Still need to transfer my actual character apps with the proper template, but to start, here's a biggun. Might do apps for the Staff later, but that'll be a while.
Name: The Inventory
Location: The Inventory does not properly exist in normal space, rather it lies in a ‘Transitory Space’ accessible from numerous locations across the globe.
Description: A massive, mazelike city, independent from Earth in many respects, yet intrinsically connected to it via doorways. The Inventory serves as a safe haven for characters, be it those who need somewhere away from discrimination and attention earth-side, those needing home, work, or even specialty items. The Inventory has a little something for everybody, character or no, and as long as rules are followed, all are allowed access to the Inventory and the services of it's clients and business partners.
Points of Interest
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The Market: The biggest of which being the area simply dubbed “The Market”. An entirely unofficial sector, but one recognized as much by the Inventory staff and it’s growth assisted by them. A massive sprawling place, one could effectively find anything here, from highly obscure magical trinkets to enough firepower to level a city to highly specialized machinery or custom jobs. The Market has practically anything one could desire, as long as you have the funds.
Samsara Bar: While the Inventory has many eateries both of fine dining and dives, many would point to the Samsara as being one of the places to go for good food and good times. Run by a series of experienced interdimensional travelers, they have food to account for practically every kind of palette or species, not to mention having one of the widest varieties of drink and other more chemically induced entertainment known to man. The Samsara has a little bit of something for everybody.
The Nexus: Most of the Inventory’s layout is locked in place, mostly unchanged except in the instance of attempted takeover. The Nexus is the exception, it’s entrances appearing wherever they need to be throughout the Inventory. The Nexus itself is the HQ of the Inventory’s Security/Internal Affairs division, as well as the actual physical location of GlaDOS’s operating systems. It functions as the Inventory’s nerve center, nothing that happens in the Inventory occurs without the Nexus knowing about it in some capacity. Actually entering the Nexus itself requires one to be escorted by a security member, or authorized by Winslow or GlaDOS themselves. And even if one were to somehow sneak into one of the entrances, the Nexus is extremely adept at sussing out spies or attempts at sabotage, sensors able to detect even the faintest signs of intrusion and lock anyone out, or shift location immediately. Not to mention it being filled with some of the Inventory’s strongest characters, ready to apprehend or murder whatever intruder may come knocking.
The Docks: One of the largest areas of in Inventory, not for it’s scope, but scale. The Docks effectively act as a massive hangar for sea, air, and spacecraft from small to massive. These docks allow for not only the housing of craft, but also automated systems to allow for repair and modification of vessels for only a nominal fee, or none at all for the vessels of staff-members. Each hangar bay is equipped with portal systems to allow for the quick exit of vehicles wherever one may need them, be it in the middle of the sea or the depths of space. The reverse can be done as well, vehicles outside the Inventory able to call for a portal when needed for a price. The price is often extra if one needs to extricate from a warzone, however, to account for potential weaponry coming through the portal and damaging the Docks.
The Hub: While the Inventory has numerous smaller entry points, the Hub is the most major, as it’s portals connect vast stretches of the world allowing one to practically travel cross-continent in but a few steps. This has lead to countless utilizing the Inventory for quick and easy travel. The Hub is the equivalent of a massive subway station, countless moving to and fro through the numerous entryways, and sometimes, some actually enter the Inventory proper. The Hub is a major focus of Security, every person checked and scanned before fully entering.
History: The Inventory as an establishment has existed long before being brought to this world. Originally, it functioned as a kind of inter-dimensional gambling hall, some of the greatest and worst across the multiverse coming together to play games of chance with massive prize pools, or sometimes even just for fun.
When the Inventory shifted locations with the Horizon incident, things changed over time. During the initial conflict, the Inventory shifted goals somewhat, acting as a safe haven for those who needed it. As time went on, this sheltering grew further and further and eventually, those sheltered contributed back to the Inventory. Even after the conflict, with discriminations rampant, the Inventory continued to expand further and further until it’s original role as a gambling hall became more of a small side-portion of a far more major role as a neutral ground and safe haven for characters big and small. A hall in a pocket dimension turned into a city of it’s own, with it’s own affairs and stakes in the world. One that expands every day.
