[The Lovers] Character Concepts and creation

Victoria "Wiki" Nielson with anger management and a smart mouth.
The concept is Technician - InfoSec professional, helps casinos protect their data security but struggles with peoples expectations and her looksAs Archetypes I see Hacker / Survivor with dynamic essence. Her Affiliation/faction is in direction of Virtual Adepts / Sons of Ether

That looks like a great concept, runekyndig. What else are you others thinking of, even in bare concepts. If you're stuck, answer the question, "It would be fun if I could do _____."

Also, there is a free quickstart if you need it.

Okay, so I’m torn between a few concepts. Haven’t played Ascension in a while so I have lots of ideas.

Euthanatos Lhaksmist professional gambler. Lhakmists are luck followers who adhere to chaos theory and total randomness. He’s not so much in it for the money; more for the thrill. And his life choices are based on arbitrary determination: coin flips, rain drops, static on a tv screen, etc. Cats pick his stocks, and business decisions are made by opening books to random pages and interpreting the text.

A Virtual Adept Reality Hacker who is working on a project to create an Open Source language to rewrite Reality's Operating System. Plays and loves Shadowrun, as well as the Matrix, Neuromancer, and other cyberpunk fiction.

A Buddhist Tulku of the Akashic Brotherhood; basically, a revered Tibetan monk who draws upon memories from past lives. His powers are based on "abhijna," the special spiritual abilities of the Buddha and other enlightened Buddhist masters. He runs a monastery in Nevada and seeks to bring dharmic ascension to the world, one soul at a time.

Okay, this is gonna be a problem for me because I have too many ideas I want to try...

A Southern Hollow One/Bata’a whose paradigm revolves around Johnny Cash’s "Man in Black." Whereas Cash wore black in the name of the poor and downtrodden, this mage wears it in the name of the unascended masses of reality. He uses music to fight the status quo (the Technocracy), and his magic has a distinct Southern gothic flavor to it, combining Hoodoo, Native American spiritualism, and folk Christianity.

A Hasidic Jewish rabbi of the Celestial Chorus. He is a Qabbalist and Baal Shem who uses the secret names of G-d to create golems and bind angels. The character is devout and scholarly, searching for a means to better understand and explore the many emanations of G-d, as represented by the Tree of Life. He has been censured from the Hasidic community due to some unknown transgression, and thus lives among gentiles.

Wow you peeps are fast. :) I leaning two ways so far, either an Opus Dei style Celestial Chorus, although that's has a similar flavour to Moloch's qabbalist. Otherwise I'd like to go full-on sex drugs rocknroll Cult of Ecstasy. If you've read Sex Criminals, the central conceit is that the main characters freeze time when they do the dirty.

Initial ideas off the top of my head:
1. Euthanatos bartender who uses his job to watch the strands of fate intertwine around his customers and sometimes do some influencing where he thinks he can do some good. (could be a casino game dealer instead of a bartender)
2. Celestial Chorus priest who works at a wedding chapel, bringing people together in blissful union.
3. Verbena who works at a dispensary, using her knowledge of herbs and nature to help her customers overcome their pain.

I have a couple ideas I was going to pitch.
1. Bata'a Voodoo practitioner from Louisiana who is a little new to all this stuff, with big personality and moving on in life mostly on his good looks, and a history of less than legal business ventures.
2. An Order of Hermes member that is using his new powers to solve the everyday person's problems, working as a Private eye, but he also does other odd jobs with his "Occult Knowledge."
3. A Dreamspeaker who gains insight into his world through the stars and planets, finding a lot of inspiration from Astrology for his works.

It's hard to describe a group when you don't know the members yet.
I kind of like the idea of them hanging out in or near some of the iconic LV buildings. Like the towers in Excalibur Hotel or under the Bellagio Pool

Maybe we can start narrowing down our options? That'll help all of us begin to imagine how our cabal is like.

I'll be going for my Cult of Ecstasy mage then. Character details coming up.

Oh this is golden!

Wiki is a doctor Who fan!

Some of her magical instruments are a leather cased computer on her wrist (inventions)
And her writing symbols are going to be galifraian

So we have
runekyndig: Virtual Adepts - Technician - InfoSec professional / counter hacker
BedzoneII: Cult of Ecstasy mage
JackJack: Voodoo practitioner OR Private eye OR Astrology buff
virtualbasement: bartender OR wedding chapel priest OR Verbana dispensary cleak
King_Moloch: gambler OR hacker OR buddist OR cristian musician? OR Jewish rabbi

Well we are not in the penthouse nor the gutter.
There is a lot of religion going on... just an observation

I’ve been leaning towards my Verbena. I’ll work on a write up and share it when i’m done.

