Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha Character Creation and Discussion (second reincarnation)

[MeisterBabylon]

I shall breed the Khrack via guerilla tactics in support of this initiative. =3

*manages to find a safe hideout from surveillance and begins building another dirty bomb inside a bag of potato chips*

[synaesthetic]

Without giving away too much of the story in progress, I'd like to breed discussion on the OC antagonist character of my murder mystery/spy thriller set in the Nanohaverse.

The short version: A number of highly placed officials in the Time-Space Administration Bureau have been murdered, ranging from political figures to military commanders and even powerful combat-type mages. Fate and Teana have been assigned the case; a white-knuckled murder mystery and race against the clock rather than the usual Lost Logia hunt. This case will pit their investigative wiles and mastery of magic to the test against an implacable female assassin, resistant to magic's effects and armed with technology the TSAB has never before encountered.

And thus, allow me to introduce our villainous antagonist, the lovely and talented Nena K. Ashley:

Name: Nena Karolyn Ashley
Sex: Female
Age: Not known, appears to be in her mid-twenties
Origin: Mid-Childa
Birthplace: Unknown, thought to be in old Belkan territory

Height: 5' 7"
Weight: 137lbs.
Hair: Auburn/reddish-brown, loosely curly and worn short, around chin-length.
Eyes: Brown
Misc. Notes: Her build is athletic and slender, though she is stronger than she looks (a runner or swimmer's physique). Her facial features are attractive but ordinary; skin tone is pale and freckled. She's fairly flat-chested and slim-hipped without much in the way of curves. All in all, she doesn't stand out much and she doesn't look physically imposing at all; very desirable traits for an assassin or spy.

Spoiler for character notes:

Character Notes:
Nena isn't a mage, I suppose would be the first place to really start. This is fairly unusual for a human borne of Mid-Childa, where magical aptitude is the rule rather than the exception. Instead of being born with innate talent for magic, she was born with an unusually strong resistance to magic. Nothing overly spectacular on its own, true--even moderately powerful focused spells would affect her if the mage in question was skilled.

Through various events which I won't relate here (as they are crucial to the story itself) her magic resistance is built upon, making her uniquely suited for fighting other mages. Since Nena's innate and augmented resistance prevents her from being easily detected by passive scans, she can get the drop on a mage and its Device.

Active scans can locate her (or rather, locate a "missing spot" in the scan's area of effect) and any non-magical scanning technology such as infrared would easily be able to as well. For Mid-Childans and the TSAB, this is something of a problem, as all their technology is based upon the use of magic as a power source.

Her magic resistance is her only true special ability. On the more mundane side of things, she is trained in basic unarmed combat and an extremely good shot with small arms and directed-energy weapons. Nena's offensive strength lies in her ability to stealthily kill from extreme range and avoid close combat at all costs.

Unfortunately, her magic resistance cuts both ways. Beneficial magic bounces off of her just as well as offensive spells cast against her. This affects even movement magic; she cannot be teleported, but she can make use of relay ports, permanent gates or dimensional portals (as the effect is focused on the gate itself rather than Nena). Magical healing effects used on her will always fail.

Spells and magic effects not specifically directed at her will function normally--she will not cause a magic-powered dimensional warship to malfunction. She can, however, impede or disrupt the function of some existential magic effects such as enhancement, barrier and shielding spells by touching or striking them. This is something of a last resort option for Nena as she is not a close combat specialist and most combat-type mages are vastly more proficient (specifically Belkan-style Knights).

Nena's offensive capabilities lie, as previously mentioned, in her ability to shoot things from very far away. She is skilled with pistol and rifle, with high accuracy and rate of fire at close range and near-perfect accuracy at long and very long ranges.

In place of a mage's Device, she possesses instead an Extremely Long Range Neutron Rifle (designation ELR-NRX01), essentially a man-portable particle cannon. It isn't exactly a small weapon, slightly above the size and weight of the average US military sniper rifle. For the unfortunate occasions where the enemy does get close to her, she has a semi-automatic pistol.

Her neutron rifle works in a manner similar to a single shot sniper rifle. For miniaturization purposes, Nena's rifle does not have many of the capabilities of the more normal vehicle- and starship-mounted particle beam weapons. Foremost among this is a rapid loading mechanism. Nena must manually place each self-contained shot cartridge in the weapon's breech by hand--adding an autoloading and autoejecting mechanism would have drastically increased the weapon's size.

