[GURPS] Celestial Horizons

[Ladytron]

Originally Posted by Hal Hammerhand

I'm not too confidant coming into this system but I do like learning a new system.

I'm not the most GURPS expert of experts but it's not too bad. A couple things might take getting used to re: skills and talents, but nothing too crazy. I'll help you if you need (assuming I can ).

[Humble Athena]

Yes, you can post in the RP thread or the comments/ questions thread over in the Misc games folder at any time.

[Xian]

With more than a little trepidation...

Jonah Name: Jonathan "Jonah" Smith Designation: Human Anticipated Role: Security - (Handle threats with prejudice) - Secondary - Handyman (Maintain structures) Literary Archtype(s): Primary - Outlaw Secondary - Caregiver, Everyman Initial (In-Character) Hopes, Fears, and Goals: Character Concepts • Jonah is loyal to a fault to those he has deemed worthy of his trust. While not a high bar at times, Jonah is also not as naïve and ignorant as initial impressions would indicate. He is generally well-meaning, but a less than average intellect and education growing up has left him with a number of areas that normal people take for granted. • Jonah is very comfortable with violence, because it is what he has known for the majority of his life in The Barrens and the one endeavor in life where he has excelled and was valued. He is every bit a soldier and warrior: tough, adaptable, and dependable, but find this at odds with the relatively safe and benign of routine life on the ship and that leave him feeling ill-at-ease and anxious. • Jonah would rather be doing something physical instead of nothing, so in the times where violence is not needed he busies himself with fixing the mundane things that tend to break and keep things running. While of generally buoyant spirits, Jonah can quickly become gloomy if he is pushed to be introspective. • Jonah is a soldier and warrior at heart who has had to make difficult choices in life that haunt him everyday. He has fought and survived many situations which, by most accounts, he should not have. Surviving can be a curse as much as a blessing. • Jonah is never beyond hope despite his past and even present circumstance. Due to the threat of a violent, gruesome death inherent in his profession and experience in The Barrens, Jonah relished the simple pleasures of life and a belief that even in the darkest of nights the sun will eventually rise. He finds the best in the worst situations, because he believes that despair is a worse fate than death. • Friends come quickly to Jonah. Open, gregarious, and often affable, his only regret is a tremendous sadness that most of his friends will inevitably die-- some by his own hands or decision-- while he lives on. He remembers most of them fondly and often. In an odd way, Jonah finds comfort in being the one to bear the burden of friends' death; their spirits can rest easier for that, he believes. • Jonah will fight to the death to protect those he considers his friends and family. He values his life, but he values the lives of his friends and family more. • Jonah no longer fears death because it comes for everyone eventually. However, Jonah has vowed to meet it only on his own terms. He expects to die in a violent battle and feels it is expected of him. To meet death stupidly or by giving anything less than his best is anathema. • Jonah is quite thick-skinned, literally and figuratively, and he is keen to forthrightness and blunt honesty. He is quite capable of issuing offense without intent, for it takes great effort to leave him feeling offended. A life of a soldier has done little to provide him with any sense of decorum. • Jonah is not very smart, but he is by no means slow. One of the few things that can get under his skin is being treated like a brainless brute. His issue isn't in his intellectual capacity, but growing in The Barrens did not offer much in the way of education and gentler aspects of society. Teach him something, and he will remember it. Treat him like a brainless brute, and he might not step in front of the next environmental hazard that finds its way to you. Goals • Jonah has many goals, most of which are quite easily achieved. For example, he wants to write down the name of every friend he has lost, so that someone else can know that they lived. He wants to dine on a meal of fine food and drink. He wants to have friends, so that he can have happy memories before he dies. He wants to spend a night with a woman who cares about him more than him just being a brute. In so many words, Jonah wants to live, not just survive. • (Player) He is so sure that he can die at any moment that he is unsure what it means to really live... while he (above) indulges in those things to capture that feeling he has not yet really understand it. He has not feared his death because, in his mind, nothing more could be taken from him. Perhaps an interesting arc would be for Jonah to find something and realize that something more than just his life could be taken from him. Leadership?: Jonah does not aspire to lead and most comfortable in the supporting role, but also expects to be competently led. If necessity and circumstance requires him to lead, then he will step up and shoulder it as he would as any other task or mission until the time he is no longer needed in the role and/or a competent successor emerges. PC's Opinions on Others: WIP "Physical Description:   Background/Brief Biography: WIP Posting Rate?: At present 1/weekly would be most comfortable Discord?: Yes - but inaccessible at work

[Xian]

For those interested, I include the character impression of the current roster of applicants for your reading consideration in the interactive RP thread as a part of the Prologue #2 post from what I gleaned from your character apps and posts thus far.

Onward!

Cheers, Xian

[RedSun]

Originally Posted by Rukellian

P.S. Taylor is probably not going to get along well with a character like Ringo

CHALLENGE ACCEPTED

Okay assuming Taylor's MISC designation includes General Labor the only role we don't seem to have filled is Entertainment. Am I going to have to give Ringo a guitar?

