Campaign:Round Table
Basic Information[edit]
Round Table is an Adeptus Evangelion campaign played via IRC that sets all of your favorite alien monstrosity fighting against the backdrop of England in a setting that has swapped out the extraneous Christian symbolism with extraneous Arthurian symbolism. Nerv HQ (Camelot) is set in the recently built city of New London, which (like the rest of post-impact England) is very nationalistic and littered with propaganda and security cameras. Plainclothes Section-2 Agents lurk the streets, and the pilot are kept in a walled-off mansion for their security. As ‘Knights’ (a replacement for the Evangelion term ‘Children’ rather than ‘pilot’), the main characters serve as the world’s only defense against something called ‘the Sidhe’, though exactly who and what these enemies are is intentionally left vague.
Backstory[edit]
A little soon to be revealing secrets of that magnitude, don’t you think?
Characters[edit]
Captain Klara Petya[edit]
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Wife to the late Vlad Petya, and mother to Val Petya, Klara Petya takes the role of Operations Director, overseeing both the everyday lives of the pilots and their well being in battle. Klara Petya has long been part of Nerv, having participated in the first trial runs of the then experimental Evas with her husband. After Vlad died of cancer, Klara was removed from the roster of Eva pilots but became part of its regular staff instead of being let go. She quickly rose through the ranks while still managing time to raise Val. Klara is still intensely focused on her job and tries to be a good guardian, if not mother, for the pilots; however, she has some authoritative tendencies...
Klara has a mutual hatred-respect relationship with Sub-commander Price who said some very nasty things about her during Vlad's funeral. Despite sniping at each other at every opportunity, she and Price seem to be able to coordinate when it comes down to battle. She gets on pretty well with most of her Bridge Bunnies; Dr. Berlin, she keeps on task and makes sure he eventually goes home.
Klara is slightly underweight: pale, golden-toned skin revealing bone and ligament. This is especially visible on her slender arms and legs. Standing at 5'7", Klara is not the tallest woman but is still taller than a lot of females and while she could add height by wearing heels, she opts instead to wearing trainers putting comfort and utility above height.
Her hair is ash-blonde and medium-long coming down to just below the neck. This hair is usually put up in a pony-tail with a simple dark-purple hair band. Her eyes are a strong Royal Blue complementing the typical strong Russian nose and defined cheekbones on her rounded face. There are discernible bags under her eyes almost every day. She has thin eyebrows and a cruel smile. She wears the typical Nerv Uniform except replacing the skirt for trousers; over top of the shirt she wears a bomber jacket which is a bit small for her. She has one truly distinguishing mark, a small round scar on the back of her right hand; otherwise she has no piercings or visible scars. On her right hand, she wears three rings: one a simple silver band, and then the pair of a wedding and engagement ring.
Valerie Petya/Pilot 01[edit]
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You see a small, lithe girl with short black hair. She seems relaxed, but has a fluidity of motion that reminds you of a housecat. She is wearing a white tanktop and a long black skirt. She also has shorts under the skirt, so she can rip it off and run if she needs to. She wears sturdy shoes with a steel toe (not boots). She also carries a bag, in which is a slingshot and some plastic marbles, for when something absolutely cannot go without a new dent in it. Some of the marbles are softer, for when she doesn't want to dent PEOPLE. She wears a bra slightly too small for her so it looks like her boobs are bigger (They're a good C right now) and enough makeup to be noticeable, but not overdone.
Val draws attention to herself physically because she has trouble accepting emotional bonds. This is why she holds onto her mother so closely, and also why she can't seem to stop yammering on about sexual and intimate acts. She would never go as far as she says; she just can't find any other way to connect with people. Everyone understands sex, though.
She has an overwhelming desire to be as close to her parents as possible. As her dad is dead, she strives to make up for it by seeking her mother's approval at every opportunity. Her's is the only opinion that matters enough to effect a change immediately in her personality.
