfection, literally Min-Maxed to the extreme, and infallible. Nothing less will be tolerated from her.

But as we know, Magic Is Suffering, and she isn’t even a year into her Mashouhood. There is time yet for tragedy.

Spoiler: Augmentations

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Genetic Modifications: The standard package of high end human enhancement. Being given hypomania, and a lower bar on emotional management. Groomed to contact from before birth, and given the traits associated with modern contracts to increase capability. If these even played a part in her contract capability is in question, but science is about experimentation.
Augmentations: The only augmentation being the admittedly expensive implementation of wireless online access within the body.

Spoiler: Magica Stuff

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Wish: "I do not ask for power, as the weight one man can lift is negligible when compared across humanity. I do not ask for glory, for it is my birthright, as is my ascendance into a Majo. I wish, my wish, is for Knowledge. To absolutely understand all that is magic. And with this, I form the contract, Incubator."

Costume/Thematics: Still need something fun here.

Her primary theme is Knowledge, specifically over all things magical. Other than her ability to instantly comprehend magic she sees (even beyond what would normally be inferable), she's mostly only got the standard Mashou set of powers, meaning she does in fact rely a lot of 'magi tech' developed by humans as in a lot of areas, unlike most Mashou, the tech either outclasses her, or can be modified to give her flexibility in responses.

What is the unifying style for your character’s powers as magical girl? For most, the style of their costume and the aesthetics of their powers are tied to something for which the magical girl has a deep passion, with the nature of the wish playing a role.


Abilities:
Magicanalysis: Magical girls generally get a minor intuition of their own powers and the ways that they are innately summoned and used. Namehere’s understanding of magic is vastly expanded, interacting or observing a trace of magic allows her to delve into the nature of it, the way it functions, and she can also detect the presence or absence of magic in an area. This understanding extends to Wraiths and Technology, helping her pinpoint the strands to pull something of magic apart, or optimize the operation of ‘magi tech’, or even sniff out a 'soul egg'.

Reaving Dispel: She can change the 'color' of her magic, in a sense. Certain very precise blends of magic are corrosive to other types of magic, although each corrosion point is specific to a particular mashou or type of magic, so she can only dismantle one type of magic at a time, and even that only after observation.

Maho Tinkerdom: Using her knowledge of magic she can put together and tinker with magical items and weapons. While capable of this with perfect knowledge, she still crafts things no faster than an ordinary human, and repairs magic no faster than a mashou that knows exactly what they're doing. Still useful though, especially when working with gear that.

Arsenal:
Tachyon Pistol, Mark Six (T-6, ol'six shooter.)
Her favorite weapon, precious lovely. This beauty is her signature weapon (nobody has ever seen her summon her 'actual' signature weapon). Not powerful, but very mana efficient, and with six 'settings' to help fire different types of magic plasma and interchange on the go. These settings can be 'changed' out for others, but that takes considerable time. The beams still 'hurt' when outside of their forte target, however.
Common standard load out choices are...
Metal Chewing (eats through metal, though making a hole to move through takes time)
Electronic Disruption (electrocution, with dim power can be a 'stun gun')
Wraith-Slayer (And witches, should they ever exist, similar stuff)
Mashou (Works powerfully against MG type magics, and fatal to Soul Eggs)




How does your character fare in their manipulation of the standard magical girl powers, and what additional abilities do they have? Like their thematics, a magical girl’s abilities are often tied to the nature of her wish and her personal nature, but they vary wildly. Be as detailed as you can here - while magical girls sometimes do discover new powers over their careers, this is comparatively rare.

Perception: Publically, she is kept wholly from it. Her talents are far more useful off the battlefield as a weapon crafter for Zeal and a tactics coordinator for Wishcraft. She is known to other Mashou within Wishcraft to a limited degree.

Spoiler: Questions

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What plot threads are available/going on right now?
Is this an okay concept? A cool one? There is another but Makoto is ‘widely’ different psychologically. Namely in that he's an *******, whereas she's just pampered (and their upbringing couldn't be more different).
I’m considering something like a Redhead Scottish thing, and/or German/Irish. Perhaps with an accent, should I be able to have the discipline to use it consistently.
Still need to determine a Theme Song or two, but I have some ideas.
Also deciding on Thematics, not sure whether to go full Patchy or to spread out into other areas.
Contracting is on her 16th or 18th birthday, her parents wanted to wait until she was old as possible before calling the incubator to complete her contract. Also to give her the freedom to have a lover later in life without the concern of her body being underage. (I'm just not sure if 18 is 'too old', I'm 100% fine with 16 or 17, I'm just asking for clarity).
Funny enough, while genetic traits may play a large part in her magical capacity, it's perhaps more her hidden anxiety of knowing her entire life is meaningless and forfeit should she 'fail', that led to her successful contract. It's far from a clear thing. She'll never admit to any of those dreadful nights spent laying awake in bed leading up to her Scheduled Contract, however.

