>>48242575
While we're lounging around our dorm, there's a huge knock at the door--like, "rattling the foundation of the building, and it's a big building" knock. Altea goes to check, and at the door is Achilles, hair as fabulous as ever, dressed in a sharp suit. With him is a mysterious woman with long white hair, also conservatively dressed and with a sour expression on her face.

Altea lets them in, and they arrive at our dorm room, where we all meet Achilles and his friend. She introduces herself as Archon Athena. While Altea is her usual self...

>"Is Archon or Athena your first name?"
>"Archon is my title. Athena Omega is my name."
>"Okay! Then, uh, is Athena or Omega your first name?"

...after a moment Claire goes stock still as she realizes exactly who this lady is. She's one of the four most powerful people from Hyperion--literally the civilian head of their government, as opposed to the three military branch heads.

Tazzari was scared to death at first, because she couldn't detect the Archon by any means other than "by sight," but it was her paranoia (she was afraid it was Mneme, masquerading).

The Archon implies that she and Achilles are present on Mid for an investigation into the events surrounding the critical injury to Strategos Plouton...but Altea is blind to implications. When Athena says so obliquely, Achilles grins.

>"Guess what we're here for!"
>Altea: "Are you on vacation too?!"

The reason the pair came to us, specifically, is because of our involvement in that affair. Athena needs more data. (Side note: she's also driving several robot bodies from an unknown centralized location. That's how she multitasks EVERYTHING to do with Hyperion's economy and infrastructure.) We sit down and explain to her what went on, including the words that Indra's body spoke when she went haywire and stabbed the Strategos:

>Override Command: Theophagy

Those words seem to trouble her greatly, but exactly why, she won't say--it's classified.

File: achilles.jpg (1.29 MB, 2700x3300)

1.29 MB JPG

>>48242840
So after this, we give her our earnest hope that war can be avoided, and though she has no love for the Bureau (her words) she knows it's not a fight they can win, either, so she doesn't want it either...and Achilles starts to grin.

>"Archon, I fear that we may need to part ways soon. These people have clearly become targets for Mneme and her associates and thus I believe that it is in our best interests to both provide protection and watch for any ambushes that may lead to clues about Mneme's activities."

This COMPLETELY blindsides her--after she makes a big deal about herself being all-knowing--and Altea cheers that he gets to come on vacation with us as well. Eventually Athena agrees to make the arrangements, and then it's time to leave for Francisco!

While we wait in the spaceport for the civvie transport to haul us away, Alexa double-takes and spots someone else in the crowd nearby, seemingly studiously not paying us any attention--a dark-haired whip of a girl with yellow eyes. It's the same assassin who tried to kill Alexa during the tournament. Suspicion abounds, but no daggers are flying yet, so whatever.

Achilles appears under a tower of luggage that he has no trouble holding, but Altea (of all people) explains to him that "carry-on" luggage is what the SHUTTLE can carry, not HIM. She had the same problem, after all. So we pile into the shuttle...and oh look, Keira (the assassin) is right there, and apparently supremely surprised to see us, given her shocked profanity.

All the more shocked when Achilles stomps onboard in his usual cheery fashion.

And shocked even more when Ivory just *appears* out of the shadows in the seat next to her to say hi, then fades away again. (Ivory had arrested her last time.)

Sweet, good to see this again.

>>48243024
Arrival on the ship goes without further issue, except as we leave the shuttle bay with the rest of the mass of people someone ELSE catches our eye--another tall, athletic girl with green hair, who looks almost *exactly* like Atalanta Delta. Concerned looks abound as we figure it's one of Atalanta Alpha through Gamma, who are all still supposed to be locked away...though Keira was supposed to have been as well, until Aynfean laughed her out of jail...

The trip across is fairly uneventful; Claire did meet a blue-haired girl--well, let's be honest, she was more blue-THEMED in that her eyes were unnaturally ice blue and she dressed in blue and...well, you get the idea. Turns out, that was Atalanta Gamma...and she was nearly emotionless. Like Circe Omega, but more willing to just follow orders without question.

The civvie cruiser we were in boasted a pool AND a fake hot spring (because let's face it, in a game based on an anime, where *wouldn't* you find a hot spring), the latter in which Alexa found herself with Atalanta "Delta." The latter's responses are a little odd, especially given the progress she has actually made in more or less forgiving herself, and it makes Alexa suspicious, so she drops a question about a visit to the Cranagan Museum of History...and "Delta" nods along, until Alexa reveals they'd never gone there, nailing the girl's identity as Atalanta Alpha.

Alpha is much more normal, though she despises Delta for what she sees as an act of utter betrayal. Oh, and bestiality, given that Alexa had whoopsed herself into a pair of wolf ears and a wolf tail through a genetic augmentation attempt on herself. She proves intractable, though not overly hostile right then.

>>48243241
Tazzari and Anai, meanwhile, are also enjoying the water in their own quiet, shy, "Oh my god this would make /u/ cry tears of joy" way, talking about Anai's concerns for Akhet, her homeworld. A voice pops up behind them, teasing, and Tazzari turns quickly to come face-to-boobs with a leggy blonde who looks a LOT like Atalanta Epsilon but a little older. She's actually quite fun, teasing them both relentlessly. A consummate professional about being a sniper, she's perfectly willing to make friends with Tazzari and Anai even though she might have to headshot them later.

Later on, Tazzari and Ivory meet up--well, Tazzari is stargazing and Ivory comes to see her--and they talk about why Tazzari is still slightly afraid of her. It becomes water under the bridge, though her reactions will still take time to calm, and the discussion moves on to other things--like how our presumably "civilian" transport has secret passages galore, and several rooms that are larger on the inside than the outside would suggest. That's high-level magic, and the kind of thing usually reserved for TSAB milspec. They investigate, Ivory leading the way to one of the storage bays. They head to one of the storage containers that was a concern

Tension rises.

Ivory cracks open the container, Tazzari watching nervously.

This container is huge, easily big enough to fit a large combat drone or a metric fuckton of luggage...or something worse.

The lid rises...

...to reveal Circe, seated in a small chair, with a wardrobe behind her. She is staring placidly at one wall of the container.

>>48243581
It turns out that Rhiannon, from the other squad, had stuffed Circe into the container--not in an attempt to get rid of her, but to get her to experience a vacation. Unfortunately, her Caledfwlch string-pulling wasn't enough to get Circe an actual ROOM on the flight out. So Tazzari took her away while a mystified Ivory continued her investigation solo.

Tazzari convinces her to turn off her emotional dampeners and suddenly she has an armful of sugar-high hyper six-year-old (even though she's the same physical age as us). It's here that Circe reveals that, in the myriad books that Rhiannon had given her to pass the time, she's found that Anai's planet has a history of happy polygamy, so Tazzari could totally date Anai and Circe both if she wanted to!

This leads to a long and convoluted "date" (it's not actually a date) where Circe *repeatedly* embarrasses her horribly, only a few of those times being on purpose.

Other fluffy inconsequential things happen on the ride, and then it's time to touch down on Francisco. Altea reveals that the usual temperature to expect on the planet is about 37C, which leads to a LOT of dismay, but does go a long way to explain why Altea is unfamiliar with the concept of "oceans" or "water parks."

The shuttle touches down on the planet's surface, and when the hatch opens, the next thing to note hits--its gravity. Francisco's surface gravity is about 1.3G, which means nearly everybody is just dragging along, except for a few noteworthy cheaters--like Circe, floating along half a step above the ground.

Altea's mama is waiting for us at the bottom of the ramp, and when the pair hug it's like a thunderclap. Anyone caught between them would be reduced to their constituent atoms. Because Altea's mother has the same monster strength and durability that Altea does.

>>48243581

Gaaaayyyy

>>48244021
We arrive at Altea's house, a huge, three-story affair with a clay textured exterior and brightly painted wooden trimmings; it's practically a mansion, especially in comparison with the (hello, Japan) small flats and houses on Mid.

Altea yells for help with luggage, and a small army of children spill from the house and haul away luggage, asked or not. Altea reveals she is the eldest of 9...which explains something else about her, really.

Double-checking the logs, I need to back up a moment, to back on the cruise liner.

>Just finished watching Vivid
>See this thread
Nice, I have some storytime to catch up on. I have no doubt it will be far better than fucking Vivid.

>>48244587

Well, at worst it will be better than fucking Force.

>>48244649
I haven't read it, is it worse than Vivid? What a shame.

>>48244587
>>48244747

I thought ViViD was pretty okay. It's a shonen battle manga that just happens to include Magical Girl-ish characters, but it's fun for what it is.

>>48244747

Force is pretty god damn terrible. It ruins the attempts at themes Nanoha previously did.

They introduce new Totally Badass villains who are immune to magic and require the main characters to swap to Totally Badass Lethal Weapons and go for the kill. See how badass they are after they curbstomp members of the Wolkenritter!

It reads like bad fanfic.

>>48244466
Back on the liner, Tazzari and Anai made use of the ship's holoprojection room to have a little conference with Yvenne and Sephia, the Belkan noblelady and her Knight that have aided us in the past. The reason for this is a suspicion of Tazzari's that she'd had since we fought Orryx ages ago.

The conversation is short, mostly to have mercy on Anai, who is still so unaccustomed to technology that being able to interact with those two "in the flesh" in spite of them being however many gazillion light years away now nearly blows her mind.

Of course, the other three DO accomplish blowing her mind, because through a quiet test they've discovered that Anai is, in fact, ALSO related to Belkan nobility of old. She can, in fact, trace her magical lineage straight back to Lady Merlin, one of the greatest sages ever to live in Belka's history, ageless and immortal and mysterious.

(No, there's not a lot of heavy-handed Arthurian flavoring in this game, why would you say that?)

Anai leaves to process the revelation, and Sephia leaves as well, to continue her testing, leaving Tazzari and Yvenne to chatter, until Atalanta walks in. Yvenne greets the temporary Knight with a smile until Atalanta (Alpha) scowls it up, continuing to badmouth Delta.

Eventually, she and Yvenne get into a shouting match...except Yvenne is clearly directing it. Every barb, every insult is carefully crafted to just make her madder and madder.

Tazzari quails in a corner. Zamiel, the bound spirit that serves Sephia, appears and sits next to her, offering her popcorn to watch the fireworks.

Alpha continues to just take every bit of bait Yvenne throws out, right down to magic sputtering to life around her hands and, when she gets mad enough, leaking from her eyes. But it's not normal stuff, oh no. It's flickery and black. Unhealthy to even look at.

>>48244772
Well, yes, it is alright by itself, but it isn't even similar to the previous series. Cute magical martial artists fighting and doing cute things is a good concept, though.

>>48244793
That sounds pretty terrible, yeah. I guess we can only hope Vivid Strike is somehow good.

>>48244918

Part of the issue is that the writers seem afraid to not have Nanoha be the core of a story.

StrikerS would have been much better with just the new cadets and more time to explore the villians personality. I think they could tell a good story in the universe without having Nanoha as more than a background character.

>>48244747
Vivid and Force are both pretty awful.

Vivid invents a brand new magical martial art, introduces yet another Legendary Warrior King that's trapped in a loli body, and seems like they're trying to run Dragonball in Nanoha land, right down to the Tournament, but lacks the charm of Dragonball and sacrifices the magical girl/boy feel of previous Nanoha series in favor of the focus on shonen attributes.

Force invents brand new anti-magic weapons and introduces another 'family' villain group. This one's darker and edgier, though, since they have to kill people to survive and brag about how much they enjoy doing evil shit. The main character is basically the Subaru to Subaru's Nanohacrush, except she also might want to fuck him.

About the only upside is that they finally just turn Nanoha into a Gundam.

>>48244918
At the least, ViVid Strike is by the same studio that did the first three series and the movies. Don't know anything about the writing, though.

>>48244876
At one point, Yvenne drives the final nail in the coffin by stating that Alpha's words basically establish her as EXACTLY the kind of Belkan that attacked Hyperion a thousand years ago. Alpha swears to end her, and Yvenne does the mocking laugh and says yep, you'd be right at home leading the vanguard of the forces that invaded.

Alpha's so mad she goes incoherent, calling Yvenne a Belkan, like it's some sort of insult. Of course, that's what she IS, so...mission accomplished? I guess?

Zamiel politely interrupts the festivities, stalks over, and grabs Alpha by the collar, hoisting her off the ground with no effort. This alone is a bit of a surprise, but while Zamiel threatens to devour Alpha's soul if she dares harm Zamiel's family, the green-haired girl tries to regain her bravado by saying she's just an illusion so it's so many big words.

So Tazzari and Yvenne end the holocall.

And Zamiel is still there, still holding Alpha by the collar.

Alpha freaks the FUCK out and runs as soon as Zamiel lets her go. Many giggles are had.

Elsewhere on the ship, Alexa and Atalanta Beta are having a friendly spar...

>>48245046
How overly edgy are the villains in Force?

One's introduced in a church full of nuns he just slaughtered. Not that edgy for a lot of series, but a pretty big drop for Nanoha.

>>48245078

>but while Zamiel threatens to devour Alpha's soul

Clearly she needs to play the greatest song in the world.

>>48245127
Doesn't help that we're supposed to treat them like the cyborgs in StrokerS.

>>48245374

One of the upsides of ViViD is seeing the various Combat Cyborgs get some extra screentime, IMO.

>>48245682
Honestly, I'm not really a fan of them? But I don't hate them.