In battle, she whoops and yells nearly every chance she gets. She has a reason for this: it keeps her focused and therefore more in sync with her Eva. Val feels at home in the Eva, like this is where she is supposed to be. She also revels in her AT Field. She can almost sense everything within it. She feels like, with enough focus, she could see into people's hearts and find out what makes it so difficult to get through.
In everyday life, she tends to try and relax as much as possible. She has trouble with scholarly pursuits, so she instead spends her time playing sports. She would be captain of the archery team in another life, but the school tries to avoid placing one so important in a position of power, however small. She also enjoys fencing, but has less skill at it (but don't underestimate her!). At home, she does one of a few things: Video games if she's feeling lazy, practicing guitar and singing if she's in a bad or creative mood, respectively, or cleaning the house and cooking, if she's in a good mood. She has tried alcohol and enjoys the freedom from worry that it brings. The real world can wear on her at times, so she tends to be fatalist or existentialist at those times where she feels the weight of the burden piloting an Eva can bring.
Karen Ricci/Pilot 02[edit]
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Karen is a young Italian girl that's a bit tall for her age, five and a half feet at fourteen, and has the longest hair out of all the pilots, the dark locks hanging to the middle of her back in its customary ponytail. Her clothing typically consists of a simple blouse and skirt combination, colors varying by mood and what isn't already dirty.
Abandoned by her parents in the aftermath of Second Impact, baby Karen was recovered by elements of the Italian army and eventually turned over to UN founded refugee camps. Her early life was tumultuous, sheer bad luck seeing her transferred from foster family to foster family, always somehow managing to land in the worst supplied and most criminally active camps. Having had almost nothing in her formative years, Karen has developed an almost kleptomaniac attitude toward possessions. This is evidenced clearest in the form of her pet iguana, Il Duce, whom has been with her for four years now ever since she found him washed up on a beach when she was ten.
Her neo-spartan training, while technically successful, was hindered by a neurological condition that increased her pain/pleasure response and adversely affected her stamina as she was much more susceptible to fatigue. She only avoided washing out of the program due to her natural talent with firearms and the simple fact that she had a higher synchronization ratio than the remaining candidates. She is painfully aware of this fact and will not jeopardize her place in the program under any circumstances.
Evangelion Unit 02, 'Palamedes', was developed and constructed almost entirely by Italy, painted the national colors of green and white, and then blessed by the Pope himself in a widely televised ceremony. Karen is extremely uncomfortable with the attention this status brings, wishing for nothing more than to do what she has to do in anonymity. After all, the more she has watching her the more likely it is she'll let slip how she feels about other women... And that is something to be avoided at all costs. She forms the brains of the Team Occidental Battle Duo.
Albert White-Adams/Pilot 03[edit]
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Albert White-Adams is a pudgy kid with a penchant for unadulterated violence and trolling.
Born into a conservative, Post-Impact Montana, he possesses great experience in the field of using sharp objects to kill and skin animals of all sorts of natures and girths. He used this knowledge extensively while on hunting trips with his Uncle, whom he had spent the last three years with before the campaign, out in a nowhere town where the two pretty much had free reign to do anything. Their time together had a drastic impact on Al's fairly libertarian and patriotic social, economic and political perspectives. It also taught him how to get under peoples' skin, through repeated harassment of their Vegan neighbors (who, despite claims to the contrary, were actually not bad people). Prior to their time together, Al lived alone with his mother until he was 13; theirs was more of an intense friendship rather than anything familial until about a month before he left.
He is a relatively amicable person, with a fairly broad-ranging social knowledge in contrast to some of the other pilots. His general attitude is one of detachment, trying to not let the little things bother oneself too much, etc., so that one can have full feeling and power for the truly important events. He is reactionary and can be extremely angry, but is aware of his (personal-scale) limitations and has a reasonable amount of restraint.
Even so, he absolutely lets loose while in Unit 03, empowered by the fact that he is America's Flagship Pilot. He has the current highest Synch Ratio of any of the pilots - something that nobody can amply explain - and so feels completely encased in his years of ideology and patriotism whenever he fights. He is very stubborn when it comes to Unit 03, insistently not giving it a Knightly name like its counterparts, and instead calling it 'Big Sis.'
