User:Icebreed/Overlay:The Unbound

These are the official character rules for the Unbound. For the story-based description of them, go here.

The Unbound are rogue souls that have detached themselves from the normal universal cycle of life and death. Through metaphysical mutation, they leap from one body to another when the former loses its ability to survive. Thus, short of the actual destruction of the soul, an Unbound person never truly dies, and may eventually come to inhabit thousands of bodies.

Pros

Immortal Persistence

Unless specifically engineered by the MUN or demanded by room staff, an Unbound never completely dies. Though the body may die, the soul will find another body to inhabit directly afterward. Unlike some theories of resurrection, the new body does not have to be newly born; the soul can hypothetically jump into ANY sentient living body. For practical purposes, however, the new body must not be a body that is owned by another player, and it cannot be any NPC that is important to the room (such as the Grand Cardinal, for instance) without staff permission. By elimination, undead, artificial, and other similarly non-living vessels cannot be jumped into.

When an Unbound jumps into a new body, it retains 75% of its Ki power level, 50% of its Magic power level, and 25% of its Psionic power level (unless any of those powers are forbidden by the racial rules). Physical power is not preserved. The lost power (excluding Physical) is stored in separate pools. While these pools exist, the character can transfer power from them to the regular power levels instead of gaining power normally at a rate of 3 pool PL transferred per 1 PL that would be normally gained, and without the restriction of gain cap. Power cannot be transferred to the pools, only from. Power can only be transferred from a pool to the energy type it originated from.

Similarly, 25% of every technique's tech days are removed into a pool, rendering them all useless until they are restored. Like PL, tech days can be restored instead of new tech days garnered at a rate of 3 tech days restored for every 1 that would normally be learned. You can freely choose which techniques are restored in whichever order you choose. The rate of restoration is modified by the host body's tech bias, where appropriate.

Both PL and tech day pools will slowly restore themselves automatically over time. An Unbound regains 1% of its total PL worth of pool PL, spread over all pools, every day, as well as 3 pool tech days.

In the event of frequent and/or repeated death, the pools will continue to absorb total PL and tech days with each death. Because this is taken from TotalPL (and not pools), the character will never fall below zero PL. Techniques will always be reduced by at least 1 tech day each, unless a technique has only 1 tech day remaining (in which case it is left alone).

Serendipity

While it is recommended for sake of keeping things interesting and new that you randomize your new body as much as possible, there are very few rules about what kind of character you make your Unbound inhabit. The body is not something that the Unbound chooses consciously, but certain bodies are inexplicably more appealing to a disembodied Unbound than others. For this reason, there is a far higher chance than natural birth that an Unbound will attach to a power wielder's body. Before deciding a new body, roll a d10. If you roll a 10, you may add 750 TotalPL to the Unbound across any power levels, and add 250 tech days worth of new techniques. Any techniques purchased and PLs earned should make sense for the character of the body being dominated. Any upgrades purchased must be for techniques also purchased with these days. That is to say, you cannot simply use this new infusion of power and knowledge to augment the Unbound's existing abilities without due reason.

An Unbound cannot make this roll if it succeeded on the roll on its previous body.

Metaknowledge

Once an Unbound has realized its own nature, it can begin to master it. There are a wide variety of upgrades and unique abilities available for purchase that are immune to the tech day loss of death. See below.

Cons

Abominable

Though Unbound almost never choose to be what they are, many members of the spiritually attuned community find their existence contemptible, and their parasitic behavior upon other souls a horrific tragedy. Thus, whether the motivation is a particularly morally damnable Unbound that has caused trouble, or simply a conceptual hatred for the Unbound kind, those who have knowledge of the Unbound (which can rarely include other Unbound) can learn to equip themselves to pose a far greater threat than a normal power wielder might. Unique anti-Unbound techniques may be found below and researched by any Ki power wielder who understands what Unbound are.

Quintessence

All Unbound must start with a Ki power level that constitutes at least half of their total power level. Other power levels are optional. Physical power is possible too, but as detailed above, Physical power is not carried between bodies on death. An Unbound cannot jump into any body that cannot possess Ki. An Unbound must always have some level of powered-grade Ki.

Spiritual Incapacitation

When an Unbound jumps into a new body, the old personality and power do not take hold for 20 days. During this time, the power and tech pools cannot be transferred from, either actively or passively. Also during this time, the Unbound cannot be detected by Unbound detection techniques. The character can still be played, but will have only the personality, ailities and memories of the host. If the body is subject to a successful Serendipity roll, the additional power and techniques gained from it may be used.

Minor Attributes

Reassociative Identity

The bodies that Unbound jump into are living beings, who have carried on with their lives without a second thought. When an Unbound first awakens in the new body, it must negotiate with the host's existing personality, which can cause extreme confusion and a temporary mix-up of identity where the Unbound's personality is combined with the host's. Eventually, the Unbound's personality takes dominance, but some small elements of every host's body leaves some mark on the Unbound forever, retaining every memory of every host it ever inhabited. Unbound who have lived in many bodies are increasingly complicated creatures, and it is believed that Unbound have an ever-greater chance of going completely insane with each new body they inhabit.

Techniques and Upgrades

Unbound Abilities

The following abilities can be trained by any Unbound. Tech days invested in them are not subject to temporary loss when the host body dies.

Desensitization

Levels of this passive upgrade reduce the Spiritual Incapacitation time when jumping between bodies to 15/10/5 days after death. Each level requires the level before it, if applicable, and X base tech days.

