faq;; so about this thing...

[capemods]

Now that you've read the rules, it's time to answer some of the frequently and infrequently asked questions about the game. There are a few different topics that can go into a lot of detail, and many of them have FAQs of their own. The answers here will be more generalized as a result.

starting up & getting in

✖ Where can I find [x]?
The directory has links to most every OOC informational page; if there's any we're missing, please let us know!

✖ So what's this game's deal, anyway?
Cape & Cowl is a panfandom jamjar roleplay -- or, in layman's terms, fictional characters are brought from their respective media to a strange world from which they cannot willingly escape. How that earth compares to their own depends on the character and canon; C&C's earth is very similar to our own, but divergent on matters such as world geography, modern history, and the fact there's aliens, a dimension of demons, and a machine that gives life and superpowers to fictional characters in exchange for erasing their stories from existence.

✖ Cannot willingly escape?
Correct! Characters are brought to C&C Earth by The Porter, a machine of uncertain origin, controlled by a program/virus/entity known as Lachesis, of yet even more uncertain origin. There's no method for characters to control who gets brought in or sent out from this world, and as such the population is always fluctuating. Characters are sent out of the game world ("ExPorted") when they are dropped by their player, are "canon updated," have their power set adjusted, have died, or any other time at the player's discretion if they are going on a hiatus. Characters are brought into the game world ("ImPorted") when they are applied for and accepted, return from a canon update or power adjustment, or are resurrected after death. Bargaining or pleading with Lachesis gets little but mockery and trolling in response, and attempting to attack the machine usually results in the character in question teleported half a mile off shore, or even worse, to a Nebraskan corn field.

PCs treat the Porter and Lachesis warily, for there is little predicting who will stay or who will go. (Unless you're Jaime Reyes; then you are stuck forever.)

✖ So my character is stuck in "The City," right?
Nope! Sure, characters can't return to their own world, but all of this world is open to exploration. It's similar enough to our own to adjust easily, but international conflict and geography are a bit different. For more in-depth coverage, you can check out the destinations;; the world // world FAQ. And beyond that, if your character wants to build a rocket to the Moon or fly to Saturn, they're more than welcome to!

Superpowers & Identities

✖ What's this about superpowers? Does my character have to have one?
Cape & Cowl is a comics-themed game; comics means superheroes, and superheroes means superpowers. If your character already possesses a superpower, or are capable of something an ordinary real-world human isn't, chances are they'll keep it. And if they don't? Well, never fear -- they'll get powers on arrival! So even your everyday businessmen and slice-of-life teenagers are in the running! The Porter has a nasty habit of messing with powers, and that works both ways. Demigods enter the City with less than they're used to, and normal folks land with a skill or two they might not have had before. It could be something earth-shattering and life-changing, or it could be the most mundane supernatural ability to ever be discovered. It all depends on you!

✖ You keep saying "real-world human," but what happens if my character isn't human?
By default, nonhuman characters -- be they fluffy, scaly, made of metal, or so forth -- are transformed upon arrival and given squishy human bodies to call their own, modeled as similarly as possible to the one they left behind. However, if a player wants to keep their non-human character non-human, that's possible too! If the character has a way to appear as / be disguised as a human, they may well be left unchanged by the Porter. If they don't, one of their superpower slots will be sacrificed to either "ability to transform to and from a human form," or simply "is [whatever they were before]."

City-straddling giants or other implausibly large characters would require some scaling down, however; the Porter Tower is just not large enough to accommodate the arrival of a fully grown Godzilla.

✖ What are the limits on powers?
The Porter likes a good bit of destruction and mayhem as much as the next person, but she likes her island in one piece. Anyone with godly power levels or too many skills will find themselves limited in some way or another. Presently the current cap on powers is three distinct "umbrellas," though this is subject to modification based on how darn powerful any one happens to be. For more on this, you might want to give the Application FAQ (under Application Grading) a look!

✖ Other than number, are there any other power limits?
Some powers, by their nature, require a bit more coordination than others. While abilities like flight or invisibility can be used right out of the box, powers that rely on or directly affect other characters usually require a Permissions Post. A permissions post is an entry stored on your character's journal account and is linked to from the directory; here, you are required to describe what precisely that power does, how it may affect another person's character. Players can then decide whether or not their characters shall be affected by those powers in case of interaction.