I can't think of anyone I've met who actually likes the Huckbeins, beyond the writer himself.

File: Misato Fuck Yeah.jpg (154 KB, 576x711)

154 KB JPG

>the LotW Nanoha guy is sharing more info

>>48245704

Does it count if I like the mech by the same name?

They ruined the Vanishing Trooper with those terrible wannabe villians.

>>48245923
Nah, the mech's fine.

File: Yvenne Finished Small.png (3.13 MB, 2060x1200)

3.13 MB PNG

Because why not, tossing in a bit of related art. The GM got me the art commission for Christmas, and it came out awesome. Yvenne, one of the NPC's and part of a pair of ex-PC's of mine and the GM's, who are mostly background characters. They're fun to play around with, but we intentionally keep them out of the plot most of the time and, if they are around, they're always in a support role. This is the PC's story, not theirs.

>>48245078
Their friendly spar begins with some exploration. They're looking for one of the ship's holo rooms to practice in, and find that of the three rooms, one is reserved by Keira and Alpha. Beta, who is hilariously irreverent toward the chain of command, says she's forbidden from directly going in there, but if she's chasing an enemy who happens to know that the passcode to enter their locked session is 52581 then she'll probably get a pass...

Alexa flees, Beta gives "chase," and they run into the sim room. It's foresty inside, nice and green and sunny, and there's the sound of a couple of people giggling. They spy, and find Keira (the assassin) and Alpha engaged in a romping game of lip-lock that has Beta absolutely flabbergasted. Alexa drags her out quietly and they go into another room to actually spar.

In the fighting, Alexa gets first hit, Beta gets first blood, but Alexa missteps and crunches a control for the fake environment underfoot. Things proceed okay for a while until a storm brews, and lightning strikes everywhere. Their spar continues in spite of the storm, until Beta freaks out. Alexa turns around to see--

--a tornado, of all goddamn things, heading straight for them, spewing lightning. It picks them up and throws them against the room's wall hard, which leads to them calling a truce on their sparring.

Beta scrambles to wirelessly interface with the room's system, her hacking device in hand. Alexa works her own attempt. Piggybacking off each other, they dodge murderously sharp hailstones and flaming acid rain.

Someone or something force-restarts Beta's hacking device.

Alexa finds resistance on her end of things as well, like someone's actively trying to keep them out.

The hail turns flaming as well. And electrified.

Alexa takes a hailstone to the head and falls over, dazed; Beta takes TWO and falls on top of her, barely conscious.

Then the weather stops.

>>48247331

Sounds like every holosuite episode ever.

>>48247331
Barely conscious, struggling to keep her eyes open, Alexa hears footsteps and giggles, and a pair of voices: one that sounds like Delta, and one that's got to be Keira. They discuss killing her, but "Miss M" said not to, so they don't. And as for catching Beta in it too, well, too bad, she needs to learn how to follow orders.

They also mention something about a "Giant's Blade" that they're looking for, as well as raiding the CIVILIAN CRUISE SHIP for more "goodies" to put a hole in Achilles with. Like the hundred-ton graviton bomb they nabbed from that "crazy inventor" back on Mid (Sephia).

And then Alexa passes out.

Two hours later, she wakes up, still underneath Beta in the holo suite. After some discussion she disables Beta by hitting her hard in a vulnerable location (once again provided by Beta herself) and takes her to a med lab, where she, ahem..."borrows" some medical equipment and sends a message to Tazzari to come join her.

>>48247551
Tazzari heads down and together, using known blueprints of the Atalanta series, they cut into Beta's neck, finding an odd extra bit attached to her brain stem. Tazzari's electronic investigation indicates that the device physically prevents her from not following orders. Perhaps oddest of all, though? It seems to be an aftermarket add-on, for lack of a better term.

Tazzari streams their findings to Circe, who instantly identifies the module as being part and parcel of the Ajax™ line of myrmidons from Hyperion--the forerunning line to the Atalantas™ and noted for basically being human rights violations for exactly this reason.

They remove the device and patch her up, and Beta, who is grateful for the help but still crazy, goes back as not quite a double agent.

And that is the rest of the setup from the cruise ship. BACK TO THE PLANET'S SURFACE!

File: Tazzari.png (2.05 MB, 2209x1702)

2.05 MB PNG

>>48247789

The control unit was a big reveal at the time. We knew Hyperion exercised some control over their Cyborgs, and that the Atalanta's were designed to be more independent than the Ajax line, but we hadn't realized it extended to literal mind control and robbing them of free will. Tazzari got pretty fucking mad about the whole thing.

>>48246377
>>48247905

Who is the artist for these? They are pretty good.

>>48248382

You can find his tumblr at http://lonekakapo.tumblr.com/

He's done a lot of art for the game, the OP picture is one of them. He's also a pretty cool guy, he's very communicative during the commission process and works hard to make sure he gets it right. I'd recommend him as an artist.

>>48242575
Damn I wish I was a part of this campaign (or at the very least knew a GM who wanted to run a Nanoha-themed campaign)

Any suggestions on how to run it?

>>48249223

In one of the players experience, it's all about the characters. The whole interdimensional magic starfleet aspect of the setting can be chopped and changed or reinterpreted as you like, but the core of the style of the game and all is relatable characters who you can come to care for, and this applies equally to allies or enemies. Unless they're some sort of beast or monster, enemies should always be at least somewhat sympathetic and able to be empathized with.

>>48249528
>implying the StrikerS villain was ever sympathetic

>>48249546

Eh, when you find out the background and why he is the way he is, you can at least have some empathy for him. It doesn't stop him being a villain, but it makes him feel like a person rather than a straight up monster.

>>48249561
A's had the best villain imo, though Fate's mom had some relateable parts to her backstory. I guess it's just because the plot of StrikerS was so disjointed

>>48249663

A's is the best of the Nanoha franchise, straight up. It does basically everything better than every other installment, before or since.

>>48249685
So true. Everything about it was just so fantastic and so different from your run-of-the-mill mahou shoujo that honestly not many other shows like it have surpassed yet. Now if only StrikerS had been better. Hopefully Vivid Strike will be good.

>>48249528
How do you deal with the ranking system in Nanoha?

>>48249970

Mostly as a background detail, honestly. Relative linker core strength is something we've discussed IC and defined in our backgrounds, but in terms of character competence we're all on the same level. People with less powerful linker cores make up for it in terms of skill, technology or abilities like elemental affinities, Rare Skills or Inherent Skills.

>>48249970
>>48250003

People with higher ranks and levels of ability do exist, to clarify. But the PC's are all on the same level, somewhere around the low end of C-Rank, at least for the moment. They've still yet to graduate the academy, so they're very talented for students, and we intentionally set things significantly below protagonist level for the shows.

Apology bump. We've been rather distracted by an emotional scene going on in the game, which hopefully OP's story will reach at some point.

>>48251357
OP here. I will try to get some more out tonight, now that session has ended (well, thankfully).

>>48247789
While the rest of us are acclimating to the demands of 1.3G Francisco, Altea heads to the gym to meet up with her old friends from home. There are a couple of them there already, including another girl with her size and strength, and a much shorter, though still muscular, boy.

Altea, her mom, and her friend Nadia here are examples of the Giantblooded, a legacy on Francisco of its giants from the days of yore. The giants were like unto gods, and could cut starships in half with their swords while standing with their feet in the world's mountains...which is how they successfully repulsed all of Belka's attempts at invasion. Unfortunately, it cost the life of all of them in the process. These days, a precious few of the natives exhibit the blood of the giants, marking them as special individuals in their culture. The reverence around the giants also explains why the Saint Church and other staples of "modern" TSAB culture haven't really taken root on Francisco as heavily.

I could go on, but I'll let Altea's player expound on the (fantastic) worldbuilding he and the GM did for it if he wants to.

While they're at the gym, it slips out that over in the nearby mountain range, there's been a lot of excitement, as reportedly a "rockslide" has exposed one of the giant's graves. There a ton of locals going to see, as well as the odd TSAB surveying team or two (as Francisco is an Administered World, the bureau has a presence, even if they don't fully buy in to the culture).

Altea runs into a couple of her other old friends--a pair of twins, Clara and Simon, with her in pants and him in the skirt. He's really bishounen, okay? They congratulate her as well, but unfortunately duty calls; they have to scoot off quickly to go investigate a report of an unauthorized shuttle touchdown out in the middle of nowhere. Need to make sure someone's not trying to set up a smuggling op or whatever.

Then it's off to find Marcus.

>>48252543
I'll do a really brief writeup of the Giants and Franciscan culture before I go to sleep.

Basically, the Giants were from a civilization that peaked around the same time Belka did, and so the two groups clashed for a protracted period of time. Unfortunately, the giants began to lose, and chose to flee their home and settle on the far reaches, where Belka would have no interest and they could rebuild. They chose the planet Francisco because they believed it did not have any sentient life, but missed the tiny groupings of humans that struggled to survive on the planet. They hid away in the mountains, realizing their mistake when a few curious humans intruded on their territory.

The Belkan Jager family, in the mean time, had the world's biggest vendetta/boner for fighting the giants ,and had managed to track them slowly but surely to their new world. The first Belkan ship entered orbit shortly after the people of Francisco decided maybe a few things should be written down for future generations.

The giants repelled the scouts, but realized that the Jagers knew where they were, and wouldn't stop. They began a program of uplifting on the humans, granting them technology to defend themselves and helping them create the first devices for their magically active people. The Belkans came again, and again, and the giants dwindled.

>>48252543
Marcus had bet Altea she couldn't get in to Cerberus and now owes her money. He's another old friend of hers, and for all her neutronium-shaming denseness, the two had been close to being boyfriend and girlfriend back then.

Marcus is also a tremendous slacker, and shirks every duty he can, every way that he can. And yet somehow, he is fantastically well-informed.

Enough so that he tells Altea the rumor is the dig site uncovered is a full giant's body...including his weapons and armor.

This is the equivalent to an earthquake in the Middle East cracking open a cave that spills out gold-plated tablets with all Ten Commandments on it. Like, the cultural and religious significance, should the story get out, would just make the population explode in awe.

Marcus' bat familiar, Jules, is basically the only thing keeping him alive; she is constantly exasperated by his lackadaisical behavior and is slightly jealous that he hangs upside down (thanks to his talent with gravity magic) better than she does.

Anyway, they part ways again. Tazzari and Claire try to hit the gym with Nadia, who works them mercilessly and leaves them both as unmoving, exhausted wrecks. It's all good, though, it's helping them to work against the higher gravity!

The next day, after Altea's mom made a dinner that invoked multiple food comas, and a similarly-sized breakfast, plans are made to maybe go visit the mountain rockslide/giant grave, depending on if Altea's mom (who is also a retired member of the planetary defense force) can pull strings.

Then Tazzari makes a connection--Hadn't...Alpha and Keira said something to each other in that recording Alexa took after that tornado/flaming hail/etc., about a "Giant's Blade?" And then there was that random shuttle touchdown in the middle of nowhere...

>>48252813
When one final Jager ship came, centuries after first contact, the Last Giant came down from the mountains to face him. Volker Jager stepped forward, eager to add another giant's skull to his family's trophy room, and lunged with the ancestral weapon of his family, the Kinslayer Spear (made from Giant Bone to facilitate hunting Giants). He struck a fatal blow after a short exchange, but the Last Giant caught him as he gloated and crushed him to pulp before hurling the cursed spear into the atmosphere. The legend goes that as the people gathered around the dying giant to mourn, he daubed them with his blood and made them his kin, so they could protect the world in his stead. Thus the first Giantblooded arose.

Due to their lack of existing civilization prior to uplifting, the populace tend to view the Giants as a sort of godlike big brother watching out for them (unaware of the actual history as a warrior civilization and the accident that brought them to this world). The people of Francisco value warriors highly, viewing the Giantblooded as living demigods in their own right. They lack most natural resources, since the majority of the planet's water is deep below the surface, rising due to tectonic activity or the occasional cave spring. They view the mountains as akin to tombs, and will only rarely venture into them (and usually with some sort of holy man escort).

>>48252834
Paranoia and worry start to build. Calls are made. Turns out the twins had in fact been to the shuttle, but its only occupant was a blue-haired girl, quiet, but charming "in her own way." Atalanta Gamma.

After some consternation, Altea managed to contact a friend whose dad offered to take the group of us to the mountains. On our way to her friend's house, we run into Achilles again (yay!), who at least displays enough awareness to beg off actually going to the mountain; he's sure they'll see it as an invasion.

So up we go, meeting the guy at the entrance. He explains the TSAB kind of had to pull rank here because there WAS an unclassified, unknown magical response from the gravesite, and they needed to rule out Lost Logia or other troublesome things. Along the way through the tunnel, which is very long, the rock goes from rough to smooth-cut to "so polished, this *had* to have been done by magic," until finally the chamber itself: a massive, empty cavern, stretching higher than the hastily erected lighting reaches, occupied only by a single, stone bed, upon which lies a figure.

An ENORMOUS figure. Clad in form-hiding plates of armor and clutching an enormous sword in its hands, the giant is a regal figure even lying there dead.

Altea feels a call, her heritage speaking. She steps forward and reaches for the sword, touching it, and a bright white light flashes--

>>48253074
--And Altea suddenly finds herself on top of the world. Lasers carve chunks of the planet from under her. People are dying...because of her. She can feel the attacks, the sting of arrows and lances, but they don't *hurt* unless she allows them to. A battleship in the sky unleashes blast after blast, but she pays them no mind.

