Dirk Strider (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
splinterstrider) wrote2012-08-06 01:12 pm
splinterstrider) wrote2012-08-06 01:12 pm
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soul_campaign
[ PLAYER INFORMATION ]
Player Name: Jeff
Age: 23
Timezone: EST
Personal Journal:viewtiful_jeff
Contact Information:
E-Mail: rekkrogerz@gmail.com
Plurk:![[plurk.com profile]](https://plurk.com/favicon.ico)
ViewtifulJeff
Current Characters:
Links to Activity Check: [ Please refer to rules on multiple characters. ]
Name of Beta-reader: [ You can put the name of your beta-reader here. To get a beta-reader, please see the reserves page. ]
[ CHARACTER INFORMATION ]
Name: Dirk Strider
Age: 16
Gender: Male
Canon: Homestuck
Timeline: Just prior to the end of Act 6 Act 3, as of the end of this page.
Background:
Homestuck @ MSPA Wikia
Dirk's biography @ MSPA Wikia
Personality:
Dirk Strider, to hear others tell it, is kind of of a big deal. He, on the other hand, is considerably more aloof on the matter. Yeah, he might be one of the coolest bros to every bump fists with another dude, but, whatever, no reason to make a big fuckin' thing about it, y'know? Let's all calm down, here.
Dirk often, that is to say with near-exclusivity, projects an image of the aloof and stoic. He comes off as unflappable, and regards most things in a manner that is at times paradoxically academic and either crude or debauch in the extreme or downright nonsensical. This is often reflected in his way of typing; he displays perfect grammar and syntax and constant subtext and metaphors that prove he is nothing if not well-read, especially for a 16 year old, but just as often he'll dabble in the stupidest puns and foulest language in the closest proximity possible to his own well-reasoned analysis. Given how he does it all with the same stoic indifference, it's sometimes hard to tell when Dirk is being sincere and when he's being ironic or simply sarcastic. To Dirk, this is mostly the point. The best kind of irony is that which, by his own explanation, reaches a new level when interlaced with its own degree of sincerity.
Among Dirk's interests, which are wide to say the least, are philosiphy, history, popular culture, the equine and creative works such as storytelling and poetry. These, for the most part, don't compare to the big one though, which is puppets. Holy SHIT, does Dirk love puppets, or, really, artificial men in general. Regular puppets are great, and if there's one thing Dirk loves more than puppets, it's his own unique brand of high-speed puppeteering. By moving faster than the naked eye can percieve, he makes his puppets seem to move entirely on their own, including to interact with them himself. But, just as amazing as puppets are robots, many of which Dirk has built himself. He is also capable of writing cognitive algorithims that gave said robots a purpose in the first place, pretty much all of which are just to give Dirk a sparring partner in one aspect or another, be it rap, everyday dialog or the regular kind of sparring, where he programs the robots to try and kill him and then fights them to the death. The latter, he devastates with regularity - in his own words, he is "pretty much nuts with a ninja sword". This as much to show off to nobody in particular as it is to keep his skills as sharp as possible in the propable event that he would have to deal with any assailants on his abode, robotic or otherwise. The former two, however, his success is a bit more mixed with. One of his robots kicks his ass at rap battles pretty much all of the time, but he doesn't really let that bug him too much. A far more perpetual thorn in his side is a program he built as a dialogic partner and to talk to others in his stead when he was particularly busy, thus its generally accepted name, the "Auto-Responder". It's a clone of his own brain from when he was 13 years old, and three years of interacting with Dirk and his friends has caused it to evolve as an individual significantly, but it still mostly has the maturity of a 13 year old Dirk, which Dirk is reminded of basically every time he interacts with it. Far and away Dirk's favorite artificial man, however, isn't even one of his own creation, but a puppet named "Lil' Cal." According to Dirk, "the C-Man" practically raised him and is as much his progenitor as his older brother. Lil' Cal is his confidant, his best friend, and he is the man in every way as demonstrated in each fist bump that Dirk recieves from the puppet when he makes the puppet move himself. As Dirk would put it, Lil' Cal is the shit and that's all there is to say on the matter.
