Faces of the White Council

[vultur]

...because they're under-statted in OW.

Anastasia Luccio – Pre-DB [56 skill points, 24 Refresh, Fantastic skill cap]
High Concept: Captain of the Wardens
Other Aspects: Swordswoman Beyond Compare; Born Teacher; Warden Swordsmith; Combat Wizard

Skills
Fantastic: Discipline, Lore
Superb: Craftsmanship, Weapons
Great: Athletics, Conviction, Presence
Good: Alertness, Contacts, Intimidation
Fair: Empathy, Endurance, Guns, Rapport
Average: Deceit, Fists, Might, Investigation, Scholarship

Stunts
Riposte (Weapons)

Powers
Evocation [–3]
Thaumaturgy [–3]
The Sight [–1]
Soulgaze [– 0]
Refinement [–14] [6 evocation, 6 thaumaturgy, 2 item slots]

Specializations
Evocation: Elements (Air, Earth, Fire, Spirit); Control (Spirit +1, Fire +2); Power (Air +1, Earth +1, Spirit +3, Fire +4)
Thaumaturgy: Strength (Crafting +3); Frequency (Crafting +3); Control (Divination +1, Transportation and Worldwalking +1, Wards +1); Complexity (Divination +1, Transportation & Worldwalking +1, Wards +2)

Focus Items
Fire Ring: +2 Offensive Control and Power with Fire
Shield Ring: +1 Defensive Power and Control with Spirit

Enchanted Items
Warden Sword: Weapon:3 sword; 4 times/session acts as either a 9-shift counterspell or a Weapon:9.
3 open slots for potions, etc.

Rotes
Flame Bar: Weapon:10 offensive fire evocation, requires Fire Ring
Shield: Block 8 or Armor:4 defensive spirit evocation (usually Block 6/Armor:3, when Luccio puts two shifts into persistence), requires Shield Ring

Stress
Mental oooo
Physical ooo
Social oooo

Notes
Luccio is frightening, with massive control of her very powerful evocations (10 shifts of fire, without straining). She has great thaumaturgic skill, especially in crafting.

Total Refresh Cost: -22
Refresh Remaining: 2

[JayTee]

You might want to check this out. Some of the White Council members are there already, but not all of them!
Link

[Sanctaphrax]

Is this pre-

(click to show/hide)

body-swap

or post-

(click to show/hide)

body swap

?

Looks pretty much fine, although it's very different from the way I'd do it.

Except that her Warden sword could really use a boost. Her crafting gives her 9 power and 4 uses/session. Her sword shouldn't be weaker than that.

[vultur]

Is this pre-

(click to show/hide)

body-swap

or post-

(click to show/hide)

body swap

?

Pre... It says "Pre-DB" at the top.

Except that her Warden sword could really use a boost. Her crafting gives her 9 power and 4 uses/session. Her sword shouldn't be weaker than that.

Ah, good catch - I just used the base sword from the books. Thanks.

[Sanctaphrax]

Ah, thanks. Missed that.

[Shadowman17]

Just a quick thought, but the Fire Ring is a bit small for a four-slot item.

[Sanctaphrax]

It's actually two two-slot rings superglued together.

[vultur]

Ebenezar McCoy [64+ skill points, 30 Refresh, Epic skill cap]
High Concept: Senior White Council Wizard
Trouble: God Help Me, I’m The Blackstaff
Other Aspects: Master of Harry Dresden; An Honest Day’s Work; Brawler; Patient Teacher; Respected Scholar; No Time for Bullies

Skills
Epic (+7): Conviction
Fantastic (+6): Discipline, Lore
Superb (+5): Scholarship, Endurance
Great (+4): Presence, Survival
Good (+3): Contacts, Empathy, Intimidation, Rapport
Fair (+2): Athletics, Deceit, Fists, Resources, Stealth

Powers
Evocation [–3]
Thaumaturgy [–3]
The Sight [–1]
Soulgaze [–0]
Wizard’s Constitution [–0]
Refinement [–18] (8 evocation, 8 thaumaturgy, 2 item slots)
Item of Power: the Blackstaff [-3?]