[Kenjitsu]

Application (W.I.P.) Name: Levi Smith Designation: Human Anticipated Role: Primary: Build and Maintain Robots and Structures and Apply New Tech to Practical UsesEngineer, Secondary: Research New TechScientist Literary Archetype: Strengths: Grounded, salt-of-the-earth, relatable; Everyman, Strengths: wisdom, experience, insight; Weaknesses: cautious, hesitant to actually join the actionSage Initial Hopes, Fears, and Goals: Hopes: See explore stars Fears: Religious persecution Leadership: No, but will step up if needed PC's Opinions of Others: Physical Description:   Background / Brief Biography:   Levi's great grandfather, Abram Smith, worked as an engineer helping design the original colony ships and was one of the lucky ones to be chosen because of his contributions and knowledge. However, while his son, Isaac Smith, could have done with him, he chose not to go as a way to protest what they were doing was wrong. So instead of exploring the stars, Levi's family traveled back in time to when things were more simple. Isaac married a local farmer's daughter named Rebecca and together they started a new life in a small farming community. They had a set of twin boys, Hunter and Jacob. Together they lived a quiet life of working the land on their farm. Jacob eventually married Leah White, a local girl who's father worked a farm not to far from where Jacob grew up. They had several boys (Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Jude, Isaac, and Zeb) and only one daughter (Dina). They all worked hard to survive, but they were happy. Before Abram left on the colony ship, he gave a small box to his grandson, Jacob. Inside was a letter, a map, and a key. The letter simply stated that the key was to unlock all of his knowledge and the map was just a series of math questions. Jacob never found the time nor desire to decipher the clues on the map, so he just stored the box away. It wasn't until Levi found the box that his father told him the tale. Since Jacob didn't care about finding lost knowledge, he gave the box to his son Levi, who spent the next several years working through the problems, teaching himself the higher levels of math in order to solve the problems. As Levi learned more about computers, engineering, and advanced mathematics, he was able to apply that knowledge to repairing and maintaining their farming equipment. After solving the last problem on the map, Levi went on a quest to find the lost knowledge of his great grandfather. The map led him to a cabin that belonged to their family and to a secret room hidden in the basement. There Levi found science books, research papers, and his great grandfather's notes on the project he was working on, the colony ship. Levi made it his mission to learn everything his great grandfather has left behind. The more he learned, the better he became at engineering. The hard part was picking up the computer programming, but his great grandfather had left some computers for him to learn on. It was just a matter of creating a power source needed to get them to run, which, he was able to do. Posting Rate: 1/week Discord: active

 

Tweak

[Noquarter19]

Hey there! Never played GURPS, but it looks like I’m not the only one in that particular boat, so I guess no sense worrying about it. Submitted for your approval, Mr. Henry Clavell. (it’s about 90% done, unless you see anything you’d like me to expand upon. I really enjoyed writing in his voice but I hope he’s not too hokey for a futuristic setting)