[KnightDisciple]

Hey there, @Epinephrine_Syn.

Current plot is that the Mayor got BOOM, HEADSHOT!'ed, and then someone blew up a building, but a Magic Girl made that one all better, and now there's conspiracies and EMOTIONS and INVESTIGATIONS and stuff.

I...honestly, I'll let someone else touch on the current concept for your character.

I will say that my current character is a giant redheaded Scottish cyborg who occasionally wears power armor with lots of weapons, and a robo-kilt. Otherwise he just wears a regular kilt (because he's not in power armor, obviously).

[strawberryman]

From what Sel's told me there's no real genetic disposition towards being magica-potential or not. It's just kind of a karmic fate thing.

She looks okay, though one bit of overlap I worry about with one of my own characters - Nadica Novak - is the tinkering bit. I mean, I don't mind there being another tinkerer-type but that's kind of Nadica's entire shtick. If it takes her time to develop, that does set the idea apart, since Nadica is all about on-the-spot building, but.

[KnightDisciple]

Toying around with the possibility of a 2nd character. That's probably my limit for the foreseeable future. I'd like to make someone/thing that fits well, but does also bring something new/fresh in, and gives opportunities for everyone, or at least many characters, to have fun.
Bit tired at this point, so I'm just going to list out thoughts and ideas. Open to thoughts, and being "shot down" by Selinia and/or strawberryman.

-Full-body cyborg (like Gomes) who uses very visually appealing bodies (not as much like Gomes), with his "regular human size" body being like a living metal statue (styling might be reminiscient of an Alchemical Exalted). Larger sizes might resemble Transformers?
-An AI with a robot body, trying to learn what it means to be human.
-Some sort of backstory, be it "early mashou" or "early SCIENCE" experiment that results in totally-not-Captain America. Totally not.
-I'm open to playing a mashou-type character, but it'd be a dude, and probably more late teens, or even early-20's, physical-age-wise. The main problem is I don't have a solid idea on what he'd actually do or have as his special power(s).

[strawberryman]

Why not combine the latter two? Mashou Captain America, why not.

Anyway, Rio is approachable at any time, it's probably in the rumor mill by now that she's around Wishcraft.

And finally, I've talked to Sel, who's having a bit of a busy time lately, and she's agreed to let me take over for her on some plot threads, mostly Zhen and for Satou and Dunny. I'll try to get something up later tonight or tomorrow while I think it over.

[Kuroimaken]

Aye, I was getting started on having Hasunaga contact Leysa so she might get Satou and Dunny involved in investigating the ones responsible for the Kato Tower bombings. That way they can work together AND get some of the load off her back.

[KnightDisciple]

Why not combine the latter two? Mashou Captain America, why not.

Sure, sure. Hm....Bear in mind I'm mainly familiar with this setting 2ndhand, by way of wikis and the like. I'm loving this game because of the world being developed in front of us, combined with the storytelling Selinia, yourself, and the others here are doing.
With that said...

1.) How far back can we go with a mashou, if instead of "grizzled veteran of the war", we just embrace the Cap side of things and say "got stuck in ice/rock/negative space wedgie for a long time"?
2.) Can the transition into a Mashou be used as an excuse for going from "skinny, sickly man" to "muscled specimen of peak humanity", even outside of the "battle transformation"?
3.) Beyond "shield as a weapon", I'm unsure what powers are both in-theme, and not sever overlap. My brain keeps defaulting to, essentially, Paladin-esque powers...but that's basically "healing, buffing, and protective magic", which is almost entirely Rio's warehouse. Open to suggestions here.
4.) What country would folks prefer he be from? I can just go whole-hog and make him American but I don't want to potentially step on toes. Though I'm not sure what other country could produce the sort of unconscious "nexus" of concepts that leads to a "Captain *Country*" sort of guy.
5.) How complicated can the wording of the wish get? A couple sentences? 3-4? I'm not talking a book or anything, but something beyond just "help everyone here!".

[strawberryman]

The transition into a mashou in canon turned a bedridden girl with a heart disease and bad eyesight into a athletic witch-killing machine regardless of her powers. So yeah, that's a given. Sel could answer the rest.

[Epinephrine_Syn]

Thanks for the plot update, also I think I like the idea of Mashou Captain America. Also also, I think I've got a theme song lined up for my character.

From what Sel's told me there's no real genetic disposition towards being magica-potential or not. It's just kind of a karmic fate thing.

She looks okay, though one bit of overlap I worry about with one of my own characters - Nadica Novak - is the tinkering bit. I mean, I don't mind there being another tinkerer-type but that's kind of Nadica's entire shtick. If it takes her time to develop, that does set the idea apart, since Nadica is all about on-the-spot building, but.