And then she realizes...if she dies, it will end. The lives of many outweigh the life of one, no matter how mighty. Her grip on the sword slackens, and she goes to her knees--this is no choice. It is an obligation, a duty, and hers alone.

A bright white light flashes--

>>48253130
--And Altea flops on her back in the cavern. There's blood on her hands, but no cut, and the rest of us are staring or blinking away the flash. We try to have Altea explain what she saw...

>"I was fighting. There were ships and lasers, and explosions, and I...I died..."
>"CRAP AM I DEAD?!"

After calming her down, we checked with the rest of us there--Atalantas Delta and Epsilon--to make sure no one else was hallucinating. Nope, all good. Epsilon even described it for us, in her usual manner:

>"Oh, yeah! She touched the sleeping giant's sword and there was runes and a flash and BOOM!"

Tazzari fastened onto the "sleeping" in that sentence like a shark scenting blood. After all, this is a grave. The giant's dead.

>"Oh yeah. I saw it breathe!"

WHAT.

File: OhYes2.png (318 KB, 479x600)

318 KB PNG

>>48253130
>>48253202

>>48253202
And now OP must take a break for weak physical needs like sleep. I'll be back tomorrow with more. In the meantime, any questions or comments about setting, plot, rules, etc. are welcomed and encouraged.

>>48253202
>Tazzari fastened onto the "sleeping" in that sentence like a shark scenting blood. After all, this is a grave. The giant's dead.
That is not dead which can eternal lie...

File: MuhClay.jpg (153 KB, 768x1024)

153 KB JPG

GM here, if anyone has questions about the game.

>>48254053
muh clay more when?

File: BelkanPlans.jpg (184 KB, 800x2675)

184 KB JPG

>>48254063

>>48254133
needs moar tubes

File: BelkaDropsTheBomb.jpg (213 KB, 1920x1080)

213 KB JPG

>>48254147

>>48245127

Yeah, it's kinda hilarious how they are Sonic OC levels of edgy.

File: ColdSteel.jpg (163 KB, 780x770)

163 KB JPG

>>48255951

OP arises from sleep!

I care not about the story or the investment in it by those here in this thread. I am only here for faps.

>>48253202
Later at night, after everyone is shuffled away from the grave site by the TSAB and local teams while they all try to figure out what the light show was about, Altea has a conversation with Reiko, where the latter confesses that she's crushing hard on Altea, and poor Altea has to let her down, being straight and all. Reiko takes it like a champ, though, and in fact Altea invites her to dinner, along with the twins and whomever Simon happens to be making out with at the moment of her call.

They arrive at dinner, and Clara, Reiko, and Altea get to meet his girlfriend--Atalanta Gamma. The blue-haired Atalanta model is still quiet and reserved, but she actually seems to be enjoying Simon's company, actually showing emotion around him. Simon says (hah) that Gamma told him all her sisters were here, and Altea asks who they are. He replies with "Alpha, Beta, Delta, and Epsilon," and Altea lights up. She knows some of those names! She calls them to invite them to the dinner as well, before anyone can object!

Delta answers first, and Epsilon a second later--the tiny blonde has found a candy shop. This is bad news. Altea explains that she's found Gamma, and Delta instantly goes into boss mode (as she, like Alpha, is intended to be a Command model; the series was designed to fight in 3-part units, so every third would have been a command model...until it was discontinued during Epsilon's development). She requests Altea ask Gamma a question:

>"Ask her, expressly from me, if the nature of the interest in Giants is related to a Chalkaspis, Eirènè or Harpagè mission."

So Altea does. Or tries, at least. She slaughters the first word so bad she turns the call over to Gamma, who panics--the first non-Simon-related emotion anyone at the table has seen out of her. Delta pulls rank AND an override code, Gamma reveals "Harpagè" and flees as Delta nods and cuts the call.

>>48258126
Simon is upset at his date leaving, naturally, but Altea laughs it off, saying Gamma'll be back, she's a nice girl, and besides, siblings are like that, you're twins, you should know.

Then she introduces the twins to Reiko, who shows off Orryx, bound inside a ring. Altea waves to him and says hi, and he makes a rude gesture at her from within his jeweled prison, but the sealing process means none can hear him. Mwahaha.

Later on, we gather and discuss what the word Harpagè might mean. Epsilon flat out tells us it means "steal" or "loot," but exactly what might be the target of that is still up in the air. Altea tells us about her vision, too, and Tazzari mentions that her vision sounds almost entirely like the story we've been told of the Last Giant...except that can't be him in the cave, because he's buried in the middle of the planet's largest city. So ???

Alexa uses her magic orb to check on some communication methods that Alpha and her cronies might not be able to crack, and finds a bit of a "present" from Beta, from the night before:

It's a video, Alpha and Gamma, looking out over one of Francisco's deserts, the former absolutely furious. She can't believe that somehow Gamma didn't realize that Delta was no longer in the command structure, that her traitorous nature meant she couldn't give override commands anymore.

And meanwhile she is beating the shit out of Gamma, domestic abuse-style. The passive Gamma can only stand there and take the backhands across her face, until finally Alpha sighs and orders her to get lost.

We know it's from Beta because the video looks like it came from a sniper scope, and Epsilon didn't take credit.

Once everyone spends their fury at the video, Altea remembers one other thing: Oh yeah, yesterday someone came to visit her house, a regal-looking chick in black and gold, with blue hair and a long white stripe in it.

Lady Sara Jaeger.

>>48258351
To step back to the prior threads, her brother Hugo Jaeger had fought Alexa in the tournament and been humiliated. Sara seemed much more level-headed, but still with an infuriating superiority complex...just she seemed to honestly believe it, as opposed to Hugo's lording it over everybody. Not quite a sense of noblesse oblige, but still not as annoying.

Anyway, Sara had come to extend an invitation to tea aboard her ship to Alexa, who wasn't at Altea's home. They had initially been at least cordial to each other, until Sara brought up how the Jaegers hunted the giants...for the "protection" of the common folk.

Uh huh sure.

So Altea got about as rude as she ever gets, and told Sara she'd deliver the invitation to Alexa but I think it's about time you get out of my house.

Sara...doesn't understand the hostility, but leaves anyway.

So now we plan and plot to abuse the invitation and have EVERYBODY pile onto the transport up to Sara's ship. Except Altea doesn't want to be around her, and Tazzari decides to stay on-planet too, just in case.

Alexa, Ivory, Claire, Epsilon, and Ainlinn head on up to the ship, and Sara meets us there. Alexa requests a tour, which gets a brilliant smile from Sara that is quickly snuffed out.

...Odd.

We get to see her show off her summoning technique, involving a holographic pentagram, slicing her palm, and some seriously creepy denizens of Below reaching up for us before she waves a hand and dispels the summon. Alexa asks if she was showing off for our benefit, and with the tiniest of blushes she demurs.

The tour goes on. Meanwhile, planetside, Tazzari and Circe take a walk and discuss Circe's problem she's been working on--that of TSAB-Hyperion cooperation. There are three problems she lays out:

-Hyperion will not accept any magical authority over itself.

-TSAB will not accept a magical power rising that does not obey their laws.

-Without experience on the matter, Hyperion's opinion won't change.

>>48258848
Tazzari offers an idea of a sort of exchange program, but while it might be a good plan in theory, only two of the four heads of Hyperion were even remotely in favor of cooperation--and one, Strategos Plouton, is sleeping off a coma.His subordinate is more or less a war hawk, in favor of actively punishing the Bureau; only the Pterarchos, the commander of their air forces, holds them back from committing to a hot war.

Tazzari and Circe (and Anai) then end up on a date of sorts, embarrassing themselves horribly by making out repeatedly in public, because that's the kind of shenanigans they get up to when left alone. And yes, I do mean all three get into it.

Back up on the Jaeger ship, our tour continues. Sara leads us to a frankly massive library, easily a hundred meters or more long and several stories tall--an impressive, ostentatious waste of space on board what's supposed to be a warship. On one wall is a massive family tree, though Alexa notices there are a few blank spots in every generation--including one in Sara and Hugo's.

She points it out, but Sara looks unconcerned, parroting a family line.

>"Those who cannot keep up with the hunt will be left behind."

Except our adorable little sniper has eagle eyes and sends us a discreet message saying Sara flinched, ever so slightly...and bit her lip.

...Odder.

Claire engages her in conversation while the others check out the library. She tries to talk Sara into extracting the Belkan Noble stick from her butt, and actually manages to coax the ghost of a smile when she brings up Hugo and Sara says she knows EXACTLY how much to expect from her brother.

Then a maid knocks on the library door and enters bearing tea. The maid--

--is practically a physical copy of Sara.

>>48259723
>--is practically a physical copy of Sara.

oh. oh my.

Much of the conflict is this campaign goes back to "The Jager family are dicks".

>>48259723
Epsilon (tactlessly, naturally) asks if they're from the same production line. Claire has to correct her...but to her it's pretty obvious what happened here.

Sara thanks the maid, named Elise, for the tea, rubbing her temples in...quiet frustration, or something. Elise answers Epsilon that their looks are simply coincidence; that Mama Jaeger had found her with amnesia, and graciously took her in to be Sara's lady's-maid. Sara bites her lip again, and that all but cements Claire's certainty. When Elise is dismissed (and Sara discretely wipes away a tear) she grabs Sara in a hug, all prior thoughts of "this girl is a bitch" erased, and whispers to her, "I'm sorry."

Sara claims to have no idea what she's talking about...but her behavior doesn't match her words. It's obvious to us that Elise is her sister--a twin, even--but did something to warrant being erased from the family tree, and apparently somehow upstairs too.

After offering what comfort we can up here--this kind of goes a way to explaining why Sara is chilly, but seems so desperate for human contact behind her facade--Sara lets slip that the family has business with the planet below.

And that it might be best for us if we happened to, maybe, cut our vacation short.

On our way out, she hesitates, then gives Alexa a hug--and surreptitiously slips something into Alexa's dress. A yellow-white flash of teleportation magic later and we're back on the planet's surface, where Ivory says we need to have a chat.

Alexa produces the tidbit that Sara gave her--a little datastick, with a map on it: the mountain, the nearby town, and a few other marked points. One of those is marked PTX Insertion, the other with G-B.

Ivory confirms that PTX is related to what she found while snooping around the Jaeger's computers--a designation. PTX-003C-SP1. An object massing a full hundred tons, just like the gravity bomb.

>>48260013

A decent amount of it. As though will all families, they have their own share of internal problems and reasons why things are so messed up.

>>48260013

The Jaegers are dicks; but one of my (Alexa's Player's) favorite parts involving them comes up between this arc and the next.

File: Alteisen_Riese.jpg (34 KB, 247x400)

34 KB JPG

>>48260468
Alexa very nearly panics. She knows that designation. It's an *ancient,* unused, disabled, etc. etc. Belkan heavy assault war golem. There can't be more than 2 or 3 left in all of existence and even those shouldn't be operational.

And yet...

Planning moves along. One other thing that was discovered on the ship was the Jaegers' practice of, basically, damnatio memorii. If someone doesn't live up to the ridiculous and, frankly, evil requirements of the head of the house, they get erased. Every mention of the family member is erased, so that they never existed. And then someone in the family works their literal magic and erases their minds.

Remember why Hyperion was so deathly afraid of magic? The Jaegers were at the forefront of their invasion. They were called the Mindtakers. Hugo Jaeger apparently could control people, as demonstrated at the tournament. Someone in the family does the mind-wiping (and programming) bit.

All in all, pretty disgusting. And Sara is forbidden from acknowledging Elise as her sister, or she joins the club.

>>48261066

>Planning moves along. One other thing that was discovered on the ship was the Jaegers' practice of, basically, damnatio memorii. If someone doesn't live up to the ridiculous and, frankly, evil requirements of the head of the house, they get erased. Every mention of the family member is erased, so that they never existed. And then someone in the family works their literal magic and erases their minds.

Jesus fuck that is dark.

>>48261241

Yeaaaaah. Both OOC and IC that was a pretty major 'Oh fuck' moment in the game. The Nanoha setting isn't without its very dark moments, but this was one of the first really big ones in the game. But it also caused a strong resolution amongst all the PC's- We were going to befriend the fuck out of Sara and save her sister, somehow. The TSAB existed to help people in fucked up situations, and this was exactly the kind of thing that needed fixing.

So, a question for the thread:

In your opinion, who is Best Girl (TM)?

>>48261490
The GM.

I'm seriously jealous that I haven't been able to get a game this good in years.

>>48261490

In Nanoha in general, or the story of the game so far?

For the former, obviously Subaru.

For the latter, Altea is <3

>>48245078

Wait, what did Zamiel do? Teleport?

>>48261736

Yes, yes she did. Zamiel has a nearly infinite amount of mana storage, and the throughput to use it as she needs--her main limitation is that, as a familiar, she regenerates mana slowly---especially as Sephia's familiar, who already, IIRC (player, not a GM here) has a rather slow recharge rate.

It does mean she can pull some pretty crazy stunts if she doesn't mind burning away a few months or years worth of charging up.,

And, in her own words--doing so then was entirely worth it.

>>48261764

GM Here: Yeah, despite being one of the more powerful NPCs they know Sephia's linker core is painfully average. She makes up for it with precision and skill. It does, however, mean that Zamiel has very limited power per-day to work with.