Reputation: The Inventory is widely viewed as neutral ground to most. A place characters and normal people can go to speak even when on terse terms without threat of recourse. The Inventory does not allow violence of any kind within it’s walls, no matter the perpetrator, and it’s high security makes sure that idea is kept very firm. None get away with murder, violence, or sabotage & subterfuge on the Inventory’s watch, and the people respect it. This, plus it’s ability to house many highly dangerous characters leaves both humans and characters to treat the Inventory with respect, especially given the Inventory’s tendency to stay out of most earthbound matters aside from slowly and steadily working towards routes to help get characters back home.
While most countries aren’t exactly fond of some of the things that the Inventory sells within it’s market, such items are usually firmly tracked and listed, and finding who bought what and where they went to is a relatively easy matter, not to mention such things are usually linked back to the individual seller and not the Inventory in the worst case scenario.
Assets: In terms of proper assets, much of it's technology and resources are usually derived from it's many staff and patrons. It is a wide and immense breadth of technology, magic, and magitech, a mishmash of countless ideas, worlds, and ideologies combining into a surprisingly able force, despite it's rather informal nature. While much of it's tech can be acquired in numerous places, the Inventory does have a few distinct technologies up it's sleeves, as well as many characters at it's disposal, considering it consisting almost entirely of them.
Spoiler
Staff
Spoiler
Leader/Public Relations: Winslow (Monkey Island)
Winslow is the original founder of the Inventory, and while it has grown and shifted greatly from it’s original purpose with time, the man has not, always staying a reliable, charismatic man, and probably one of the few around who could keep such a place together. He usually acts as the face for the establishment, helping with PR as well as keeping the more human elements of the facility intact.
Manager/Overseer: GlaDOS (Portal)
Whereas Winslow could be considered the Inventory’s heart, GlaDOS is it’s brain, executing countless programs to deal with the various sides of the Inventory, from monitoring, finances, job employment, etc . While not truly in command, they are still essential to the Inventory’s continued operation and expansion.
They’re not exactly here by force, but there’s few other facilities that can handle the steep requirements their systems have to function at full capacity.
Chief of Security: Sam “Serious” Stone (Serious Sam)
Considering the number of quite powerful characters and individuals that frequent the Inventory, having a one-man army on hand is quite a boon. His potent strength, skill with a variety of weaponry, astute eye, and a mostly casual attitude that can diffuse most situations make them an excellent head of security for such a facility. They often help new security get used to the environment, and help with training when needed, if the character isn’t already trained to do so.
Security Commanders: Fifteen & The Headhunter (Katana Zero)
The two are second only to Stone, held back on purpose due to their psychopathic tendencies. Former NULL: Gamma soldiers, they work at the Inventory primarily out of need, not want. They subsist off of a drug known as Chronos, which grants them incredible precognition abilities, but it’s withdrawal kills the user, while trapping them in an endless loop of the last moments before they die. GlaDOS managed to synthesize the drug from their bloodstream, allowing their continued existence. Winslow has been assisting the two in overcoming their tendencies, providing room and board, as well as a proper paycheck in addition to the Chronos. In the meantime, both Winslow and GlaDOS have been attempting to locate those behind their creation, as well as finding the last Gamma NULL they know of, Zero
Arms Dealer: Marcus (Borderlands)
The Inventory’s great market has many, many sides to it. But one of the most notable is it’s numerous armaments, especially in this day and age. While many people applied for the job of helping manage and acquire such hardware, Marcus fit the bill the best, his exploits on Pandora and experience with countless firearms both practical and impractical, as well as their excellent management of such a catalog allowed them the spot.
Whether it’s a gun that fires bullets, or a bullet that fires guns, Marcus and the numerous stores they sponsor have anything anyone with even a slight taste in firearms would be interested in.
Head of the Market: Mr. Foster (Killing Floor)
While the vast market of the Inventory doesn’t have a true unifying leader or position for such, if someone were to ask for them, they would point to Mr. Foster. Originally a simple Day Trader in his home reality, the apocalypse shifted their tone, and surprisingly, hardened their economic skills even further.
While normally GlaDOS would handle the processing of mass transactions within the market, Mr. Foster often does it for them, as well as assisting in acquiring new merchants or wares for the market to flourish more.