I presumed the 'propensity for high emotions' rationality given in the original anime had some kind of hold. I've only watched the original 13 episode series and first movie, I don't actually know the post-Madokami-ascension world so well, I presumed because all the same girls before the change also had to contract after, that there was no change in the contracting requirements. The only bits I hold any attachment to are 'know she was able to contract from young age' and 'parents work wealthy jobs', but those are also up for change if necessary.

Tinkering is more of a secondary for my character than a primary power. My character is still human in the time it takes to tinker stuff. Perhaps fifteen seconds and modify an already existing pistol to fire a single type of magical bolt, or patch up an already existing weapon, but that's vastly different from conjuring entire turrets out of the aether. Most of her magic is useless on the battlefield without preparation time.

Her primary power is 'understanding' magic, both the wraiths she fights, and the magic of other mashou, which she can use to either amplify them with her own magic/advice on optimization of use, or dismantle/neutralize (either through direct dispelling, or indirectly such as knowing it has X or Y limit).

Also Nadica's something like 60 years her senior, and their personalities would likely clash, but that's part of the fun. I can imagine the protesting against the 'young whippersnapper'.

[Kuroimaken]

Dorizzit, I think you may have missed Hasunaga leaving a present for Leysa.

[Dorizzit]

Fine, I'll contrive something.

[strawberryman]

@KD: Thinking about it, I can at least answer part 1 of that, why not just go with him being a recent contractee instead? Is the "frozen in time" bit all that important, I guess? I don't really know the comics that well, but I suppose that is kind of part of the base character, but I figure it's not all-encompassing.

I don't really mind overlap with Rio if he has some generic buffs compared to her focused ones. Given she's the cleric to his paladin in that sense.

As for country, don't really mind any way. The interesting question is why he'd be in Japan, I suppose. And what possible political ramifications there would be, which would be better answered by Sel.

As far as I can tell, wishes can be complex or simple as the wisher feels like, but they will follow the intent regardless of specific wording, such that nobody gets evil-Djinn'd out of their wish.

@Epinephrine_Syn: All right then. That's okay with me. And Nadica has a passable respect for scientific or engineering types. Basically anyone who actually builds things. If they cop an attitude she will certainly snap back though.

[KnightDisciple]

@KD: Thinking about it, I can at least answer part 1 of that, why not just go with him being a recent contractee instead? Is the "frozen in time" bit all that important, I guess? I don't really know the comics that well, but I suppose that is kind of part of the base character, but I figure it's not all-encompassing.

I don't really mind overlap with Rio if he has some generic buffs compared to her focused ones. Given she's the cleric to his paladin in that sense.

As for country, don't really mind any way. The interesting question is why he'd be in Japan, I suppose. And what possible political ramifications there would be, which would be better answered by Sel.

As far as I can tell, wishes can be complex or simple as the wisher feels like, but they will follow the intent regardless of specific wording, such that nobody gets evil-Djinn'd out of their wish.

I can probably skip the "frozen in time" thing; especially if he's not from the US. It's certainly not the core of the character. His idealism, goodness, and determination are.

Hm. As far as power overlap...what if he can heal but has to have physical contact, and his is more focused on "you don't feel tired, afraid, confused, *insert Status Effect here*"? As I recall from other conversations, her buffs can get super-potent, but they're personalized, and she has to know the person pretty well for much potency to happen. This would be more of an AOE buff to anyone he doesn't consciously/semi-consciously (in the "I'm very aware of the battlefield and can evaluate Friend Or Foe quickly" sense) consider an Enemy.

He would have a physical shield as a weapon, could throw it (ALL THOSE WHO OPPOSE MUST YIELD!), and maybe it can create larger "energy shields" for periods, to protect wider areas than just himself.

Country...well, if he's not time-tossed, but instead really a 20ish guy who made a wish and got SWOLE, then I suppose Japan could work? Might even make him a sort of protaganist/antagonist, have him working with the JSDF, not because "MWAHAHA MUH CONTROL", but because "they defend the nation, and who doesn't want to defend their home?". He might be a touch naive, but this guy would absolutely be the sort to stand around and give idealistic speeches that not only would he believe in, but he might make other people believe in, too.
It's easiest, to me, to blatantly rip off Marvel's speeches about the American Dream, but this game is set in Japan so I also recognize that the sentiments could feel odd. But someone who believes that Japan Can Be Better (because it's not perfect, what country is?), maybe that could work.

As for his wish it's more just that it'd be a longer, flowery, noble-ideals sort of thing. That's all. Not worried about being wish-corrupted here.

[Epinephrine_Syn]

I was partly asking about whether there were primary changes/problems with the backstory that I would have to mod, or if things were good as they were. I'll try to make some of what we talked about more clear, as well as outlying other details.