Remember: if your character uses their powers on another without you receiving that player's consent, it's godmoding!

✖ So does that mean everyone has a superpower?
All player characters -- that is, all ImPorts -- have powers! Supernatural abilities are not natural to the native human populace of the game world, but then there came Vulcanus, and--

Well, you don't have to worry about x-ray vision or super strength from your character's landlord or favorite barista, but the times are changing...

✖ Does my character need a secret identity?
It's not a law or anything, but if your character's going to be throwing their powers around, it's still a very good idea. Public opinion on the ImPorts is always on somewhat shaky ground, but it's steadier now than it has been in years past. Heck, ImPorts can even vote and hold public office, and the chances of being stoned in the street have gone down nearly ninety percent! On the other hand, most day-to-day folk are pretty leery of ImPorts in general -- you lot have a record for picking fights and causing horrific levels of destruction, after all! So really, the best way to avoid getting kicked out of the local Blue Jay's Bar & Grill is to lay low and act natural.

getting started & arrival

✖ Okay, my character's just arrived. What now?
Every ImPort arrives in what is colloquially referred to as the Porter Tower -- formerly Stark Tower, but then Tony Stark started up his own Stark Industries and nobody could remember who owned what, so Porter it is. Here, they're greeted by a machine that asks for their "Name" and "Hero Alias." Once that's out of the way, they're told to pick up some useful items. These items are:

∗ A series of ImPort-printed pamphlets, which cover many of the basics talked about in this very FAQ, have their own little stand in the Porter Labs. Some may be a little out of date, but your character can probably find at least a basic rundown of where they are (fake New York), how they got here (shenanigans and possibly time travel), and what to do from here (don't ruin everything >:C !!) This is just one example.

∗ The Network Communicator, which is covered more in depth on the Communicator // Network FAQ. In short, however, it's is a high-tech cell phone capable of texting, phone calls, internet browsing and default access to the Hero Forums // ImPort Network (AKA, capeandcowl). Use of the communicator is identified by a 7-digit serial number, in addition to the "Name" they gave Lachesis on arrival -- a player cannot receive a communicator unless they register their identity with Lachesis (or unless you get mod permission).

Try not to hit too many buttons, or they just might wind up showcasing their thumbs and nostrils to an all-too attentive audience.

∗ A set of dog tags. Innocuous at first, these can be a character's lifeline. They serve as your character's primary ImPort identification; one tag is stamped with their "Hero Alias," and the other with a four-digit number which refers to their assigned, rent-free apartment at the M.A.C. The dog tags also serve as keys to the apartment proper, magnetically set to open only the room to which they're assigned. All of them will open the front door to the M.A.C itself.

-- And yes, someone does check which rooms are unoccupied, with unused tags deactivated after a few months. The dog tags also look pretty darn cool if you want to rock the military stylin's, but more importantly...

✖ Are we getting paid for this 'hero' business?
Every Thursday, Stark Industries (the other one) routes $200 each into a series of bank accounts, one set up for each ImPort. Access to these accounts -- as well as to a safety deposit box -- are keyed to each character's dog tags. Granted, even if you're staying in the M.A.C., that's just enough money to get by. If your character accessed their snazzy safety deposit box -- a minimum of two to three business days after their arrival and registration, of course -- they could take out a very well-manufactured green card.

This is the only identification that characters are provided by default, so birth certificates and driver's licenses are their own problem. On the bright side, it means that they're legally eligible to work! And even if they never manage to pick that up, well, it is a big city. There's some corner of it that'll pay under the table. Of course, if your character wants to be Legit, they can always register their identity with ol' Uncle Sam for temporary citizenship—hold down a steady job, vote in local elections, and pay taxes just like their NPC neighbors.

✖ Wait, my character can vote?
If they're of legal age, haven't committed any major felonies in game, and go through the proper hoops to register, then yes! Heck, even the Mayor of the City is an ImPort, just like you. Registering with the US Government gets your character access to a Social Security Number, and with that and the Porter-supplied green card, they can register to vote, get a driver license, enroll in schooling, get a decent job, and so forth. Hired government goons workers loiter around both the Porter Tower as well as the M.A.C., eager to sign your character into the ranks of respectable people. Of course, not everything that comes with it is a positive thing...