Application for Celestial Horizons Name: Henry Clavell Designation: Human Anticipated Role: Communications Archetypes: Sage (Primary) and Everyman/Innocent (Secondary) Hopes/Fears:   ”There was a time, and maybe that time has passed for good, when I thought I could make a difference in this world. But now…” Henry sighs and takes off his dust-covered hat to scratch an itch at the back of his head. ”…But now I just look around what’s left of this world, and I guess it don’t seem like anything would have made a difference anyhow. I spent near my whole lifetime trying to eke out a living, praying the whole time that whatever was killing Earth would turn around, you know, like two big boats just trying to avoid one another. But no matter how hard we were turning that wheel, that other boat just got closer and closer. And now it’s just too late. And tomorrow, when we board that ship they found and take off into the unknown, when it breaks through our atmosphere, we’re going to leave this place behind. The only home I’ve ever known, tossed aside like an empty paint can.” His eyes drift to the desolate earth below his bootheels and he sighs. ”’Course, I can’t rightly pretend I don’t know what killed the Earth. It was us. It was all of us. Had to have our fancy lattes in our fancy Styrofoam cups. Had to have the biggest truck with the biggest motor. And o’ course, that took oil, we had to have our oil,” he snorts bitterly. ”And o’ course, the places that had the oil, they’re not giving it away for free. So we had to fight, and fight, everybody fightin’ and dyin’ and thinking they were on separate teams, all the while that big stinkin’ cloud in the sky is just gettin’ darker and greyer, and no one can damn near breathe anymore. You had these countries just building up bigger and bigger, pourin’ more and more smoke into the air and killin’ every damn bit of green around ‘em. And for WHAT?” he suddenly bursts out, throwing the empty gin bottle he’d been clutching in his veined arthritic hands. Henry Clavell hates gin, but when it comes to booze in this blighted world, you take what you can find, or you grow it yourself. The glass shatters some distance away while Henry wobbles drunkenly. ”Sorry. That was unbecoming of a gentleman,” he slurs, trying to sound like a Clark Gable-esque southern aristocrat. It would be a lie to say the alcohol had made him irritable; all it had done was remove the filter and let out everything which had lain below the surface. It’s unclear whether it’s the thick pall of pollution in the air that does it, or the booze, or perhaps it’s the tears which seem to be hiding behind his eyes like pounding floodwaters behind a crumbling dam, but Henry turns to you with swimmy eyes and speaks with a voice much softer than his earlier outburst. ”You want to know what I hope for? I hope that wherever we go, and whatever we’re able to build, I hope I’m able to be a part of it. I hope… I hope I get to live long enough to see us triumph. And – and I know this is going to come across as petty, or bitter, or what have you. I hope we can find that other colony, the one that left my grandparents behind. I hope we can find ‘em and make contact. I want ‘em to know what I think of ‘em for running off and leaving us behind. And I hope those rich bastards who paid their way on board who wouldn’t lift a finger to help out their neighbor, man I hope they got put to work layin’ bricks like the common man. Or,” he snorts, suddenly laughing, ”or at the very least, I hope the rest of ‘em who were smart enough went ahead and tossed those rich fools right out the airlock.” The humor fades quickly like a cloud passing in front of the sun. It is getting late now, almost time to sleep before the morning launch. ”I’m scared, you know, about leaving. It’s the only home I’ve ever known. I ain’t got no family to speak of. Flu killed off my ma and my little brother, you remember, the ’76 flu? No, never mind, you look like you woulda’ been about five at the time. And my pa, well, who knows where he ended up. Good riddance, far as I’m concerned. Never did no good for us at all, ‘asides leaving when I was eight. No, losin’ people, that’s not what I’m afraid of. I’m afraid we’re just going to do it all again, you know? All of it. The wars, the drugs, the pollution, guns, every damn bit. It’s like, whoever’s up there – God, Allah, whatever your flavor is – it’s like they looked down and said, ‘Here you go, here’s paradise, everything you could want or need.’ And then we just turn around and burn it down. Maybe we just don’t know no better, you know, like there’s something fun-da-mentally wrong with us. Like we get off on being nasty to one another. I’m afraid. I don’t want us to waste it, this chance. It’s a gift you know, not just this planet, but the which I am petitioning now to be named the Hopeship. I mean, how can you look at everything that’s happened to us, and then to see that ship and not believe in miracles. That’s why we can’t fail – or, no, that’s not right. We mustn’t fail. Because I couldn’t… I couldn’t.” The words seem to catch in his throat like a chicken bone. He tries to swallow but his throat is dry as dust. ”I couldn’t bear it if I knew we was just going to end up right back in this same position in another few hundred years. And if it were true, then maybe it’d just be best if that ship blew up on the launch pad.” Henry stares impassively as you react with shock at his words. ”What? You asked what I was afraid of. Don’t ask the question son if you don’t want the answer.” Goals: Henry Clavell fashions himself a simple man, with simple tastes. He doesn’t cotton much to social climbers or fancy talk (despite winding up working comms). He’s here to do a job, to see the colony raised up as a community in the same way that a bunch of neighbors would get together to raise a barn. Book learning might not have ever been his thing, and maybe he's no good with numbers because of how his brain ends up swapping them around, but he’s always been decent at reading people, at finding what makes them tick, and helping them come around to the right way of thinking. He counts his blessings that he’s lived as long as he has, and though he has no illusions of living to see the new colony reach its centennial, he’d love to at least be around for a quarter of that time. Most important to Henry is making sure that people are being decent to one another, and if him being here can help other folk get done what needs doing, then in his mind it was worth making the trip. Leadership: ”Only a fool wants to be in charge. But I guess it’s those who don’t want to lead that make the best leaders. Keeps ‘em honest, I guess. Yeah, I suppose if you needed someone to keep an eye on things for a day or two I could probably mind the shop alright – but don’t you go thinking this is anything permanent, y’hear? Running this place is a young person’s game, and I’m too damn old and ornery to be mucking around in some fancy gov’ment building.” PC’s Opinions on Others: TBD, I haven’t played around in the RP thread yet. Physical Description: Henry Clavell, is a 57 year old white man with thinning salt and pepper hair and a growing network of burst capillaries on his lined and weathered face. His hands, gnarled from years of rheumatoid arthritis, have a hard time gripping nowadays. Probably just as well; there was no room on the ship for his Martin 12-string. Under his pale blue eyes are bags big enough for shopping at a big box store, back when they existed. Henry doesn’t sleep too well, thank you very much. That’s alright though. Back on Earth, life was dangerous; it wasn’t wise to sleep long. And now, with so much to do, who wants to waste time sleeping? Henry stands proud and tall at 5’ 7”, though years of bad posture have left him with a bit of a slump when he walks. Still, even though he’s getting on in years and never had much money for fancy clothes, he always tries to make sure that his face and hands are clean when he can, though he’s never shied away from getting dirty doing hard work with anyone who might need it.   Posting Rate: 1/week at minimum Discord: I’ve used it in the past and have no qualms about using it again.

[Ladytron]

Btw I'm not ignoring the RP prep thread, just been busy and waiting for the game to start. I am still around and interested.