THIS QUEST IS NEWBIE FRIENDLY

This plot summary:

>http://ironmaster.wikia.com/wiki/Plot_Summary

Will get you caught up without reading through the entire archive.

THE IRON MASTER
Health: 1 (3)
Power: 4 (12)

Athletics: 2
Cunning: 3
Technology: 5
Insight: 2
Observation: 3
Nefariousness: 2
Stealth: 1

Powers: Super Strength, Super Speed, AI, SynthSkin, Model T, Mobile Dolls, Ghost Whisperer, Deathless, Monster Form

>Link to rules (including powers list): http://pastebin.com/cVXaZb4x

Action Points:

The Iron Master: 2/2
Julio Pedone: 3/3
Rica Rivera: 2/2
Red Death: 2/2

Resources: 17
XP: 1

Last thread, the meeting between Asrael and Team Blue had ended with their agreeing to meet later at a more secure location, and meanwhile you developed awesome genetic science while Eidelos is disappointed about your and your team's unwillingness to bond with them, thus slowing down the process of exchange of information.

>>21355927
>while Eidelos is disappointed about your and your team's unwillingness to bond with them, thus slowing down the process of exchange of information.

We did that?
Hmm, could we convince the doctors to go through it somehow? Or maybe have IM bond? .... though having IM bond might not be the greatest idea.

>>21355927
We had bunch of suggestions last thread, are you going to use them or drag this out by having us re-suggest?

>>21355927
Hey, can't we improve insight by one by spending 1 xp? The same thing with Athletics, Nefariousness, Health and Stealth?

File: 1351622480473.jpg-(1.38 MB, 1600x1162, Villain Quest Gang Map 4.jpg)

As usual, I forgot the map, so here's that.

Rolled 62

>>21355782
can we use that last xp for a research monster form
+3 Technology +2 Insight
-2 to Athletics Stealth Nefariousness and Observation

Tao Master and Tao as powers ?

then bond with the alien?

Just wanted to mention that when we go full monster form our insight is 7, not four. We get an additional +3 from empathy.

>>21356131
For what actions was insight good?

>>21356155
Defnse against cunning attacks. Like those from a certain pyromaniac we know and love

>>21356042

The cost is half of the new total rounded up, which means Stealth is the only thing you can improve for 1 XP.

>>21355960

There are indeed risks to bonding with an alien hivemind, but it will give you a mess of Shapeshifting discounts in return.

I think last time we'd decided not to bug Kestrel's suit because it was too risky?

>>21356426
yep too risky

>>21356087
this seams good but switch Tao Master and Tao
with Good Luck

>>21356426
Well, if we spend the XP to get another monster form that boots our tech by three we will have the highest in the city by at least 4, so the risk should be minimal.

>>21356078
BTW good news, I got off my lazy ass and made an outline, I can push these things out faster than usual now.

>>21356538
Actually, I approve of this. Get good luck for the ability to get a Nine point tech advantige over anyone in the city. Then bugg her suit

>>21356556

So, anyone in favour of bonding with the alien hivemind? We get shapeshifting discounts if we do.
And if we're going to have IM bond, then we're certainly having the doctors go through that too.

The downside is that the Hivemind will learn everything we know, right? Do we want to risk it for potentially finishing cloning and maybe other technologies much, much earlier?

>>21356606
Do we have enough xp for that?

How much can we buy with our funds?

>>21356610
I'm not comfortable with losing our humanity at the drop of a hat.

>>21356640
We lose humanity if we do that?

>>21356610
yea but use the research monster form please

>>21356556
also we could run some credit card scams and make bank

then research

then idk with a effective Technology score of 9 5 +3 mf +1AI what cant we do Technology wise?

>>21356640
>>21356679
I don't think so
we are a deathless master of robotics our definition of humanity is a bit broader then most

>>21356708
And now we got a monster form too.

Speaking of which, can't we basically take over low-ranking mooks with our Deathless power and then use monster form to turn them into decent fighter? While they wont stand up to most of the super, they will provide good back-up and distraction which could be vital in a fight.

>>21356426
Hmm, can we get rica or ourselves to go while deathless ghosts?

Just caught up with the quest again. How did this guy figure out we had necro powers? Its kind of reassuring though that he thinks we only obtained them powers when we raided that vamps crypt

>>21356708
Huh. Suppose we do this and take Skynet aswell... mother of god.

Im all for taking samples of our dna for future use. And do we have some Lagrange left around the lab?

>>21356562

Awesome! Thanks again for all the maps, I feel like they've added a lot to the quest.

>>21356606

With your genetic template already on hand, it's not hard to whip up a new altered form. This one stretches you into a slightly more slender form, with a long, elongated head and the end result that you look kind of like an Eldar. It makes your Tech abilities basically matchless and the universe is your best friend now.

>>21356640

Hobo dude seems pretty okay, so if there are side effects, they aren't immediate.

>>21356679

The way you phrased this makes it seem like you might be under the impression that there is an actual Humanity stat like in Vampire, so just to be clear: There isn't.

