The Pathways Chart

Let's have a separate thread for this, so that we can use the other one for more freeform thoughts.



This is where the meat of character creation happens. I will be drawing the map, so you just give me the info for it, as well as start building your character sheets! (Also, remember we have the discord in case some things here get confusing)

Since our choices for the relationship map depend on the ones made before, no skipping ahead. We're taking this step by step. Starting (in the next post), with step 1: Origin!

Leads
• Augusta Ang:
• David "Dave" Draven:
• Melissa Kort:
• Eva: formerly homeless woman on the run with memory problems

Features
• Brian Floyd: dark haired, handsome biochemist from Draxco Pharmaceuticals

Extras
• Belinda Hagman: Melissa's best friend who has been unjustly imprisoned in the TANC
• Dartella Okulu: waitress in a local diner.
• Gorgon: Metahuman underground fighter with super-strength and unbreakable skin
• Mike Crandall: bespectacled, pudgy, empathetic bald guy
• Peyton Smythe: Young elected city councillor
• Dr. Rebecca Hu: Medical doctor, socialite and daughter of the owner of the Golden Fist
• Terrapin (aka Danvers Ellison): telekinetic former meta team leader, incarcerated @ city metaprison

Locations
• Caine and Sloane: department store, high-end clothing, cosmetics, housewares and so forth
• Dark Lips Books: Combination coffee shop and indie book store
• Episcopal Cathedral of St. Javelina: a century old stone cathedral standing defiantly in the midst of urban decay. It functions as a true community center hosting functions, both related and unrelated to the Episcopalian denomination, in the labyrinthine bunker-like basement of the church. Among them are a number of recovery and support groups.
• Hair Today Gone Tomorrow: Beauty Salon with backrooms for illegal gambling and metahuman fights
• Hu's Golden Fist: Some kind of unholy Asian/Eastern European fusion buffet joint not far from St. Javelina's
• Plaxo Pharmaceuticals: Shady pharmaceutical company that seems to have their fingers in everything happening in Graybridge
• Schreiber Center for Performing Arts: High-class establishment displaying performing arts for the city's elite
• The TANC (Terrorist and Anarchist Neutralization and Correction facility): one of the more infamous facilities in the world, it is designed to incarcerate those incapable of being handled by more mundane imprisonment technologies
• Wyvern Lake/The Labyrinth: secret and heavily fortified base of some kind some fifty miles west of town. The place is military-like, but perhaps not actually a Department of Defense facility -- seems like it might be more of a private military company kind of thing.

Step 1: Origin
Okay, for Origin, aside from you all adding your own characters to the map (which for you here just means, naming and briefly describing them), you all also add one extra (an NPC).
Give them a name, a brief description and describe how your character relates to them (not the other way around). Could be something like [little sister] or [I want him dead]. You know, basic stuff 😋

Windy/Qralloq: One of you should probably pick your shared evil lover for this. The other will get a chance to connect to them at a later stage.

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So, that first part applies to all of you. For the second part of this step, each of you picks one of the options under origin and then follows the directions underneath that option (You'll find the detailed write-ups of the options on pages 20-21). Answer the prompts, set your Values according to what the option you picked says, choose everything else that's listed there.

And if you have questions, ask me! (Discord will be easiest, I think).

Okay, let's get started on this 😅

(I bet this is so much easier in person)

Lead: Augusta Ang

Extra: Brian Floyd (2d4); dark haired, handsome biochemist from Plaxo Pharmaceuticals; former (evil) lover

Origin: Gifted (Music)
- nurtured by parents
- realized the exceptional nature when in grade 6, and guest performed (piano) with Gold City Philharmonic Orchestra
- traits: d4, except Glory d8
- new Distinction: Connected d4
- new Distinction: Attractive d4
- Step Up Relationship: Melissa Kort d6

Lead: David "Dave" Draven

Extra: Terrapin (aka Danvers Ellison); telekinetic former meta team leader, incarcerated @ city metaprison. 2d4
Link: Distant Friends

Origin: Gifted (Mutant)
-parents hid his abilities
-discovered his abilities after a tragic animal attack while camping with his family.

-traits: d4, Glory d6 Truth d6
-new Ability: Regeneration d4
-new Distinction: Daring d4
-boost Regen to d6

Youth: Jock
▼ What was the defining moment of your athletic career?
He could've been a star player but his parents were terrified of anyone finding out about his powers so he learned to be more of a support team member than the star he could've been.
▼ Were you a team player, or more of a solo athlete, and why?
More on the solo side but learned the value of having people working together for a cause/goal.
▼ Has your athletic background given you some above average skills?
He learned to be subtle and hide his exceptional nature.