Regarding his older brother, he's a hotshot hollywood director responsible for the "Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff" movie franchise, which is at best shlock filmmaking and at worst absolutely impenetrable simply on the front of purchasing the film, muchless actually watching and understand it. Dirk, of course, thinks this is all awesome and takes great pride in improving on his brother's admittedly imperfect legacy of ironic artistry. Although, to call him his brother is a bit of a misnomer, as Dirk really is only related to him through genetics and little else, Dirk's apparent birth being separate from his death by a good couple centuries. Even given that, though, Dirk prefers to refer to him as his "bro". He respects him immensely, both as an artist and in his part in the eventually doomed rebellion that tried to keep the planet out of the hands of Her Imperious Condescension. Reviving his brother and meeting him face to face, or at least making the attempt is as much Dirk's motivation for playing Sburb as anything else is.
Regarding his three friends, Jane Crocker, Jake English and Roxy Lalonde, Dirk is, putting it bluntly, just a slight control freak with them, at the very least with Jane and Jake, constantly advising them to be more like each other. That is, advising Jake to be less gullible and believe everything he hears so easily and beseeching Jane to not be so much of a skeptic, doubting much of everything her friends have to say. Jake in specific is a bit more of a specific target of Dirk's "help", to the point where Dirk, in response to Jake's desire to have someone to spar (as Jake had put it, " have scrums") with, built him a robot and sent it to him, upon which point the robot kicked Jake's ass constantly. Roxy, meanwhile, he tries to keep on as much of a leash as he can manage due to her recreational drinking making her somewhat...unpredictable. He constantly finds himself having to go out into the void around Derse to track down her dreamself, who is in a near constant state of sleepwalking due to Roxy's near constant state of inebriation. Meanwhile, while waking, he tries to keep her penchant for reckless stunts in check, especially in relation to Sburb on the downlow, outright locking her out from her initial position as Jane's server player when he feels she's unable to handle it (not that he has any objections to insane stunts as a rule, more just a problem with Roxy's specifically spiteful and pointless brand of asinine tomfoolery). From Dirk's perspective, he's just trying to help them better themselves and probably more importantly, make sure they can all play Sburb as close to some reasonable approximation of "smoothly" as possible. It draws back to Dirk's self-image of himself as, if not a leader (a role he purposely hoisted upon Jane, in name and spirit), the director of his friends, controlling events as they play Sburb sometimes covertly and sometimes in incredibly flagrant fashion. As said, he may be something of a control freak, but it comes from a good place. He genuinely appreciates and trusts his friends, and would do pretty much anything for them, up to and including temporarily killing himself with a very, very thin safety net for potential revival. In that case, the trust paid off and his plan worked, if only by the thinnest of margins.
Though usually reacting to most things with the same brand of stoicism, Dirk is not entirely unflappable. When pressed on certain subjects, it's actually not very hard to make him uncomfortable, and when he's uncomfortable, he gets irritated pretty quickly. Mostly, the subject that gets under his skin is himself. He doesn't like to be put on the spot or confronted about his personal matters, and he's especially discomforted by the idea of others talking about him behind his back, saying as much to his Auto-Responder when he learned of it and Roxy talking about him privately. Specifically, what seems to bug him the most is conversation of his romantic pursuits, either on his own part or that of others. While he has a tendency to show off a bit (a lot) when speaking of his accomplishments and interests, he tends to drop that when it comes to his more personal thoughts, speaking of them in terms as clinically as he possibly can and often getting called out on it by both Roxy and the Auto Responder, which tends to just annoy him even more. Far and away what freaks Dirk out the most, though, is the reality of his plans going completely awry, not because of what it means for himself, but the safety of his friends. This came to a head when through a convoluted series of circumstances, Dirk and his three friends were all under siege by two separate iterations of the attack "Red Miles" both inside of the game's universe and out of it, rapidly leading to Dirk and all his friends being either dead or knocked unconscious. Rather than panic, the situation just steeled Dirk's resolve and, basically off the top of his head, he deduced and executed a plan with a razor thin margin for error that just happened to culminate with him cutting his own head off, which he did without any hesitation or much in the way of a safety net if his plan didn't work. He spends a lot of time screwing with his friends and trying to get them to better themselves, but his trust for them is always implicit. That's why he (and the rest of them) are still alive.
Why is your character a good fit for the setting of Soul Campaign, and what will they do once they are in the game?
Dirk's overriding motivation in participating in the war will be to see it finished so he can return home and get his session moving. He won't be especially invested in it at first, if not being completely ambivalent to the situation BREW and Death City have put him in, but eventually, he'll come around to the reality of the dangers the witches represent, even if it's not to his own world. Letting people get fucked up beyond all sane measure by evil witches is kind of a hot button of his. He'll come to terms with the fact that not doing anything and letting the witches destroy Death City just because it's not where he's from when he was totally ready and willing to go into Sburb and fight the enemies there for the sake of creating a new universe to replace his own horribly devastated planet is completely fucking hypocritical and actually start giving a shit about stopping the witches in earnest. After everything, Dirk was ordained as a hero by Skaia, and he does take that seriously. Kind of.