>>21356752

No, the monster form keys to a genetic trigger in your actual body.

>>21356781

Asrael doesn't "just know" anything, for the record, everything he found out about you, he found out for an actual in-universe reason. That said, you don't actually know what those reasons are. Someone mentioned they suspected a plant in the Iron Guard.

>>21356788

Yeah, you have samples of Lagrange DNA, just not the tech to clone new bodies with it (yet).

>>21356868
>No, the monster form keys to a genetic trigger in your actual body.

What if we decide to change bodies? Like, we finally make a clone of Swordman's body and posses it?

>>21356868
That was me, and I suspect its Cat or that Ivy we grew in the first grade but never got around to throwing out, you know sentimental value.

>>21356891

Then you ditch all your physical powers with it.

Hey, if we're going to agree to alien bonding, perhaps we could try to recruit it as a henchman beforehand? I mean, we will be giving a lot of trust to it, so we might as well ask something in return

>>21357077
So, what will it cost to transfer them then?

>>21357187

Same as when you got it the first time. Hopping around bodies isn't intended to allow you to gather up a ridiculous ability list like a Katamari ball for super powers.

>>21357213
So what you're saying is, that if a super who is specialized in powers that affect mind, magic powers and conceptual powers like telepathy, ice/fire/nature/etc powers, luck, necromancy, mechs, etc, he could freely hop bodies with Deathless and have those powers retained while a super who physical powers will lose them?
Hmm, while I see the reasoning behind this, it doesn't seem right. Why should we pay XP once we already got shapeshifting or superhuman powers? We already have the knowledge, we just need to invest time and resources.
Not saying that we should be able to steal powers from other supers by possessing their bodies, but the ones we already bought shouldn't cost the same to be used again.

>>21357077
... That wasn't how it worked last time

>>21357312
No thats how it worked

>>21357325
Not really. We transfered most all of our powers from body to body. We bought super srenght in the IM form then kept it (along with evereything else) when we transfered to swordsman. When in swordsman we bought Super speed and grabbed peak durability from his body. When his body exploded we lost peak durability because we never bought it, but we kept Super speed because we paid xp for it. The clear precident is that powers we bought witht XP are shared across all forms but powers from a form we stole from that body are not.

>>21357308

Death has drawbacks. Try not to die.

>>21357461

No, the precedent is that powers bought with XP stick to your original body. The ability to possess clinically dead super bodies is an unintentional side effect of the way the Cancer serum works, not an intended method of quadrupling your power at-will.

>>21357566
Fine. Then when we posses swordsman's body again we need 5 xp and 24 resourses to regain all of our powers by what you have said. Good to know.

>>21357540
What kind of a no-answer is that?
Still doesn't change the fact that all powers that are not physical in nature can be transferred through a body possession. I mean, we didn't suddenly lose the ability to command our mechs and robots when we were in Swordman's body, did we? Neither did we lose the AI or Ghost Whisperer ability.

>>21357639

You're right, it doesn't change that fact. Deathless is indeed a power that is more helpful when you prioritize certain ACTIONS and powers over others. This has always been true. I am also not eager to just hand out 12+ XP worth of upgrades for no cost at all. This has also always been true. Why is any of this coming as a shock to you?

>>21357790
Moving beyond the increasingly acrimonious rules discussion (I liked it better when we were pointing out infinite loops for the op rather than arguing) lets make some actions for the week. First we need to start moving our sets into our new territory. Second we need to buy super speed for Rica and Red Death. Third we need to continue our investigation into the locations of mesmer and his girlfriend.

>>21357790
This isn't coming as shock to me and I never said that it should be completely free. I'm just confused why should it cost the same as when those powers are initially bought.
We can give superhuman abilities to other people by using resources instead of XP, I suppose we should be able to do the same thing to a new body we posses. Though I am aware that we cannot buy powers from other sets using resources and give the to our minions but there should be some kind of an alternative way to transfer Monster form without having to pay so much xp for it again.

And fluff-wise it doesn't make much sense. Once we have some knowledge or tech, it shouldn't take us the same amount of effort to replicate it again.

>>21357923
Oh and fourth we need to fast track the Katana project with the Ronin

>>21357923
>Moving beyond the increasingly acrimonious rules discussion (I liked it better when we were pointing out infinite loops for the op rather than arguing)

I'm not as much as complaining as pointing out that some builds have clear advantage over other.
A physically inclined super with high athletics, health and Deathless is pretty much neutered if killed while another one which invested in mind attributes (insight, cunning, etc) and powers along with Deathless can simply change the bodies like socks and retain most of his powers.

I think it is a flaw and powergamers could take advantage of it.

Oh, as for Sequels. I think a short sequel involving Steve and maybe Kestral conquering San Dieo while the IM goes "legit" with his end death thing might be fun. Have it end with frightener (or more accuratly an elite attack force of his) performing a reverse Eden Tech Senario back in LA setting up the Frightener VS Iron Master senario you mentioned.