Nena's backup weapon is an ordinary kinetic weapon, operated by a semi-auto recoil driven system. It fires 9mm jacketed slugs at supersonic velocities. Most Enforcers and ranking mages need not fear this weapon; if Nena is put in a situation where the use of her sniper rifle is impractical, she will use delaying tactics to make good her escape.

Nena's personality is rather unusual for her chosen profession. At first glance she seems very warm, friendly and lively, but this masks a darker and much more murderous side that lies beneath the surface. Nena is (rather obviously I think, lol) something of an expy of Nena Trinity, despite having a different appearance and a somewhat more stable personality, she shares a first name, an outwardly bubbly disposition and plenty of Ax Crazy tendencies. If Nena Ashley were animated, I'd want Rie Kugimiya to voice her as she did the other Nena. ^^;

This should all be enough to get a general picture of the character. I chose not to talk about her motives for killing off members of the TSAB, since that is a significant plot point in the story itself. Those who want to know more about Nena should keep an eye on the Fanfiction thread for posted chapters as I write them.

[Wild Goose]

Ahh, intrigue. Would suggest using spoiler tags - wall o' text is kinda a turn-off, Rough look looks good and interesting, but I'll reread over and recomment (in a bit of a hurry).

Mamott, looks like we ain't the only people digging up the Bureau's skeletons.

Naomi: "Though Franz tends to want to blow them up."
Franz: "Hey, I'm not the girl who sleeps with a few thousand rounds of ammo and god knows how many weapons in her room."

also, a little something...

Spoiler:

“I hope those OFM pilots have good aim, Soap.”

Mio Reneiger gave her subordinate A Look. Despite being covered in sweat and grime, dressed in unflattering desert camo fatigues, body armor and a scarf around her neck, she continued to radiate focused intensity on the mission.

As well as an unstoppable wave of moe.

Not that the moe did much to negate the force of The Look.

“What's that, Roach?” she asked, continuing to skewer him.

“I told them to aim for the orange smoke,” replied Barrett Smith.

Outside the window, beyond the broken remains of the dilapidated house they were using as cover from the hail of bullets, debris and shrapnel flying around in the cacophony of battle, was a billowing mass of orange smoke. It source was burning only a couple of meters away from them, so close that it was stinging Mio’s eyes.

“That orange smoke, Roach?”

“Yes,” Barrett muttered very, very nervously. “That wasn’t my best toss.” He had the good grace to look ashamed of himself.

Both looked up at the sky, as several shapes knifed through the cloud cover: the sleek shape of SR-103C Delphinus fighters and Longsword fighter-bombers.

“SHIT!" screamed Mio, yanking Barrett to his feet, and running like hell. "What the hell were you thinking!"

"That my dad was in this same position, only it was an orbital strike!"

"Maybe if you started paying more attention to the job instead of m-"

Whatever else Mio would have said was drowned out by the roar of jet engines as the OFM pilots came in deep and hard. The fighters screamed over the battlefield, depositing their payloads: cluster bombs, missiles, napalm, turning the area Barrett marked into an inferno. The two mages ran at full speed, magic augmenting them to run faster than any normal human, barely making it out of the fireball...

And then Barrett dropped to the ground with a hiss, grabbing his wounded leg. Despite herself Mio let out a dismayed cry as she saw the jagged chunk of shrapnel that had embedded itself in his leg - a leg that was barely connected to his body, with blood pooling around.

A support mage skilled in healing magic would have been able to treat the wound easily. Mio was a close combat mage, trained in Belkan-style swordsmanship. Grimly she pulled out her emergency medkit, doing her best to patch up the wound the way she'd been taught, feeling desperately out of her depth and furious with the enemies that had brought them to this state. She glanced over her shoulder and snarled a curse as she saw the surviving Marriage zombies and Gadget Drones walking out of the blast zone, coming closer and closer... and then she saw a woman dressed in black, flying towards them at high speed, her ponytail whipped by the wind, and her voice was as steel:
"You will not touch my son and daughter-in-law! Enna Mai, engaging!"