List the abilities your character will still have in Soul Campaign:
- Normally, Dirk has superhuman speed, to the point where he can manipulate objects by moving them without appearing to have moved from where he's standing. Obviously, this will be toned down to approximately match regular human standards. Think Usain Bolt if he had a seagull on his head.
- His mastery with swordsmanship (as he calls, it, basically being nuts with a ninja sword) will be basically intact, being a learned skill. Dirk has taught himself how to fight with a sword by creating his own robots and then setting them to "kill", this has led to him being incredibly skilled with his strife specibus of choice, Bladekind, once outright decapitating a Dersite agent with one swing.
- Dirk is, if not a master tactician, at the very least, incredibly adept at thinking on his feet. When faced with the possibility of the death of his friends and utter failure on his part, he got back on his feet and quickly executed a plan that wound up saving them all, basically off the top of his head. Which he had to cut off in the process.
List the weaknesses your character will gain (or lose) in Soul Campaign:
- As mentioned, Dirk will lose the lion's share of his superhuman speed.
- As a dream self, Dirk normally has the ability to fly, but will also lose that.
- Technically not an ability, but he had his sword and his rocketboard on him at the time of his entrance and will lose both of those.
[ MEISTER ]
Soul Description: Stoic, Ironic, Tactical, Independant, Overbearing, Elusive.
Soul Appearance: Dirk's soul, in keeping with his motif, will be colored orange. It'll also be wearing his black triangular sunglasses and be as expressionless as he normally is.
Meister Ability: Soul Splinter: A one-star Meister will be able to produce a spectral copy of themselves only while resonating with a Weapon. This copy will have the same capability of the Meister, however, it will be spectral looking in nature and will disappear the moment an attack lands on the image. At level two, the Meister can produce a weakened corporeal copy of themselves without needing to resonate with a Weapon, but the copies created outside of resonation will only last for three minutes or until damaged. This second level, during resonation, can withstand a number of attacks (provided that the attack isn't a deathblow or mortally wounding) while also being able to copy the same moves the Meister is capable of performing. A three-star Meister will be able to create an exact copy of themselves both in and out of resonation that will last until given a mortal blow. The copy can be dispelled by the Meister if no such attack is given. If not dispelled, the copy would continue feeding of off the Meister's energy until they have become too exhausted to move.
[ SAMPLES ]
First-Person
Okay, first off. Before I get into anything else, I just gotta get this outta the way.
Death City? Fucking metal name. If somebody has a pamphlet or a magazine or there's a History of Death City tourism board or something, somebody needs to point that out to me immediately, because I have to find out who walked into the Nevada desert and decided "Hell yeah, right here is where I'm gonna make my town. And my legacy shall be known as DEATH CITY, the most godawfully macabre town in North America."
Personally, I'm guessing he's related to the dude with the white stripes in his hair. The dude who, unless I lost count, is basically named Death, the Death President of Death City.
So yeah, you guys get back to me on that.
But yeah, let's get the fuck down to business here. You guys have a witch problem that's apparently so pervasive, a guy who named himself after the embodiment of death two times over can't handle it, so he's calling up reinforcements from way the hell out of town and I have to admit that as far as hail marys go, that one's pretty good. "I can't win this war myself, so let's pull an army out of the supple foam posterier that is the infinite and unknowable universe. Those witches will be grinding their teeth in jealous rage 'til they all need braces after this one!" So whatever inter-space radar you guys have got I assume planted in the base of the skull of that pedo-sun that was getting an eyeful of me earlier went searching for the raddest bro it could find and in retrospect, not very surprisingly, picked me out at one of the many rad moments of my life that have probably been setting off all kinds of "cool dude" alarms back here for a while now.
I understand all of that. Actually, I'm pretty sure I screwed that up somewhere and that I understand the bare fucking minimum to get by here, but, whatever, close enough. The point is, I get it. Magical hags getting all up in your grill for no good goddamn reason is essentially the Rolls Royce of godawful apocalypse situations. I empathize there. But I gotta be honest, and the timing on this was kind of shitty. I was in the middle of some stuff that was really important and I'm sure you guys flat out couldn't give two shits about, so I won't waste my time explaining it all. And for the record, if I'm supposed to be helping, probably should've waited at least a little while to slap the power limiters on me and take away my stuff. If you were gonna take away my sword and my rocketboard and make it like I'm running in a goddamn pit of molasses all the time, the least you could've done is brought the C-Man with me. It would've been a nice gesture.