✖ You guys really like this whole taxes thing, huh?
Really, we just like giving rich characters something to bitch about! As of February 1st, 2011, all registered ImPorts (that's you) have a specialized income tax. The rates totally suck, they aren't the same that the NPCs pay, and maybe they'd go down if you people stopped destroying everything you touch, like the subway system or the business district or the harbor for the sixth time this year, gosh.

The taxes are progressive, based on (net) income, and look like this:
$ 0 – 20,000 : 2%
21,000 – 50,000: 3%
51,000 – 99,000: 5%
100,000 – 150,000: 10%
151,000 – 250,000: 15%
250,000 + : 20%

But no, we really don't expect you guys to try filling out W-2 forms for a roleplay.

✖ But what if my character isn't a legal adult?
The Child Protection Agency probably knows your character exists, and will be doing their best to get them to a classroom. Emancipation and evasion are acceptable alternatives if your character isn't the "school" type. However, you may want to find an adult willing to claim temporary guardianship, lest the precocious preteen irritate someone with CPA on speed-dial. Of course, how successful these government agents are in regards to your character is entirely up to you!

Going Home & Coming Back

✖ Why is the Porter bringing heroes in?
A few weeks before the first ImPorts appeared in the fall of 2008, the City's entire police force vanished without a trace. In order to fill the power vacuum, an entity calling himself Iron Man built a machine that could bring in heroes from across the multiverse. Unfortunately, there was a limit to how specific he could be, and the only prerequisite was the potential to be a hero. This means that those equipped with nothing but the good in their hearts (or lack thereof, in some cases) get dragged in and given powers, but those with powers or skills but not a trace of goodness might be sucked in, too. Because everyone gets powers when they arrive, almost anyone can be said to have the potential of a hero. It's not a very efficient system, but any attempts to alter the Porter since then have incurred its own wrath. It seems that the programming is both sapient and extremely defensive, so trying to manually reprogram or destroy it aren't very good ideas - unless you want to get Ported to the middle of the Atlantic.

✖ Why do heroes leave?
Maybe they died. Maybe they weren't heroic enough for Lachesis' sake; maybe they were too heroic. Maybe it's just temporary, while she changes their abilities or lets them have a taste of "freedom" brought about by visiting their own world. Maybe she just wants to mess with the characters left behind. Her reasons, if she has any, are her own.

✖ What happens when my character dies in the City?
Really, they should learn to be more careful. But don't worry, Lachesis usually likes to keep her pieces on the board. They can be resurrected – though it comes with a price.

✖ Whoa, whoa, stepping back into OOC for a sec – WHAT do I have to do if my character dies?
The in-game character death process has a bit of system behind it -- if just to keep the rampant death and mayhem on a more manageable OOC scale. There are a few things to keep in mind:

      • Your character will not come back right away. The new system is that they can either be gone for a minimum of five days at the player's choice, or you can pass the decision onto the mods, who will then randomly generate a number between one and fourteen. If you choose the later, you WILL have to stick to it! It's a little gambling on the part of the player, and a lot more uncertainty for the ImPorts!
      • Their powers will be completely absent for a while after they get back. The minimum length of time is currently two weeks, but those powers can be absent for longer at your discretion. Their powers can also return bit by bit, or one of them might not return at all – your options are flexible as long as you keep us informed! You may also use a character death as an opportunity for a canon update or a power adjustment, though that would need to be cleared on the appropriate post.
      • Before you're allowed to kill any character, you are required to receive mod permission. This includes NPCs! Any and all deaths are to be cleared on the Plot Post; this is where you'll be able to more clearly schedule their death and resurrection arc.

The final thing to remember is to talk to your cast- and CR-mates. Character deaths should be important to anyone close to them, and somebody your character is friends with might have some objections finding them face down in the harbor.

✖ With the longer restrictions on death, what happens to my activity?
With the exception of a character on Activity Warning Status*, a dead character is essentially a character on hiatus. Therefore, if a character is dead for seven days or more, they will be exempted from needing to fulfill that month's activity requirements. This applies no matter who sets the span spent dead.

If you wish for your character cadaver to be exempted from the Activity Check, however, you will need to report it to the Hiatus page itself. Sometimes we just can't keep track of all these bodies otherwise!