In her wake more dark shapes appeared, firing as they descended, reinforcements relieving Mio's beseiged team: mages clad in the black camoflage of the OFM's Assault Unit; TSAB reinforcements, and apart from them all, 3 older men appearing in their late 40s, all carrying rifles, freefalling towards the beseiged Bureau forces.

"Well, men, looks like we arrived in the nick of time," smirked Franz Jaeger, racking the bolt of his rifle. "What does that make us?"

"Big damn heroes, Sir!" roared the Assault Unit over the comm.

"Damn right! All callsigns, ROE Echo, repeat, ROE Echo. Let's burn their metal hides! And get me some more gunships! Smith, Wesson: this sector's yours. There's a hundred of them right there. Think y'all can handle it?"

"Franz, old friend, I know you're trying to be cool," said Smith, smirking.

"But you know the answer," added Wesson, smirking as the two brothers came to a crouched landing in front of Barrett and Mio.

"WHO THE HELL DO YOU THINK WE ARE!"

"Decoys," deadpanned Franz, landing behind him, though his grin belied the fact that the fiery magma of his heart had likewise erupted. "All units, attack!"


"That was your mom and dad," said Mio.

"Yep."

"...what's this about a daughter in law?" she asked him dangerously.

"...um...I might have mentioned to my mom that I like you, and I think she likes yuo, and she told me to invite you over for dinner..."

Sara Kozlov was no mage, but she was a very good combat medic, and she nodded approvingly of how Mio had dressed Barrett's wound to keep from bleeding out. Though she was a bit amused at how Mio had tried to save Barrett...only to start trying to strangle him to death...

Amidst the battle, Enna Mai glanced back, noted the interactions and smiled happily.

[synaesthetic]

Your little something reminded me that I'm still pissed off at Square Enix for not localizing Front Mission 5. -.-'

[Wild Goose]

Well, at least the FM5 Translation project is almost done with the game.Bases aren't translated but ingame cutscenes and briefings and interface have been fantranslated.

*Goose has finished FM5 and is working through Hard Mode*

Somehow though, looking over Nena's skillset, I kinda have a feeling that my guys would be a good choice to take her down...

Incidentally, come to the OCT chatroom at www.mibbit.com/chat. Leave the server at default setting and join the channel #outercadia. You'll find more action there.

[Tempy]

God damn it Goose.

Every time you write the surname, it comes out differently.

It's REINIGER.

[MeisterBabylon]

Somehow, that just gave me a mental image of a nigger Rein...

*goes to wash brain of racism*

[synaesthetic]

Rein engaging in Nigerian e-mail scams!

[Nya~n]

*slaps synaesthetic around a bit with Regius' briefs*

NO YOU

[AdmiralTigerclaw]

REINFORCE ZWEI: *hides a wad of bills she was counting* I'd never engage in such foul and distasteful cyber crimes!

*It's rather obvious, that being six inches tall, hiding the wad of bills she was counting was not so successful... Everyone glares.*

REINFORCE ZWEI: @_@ Uh... Desu?

EVERYONE: SO CUTE!!!

RZ: ^_^; (Works every time.)

[Sheba]

Originally Posted by MeisterBabylon

Somehow, that just gave me a mental image of a

Kha. Even if it was meant as a joke, it was pretty tasteless. For that, you deserve a collective kick in the nuts if any of us ever get a hand on you.

[synaesthetic]

Originally Posted by Wild Goose

Well, at least the FM5 Translation project is almost done with the game.Bases aren't translated but ingame cutscenes and briefings and interface have been fantranslated.

*Goose has finished FM5 and is working through Hard Mode*

Somehow though, looking over Nena's skillset, I kinda have a feeling that my guys would be a good choice to take her down...

Incidentally, come to the OCT chatroom at www.mibbit.com/chat. Leave the server at default setting and join the channel #outercadia. You'll find more action there.

If the project finds a way where I can play a translated FM5 on a PS2, I'll be happy. ^^;

I'll stop by the chat room sometime. Nena is squaring off against Teana and Fate currently, and when I get some chapters finished I'll post them for everyone to examine at their leisure.

[NorthernFallout]

1 of 5 more OCs currently being finalized.

Spoiler for Emeralda:

Name: Emeralda Volante
Gender: Female
Age: 13
Mage Rank: B+
Family: Father dead, mother works on the same planet, older sister works on Mid-Childa. Very close friend to Erio and Caro.