>>21358028
We've been pretty blatantly powergaming ever since we got a look at swordsman's stats. Of course, given those stats it was entirely justified.

>>21357923
Have we decided if we're going to bond with the alien and if we're going to bug Kestrel's suit (should be done with her knowing it though) now that we can have higher tech score?

And now that we can have so much higher Insight, wouldn't IM be better suited for investigation? Keep in mind that we can directly control a robot-minion so that we don't have to snoop around in our monster form.

>>21358089
True enough. Though we weren't planning on that from the beginning of the game. The opportunity just handed itself to us.

Ideas I've had
>If we get the Skynet Power:
-Develop a phone app, embed ourselves into it
-Start game company, embed ourselves into the games, have multi-player
-Develop a new Operating System, if it gets popular we will never die, all future versions will have ourselves in it
-Send a copy of our code into space via radio signal, wake up in the grim darkness of the far future

>>21358354
Upload ourself into satellites. With the high tech score it should be possible.

>>21358354
I think the game company is especially clever because if we do, then every time some nerd nostalgias then we have a chance to come back.

>>21358152

Observation is the primary stat used for investigations, and your battle morph has terrible Observation.

Also, no, I haven't really seen a lot of consensus as to bonding with the alien or not, but I do think it was decided that the tech morph would have a high enough Technology score to make bugging Kestrel's suit a safe option.

>>21358433

Every time you reinstall Bloodlines a vampire mechanist super villain is brought back to life.

>>21358469
>Observation is the primary stat used for investigations, and your battle morph has terrible Observation.

Shit, I thought it was insight.


Anyway, I'm for bonding provided the alien agrees to become our henchman.

>>21358469
bond with the alien please

>>21358501
>>21358664

If we're doing this then doctors are doing it too. I guess the benefit would be that we might get their knowledge too.

>>21358469
Yeah, based on what you said we have a minimum of a nine point edge over anyone in the city, with the possible exception of the artificer (not sure if you were incluiding him). Also, we should really rearange our sets. But since I'm posting on a phone, someone else will have to do the details.

>>21358708
of course and grab a clinically dead super body see if it can do anything with that too

>>21358791
But we don't have any around.... do we?


I would like to be informed of the dangers before we go through this though. What are the risks that we're looking at, OP?

>>21358831

Well, first off, the doctors might not appreciate being forced to bond with something, and bonding with it gives them psychic super powers for as long as the bond lasts. So there's that. The other main risk is that your sense of individuality might fade away. Your consciousness won't be destroyed, but the concept of existing as separate from Eidelos may end up as an increasingly bizarre or unpalatable notion. Having a high Cunning and Insight will help stop that from happening.

Benefits are that one, you'll be directly linked with Eidelos which will make it hard for them to lie to you, including anyone else they're bonded with, two, you pick up a couple of unique powers for as long as you're physically bonded with Eidelos, and three you'll get a lot of discounts on various Shapeshifting powers as a result of Eidelos' knowledge of genetic engineering being plugged directly into your brain.

>>21358923
>Having a high Cunning and Insight will help stop that from happening.

Can we do bonding while in monster form?

>Well, first off, the doctors might not appreciate being forced to bond with something
Hmm, guess we can't convince them even if we're doing it too?

>>21358923
How does deathless interact with that?

>>21358957

You can, but if you plan on staying in a morph perpetually while bonded with Eidelos, it means you'll be taking some stiff penalties to a lot of ACTIONS all the time. Nefariousness gets nerfed by both your current morphs, so you'd be robbing yourself of all AP if you stayed morphed all the time as insurance against erosion of individuality.

>>21359087

If you ditch your body, Eidelos' influence goes with it, but you won't be able to pop back in at-will, because Eidelos is in that body now (though they might just let you back in, since it was yours to begin with). Although, again, the deal with bonding with Eidelos is that it messes with your desires on a very fundamental level (without even trying to), and if you're not careful, you might end up not wanting to leave Eidelos.

>>21359134
We could just possess the hobo and then have Eidelos bond with him again, get the info we want then leave him be.

>>21359134
hmm
seems dangerous then, bet doctors are going to lose their checks and we run the risk pretty high too.

>You can, but if you plan on staying in a morph
Wasn't the idea to bond to give and receive knowledge? We don't have to be bonded all the time to use it, right?

>>21359195

Eidelos is presently carrying the knowledge of about a thousand human minds. This is their patchy and incomplete version of their total knowledge and memory since even with all their redundancies, losing 99.9% of their population to the Other has left irritating gaps in even their most vital knowledge, and has blown most of the trivia away completely. Despite that, they still contain far more information than your brain is physically capable of handling, which means you need to bond with Eidelos longterm to make use of the information.

Incidentally, Eidelos never unbonded with the hobo. Without bonding with someone or other, Eidelos has no method of communicating with you at all.

>>21359134
It sounds like being with him involves constant checks to retain our individuality. Sooner or later we are going to roll snake eyes. Anyway, we've done nothing in 4 hours, OP please get the show on the road.