The maximum amount of time a character can spend in the stasis between their moment of death and their resurrection is six weeks, so don't abuse it!

_{*see the Activity FAQ if you're uncertain what this means}

✖ Can I canon-update my character?
Yes! But it requires mod clearance, acquired at the canon/power update post. Further directions and instructions can be found there!

✖ Can I exPort my character without canon updating them?
Yes! For the character, it will be as though no time has passed; they just blinked and suddenly arrived back in the Porter Tower. They may then proceed to freak out about however much time they lost. Again, run this by the moderators, because it should only be done while the player is on an inactive hiatus.

✖ What happens to my character if I drop?
Two possible things: either they get exPorted the day that you drop them, or you can go through a plot in which they die and they simply don't resurrect. The mods actually encourage the death route, since it adds to the in-character uncertainty surrounding death, resurrection, port-outs and disappearances. If you re-app that same character later, however, they will be without their powers for a minimum of two weeks.

In-Character Knowledge & Details

✖ What exactly is the City?
The City is essentially analogous of New York City, with a slightly more boring name and the benefit (or drawback) of superpowered residents. While a parallel, it is not a cut-and-copy replica; most of the landmarks still exist, thankfully, but native New Yorker characters will quickly find themselves aggravated trying to rediscover where all the subway stations are. As for the rest of the C&C world, it was completely mundane until a certain coding error in mid 2008, and things just sort of went downhill from there. It doesn't help that reality itself got bent and cracked around the edges; there are some things in this world that simply don't belong.

✖ Okay, so most everything else the same?
For the most part, sure. Pop culture and entertainment are almost identical to the real world (well, except for all the fictional material that disappears when new characters show up, of course), but world politics and even some history is pretty divergent. For example, though 9/11 occurred, the American wars in Afghanistan and Iraq were much shorter than their real-world counterparts; troops were systematically pulled out of combat by 2008, and there's no longer a direct military investment in the Middle East. The presidential roster is a bit different after the Clinton era; President Kirby was elected in 2000, and was followed by Vladimir Abraham in 2008. Abraham will be up for re-election in 2012. (Don't reelect him.)

✖ What's this about source canon disappearing?
Since the City is situated in an alternate of our universe, it stands to reason that character's own canon exists here too. And you'd be right! Right up until said character arrives there. The second anybody gets to the City, everything related to their canon vanishes. The source itself, the animated spinoff that included them, the cheap merchandise and the public fanworks all disappear. The everyday people who have lived in the City all their lives will remember reading/watching/playing it, and the creators will still remember making it, but no public physical or digital copies can be found. There might still be concept designs and the original information on, perhaps, the original author's computer, or the original film reel might be hidden in a vault somewhere -- but wherever it is, nobody's going near it while subjects from the canon are running around.

The only exceptions are private, self-created works. For example, a fanfic author can write a few pages and save without any trouble, but as soon as they try to put it online it will glitch out and disappear.

✖ Can the canon material ever come back?
It has the potential to. If every single character from a universe (and related universes) gets Ported back home, the canon is then permitted to exist. That doesn't mean that it all comes back, or even that some of it starts coming back slowly. It just means that if people try to make the canon or related merchandise again and haven't closed the factories in a fit of frustration, the finished product won't disappear off the assembly lines anymore.

At least, until those characters Port in for round two.

✖ Where exactly is the M.A.C. and what does it look like?
Information about the M.A.C. and the Porter Tower can be found on the locations post, and should be fairly complete! If you have any further questions, ask here and we'll add it there as soon as possible.

✖ What kind of stores are there?
Since it's the same essential world as the one the players are used to, pretty much anything you can buy in reality can be bought in the City. A few of the big brand names are just a little different – 'Best Buy' is called 'Superior Purchase' here, 'Dices' is the go-to place for pizza delivery, and 'Wall-Mart' reels back prices on more than just building material. These are just a few examples, and there might be several versions of each.

✖ If the cops are gone, how can a couple hundred ImPorts keep the City safe?
The police have only ever disappeared once, and while it was a great tragedy and a troubled time in the City's history, things are pretty much back to normal. Between active police in other cities, those who had been in training, and those who have entered the force since then, the police numbers are at a skeleton force but thankfully operational! Add to that the fact that many ImPorts themselves cycle into the police force, things become a little more manageable. It's stressed, but functional.