>>48261736
>>48261764
>>48261807
After Alpha hightailed it from the holoroom, Zamiel and Tazzari shared a giggle, and then Yvenne reestablished the call to get the lowdown on what happened. Zamiel remarked in passing that the trick caused her about *six months' worth* of accumulation, but, yes, as >>48261764 said, SO worth it.

>>48262398
>>48247905
>>48242575

We've seen these three bits of main character art before. Is there art of Claire?

>>48262974
Unfortunately, OP is currently unemployed and can't afford to commission the guy who did the rest of these. I'm on track to change both of those circumstances soon, but only time will tell.

File: claire update jacket.png (546 KB, 1262x1760)

546 KB PNG

>>48263010
I should say, I do have this that an anon did for me in a drawthread last year.

>>48263010

Best of luck with all that.

File: tarsier-logo.png (33 KB, 280x222)

33 KB PNG

>>48263021
Claire is a cute. Cute!

>>48264883

She's a slut. Slut!

>>48264883
>>48265364
Alexa's girlfriend is not a slut! They are pure maidens!

>>48265568

Plural?

>>48266295

Alexa is a slut!

>>48266295
>>48266598
Probably; one of the other storytimes had her asking out three of the other girls at once, yeah?

>>48267099
Yes, though even now, several months later in-game, that's still all that's happened. It's earned her a reputation, though, such that every girl who she tries to make friends with is quick to point out they don't want to be in the harem.

>>48267198
So Alexa's a slut, then.

>>48261066
(Btw, in >>48261066, pic related is the PTX-003C-SP1)

After the lot of us exhaust our collective anger on the thought of basically "erasing" people from existence, thoughts turn toward future planning. We have a map, we have their objectives, the only thing we lack is a timetable...so Tazzari puts her toaster-half to use and starts going into strategic overtime.

We bring in Marcus, because he is highly placed enough in the system to get credible responses from the local forces in position. A new potential wrinkle comes up--there's the Giant's Sword to consider, but his bones? Those...might actually be usable to create a completely indestructible war golem, or at least to heavily enhance an existing magitech construct--so says Anai's knowledge of golem creation.

Our little briefing/planning session is interrupted by a knock at the door. A loud one. One that almost shakes the foundations. Again. It's...

>>48267432
Achilles again! He's heard from Circe that there might be trouble brewing, so he offers himself to help.

Tazzari worries over his ability to handle the giant war mech thing, going toe to toe with a machine designed to devastate cities. Achilles, naturally, laughs it off.

>"A mere mech? I was designed to trade blows with the saint king themself!" He pauses "Then I found out she was ten and it started to sound like bullying."

Brief moment of levity aside, planning begins in earnest. There are mana cannons in the city for defense, wired to the city's power grid, in turn attached to a Precia-model mana reactor buried under the local university. Defensible enough, but a potential target for a diversionary or disruptive strike. One team goes there, consisting of Delta and Ainlinn.

Circe, Ivory, and Anai will work as coordination central.

Epsilon is to be recon and fire support.

This leaves Alexa, Altea, Marcus, Achilles, and anyone else the locals can throw together, to split up and cover between the uncovered grave, and the Cairns--the other known gravesite.

Tazzari and Claire, meanwhile, have their own job--to be in the air and intercept the gravity bomb while it falls, and disarm it before it hits the ground.

>>48267594
Later, Alexa receives a call from Delta--*actually* Delta--who meets up with her, looking like she's been living off the land for a number of days. She comes bearing news.

Unfortunately, most of what she discovered, we'd gotten from the info from Sara Jaeger...but for one crucial bit of information. Delta has found that Caledfwlch has very recently begun mainlining a project.

A project called Damocles.

And guess who happens to have a couple of their newest models? They're meant to provide cover for the golem being dropped off, then fly off toward the giant.

Alexa swears like an old sailor and kisses her girlfriend, dust and all, for the extra information, then shoots it off to the rest of the group.

Next up: the Big Day.

>>48267807
Everyone is gathered in a small room, trying to stay calm. There's a bit of difference between "desperately rescue archaeologists and fight a demigod" and "try to block a black-ops team." Claire and Epsilon are cuddling before the latter runs off to go sit on a mountain with unobstructed LOS. Ivory arrives as she exits, bearing coffee and tea for all, and then it's time for Claire and Tazzari to take off.

The former has entered unison with Tisiphone, and it's changed her appearance some; her eyes are solid blue instead of green, lacking a pupil, and her magical color has gone from its normal sunrise-red to pure white. Her flight spell also spawns six wings instead of two, and her barrier jacket is red fabric under golden armor, instead of its normal blue under silver.

As they watch, two of the Damocles fighters bear down, one of them bearing the gravity bomb. Just as Claire and Tazzari prepare to take off, a message pops in from Epsilon--

>"I found them!"

--and a line of brilliant light leaps out from the mountains, drilling one in the wing. Unfortunately, it's one without a bomb. The craft loses some stability and turns to engage the mana cannon defenses, suppressing them though barely causing any appreciable damage in turn.

As we take off, a HUGE shadow appears over a nearby area. Something is coming.

>"Good luck, everyone. See you on the other side."

And then we're gone.

>>48267978
As Tazzari and Claire approach, the former pops off a quick shooting spell from her staff, a bolt of purple light that scars one wing of the Damocles craft, but also triggers an ECM burst, hoping to take out their comms so the bomb doesn't get a premature detonation signal.

The craft turns to face us, unleashing a volley of autocannon fire and arcs of lightning, chaining through the air. Claire manuevers the pair through most of the worst of it, though she takes a few of the AC shrapnel bursts to the jacket. She yells to Tazzari that she's fine, just do your job, and unleashes a buster spell of her own. It just barely grazes as well.

The Damocles returns with a pair of missiles--one red, one yellow--and they detonate, one a concussive shockwave and the other more lightning. Claire pulls up short in her flight and the shockwave attenuates before too long, leaving them okay. Then she pulls up above and charges a stronger buster spell--and this one hurts.

>"Fall from the heavens and pierce the unworthy! Solar Spear--FIRE!"

Blue-white instead of red-orange, this time the column of concentrated mana blasts away armor plating, erasing sensor nubs and a bit of internal structure before it peters out. Then she drops off Tazzari, who lands with a thud on the upper surface of the craft like it was solid ground.

Up close now, Tazzari can see that the craft is manned...and flying it? Gamma.

>>48268055
While Tazzari attempts to splice her way into the craft's electronics, the thing starts to tilt into a nosedive...

Meanwhile, another brilliant line of white fire traces from the mountains to the craft harassing the mana cannons, punching another hole in a wing. Two for two for Epsilon.

The war golem thunders to the ground, so nearby to Alexa, Ivory, Circe, Anai, and Altea that half of them stumble to the ground. They fare better than it does, though, as one of the giant mech's legs crunches through the thin ground underfoot and winds up inside one of the Cairns. Not built to withstand torsion like that, there are the tortured sounds of twisting and breaking metal.

Above, Tazzari shoots out a message, telling Claire to get Gamma out of the cockpit while Tazzari forces the gravity bomb to jettison...then falls off the plane herself, diving to catch up to the bomb, then grabbing hold and connecting her Smart Link directly to it.

(Yes, this means Tazzari is now in freefall.)

Claire wings around to the front of the craft and orders Gamma around:

>"Atalanta Gamma, the mission has failed! Now undo these restraints so you can get out of here! I promise, I will not let you die!"

Gamma looks confused as hell, but she still slides out of the pilot chair's buckles...

>>48268168
Anai, Alexa, Ivory, and Altea start on the golem, Alexa freezing it in place, Ivory calling up the illusion of a dark forest around it to confound its sensors. Anai conjures all her fire elemental conversion affinity and melts half the fucking thing to SLAG and Altea, who is in a FUCKING RAGE starts pounding the goddamned mech with her FISTS and BREAKING IT IN TWO.

The golem reaches back and attempts to pile-driver Altea. She's driven back TWELVE WHOLE INCHES.

Its other arm sprays Claire and the Damocles craft with burst after burst of scattergun rounds. None hit her per se, but the windscreen between her and Gamma shatters, and the spalling shards driver Claire from her perch so she falls; she quickly rights herself.

Tazzari's work with the bomb produces results, intended or otherwise. Gravitational pressure increases briefly around the golem, and it sinks further into the ground; it begins jettisoning armor left and right, lightening its load, leaving pretty much only internal structure and weapons.

The grav wave passes and it springs forward, deceptively fast, trying to haymaker Altea again. Again, she just fucking IGNORES IT.

Thrusters on the golem's back fire, scorching the Cairn but freeing it from its trap. Up in the air, Claire manages to catch Gamma as the latter leaps from the damaged cockpit--but just before she can fly down to Tazzari the windmilling, pilotless aircraft smashes a wing into her side. She can feel ribs give through her barrier jacket, but holds on, turning to chase after Tazzari...

Ivory uses illusory vines to pull at the golem's legs. It swipes through them--literally; see "illusory"--while Anai launches a HUGE fucking fireball right into the golem's shoulder launchers. ALL the ammo cooks off and the arm containing the giant machine gun just falls off.

>>48268344
Alexa darts in and, rapier glinting with the legacy of the Kalina frost magic, stabs deep into the golem's control systems. To her pleased surprised, it shudders to a halt; she's hit its Animation mana core, basically the "I can move" engine, and with that frozen solid it won't be able to move any time soon.

One threat down.

Claire knows she's not going to make it to Tazzari in time while carrying Gamma, so she orders Tisiphone to unison-out and merge with the blue-haired girl while pouring as much speed as she can into chasing Tazzari down and swooping her off the bomb and away from going splat at the last possible second.

There's a moment of collective breath-catching, especially as a THIRD lance of light from the mountains spears the other Damocles craft in the engines; Epsilon confirms a pilot ejection. Probably Beta.

Then a message comes in.

>>48268415
The transmission...is from Alpha. She's standing on the bridge of Sara's ship, all mockingly superior and gloating and everything.

And we're not having any of it.

>Alpha: "Destroyed drones over at the tomb...and Sara's prize toy reduced to scrap. I guess you've defeated us this time~"
>Claire: "Is this the part where you reveal your evil plan? Because I'd really like to not see your face right now. So could we get that over with?"
>Alexa: "Indeed, you're not very good at this 'evil gloating speech' YOu should take lessons. I would offer, but...~"

Alpha shrugs it off. Okay, fine, call your friends at the tomb them. So we do. Marcus is there, slightly battered but alive, and safe. The assault there was headed off, several dozen drones destroyed and a pair of TAGs that Achilles tore in half.

Tazzari realizes the mech probably had a cockpit too, and wanders over to look.

The conversation with Marcus takes a sour note when signs of a white-yellow teleportation circle appear behind him. Our shouted warnings only induce confusion as Keira and Alpha appear in the tomb behind him, and then the worst words we've heard in a long time come through the link:

>"Achilles, Implact Active. Take them out."

...The link goes dead as Marcus flies offscreen, the last thing we hear being a sickening thud.

>>48268644
Altea ROARS in rage and takes off on foot. Tazzari grabs onto Claire and they fly up again. Alexa stays back to force open the cockpit of the mech...and finds Sara Jaeger, strapped into the cockpit's chair, dazed and stunned. Alexa helps her out and to a medkit that she starts to use on Sara, then asks her about using the ship's teleporter to get to the tomb.

Sara can't. Hugo came back and somehow they found out how she'd slipped Alexa that info, which is why they'd stuffed her into the Old Iron Giant like that.

So Alexa opens a public line to the ship and lays down a challenge to Hugo Jaeger.

>>48268931
>So Alexa opens a public line to the ship and lays down a challenge to Hugo Jaeger.

oh boy oh boy oh boy

>>48268931
>"Hugo Jaeger," she says, pointedly leaving off his title. "I challenge you to a duel of honor under Belkan law for the treatment of your sisters. Should I win, you will remit them to my family's custody as wergild for your affront against honor; should I lose, I will remit myself to your family for my failure to uphold my own honor. Do you accept my challenge...or does the Hunter's Heir fear the Daughter of the Wolfpack?"

They back and forth for a while, with Alexa clearly trying to goad him into another emotional outburst like at the tournament. But either someone's coaching him, pinching his ear off-screen, or he really has gotten better, because in spite of their epic battle of insults, he doesn't accept. He's still a royal jerk about it all, though. Very much another villain who's easy to hate.

En route to the tomb, we see shadows appear on the ground, dark shapes in the air between us and the dig site. More combat drones. Saint-King, that transport we took must have been riddled with toys for these idiots to bring! They thunder to the ground and open up and the fighting starts again.

Ivory tells us to keep onward--the NPC brigade will hold the mooks off here so we can get to the tomb. Altea shoulder-charges the enemy ranks and, naturally, bull rushes a line clean through. Claire flies overhead and everyone else follows Altea.

We make it to the tomb...and it's practically carnage. Achilles doesn't look anything like himself; normally he's smiling at everything, enjoying even fighting. Now he's got an almost painfully neutral expression, blank-faced except for a red light behind his eyes as he hammers Marcus into the ground, over and over.

Altea roars again and charges between the two, while the rest of us try to force Keira and Alpha to stand down. Teleportation rings are already writing around the giant that they're sitting atop, though, so all they do is banter for a few second before--pip--they're gone...and the giant's sword with them.

>>48269072
This makes Altea MADDER, somehow (meaning, we didn't know she could get there), but Achilles is her target. Claire gets the first shot in the new fight, a wide, unfocused buster that he neatly bisects with his monofilament blade--but the momentum is enough to force him backwards.