His most permanent physical weakness aside from his weight is the chronic pain in his left fist, which he broke defending his boyfriend, Jesse, when he was 13. This is a fact that currently only Andrei (with the possible exception of Klara and Ramirez) is privy to. He and Val possess a Bro Friendship which transcends gender and sexuality, and use this to bother people extensively. He thinks Toru is a jackass and is very attracted to John, something he tries to keep discreet. In general, he wears plain monochrome t-shirts or button-up casual wear, utility pants and sunglasses. Depending on weather and his flair for the dramatic he may also wear his dad's Army Coat. He forms the brawn of the Team Occidental Battle Duo.
Emily Littleton/Pilot 04[edit]
Australian pilot of Unit 04. Short, blond hair and bright green eyes. Left fatherless after Second Impact, her mother was caught in the crossfire of a racial dispute between the local Australian survivors and the Chinese farmers working the land for the UN. Initially known for being playful and flighty, her training for Pilot duty changed her suddenly and dramatically after a visit from certain Camelot personnel and being shown the still in-progress Evangelion Unit 04 known as “Bors”. Since then, she has shown an incredible difficulty in establishing emotional connections with others, which Nerv therapists believe to be cause by a deep-rooted Paranoia resulting from her pilot-status. Despite this, she has maintained her previous reputation for elaborate pranks, though it is unclear if she takes any real enjoyment from them anymore.
She is deceased, now, thanks to the first Sidhe's possession of Unit 04. While the other Evas were able to stop Bors's rampage, Emily was dead after they arrived on the scene.
John Douglas/Pilot 05[edit]
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Born and raised in Camelot, and officially part of the Neo-spartan program. This is entirely untrue--in fact, John is an artificial human grown entirely from LCL and designed to be replaced at the drop of a hat. Was from an early age a test pilot for the Evangelions, until one particular prototype went berserk. The resulting fight crushed the entry plug, something he was extremely lucky to survive. The recovery process was extreme and slow, and accelerated his aging.
The scars from shrapnel, however, could not fully heal and his body from the neck down is practically a mass of deep cuts and burns. They are only faint on his lower arms and face, so if he were to wear a T-shirt with a collar nothing but those would appear.
Publicly, he is the cream of the crop, the pride of the United Kingdom and the poster-boy for Project E. He doesn't quite mind all the social rigors, though having one's only human contact being experiments and press conferences doesn't exactly make him the most well-adjusted of people. To be fair, he always means well, but can't quite get a feel for how day-to-day life is supposed to go. He avoids being accosted by fans and press on the street and in school by doing all advertisement in his plugsuit with his face obscured by a helmet. As such, his name in these is never said, instead being referred to as "The Black Knight". He is a CHAR.
He will usually wear a NERV uniform including a jacket, as well as a scarf to hide the worst of his injuries. His plugsuit is black and yellow, with a small cape on the back and a knight-like helmet.
Toru Yamato/Pilot 06[edit]
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Toru is a 16 year old Japanese boy who stands 5'9" tall. His weight lies near the bottom of what is healthy for him, 130lbs, giving him a rather slim figure. This has gotten him called girly on a few occasions. His hair is dark black and somewhat long for a boy. It's essentially a somewhat messy mop-top, if it were the 60's he could probably fit right in with The Beatles. His light brown eyes are almost always seen through his somewhat thick-framed black plastic glasses.
Toru was born in Japan but he wasn't raised there by any conventional means. Having not known of his parents for as long as he can remember he was essentially alone all his life. After being juggled through orphanages he finally gained the ability to live on his own as soon as he possibly could. Being juggled around wasn't his favorite thing as just before getting to know people he would often be torn away from them. To him, being alone was much more preferable and steady. He found solitude from the world in books at an early age, so he's always been rather studious. While rather quiet many of his teachers would still consider him to be a very good student.