JOCK GETS:
▼ Add a new Distinction (Recommended: Agile,
Athletic, or Martial Artist)

Athletic d4

▼ Step up a Resource

Relationship: Danvers Ellison to 2d6

▼ Step up a Relationship, Asset, or Resource

Athletic to d6

Focus: Paranormal

Recruited out of college and leveraged to join a metahuman strike team, Dave served unofficially and off the books for what he presumed were covert U.S. interests for a number of years. He and Danvers Ellison were assigned together on the four person team and they all struck up a lifelong friendship, saw the world and battled incredible and odd threats.

Paranormal gets:
▼ Step up or add an Ability or Distinction
Invulnerable d4

▼ Step up or add a Heritage or Distinction
Marksman d4

▼ Step up a Relationship
Augusta Ang 2d6

Road: Risky

Dave and his team continued their paramilitary careers until everything cane crashing down in the fateful mission that resulted in Ellison going rogue and the team disbanding.

▼ Step up Glory or Power
Power to d6

▼ Add or step up a Distinction
Marksman to d6

▼ Step up a Resource
Step up St.Javelina's to 2d6

▼ Step up a Relationship, Asset, or Resource
Regeneration to d8

Life Changing Event: Tragedy

As with all good things, an end must come. An emergent extraction of an Intel asset turned into a giant clusterfuck when Dave and his team ran into much more resistance than was reported. Local militias had sieged a medical facility deep in the South American jungle and while the rest of the team held off the militias, it was Terrapin's job to extract the Intel source. Instead the telekinetic went rogue, killing the Intel source and burning the facility to the ground... without ever saying why. A military tribunal cleared the rest of the team and remanded Terrapin to the TANC.

TRAGEDY GETS:
▼ Step up Justice or Love twice or step up each once
Justice to d6, Love to d6

▼ Step up a Value of your choice
Duty to d6

▼ Step up or add a Distinction:
Vicious d4

▼ Step up two Relationships once or step up one
Relationship twice
Eva to 2d6, Melissa 2d6

▼ Step up an Extra
Rebecca Hu 2d6

▼ Step up a Relationship, Asset, or Resource
Vicious d4->d6

Bonus Stage:
- Feel free to shift your values around but keep the totals the same
✅

-Take three points to spend between Abilities and Distinctions (new or step up)

Athletic d6->d8
Marksman d6->d8
Regeneration d8->d10


- Take two points to step up extras and locations (no new ones)

Step up: Rebecca Hu & Hu's Golden Fist

- Take two points to step up Relationships (no new ones)

Step up: Eva & Augusta

Lead: Eva

Extra: Dartella Okulu (2d4), waitress in a local diner. Once took Eva in from the cold, so Eva likes her and thinks she's nice. (That was the night Eva escaped from Wyvern Lake.)

Origin: Alien/Metahuman

▼ Metahuman Heritage: Altered, manufactured or something like that -- Eva doesn't know for certain.

▼ Did she grow up knowing she had powers? Oh yes.

Metahuman Gets:

▼ All values to d4

▼ Truth raised twice to d8 (seeks to understand her origin, her purpose)

▼ Heritage: Secret d4 (see above, likely Manufactured or the like)

▼ Ability: Super-Strength d4

▼ Distinction: Fearsome Martial Artist d4

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Youth: Outsider

Eva was raised in a facility and spent most of her time in surgery, rehabilitation, or training. She's underwent near constant "improvements" and built social skills during this time. (But remembers little to none of this.)

▼ Where did you find comfort? On operations, and at times in trying to devise means of escape.

▼ Just what was it that pushed you beyond loner to full outsider? He not being permitted to interact with regular kids and the outside world.

▼ What kinds of conflicts have developed between you and others in your surroundings? Eva isn't very good at showing empathy towards others -- she has an underdeveloped EQ, and it frequently shows.

Outsider Gets:

▼ Step up distinction: Fearsome Martial Arts to d6

▼ Step Up a Location: Wyvern Lake to 2d6

▼ Step Up Relationship Asset or Resource: Super-Strength (Ability) to d6.

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Focus: Paranormal

Since her memories are fuzzy and she was probably on heavy psychoactive drugs the whole time she was with the GRIC (is that right? I now cannot find my acronym) program at Wyvern Lake, Eva doesn't remember much... but she was intended, probably along with some others, to be a force used to defend against a paranormal threat, or perhaps used to explore a paranormal environment. Is it a buried alien ship or base and her physiology has been altered to survive it? Is it a different dimension that's growing in size, slowing taking over the Earth, and she was supposed to strike into it and somehow shut it down? Maybe!

▼ How long have you held this fascination? Not really a fascination, but might become one as she learns more.

▼ Is it something you’ve had since childhood, or did an unexplained event open this world up to you? Exposed to it in the program.