Spoiler for History:

Emeralda’s mother was discovered by the TSAB years earlier in France on Earth. She had good skills in magic and was a summoner. The TSAB decided to reposition her on Administered World No.61, Supools, with her permission, to help out with the nature preservation area. There she met her husband and they settled down on the planet.

Emeralda was born a few years later after her sister and inherited both her mother’s summoning skills and her love for nature, especially birds. She trained every day with her mother to become useful to her, which she did quite quickly.

At the age of eleven her father was killed by a hunter wanted for illegal hunting. While her father was trying to protect a family of endangered animals, the hunter went for him instead and killed him. Despite her father having been a powerful mage, the hunter is presumed to have been possessing powerful weaponry and is still on free foot somewhere on the planet.

A few moths after that, when the sadness of losing her father had settled and her sister had moved to Mid-Childa, Emeralda picked up the job as a guardian of nature, joining forces with TSAB troops protecting the nature preservation area. She was relocated to base camp south of the capital and joined the same team that Erio and Caro was on.

Spoiler for Personality:

Emeralda is a very reserved girl who rarely speaks if she isn’t spoken to. She functions around other people like normal and is capable of interacting with them, but otherwise keeps to herself. Despite that, she loves singing and photographing, often portraying herself with nature, other people or animals, preferably birds. This goes hand in hand with her immense knowledge of flora and fauna on various worlds. How she knows all of it is unknown to most.

The only people she really feels comfortable around is her mother, her older sister and Erio and Caro which, oddly enough, she opened up to quickly and now considers family as she works with them around the clock.

The fact that she suffers from monochromacy, meaning she cannot perceive any colors at all except for different shades of grey, sometimes result in misunderstandings other people do not perceive.

Spoiler for Appearance:

Combat

Spoiler for Device:

Name: Zephyrus
Type: Range
Mode: One

Except the non-combat mode, when Zephyrus takes the shape of a small pendant Emeralds wears as an earring, his combat mode is the shape of a staff, with a long body and its tip ending in the formation of a half-moon.

He refers to her as “Master”.

Spoiler for Combat Style:

Emeralda is a summoner, and her main choice of summon is various types of birds. She is similar to Caro in providing Boost magic but can fend for herself at range. She usually stays back providing support to her summoned animals. She is extremely weak in melee.

Spoiler for Spells:

Even if most spells are wind oriented, Emeralda cannot manipulate it. A small amount of magic must be applied for the spells to work.

Tornado Shield: Gusts of wind forms a wall around Emeralda and Antipatros, dispersing magic slightly.

Stratos Push: A powerful, directed wind emerges in front of Emeralda. It can blow away things that are not anchored or don’t have shields. It can also stop things heading towards her, such as putting projectiles off course.

Lancer Gust: Powerful winds that strikes an opponent with force in a small area. It gives itself away by the amount of magic sparkling from it and it’s guidable. Multiple Lancer Gusts can be controlled at the same time.

Speed of Wind/Strength of Wind: Speed/Strength boost.

Spoiler for Summons:

Watchers of Nature: Essentially a type of Area Search. Several owls are summoned and occupy various positions, acting as sentries, or a few falcons are dispatched to search from high up in the air. They relay information to Emeralda by a mental link.

Raven’s Cry: One of her more fearful summons, a massive amount of ravens seemingly appears from nowhere and attacks the opponent. They fight with their beaks and claws. It’s more used for harassing and distraction than a lethal attack as they block line of sight.



God of Suns: Emeralda’s most powerful and dangerous summon. Following a very long chant to prepare the summoning at all, a bird of fire, a Phoenix, arises from the ground. Ra, as it is named, responds to her commands but is highly difficult to use. The heat he generates is so intense, one cannot stand too close to him, unless they want to be cooked. Normal weapons are useless against Ra, as projectiles melts when they get too close. Only magic is able to hurt him.

However, this makes Ra very situational. He cannot be summoned in residential areas or in crowded space as he would burn everything while being summoned. Flying in the air eliminates this hazard but it’s still dangerous.

Emeralda’s mother did have the power to summon RA once, but never did so again. She has forbidden her daughter to use him, unless a major threat that cannot be stopped looms over them. He is about half the size of Caro’s Voltaire.