✖ Where did the cops go?
No one's figured out why, but it seems like the Porter is the one who got rid of them -- but if she did, she's not saying anything about it. A little more than a year after they vanished, a few thousand (mostly fresh) animated corpses in uniform reappeared all over the City. And yes, they were contagious. The streets were cleared with a minimum of damages (and infections), and life was almost normal for a while. Where exactly the police were for thirteen months and how they died remains a mystery, and probably one that you don't want to know the answer to.

✖ Then what's the legal system like?
With the sudden lack of police system and subsequent halt of arrests, criminal law came to a rather abrupt halt in 2008. Fortunately for all, the new arrivals included a few attorneys, who helped get the system up and running again. While it's now impossible to find their canon, a few residents might see a stunning resemblance to the trial system in the world of Ace Attorney, and there's a reason for that. The majority of criminal trials in the City work this way now (though civil law remains unchanged).

✖ So I've heard about this beehive thing…
You mean the HIVE. And no, no you haven't. It doesn't exist.

✖ … What?
Or rather, it doesn't exist now. Long story short, the HIVE was your usual coast-spanning hub of scum and villainy — they tried invading the City a couple times, tried to secede from the United States, and so on — that got beaten back and bombed off the map. Later, what wasn't incinerated in the blasts were erased from the very fabric of existence. Lachesis holds grudges, you see.

✖ You mentioned something about "Vulcanus" before? What's the deal with that?
Back in the summer of 2011, a handful of unlucky ImPorts found themselves spirited away from the City and haphazardly abandoned across the globe. While some initially chalked it up to a prank by the Porter, something more insidious was at work. Those few had in fact been kidnapped, and for several days were at the mercy of NPC forces. Some were tortured, some were not -- some don't even remember being kidnapped in the first place. But all of them had one thing in common: samples of their DNA were stolen, and reverse-engineered in a process to give natural, powerless humans the abilities of the ImPorts.

The ImPorts did not take this too well. They've made efforts to eliminate Vulcanus, the organization behind this scheme, but their tampering with ImPort powers was not their first meddling in this world, and certainly not their last. For such a shady organization however, Vulcanus isn't the most secretive. They run advertisements sometimes, and are always looking for some new recruits.

And the doctor responsible for Vulcanus's so-called "Meta Men" ? Rumor has it she's still alive, but who knows how long that will last.

Anything we missed? Ask here!

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

Can the communicator play Angry Birds (or mobile games in general)?

[olesia]

Wow, sorry this is so late! But the answer is yes.

[hulkacceptcash]

Because I don't want to be like LOL SAMSON HAS HIS DEGREE AGAIN if there's some kind of intense process or no process at all: would it be possible for degree-types to work something out with the D.O.I. (or whoever) to get things officially reinstated?

[olesia]

There's no INTENSE PROCESS that you have to go through with us, no worries! How you would like to handle it is really up to you, within the scope of reason. (e.g., he could probably harass some universities and slap a half-assed thesis at someone, but he probably can't buy an accredited degree from a 7-11.)

If you'd like to do it with DOI specifically, you'll want to get in touch with maggotbone's player, but beyond that have fun with it.

[omnomnombunzuh]

Some quick questions about the Taxxons (can't believe I forgot to ask)...

1) Seeing as my character is very familiar with Taxxons -- hey, he has sliced and diced more than a few -- can Ax identify them?
2) Would there be any noticeable differences from the Taxxons of his world? Ex: Slightly different coloring or more control over their all-encompassing hunger?
3) I assume this isn't the case, but just to be sure... are these free Taxxons or Taxxon-Controllers? No unlucky brain-slugs controlling these cannibalistic monster-slugs, right?

[goodburger]

1. If he runs across them, yes, he can!
2. olesia is the ultimate arbiter of Taxxonimity so if there's anything she hasn't told me, whoops. But no, they're pretty much exactly the same! There wouldn't be any that he would recognize specifically as characters from the series, of course, or any that would have fought the Animorphs, but that's the only limitation.
3. These are free Taxxons!