>>21359325
Fucking do ett!

Gods have we forgotten Big Red Button Syndrome!? It's for the good of man, for SCIENCE!, we must do this.

>>21359398
You make a compelling argument.

>>21359398

You still have the probe that is Eidelos' core self in one of your secured laboratories, of course. You've learned by now that the sphere in the center is basically an armored shell for a liquid metal brain which you don't fully understand and thanks to the loss of all kinds of engineering information in the Other's attack Eidelos doesn't have it completely figured out either. Regardless, it's also got another eight of those bonder antennae on it.

You step forward and push the giant red button labeled "do not push," and one of the antennae springs to life and introduces itself to your bloodstream. Once again you can feel the ice cold metal racing through your insides, but now that it has human anatomy figured out it doesn't take Eidelos long to find your brain.

That's when everything changes.

Your mind is linked to a thousand others, like being plugged into a biological internet. You can transfer information from one or the other instantaneously. They're filled with the post-apocalyptic backups from Eidelos, and it takes a few moments to feel your way through the network to find what you're looking for...

Eidelos' tricks don't work exactly right with humans as-is, and there's some gaps in their knowledge regardless, but they still provide you with formidable knowledge.

>All Shapeshifting powers can be purchased for half the XP cost
>New power: Puppeteer. With sustained eye contact, you can roll Cunning against a target once every ten seconds or so. Once you succeed, their will is overwritten by yours. The control is incomplete and they stagger about in a vaguely zombie-like manner, making it clear to everyone that something is wrong. You can control a number of puppets equal to your Power score.
>Pick one of your ACTIONS. For so long as you're bonded with Eidelos, it gains a +1 bonus.

All of these may increase in power as your bonding with Eidelos grows stronger, but so too does the danger of being absorbed by the collective.

>>21359890
Cool.

And you changed you name for some reason.

Anyway, did Eidelos get any useful information out of us?

We're feeling fine, could we try convince the doctors to take the part too? I mean, if they see that it isn't that dangerous, they might not be that averse to it.

>>21359890
>http://pastebin.com/cVXaZb4x
Neat, we need to get a monster form with increased cunning for the puppeteer power.

How many bodies does Eidolos have at the moment anyway?
Did we get it those monkeys we wanted to give it?

>>21359890
Insight gets the bonus. Helps us make those rolls to avoid influnce. Also, have steve moniter us carefully for signs that our individuality

>>21360083

Not yet, no. You'll need to take the time to raid a zoo or something to get your hands on them.

>>21359935

You can't really tell. You're far from being absorbed by the collective and poking through all of its vast intelligence for information it may have yoinked from you would take a Hell of a long time. It's probably picking up some tricks on machines from you, though.

Also, the doctors aren't particularly reassured just because it didn't have any nasty side effects in the first fifteen minutes.

>>21360288
>Also, the doctors aren't particularly reassured just because it didn't have any nasty side effects in the first fifteen minutes.

Oh well, they'll come around next turn.

>Not yet, no. You'll need to take the time to raid a zoo or something to get your hands on them.
Can we buy them? We could probably get 20 for one resource (assuming that one resource is 100,000$). We'll need to find a seller though.
Lets have our AI dig around the internet to find something, or have Steve do it, or both of them. Whatever, we shouldn't be wasting actions on something trivial as that.

>>21360350

Yes, just buying them is also an option. 20 per resource seems about right. They're just monkeys.

>>21360420
Lets buy 20 for now.

>>21360448

Alright. That leaves you looking like this:

Action Points:

The Iron Master: 2/2
Julio Pedone: 3/3
Rica Rivera: 2/2
Red Death: 2/2

Resources: 16
XP: 0

What next?

>>21360112
Is slipping, in the meantime, have us get rica and red death super speed. Then arrange a meeting with a representative from the ronin in a very secure conference room. (Like secured with our absurd tech skill, and anti ghots defenses, anti everything really)

>>21360288
ok have them join at will then send some bots in a few vans to grab some apes all of them !
we call this caper Monkeying around
at the same time get send red death as backup

Okay, this is going damn slow. Lets do things one by one then.

Have Red Death investigate further, looking for Mesmer's GF while we contact Santos Espada and bribe them to leave Red Death alone for one week.

>>21360477
give the monkeys to Eidelos

>>21360479
Right, do this, give super powers to our minions, Julio included.

OP, can we have IM use his tech roll to hack banks worldwide to acquire some dosh? If so, then lets change into smart monster form and do it

>>21360503

Alright, the Santos are asking for 5 resources to leave Red Death alone. Is that alright?

>>21360477

Oh, note, that should be 36 resources. That was a typo.

>>21360568
Cool with me, as long Red Death has even slightly easier time investigating. If he fails, have him use the second action on this too

>>21360568
>>21360582

Before we send him off, give him super powers as this one >>21360479 mentioned

>>21360607
And give him cancer serum just in case

>>21360534

That's just a Robbery action using Technology and Nefariousness...And your Nefariousness is shot in your tech morph.