Tazzari's analytical programs are running in overtime here, and she can identify that none of his usual grace and finesse are present. The override has reduced him to fighting like a berserker.

He and Altea start to dance, the two powerhouses wailing on each other like a pair of One Punch Men. Tazzari sneaks around behind him and fires a neatly concentrated EM blast at the exact spot on the back of his neck from which they'd extracted the control unit from Beta. It has little appreciable effect, but it gives her one precious bit of insight:

Somewhere in there, he's fighting the implant's control...and holding back. His willpower is IMMENSE.

Tazzari spreads the news...but Achilles' eyes flash. He unslings his combat rifle and it quickly reconfigures into a kind of automatic shotgun. Claire tries her verbal approach, seeking to help him win the mental fight for control, and it sort of works; he slows down by the tiniest fraction, just in time for her surprise shooting spell to catch him nearly unawares; he throws up an arm to block and her spell splits around it, though once again he's driven back.

When the magic dies off he charges Tazzari, shotgun at the ready; she tries to twist out of the way but he nails her with a slug anyway.

...Except, even as she feels a couple of ribs give way, her combat computer says he could EASILY have nailed her center-of-mass. He rather deliberately went for a glancing blow.

Altea clobbers him in the knee, hard enough to draw a cracking sound from it; it starts to buckle under his weight, but as he dodges a strike from Alexa's blade we can see something...black...running through his veins.

>>48269212
Whatever the implant is pumping into him can't be good--killing him almost as surely as he will us, no doubt--but there's little time to contemplate that. He swings the shotgun at Alexa's face--

--but at the last possible second, swings it up to blast immediately over her head. Her wolf ears start to bleed and she goes deaf, and a few singed hairs flutter to the ground.

He twirls the shotgun around again, changing his grip...and aims it at the underside of his own chin.

And with one of his old, trademark grins...

...pulls the trigger.

>>48269253
>And with one of his old, trademark grins...
>...pulls the trigger.

... well THAT's dark.

>>48269253
He rocks back and is thrown to the ground, his face a bloody mess...and he doesn't get up.

Altea's rage quickly evaporates, and between her and Alexa they find him, somehow, still breathing. Alexa scrambles for her medkit again, shouting at the top of her lungs given her temporary deafness. Tazzari immediately heads over to help, as they're going to need to stabilize him AND remove the implant, just as they had done for Beta. Claire comms anyone who will listen to demand a full med team to the giant's tomb five minutes ago.

Altea races over to check on Marcus, who, miracle of miracles, is somehow actually still conscious. Actually, scratch that--on closer observation, while he is bleeding heavily, it seems to be all from shallow head wounds.

Claire gets hold of Ivory, who is finishing up the rest of the combat drones outside. She tells the provisional enforcer what went on in as few words as possible, and then Ivory pulls "rank," opening a link to the cruiser that brought them to Francisco:

>[This is Enforcer Ivory Maddelen. I am commandeering the usage of your teleport bay. Teleport the people from these coordinates and you may avoid a court martial!]

About five seconds later a teleportation circle snaps up the lot of us and deposits the group in one of the cruiser's storage bays. We're surrounded by scared-looking crew...and scores of still-boxed Hyperion combat drones.

Almost immediately, Alexa, Tazzari, and Achilles are carted off to medical.

>>48269383
>>48269277
>>48269253
>>48269212

This whole battle was at the same time a high point and a low point of the campaign. On the one hand, a couple of squads of cadets and the local homeguard managed to hold off a large, well equipped planetary assault, keeping the people of the city safe (for the most part, although one unfortunate girl who'll become relevant later was more inconvenienced) and protecting one of their major sites of cultural heritage from being pillaged.

On the other hand, an oversight on our part saw someone we considered a friend, Achilles, grievously wounded, and all of us felt a sense of loss at the theft of the Giants Sword. Tazzari beat herself up over it as team strategist, feeling the failure was her fault, but Altea had it the absolute worst. As one of the Giantblooded, chosen protectors of her world, she'd failed to defend an irreplaceable heirloom of the near divine Giants.

But it was awesome as hell to play. Even when the GM hit us with that last act twist, for all the shock and surprise we had to acknowledge it was a well done thing. We'd had it foreshadowed and I feel like we could have seen it coming, but at the same time it completely blindsided us.

>>48269383
Later on, while Alexa and Tazzari continue to work on removing the implant while other medical staff keep Achilles alive (not that they have to try very hard; the man has a constitution like Altea does), Claire continues to sit in the cargo bay, keeping a paranoid, self-imposed vigil on the rest of the combat drones. Altea, who was in the medical ward for observation, got bored--she was already at 100%--and wandered off, eventually and aimlessly finding her way to the same cargo bay. They have a brief chat and then Altea starts to smash some of the drones up. Ivory joins them and voices her suspicion as to the number of remaining drones:

Her thinking is that Alpha and Keira were planning to use them to harvest ALL the giants' bones that could be gotten. Which, of course, only prods Altea into more quickly wanting to destroy them all. The other two caution her into keeping at least one or two around for evidentiary purposes, which is when her punch goes tink.

The hell? Altea's punches NEVER just go "tink."

So we all take a look. There's a control panel on it, and Altea has only dented the crate; it's reinforced. Claire lets Ivory take the lead, given she has more "seniority" (the provisional enforcer over the cadet); the blue-haired girl says it's not a Lost Logia so opening it should be fine.

Claire settles in to crack the password, and in a few minutes of work, has the lock disengaged. Altea steps in and offers to haul the crate open, so we let her.

Inside is...a cryopod.

>>48269581
The pod has a sticky note attached to it.

>Beta. Don't forget to move this to the Belkan ship or I'll have your head. -Alpha

There's a little view window to see who might be inside, but it's too obscured by frost to tell. Checking with Tazzari, who doesn't recognize the style, it turns out that Tisiphone does...because, once again, it's a Hyperion design.

With her help, Claire has the pod open in only a couple of minutes. There's the expected hiss of pressurized, freezing air as the lid swings up...

Inside is a beautiful woman, long black hair. She could be anywhere from late 20s to mid 50s, given how age matters little, but she lacks the extra musculature of the Myrmidons (such as the Atalantas). We're confused by who it might be.

Tisiphone chokes on her tongue.

After getting her to calm down, Claire finds out why she was so surprised. The woman in that cryopod? That's Doctor Desdemona Plouton, wife of Strategos Plouton...

...and very nearly the catalyst of EVERYTHING that has gotten us to this point.

>>48269674
I'm going to wrap my writing here for tonight, so let me just step back and say finding Dr. D here? This was one of the HUGEST fist-pumping moments in the game. An enormous surprise, to be sure, but a welcome one, and god DAMN did it feel good.

Hope you enjoy, fellow anons. I will have more to write tomorrow.

>>48269715
>I will have more to write tomorrow.
Hurray!

Thread archived on sup/tg/. It's a shame the original thread link never got fixed. Was it just not possible to copy over the data from 4plebs?

>>48267594

>"A mere mech? I was designed to trade blows with the saint king themself!" He pauses "Then I found out she was ten and it started to sound like bullying."

I love Achilles.

File: F.jpg (37 KB, 680x383)

37 KB JPG

>>48269253
>>48269277

To fill in the time, I'll expand on the story of Deirdre, a minor NPC who'll be more important later. She's a blonde, surly elf who has suffered a string of inconveniences across the span of her life.

This isn't actually the first game I'd met her in, although it's the first time I learned her name. A long time ago the same GM was running a Dungeons the Dragoning game on another IRC server and we met a surly blonde elf waitress in Sigil who seemed to be working every low paid job you could imagine, all at the same time.

When she first turned up, serving drinks at the athletics meet (way back in the first thread), I thought it was just a fun callback... And then she turned up again on Francisco, and we learnt her name and a bit more about her.

She'd been working on Mid in the hope of getting into a TSAB academy but had to return home to help run the family business for the summer, so in addition to her usual levels of grumpy (she's originally from the same planet as Ainlinn and Aynfean), she was also envious of us for being at Cerberus and having all these opportunities to do cool stuff. Those who met her tried their best to be nice, but we still left on kinda neutral terms with her. But that isn't the end of her story.

We only found this later, but remember earlier how we mostly protected the city? Apparently a few stray shots from the battle caused minor damage to a few buildings... On top of completely demolishing the cafe she'd been working at. This state of unemployment meant she was free to pursue other opportunities, which is where we had our next meeting with her.

OP arises. Commencing story output in 3...2...1...

>>48273980

Bump for hope!

>>48269674
So. We open a box and unpackage Dr. Desdemona. While she recovers from hibernation sickness in the same medical bay on the cruise liner, Altea sneaks down to the planet below...

She winds up in the giant's uncovered tomb, perched on the edge, sitting next to him and talking. Apologizing for failing to fully protect him and allowing his sword to be stolen. Telling him about the vision she had. During the conversation, she feels a comforting hand on her shoulder...which is weird, because there is no one else in there with her. In time, her words peter out, and she leans back against the giant, relaxing. While there, an image comes to her mind--the sword, swung about and opening a rift in reality, cleaving through the ground like butter. Then it shifts; the cairn above which we'd fought the Old Iron Giant is the new focus, and she can feel the bones lying there. Their power...is as vast compared to the sword as an ocean is to a swimming pool. She sees an abomination rise up, all black steel and giant bone. It gestures...and a TSAB cruiser is aged a million years in but a moment.

Altea draws comfort from this, that she did the right thing in protecting the bones. As much as it sucks to have lost the sword, it's the least bad end.

The giant shows her more imagery--a dark trophy room, arms and armor on every wall, and along the back, in a special place, a large case. A shadowy figure appears and opens the case, revealing a spear...a spear made of giant bone, topped with a black metal head. The spear.../hates./ It's an evil thing, inlaid with carved runes of hunting and death, as old as Belka itself. The shadowy figure turns to leave, and Altea glimpses its face--

Hugo Jaeger.

Altea is fired up now; no stupid Jaeger's gonna keep her away from that sword forever, and while she's at it, she'll do something about that spear, too!

...She can swear she sees the giant nod at her, but he's dead, right? Or sleeping, or something?

>>48275219
Altea promises that she won't let them do anything bad with the sword, and that she'll get it back for him, and the warm and comforting presence in the room radiates approval. She hops off the dais and trots out to find Marcus, bowling past whomever might be manning the desk at the garrison he's stationed at.

>"I'M GONNA GO SEE MARCUS."

There's no response but for a tired groan from the ceiling...where Marcus is resting. Again. His head is bandaged and he has one arm in a sling. Altea convinces him to float down, where she makes sure he'll be okay--he will--then informs him he lost her bet. Before the big showdown, he'd explained his reasons for not following her to Cerberus--perceived feelings of inadequacy being chief among them. She bet Marcus that he was stronger, more able, than he thought.

Well, he held off the drones and TAGs alongside Achilles, AND survived the blond man beating the hell out of him. Smugly she tells him that she's already had the twins submit his information to our Lieutenant, so to let her know when he arrives on Mid so she can take him to dinner.

As she turns to leave he asks her to wait, and hesitantly leans in for a peck on the lips.

>Altea: "Took you long enough, idiot."

What follows are the last couple days of the "vacation" to Francisco, and then the four-day trip home, during which Dr. Desdemona wakes up and we have our first interactions with her. She is...absolutely nothing like expected.

With how the Atalantas had spoken of her in the past, we were expecting some sort of...benevolent, almost eternal motherly figure. Instead, what we get is...a super-hot, foul-mouthed, chain-smoking and utterly BRILLIANT scientist whose ego outpaces Alexa's.

>>48275616
She doesn't trust the TSAB as far as she can throw it, but she also knows that war is a losing proposition. And in spite of her beatific facade when we first are introduced, when we present her with a "here's what's gone on recently" list, she retreats into her room and locks the door behind her and yet we STILL hear, clear as day:

>"MY DUMB SON OF A BITCH HUSBAND DID *WHAT*?!"
>"THAT BITCH DID WHAT TO INDRA? I AM GOING TO--" and quickly devolves into profanity that'd make a sailor blush.

She goes on a couple more tirades, then cuts herself off and opens the door, smiling warmly and speaking calmly and politely. The transition was hilarious.

So Doc is a great character already. Claire manages to make her SUPER mad but she is ostensibly over it by the time we make it back to Mid.

Every. Single. One of the Hyperion girls--Delta, Epsilon, Nike, Theia, Eris, even Panakeia to an extent--is overjoyed to see her awake, with the ones that stayed behind on Mid mobbing her when we get to the spaceport. We go almost straight from there to the hospital where the Strategos is being cared for. Desdemona takes a quick look over him, hmms to herself, and says "I can fix this in six hours."

He's been comatose for MONTHS. And she can fix him in six HOURS?!

>>48275776
On the trip back home, Alexa and Sara have a long heart-to-heart as well. Given that Sara's basically persona non grata to her family, she's kind of stuck all alone. Alexa promises to be her friend, a notion that frankly mystifies the Jaeger girl, but she at least has the presence of mind to accept the offer and take comfort in it...especially as Alexa swears up and down that we'll rescue her sister Elise.

She even recovers enough to weakly joke that she has no intention of joining the Girlfriend Collection.