[omnomnombunzuh]

Thanks so much for answering my questions!

tbh I seriously doubt he'd recognize any Taxxons anyway they are all pretty much yellow horror monsters to him wow Ax so speciesist

[(Anonymous)]

Just a quick heads-up but the link to the "Requests" page for characters is currently friends-locked, and it might help people get the characters they want in game if people browsing the community can see who is currently wanted. :)

[olesia]

Aha, my bad! That's because it was something I was putting off actually coding up and fixing after the move -- when you commented, the post was totally blank! Since then I've been working on getting it, how to say, neat enough to unlock, but I'm not quite satisfied with it yet. But thank you for the reminder! I had completely forgotten about that one.

[playedgay]

Questions about how specific powers would work within the city...

I want to app Nathan Young from Misfits. He has two canon powers:
Immortality and Mediumship.

With Immortality, he dies, but then rises from the dead. Sometimes within minutes, sometimes it takes a little longer. With the way death works in the city, will he still be able to keep this power?

The mediumship is simply that he can see ghosts. I understand that there may be random ghosts in the city, but what if a player character dies? Will he still be able to speak with them?

I ask this because I've played in other games where they didn't allow him to keep these due to it messing with game mechanics. Thanks!

[olesia]

The immortality is definitely fine as a power! We've had characters with similar to that. In general, you would still need to at least notify us via the plotting post that he was dying (as part of the death-approval process is for us to keep track of who's dying when), but he would get to skip the Porter-based resurrection limits.

As for mediumship: he would absolutely be able to interact with NPC ghosts, but PCs would be trickier. By default, player characters do not become ghosts when they die; their "soul" or whathaveyou is usually relatively instantly pulled back into the porter for the resurrection process, so they wouldn't, say, be wandering the City streets. Unconventional circumstances -- a character's soul getting blasted out of their body, or someone whose power set included turning into a ghost, or plot interference, or so on -- would be necessary for him to mess around with a dead PC if that power is only seeing ghosts.

[zazz]

QUESTION ABOUT A POWER

So Lucy had a sweet idea for a power for Pickles but I thought it might be too encompassing to be allowed so I figured I'd run it past the mods. Basically, the idea is certain booze he drinks will grant him certain super powers, like whiskey firebreath and vodka ice breath or whatever. Not all booze would give him powers, but I wanted to make a good power set.

It could probably be seen as overpowering but we all must realise that Pickles is a selfish, drunk asshole that would use them to help people .5% of the time, if that, the rest would be to heat up his lean cuisines or freeze dogs for a laugh, so I thought it might be allowable. If at least for the lulz.

If it is allowable, what number of powers you think I'd be allowed to give him? That way I can make a set list in the app.

Thanks! :3

[goodburger]

Since they would basically be under a power umbrella, I think it would be allowable so long as he doesn't have any other powers! But I still wouldn't go over six or seven at the very most.

[zazz]

The only other powers I had in mind would be something like couldn't die no matter how many drugs he takes, or maybe something like curse of death following him, but those ones I wasn't as set on as the booze-based powers.

I'll keep that number in mind!!

[unversed]

Hello! I'm not sure if this was covered or if I am just blind and didn't see it, but I have a few questions on language barriers. Is the primary language in The City English? And would characters automatically speak it upon arrival even if their knowledge in it is minimal back home? Can the communicators translate any language?

[goodburger]

The primary language used in the City is English, yes, and if you desire to handwave characters automatically gaining knowledge of English upon Importation (and man I totally have) that's completely acceptable! However, it's also fine to not do that and have them retain their minimal knowledge of English, and we've had plenty of players choose that option instead; basically, go with whichever one you'd prefer. The communicators can translate any language that exists in the Cityverse, although particularly alien and complicated ones might be harder for them to decode, i.e. when we used to have Godzilla in the game his "monster speech" was basically unintelligible.

[intothewoods]

What exactly happens when a character comes back from the dead? Where do they resurrect, what happened to the corpse, are there any scars or indications on them of their manner of death, that kind of stuff!

[goodburger]

Bodies disappear within at most a few hours after the person dies, unless a player wants something different to happen with them! They resurrect in the Porter building, pretty much exactly where they show up when they're first Ported in, and there aren't any indications of how they died, although of course any scars they had prior to dying will still be there.

[intothewoods]

Thank you!

[goodburger]

No problem!