Okay, I’ll do the Qabbalist chorister.

im pretty split three ways here honestly.

Split happens, my dude.

I wasn't expecting that, but it got a pretty decent face palm.

As runekyndig observed, there's quite a bit of religion. That could be our common thread, different spiritualists/religionists with a common goal. Perhaps separately, each of us has received a sign or vision of an impending threat, and we all have our own motivations as to why we need to address it.

So we have
runekyndig: Virtual Adepts - Technician - InfoSec professional / counter hacker Tech
BedzoneII: Cult of Ecstasy mage Sex
virtualbasement: Verbana dispensary cleak Drugs
JackJack: Voodoo practitioner OR Private eye OR Astrology buff
King_Moloch: Jewish rabbi Qabbalist chorister. holy

The religious theme is starting to disappear, but its very Las Vegas. We could try a commonality outside the box. Are they all members of the same gun club? Frequent the same bar/bowling ally....

I have a few M20 PDFs, if the Storyteller wants me to post links to them.

I have the 20th Anniversary edition, plus a few others that came my way (books of secret, How do you DO that)
We should not promote piracy, but if someone in the group needs a book, we will find a solution

We could do some different group creation exercises

1) Each writes 5 rumors about their character. 2 Good ones, 2 bad ones, and 1 false one. GM and the creator are the only ones who knows which one is which.

2) We start of by having each character know two of the others in a pentagram model.
Character A,B,C,D,E, where A knows B and C, B knows A and D and so on.runekyndig knows: virtualbasement and JackJack
BedzoneII knows: King_Moloch and virtualbasement
JackJack knows: runekyndig and King_Moloch
virtualbasement knows: BedzoneII and runekyndig
King_Moloch knows: JackJack and BedzoneII

Understood.

Actually on the topic of PDFs, are we allowed to use all the M20 material?

Probably. I have access to most of the books. In your character sheets, indicate the source of all non-core material used so I can track it down.

Mordecai ben Eliyahu - Rumors:

Did you know Mordecai was a member of the Lions of Zion, an ancient Craft of Qabbalists now based in Israel? Supposedly he was forced to leave and come to the States after he committed a serious breach of religious law. Now he’s herem, an exile, and can never go back.

i heard that Rabbi Mordecai is part of the Mogen Ha Chav - the "Shield of the 36." It’s a secret organization with the sole purpose of protecting the "Tzadikim Nistarim." The Tzadikim are 36 righteous individuals whose existence keeps the world from ending. The guy knows their names. Hell, maybe he’s one of them...

A friend of a friend said he saw that dude square off against a Technocracy HIT Mark. According to him, you’ve never seen anything like an old Jewish guy screaming rotes in ancient Hebrew while his pet golem tears a cyborg apart with its bare hands. That kind of shit leaves a lasting impression. My friend’s friend said he browned his pants when he saw it.

Rabbi Ben Eliyahu? Stay away from him. The man is zealous, even for a chorister. Thinks he’s doing God’s work. If you aren’t a fellow Haredi, you’re an enemy...

Mordecai regularly interacts with several Umbrood who take the form of Elohim or "angels." He seeks them for advice and to pray at their feet. One of them even serves as his "meggid," a sort of qabbalistic supernatural mentor.

Rumors about Wiki (2 good, 2 bad, 1 false)
A)Some says she used to dance (Striptease or Burlesque) and some of her tattoos hide scars from an abusive boyfriend. Others say that she used to be a Suicide girl

B) She is LA best counter hacker. When someone tries to hack into a system, she stops them. She threw out a casino pit boss for questioning her value to the casino. She yelled at him for 20 min, telling him how she stopped hacks and exploits costing the casino 1,2 mill pr month. While he just strutted around the floor costing the casino 60k a year! Making her 20 times more valuable than his sorry ass. - this was in the middle of the casino floor

C) She once shot a guy in the nuts with a gun. He tried to grab her ass and steal her purse

D) She has a library with stolen data from a Technocracy database.

E) She was identified as starting a barfight but was never charged as she could prove that she was at the other end of the city at the time.