Spoiler for Ra's Spells:

Besides being made out of pure fire, scorching enemies while being close, Ra has a few but very powerful spells.

Solar Flare: A fast and small attack, a flame lashes out from Ra’s body that reaches a long distance.

Flaming Storm: An AoE attack that sets a large area on fire, burning most things caught within the radius. Ra can travel through it without problem as he himself is made out of fire.

Fire Tornado: Basically a tornado of fire that can be controlled by Ra. Its size is the same as an F3 tornado, but since it’s made entirely out of fire, the damage potential is extremely high. It also works as a shield that weakens incoming magic when needed, placing Ra in the middle of the inferno.

God of Reincarnation: This is a passive spell that is active all the time. Being a Phoenix, Ra cannot be killed off. Each time a certain amount of magic “kills” him, he is reduced to ash. However, following a period of a few hours, another Ra is reborn from it. There is a small possibility that with each rebirth, Emeralda loses control over him.

Spoiler for Notes:

- What I would need OCT's help with is 1. One more spell, don't have to be connected to wind, but should be a more direct attack. 2. One more summon spell with a type of bird. Preferably attack. Reason I'm asking for ideas is 'cause I myself has run out.

- When it comes to Ra, I guess he can be seen as overpowered, but not even Volatire that Caro summons sees much action and he is... quite powerful. They are probably similar, destruction-wise, only that Ra cannot control it as accurately.

- Credit to Tempest for the name.

[PhoenixFlare]

Quick reply to synaesthetic.

Originally Posted by synaesthetic

Character Notes:
Nena isn't a mage, I suppose would be the first place to really start. This is fairly unusual for a human borne of Mid-Childa, where magical aptitude is the rule rather than the exception.

As far as I know, there isn't such an overgeneralization in Mid-childa. Magical aptitude is highly variable in different individuals, and perhaps even absent in some. Mid-childa may be a planet filled with mages, but I'm rather certain that the populace doesn't always produce mages throughout the generations. You are correct in magic being part of the genome's makeup, so it also follows logically that some may experience shifts or drifts and end up being born a non-mage.

Originally Posted by synaesthetic

Active scans can locate her (or rather, locate a "missing spot" in the scan's area of effect) and any non-magical scanning technology such as infrared would easily be able to as well. For Mid-Childans and the TSAB, this is something of a problem, as all their technology is based upon the use of magic as a power source.

Not exactly true.

Numbers in particular are not mages and their abilities use a different source of energy than mana. Shario at that time manages to detect an overwhelming source of energy (not explicitly mentioned as heat) being used prior to Heavy Barrel being fired, which shows TSAB's technology is not entirely based on the use of magic for detection.

[Nya~n]

Originally Posted by AtomicoX

2. One more summon spell with a type of bird. Preferably attack. Reason I'm asking for ideas is 'cause I myself has run out.

Kestrels? Might be a biased opinion though, I've always had a strange fascination with them.

[MeisterBabylon]

Originally Posted by PhoenixFlare

Not exactly true.

Numbers in particular are not mages and their abilities use a different source of energy than mana. Shario at that time manages to detect an overwhelming source of energy (not explicitly mentioned as heat) being used prior to Heavy Barrel being fired, which shows TSAB's technology is not entirely based on the use of magic for detection.

*detonates small dirty khrack bomb*

The cyborgs use ESP-like Inherent Skills and Abilities, and so they run on nethergon instead of mana. Nethergon at high enough concentrations is inherently AMF-like, rendering them invisible to magic sensors. However, by using negative sensing and magic depletion inference, TSAB radar operators with active mana pulses can detect where and how strong nethergon is collecting and interpret is as understandable tactical information.

The technique to detect it was developed earlier, 6 years before StrikerS, when a terrorist group Cathedral Belka claimed to be acting on the post-humous orders of Sankt Kaiser Vivio and attacked TSAB with 4 powerful combat units running on purified nethergon.

It was the product of genius by the Wild Bear of Orussia, Colonel Sergei Smirnov, and used the nethergon's AMF properties against itself. In that battle alone--

*dodges more long range bolts and runz for it*

[AdmiralTigerclaw]

Originally Posted by MeisterBabylon

*detonates small dirty khrack bomb*

The cyborgs use ESP-like Inherent Skills and Abilities, and so they run on nethergon instead of mana. Nethergon at high enough concentrations is inherently AMF-like, rendering them invisible to magic sensors. However, by using negative sensing and magic depletion inference, TSAB radar operators with active mana pulses can detect where and how strong nethergon is collecting and interpret is as understandable tactical information.