The Red Death is eventually able to track down Miguel in one of Asrael's older hideouts. Being basically just a regular dude, the fight is extremely lopsided and Miguel is captured. After a quick interrogation, Miguel says that Mesmer and his girlfriend were told to leave the city and not come back, and by the look of things, they have. Red Death and his incredible Insight are fairly certain he's telling the truth.

>>21360743
Who was Miguel again?
Does he know where they went?

How could we get around contacting them?


Anyway, now have Red Death investigate Whisper and try to locate him.

Also, you forgot to give superpower packages to our henchmen, I suggest giving all of them strength and speed

>>21360743
Also, establish a legitimate business in one a neighbourhood in Long Beach which is at extortion right now (you mentioned it in the previous thread) and improve it to robbery.

Would it be better to have IM in his monster form do this or Julio?

>>21360853

I did forget to mention, but Red Death's sheet has been updated. He has Super Speed now. Julio's Power score is zero, you'd have to bump it up to at least one before he'd benefit from any super powers. Also, Miguel is one of Asrael's muggle buddies, he was at the meeting with Team Blue. He doesn't know where Mesmer went and with Whisper out of commission, there isn't really any way of contacting them again...Which is kind of the point.

The Red Death spends a turn investigating Whisper, but no luck. The man's secrecy is now his undoing, as he has made himself very difficult to find.

Have Steve contact Kestrel so that we can bug her suit.
Use the excuse that we are afraid that Asrael might be leading them into a trap and that we would like to be ready for that.

>>21360938
What would it cost to make Julio's power score improved? 1xp?
How much will it cost to buy 1xp?

>>21360965

It's 11 resources to buy 1 XP right now, and yes, it's just one XP to bump up his Power to 1.

>>21360743
Ask him about Cat. And Whisper.

>>21361045
How much do we have right now and if we bump his score, will he be able to get both strength and speed or just one?

and could you answer this question here >>21360926

We should capture stray cats and dogs, have Eidelos posses them and act as spies throughout the city.

I mean like tens of thousands of them

>>21361045
AHHAHAAA no.
His physical scores are crap, far better to wait until we have cloning and have him posses literally any super who's genetic data we have stolen.

>>21361045
How many resources do we have left?

>>21361090

You have 22 resources. You can give him Super Strength and Super Speed, but he'll only be able to activate one at a time with a Power score of 1.

>>21361074

Cat got the same deal as Mesmer. As far as Miguel knows, YOU killed Whisper.

>>21361199

Oh, wait, no, did some math wrong. You don't have the resources to pay for both Strength and Speed in this turn if you also pay to bump his Power score, just one or the other.

Did we vacate Compton yet?
We should get on with that. One of the neighborhoods we can keep, right? Please keep the most profitable one for now.


>>21361215
>>21361199
I see... then we should do as >>21361123 says

>>21361199
>As far as Miguel knows, YOU killed Whisper.

Why does he think that?

What could we have Rica do for this turn? Can she improve neighborhoods or are her stats too low for that?

Let me run some numbers for the gang movement.

>>21361267

The last message Whisper ever sent out was sent to literally everyone except you, Asrael included, in which he said that the bots attacking him were sent by the Iron Master, being pretty clearly his mechs. He had some security footage attached that appears to confirm this, although, being security footage, it's grainy and easily manipulable.

>>21361280

She can try.

Also, you're still sitting around in Compton.

Also, also, someone mentioned putting a Droids Do down on an Extortion neighborhood for 8 resources, then having Julio improve it to Robbery, that sound good to everyone?

>>21361296
Please do, I still don't understand the business part of this game.

>>21361306
Oooh, a set-up!

>>21361331
I mentioned that and I'm still for it.
Anything to keep the quest rolling. This is taking way too much.

Also, will the idea of dogs/cats spy network work? We could have our gangs capture them or just buy them off from pet-shelters.... they put them to sleep there anyway.

>>21361331
We should move out of Compton then, lest Ronin and Espada get twitchy and nervous.

Julio
1. Move 52nd to Avalon.
2. Red guard (should be legion) to Redondo Beach
3. Brass guard to Some place in compton
IM:
1. Radical Guard to Harbor City
2. Lunatic Guards to a place in long beach that team blue would want to reestablish a precinct on
Rica:
1. Copper legion to playa del ray

>>21361475
Why are we moving them again? And are those places where they are moving free neighborhoods?
I don't really understand what's happening here.

>>21361522

It's the result of negotiations to get a ceasefire going, and yeah, they're free neighborhoods because the recent free-for-all left a bunch of holes in pretty much every single neighborhood in the city.

>>21361567
Ah, okay.
Lets do it then.

Do we really need to use actions simply for moving sets?