[Dorizzit]

KnightDisciple and Sucrose I haven't seen any direct reactions to Leysa's message, so I wanted to make sure you both knew about it.

[KnightDisciple]

KnightDisciple and Sucrose I haven't seen any direct reactions to Leysa's message, so I wanted to make sure you both knew about it.

Woops! Yeah, I'll try to react here in a bit.

[Selinia]

I'm trying to get some responses to these up, sorry for the delay. Let me know if there's anything I've overlooked.

Spoiler

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Okay so, interested. Started with the idea of a wish for Knowledge and an understanding of how Magic worked. Ended up with the idea of two upper echelon Zeal executives grooming their child to be a magical girl, home grown style.

I'm not precisely sure what plot threads are going on, but I'm doing a preliminary check while fleshing out the concept. Also being a little jealous of all the fun character concepts, where I just have a young, high and mighty heiress, socially isolated, looking to explore the nature of magic (and prepare for the potential next magical war, since we're basically in a Cold War right now).

Note: Character is about 60% done, with a lot of WIP stuff. Posting now so I can ask comments and clear the basic concepts.

Spoiler: Main Character Sheet: Still deciding her heritage, so name on hold until I figure out her ancestry.

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Name:
Codename: The Perfect Majo

Age: Physical 16 or 18
Time Since Contracted: Approximately 7 Months
Gender: Female
Height: 5 Foot Eleven.
Weight: 143 Pounds.

Faction: Zeal, Wishcraft
Rank/Station:
Research Specialist, Executive Heiress
Mashou Team Coordinator, Information Organizer

Spoiler: Physical/Personality Description:

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Physical: Also waiting on ancestry.

Psychological: to be done

A physical description of your character. Be as sparse or detailed as you like, but you should have the basics.

Spoiler: History:

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Born from the romance of a high Zeal executive and a Researcher with a Ph.D. in Magica. Groomed from birth to become a maho shojo, the perfect maho shojo in every respect. From genetics to education to temperament to social exposure. Nothing less for their daughter. In her time of growing up, Zeal grew larger than anybody could have known, with the power base to accomplish nearly anything.

She uses her information and intuition to help other squads of Mashou, and yet has never graced the battlefield herself. She is raised to be the heir of both of her parent’s legacies, to the extent of forgoing a college education in favor of guaranteed job at Zeal and hands on research and practice, and having very little in terms of ‘casual friends’. It is a luxurious yet lonely life, but at least for now, she has friends within the internet, her squads, and her parents.

One would think that such an experiment would go off with problems, but her parents raised her in a healthy way, and minus the high class isolation, with a normal life. So far everything has gone off without a hitch, and the thesis of ‘can you genetically groom MG potential’ has sprung true. Whether this process is replicable on a mass scale is another question entirely. Regardless, their daughter is perfection, literally Min-Maxed to the extreme, and infallible. Nothing less will be tolerated from her.

But as we know, Magic Is Suffering, and she isn’t even a year into her Mashouhood. There is time yet for tragedy.

Spoiler: Augmentations

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Genetic Modifications: The standard package of high end human enhancement. Being given hypomania, and a lower bar on emotional management. Groomed to contact from before birth, and given the traits associated with modern contracts to increase capability. If these even played a part in her contract capability is in question, but science is about experimentation.
Augmentations: The only augmentation being the admittedly expensive implementation of wireless online access within the body.

Spoiler: Magica Stuff

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Wish: "I do not ask for power, as the weight one man can lift is negligible when compared across humanity. I do not ask for glory, for it is my birthright, as is my ascendance into a Majo. I wish, my wish, is for Knowledge. To absolutely understand all that is magic. And with this, I form the contract, Incubator."

Costume/Thematics: Still need something fun here.

Her primary theme is Knowledge, specifically over all things magical. Other than her ability to instantly comprehend magic she sees (even beyond what would normally be inferable), she's mostly only got the standard Mashou set of powers, meaning she does in fact rely a lot of 'magi tech' developed by humans as in a lot of areas, unlike most Mashou, the tech either outclasses her, or can be modified to give her flexibility in responses.

What is the unifying style for your character’s powers as magical girl? For most, the style of their costume and the aesthetics of their powers are tied to something for which the magical girl has a deep passion, with the nature of the wish playing a role.


Abilities:
Magicanalysis: Magical girls generally get a minor intuition of their own powers and the ways that they are innately summoned and used. Namehere’s understanding of magic is vastly expanded, interacting or observing a trace of magic allows her to delve into the nature of it, the way it functions, and she can also detect the presence or absence of magic in an area. This understanding extends to Wraiths and Technology, helping her pinpoint the strands to pull something of magic apart, or optimize the operation of ‘magi tech’, or even sniff out a 'soul egg'.