Rumors about Ishtar

Did you know that that's not her stage name, but her real name? The Incredible Ishtar, the one and only exotic adult magic show on the Strip. At Spearmint Rhino. And even then, you'll have to know the right people to get on the waitlist to watch her.

I swear to you she's at least in her forties, even though she doesn't look a day over twenty-five. Friend's dad swears by all that's holy that she's the same person as The Amazing Astarte, a famous burlesque dancer who had her heyday in the 70s.

They say she only performs half hour sets, but it feels like the show lasts for hours. They say the audience number in the hundreds, but each attendee swears that it felt like a private show exclusively for him. They say she favours her most loyal fans with their deepest desires, although no one knows anyone who has actually admitted to this.

They say she pulls rabbits out of herself.

@comicrawgoss has the lowdown on her partner/consort/mate, whom he describes as 'a dark-skulled Ghost Rider', with blurry blog pictures of her dressed as Zatanna, riding pillon on his bike, which he declared as 'heresy, because you can't mix Marvel and DC'.

Yes lets have that connection between Ishtar and Wiki

Connor Kent Rumors

Connor is from somewhere in Ireland, coming from a superstitious group of Irish Travelers, he can knick anything its said.

Connor is said to speak to ghosts, or at least see them, but most come from people he's lost to paradox or other oddities.

Connor is of the Order of Hermes, though has no official house that he is claimed to. As no one has yet to see any particular value in him yet.

Connor's total knowledge of Magick comes from materials from Tremere vampires no longer able to do it themselves.

Connor has made some deals with spirits, and possibly even worse to get himself out of some tricky situations with the Technocracy.

How are we doing character sheets? Sorry just wondering.

Just on a GP custom sheet. Nothing fancy required.

I submitted my character

I've admitted the two submitted characters into the game, but I haven't reviewed them as of yet.

Appreciate it, I tried to keep as well into the universe I could, but im not as well versed in this world as I am in others.

Glenda Baldwin Rumors (2 good, 2 bad, 1 false)
1. Glenda knows how to keep a secret. I can't really say anything else, as no one told me what the secrets she knows are and she sure isn't talking.

2. Don't let Glenda's light-hearted exterior fool you. She is capable of being serious, driven, and determined when the situation calls for it. She is a great friend and will go above and beyond to help others.

3. Glenda is pretty dirtbag-adjacent, due to her job. She's got relationships with some shady people and sooner or later it's going to come back on her hard.

4. Glenda had to let go of a child when she was younger and desperate. It was not a formal adoption and she doesn't even know the names of the people who accepted it. Sometimes, she considers trying to find her son, but she has no idea if he is even alive or where he might be living.

5. Glenda has an abusive ex boyfriend who has been stalking her for a couple of years now. Any guys that she spends more than a few minutes with are likely to notice his car following them.

Has Glenda and Wiki meet and bonded over abusive ex-boyfriends?

Possibly even the same dude?

Definitely the same dude! Perhaps Qralloq wants to make him a lieutenant in some badguys gang, its even better.

I'm completely down for this.

How is he going to work with the rest of the group?

How do you know that isn’t the false one? 😬 Although since these are rumors, all of them are a little exaggerated.

The club connection between Ishtar and Wiki definitely works for me. Ishtar's background makes her rather influential in her circles, so she would've been the ideal person to have helped Wiki out and set her back on her feet.

As for Glenda, interestingly, I had Ishtar needing a steady supply of pharmaceuticals, because she makes them into her own concoctions via Matter. So she'd definitely know Glenda very well. She might not yet know of the Glenda/Wiki connection.

I'm tempted to offer a initially adversarial relationship between Ishtar and Mordecai. Since her supposed inspiration is Old Testament pagan-inspired, that would put her at odds with Mordecai. On the other hand, she's probably the only one who knows what he's going on and on about. Her Time sphere actually sees some truth in his old fashioned god of the past, so she kinda relates.

One It. Bad Guy coming up, heh. Codename: Enrique Badbae

These are excellent ties, except for the rabbi. I like the tension that he'll bring to the group, but I feel a strong tie to keep him close as well would be beneficial. Maybe an addiction or vice that puts him in Ishtars orbit? A personal connection, with the players or Enrique Badbae?

There are definitely tantric parallels in the kabbalah...

I’m still working out the character in my head; I’m hoping to write him up tonight. I’ll start considering links to the other characters.