>>21361475

Okay, I'm going to go with this and then get the second meeting with Asrael rolling. While I'm doing that, there's this:

>http://pastebin.com/gKNv9LD2

This is my current draft of v.0.7 of the rules. It includes:

>Expanded Corporation rules! Bad news: you have to put down some extra resources before you can build any more franchises of Droids Do. Good news, after the startup costs, individual franchises are now much cheaper.
>Media and politics rules! You can now change the laws of the city itself and establish a shadow government.
>New combat technique! Move actions aren't completely useless anymore!
>Air Powers suck slightly less!
>Rules for restructuring your gang's business!
>Formatting changes hopefully make things slightly less difficult to understand for new players!
>You can online with friends...Or enemies!

If there's anything in particular you want to see added to the rules, now would be a good time to mention it. Worth noting that the quest is still running on v.0.6 for now, since v.0.7 is not finalized.

>>21361691
Since there are different industries now, does that mean we can have more than one franchise in one neighborhood?

>>21361691
>Okay, I'm going to go with this and then get the second meeting with Asrael rolling. While I'm doing that, there's this:

Like someone said in the previous thread, have someone shadow Behemoth to locate where the meeting is going to take place.

Rolled 14

>>21361306
could we manipulate it to find out who did?

>>21361691
>>21361854

From what I can tell, Luxuries business is pretty much the best industry to get into.

Or perhaps Banking, it costs a lot more to start up but we can establish it even in drugs neighborhood and still have have some profit (unless I'm misunderstanding something

>>21361974
Probably Asrael. Wanted to frame us or something. Though where would he get bots from?

The only other person who could do this is the Artificer and he is in jail. Unless he broke out.... which is entirely possible seeing how the city was a warzone the past few months. Slipping by shouldn't have been hard for him.

>>21362157
the kidnapped good doctors he stole.

>Improve a neighborhood: By paying some resources and succeeding on two skill checks, usually Cunning and Insight, you can improve a neighborhood and increase its Prosperity by 1. The TN of these checks is usually 7 plus whatever the Prosperity of the neighborhood will be after you've improved it. The resource cost is equal to one plus the absolute value of whatever the Prosperity of the neighborhood will be after you've improved it

Does this mean that to improve the vaporized neighborhood the TN will be 3 and the resource cost will be 5?

>>21362397
Right, completely forgot about them.

We should have Red Death search for them too.

>>21361691
Note how rica still has one action. (we kinda need to meet with the Ronin and get the Katana project back on track)

>>21362515
do we need to use actions for that?
Just call them up, have them bring their people and resources and hit it off. The doctors can handle all of the procedures.

OP, you still here?
You writing an update or what?

Could we take over the collective as opposed to it taking us over? Would we need a power for that?

>>21362686


Seriously OP, if you're gone, just tell.
I'm going to sleep, wasting my time here

The meeting takes place in a secret hideout belonging to Kronos. Already well-shielded such that no electronic signals can get in or out except for a dedicated line, which Asrael disables upon arrival (much to Kronos' irritation). Another of Asrael's groupies, who introduces herself as Linda, spots Behemoth's tail a few blocks away and scares him off. Behemoth poker faces. He doesn't trust Asrael and is kind of embarrassed one of his minions had to run someone off for him that way. Likewise, ghosts are repelled from the area after Miguel puts down some wards on the hideout.

Asrael opens up another of his briefcase, sliding several sealed folders across the polished mahogany table in the center of Kronos' briefing room. "Most of the details of my plan are in here," he says, "addresses, maps, things that are difficult to memorize. It's all been left as out of context as possible, nevertheless, do not let these out of your sight, do not let anyone else see them, even if they're your best friend or look exactly like someone else in this room. Preferably you'll memorize this ASAP and then incinerate the contents. Don't shred, incinerate. Shredded documents can be pieced together, it's happened before."

"Okay, so what is all this?" Kestrel asks, opening up the folder and glancing through it.

>>21362570

Doesn't take actions to hand out powers, no.

>>21362748

It's technically possible. But no. You are a drop in an ocean. You will never have the willpower to exert control over a collective spanning a thousand minds, which grows stronger with every stray cat you feed it. And, by the way, yes, the stray cat spies thing can totally work, since there is essentially no limit on the number of creatures Eidelos can puppet at once.

--
"Yes, let's hear your master plan," Kronos says, doing little to keep the agitation out of his voice.

"One more thing, the locations in those documents are all referred to by codenames, use these exclusively when discussing the plan, including in this room. He can't hear us in here but there's decent odds he can see and hear us just about anywhere else, God knows I can. Give him an address or the name of a building, he'll know to investigate it, but talk about Checkpoint Delta and he'll have nothing to go on." As he talks, Asrael turns to a whiteboard and pops off the marker, scribbling something on it.

"Okay," Amp says, "what are you asking us to actually do?"