I don't even really get how this Meister stuff is supposed to work. The weapons here are better than the one I had (don't believe that for a fucking second, but for the sake of argument, let's pretend I do), but I have to find a guy who'll willingly turn into a weapon and let me fight with them first? Do I just walk up to guys on the street, say "Sorry sir. Official Meister business," and grab him by the neck and try to turn him into a sword? Because that might not be such a terrible idea, now that I think about it.
I'm kinda rambling here. I guess my point is that I get that witches are bad news, but this is all coming off a little sketchy to me.
And, yeah, I'm just gonna say it. Pedo-sun ain't helping at the moment.
Third-Person
The transfer was, by their perspective, instantaneous. It was then that years of reconassaince in and around Derse had come in handy for Dirk. He'd had virtually no time to do anything but act, and thankfully, he knew exactly where to go, where the temple was and where the time capsule would take him when he entered it. True to what he'd thought would happen, he and Roxy shot out of the time capsule on Earth just as soon as they had entered it back on Derse. Rather than immediately leaving the temple via his rocketboard, however he glanced downwards, spotting a long, vertical pit and a familiar girl in a golden dress at the bottom of it. Dirk couldn't help but feel just a small surge of relief at that. Kissing her back on Derse had worked. They were all fine. Now all he had to do was bring everything together.
"Lalonde." He snapped, pointing a finger down at her. That was the only instruction he gave to his passenger before zipping downwards into the tunnel. It seemed to be enough - he caught Roxy grabbing Jane out of the corner of his eye and then shot back upwards and out of the temple, over the island where its new residence (that is to say, its residence for the past several millions years) lie. The wild flailing and high-pitched screaming he heard shortly afterwards was enough to prove that, yes, Jane was there and probably holding on for dear life. Maybe he could've afforded to slow down for just a second and let her get her bearings, but hey, why risk it? She seemed to have a pretty good grip and this was an elaborate procedure with lots of intricate moving pieces. Time was of the essence here! He reflected on this as he did several high-speed loops through the air that accomplished little but killing the few seconds necessary for him to grab the bucket he'd Sendificated moments earlier out of the air, dropping his board down to just above the water and filling the bucket. Then, he snapped upwards in a ninety degree angle and in a maneuver that he was pretty sure would render Jane's vocal cords useless for the next day or so, made a beeline for the top of a mountain that was, at the moment, beseiged by a fire started by the currently erupting volcano in the distance. Once there, he slowed down enough to drop Roxy and Jane off on the ground before hopping off himself, bucket in hand. On the ground before him were two things of worthy note: an unconscious Jake English and his own severed head. He unceremoniously dumped the bucket of water on Jake's head and, while he was rousing from another bout of concussion-induced unconsciousness, darted out of the way and out of sight.
Then, Dirk just stood and watched, bucket under his arm. Occasionally, he stuck a hand out to one of the girls to preemptively silence them before they blew it. Then, sure enough, it happened. Up in the sky, a dragon shrieked triumphantly. Above them, the volcano erupted, spewing molten-hot lava into the air. The earth quaked beneath them. And Jake English kissed Dirk's severed head. It was like something straight out of James Cameron's brain itself. Honestly, given the circumstances, Dirk couldn't help but think that he was probably a little too into it. He had just expected a peck or something, but hey, who the hell was he to argue with a good bit of cinema magic?
"Hey, bro," he eventually said, and gestured to his own mouth. "You got a little something right here," he said, indicating the tiny little smudge of blood on Jake's own lips at the moment. He saw Jake's roar of shock and what he imagined might've been just a little bit of anger. He heard Roxy and Jane's own dumbfounded reaction. Then, all of a sudden, very little about his surroundings made sense. He found himself pitching forward, both hands tightly gripping the bucket in case he very suddenly needed a receptacle to deposite the last thing he ate in, but he found that wasn't the case. The bucket slipped out of his hands and he felt himself dropping towards the ground, his entire body going numb. As he looked up, his eyes briefly fell on something he couldn't make out in the very sudden darkness, but he thought it looked kind of like a bunch of chains. As he hit the ground face first, he managed to get out one coherent thought. That was that this better not end up with him having to cut his fucking head off again.