The technique to detect it was developed earlier, 6 years before StrikerS, when a terrorist group Cathedral Belka claimed to be acting on the post-humous orders of Sankt Kaiser Vivio and attacked TSAB with 4 powerful combat units running on purified nethergon.

It was the product of genius by the Wild Bear of Orussia, Colonel Sergei Smirnov, and used the nethergon's AMF properties against itself. In that battle alone--

*dodges more long range bolts and runz for it*

[PRIORITY SIGNAL: AUTHENTICATION ROMEO FOXTROT SIX]
[REQUEST CODE: ZEUS ROMEO MIKE TANGO]
[GRID: TWO FIFE TWO SIX SEVEN SEVEN SIX, SUBGRID: SEVEN FIFE ONE EIGHT]
(http://forums.animesuki.com/showpost.php?p=2526776&postcount=7518 )
[AUTHENTICATION AND TARGET DATA CONFIRMED]

Spoiler for [LANCE ON HIGH]:

[FlameSparkZ]

Originally Posted by AtomicoX

1 of 5 more OCs currently being finalized.

Spoiler for Emeralda:

*snip*

Well, than's an unsual character...not many summoner OC around...if any

One question...who/what is Antipatros?

Originally Posted by AtomicoX

1. One more spell, don't have to be connected to wind, but should be a more direct attack.

How about the shooting spell Nanoha taught Caro?

Originally Posted by AtomicoX

2. One more summon spell with a type of bird. Preferably attack. Reason I'm asking for ideas is 'cause I myself has run out.

Thunderbird?

Originally Posted by AtomicoX

- When it comes to Ra, I guess he can be seen as overpowered, but not even Volatire that Caro summons sees much action and he is... quite powerful. They are probably similar, destruction-wise, only that Ra cannot control it as accurately.

True...same goes for Lutecia's Hakutenou

As for Ra...yeah, no biggie... *tries not to turn Ra into one of the "Lords" mentioned in his works*

*warps away before being influenced by Khrack*

[synaesthetic]

Originally Posted by PhoenixFlare

Quick reply to synaesthetic.



As far as I know, there isn't such an overgeneralization in Mid-childa. Magical aptitude is highly variable in different individuals, and perhaps even absent in some. Mid-childa may be a planet filled with mages, but I'm rather certain that the populace doesn't always produce mages throughout the generations. You are correct in magic being part of the genome's makeup, so it also follows logically that some may experience shifts or drifts and end up being born a non-mage.

Perhaps I should clarify that to "potential mage" rather than trained mage. Not every potential on Mid will be trained, but a much greater percentage of humans on Mid have the potential.

Nena doesn't just have no potential, she has no magic in her at all, since her Linker Core is essentially a focused, localized AMF.

Not exactly true.

Numbers in particular are not mages and their abilities use a different source of energy than mana. Shario at that time manages to detect an overwhelming source of energy (not explicitly mentioned as heat) being used prior to Heavy Barrel being fired, which shows TSAB's technology is not entirely based on the use of magic for detection.

Yes, but the instruments the TSAB uses are powered by magical energy. Those detection instruments would have a hard time working if the thing they were scanning kept negating the scans.

Whether or not they can track things other than specifically magic use is clearly displayed (they can) but also the Mid-Childan systems and technology are all based on magical energy as a power source (Fate explicitly says this during her little history lesson to Caro and Erio).

Nena can still be tracked, just not in the usual manner. Active, focused scans (such as Wide Area Search) would show a blank spot where the sensing "feelers" never returned to the Device. But a passive scan (an alert Device, for instance) would totally miss Nena's presence.

It would also be possible to track Nena's weapon, though it would need to be from close range. Her neutron rifle isn't in the same size class as the Numbers' cannon. It's much smaller and thus generates far less heat (otherwise, Nena herself would be a crispy critter just by firing it).

Not to mention Nena tries not to be detected, rather unlike many of the enemies that Nanoha & Co. have fought up to this point.

[itanshi1]

Wonder if she'd act like a magnetised person in a server room