Reaving Dispel: She can change the 'color' of her magic, in a sense. Certain very precise blends of magic are corrosive to other types of magic, although each corrosion point is specific to a particular mashou or type of magic, so she can only dismantle one type of magic at a time, and even that only after observation.

Maho Tinkerdom: Using her knowledge of magic she can put together and tinker with magical items and weapons. While capable of this with perfect knowledge, she still crafts things no faster than an ordinary human, and repairs magic no faster than a mashou that knows exactly what they're doing. Still useful though, especially when working with gear that.

Arsenal:
Tachyon Pistol, Mark Six (T-6, ol'six shooter.)
Her favorite weapon, precious lovely. This beauty is her signature weapon (nobody has ever seen her summon her 'actual' signature weapon). Not powerful, but very mana efficient, and with six 'settings' to help fire different types of magic plasma and interchange on the go. These settings can be 'changed' out for others, but that takes considerable time. The beams still 'hurt' when outside of their forte target, however.
Common standard load out choices are...
Metal Chewing (eats through metal, though making a hole to move through takes time)
Electronic Disruption (electrocution, with dim power can be a 'stun gun')
Wraith-Slayer (And witches, should they ever exist, similar stuff)
Mashou (Works powerfully against MG type magics, and fatal to Soul Eggs)




How does your character fare in their manipulation of the standard magical girl powers, and what additional abilities do they have? Like their thematics, a magical girl’s abilities are often tied to the nature of her wish and her personal nature, but they vary wildly. Be as detailed as you can here - while magical girls sometimes do discover new powers over their careers, this is comparatively rare.

Perception: Publically, she is kept wholly from it. Her talents are far more useful off the battlefield as a weapon crafter for Zeal and a tactics coordinator for Wishcraft. She is known to other Mashou within Wishcraft to a limited degree.

Spoiler: Questions

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What plot threads are available/going on right now?
Is this an okay concept? A cool one? There is another but Makoto is ‘widely’ different psychologically. Namely in that he's an *******, whereas she's just pampered (and their upbringing couldn't be more different).
I’m considering something like a Redhead Scottish thing, and/or German/Irish. Perhaps with an accent, should I be able to have the discipline to use it consistently.
Still need to determine a Theme Song or two, but I have some ideas.
Also deciding on Thematics, not sure whether to go full Patchy or to spread out into other areas.
Contracting is on her 16th or 18th birthday, her parents wanted to wait until she was old as possible before calling the incubator to complete her contract. Also to give her the freedom to have a lover later in life without the concern of her body being underage. (I'm just not sure if 18 is 'too old', I'm 100% fine with 16 or 17, I'm just asking for clarity).
Funny enough, while genetic traits may play a large part in her magical capacity, it's perhaps more her hidden anxiety of knowing her entire life is meaningless and forfeit should she 'fail', that led to her successful contract. It's far from a clear thing. She'll never admit to any of those dreadful nights spent laying awake in bed leading up to her Scheduled Contract, however.

To answer a few things brought up here:
1) Potential as a magical girl has nothing to do with genetics. It is not even entirely to do with emotions or circumstances, or else magica would be vastly more common and easier to engineer. Having potential as a magical girl, more than anything else, hinges on a nebulous sort of karmic weight attached to your existence. Rearing someone as a magical girl, hinging their entire life around it, pouring resources into making sure they qualify - absolutely none of that would matter. What could matter is the fact that this girl, and her status as a magical girl, now has the fate of her family, their vast resources, the countless people employed in the endeavor, the piles of fruitless research... she has it all orbiting her.

Combine that with the proper temperament, powerful emotions, and the screening process of the Incubators (they have some exceptional predictive modeling they can use to avoid granting wishes that would be detrimental to them), and you have a candidate!

2) There is, strictly speaking, no time to be 'too old' or 'too young' to be selected by the incubators. The median age of selection is 14, but the distribution is more like a bell curve that decays in both directions. In the end, only the incubators know when they're prepared to approach a candidate, and they can't be coerced into fudging numbers in either direction. Of course, once the proposal is made, a candidate can simply wait it out - but this is almost unheard of. The incubators have an exceptional knack for timing their proposals when an agreement is likely to be immanent. You can try to schedule a contract, and they might even humor it, but they offer these thing on their terms.

I like the idea, overall! It's nice, I think it has a lot of potential.

Spoiler

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Sure, sure. Hm....Bear in mind I'm mainly familiar with this setting 2ndhand, by way of wikis and the like. I'm loving this game because of the world being developed in front of us, combined with the storytelling Selinia, yourself, and the others here are doing.
With that said...