Specializations
Evocation: Elements (Earth, Fire, Spirit, Water); Control (Spirit +4, Fire +3, Water +2, Earth +1); Power (Spirit +3, Fire +2, Water +1)
Thaumaturgy: Control (Divination +3, Transformation and Disruption +5, Veils +2); Complexity (Divination +1, Transformation and Disruption +4, Transportation and Worldwalking +1, Veils +1)

Rotes
Force Blast: Weapon:11 spirit attack evocation against one target; requires staff
Force Sphere: Legendary (+8) block against motion (opposed by Athletics), three shifts in persistence
Shield: Armor:4 or Legendary (+8) block against attacks, three shifts in persistence; Armor:5 or 10-shift block with one shift into persistence


Focus Items
Oak Staff (+1 offensive and defensive power and control for spirit evocation)
Ritual Knife (+2 complexity with Transformation and Disruption)

Enchanted Items
Force Rings (Weapon:5 attack with Discipline, four times per session, uses two slots)
2 slots for potions, etc...

Stress
Mental oooo, 2 extra mild consequences
Physical oooo, extra mild consequence
Social oooo

Total Refresh Cost: -25 for his own abilities; maybe –28 total, depending on the Blackstaff's cost...

Remaining Refresh: 2?

Notes
The Blackstaff provides an unique Sponsored Magic which adds +1 to the control and power/complexity of spells cast with the intent to kill or transform others. Furthermore, spells using this Sponsored Magic do not inflict Lawbreaker stunts on the user.

McCoy is perhaps the weakest in “total” power of the Senior Council – but certainly not in lethal capacity. With his ordinary staff, he can throw around 11 shifts of spirit evocation, producing powerful and long-lasting shields, nearly impenetrable veils, or extremely destructive blasts of force. Thaumaturgically, he can whip up 12-shift Transformation and Disruption before preparation and control it with an effective Discipline of +11 (13-shift and +12 if the Blackstaff Sponsored Magic bonus applies); it is this, plus days or weeks of preparation, that allows him to unleash the "natural" disasters which form his most terrible accomplishments.

[vultur]

The Gatekeeper tells Ebenezar that the powerful monster Koshchei and his protege, himself a near-Senior-Council-level warlock, have formed a demon cult on the ley line nexus in Tunguska and begun summoning demons in large numbers. The cult now threatens to open one of the Outer Gates. The cult, with their magic boost from the ley line and the demons and such they have already summoned, are powerful enough that the Wardens would take heavy losses against them; furthermore, they're deep enough in Outsider knowledge that bringing in the Wardens might be unwise. Eb begins to whip up a spell to destroy the whole cult with one shot. The toughest target likely to be present is Koshchei; with high Endurance and Supernatural Toughness, he has a 8-box physical stress track. Assuming he has a full set of consequence slots open plus one physical mild consequence slot, and defends at Fantastic, the Complexity to take him out will be 43 (10 to beat defense roll + 8 for stress track + 2 for Armor:2 + 22 for consequences + 1 to take out). But the goal isn't just Koshchei - Eb has to destroy the whole cult, demons and all, before the Gates get affected - so he needs to make it affect multiple zones: +2 to make it zone-wide, +10 to affect five more zones - this should cover the ley-line nexus and its immediate surroundings.

With his Sponsored Magic and focus item, Eb has a no-prep Complexity of 13 for this spell, since it is Transformation & Disruption and breaks the First Law. To make up the difference, he invokes his "God Help Me, I'm the Blackstaff" aspect, his "Senior White Council Wizard" aspect* to represent help from the Gatekeeper, and his "Respected Scholar" aspect to represent his immense study of relevant magical lore - spending a total of 3 fate points to make up 6 shifts of complexity.

He then makes the following 14 declarations, for a total of 28 shifts.