[zazz]

Hey, kiddos, I'm back with another question on powers.

So I was talking to the Skwisgaar reserve and I had the vague thought of if Pickles ever got castmates maybe the curse of Dethklok slowly starts to come into being in CnCverse. Meaning, death and destruction starts following them around. If it's just Pickles and Skwisgaar for awhile it wouldn't be anything massive, just like some elk horns falling off a bar's wall and killing a person under it, small things like that every now and again.

So my questions are:
1) Is this doable?
2) If it is would this take up a power slot?

(Of course, if I ever get more castmates I would run it by them and they don't have to opt in if it does take up a power slot.)

[goodburger]

It could be doable! But a.) it would definitely take up a power slot, and since Pickles already has so many powers under his one umbrella I'm not sure you'd be able to get him updated to have it without jettisoning some others, and b.) you'd have to ask permission on the plot post for any incidents that would cause NPC (or PC) death or a significant amount of damage, i.e. nobody dies but they effectively destroy an Outback Steakhouse.

[hastheedge]

This is technically about the World FAQ but there weren't any questions on it so I decided to piggyback my question here instead. c:

That magical lake in Central Park. What would happen if someone was to drink the water? (Alternatively, if the water was boiled/frozen/mixed into something/run science tests on/etc, what would happen?)

[olesia]

Short answer: get kinda fucked up!

Longer answer: the magical lake in Central Park takes its whole cursed-and-magical properties from World of Warcraft lore, and is specifically based in Fel magics. It glows a very vibrant (sickly) green, and is an addictive substance. If someone were to drink the water, they would likely succumb to a cycle of going back for more despite the fact its properties would be simultaneously corrupting and degrading their bodies/minds/souls/etc. CURRRRRSED. Glowing green eyes and looking kinda demonic, you know, that kind of stuff.

As for SCIENCE, it would respond to some of those stimuli like water -- boiling would give steam/mist, freezing would give solid forms, but still just as green and awful -- but molecular examination would prove that it is not water. In fact, it's not anything that can be really quantified by modern science (because ~magic~), so it would be not a lot of things, but not quite any thing, either.

[gunchuks]

I might have missed it somehow but what are the restrictions on characters bringing in personal items/objects from home? Is it limited to the clothes on their backs or can other items be brought in with them?

Assuming weapons and larger things are not imported with the character, can one of their powers be the ability to summon that particular item into being? (I'm thinking along the lines of summoning a vehicle or a weapon, for reference.) Sorry if this has been addressed somewhere already.

[goodburger]

Other items can be brought in with your character, but we generally limit it to a.) only items that can reasonably fit through the porter itself (so yes, no vehicles), b.) only one ordinary weapon is allowed to come in with them; if they take their whole arsenal it's a power, and c.) if it's a particularly powerful/unique weapon, like a Warcraft character's sword or the Winchesters' demon-killing gun, it has to take up a power slot.

And yes, you can totally make that one of their powers! We have a long in-game precedent for both of them.

[gunchuks]

Thank you!

I do have one other question: what if a character has implanted technology that allows them to connect to networks/internet without use of an actual handheld device? (It basically acts like a typical communicator but is unseen and uses hologram screens.) Would it be completely nullified or operable only among castmates who share the same technology?

[goodburger]

It would initially serve as only operable on the regular internet and a "network" of castmates with the same technology, yeah! No character comes into the City with a preexisting device that allows them to connect to the IC network unless it's part of a technopathy power. However, if they're realistically capable of altering that technology so that it functions as a connection to the Network, that's totally cool; it's not quite the same situation since this would be inside their body, but we've had characters with engineering skills make their glasses function as communicators, for example. You'd just have to drop a note on the plot post stating that you want to do that, how it would go down ICly, and why it's plausible for the character.

[failedprotagonist]

Hi, I have a question (and forgive me if this is mentioned somewhere and I missed it). I'm considering apping a terminally ill character. Well, technically, they're dying from a curse. When they arrive in the City, would they keep their curse, would it be removed, or would its progress just be arrested?

[goodburger]

Honestly, it would depend on what you'd rather play with and/or what you put in their powers section! Though your specific character might make one outcome more desirable or plausible, we have precedent for all three of those options.