I’m imagining that Mordecai as a fairly old gentleman, so I see him being somewhat curmudgeonly and insular (especially with strangers) but it shouldn’t be an issue for the group. Since he has a pre-existing relationship with the cabal members, he’ll be more open with the other characters than he’d be with people he doesn’t know.

As I mentioned, the character is a rabbi and Hasidic Jew. My intent is to portray the character as respectfully as possible; I used to have Hasidic neighbors when I lived in NYC so I had the privilege of learning a lot about their community. But playing an accurate representation of a Hasid would potentially limit my behavior too much for this game; I’d be forced to abstain from a large number of activities due to religious strictures. Consequently, although Mordecai identifies as a Hasid, he doesn’t quite observe all aspects of Orthodox Judaism. In certain situations, especially if he’s desperate, he is willing to violate Halakha (Jewish religious law). You can assume this probably has a lot to do with why he was exiled. He’s a deeply flawed man of faith, and his transgressions are something he struggles with. It’s part of his journey.

Anyway, I felt like I should explain this so it doesn’t seem like I’m doing a half-assed portrayal of a very intricate, real world religion.

I totally dig Mordecai's portrayal (and full respect to real world Hasidics). Which is why what crossed my mind was the qabbalah angle, since that's way more unorthodox, and depending on what one subscribes to, potentially heretical as well. Perhaps Mordecai's studies of the sefirot leads him to Ishtar in some way, whom he would not otherwise associate with.

I'm still picking backgrounds to finish off my character, so conceivably Ishtar could have the Legend background, ie she's linked to the Akkadian/Sumerian religion in some way, and both Mordecai and her need to collaborate on some Old Testament related evil threat.

How are we doing? I had posted some npcs in a separate thread. Feel free to define a relationship with any of them. I can post more info as needed.These tradition mages are the brunt of the community of LV, outside of any specific npcs we need to bring in from your backstories.

Some of Wiki's connections

The Black Pyramid Chantry: Ralph Cannon (Sons of Ether)
She likes his style and some of the ideas the Sons of Ether has. She might not be in Chantry but does their data security, as well at Luxor hotel/casino.

Virtual Adepts: Syd Kowalcik, Skip McQueen
She knows them both and thinks they are oddballs, but 80% of what they say makes sense in a way she never known before. It was them that challenged her to hack a server that did not exist. It was her initiation ordeal after she awakened 5-10 years ago.
The server she hacked, was a Technocracy server, and she got away a rather big datadump. (Background: Library 2 dots)Online:
The online community of IllumiNaughty has a secret subforum for hackers/Virtual Adepts around the world.

Esther, or Ishtar, is a longtime resident of LV, and would know most of the Black Pyramid Chantry, and is likely to have worked with and/or had a relationship with at least one or two of them. She might even predate the chantry and its members. As mages they would also know of her background and legend, as she is a clear public figure in their circles, and has performed at the Luxor on various occasions.

Glenda is familiar with the Black Pyramid Chantry, but hasn't really made it a point to visit. She and Aurora have met once or twice, because they know some of the same people, but they're really more of acquaintances.

Glenda knows the members of the Big Spring Chantry, is on really good terms with Sarah. She helps Jerry Tanner obtain drugs for shamanic rituals, and they sometimes grab some food together. Jerry knows what Enrique Badbae's car looks like and makes sure to look out for him if he is hanging out with Glenda.

We have five characters submitted, /fistpump.

I'll review them now, let you now if I have any questions or concerns, and then get some Sin City shenanigans started.

Just surveying, who's putting points in Matter? I was thinking to do so, but also considered that if some of you have it, I'll put points in Mind instead. It'd be nice to see a range of powers. I'll have Time as well.

Wiki has Correspondence, Mind, Matter

Forces, Entropy, and Correspondence. For Connor

Glenda has Life, Prime, and a little bit of Mind.

Im looking through everyone's characters, rumors and the such. Connor is a kind of recently ended apprenticeship mage from the Order of Hermes, and will be relatively new to the city, and I think it'd be fun if I could have an introduction with another character as a kind of letter of recommendation to another character, but this is someone who would have had to have been in the world of mage for a while, I was kinda leaning towards King's Character, but I think wiki could also work. if you guys would be interested in exploring that more?

The Black Pyramid Chantry, Luxor Hotel and Casino

GM, while I've posted a more straightforward reason why Esther will be attending the event, I'm going to pitch a slightly more interesting idea if that's ok.

Excellent, thanks! Edited, and this works perfectly with Esther's Demeanor.