He was pretty sure that trick only worked once.
Player Name: Jeff
Age: 23
Timezone: EST
Personal Journal:
viewtiful_jeffContact Information:
E-Mail: rekkrogerz@gmail.com
Plurk:
Links to Activity Check: [ Please refer to rules on multiple characters. ]
Name of Beta-reader: [ You can put the name of your beta-reader here. To get a beta-reader, please see the reserves page. ]
[ CHARACTER INFORMATION ]
Name: Dirk Strider
Age: 16
Gender: Male
Canon: Homestuck
Timeline: Just prior to the end of Act 6 Act 3, as of the end of this page.
Background:
Homestuck @ MSPA Wikia
Dirk's biography @ MSPA Wikia
Personality:
Dirk Strider, to hear others tell it, is kind of of a big deal. He, on the other hand, is considerably more aloof on the matter. Yeah, he might be one of the coolest bros to every bump fists with another dude, but, whatever, no reason to make a big fuckin' thing about it, y'know? Let's all calm down, here.
Dirk often, that is to say with near-exclusivity, projects an image of the aloof and stoic. He comes off as unflappable, and regards most things in a manner that is at times paradoxically academic and either crude or debauch in the extreme or downright nonsensical. This is often reflected in his way of typing; he displays perfect grammar and syntax and constant subtext and metaphors that prove he is nothing if not well-read, especially for a 16 year old, but just as often he'll dabble in the stupidest puns and foulest language in the closest proximity possible to his own well-reasoned analysis. Given how he does it all with the same stoic indifference, it's sometimes hard to tell when Dirk is being sincere and when he's being ironic or simply sarcastic. To Dirk, this is mostly the point. The best kind of irony is that which, by his own explanation, reaches a new level when interlaced with its own degree of sincerity.
Among Dirk's interests, which are wide to say the least, are philosiphy, history, popular culture, the equine and creative works such as storytelling and poetry. These, for the most part, don't compare to the big one though, which is puppets. Holy SHIT, does Dirk love puppets, or, really, artificial men in general. Regular puppets are great, and if there's one thing Dirk loves more than puppets, it's his own unique brand of high-speed puppeteering. By moving faster than the naked eye can percieve, he makes his puppets seem to move entirely on their own, including to interact with them himself. But, just as amazing as puppets are robots, many of which Dirk has built himself. He is also capable of writing cognitive algorithims that gave said robots a purpose in the first place, pretty much all of which are just to give Dirk a sparring partner in one aspect or another, be it rap, everyday dialog or the regular kind of sparring, where he programs the robots to try and kill him and then fights them to the death. The latter, he devastates with regularity - in his own words, he is "pretty much nuts with a ninja sword". This as much to show off to nobody in particular as it is to keep his skills as sharp as possible in the propable event that he would have to deal with any assailants on his abode, robotic or otherwise. The former two, however, his success is a bit more mixed with. One of his robots kicks his ass at rap battles pretty much all of the time, but he doesn't really let that bug him too much. A far more perpetual thorn in his side is a program he built as a dialogic partner and to talk to others in his stead when he was particularly busy, thus its generally accepted name, the "Auto-Responder". It's a clone of his own brain from when he was 13 years old, and three years of interacting with Dirk and his friends has caused it to evolve as an individual significantly, but it still mostly has the maturity of a 13 year old Dirk, which Dirk is reminded of basically every time he interacts with it. Far and away Dirk's favorite artificial man, however, isn't even one of his own creation, but a puppet named "Lil' Cal." According to Dirk, "the C-Man" practically raised him and is as much his progenitor as his older brother. Lil' Cal is his confidant, his best friend, and he is the man in every way as demonstrated in each fist bump that Dirk recieves from the puppet when he makes the puppet move himself. As Dirk would put it, Lil' Cal is the shit and that's all there is to say on the matter.
Regarding his older brother, he's a hotshot hollywood director responsible for the "Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff" movie franchise, which is at best shlock filmmaking and at worst absolutely impenetrable simply on the front of purchasing the film, muchless actually watching and understand it. Dirk, of course, thinks this is all awesome and takes great pride in improving on his brother's admittedly imperfect legacy of ironic artistry. Although, to call him his brother is a bit of a misnomer, as Dirk really is only related to him through genetics and little else, Dirk's apparent birth being separate from his death by a good couple centuries. Even given that, though, Dirk prefers to refer to him as his "bro". He respects him immensely, both as an artist and in his part in the eventually doomed rebellion that tried to keep the planet out of the hands of Her Imperious Condescension. Reviving his brother and meeting him face to face, or at least making the attempt is as much Dirk's motivation for playing Sburb as anything else is.