"The strategy is to cut off the head and then burn the body, basically," Asrael says, "we need to get the Iron Master and all of his important minions imprisoned simultaneously. The vast majority of his criminal empire isn't particularly loyal to the Iron Master himself. The more economically focused sets, called Legions, are primarily loyal to his right-hand man Julio Pedone, who founded and runs most of them. The military focused sets, called Guards, are mostly loyal to his field captain, a super villain named Mask who my sources say is an artificially produced super using a serum based on data stolen from EdenTech's Project Swordsman during his November raid. If we take out those two and the Iron Master himself, the sets will likely devolved into a civil war and even if not, they'll be easy pickings for crackdowns afterwards."

"And you plan to cut off the head by killing them?" Behemoth asks.

"No," Asrael says, "that'd be a preferable strategy in general for its finality but I've killed Mask once already and she didn't stay dead, same with Julio. I think it's safe to say that most or all of them are Deathless. So we make sure everyone in Los Angeles believes he's the one who killed Okata and Colombo, then put them all in the Towers, and hope they stay clammed up like the Artificer for fear of retribution. Even if not, it'll be a while before he can break out without any outside help, during which time we can snag his phylacteries and I can put a more permanent end to him. I don't think any of his henchmen are a longterm threat without him at the helm, though. They'll leave for contested cities if we can secure a Team Blue victory before they break out of the Towers."

"So where do all these maps come in?" Kestrel asks.

"And how do we know none of this is a trap?" Amp adds.

"I had the chance to kill you, Amp, not that long ago. Why would I wait until you've got three super buddies to back you up to take another crack at it?" Asrael asks, stepping away from the whiteboard to reveal that he has apparently been doodling a cartoon of the five of them attacking the Iron Master with their various powers. "The first step is basically a shakedown cruise. Make sure we can work together. We'll just be running a standard attack on the Iron Master's economic sets to lull him into a false sense of security, make him think we're going for the standard gangbusting strategy. He knows we're working together, so we need to confuse him to get the advantage of surprise back on our side. Kestrel is feinting at Point Alpha," Asrael says, and everyone looks down at the maps in front of them, "Kestrel's going to lead a SWAT team in a genuine attack at Point Bravo. Kronos is at Bastion, Behemoth will be down below to protect him so that he can focus all his energy on bending time. He'll be giving us an edge over previous attacks by undoing mistakes. I'll be heading up a diversion at Check Charlie on the other side of Palos Verdes."

>>21363081

It isn't super weird for me to take an hour to write major updates.

>>21362398

Yes, that's accurate. It will get steadily harder to improve and less expensive as you get closer to 0, and then more expensive and harder still once you get above 0, which is weird, but negative Prosperity is also an edge case.

>>21361854

Oh, and I never responded to this, but yeah. You have to break into each one separately, but you can monopolize the entire city's economy if you have the money and patience for it.

I think the thread might be winding down. Plus if this headache I've got doesn't subside, I'll be unable to continue anyway. So. Thread archived here.

>http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/21355782/

Plans shall be set about entirely by the Iron Master, hand build terminators or mech, with no assistance given to anyone. Kestral needs to stay in the dark most of all, because...

Plan #1: Slash and Burn: High focused explosives will be placed under important or civilians locations so as to collapse the target sites, numbered 1-50. There will only be 37. This is the Getaway method, cause maximum destruction, ruin our reputation, but damned if we're going to the towers for this.

Plan #2: The lifeline. Our mundane looking phylacteries shall be moved to different locations, even out of city ones. One into the largest vault in the city via a bugbot, preferably some private owner with a large estate, integrate it with one of the works or simply hide it in there, leaving a small tracker the pings once every year or so. The other two will be out of the city, the underwater cave for Julio seems nice enough.

Plan #3: Pick up stakes. If it comes down to it, Julio will be place incharge of the Legions until we can extract him. this is a lie, we're disappearing from LA, and moving elsewhere, many are dead, but if we can pick up the trail on Mesmer or Cat, we can track them down. We'd rather we out in the sticks in an old nuclear bunker then deal with Asreal. Also look for old nuclear bunkers in the Nevada area for sale.

>>21363559

Wow. You're pretty panicky.

>>21363559
I think I have a better plan:
Step 1:
Get the Ronin to a secure conference room. And begin making provisions for a secret creation of Katana's
Step 2: "Fall for the Diversion" We hit Asreal with everthing We've got. Us, our mechs Mask and Red death. The idea here is to bleed Kronos dry and hopefully kill Asreal.
Once amp and Kestral close on our position we break off.
Then the Katanas move in on Kronos. They doge Behemoth and focus everything on dropping Kronos as quickly as possible, then retreat.

>>21363559
Plan #1: Nope.
Plan #2: Only we know where we put those, so I think that's actually safer.
Plan #3: I am not living in a bunker. Fuck that.

Are we listening in on this or are we listening to a recording?

>>21363852

To a recording. You agreed not to transmit any signals from the bug itself, and instead just retrieve it from Kestrel's suit later on.

>>21363905
So we now have proof of our innocence?

>>21363820
Actually, we don't go out ourselves. We use our absurd tech score to jam the communication between Asreal And Kronos. Fat lot of good rewinding time will do him if he has no way of telling Asreal what to do.