1.) How far back can we go with a mashou, if instead of "grizzled veteran of the war", we just embrace the Cap side of things and say "got stuck in ice/rock/negative space wedgie for a long time"?
2.) Can the transition into a Mashou be used as an excuse for going from "skinny, sickly man" to "muscled specimen of peak humanity", even outside of the "battle transformation"?
3.) Beyond "shield as a weapon", I'm unsure what powers are both in-theme, and not sever overlap. My brain keeps defaulting to, essentially, Paladin-esque powers...but that's basically "healing, buffing, and protective magic", which is almost entirely Rio's warehouse. Open to suggestions here.
4.) What country would folks prefer he be from? I can just go whole-hog and make him American but I don't want to potentially step on toes. Though I'm not sure what other country could produce the sort of unconscious "nexus" of concepts that leads to a "Captain *Country*" sort of guy.
5.) How complicated can the wording of the wish get? A couple sentences? 3-4? I'm not talking a book or anything, but something beyond just "help everyone here!".

1) There have always been mashou. Well, for the duration of recorded history at least, and then some.

2) There's no reason it couldn't be. A magica's meat puppet tends to be in optimized condition. Any sicknesses are cured easily, and even the absolute weakest magical individual possesses superhuman physical attributes. These have less to do with muscles than with the fact that their body is made of stuff that spits in the face of physics, admittedly. They are fueled by magic, and the throttle on that fuel opens wide upon transforming. Someone like Rio is bottom of the barrel when it comes to physical prowess for magica, and even she could walk away from a point-blank mundane shotgun blast with nothing worse than maybe a bruise than will heal in a day and a ruined pair of pajamas.

3) If you're looking for Paladin powers, what about tanking? Sure it'd be questionably useful on people (some might fall for it), but beings like Wraiths are near-mindless and could be provoked by proper power. It would be amusingly fitting if he was such a paragon of positivity that his magically-emboldened presence sent the manifestations of despair into a blind rage.

4) Incubators are actually really good at delivering on the intent behind a wish. Wishes themselves are generally quite compact, but people nearly always get what they wish for. Some people by nature make more elaborate wishes, but the results aren't really any better or worse. It's just a matter of the personality of the wisher.

[Kuroimaken]

1) There have always been mashou. Well, for the duration of recorded history at least, and then some.

Oh goody.

MIYAMOTO MUSASHI THE MASHOU FANFIC, HERE WE COME!

[Beans]

Other mashou include Wu Zetian, Ghengis Khan, Pocatello, Elizabeth II, Justinian, Marcus Aurelius, George Washington Carver, Tesla, David Bowie, and Billy Crystal.

[Kuroimaken]

Don't forget Bill Murray and Michael Jackson.

By the way, how do you like Zhang Fei so far?

EDIT: On an unrelated note, Beans, I finished watching Gaim today.

WHY CAN'T I STOP THESE FEELS? T_T

[KnightDisciple]

Oh goody.

MIYAMOTO MUSASHI THE MASHOU FANFIC, HERE WE COME!

GET OUT OF MY HEAD, CHARLES!

Don't forget Bill Murray and Michael Jackson.

By the way, how do you like Zhang Fei so far?

EDIT: On an unrelated note, Beans, I finished watching Gaim today.

WHY CAN'T I STOP THESE FEELS? T_T

Because you're truly strong, Kuroimaken.

EDIT:

1) There have always been mashou. Well, for the duration of recorded history at least, and then some.

2) There's no reason it couldn't be. A magica's meat puppet tends to be in optimized condition. Any sicknesses are cured easily, and even the absolute weakest magical individual possesses superhuman physical attributes. These have less to do with muscles than with the fact that their body is made of stuff that spits in the face of physics, admittedly. They are fueled by magic, and the throttle on that fuel opens wide upon transforming. Someone like Rio is bottom of the barrel when it comes to physical prowess for magica, and even she could walk away from a point-blank mundane shotgun blast with nothing worse than maybe a bruise than will heal in a day and a ruined pair of pajamas.

3) If you're looking for Paladin powers, what about tanking? Sure it'd be questionably useful on people (some might fall for it), but beings like Wraiths are near-mindless and could be provoked by proper power. It would be amusingly fitting if he was such a paragon of positivity that his magically-emboldened presence sent the manifestations of despair into a blind rage.

4) Incubators are actually really good at delivering on the intent behind a wish. Wishes themselves are generally quite compact, but people nearly always get what they wish for. Some people by nature make more elaborate wishes, but the results aren't really any better or worse. It's just a matter of the personality of the wisher.

Alright. I'll try to work up a full Sheet later. I'm thinking right now Captain Mashou will likely be not-Japanese, and ultimately be on loan to the JSDF from the UN because POLITICS OR SOMETHING. He can start off as something of a naive not-quite-patsy, but eventually he susses on to some of the shenanigans going on, and might switch sides. Or make his own.

Anyways, will try to reply with Dunny soon. Just...been a busy week. @_@

[strawberryman]

Someone like Rio is bottom of the barrel when it comes to physical prowess for magica, and even she could walk away from a point-blank mundane shotgun blast with nothing worse than maybe a bruise than will heal in a day and a ruined pair of pajamas.