Information from the Spirit World (Contacts)
Target Data from the Warden Dossier (Contacts)
Expensive Book on Siberian Geography (Resources)
Translating from Russian (Scholarship)
Squeezing Information from the Demons (Intimidation)
Found the Perfect Spell Construct (Lore)
Playing on the Ley Line Network (Lore)
Borrowed A Chunk of Meteorite (Contacts)
Research on Asteroids (Scholarship)
Ritual Materials (Resources)
Targeting the Local Ley Line (Lore)
Absolute Focus on Purpose (Conviction)
Exhausting Ritual Purifications (Endurance)
Mind Cleared of Distraction (Discipline)

But the cultists are summoning more demons, and the Outer Gate is under threat, so Eb doesn't have much more time to prepare. Using the meteorite and a model he has prepared from the maps as his arcane link, he draws from his own energy, applying a mild physical consequence of Tired to himself. This still isn't enough, and reality is under threat - Eb realizes he doesn't have time for finesse, and the spell will destroy a lot more than he intends: but he'll just have to live with the results. He takes a minor mental consequence of Shaky Control (he can do this because Superb Endurance gives him an extra physical mild consequence) and a moderate mental consequence of Grief and Remorse to himself, for a further +8 shifts of Complexity. He now has 55 shifts of power to draw and control; with his Epic Conviction he can safely draw 7 shifts an exchange, which his Discipline of Fantastic, +5 specialization bonus, and +1 Sponsored Magic bonus allow him to control easily. On the seventh exchange, Eb draws the final shifts of power and casts the spell, slamming a nuclear-scale meteorite impact down on the ley line nexus as a 40-shift physical attack; but the consequence of Shaky Control that he just applied gets compelled, and he doesn't have any fate points left to refuse it - so lesser effects spill out to a much bigger area than he intended.

*Technically, at the time of Tunguska, Eb wasn't on the Senior Council - but we don't know what his High Concept was then...

---
Hmmm. That still just doesn't seem big enough. Is this the sort of way this kind of thing should look?

[Sanctaphrax]

That is a very cool description. But a 43-shift killing spell aimed at 6 zones doesn't really cover the sheer scale of the Tunguska event, which IIRC was destructive on a geographical scale.

The game system as written makes Eb's big blasts rather wasteful from a mechanical perspective. Which is a shame.

[vultur]

Arthur Langtry [66+ skill points, 30 Refresh, Epic skill cap]
High Concept: Merlin of the White Council
Trouble: What A Tangled Web I Weave
Other Aspects: Didn't Get This Far by Collecting Bottlecaps; Politics Is My Favorite Game; Practicing Wizard When the Hills Were Young; Power Beyond Measure

Skills
Epic (+7): Conviction, Lore
Fantastic (+6): Discipline, Contacts
Superb (+5): Presence, Deceit
Great (+4): Intimidation, Resources, Scholarship
Good (+3): Alertness, Empathy, Rapport
Fair (+2):  Craftsmanship, Investigation, Weapons

Stunts
Takes One to Know One (Deceit)

Powers
Evocation [-3]
Refinement [-21] (7 evocation, 10 thaumaturgy, 4 item slots)
Thaumaturgy [-3]
The Sight/Soulgaze [-1]
Wizard's Constitution [-0]

Specializations
Evocation - Elements (Air, Earth, Spirit); Control: +5 Spirit, +3 Air, +1 Fire; Power: +4 Spirit, +2 Air.
Thaumaturgy - Complexity: Divination +3, Transportation & Worldwalking +1, Wards +5; Control: Divination +4, Transportation & Worldwalking +2, Wards +6.

Rotes
Mega Shield - 13-shift defensive block: often cast as 12-shift block/Armor:6 with one shift in persistence or 10-shift/Armor:5 with 3 shifts in persistence; requires The Merlin's Staff

Focus Items
The Merlin's Staff - +2 Defensive Power and Control with Spirit
Ritual Athame - +3 Complexity and Control with Wards

Enchanted Items
Robes - Epic block (or Armor:3), three times/session [2 enchanted item slots]
2 slots for potions

Stress
Mental oooo, 2 extra mild consequences
Physical ooo
Social oooo, extra mild consequence

Total Refresh Cost: -29

Remaining Refresh: 1

Notes: The best living wizard at wards and defensive magic: with his focus item, casts no-prep 15-shift wards and has an effective Discipline of 15 to control wards; evocation-wise, he can cast 13-shift defensive spirit evocations with his staff. Bottlecaps (or rather the lack thereof), and all that.