>>21363820
Asreal has an entire spy matrix of moles and ghosts and other things that seem to know every move me make before we do it, the ritual spike aside that likely was another job by Asreal

We're the only Red in town, literally, everyone in our court is either a super we made, or recruited in the case of Red Death. Overall we dont have much of a chance unless we did something crazy like armed all our Guard with Photon and Aegis and attacks enmass beyond the deployment capiblities of the police while we robbed several high value targets, left behind clues the Ronin and Family were with us the whole time, and just Leave. We'll be on the run, but the world is our oyster. We've better things do do than deal with Asreal and his sunshine squad of whitecoats, we have to Save The Planet.

I say we make for Hawaii and set about saving the planet from outerworldly invaders.

>>21363920
We don't tell anyone we know what he said at the second conference.

>>21363905
was the bug linked to a cam in the helmet? if so we could have gotten images of the maps, if not then we just go steal behemoths set and copy them before he realizes they were taken

Rolled 99

>>21363820
also make some Made men

and super apes jack some monkeys,chimps, gorillas,orangutangs what ever up on what ever we have on hand super strength speed drugs plasma guns a few dozen apes with guns will give any one a pause on the sear WTF factor

add to that buying some xp and get zombies as a last ditch defense

>>21363928
fuck yea

>>21363930
no we stay and make this city well defended we got an invasion to plan for team blue is just more bodies for us to use


>>21363991
and amps

>>21363920

Innocence of what?

>>21364048

You can't begin to afford all of those powers.

Rolled 14

>>21364110
what about the guns and monkeys ?
I want to see amp and behemoth fight monkeys with guns.

>>21364146

Assuming you can get Eidelos on board with fighting local battles for you, sure.

>>21364063
Blowing up the other gang leaders.
I should have said relative innocence.

>>21364221

No. Asrael said they needed to make people believe you did it. He never said he had any reason to believe you actually hadn't. An implication isn't going to instantly clear your name, especially since in context it doesn't matter whether or not Asrael knows you didn't bomb the building, either way he needs to make sure everyone else does. Saying "believes" instead of "knows" is a weird word choice, but maybe he's not sure himself. Either way he certainly hasn't admitted it himself and even if he had, it's not like you couldn't have forged the recording.

Rolled 15

>>21364189
Eidelos the minds of earth are not in order
those who would stop my goals are cumming to attack the sources of Resources. acutely this is why I have had such little time to spend with you and tragically it diverts my attention from the coming invasion. Eidelos I need your help Earth needs your help here are 3 dozen apes and some guns if you can take down these two amp and behemoth (make noticeable what we know of there powers ) It would allow me to more quickly and fully point my attentions to were it is needed here with you.

>>21364287
Damn well there goes the p....
We could just forge the damn recording.

Submitted for your approval: Operation Firestar!
We shall fake footage of Asrael admitting to blowing up the other bosses.

Also did we miss a chance to just seize the other gangs while they were leaderless? Or are they nonlocals? Like their main HQ is back in japan/italy/new york or some shit?

>>21364333
(in an attempt to rile the other gangs up and cause chaos in the city. Martial law be damned.)

>>21364333

Made Man wasn't actually the leader of the Family, just an important and more durable member. Ironically, he was sent because he was more likely to survive an ambush.

Like most street gangs, the Santos Espada are more a loose alliance of different groups who share a common culture than a unified organization. Morales was an important set leader, but there are others like him still left in the Santos.

Okata already had a successor chosen in the event of his untimely death.

In short, no, you did not miss a chance to seize the other gangs while they were leaderless.

How about that organization that gave julio a bunch of cash? we could get in contact with them or something and plan against asrael or something. Did we ever save the girl that he killed?
What kind of stuff can we do with tech score? I think I remember op saying we could hack and crash a sateliteon our enemies at the risk of bringing down some feds on our head a while ago

>>21364557

Yeah, it's hypothetically possible to drop a satellite on your enemies, but with the city in its current state that's basically guaranteed to bring about martial law (not to mention destroy the whole neighborhood).

You tried to save Lily, but with Asrael having whittled down your forces so much, you weren't able to do much. Unfortunately, they haven't left you with any method of getting into contact with them. Hopefully once Asrael starts acting up again in the open they'll rebreak the ice.

>>21364636
If only there was a smoking crater in the middle of the city that would be the perfect location for that...

There we go, plan D.

>>21365010

Well, okay. But what good will dropping a satellite on the atomized remains of Vermont Square do?

>>21365019
Nothing, unless certain enemies were standing under it and we had a spare body to attract them there.

>>21365019
did we get that fang or whatever that lily was trying to hand us? Could we analyze it to see what it does exactly?

>>21365086

Julio still had it on him when he was buried beneath the building that fell on top of him the one time.

Lets set up a secure room for a meeting. Call Julio, Rica and Red Death and tell them of the situation, have them listen to the recordings.

They might have ideas on their own.

Also, we can always set up bogeys of our supers with synthskins.