▼ How do you go about your research? Do you fly solo or work with a team? Eva was on a big team doing this (GRIC?), but now she flies solo.

▼ Do you sleep in a tinfoil hat and encourage others to do the same? Nope. What what she does sleep in? That's a topic for another phase.

Paranormal Gets:

▼ Step up or add an Ability or Distinction: New Ability - Invulnerability d4

▼ Step up or add a Heritage or Distinction: Stepping Up a Distinction - Martial Arts to d8

▼ Step up a Relationship: Dave Draven to d6

---

Road: Risky

Eva is absolutely willing to put it all on the line to get what she wants -- exposing the Facility at Wyvern Lake.

▼ Have your actions ever gotten you, or someone close to you, seriously hurt or in trouble with the law? Yup. Draven. Good thing he can heal! (I'm thinking it was Eva that hurt him, during their first encounter.)

▼ Have you gambled it all, knowing that failure would mean a future living in a van down by the river? Yes -- sticking around to expose the place is risky and will end badly for Eva if she's caught.

▼ Have your actions caused friends or family to completely disassociate with you? Yes. Some coworkers and patrons at the book/coffee shop have tried to get to know Eva, but she's too focused to even understand they're trying to become friends.

Risky Gets:

▼ Step up Glory or Power: Step up Power.

▼ Add or step up a Distinction: Adding Daring.

▼ Step up a Resource: Stepping Up Mike Crandall -- doesn't know how to handle his attentions.

▼ Step up a Relationship, Asset, or Resource: Stepping Up an Asset - Super-Strength

---

Life-Changing Event: Advancement

One of Eva’s clandestine or commando operations went awry and she was jolted out of whatever control the nasty dudes at Wyvern Lake had over her. This might have been a violent impact or an electric shock that knocked out a control device in her skull, or it might have been someone inside the program dosing her incorrectly with her control meds, intending to set her free. Her life-changing event is her freedom and realization that her whole life, her existence, has been secretly controlled by someone else.

▼ Was this something you saw coming and had been working towards for years? No! I mean… in a way. But it was like a switch being flipped. She might have some memories of being in the program, though, ones where her attempts to find out more or gain some amount of freedom were shut down.

▼ Did you wake up one morning and find yourself in the right place at the right time? If the right place was some alley in town, in her (finally) right mind, then yes!

▼ Who or what recognized your potential and bestowed this endorsement upon you? Well, now that’s a great question! Someone inside the program at Wyvern Lake, certainly. An admirer? A sibling? Her mother, whose cells she’s cloned from? The alien hive mind or machine intelligence that was used to create her?

Advancement Gets:

▼ Step up Glory or Power twice: Step up Glory and Power once each, though I don’t want either of these increased

▼ Step up a Value of your choice: Justice

▼ Step up or add a Distinction: Stepping up Daring to d6

▼ Step up a Location: Wyvern Lake

▼ Step up two Relationships or one twice: Draven stepped up twice to d10 (does she even *have* other relationships?)

▼ Step up a Relationship, Asset, or Resource: Martial Arts stepped up to d10

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To be completed...

Sheet:
- Feel free to shift your values around but keep the totals the same

Lowering Power by 2 and Glory by 1; raising Duty, Justice and Truth by 1 (to d6, d8, d10)

- Take three points to spend between Abilities and Distinctions (new or step up)

One point to Daring, two to Attractive.

- Take two points to step up extras and locations (no new ones)

Stepping up Gorgon twice to 2d8.

- Take two points to step up Relationships (no new ones)

Stepping Melissa and Augusta up once each to d6.

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Step 2: Youth
Cool, cool, let's get started on the next bit.

For Youth, each of you first creates a Location. We should all do that first before moving ahead, because the next step relies on what was built before. Describe how your character relates to that location.
One of you should probably create the prison here. Witchdoctor, this might be a good opportunity to establish the counselling center or whatever it's called.

Once everyone has placed their location on the map, each of you creates one connection from either the extra or the location you created to a different extra or location on the map. Describe that connection.

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Okay, again, the first part is for everyone, after that, it's down to which option you pick. Follow the steps and update your sheet and this thread (Options on pages 22-23)

The prison system, inherently unjust and inhumane
Is the ultimate expression of injustice
And inhumanity in the society at large.
Those of us on the outside do not like
To think of wardens and guards as our surrogates, yet they are.
And they are intimately locked in a deadly embrace
With their human captives behind prison walls.
By extension, so are we.
The terrible double meaning is thus imparted
To the original question of human ethics
"Am I my brother's keeper?"

Augusta Ang chooses as a local location, the prison, the Terrorist and Anarchist Neutralization and Correction facility, known more commonly as The TANC. One of the more infamous facilities in the world, it is designed to incarcerate those incapable of being handled by more mundane imprisonment technologies.