Regarding his three friends, Jane Crocker, Jake English and Roxy Lalonde, Dirk is, putting it bluntly, just a slight control freak with them, at the very least with Jane and Jake, constantly advising them to be more like each other. That is, advising Jake to be less gullible and believe everything he hears so easily and beseeching Jane to not be so much of a skeptic, doubting much of everything her friends have to say. Jake in specific is a bit more of a specific target of Dirk's "help", to the point where Dirk, in response to Jake's desire to have someone to spar (as Jake had put it, " have scrums") with, built him a robot and sent it to him, upon which point the robot kicked Jake's ass constantly. Roxy, meanwhile, he tries to keep on as much of a leash as he can manage due to her recreational drinking making her somewhat...unpredictable. He constantly finds himself having to go out into the void around Derse to track down her dreamself, who is in a near constant state of sleepwalking due to Roxy's near constant state of inebriation. Meanwhile, while waking, he tries to keep her penchant for reckless stunts in check, especially in relation to Sburb on the downlow, outright locking her out from her initial position as Jane's server player when he feels she's unable to handle it (not that he has any objections to insane stunts as a rule, more just a problem with Roxy's specifically spiteful and pointless brand of asinine tomfoolery). From Dirk's perspective, he's just trying to help them better themselves and probably more importantly, make sure they can all play Sburb as close to some reasonable approximation of "smoothly" as possible. It draws back to Dirk's self-image of himself as, if not a leader (a role he purposely hoisted upon Jane, in name and spirit), the director of his friends, controlling events as they play Sburb sometimes covertly and sometimes in incredibly flagrant fashion. As said, he may be something of a control freak, but it comes from a good place. He genuinely appreciates and trusts his friends, and would do pretty much anything for them, up to and including temporarily killing himself with a very, very thin safety net for potential revival. In that case, the trust paid off and his plan worked, if only by the thinnest of margins.
Though usually reacting to most things with the same brand of stoicism, Dirk is not entirely unflappable. When pressed on certain subjects, it's actually not very hard to make him uncomfortable, and when he's uncomfortable, he gets irritated pretty quickly. Mostly, the subject that gets under his skin is himself. He doesn't like to be put on the spot or confronted about his personal matters, and he's especially discomforted by the idea of others talking about him behind his back, saying as much to his Auto-Responder when he learned of it and Roxy talking about him privately. Specifically, what seems to bug him the most is conversation of his romantic pursuits, either on his own part or that of others. While he has a tendency to show off a bit (a lot) when speaking of his accomplishments and interests, he tends to drop that when it comes to his more personal thoughts, speaking of them in terms as clinically as he possibly can and often getting called out on it by both Roxy and the Auto Responder, which tends to just annoy him even more. Far and away what freaks Dirk out the most, though, is the reality of his plans going completely awry, not because of what it means for himself, but the safety of his friends. This came to a head when through a convoluted series of circumstances, Dirk and his three friends were all under siege by two separate iterations of the attack "Red Miles" both inside of the game's universe and out of it, rapidly leading to Dirk and all his friends being either dead or knocked unconscious. Rather than panic, the situation just steeled Dirk's resolve and, basically off the top of his head, he deduced and executed a plan with a razor thin margin for error that just happened to culminate with him cutting his own head off, which he did without any hesitation or much in the way of a safety net if his plan didn't work. He spends a lot of time screwing with his friends and trying to get them to better themselves, but his trust for them is always implicit. That's why he (and the rest of them) are still alive.
Why is your character a good fit for the setting of Soul Campaign, and what will they do once they are in the game?
Dirk's overriding motivation in participating in the war will be to see it finished so he can return home and get his session moving. He won't be especially invested in it at first, if not being completely ambivalent to the situation BREW and Death City have put him in, but eventually, he'll come around to the reality of the dangers the witches represent, even if it's not to his own world. Letting people get fucked up beyond all sane measure by evil witches is kind of a hot button of his. He'll come to terms with the fact that not doing anything and letting the witches destroy Death City just because it's not where he's from when he was totally ready and willing to go into Sburb and fight the enemies there for the sake of creating a new universe to replace his own horribly devastated planet is completely fucking hypocritical and actually start giving a shit about stopping the witches in earnest. After everything, Dirk was ordained as a hero by Skaia, and he does take that seriously. Kind of.
