TPOCT: Reference Sheet

For submission to #ThePublisherOCT

Audition
Round 1

Writer:
Scarlette O'Haora, medical student

Personality
You would never guess Scarlette is an introvert, but when you look back on a conversation and realize she asked all the questions and you just answered them and talked all about yourself and your life and your complaints, you realize you know nothing about Scarlette. And now she knows everything about you. Extremely inquisitive and curious about people, Scarlette knows how to start a conversation and keeps the questions coming. When asked about herself, her own answers are terse and concise, so unless you are the type to pry, she isn't going to start monologuing anytime soon.

Scarlette is otherwise very sweet and maternal to people who are nice to her or have yet to offend her, and is often considerate to complete strangers' needs. She is pragmatic and attempts to plan for many many contingencies. She hones her skills and garners praise to the point of arrogance, but is generally too compassionate and caring of others to let her ego float up up and away. It is difficult to perturb her level-headed calm except when cats are involved--so high stress situations are no problemo!

Skills/Abilities/Strengths
- wide array of random survival trivia (like breathing out slowly while rising up from a deep dive)
- handles knives for cooking and maybe one day for surgery
- reads others relatively well
- practical to the point of mean efficiency
- can handle a medium pace long distance jog with no problem
- can lift 100 lbs max.

Weaknesses
- tires very easily in agility/high-intensity activity (i.e. soccer)
- is otherwise entirely untrained in the art of fighting
- does not like to hurt people

Character History
Freshly matriculated med student who spends her free time taking care of cats instead of humans. She picks up strays and takes care of them until an owner or rescue shelter is found.

Inventory
1 stethoscope
1 pen
1 iPhone 4S
1 granola bar
1 credit card
1 set of house keys
1 ID badge with name
1 pager
1 Invicta prodiver watch
1 strange watch that doesn't tell time. sad.

OCs:
Nichol Bellasseau, retired spy

Appearance
Short and stocky. Has put on a few pounds since retirement but can still take you down with little effort in a fistfight. Goatee, mustache, and sideburns. Olive green eyes. Curly salt and pepper hair (although more salt than pepper at this point).

Personality
Bellasseau has been around the world, seen this, done that. A curmudgeonly grandfather figure with a paternal bent towards children and youth, he is respected in his field and understands very well that it must be earned. All the usual morals regarding the protection of innocent life and rights are all there, but he's willing to sacrifice what it takes to get the job done, because duty in his mind is first and foremost. He can be considered "married to the job," kept a spare-looking office and home with almost no sign of personal objects. He is practical and blunt to the tee. He still has a sharp mind for his age, wiser with age and experience, and he keeps a level head in times of emergency/danger.

Skills/Abilities/Strengths
- change density (increase or decrease) of self or any object upon skin contact. Object immediately reverts back to normal density upon release.
- boxing
- knowledge of wielding common fireweapons.
Being heavyset makes him a difficult boulder to mow down. He's strongest in close quarter combat, where conserved movement combined with sharp strong hits make him a dangerous opponent.

Weaknesses
- anything that requires endurance and/or cardio. His joints don't appreciate running anymore.
- being old and slightly arthritic
- tendency to rely on experience over innovation.
- agility is not his forte.

Character History
Had a stint in the navy in his teenage years, finished honorably and later joined the police force. Eventually switched to government intelligence and finished after several years as director. Took a really long and persistent effort by the bureau to convince him to retire and even now he resists retirement, moonlighting as a PI and consulting for the local police when he’s bored. That or spy on his neighbors. His density-changing power is a very well-kept secret, although it was not unhelpful to his successful career. Of course, rumors like "our captain can jump over an 8ft wall!" existed but no one went out of their way to prove or disprove them.

Inventory
1 pocket flashlight
1 swiss army knife
* both always on his person [force of habit]

Jia, octopus

Appearance
An oversized relative of the blue-ringed octopus, Jia is a mutant land-based octopus with the ability to breathe oxygen. She is dark red-brown colored with faint orange rings in the neutral state. Her skin cells carry brown, red, green, yellow, and blue pigments to use for camouflage or flashing a warning display. She fails at texture mimicry though. Her 8 arms carry the standard suction cups. She has red blood because, in land conditions, hemoglobin works better than hemocyanin.

Personality
Feisty, curious, and highly opinionated and expressive of said opinions. Squirts ink or changes color to express herself. Highly motivated by prospect of food (anything from clams, crabs, small fish, and even mac n' cheese). May or may not have a penchant for hugging people with little intention of letting them go.

Skills/Abilities/Strengths
- mild venom in her bite/saliva: only enough to create drunken sensation in victim
- escape artist
- climb anywhere with gecko-worthy suction cup arms
- squeeze into anywhere because of lack of internal skeleton
- camouflage in a vague general sense
- squirt ink
- can regenerate lost limbs, but it takes a long time
- can swim in water very well but must come up for air

Weaknesses
- SUPER SOFT AND SQUISHY (no internal shell or any protective armor)
- pretty slow in terms of walking/climbing around
- cannot talk

ARC-OS or "Arc," the android [Adaptive Reasoning Combat Operating System]

Appearance
Lithe build. Short dark brown hair, bright green eyes. Computer programmed imitation of human inflection of neutral male voice. Lower half accessorized with armor.

Personality
Prioritizes logic and efficiency and minimizing self-injury. Programmed to generally uphold humanistic tendencies such as minimizing loss of life and altruistic service, but is flexibly adaptable when mission would be compromised. For the most part, his mission when his character is chosen is simply to incapacitate the opponent without killing them.

Skills/Abilities/Strengths
- electromagnetic shield - deflects metal objects and some light/radio waves. strength inversely proportional to duration. also consumes battery rapidly.
- ambidextrous
- very agile. does not have great “strength” per se but utilizes heavy mass to make up for it in terms of momentum.
- myriad senses - temperature, electrics, pressure, chemicals, position, radiation, sounds, basic radar, light
- installed with several types of hand-to-hand combat software
- equipped with retractable sword in left arm
- is programmed to learn new things

Weaknesses
- can overheat easily when in combat for long periods and is unable to compute/process multiple things at once
- requires battery charging at least daily, either by wall outlet or solar charging (which is much slower) [translates to incredible hunger when I switch back to myself]
- artificial “skin” layer isn’t really durable in order to be breathable and help cool the CPU, easily torn by knife or otherwise.
* symptoms of overheating: appears to "breathe" heavily or obviously slows down in movement/decisionmaking
** the imitation of human breathing also functions as the CPU's fan, in combination with other methods of cooling such as having the breathable skin

Character History
In a world where countries are deadlocked in a new age arms race as governments seek scientists and engineers to construct better, stronger, faster mecha drones or combat robots, ARC-OS is an oddity. His construction sacrifices a slew of weaponry and armor for the sake of mimicking humans. Nobody knows why anyone bothered to make him. Some suggest that blending with human populations is useful for spying, but even tiny bug AIs are better for intelligence gathering. Womp womp. Also, his creator is a little bit hopelessly impractical when it comes to the design of this particular character. Stop judging.