Back on Mid, we get the okay from Tia Maddalen, Ivory's guardian and sponsor in the Enforcers, to allow Dr. D to fix up her husband. Before she leaps in to the operating table, Tazzari visits her, to see about having her actually finish the augmentations that were intended back when she was to be another one of the Numbers.

This is a *pretty fucking huge* departure for Tazzari; up until VERY RECENTLY she has absolutely hated being a cyborg. Now here she is, asking someone she's just met to FINISH THE JOB.

Here's a quick question to the DM, but how were you able to not recruit "that players" in your game? I'm currently thinking of making a magical girl game after reading a bit of your player's tales.

>>48276325

GM here.

Well, I've played with all the players in the past for one. More importantly: Dumb luck.

I've had a Shadowrun and DtD game both killed dead in the path by That Players so third time is the charm.

>>48276325
>>48276813
Speaking as a player, we're not all as great as it probably seems from this. We've all got our own individual weird bullshit to deal with, but we get by through making real efforts to actually talk shit over when someone's pissed off or whatever. In order:

GM: Good guy, but gets annoyingly anxious over our enjoyment of the game. It's like, we keep telling you it's a good game, jesus christ.
Tazzari: Weird foreigner with an intense love of his characters suffering.
Alexa: Southern hillbilly who lives in constant fear of playing a bad character, despite also playing Alexa.
Altea: Hyperaggressive Texan who once had a near-aneurysm over a throwaway MLP reference in a side session.
Claire: Strangest of us all, devotes inordinate amounts of time to his "family" and "real life". Also a massive weeb.

File: claire_unisoned.jpg (747 KB, 900x716)

747 KB JPG

Pic related: Inspiration for Claire's and Tisiphone's unison form.

>>48277243
>hillbilly and a texan
why do you play with degenerates?

>>48278194
Don't have a choice but to play with myself bro.

>>48276325

In a prior Nanoha game the GM and I were in, we had the displeasure of playing with two absolute That Guy's and one moderate example. it takes time to find a good group, and playing in games with people to vet them is almost necessary in my experience. It takes a lot of bad and failed games before you get a group of people together who can reliably be good and fun to play with.

(Fun note- Both That Guys characters were inspiration for a couple of bad guy NPCs. I wonder if anyone can guess which ones?)

>>48279195

Hugo? That guy and his family screams magical realm.

>>48279351
As a player here; from what the GM's told us, Hugo is actually mostly based off of Jace Beleren, the MTG character.

>>48279351
>>48279687

Hugo and the Jaeger family in general also draw heavily from one of the GM's fears- The death of the mind. They find the concept uniquely terrifying, but also kinda fascinating, so exploring it in a group like this appeals to them for some sick twisted reason. It certainly makes the Jaegers fucking fantastic enemies.

>>48276813
>>48277243
So, stick it out, deal with everyone's differences, and hope that they are committed to creating a pretty cool magical girl game/story together. Okay. I think I can manage that.

Any additional hints/tips you would give a player/GM for a Nanoha campaign?

>>48282643
If people were going to run a Nanoha game, I'd be totally up for that.

If you're going to run one, I'd be interested in playing.

>>48282750
So here's the thing:
I have a Nanoha-inspired setting that I would love to run, but I have no idea what system I should use to run it in. This same problem applies to if I was to run a game in the Nanoha universe. And unfortunately I'm a terrible PC and have zero RP skills so I doubt I would be very good at being a player.

>>48282803
Mutants and Masterminds seems to be the best choice since it allows for tons of abilities to be explored while still having guidelines.

>>48282803
>>48282830

The first Nanoha game the GM and I were in used M&M. It was pretty okay.

I love Legends of the Wulin, and it's a good fit for the style, but I also understand that it isn't a system for everybody. And it's annoying as fuck to learn due to the shitty editing job.

>>48282859
How do you utilize LotW to be Nanoha-esque? Just replacing the kung-fu with magic?

>>48282859
I honestly cannot find the pdf for Legends and I find the system is so connected with its setting that its hard for me to change between Wulin and Nanoha in terms of universes.
>>48282830
I have the M&M pdf that I really should read. Which edition is the best?

>>48282918
3e is what I've been playing.

>>48282909

It helps that most of the combat in Nanoha is very action focused anyway, but yeah. It mostly works fine, just refluffing weapons into their magitech forms and recontextualizing the size of zones to take account for the greater mobility.

Externals are your general physical fighting style, for example Tazzari uses a very standard TSAB staff drill, while Internals are mostly special attacks and spells of various sorts.

It's something of an abstraction, but the nice thing about LotW is that it lets you represent almost any powerset as something fully functional in combat. The fact that it has Befriending built in helps a lot.

>>48282918

It's not as hard as you might expect. We've been bodging together Loresheets as we go and reinterpreting Secret Arts when we need to, but it's generally a quite smooth crossover.

>>48282643

GM here again:

I'd look to Star Trek a decent bit for inspiration. It's a good idea for themes and ideas.

For example, in this game Hyperion is heavily drawn from Starfleet's interaction with developing races and the Dr Who Episode 'The Curse of Peladon'. The idea of a planet thinking about joining the galactic federation but afraid that it would sweep away planetary autonomy and culture. Hyperion in this case just has a much worse history than most other places.

Fun Fact: The Curse of Peladon was an episode using an analogy for the UK joining what would eventually become the European Union and the fears people had over it.

>>48282750
I would be interested as a player. I'm extremely bad at learning a system however so I doubt I could be a GM. Would anyone be willing to do so?

>>48282909
Pretty much.

Let me break down Claire's LotW sheet.

She's a Courtier archetype, so her secret arts--the special moves, really--are going to revolve around words. Duh, perhaps, but it's important to note. Given her insistence on conveying feelings and understanding each other, Nanoha herself may very well be statted as a Courtier.

Claire has two Kung Fu styles, one internal and one external. The latter indicates mostly how she fights; her weapon, in LotW terms, is Ranged/Massive, so she likes to stand well away and bombard things. Somebody like Alexa has Sword/Saber, so she favors a much more up close and personal style (and being Belkan, she uses an Armed Device anyway).

Her internal is kind of her seasoning atop the meat and potatoes of her external style. It is where she has the technique that lets her fly (she remains the only PC who can), but also what adds special bits to the spells she normally casts. They already invoke things in-universe like needing to practice their accuracy with shooting spells and the like, so you have ready-made translations for the main combat stats, too.

For Claire, right now, a basic attack using no internal techniques is her standard shooting spell. Invoking a +10 Strike tech makes it a different spell name. Adding +damage instead changes it to a buster-type spell.

I find it really fun, trying to imagine the various permutations between the two systems, but the game has been running for long enough now that it's not so difficult anymore.

>>48283064
I'd probably be interested in running a shorter campaign in the Nanoha-verse if people were interested, using M&M that is.

>>48283093
Thanks for taking the time to explain. Haven't yet played LotW, but I'm familiar with the rulebook. Will refer back to these threads if I ever run a Natoka game in it.

>>48283197
I'd be willing the play in that. Never got a chance to play in M&M. How long were you thinking?

File: Vita9.jpg (673 KB, 859x735)

673 KB JPG

>>48283219
A few weeks at most, though considering how it plays out, might be longer if people enjoy it.

Made the game now: https://app.roll20.net/join/1522634/PWDbfw

Dates will be decided later.

>>48283326
Coolio
Were you planning text only or voice?

>>48283338
Setting details I'll probably do voice for, character interaction can be through text or voice - doesn't matter to me.

>>48283374
Ok that works for me. Do you have a skype or something we can talk details on? also, getting some more players somewhere would be nice, though I'm iffy about the game finder thread

>>48283197
My pleasure. Believe it or not, that's half the purpose of doing these storytimes. It's only HALF about jacking off over how amazing the GM and his game is.

>>48283423
I've got Discord: https://discord.gg/ff5Pz

>>48283326
I'd be interested, but my days/times are limited, and I lack a laptop at the moment.

>>48283567
Ah, when do you think you'll get one? You can still join the discord listed above and talk in there if able.

>>48283585
Hopefully my laptop will be out of the shop in a week or two at the most. Don't think a can get discord on my crap tablet, but I can try

>>48284087
Try it and you may be surprised. Discord doesn't take a lot of performance since it's just a glorified IRC chatroom.

>>48283326
>>48283505

Somewhat interested, depending on whether I can make the times. Will be mostly away for the weekend though.

>>48282859

The editing for LOTW is ungodly terrible.

>>48284087
Discord has an app so I'm sure you can run it on your tablet.

>>48286433
Have you joined the discord?

>>48287549
Go figure, the Amazon app store doesn't have it. The downside to only having a kindle fire. To be honest I'm busy until tomorrow night at the earliest, but I'll see if I can get an apk and logged in.

OP present. I will have a later start to this today.

>>48290451
>>48288586
>>48285111
>>48281588
>>48280794

Now I'm kinda wondering what a Cyborg summon sign would look like, and how it would work.

>>48291479

Speaking as the GM of this game:

Mwah ha ha hah hah.

>>48291479

I'm not sure they could get one. They use IS, not magic.

>>48293011

Well, the IS is their superpower, but they're shown to be do other quasi-magical stuff which isn't technically magic, like Subaru's movement magic working despite the dampening in the Saint Cradle. It makes sense if you think of their Cyborg systems as a new sort of magic system, a different way of channeling mana which somehow circumvents the usual nullification systems. Given all that, it's possible that they could create some sort of cyborg-summoning analogue, although it'd likely need to be designed and built into them to some degree.

OP popping in.

Dinner and other deliverables on their way here. Tonight, I shall write.

File: sci-fi-futuristic-motorcy(...).jpg (324 KB, 1600x900)

324 KB JPG

>>48291479
>>48291505

>Cyborg Summoning

>>48295652
That would be pretty cool, actually.

File: miko-miko-reimu.gif (180 KB, 190x190)

180 KB GIF

>>48295621
Hurray!

>>48297006

The TSAB would arrest so many people if they came across Gensokyo. Well, try to at least.

>>48298206
That place has so many People Of Mass Destruction.

>>48298206
> implying they don't know about it and made the smart choice of leaving it alone

>>48277243

Wait, are you all dudes? Pretending to be little magical girls on the internet?

No one finds this a little bit wierd?

>>48299546
You are on 4chan, and /tg/ no less. Get out of here normie.

>>48299546
>implying any of the characters they are playing are little girls

>>48299593
Look man, it's a magical girls game. They're all little girls. Seriously, no one finds this at least a little creepy?

>>48299577
I'm sorry I don't share your sick little fetish, anon.

>>48299662

Thank you for parading your willful ignorance and bumping the thread. I needed a good laugh.

>>48299662
Dunno about everyone else, but I only pretend to be a little girl on the internet for the glory of Satan.

>>48299662

>Look man, it's a magical girls game. They're all little girls.

They are also all involved in military officer training and not Nanoha, who's rather an exception. The youngest of them is 18.

The gas man cometh.

>>48276137
Later, Claire has a bit of a heart to heart with Epsilon, asking the blonde cuteazoid what she'd do if the Strategos got better, lifted the ban, and said all of them could go home. It prompts Epsilon into some serious thinking, and she wanders into her room, asking Panakeia to entertain their "guest." Pana hasn't really been...let's say "enthusiastic" about being here, much less interacting with any of us, but at least she's polite when forced to be in our faces. We have some words back and forth, mostly just about how she wouldn't take the chance to go home 'cause she believes magic is dangerous and shouldn't be allowed on Hyperion.

The next day, we all get called down to the lab, where Dr. Desdemona is going to work on her husband. Claire paces like a nervous father-to-be while everyone else--Alexa, Tazzari, Altea, Nike, Theia, Panakeia, and Enforcer Tia Maddalen--wait more patiently and engage in conversation. It turns more into argument so Tia banishes us to go eat and she'll call when there's news, so we head to Kitties, where Altea works.

(Reminder: Kitties is not!Hooters, just with an AR catboy/catgirl theme.)

While we're there, Pana seems honestly perplexed. She finally asks WHY we're so anxious to see the Strategos get better, and in spite of Theia's smartass answer that the TSAB just wants him awake so we can manipulate him, the answers are generally some form of "He's literally the best hope for peace between us and you."

Then we get the call, so after paying we rush back to the hospital, where Dr. D greets us with a grin and "Welp, he's dead."

Altea buys that, hook, line, and sinker.

The rest of us roll our collective eyes, and she relents, saying he's just sleeping now (far better than the coma he was in) and should be awake within the day.

File: Nanoha-mahou-shoujo-lyric(...).jpg (199 KB, 640x697)

199 KB JPG

>>48299763
It has begun once again!

>>48299763
Late at night we get the next call, that it's okay to come visit, he's up and Dr. D has already seen to him and etc. So EVERYBODY piles up and heads down--including our Hyperion squad, as well as Nike and Theia--and we fucking FINALLY get to see Strategos Plouton alive and well--and AWAKE.

You guys, fellow anons, finding Dr. D and then having Strategos Plouton wake up like this was such a majorly uplifting point of the story that even just summarizing crap about it here, it bring tears to my eyes. Manly tears, yes, but the point is...it was perfect.

Anyway, the poor man is rocked by TWO Myrmidons tackle-hugging him on the spot, Epsilon and Theia, while the rest of us express our pleasure at seeing him awake, hale and hearty. We give him a brief rundown of events since the last thing he knew, with the promise that Archon Athena is on her way and can probably tell him still more.