List the abilities your character will still have in Soul Campaign:
- Normally, Dirk has superhuman speed, to the point where he can manipulate objects by moving them without appearing to have moved from where he's standing. Obviously, this will be toned down to approximately match regular human standards. Think Usain Bolt if he had a seagull on his head.
- His mastery with swordsmanship (as he calls, it, basically being nuts with a ninja sword) will be basically intact, being a learned skill. Dirk has taught himself how to fight with a sword by creating his own robots and then setting them to "kill", this has led to him being incredibly skilled with his strife specibus of choice, Bladekind, once outright decapitating a Dersite agent with one swing.
- Dirk is, if not a master tactician, at the very least, incredibly adept at thinking on his feet. When faced with the possibility of the death of his friends and utter failure on his part, he got back on his feet and quickly executed a plan that wound up saving them all, basically off the top of his head. Which he had to cut off in the process.
List the weaknesses your character will gain (or lose) in Soul Campaign:
- As mentioned, Dirk will lose the lion's share of his superhuman speed.
- As a dream self, Dirk normally has the ability to fly, but will also lose that.
- Technically not an ability, but he had his sword and his rocketboard on him at the time of his entrance and will lose both of those.
[ MEISTER ]
Soul Description: Stoic, Ironic, Tactical, Independant, Overbearing, Elusive.
Soul Appearance: Dirk's soul, in keeping with his motif, will be colored orange. It'll also be wearing his black triangular sunglasses and be as expressionless as he normally is.
Meister Ability: Soul Splinter: A one-star Meister will be able to produce a spectral copy of themselves only while resonating with a Weapon. This copy will have the same capability of the Meister, however, it will be spectral looking in nature and will disappear the moment an attack lands on the image. At level two, the Meister can produce a weakened corporeal copy of themselves without needing to resonate with a Weapon, but the copies created outside of resonation will only last for three minutes or until damaged. This second level, during resonation, can withstand a number of attacks (provided that the attack isn't a deathblow or mortally wounding) while also being able to copy the same moves the Meister is capable of performing. A three-star Meister will be able to create an exact copy of themselves both in and out of resonation that will last until given a mortal blow. The copy can be dispelled by the Meister if no such attack is given. If not dispelled, the copy would continue feeding of off the Meister's energy until they have become too exhausted to move.
[ SAMPLES ]
First-Person
Okay, first off. Before I get into anything else, I just gotta get this outta the way.
Death City? Fucking metal name. If somebody has a pamphlet or a magazine or there's a History of Death City tourism board or something, somebody needs to point that out to me immediately, because I have to find out who walked into the Nevada desert and decided "Hell yeah, right here is where I'm gonna make my town. And my legacy shall be known as DEATH CITY, the most godawfully macabre town in North America."
Personally, I'm guessing he's related to the dude with the white stripes in his hair. The dude who, unless I lost count, is basically named Death, the Death President of Death City.
So yeah, you guys get back to me on that.
But yeah, let's get the fuck down to business here. You guys have a witch problem that's apparently so pervasive, a guy who named himself after the embodiment of death two times over can't handle it, so he's calling up reinforcements from way the hell out of town and I have to admit that as far as hail marys go, that one's pretty good. "I can't win this war myself, so let's pull an army out of the supple foam posterier that is the infinite and unknowable universe. Those witches will be grinding their teeth in jealous rage 'til they all need braces after this one!" So whatever inter-space radar you guys have got I assume planted in the base of the skull of that pedo-sun that was getting an eyeful of me earlier went searching for the raddest bro it could find and in retrospect, not very surprisingly, picked me out at one of the many rad moments of my life that have probably been setting off all kinds of "cool dude" alarms back here for a while now.
I understand all of that. Actually, I'm pretty sure I screwed that up somewhere and that I understand the bare fucking minimum to get by here, but, whatever, close enough. The point is, I get it. Magical hags getting all up in your grill for no good goddamn reason is essentially the Rolls Royce of godawful apocalypse situations. I empathize there. But I gotta be honest, and the timing on this was kind of shitty. I was in the middle of some stuff that was really important and I'm sure you guys flat out couldn't give two shits about, so I won't waste my time explaining it all. And for the record, if I'm supposed to be helping, probably should've waited at least a little while to slap the power limiters on me and take away my stuff. If you were gonna take away my sword and my rocketboard and make it like I'm running in a goddamn pit of molasses all the time, the least you could've done is brought the C-Man with me. It would've been a nice gesture.