He’s also open for far more specific wares that need to be acquired, numerous contacts around the world allowing him to help procure some incredibly specific things… at a premium, of course.
Head of Medical: Eirin Yagokoro (Touhou)
Medical is both a fair section of the market as well as the Inventory’s own dedicated hospital. Countless minds have vied for the title as leader of the district, but many of which could be considered insane, mad, or self-serving in their entirety. That, and few have even come close to the competence, genius, and ingenuity of Eirin Yagokoro.
Her works have solved countless diseases in the short time they’ve been aboard, and while their actual appearances within the Inventory are minimal, due to also caring for the Lunarian Princess Kaguya Houraisan within Gensokyo, their presence is still felt all around.
Samsara Bar Manager(s): Bartender, Singer, Pianist, Cellist (Jazztronauts)
The Samsara Bar is one of the most popular stops within the Inventory, known for their exotic theming, excellent drinks, and one of the best venues for movies, plays, and music alike. The four cats who run it are an odd bunch, but known for their reliability when needed, an the merger between them and the Inventory has resulted in great boons for both.
The Bartender is often considered the “true” manager, but the rest have a similar amount of sway. Each specialize in different forms of entertainment. The Bartender focuses on drinks and food, the Singer focuses on performances and musical acts, the Pianist runs their own gym and sports center in a corner of the bar, and the Cellist deals with more… chemical induced forms of entertainment, made as safe as they can possibly be.
Head of Gambling: Xeno a (Len’en)
Gambling of all forms is a common thing in the Inventory, for it was it’s original purpose, after all. Even with the change and expansion of goals, it’s still something that keeps the Inventory unique. Originally, GlaDOS was the one who assisted in running this, but since the arrival of Xeno, they’ve taken up the mantle. Their goal is to ensure randomness within the gambling halls, their passive ability of probability manipulation making it quite easy, and the Inventory has been assisting with their natural luck sapping as well so they can actually interact with others without causing those others to trip on a random penny and break open their nose. They’ve also introduced several new forms of gambling which have been catching on with the younger crowd, and they even have a no-stakes room for those who just want to play these things to pass time rather than waste or earn money.
Head of R&D: Tsubakura Enraku (Len’en)
The Inventory has it’s own Research and Development sector, dedicating to incorporating and melding technologies of numerous worlds. As with the Medical wing, many mad scientists and quite ‘special’ minds have attempted to, and sometimes succeeded at winning the title of “Head of R&D.” However, many have incurred great damages to facilities and people under the Inventory’s care, leading to it being effectively a round-robin of heads, and more recently, GlaDOS themselves has been forced to intervene to cease this competition the scientists have done amongst themselves, choosing the head themselves.
Tsubakura was chosen by the AI, and assuredly does not want the role nor the spotlight it comes with. They have kept it however, simply due to being among the most reasonable to work with, despite their brilliance. Level-headed and with enough of a condescending nature to put even the most inflammatory mad scientist to task, Enraku is as skilled at making others look inferior to themselves unintentionally as they are at actual R&D. Incorporating new technologies or biological natures is something of a specialty of theirs, their biggest breakthroughs coming through in the field of nanotechnology. They have also been the one to establish close ties between the R&D and Medical sectors, who before Tsubakura’s entry were often at odds with one another due to methodologies. Eirin and Enraku get along quite well, Yagokoro being one of the few who actually impress Enraku with their knowledge and rapid understanding of their research.
R&D Aides: Huragok (Halo)
Shortly after the Inventory's expansion from it's original goals, they came into numerous workers from countless worlds, and among them were a rather large group of Huragok, biological supercomputers who have since become invaluable aids to the Inventory's R&D section and have become some of it's most predominant workers and assistants. Enraku's personal assistants are a pair of Huragok, who serve to help test their more out-there ideas.
Items/Technology
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Weapons
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TMAR: A revolutionary device provided by Sam “Serious” Stone, and has been reverse-engineered to work with practically any kind of ammunition within reason. The TMAR, or Techno-Magical Ammunition Replenisher is capable of generating a limitless supply of ammunition for the weapon it is loaded into. Casings still need to be ejected, but in many instances the weapon doesn’t even have to be reloaded.
This does not prevent overheating, weapon jamming or anything similar of that nature, only providing the ammunition. The rest is up to the user.