Books were not the only things to keep young Toru occupied. He took up the piano for reasons he now doesn't even remember. Spending time playing the piano was a way for Toru to feel connected to the world, knowing that someone had written the music he was playing and that there were people out there that could understand what he was doing. Just knowing that is good enough for him apparently, as he rarely made any sort of public performance. On top of that Toru joined the kendo club at school. When forced to pick a club to join he decided to attempt to combat his appearance and take up something that could be considered manly. This also turned out to be a good way for him to keep in shape and to relax.
It seems at first glance that he really only needs these three things to get by, books, music and physical activity. He is prone to introspection, perhaps too much, and over thinks situations he has gotten himself into. Because of all of these things he doesn't come off as the most sociable person, something he both enjoys and dislikes himself being thought of.
At 16 he's whisked away to England for an unknown reason. Being a person who hadn't ever really settled down anywhere the experience wasn't all that new to him. He did however not enjoy being forced around as he is quite used to his independence to live on his own. Insert non-formatted text here
Captain Jack Ramirez[edit]
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A veteran soldier, pilot, and survivor of Second Impact, Jack Ramirez came out of retirement to work for NERV at the age of 46, seven years after retiring from active duty as a member of the US Army Special Forces (and, after Second Impact, the marshal-law governed Military Police.) Given his long-standing record (and the fact that so little of NERV has special-forces training) he was assigned to the Eva team—to act as a mentor, encourage discipline, and protect the pilots in and out of their Eva's. To make this possible, he is also test-piloting the new prototype T-RIDEN-T Land Cruiser, allowing him to follow his pilots into battle.
Jack is a well-built man for a 46 year old—years of training and special forces work have kept his body in relatively good shape. He's not as good as he used to be, though, thanks to certain deep-set wounds he incurred in combat years ago, but he still makes an effort to stay in top condition. He keeps brown hair cut neat and short, and is always clean-shaven. He is almost never seen outside of uniform, but when he is, he tends to wear basic blue jeans and button-down shirts.
A habitual paranoiac, Jack is never without at least one sidearm, and never enters a room without looking for cover and escape routes. They're traits that were worn into him after years of grunt work in the worst times after Second Impact, and they've kept him alive plenty of times, but they're constant enough to be irritating to those who haven't lived under those conditions before (people like pre-pubescent Eva pilots.) He's cautious to a fault outside of combat, but once the bullets start flying he has no qualms about joining the fray.
Despite his harsh exterior and gruff demeanor, Jack's a good guy, and he takes his role as a protector and mentor of the Eva pilots very seriously. He would not hesitate to go to any lengths to protect his charges.
Uses smokes to cover his advance.
Supporting Cast[edit]
Commander Andrei Potemkin[edit]
Sub-Commander Stuart Price[edit]
Stuart Price is the Subcommander of Nerv, and also the Head of Section-2. He is a lean man who, while of average height, commands a presence of authority. Despite his age he remains fit, and keeps both his uniform crisp and his moustache trim and elegant. His face is in an almost constant look of disapproval, and what he would call a smile would be better known as a sneer. Not that he makes a habit of smiling in public. Price has little time for what he considers to be trivial matters, including the caretaking of his daughter, Melissa. Many have commented that it’s almost unbelievable that Price would ever have a kid (though rarely where he can hear such talk), especially since he never married. It’s likely that Melissa was a happy accident, or would have been if Price tolerated either happiness or accidents. Price is on rather bad terms with the Petya family, after his protégé Vladimir Markov married Klara Petya, took her name, and fathered a child. This constituted a major flaw in Vlad’s character in Price’s eyes (who demanded absolute dedication to Nerv without distractions), one that he feels was directly responsible for Vlad’s death. Worse yet, he even publicly claimed at Vlad’s funeral that he would have pulled through if it weren’t for “that Russian cunt”. But Price, being Price, maintains a professional working relationship with Klara and has never allowed his personal misgivings to effect his treatment of Val (though it is unclear whether this is because of her status as a pilot or if she is related to Vlad). For obvious reasons, Price holds John in what counts for high esteem.