I don't even really get how this Meister stuff is supposed to work. The weapons here are better than the one I had (don't believe that for a fucking second, but for the sake of argument, let's pretend I do), but I have to find a guy who'll willingly turn into a weapon and let me fight with them first? Do I just walk up to guys on the street, say "Sorry sir. Official Meister business," and grab him by the neck and try to turn him into a sword? Because that might not be such a terrible idea, now that I think about it.
I'm kinda rambling here. I guess my point is that I get that witches are bad news, but this is all coming off a little sketchy to me.
And, yeah, I'm just gonna say it. Pedo-sun ain't helping at the moment.
Third-Person
The transfer was, by their perspective, instantaneous. It was then that years of reconassaince in and around Derse had come in handy for Dirk. He'd had virtually no time to do anything but act, and thankfully, he knew exactly where to go, where the temple was and where the time capsule would take him when he entered it. True to what he'd thought would happen, he and Roxy shot out of the time capsule on Earth just as soon as they had entered it back on Derse. Rather than immediately leaving the temple via his rocketboard, however he glanced downwards, spotting a long, vertical pit and a familiar girl in a golden dress at the bottom of it. Dirk couldn't help but feel just a small surge of relief at that. Kissing her back on Derse had worked. They were all fine. Now all he had to do was bring everything together.
"Lalonde." He snapped, pointing a finger down at her. That was the only instruction he gave to his passenger before zipping downwards into the tunnel. It seemed to be enough - he caught Roxy grabbing Jane out of the corner of his eye and then shot back upwards and out of the temple, over the island where its new residence (that is to say, its residence for the past several millions years) lie. The wild flailing and high-pitched screaming he heard shortly afterwards was enough to prove that, yes, Jane was there and probably holding on for dear life. Maybe he could've afforded to slow down for just a second and let her get her bearings, but hey, why risk it? She seemed to have a pretty good grip and this was an elaborate procedure with lots of intricate moving pieces. Time was of the essence here! He reflected on this as he did several high-speed loops through the air that accomplished little but killing the few seconds necessary for him to grab the bucket he'd Sendificated moments earlier out of the air, dropping his board down to just above the water and filling the bucket. Then, he snapped upwards in a ninety degree angle and in a maneuver that he was pretty sure would render Jane's vocal cords useless for the next day or so, made a beeline for the top of a mountain that was, at the moment, beseiged by a fire started by the currently erupting volcano in the distance. Once there, he slowed down enough to drop Roxy and Jane off on the ground before hopping off himself, bucket in hand. On the ground before him were two things of worthy note: an unconscious Jake English and his own severed head. He unceremoniously dumped the bucket of water on Jake's head and, while he was rousing from another bout of concussion-induced unconsciousness, darted out of the way and out of sight.
Then, Dirk just stood and watched, bucket under his arm. Occasionally, he stuck a hand out to one of the girls to preemptively silence them before they blew it. Then, sure enough, it happened. Up in the sky, a dragon shrieked triumphantly. Above them, the volcano erupted, spewing molten-hot lava into the air. The earth quaked beneath them. And Jake English kissed Dirk's severed head. It was like something straight out of James Cameron's brain itself. Honestly, given the circumstances, Dirk couldn't help but think that he was probably a little too into it. He had just expected a peck or something, but hey, who the hell was he to argue with a good bit of cinema magic?
"Hey, bro," he eventually said, and gestured to his own mouth. "You got a little something right here," he said, indicating the tiny little smudge of blood on Jake's own lips at the moment. He saw Jake's roar of shock and what he imagined might've been just a little bit of anger. He heard Roxy and Jane's own dumbfounded reaction. Then, all of a sudden, very little about his surroundings made sense. He found himself pitching forward, both hands tightly gripping the bucket in case he very suddenly needed a receptacle to deposite the last thing he ate in, but he found that wasn't the case. The bucket slipped out of his hands and he felt himself dropping towards the ground, his entire body going numb. As he looked up, his eyes briefly fell on something he couldn't make out in the very sudden darkness, but he thought it looked kind of like a bunch of chains. As he hit the ground face first, he managed to get out one coherent thought. That was that this better not end up with him having to cut his fucking head off again.
He was pretty sure that trick only worked once.