Well I mean it's kind of odd when you put it that way. XD

[Kuroimaken]

I look forward to Captain Mashou meeting with Big Boss.

Depending on how long he's been a mashou, I wonder who is going to recognize who as a legend.

[KnightDisciple]

Right, going to start working on a draft, can't promise it will be completed all in one go.

[Nathaniel Franklin, aka Lux Chevalier]

Spoiler: FREEDOM ISN'T FREE

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Age: objective age of 88 (born 2010); experienced age of 28 years old (2008-2032, then 2092-2096; appears to be in mid-20's
Gender: Male
Height: 6'2"
Weight: 225 lbs.
Eyes: Green
Hair: Black

Faction: United States Army; currently on loan to the JSDF; more broadly affiliated with the United Nations, and several international counter-terrorist groups.
Rank: Major in the United States Army; typically commander of US Army Special Forces company focused on counter-terror work, when not liasoned out to various groups.

Description: Tall, broad-shouldered, well-muscled, fit, handsome. Hair kept just short enough to not look unruly, but long enough to be a bit wavy. Square-jawed. Basically, an All-American Man look. His body is, essentially, in the absolute peak of human condition and fitness, an essentially perfect specimen.
When not "officially" operating as Lux Chevalier, Nathan tends to either dress casually (when not officially on-duty), or in the appropriate level (combat uniform, service uniform, or dress uniform) of uniform for his current tasks. He tends to wear as little ornamentation as possible, usually just his rank bars and a very minimalist set of medals if required.

Nathan is a very open, honest, and caring young man; he strives to believe the best in people, no matter what, though after a point he may cease trying to actively draw it out. He does his best to help other people feel like they are worthwhile, they can still accomplish things, and so on. In short, he seeks to encourage, uplift, and inspire people.
While he loves his home country, Nathan is wise enough to know no country is perfect, and thus instead he seeks to encourage people to believe in not just themselves, their family, and their friends, but also in their country. He tries to encourage them to work to make it better if they feel it's not great.
History: *Pending*

Spoiler: THE MAGIC OF FREEDOM

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Wish: *Pending*
Costume/Thematics: *Pending*
Abilities: *Pending*
Perception: *Pending*

[Epinephrine_Syn]

To answer a few things brought up here:
1) Potential as a magical girl has nothing to do with genetics. It is not even entirely to do with emotions or circumstances, or else magica would be vastly more common and easier to engineer. Having potential as a magical girl, more than anything else, hinges on a nebulous sort of karmic weight attached to your existence. Rearing someone as a magical girl, hinging their entire life around it, pouring resources into making sure they qualify - absolutely none of that would matter. What could matter is the fact that this girl, and her status as a magical girl, now has the fate of her family, their vast resources, the countless people employed in the endeavor, the piles of fruitless research... she has it all orbiting her.

Combine that with the proper temperament, powerful emotions, and the screening process of the Incubators (they have some exceptional predictive modeling they can use to avoid granting wishes that would be detrimental to them), and you have a candidate!

2) There is, strictly speaking, no time to be 'too old' or 'too young' to be selected by the incubators. The median age of selection is 14, but the distribution is more like a bell curve that decays in both directions. In the end, only the incubators know when they're prepared to approach a candidate, and they can't be coerced into fudging numbers in either direction. Of course, once the proposal is made, a candidate can simply wait it out - but this is almost unheard of. The incubators have an exceptional knack for timing their proposals when an agreement is likely to be immanent. You can try to schedule a contract, and they might even humor it, but they offer these thing on their terms.

I like the idea, overall! It's nice, I think it has a lot of potential.

I figured after the first response on style, and the situation creates some fun dynamics. All this effort. The incubators probably screened her as a target for wishing but deliberately waited until their set date to set the maximal karmic benefit. She has nervous fits, there are so many eyes on her. Even though the incubator is there, that's no guarantee. She steps forwards to the incubator and proclaims her wish. The magic washes over her, and for a distinct, wonderful moment everything is right with the world. She's a magical girl, a Magical Witch. Everybody celebrates, congratulations team, you've done it.

Her family's reputation just shot through the roof. Everything, at least for now, is wonderful. Everyone's so happy, and she's personally relieved. Her magical senses come online, including her ability to analyze magic. She turns to face her family.

In the face of this, how is she supposed to tell everyone "Everything everybody has done here was entirely meaningless, that all amounted to a game of hot space potatoes and we just got lucky."?


Now she's got something to prove. Turning into a magical girl is worse than a failure by itself, so she's got to make some good of it. Never endanger herself. Optimize grief seed usage and research. Learn everything there is to learn. Be the strongest, smartest, most skilled. She and her family didn't just plan for her to be a Mashou, she was to be the Mashou. The Perfect Majo, in all things, and advance humanity into the stars.