[failedprotagonist]

Okay, that's great. Thanks so much for the answer!

[overrides]

For robot characters- is it possible for them to be modified in game to regain some of their canon abilities? I ask this because Val has offered to fix Gesicht's internal network capabilities, which I had disabled on his arrival.

[olesia]

My sincerest apologies for the delay on responding to this! The answer is yes, within reason—the example provided would be possible as described, but for something that could be, for example, heavy weaponization, or something that in another character might take up an additional power slot, that would need to be cleared through the plotting post.

[sade]

Hi. I want to app Raziel from the Legacy of Kain series and I wanted to run a few things by you before I sat down to write anything.

DEEP BREATH

First of all, he looks like this. Will the Porter change his appearance or can he stay like that? I'm asking this because there aren't many artworks of him before he ended up looking like something half-digested and the few of them that exist are nowhere near enough to make a full icon set.

Secondly, he can't really die; he's a spirit that can gather matter and manifest himself in the human realm, and when his physical body is destroyed, his soul is sent back to the spirit realm where it replenishes the lost energies and returns to the world of the living. How will this be handled in-game? If he dies, will he be able to return sooner than the minimum of five days?

Aside from that, he can shift between realms at will (I'm talking about the physical and spirit realms here, not dimension-hopping), and this is kind of his way of cheating death and getting out of tight spots. Will this be allowed in the game? (I'm hoping the answer is yes, because this is kind of 'his thing'.) If yes, will there be any restrictions to it?

Thirdly, the Reaver. The Soul Reaver is Raziel's main weapon, but it is also his soul and it comes with a bunch of nifty features like giving him invisibility for a limited amount of time, the power to create small tornadoes, freeze water, set things on fire etc.

He doesn't actually have these powers himself; he can only use them when the Reaver is activated. I can group them under an 'umbrella power', but they're kind of unrelated save for that they're Reaver upgrades. If they make him too overpowered or if it's too much trouble, I can take Raziel from an earlier point in the story before he gets those upgrades, but I'd really like for him to keep at least one of them (the invisibility thing; it's one of the first ones he gets), if it's OK with you.

Fourthly, Raziel was a vampire before he became a wraith and he still has some of his vampiric abilities such as increased speed and strength and a less powerful form of telekinesis. I'm assuming the super speed&strength won't take up a power slot, but the telekinesis might? I'm not sure about that.

..And there are like a trillion other things I want to ask but I don't want to scare you guys any more than I already have. Yep.

[goodburger]

First of all, apologies for the delay on this response! And haha, don’t worry about scaring us off, as long as you don’t mind me responding to the questions in bulletpoints for greater ease.

-The Porter will change his appearance unless retaining his original body is part of the power set you decide to give him. Since it sounds like Raziel being a spirit/wraith is going to have to be a part of his power set anyway, keeping his original form could go under one of those power umbrellas! If you're worried about icons, using a PB is of course always an option.
-The spirit realm doesn’t exist in the City universe, nor does any direct equivalent; all the ghosts in game exist on the same basic plain as everyone else, they‘re just (most frequently) invisible. Although there's also a "demon dimension" separate to the one PCs inhabit, it's generally impossible for characters to enter for any significant length of time and has no relation to the afterlife. Since it sounds like having a place to return to is a necessary part of Raziel‘s inability to permadie, he’ll be subject to death rules like everyone else; on the other hand, we’ve had characters like Starscream whose souls continue to exist after the dissolution of their bodies in the past! You could theoretically have Raziel stick around and not be automatically sucked back into the Porter after his physical body is destroyed, but unless you opted to have part of his power set be building a new body by replenishing energy manually (i.e. stealing it from other living characters) he’d have to wait until the Porter sees fit to create one for him and be subject to the same death times and power loss regulations as other characters.
-Again, since the spirit realm doesn’t exist, there won’t be any way for Raziel to dimension-hop as you’re describing.
-The fact that those powers are unrelated save for the Reaver factor doesn’t really matter as long as there’s something to unite them; if you want to make sure you can preserve other powers, you could jettison them, but in general, grouping them under the same heading would be acceptable.
-Actually, you should probably group those together under the umbrella of “vampire physiology/powers” if you want to get them all into the game! Telekinesis would normally count as a separate power, yes, but so would the enhanced strength and speed.