Head of Research: Doctor Gregory Berlin[edit]
Berlin is the Head of Exotic mechanics, and as such has the unenviable job of working out how, exactly, an AT Field works. A short, balding man who has a tendency to go days without leaving his office for more than bathroom breaks, he is very much obsessed with his work. Some might say that he is simply an introverted eccentric, but it’s obvious to all who talk with him for any length of time that he is a profoundly sad man, though exactly what this stems from is unknown. Despite his inability to formulate a comprehensive Theory of Absolute Territory, he is arguably the most brilliant man in Nerv. Through his current understanding of AT Field mechanics, he has plotted several possible Sidhe spatial and physiological models, and his simulations notably hold the record as the longest it has ever taken a combined Merlin system to analyze something. He is, however, a physicist and not an engineer. While the science of certain advanced weapons may still be pioneered by his research, actual weapon design is forever forbidden by Dr. Berlin after the Pallet Gun travesty.
Needs a robe and a staff to be truly effective.
Bridge Evangelion Technician Enrique Raul[edit]
The first impression of Enrique that most people get is, inevitably, his hair. It’s perfect. Shoulder length, dark and just begging to blow in the wind. Seriously, he must go through conditioner like crazy. This, however, overlooks the fact that Enrique is exceptionally well versed in the Evangelion’s physical systems, and can often spot and remedy problems before they have a chance to fully manifest. He often works closely with the pilots during synchronization testing, and monitors their Eva’s status during missions. He has worked with Nerv for years, and knows the Petya family quite well. He considers himself an unofficial uncle to Val, and despite her wishes has a tendency to call her ‘Vally’.
Bridge Tactical Coordinator Janet Sun[edit]
Serving directly underneath Operations Director Petya, Janet serves as a focal point of tactical communications, facilitating the flow of information between Nerv, the United Nations military, and Camelots own automated defenses. In any situation where command is unavailable, Janet heads the Round Table in a crises until someone outranking her arrives. As a person, Janet is rather short and petite, with shortly cropped hair and blue-framed glasses. While often quite, should she wish to make her opinion know she often does it with scathing wit. She often insists that she be treated as an officer of Nerv before anything else, and is actively displeased by any treatment that seems based on her femininity.
Bridge Data Analyst Robert Porter[edit]
A portly man who claims to have a thyroid condition, Robert has a voice that catches almost everyone off guard. Exceptionally deep and smooth, he is often mistaken for a black man over radios and phones. He does, however, have pattern recognition abilities well above average, and can pour over sensor input from several different mentoring stations without any noticeable loss of accuracy in his analysis. He serves as the Round Table’s eyes and ears, only the Merlin System itself processing and selecting the various feeds before him.
Enemies[edit]
Oberon[edit]
"It is enormous and grey, with bands of green marks adorning the shoulders. Its arms and legs seem wrong, clearly functional but put together in a way that seems bizarre and unnatural to you. The front of its head is not visible to you, as it in hunched over something, but the back of its head is exposed. What, exactly, it is that is exposed there is a remarkable sight: A semi-translucent green orb, its surface covered with an ever-shifting web of thin white lines, constantly forming new intersections and shapes before subsiding and reforming. The enemy is hunched over something, near was appears to be a train track. As the planes dive lower, you notice numerous smaller objects that seem to be in orbit of the creature. Some large, many much smaller. Among this ring of debris seems to be the train, a car of which floats away from the ring as you watch and settles in front of the Sidhe. It raises a hand, and the entire train car… you are not even sure what to call what happens. The train car breaks apart, but each individual section is intact. A small cloud of the individual pieces that made up the train car hold the enemies attention for put a moment before they rejoin the ring of debris around it."
