The Shard Alchemist (Worm, OC)

[Zerrer]

Your Faction: You just want to fix your brother and get out of town. That said, the more you can fuck over the gangs that ruined this place, the better.
Unnamed: You. Lucas Delaune. A tinker that creates devices that mess with powers. Bitter at the Tyrant for what happened to your brother.
--Michael: Your brother. Joined the Firebirds last year for food and resources, and ended up given a power... but it Broke him. Barely responds to stimuli. Doesn't eat or drink. Glows with an inner power, and when in the mood, generates electricity for your base.
--Skipper: Katie. Your friend, and Michael's girlfriend. Can teleport further depending on how fast she moves. If stationary, can instead 'disappear' and wait to reappear, or store stuff in the 'between space' she ends up in. Used this to remove Tyrant's power effect on herself.

Tyrant's Firebirds: Controls the East side of town. Based out of the Dort Financial Center. All of the Firebirds have orange, flickering energy collars around their necks, arms, or legs. Focuses heavily on acquiring tinkers, and trading useful tinkertech to others.
Tyrant: A cybernetic hulk of a man, Tyrant has the power to apply an energy 'collar' around targets he touches. Tyrant can choose to percieve through his subjects, cause pain, paralyzes, or kill his subjects.
--Trooper: Second in command, Trooper is a Blaster that fires powerful beams of energy.
--Tinktank: A hyrdro-tinker that powers things with water and fluids.
--Bucky: A tinker that makes garish, overly-loud and impractical energy weapons.
--Guyver: A Tinker that can make trash into treasure.

The Highway: Controls the North side of town. Based out of the Highway Fort, a structure built post-quarantine at the northern end of the wall. Controls a lot of empty space, and thus farmland.
Heckton: Short for Hekatonkheires. Is a casual, lanky man that goes around shirtless. Has the power to 'insert' himself into a solid object and extend limbs from it. Limbs increase in size and power depending on the object he's inserted into. Uses the intact northern highway to extend his 'arms' out near-infinitely when needed. Hedonistic and lazy.
---Vixen: Second in command. Supposedly psychic, able to read minds and emotions.
---Dancer: A speedster of some variety. You don't know the details behind her power, but you've seen her blurring around.

MedCent: Sometimes called 'Medicine'. Controls the West side of town. Based out of the Hurley Medical Center, and extends to the nearby schools and universities. If you're injured or sick, you go there... and bring a lot of supplies to pay with.
Moreau: A powerful medical tinker, also known as the Mother of Monsters, Moreau is now strapped into place somewhere in the dark, haunted hive that is the Den. Doesn't go outside.
--Balrog: A horned, bulky regenerator with a cybernetic jetpack and a flamethrower. While most assume he's MedCent's second in command, he tends to be more of an incredibly dangerous enforcer.
--Wolf/Wolves: A generic name for the many low-level brutes Moreau has running around the west side of town. Most of them have some kind of modifications.

Waterboys: A neutral faction, untouched due to their access to pure water. Functions as a volunteer organization.
Waterfall: Nobody really knows anything about her. She creates water. Or teleports it in. Nobody's sure. She's the only reason the Waterboys exist.
---Courier: A cape with a tunneling power that leaves behind stable, structurally-sound tunnels behind them.
---Jeanette Garcia: Your 'manager' at the waterboys.
---Dave: A distant buddy you worked with, once.

Others:
--Source: you don't know his true name, but he's the cape that somehow caused this whole shit to go down. Anybody who consumes part of his body gains a power. The big three have split his body apart, using the blood his limbs 'regenerate' to make their own loyal capes from the survivors.
--Broken: Those who have consumed part of the Source and instead of gaining a power, were broken by it. No longer need to eat or drink, but amble around the city mindlessly.
--Civvies/Mundanes: Innocent civilians who aren't part of a gang. Usually ends up having to pay tribute to whoever's territory they're living in.

 

[Zerrer]

AU Elements and setting details:
This quest isn't quite considered an alternate universe, though some might perceive it to be. While the quest takes place in Flint- a part of the setting that is barely elaborated on- I'll be following canon as best I can. While I haven't read the entirety of Ward, there are certain setting elements or revelations from the sequel that I'd prefer to avoid, or don't know about (and thus can't integrate into the quest). Finally, there's a point at which certain bits of canon and fanon end up mixed up beyond all recognition and it's hard to tell the difference between the two... not to mention that in some cases, I prefer the latter over the former.

What this means for you is that, for the most part, things are sticking to the general 'status quo' of the typical Worm setting. The Protectorate and Endbringers are as you recall them, capes with the same names have the same powersets, etc. Identical from a distance, but some differences may be too subtle to notice even close-up.

Some differences will be the makeup and proclivities of Shards and Entities, though I don't foresee the quest going into details behind this. Another difference is that the canonical storyline won't be happening in Brockton Bay, either. Not that that should matter much either, seeing as you're nowhere near that. Despite all of this, 'extra-canon' details can be picked up or dropped as I see fit; things like characters only seen in Ward, or details from Wildbow's PRT Quest.