Augusta's relationship to the prison is that her step-brother used to be in there, Raoul Parker. He's her mother's son, mixed white and latino, given up for adoption in high school. He is serving hard time for when he was involved in murderous activities with the outlaw motorcycle club, the Grim Dogs. She has reconnected with him recently, although her mother doesn't know he is even alive, and her father doesn't know Raoul exists. He was released recently, having served his time, and fled for parts unknown.

Augusta has been working hard to try and improve conditions for maximum security prisoners, and has formed somewhat antagonistic relationships with several of the staff in the warden's office.

Subsequent additions:

- Brian Floyd is connected to Wyvern Lake, in that he is an agent for them (whether that's officially through Plaxo Pharmaceuticals or independently remains to be seen)

Youth Pathway Outsider

Augusta spent much of her youth secretly meeting with her step-brother at The TANC, an ultra-prison near The City. While she didn't really connect with her step-brother Raoul very strongly, she became obsessed with the conditions at the facility. Making little headway with administration, who rightfully dismissed the pleas of the young teen, she leaned hard into big city society life, making the connections she would need to impose real change. Her obsession, however, typecast her as being an eccentric musician, and drove her into a place where the phrase 'always alone even in a crowd' became apt. This culminated with a sense that even though she knew and was connected with more and more people, and she was alienated from her peers and family by her focus. When alone, she studied law and music, knowing she would need both to make real change. Among her friends, her society-friend bestie Peyton Smythe became the one person she could rely on.

▼ Step up Distinction: Connected to d6
▼ Step up Location: The TANC to d6
▼ Step Up Relationship: Dave Draven to d6

Location: Department store: Caine and Sloane. High-end clothing, cosmetics, housewares and so forth and it's where Melissa works and where she met her friend and boss Mike Crandall.

Location: Episcopal Cathedral of St. Javelina

A century old stone cathedral standing defiantly in the midst of urban decay. The old church changed hands multiple times over the years, having originally been built as an Orthodox church for the mostly Eastern European immigrants that flooded the city prior to the second World War. Its baroque dark stone bulk looms over the run down brownstones and tenament buildings huddled together that define the look of the neighborhood.
The fortress-like church is the tallest building in the area; it's buttresses and belltowers easily seen blocks away. It functions as a true community center hosting functions, both related and unrelated to the Episcopalian denomination, in the labyrinthine bunker-like basement of the church. Among them are a number of recovery and support groups.

Connection: Dave Draven hosts weekly support group meetings at St. Javelina's.

Updated my post above to include the Youth path stuff. Nooooooo idea if I did it correctly...

Step 3: Focus (Part 1: Relationship Map)

Okay, let's do the relationship map part first again. First you connect any extra or location (not necessarily one you put on the map) to any other extra, location or lead and you define the relationship of that extra or location towards the other extra, location or lead
And then you either connect yourself to an extra or location that's already on the map or you create a new extra or location (this also gives you 2D4 towards whatever you connect to)

Here's my go at the Focus step:

1) I'll link Wyvern Lake to the TANC with the connection: uses inmates for research.

2) I'll introduce Plaxo Pharmaceuticals as a location/extra (or whatever it'd be classified as) and link it to Dave Draven with the connection: under surveillance by.

Dark Lips gave me inspiration for my next location. I think Dave should live above some kind of seedy restaurant... Hu's Golden Fist, the Cock of the Wok. Yep, that's gonna definitely be where he lives. 😂 Some kind of unholy Asian/Eastern European fusion buffet joint not far from St. Javelina's.
The owner is an old army buddy of Dave's and his daughter works as an attending at the city ER. Yep, I know where my connections are going next 😂

I think I will connect Mike, Melissa's boss to the Dark Lips. He likes coffee and books so it's a natural favorite spot for the guy.
Then I'd like to create a new extra: Belinda the bestie who is connected to the prison since she is in it (2d4).

1. As ridonkulous as it seems, Plaxo is totally connected to the GRUC program at Wyvern Lake. (That's Genetically Recombined and Upgraded Commando, but don't tell Eva that.) Plaxo supplies experimental and illegal druuuuugs... including one we should somehow discover that Eva needs to not lose her shit! Actually...

2. Connecting Eva to Plaxo! She needs mood | stress | angrrrrrRRRRRR leveling drugs from them. (She might not know this yet, and the drugs might do more than level her out. They might keep her alive.)

BTW, connecting TANC and Wyvern Lake is genius, witchdoctor.

Step 3: Focus (Part 2: Options)
Neat, and with that, we can move onto the mechanical side of the Focus step! Pick your choice of Focus and do your thing