TMARs are not that expensive to make, and most Inventory staff have such things on their weaponry. Ships and vehicles the Inventory fields are also fitted with these devices if it can fit. Larger ships usually have rounds too large for these on their main guns, and are usually relegated to secondary munition-based weaponry.
Armor/Defensive
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The Inventory’s nature itself is a very potent defense. It being only accessible through placed points throughout the world, and those entrances can be closed as easily as they can be opened. This highly limits any attempt at an attack or invasion, but even if one were to manage to get in, they would also have to contend with not only the Inventory’s security forces, but also the Inventory itself, as GlaDOS’s integration allows them massive control over not only the cameras and doors, but even the very layout of the Inventory itself, allowing them to shift the location of corridors, entirely isolating them, deploying defenses such as turrets, gas, forcefields, and numerous other defensive assets the inventory has come up with. This renders the Inventory near unassailable, and even if one were to manage to do so, the losses would assuredly not be worth the effort.
Items/Tools
Spoiler
Transitory Space: The “space between space”, as GLaDOS puts it. It is seemingly how the Inventory exists as such a large structure, able to reach practically everywhere while remaining wholly separate from reality. Technology exploiting this TS also allows for places, such as ships, houses and the like to be larger on the inside than the outside. Retrofitting ships with this technology to allow for roomy interiors even in otherwise coffin-sized shuttles and boats is a service the Inventory offers, if at a very high price, and GlaDOS can be quite selective on who is able to even purchase these services.
Nobody’s quite sure how it works in the geographical sense except for a scant few, GLaDOS included, and those secrets are held quite tightly to to the AI's central processors.
CORE-Class Energy Reactor: An incredibly advanced reactor who's designs were apparently recovered following an encounter with a strange anomaly during Inventory expansion. It is capable of pulling particulate matter from the surrounding air and converting it into magical energy, which can then be used very similarly to electrical power. Only trace amounts of matter are needed to continue the reaction, and can easily be supplied via ventilation. These reactors are incredibly efficient and green, and versions from the size of a small jukebox to the size of a small starship are utilized by the Inventory in numerous methods.
GlaDOS does not trust them, however, as even she does not fully understand their workings even with full schematics on hand. Thus, ships utilizing them often have more traditional backup reactors in instance something goes awry.
Vehicles
Spoiler
INV Ships/CAUSALITY: INV is the designation used for ships belonging to the Inventory or are otherwise allied with them. 98% of the ships they possess are usually retrofitted from ships that were left stranded during the Horizon incident, either recovered and salvaged, donated, or given the designation to those serving the Inventory as staff.
The other 2% belongs to the pet project of the current head of R&D, Tsubakura Enraku, and is still in it's construction phase: The INV-CAUSALITY.
Originally slated to be a research and resource harvesting vessel meant to traverse distant stars, it has since greatly increased in scale, manpower, and firepower as previous heads got their hands on it. Now it has been slowly transforming into a practical flying HQ, currently fit with enough firepower to level a small city. It's interior utilizes Transitory Space to it's fullest, being massive internally and fit with the finest tech countless characters could provide, most notably among them being the massive main gun running along the center of the ship, referred to as the "Decimation".
It fires a techno-magical slug that travels along the massive length of the interior Transitory Space, propelled by several massive pulses of energy from latent CORE-Class reactors along it’s delivery system. Upon reaching the end, and thus beginning it’s travel towards the target, this 5-ton mass of depleted uranium, tungsten, iron and meticulously tuned magical energy is flung at an enemy, tuned to go straight through shields and impact it’s target at 70% the speed of light. It has never been used, and Enraku personally hopes it doesn't ever have to. R&D has primarily moved operations to the ship itself and once the ship finally reaches completion, will be sent out to conduct research as well as probably scare half the Earth's population once they understand the firepower this mobile city of a ship is packing.
Last edited by Koishi; 01/29/2021, 09:17 AM.
Sometimes when you're driving down a road, a bug hits your windshield. It's ugly and unpleasant, but you just activate the wipers / cleaning fluid and it's gone in a few seconds. It's just part of driving down the road. You don't dwell on it, because that'd be silly. Bugs aren't worth the time.
You just discard their guts and keep on driving.