And last, but not least, Claire has Tisiphone, the tiny Unison Device that contains parts of his dead friend Indra's memories, come forward and say hi...and this time it's him who grabs her into a big bear hug, while she cries on his shoulder. The four of us leave him and his Myrmidons (and Tis) alone.

Over the next while, Claire pays a visit to the Belkan Self-Administered Zone, dropping in on Yvenne and Sephia--but actually hoping to see Zamiel, Sephia's bound "familiar." The reason for this is that, with Zamiel's age, she might know something magic-wise that would give Claire an edge, or at least keep her from being blown around like a rag doll at the slightest breeze.

And what luck! The crazy spirit does! She takes Claire away to a pocket dimension for intensive training that...actually costs her a bit of her sanity. And life, apparently, as the utterly chaotic patterns that the magic style requires are now burned into Claire's very soul.

(Mechanically, she learned a new External style from Zamiel--Chaotic Deflection Approach--and the sanity/soul bit is just fluff.)

>>48300144

>And what luck! The crazy spirit does! She takes Claire away to a pocket dimension for intensive training that...actually costs her a bit of her sanity. And life, apparently, as the utterly chaotic patterns that the magic style requires are now burned into Claire's very soul.

Is Zamiel a 2hu?

>>48300144
Next up is the Big Split--which sounds more ominous than it really is. All it means is that Altea, Alexa, and Tazzari head back to Akhet with Anai, so that she can be comforted about the pace of change now that we'd basically upset the Prime Directive and they know the TSAB is a thing.

While they're there, they meet Anai's big brother, who is court wizard to the prince, in turn son of the guy who runs the show. The prince is with him, and where Anai's brother is fairly tall and buff, the prince is shorter and kind of noodly, though he desperately tries to prove he's a warrior (earning lots of head-rufflings from his wizard).

Tazzari instantly ships them both, upon meeting.

They talk a bit, mostly about how things are changing with the TSAB presence, as well as the aftermath of Orryx's attempt to burn everything. It's strange for the people, yes, but they take life one day at a time...and really, they're finding out that not much HAS changed.

All of which is of great comfort to Anai, as they all much on shawarma and fatta.

Meanwhile, back on Mid, Claire meets up with Nike and Eris, and after much faffing about they decide to go up to Yvenne and Sephia's again, so that Nike can have a spar with the latter while Eris and Claire just go exploring. The latter pair find a cave and spend some time underground, just chatting about life back home on Hyperion for Eris, why she signed up for the augmentation program, what she enjoys most (exploring, finding new places). We fly back to find the end of the sparring, with Nike in a pile on the ground, complaining about how she can feel purple now.

Over on Akhet, Tazzari and Anai share some alone time, where they walk through an old garden that was partially destroyed in Orryx's assault. Tazzari cheers up her girlfriend with the awfulest cheesy lines--along the lines of "They should replant a tree here, when reconstruction is finished, to show that even after a disaster, life can go on and bloom again."

>>48301118
Everyone else returns home to Claire having BIG NEWS™: the red hair that we found on the Hyperionites' stealthy ship, waaaaaay back, is confirmed to belong to Aynfean. Which means we have circumstantial evidence of collusion on her part with Mneme.

This is big, because up until now, we've strongly suspected it to be the case, but there was always the chance that they were attempting to play each other from across the aisle, and we were just caught in the crossfire. But now we've got evidence that puts her right in Mneme's room.

As we're all talking over this, Alexa gets a message ping. Opening it, she finds a note from Sara Jaeger: the damn fool girl has decided that her honor requires her to return to her family to speak with them.

We know what the Jaegers do. They specialize in Hugos and inflict Elises. There's absolutely no way this is going to stand, so we flurry about and even get permission from Lt. Strommons and Enforcer Tia Maddalen to chase her. Tia even comes with us.

More to come tomorrow; I have all day so I should be able to start fairly early.

File: Why_is_everyone_so_gay.jpg (33 KB, 640x360)

33 KB JPG

>>48301259

>But now we've got evidence that puts her right in Mneme's room.

>>48302259
Because magical girls. There are two straight magical girls in this game though (one PC).

>>48302319

>Straight
>Magical girl.

File: 1421176781269.jpg (79 KB, 486x698)

79 KB JPG

>>48302259
>>48302319
>>48303094
Girls should love girls. Especially magical girls.

>>48303094
>What is Nanoha?
Yuuno/Nanoha is canon.

>>48304331

...Except in StrikerS she hadn't seen him in ages, meanwhile she's living a happy domestic life with Fate and their adopted daughter?

>>48304361
>implying you can't live with your best friend you've known almost since childhood

>>48304368

They share a bed

>>48304374
And?

>>48304385

Okay, compromise- Bisexual?

>>48304403
Ok I'll be willing to concede that

>>48304443

NanoFate ftw

Damn shipper wars

>>48308269
> You're gonna get princess carried to victory!

>>48308471
Burning Arisa is one of my favorite fan memes from the series.

>>48309108

Memes? It's canon now. Nanoha Innocent is an AU manga. One of the main characters? Burning Arisa.

>>48306948

I think that's 50% of the fandom. The other 50% being mech nuts.

>>48301259
Here we go some more.

So, I don't have a solid log of some of the side things that went on with this bit of story; I'll be relying on a couple of the players to come in if they want to detail what happened. You'll see why in a moment.

Back to the story:

We're barely off the transport home, and Alexa's ready to hare off again because of a message she got from Sara Jaeger--the fool girl has gone home to speak with her family up in the Belkan Self-Administered Zone.

So with a flurry of calls, most of them to Enforcer Tia, we hop in a taxi (well, they go, Claire flies) and head for the lands.

Tia says she'll put out a stop order at the border to detain Sara, but that's the limit of what she can do for now, because of the BSAZ's self-autonomous nature. Along the way, Tazzari and Claire tease a bit of story from her about her past with our LT and Aynfean.

Turns out Aynfean wasn't *always* a stone-cold bitch. She used to have at least a bit of redeeming personality features, but those kind of died in the botched mission that also cost Lt. Strommons her officership--at the time, she was a Captain.

It was an escort mission; Tia was the agent in charge, and the LT was the head of the security detachment. Aynfean...was dating their charge, some politician guy who'd been part of the initial diplomatic thrust with Hyperion. There was an assassination attempt that succeeded, so the guy died. Aynfean was reportedly heartbroken, and the LT was busted all the way down to NCO.

Of course, Tia ALSO mentions that Aynfean has *always* been sadistic and very much enjoyed hurting people in the past. She used to at least try to keep it on a leash, though. NOT SO MUCH ANY MORE, HUH.

>>48310906
Like, one time Aynfean and Tia were sparring, apparently with live weapons, and Aynfean got in a shot that nearly severed an important artery in Tia's neck. She still has a scar to this day from it. Reportedly, Aynfean was ecstatic that she'd wounded her friend like that...even though she tried to apologize and make amends later.

Of course, while this is interesting, it still doesn't really do a lot to explain why she's such a turbobitch these days. Or why she's apparently working with Mneme (who, by the way, was the replacement for the assassinated diplomat). Or anything about what their overall goals are. As Tia says, she has lots of puzzle pieces, but no clear picture from assembling them together.

This takes us pretty much to the entrance to the Belkan grounds, where Tia has to wait while the rest of us make our "cordial" "visit" to the Jaeger estate. Arriving there in a second cab, we find that it is ten times as opulent and ostentatious as Yvenne and Sephia's place, and their home is enormous.

This? This is like...a palace, in white stone with enormous tended gardens the size of the FORESTS on Yvenne's property.

We don't take a lot of time to ogle the scenery, though, marching straight inside...where we're met with Elise.

On the way in, Altea and Ainlinn devise a plan to "get lost" inside the palace and go find shit to wreck, at the right signal. This is part of the stuff that I don't actually have logs for, so I'll let Altea's player detail what the two of them found.

Meanwhile, the rest of us remain to be "entertained" by Elise. Alexa asks if she's seen Sara.

>Elise blinks. "Who?"

Well, FUCK.

>>48310977
This is the last straw, as desperation sets in. Clearly they've already begun the process of expunging every memory or mention of Sara--remember, before, Elise couldn't shut up about her "Mistress Sara" and how kind and amazing a mistress she was and all that.

So Alexa does it: she lays down a formal challenge, right there. Hell, we brought along Iseult, a fellow Belkan and member of the ancient Round Table order, to act as a witness for exactly this purpose.

Claire and Tisiphone excuse themselves and, outside, Unison together, flying up in the airspace above their estate. She channels a truly enormous amount of mana into a huge buster spell, awaiting word--or confirmation of foul play--to trigger it.

Meanwhile, Alexa is met...by the Lady of the House, Sara and Elise's mom.

>>48311012
She's SO FLIPPING PISSED OFF with Alexa's insult that she gives in right there, allowing the duel to happen, with Iseult as witness. For her second, she chooses Elise, while Alexa names Delta as her second. The seconds, strangely, are to fight each other, only aiding the primaries when one or the other is defeated, etc. etc.

Tia comms us to say she's invoking a Bureau law that lets her suspend the Belkan autonomy and declare her Enforcer powers in full function within the Zone...except then she's also spending her entire trip trying to fight off someone rescinding those orders.

And then the duel begins. Madam Jaeger produces a regal-looking scepter as her weapon of choice, but instead of trying to bash Alexa with it, she instead invokes her Rare Skill, attempting to flay Alexa's--and Delta's--minds with her family's Rare Skill. Every word is like a scalpel, trying to cleave away their very identities, aiming to ruin their minds and turn them into subservient puppets.

Where Hugo is clumsy with the same skill, and brute-forces people with it like a battering ram (see his demonstration back in the tournament arc), this lady's god cruel finesse. She is quite capable of using it to just *break* people--and obviously derives QUITE a bit of pleasure from doing so.

Things look bad for us; Delta has managed to hammer Elise into unconsciousness, but the both of them are faltering hard against the constant onslaught. It's very difficult to maintain a sense of self when this woman is reaching into their heads and trying to slice that identity loose.

In fact, it looks like she's about to finish Alexa off once and for all...

>>48311112
Mechanically, this bitch is whipping out Priest Arts like they're going out of style. And, of course, the only way to DEFEND against Priest Arts in LotW is to use the Wu Wei skill. Who the hell trains that up, unless they're also a priest? Nobody, that's who. So while these are Secret Art attacks and thus not possessing a lot of accuracy or damaging power, Alexa has VERY LITTLE with which to resist.

But there are other ways to interrupt the death spiral--like when Atalanta Delta pops up beside Mama Bitch and cuts a fucking hand off. No, that's not a device in her hand--or rather, her device is in her off hand. She's snuck her monofilament sword back onto her person, and used it to pop right through Jaeger's wrist like the proverbial hot knife through butter.

The shock of the injury, the insult to her person, has Bitch Jaeger screaming. Alexa recovers enough to invoke one of her familial techniques, and her sword blade glows as clear blue as ice; she swings down at Jaeger, who brings up her last hand to block it, and nearly repeats the move; instead, though, she settles for breaking half the bones in Jaeger's wrist and forearm.

The woman drops to the floor, screaming in agony, but still has enough presence of mind to scream, "ENOUGH OF THIS! SEND IN MY GOLEMS!"

>>48311175

>But there are other ways to interrupt the death spiral--like when Atalanta Delta pops up beside Mama Bitch and cuts a fucking hand off. No, that's not a device in her hand--or rather, her device is in her off hand. She's snuck her monofilament sword back onto her person, and used it to pop right through Jaeger's wrist like the proverbial hot knife through butter.

Jesus Christ.

>>48311175
...Nothing happens.

Alexa smirks after the handful of seconds of awkward silence, gloating about how even if the golems DID show up, they'd handle them. As it is, she is unimpressed.

Jaeger forces herself to her feet. This isn't over, she declares, in true villainous fashion, and when the time is right she'll--!

--get absolutely hammered by Iseult, who completely flattens her with a single punch.

>"Lady Jaeger, you are disqualified."

Claire depowers and comes inside, where she takes the awakening Elise out in a hall and clobbers her with her staff to make sure she stays asleep for now.

Tia comes back in and admits that her emergency order has been overridden...which means she can't arrest Lady Jaeger. Of course, it also means she can't arrest Alexa.

Oh, and the person who canceled her order? Last name: Dymitryou. As in Aynfean.

We joked briefly that this is the first nice thing she's done for us.

So before this all began, Altea had a thought and wanted to share it with Ainlinn. Ainlinn immediately asked if it was painful, but Altea brushed it off and explained her thought. See, Hugo's a jerk, and one of the many jerk things to come out of his mouth is that "might makes right" and "the strong rule the weak" and other garbage, and Altea has the realization that she's probably stronger than Hugo, or even his mom, and they might stop being such jerks if they knew what it was like to get beaten up by someone stronger than you. So Altea's entire plan is a roundabout "beat up the Jager family until they stop being evil."

As soon as they get inside the estate, Altea immediately declares that she needs to go to the bathroom, grabs Ainlinn, and just leaves in a random direction. Ainlin convinces her to wait for Alexa and Lady Jager to start fighting before the property damage commences for propriety reasons. As soon as they get the message that the duel is starting, however:

>Altea grins, and raises her fists. "MIGHT MAKES RIGHT!"
>Altea PUNCHES THE NEAREST WALL.
>Ainlinn snickers and presses a button on a small remote. There is a massive sound as one of the very expensive limos outside myseriously detonates.