Transcendence

Once learned, this technique allows an Unbound to prepare itself spiritually for the imminent trauma and transience of death. The first level of Transcendence requires 7 tech days with no tech bias applied to activate, and grants two weeks (immediately following activation) of immunity from accruing Spiritual Incapacitation from death. The second level additionally mitigates the amount of power lost by 40% of the normal amount. The third level increases the power mitigation to 80% and also mitigates temporary tech day loss by half. All of these bonuses will only apply if death occurs while the tech is activated. The tech cannot be reactivated while it is already activated.

The first level requires X base tech days and 2 levels of Desensitization. The second requires the first level and X, and the third requires the second level and X.

Cohesion

Through greater awareness and control of its own spiritual presence and state, an Unbound can ensure that more of its Ki power is available right away when switching bodies. Instead of having 75% KiPL with a new body, the Unbound will have 90%. Requires X base tech days.

Soulbond

While magical potency has much to do with the actual knowledge of spells (which is carried over automatically for an Unbound with death), it also involves a series of complicated initiation rituals that prepare the body and soul to channel and direct arcane power. These subtle, underlying links are broken or lost during death, but through a little necromantic research, these bonds can be transferred directly and more permanently to the soul, allowing an Unbound to retain more of its arcane potency after one host's death. Rather than only having 50% MagPL with a new body after death, training this technique will allow 75% instead. Training a second level will allow 90% MagPL to transfer instead. Each level is X base tech days.

Ectoplasmic Imprint

Psionic power is the most devastated strength from the taxes of death, as for the most part, psionic power lies in the configuration of a person's brain, which does not transfer well between bodies. A persistent researcher and experimenter, however, will discover that some spirits have their own form of psychic energy, and that such a spiritual capacity can be achieved for an Unbound with rigorous mental and spiritual exercise. This allows one to more easily and quickly reconfigure a new host's brain for psionic amplitude when the time comes. This improves the capacitance of a new mind from 25% PsiPL to 58% PsiPL, but can be further improved with two more levels to 80% and then to 90%. Each level costs X base tech days.

Imperative

Once learned, this technique allows an Unbound to mark any one active technique it knows as Imperative, meaning that it will be immune to tech day loss from death. The technique must be marked before the beginning of the RP in which the body dies. At first level, the technique marked cannot exceed 180 total base tech days, including upgrades. At second level, this limit is raised to 360 tech days. At third level, the limit becomes 720 tech days. At fourth level, the limit is removed entirely. This technique cannot be upgraded to allow more than a single technique to be marked at a time. Each level requires the previous level, if any, and X base tech days.

Projection

A well-trained Unbound can temporary force itself to jump into a weak-willed person's body, dominating their personality and actions for a very brief time before they are forcibly rejected into their own body again. Once learned, this technique can either be used by itself as a projectile attack that travels at 100% KiPL speed, or attached to a ranged or melee attack from the user. Should the technique be delivered, the target falls under the Unbound's complete control, assuming the normal power and abilities the target has, as well as any technique marked by Imperative, if its requirements are met by the new host. While immediate thoughts are accessible to the Unbound during this time, memories that are not particularly fresh will not be. The target must be eligible for a body jump, have a totalPL less than or equal to the user's (psionic resistance applies), and also be a minor plot NPC, adventure NPC, technique-created summon, or Declared Villain minion. Control begins on the user's following post, and lasts 1 post for each level researched, to a maximum of 3 posts, which can be terminated early. If the target is struck by anything that utilizes Polarize, the technique is immediately ended. While the user is controlling someone in this way, their former host becomes like a harmless zombie, simply standing in place and holding passively whatever it was holding before, without acting or reacting to anything.

The technique requires X base tech days to learn and X tech days for each of the two levels afterward.

Unbound Hunter Techniques

Sense of Apartheid

Allows a character to sense the presence of an Unbound in a host body. Researching a second level allows the detection of the integrity of the host's original soul, helping to determine if the host can still be saved. A third level trained permits a detector to pick out specific Unbound regardless of the body they inhabit so long as they have spent at least 5 posts of RP near them before, and also determine how many souls they have consumed. This technique requires some form of Ki sense and X base tech days for the first level. The following levels require the level before them and X additional base tech days.

Sublimination

This technique is added as a property of another attack. When the attack strikes an Unbound with TotalPL no more than 100% of the user's, they are forced to go dormant for 1 post. If the host's soul is still intact, their personality will take over and can be interacted with. They will have full memory of everything that has happened, but may not have processed it all since they have been dormant until then. If the host's soul is not still intact, the body simply zombifies, staring blankly and not acting or reacting to anything. This technique can be upgraded like the common technique Stun, but at half price because it can only function on Unbound. The dormancy period also functions with the same required cooldowns and temporary immunities as Stun. The base cost of this technique is X base tech days.

Sanctity Charm

These items can be created and then given to eligible people to make them impervious to an Unbound's Projection ability, so long as the TotalPL of the creator at the time of creation is greater or equal to the Unbound's. Each requires X base tech days to make.

Purification Ritual

Given three full posts of focused preparation, a character can enhance an attack or touch to force a purification of a specific Unbound's soul. While this does not directly harm or cause any pain to the Unbound, it will cause it to become a normal soul, losing all attributes and special abilities linked to being an Unbound, including the ability to survive death and leap into other bodies. When the Unbound's body dies, it carries on to the afterlife as a normal person's soul would. Even when the attack strikes, the process takes some time to take effect; during this time, an Unbound can relinquish its own body to avoid the effects, which has the same effect of dying, though if the host's soul is still intact, it will resume control and continue living. Each training of this technique must be specific to a particular Unbound and costs X base tech days.