Maybe that part can still work out.

[Kuroimaken]

Anyone waiting on a response from me right now?

[Nicklance]

Dipping my toe into this (and hi guys I'm back!)

Shimizu Hoshi

Image: http://picpaste.com/RvXeGiEX.png (He's a boy who transforms into a girl)

Bio
Age: 100 (contract at 14)
Gender: Male (Female when in Magical Idol Mode)
Height: 1.5m
Weight: 40kg

Faction: The Wishcraft Foundation
Rank/Station: Director / Songcraft Division

Description: Hoshi looks like your typical Japanese boy that looks like he would make a really cute girl if you give him the right make up and dress him up right. As a boy he is cute enough to charm ladies of all ages. As a girl, he attracts the kind of fans that are either as young as him, or older but appreciative of his music, and those you need to register them on the sex offender list.

History: A survivor of the great war, Hoshi would have had realized his dream of being a song-writer and singer had all those dreams not get dashed when a shrapnel damaged his throat and damaged his singing voice. Yet that yearning heart never stopped wishing to share the joys of music and the hope that it inspires, tempered furthermore with an innocent dream of helping those around him uplift themselves. He met an Incubator and made his choice.

Disappointed sets in when he realizes that his immortal youth made it too suspicious on how an idol can be so "old" yet continue to look and sound like "she" was fresh off school. Fading into the shadows, he contributes by writing songs and tunes and giving them to anyone who wants to have them, figuring that if he couldn't step up on the grand stage anymore, at least he still has his talent to share.

After joining the Wishcraft Foundation, Hoshi spearheaded a small team of idols to continue to spread his songs and tunes with greater financial support and network of backers, he finds himself less and less on stage, having to reinvent himself twice after a significant amount of time has passed between each "career". He has fully settled into leadership and trusts his teams to carry forward the division's mission and purpose. He fancies heading the entire Foundation himself, but isn't sure whether he has what it takes.

Despite no longer being on the front lines with regards to the entertainment industry, he has never stopped his war against the Wraiths. In fact, morale raises whenever he takes to the fight personally, but due to the amount of magical energy he expends because of the nature of his magic, he would only use his full abilities when the situation requires it.

Spoiler: Wish

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I wish to be an idol, to sing and inspire and heal those who hear me.

Spoiler: Costume & Thematics

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Hoshi has incredible flexibility in his costumes, as genres of music carry forth their own particular visual identity, Hoshi can appear in any costume as long as it features icons of musical notes or symbols somewhere on his costumes.

Hoshi's theme is music, whether vocal or instrumental, and has self-mastered every instrument available throughout his long life. His vocal range and capabilities are superhuman.

Spoiler: Abilities

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Melee: Hoshi uses a stylized microphone with attached stand as a quarterstaff in CQC combat and has obtained mastery of the various staff-fighting forms during his long years.

Ranged: Hoshi primarily uses his vocal cords to fire off streams of magical sonic attacks that can be single lines to cones of force. They use a lot of magical energy the bigger or longer Hoshi makes them.

Special Ability - Music for Everyone: Hoshi can transform his microphone staff into other instruments for ranged or melee combat without suffering from any penalties. There is a fixed limit of about 5 additional instruments he can summon to share the instruments with others. When using Hoshi's instruments each user can use their own vocal prowess to create sonic attacks or sonic-based barriers. Hoshi pays a portion of his own magical energy to help power those abilities.

Special Ability - Heal the World: The cornerstone of Hoshi's wish-magic. Hoshi can release his magical powers to sing and create an extensive field which all magical boys/girls receive a noticeable boost in their physical and magical abilities. Their expenditure of magic is reduced by 2% per ability use and they recover from damage slightly faster. The same field extends to roughly the size of a standard concert stadium and hinders Wraiths in both power and mobility.

Special Ability - Aural-Visual Synesthesia: Hoshi can see sounds as colors and waves and knows what they mean and vice versa. This can allow him to focus on specific conversations or track people based on the sounds they make or the sound of their appearance. Hoshi can identify people as specific tunes.

Talent - Singing: Hoshi can sing or mimic any voice or vocal range of humans. His tone and pitch is perfectly controlled and measured.

Talen - Bardic Inspiration: Hoshi's songs can inspire all human emotions and rouse the spirit. He tends to focus on positive emotions because that's what he wants. But is known to rock out berserker songs that drives crowds into violent frenzies when his mood gets foul.

[strawberryman]

Okay, so. I know this runs the risk of thread necromancy, but hear me out here. I think it kinda sucks this fell by the wayside and would like to try to resuscitate it. PMs will be incoming for players, and I hope there are others who share the desire to pull this out of the graveyard.

[Dorizzit]

I say let's do it.