The two decide to start heading to the Armory to see if the Spear Hugo found is there. Not knowing where the armory is, Altea stopped her property damage rampage to politely ask some maids where the armory is. They point her downstairs. Ainlinn, meanwhile, sees a room full of very expensive objects and excuses herself to do some "Liberation." That just leaves Altea heading downstairs.

Altea promptly gets lost, wandering down a hallway that turns from 'purpose-designed architecture' to 'actual cave'. She sees a room, and walks inside to see if someone here knows where she is. Inside is a gigantic pile of gold, and a gigantic red lizard sleeping on top of it all.

> a gigantic red lizard sleeping on top of it all.

Sounds like someone found a dragon and its hoard.

>>48311616

Please tell me Altea punched a dragon.

>>48311616
Deciding that maybe this lizard knows where she is, she climbs on top of it and starts shaking it to wake it up. The lizard groans, mumbling that she wants five more years of sleep, but Altea knows that this is too important to wait five years! Finally it wakes, rather confused to see a human on this planet. When she fell asleep, it was totally inhabited. She asks a few history questions about the Belkans and the Giants, and gets half-answers and a promise to bring her a history textbook. Then it's Altea's turn for questions: She asks about the bone spear, and the Dragon pulls up an illusory picture of it with her magic:

>The dragon weaves it's hands and an illusion forms. The spear she's looking for.
><Altea> "That's it!"
>She turns up her nose. "...lovely."
><Altea> "Hm?"
>"I had not expected to see that again."
><Altea> "You've seen it before?"
>"Long ago. It is a Kinslayer Spear."
><Altea> "That sounds ominous."
>"Dark weapons made of bone and enchanted with corrupt power. They are designed to hunt those who are kin to it's weilder and it's materials. This one is...Giant Bone."
><Altea> "Oh. In that case, I'm not gonna trade it. Gonna find it and give it a proper burial, with its kin."
>"Such weapons are best destroyed. They are...hateful." She nods.
><Altea> "Gonna do that then. Thanks for all the help."
>"It was a pleasure." She nods "Be careful with such a weapon. It seeks to kill kin and can inspire such in it's weilder."
><Altea> "I'll smash it before it does it then. You gonna go back to sleep?"
>"Most likely, yes."
><Altea> "Okay. It was nice meeting you!" She hugs the dragon.
>The dragon winces again. "L-Likewise."

And with that, Altea starts walking back out of the cave and into the basement once again, leaving a very confused dragon in her wake.

>>48311783
>><Altea> "Okay. It was nice meeting you!" She hugs the dragon.
Altea is best girl.

>>48311783
Back in the basement, she sees a large steel door! Figuring that's probably where they keep their weapons, she knocks it off its hinges with a pair of punches. Inside, there are hundreds of golems, currently inactive, and no spear. Bored and having failed to find the ancient weapon, she starts punching golems instead. Entertained for the moment, she wanders off once again. And now, back to the main story.

Also

>totally inhabited.

Fuck. Supposed to be totally INhabited.

>>48311804
I am the worst at language. Uninhabited. Uninhabited. Uninhabited.

>>48311466
Tazzari, meanwhile, does her own infiltration. Inside, she meets up with another new maid, a blonde who, when her hair is swept back...has pointy ears. Yes, the SAME chick who'd sold claire refreshments back during the Orryx arc, the same one we'd run into on Francisco just a little while ago. She'd come here looking for work as her last cafe had been destroyed in the Old Iron Giant's attack, and got sucked in as another maid for the Jaeger manor.

She helps Tazzari around in exchange for the promise of an endorsement from Somebody Important™ to help her get into the TSAB, probably at Cerberus.

They snoop around, Tazzari digs into the computer systems...and finds a video of Lady Jaeger using her mind whammy on several people, all of them maids.

Of course, this also makes the beginnings of the process take hold with *her*.

She also finds a list of people that Jaeger has whammied, including two Enforcers, a higher-up in the TSAB...and Antistrategos Ares.

The second-in-command of the (land) army on Hyperion. Strategos Plouton's backup.

There's also orders for scores of more golems, all of which are armed with mass-based weaponry...which makes them horribly illegal to own, even in the BSAZ.

Then they continue their searching, looking for evidence of a more physical nature--something to more inextricably tie Jaeger to all the awful shit we know she's been behind. Instead they find a room with two other doors: one labeled "Armory," the other labeled "Finishing Room." They open the latter and find themselves in a smallish room with perfectly aligned mirrors, such that dozens of copies of themselves, in the same maid uniforms that Tazzari had found to disguise herself in, basically reinforcing and building on the budding notion in her mind that she's a maid and servant of Lady Jaeger. More insidious mind crap.

File: dumb1.jpg (56 KB, 630x305)

56 KB JPG

>>48312745

Speaking as the GM: This entire situation had me facepalming heavily at Tazzari.

I mean, I was laughing but man she did not make good decisions.

>>48312745
Her last act of rebellion is to shatter a mirror which instantly interrupts the effect, as it ruins a sixth of the imagery and exposes subliminal sonic effects that aid in the conditioning process.

After trashing that room, they manage to extricate themselves from the mansion long enough to find Tia and everyone else. Tia instantly notes the mental effects that she's under, and Tazzari sends her a copy of the video showing Jaeger fucking peoples' minds over, along with plenty of warnings to have some sort of countermeasure ready 'cause it still works over the recording.

(Ainlinn, meanwhile, obtains a copy of the same file from Tazzari, already planning on who she'll show it to...without warnings...)

And that...is pretty much the end of dealing with Mom Bitch Jaeger. She's out of the picture, her mind fuckery is over, and Tia has enough evidence to sift through to bury the family hip-deep in sanctions. Time for life to kind of return to normal.

OP needs to take a break here, but will return.

>>48312745
>>48312895
>>48312961

As Tazzari's player, I honestly didn't expect the video to transmit the effect, but from then on I just decided to play along with the joke and see how far it went.

File: b5a8df1ae08102d2d727358f0(...).jpg (1.08 MB, 940x2070)

1.08 MB JPG

>The creepy mind control bitch had a maid fetish

>>48314159
Yeah basically. Including for both of her daughters.

>>48314159
>>48314213

It's a good thing they gave her a hand with her sick little problems!

So I kinda have a question here--is Alexa supposed to come across as a supervillian? 'cause, just from this thread, the maiming and the mocking and the gloating, she's not really, uh, that heroic, is she?

>>48315117
She really isn't. The player has joked that she's been going through supervillain real estate to find a nice volcano lair or asteroid base.

>>48315117
>>48315140

It's a running semi-joke that Belkans always run close to villainy.

Yvenne, with her rather forceful personality and powerful elemental magic, is in a similar boat, but is kept in check by Sephia. Then again, Sephia is also inspired by Shu Shirakawa, and Yvenne is often the one who talks her down from building various mad science weapons of mass destruction just because she finds the project interesting. They're a sweet couple.

>>48315117
One of her driving focuses (seriously, the player has a giant boner for it) is pragmatism. The most efficient route to a goal is best, no matter what must be done to get there.

Plus one of the character's Disadvantages in LotW is (Belkan) Pride.

It's a dangerous combination; she's self-aware enough to make fun of it most of the time, but it does tend to make her come across as the least heroic of the PCs.

>>48315140
>>48315191
>>48315208
Interesting. And the, uh,TSAB is okay with this? You'd think potential, uh, supervillians would not be on their 'okay to graduate as officers' list?

>>48315255

Better to keep them in the system where you can keep an eye on them and ensure they're not up to anything.

Then again, Alexa came close to being drummed out after the first incident with Eris, closer than Tazzari did, so she's cutting a fine line so far.

>>48315255
There's a reason she got busted down to "Provisional Cadet" rank during the last storytime and has yet to actually be re-promoted to full cadet. The joke is that she's gonna climb the ladder but never lose the provisional status. "Paging Provisional Admiral Kalina to the bridge."

>>48315255
The TSAB is a giant organization, and given it has "Bureau" right in the name you can imagine it has almost Adeptus Administratum levels of paperwork and red tape. Hell, its central research arm revolves around the Infinite Library, which, as the name suggests, is still not fully plumbed or understood.

While psychological profiling can cull some bad apples, consider that Ainlinn is ALSO a cadet, and she admits to being a sadist herself. They partially intend to see if training and discipline can rein in such poor behavioral tendencies as well.

And as >>48315277 and >>48315284 both said, Alexa has been punished, and is basically a hair's breadth from being expelled; the only thing that's keeping her in the service for now is the pledged word of Lt. Strommons.

>>48315277
>>48315284
Just seems weird to me that a military, uh, organization would keep someone like that in it instead of quietly shipping them off to, uh, somewhere with nice padded walls and nice doctors, where they can't get power or the potential to mess up large swathes of places?

>>48315338
>>48315327
I forgot to add, Alexa is also seeing a therapist.

>>48315338

That would likely happen if they ever crossed the line from 'nascent supervillain' to actual supervillainy, but the TSAB isn't the sort to arrest people on suspicion. Especially people residing within the Belkan Self-Adminstered Zone, since that could damage relations with the Saint Church and the Belkan-descended population.

>>48315348
>>48315368
I guess that makes sense, then? I mean, uh, if all the players and the GM are fine with it, I'm just reading the story, so. But chopping a woman's hand off is pretty big, even if she can't get arrested from it, I imagine there were some repercussions? I guess that's spoilers, uh, though, if you told us now.

>>48315982
That was during a sanctioned duel in the Belkan Self-Administered Zone. It'd be like arresting MMA fighters for assault in the middle of a match.

>>48316025
MMA fighters don't literally, uh, disarm their opponents though.

>>48315982

GM Here: Alexa is walking a VERY fine line right now. She's basically only kept by the fact that her CO and a high ranking enforcer both vouch that she's had her hand forced in all her worst situations.

That and it was Delta who did the severing. Alexa shattered the other arm.

Delta's reasoning is that she's literally designed to be a ruthless warrior. She defaulted to her prior training. Totally not that they were hurting her friend.

>>48316277

No but I saw one throw a pokeball at another.

>>48315348

Hopefully one putting her on a lot of medication.

>>48314277

It's what she deserved, resorting to such underhanded tactics.

>>48287564

No. Just got home right now.

Seems like we'll need a new thread soon.

>>48321469
Indeed, but until then might as well keep this one alive.

>>48314159
She isn't all bad, I guess.

>>48322537
Sounds like the sort of woman I'd be a maid for, yep.

>>48320359
Gonna need a new invite then as the one in that post expired

>>48324989
I think this'll work
https://discord.gg/JJCUs

How long have you guys been playing together?

>>48325593
This game specifically? Or in general.

>>48325680
There are more? I thought it was just this one. Well, both games now.

>>48325708
I meant that we've known each other and been in games together for about 4 years, but this game specifically has been running for about two years.

I wish my friends were into magical girls. You guys have a nice thing going.

>>48325741
If you had to call out any one of the players as being the 'that guy' of the group, which character's player would it be?

>>48326672

After a short discussion, it was nearly unanimously decided that Altea's player is the closest the group has to a 'That Guy'.

His response was 'Smoke Weed Hail Satan' and presumably shooting a revolver into the air.

>>48326668
And that's why there are a few of us who are interested in beginning our own. You have someone here who advertised about making their own Nanoha game, and I'm currently comping up with a magical girl game of my own (that isn't Nanoha related). I'll post up an ad for it later, as I'm currently reading up on Legend of Wulin and WIld Talents.

OP bump. I'll have some more later tonight.

>>48326668
I'm not sure why you want your friends to be pedophiles, anon.

Surprised to see people like Nanoha this much on /tg/

>>48330504

Well, it's magical girls + star trek + mechs. It's a lot of what /tg/ likes.

This thread needs some healing magic

>>48330703

Don't forget the rampant lesbianism!

File: bodaious.jpg (131 KB, 640x360)

131 KB JPG

>>48333499
> :D

>>48325135

Oh dang, must have expired while I was asleep. How long do these last anyway ?

>>48335048
About 30 minutes. Do you want me to send another?

>>48336108

Sure, thanks.

>>48336179
https://discord.gg/97zgv

There ya go.

>>48333636

Wait, Grace hasn't shown up yet.

>>48337454
Grace?

>>48338470

Teaser for a future arc. The GM is also a fan of Bodacious Space Lesbians- Uh, I mean, Pirates.

File: bsp2.jpg (69 KB, 845x469)

69 KB JPG

>>48338589
How am I not surprised.

>>48339088
Because from all accounts htis group is degenerate weeaboo cucks?

>>48339112
Damn right we are.

File: right-on-the-nail.jpg (37 KB, 610x426)

37 KB JPG

>>48339112

>>48339132
You disgust me, you filthy jewcucks.

>>48340523
Damn, I'm just one Trump from filling out my /pol/ bingo card. Can you help a brother out?

>>48340618
What? Fuck no, trump's just a pawn in the greater afro-zionist conspiracy.

>>48340654
Eh, I'm marking it anyway. Bingo!

Buzzwords!

Keeping things alive; at least until the storyteller makes a new thread.

>>48339112
>degenerate weeaboo cucks
Hold up there /pol/

>>48346104
Please don't feed him. He's okay to have an opinion. Don't be offended by it.

>>48346473
>He's okay to have an opinion.
Heh.

>>48346104
You should be thankful /pol/ is here, it is the last bastion of sanity in the world. When the afro-zionist overlord takes over and 'makes america great again' and bans your pedophile vietnamese .gif programs you'll be begging for our help