Voting and vote guidelines:
This quest uses Approval voting, which means that (usually) options with the highest amount of overall votes will win, and you're able to vote for as many different options as you'd like. Priority will go to those with the highest of overall votes, of course, but multiple options can end up being taken into account over the course of an update, as long as they don't directly or indirectly oppose one another.

Some options will be multi-section. That is to say, in some cases there will be prompts with multiple categories. In these cases, you're able to make multiple votes- one in each category. Different categories will be marked on each option with descriptive one-word prefixes. If you're being asked what to do with Bob and what to do with Alice, your options will be prefaced with '[] [Bob] Do X', and '[] [Alice] Do Y'

During ties, or in situations where the votes are pretty even between exclusive options, I'll have to take certain measures to determine which option will win. Sometimes that might be a combination of options, to waiting until the next person to make a vote. In drastic cases, I might end up being the 'tiebreaker' myself, and picking which of the tied options will be most interesting to me. Or I'll just flip a coin- who knows?

Write-ins are almost always permitted- except when it comes to votes relating to your power, where you'll be limited to the chosen options.

Difficulty:
Your attempted actions can and will fail. For each attempted action, a D100 will be rolled against a scaling Difficulty, depending on the action you're attempting. Depending on your various attributes or abilities, you may have numeric boosts (or maluses) to such attempts.

One important thing to know about how I personally manage options and the quest is that this is, first and foremost, a narrative quest. We're here together to make a fun story, not play a game focused on winning or losing. There won't be anything like 'trap options', which sound positive but have extremely negative consequences. This isn't a blanket promise that nothing will go wrong, through- some choices may be extremely poor ones, or ones with high difficulty. There may be consequences for choices, or you might be missing crucial information.

Tinkering and Survival:
Creating Tinkertech requires Materials. You can work on any given project over time, and as long as time passes, you'll be tinkering during your spare time. This is automatic, and not exactly something you can maximize- making sure you have extra spare time does very little to improve your Tinkering speed- after a certain point, your progress will slow, and eventually stop. To survive in Flint, you need more than safety. You also need food and water, enough for your entire faction. For each week you need to survive, you'll need a unit of Supplies for each person in your faction, unless that person doesn't eat for some reason.

 

[Zerrer]

You are a Power-based Tinker, able to build and construct devices that affect powers


Inventory:
Resources:
2 Tinkertech Materials
7 Food Supplies (3 Weeks)

Vials:

Chameleon

Grants low-level physical shapeshifting ability. Allows the user to perfectly blend into one's environment by altering exact color pigments of skin. Enhances the target with thermal vision, improved physical strength, improved physical agility, improved reaction times, a tail for improved balance, and inherent natural weapons.

Aspects:
None.

Artifacts:
None.

Tinkertech:

Extractor: Level 1 - Basic
A large, needle-like device, where glass canisters can be attached to the back. Permenantly steals the power of a targeted parahuman to produce a Vial. Can also be used to inject a power into any sentient being. NOTE: A parahuman cannot have more than one power. Attempting to apply a second power to a parahuman will cause the powers to fuse together.
COST: 6 Materials to Upgrade.
-- Level 1: Requires an unresisting or unconscious target. Needle must be carefully inserted into the brain through the ear or nose by the Tinker.
-- Level 2: Automatically targets the Corona Pollentia of the target. Still requires time and the target must stay relatively still, but can actively resist the effect. Can be used by others, as long as the target is unresisting or unconscious.
-- Level 3: A wearable glove that can knock out a parahuman on touch. Can extract their power over a minute of time.

Workshop: Level 1 - Basic
A set of tools for creating and upgrading various devices. Without the Workshop, only a Level 1 Extractor can be produced.
COST: 6 Materials to Upgrade.
-- Level 1: Allows for basic devices to be built and upgraded: Centrifuge, Analyser, Extractor
-- Level 2: Allows for more advanced devices to be built and upgraded: Processor, Amplifier
-- Level 3: Allows for extremely advanced devices to be built and upgraded: Nullfier, Duplicator

Centrifuge: Level 0 - Unconstructed.
A stationary device that takes a Vial and allows you to seperate it into distinct 'Aspects'.
COST: 3 Materials to Construct.
-- Level 1: Irrevocably destroys a power, generating 1-3 Aspects from it.
-- Level 2: Irrevocably destroys a power, generating all of the power's aspects.
-- Level 3: Converts the power into a 'Hollow' power that does nothing, and generates all of the power's aspects.

Analyser: Level 1 - Basic
A device that allows you to scan Vials or Parahumans and gather data from them. Each level can gather additional details.
COST: 6 Materials to Upgrade.
-- Level 1: A large stationary device. You can scan a nearby Vial or Parahuman to analyze the specifics of their powers.
-- Level 2: A bulky, handheld device. Can be used on Vials to determine what Aspects it can generate.
-- Level 3: A slim, easily hidden device. Can be used on Parahumans to determine what Aspects their power can generate.