Oberon is the first True Sidhe encountered by the pilots, and if it is any indication of their trials to come the pilots may very well be in serious trouble. Oberon possessed incredible telekinetic power, to the point that ripping an Evangelion carrier plane out of the sky and then systematically disassembling it was nigh effortless. It proved itself more than capable of breaching the Evangelions AT fields to move them as it pleased and was capable of disassembling an Evas limbs as well. Oberon was defeated despite his power by the most basic of attacks: neutralization. It appears that eroding Oberon's AT Field resulted in physical degradation. Between this weakness and a number of well placed shots by Pilot Ricci, Oberon met his end at the Battle of Dresden. It is uncertain whether the other Sidhe are similarly vulnerable to neutralization.
Redcap[edit]
"It seems small from your perspective, but it is still half the size of an Evangelions. It looks almost like a hunched over old man, if said old man was, in fact, and insect with a giant green orb covered with while lines embedded in its chest. The body is withered and the legs seem almost vestigial, though it has four long and reedy insectile arms that looks fully functional. The new Sidhe is dominated by far by its enormous head, capped by a bright red chitineous plate that protrudes over its four golden eyes, each of which glitters with a malevolent intelligence."
Redcap is a teleporter, though whether this constitutes the full extend of its abilities is unknown. As Dr. Berlin noted in his after action report:
"The insectile Sidhe (hereafter codenamed ‘Redcap’ by the Merlin system) seems to be the source of the detected gravitational anomalies. These seem to be a byproduct of it using its primary ability: teleportation through the bending of space itself. However, it does not seem to be a constant byproduct (for example: gravitational disturbances were detected at the departure and appearance site of Unit 02, but nowhere else at that time or since, leaving the final exit point of Redcap itself a mystery). In short: we can detect its travel some of the time, but not all of the time. In addition, Redcap displayed the ability transport others with it. Given the level of cooperation displayed by the Sidhe thus far, Redcap serving as a dimensional ferryman for other Sidhe is likely. "
Redcap was first encountered at the Battle of Dresden as it sought to aid the injured Oberon, and escaped after Oberons death. Redcap remains at large.
Pwca[edit]
"The whole battlefield becomes that much brighter as, suddenly and without warning, a ball of light appears above"
The Sidhe Pwca is at the same time the simplest and the most mysterious of the Sidhe thus revealed. On the one hand, it is visually nothing more than a ball of golden light. Its attacks thus far have been a variety of beam weaponry not unlike a high powered maser, but it was ultimately unable to save Oberon during the Battle of Dresden.
On the other hand, it has no core. Indeed, Pwca seems to lack a physical body entirely. As a ball of light is has no organs. Apparently pure energy, it is uncertainly how it might be harmed, and what cataclysmic energy might be released upon its death. Stranger still is its mode of transport, or rather its lack of one. Pwca simply is in a place until it is not. It does not travel so much as it does appear instantaneously, and without the telltale gravitational distortion seen in the teleportation abilities of Redcap.
Pwca remains at large.
Season One[edit]
Episode One: London Calling[edit]
In which our heroes arrive in New London, see their new home, and are given a brief orientation.
Episode Two: Wild Bors[edit]
In which Evangelion Unit 04 is in need of a smoke and a sit down.
Episode Three: Welcome to Westcraft[edit]
In which the pilots attend school and Toru Yamato ruins everything.
Episode Four: Battle of Dresden[edit]
In which the pilots face down their first Sidhe and, eventually, its friends.
Episode Five: Weaving a Story[edit]
In which love is confessed and secrets revealed
Episode Six: Hunting Dog[edit]
In which the pilots fight a Warhound and Albert cuts himself for love.
Episode Seven: The Wylderness[edit]
In which the pilots train in the Black Forest of GermaDEEP CROW! OH NO! DEEEEEEP CROOOOOOOOOOOOOOW!
Episode Eight: A Wyld Night[edit]
In which epic speeches are made and a city is defended from total destruction by a true Sidhe army.
Episode Nine: Master of the Hunt[edit]
In which the pilots fight off the Master of the Hunt, Albert makes an epic speech, and New London is saved but this all pales in comparision to the mysterious VTOL pilot who brings low the Master twice. Who is this man (or woman)?
See Also[edit]
5600 xp, Tier 2, Super Solenoids, Masers, 5 surplus.