Genius: The Transgression/Characters

Grimm
"I am nanometers from perfection and no longer answer to any mortal authority. They weren't there for me and I won't waste time helping them as I rise asymptotically toward the ultimate virtue. Every corpse I leave should be one less investigation to make, instead of one more open case. But I'm not here for human justice any more. When you see the Paolenti penthouse burn with white fire and the dreams of serpents, you'll know that, and so will every other man-mask-wearing machine-demon in this city. They'll never love me for the things I've done, but I never asked for love. Only for perfection."


 * Boisterous Bruiser: Their chief derangement lends itself to this.
 * Genius Bruiser
 * Hair Trigger Temper: Often.
 * Screw the Rules I Have A Nuke

Hoffnung
"You've seen it on the billboards and the trash-strewn alleys, amidst the halls of the powerful and in the tenements of the desperate: the Change. It's coming, and soon everything will be different. Our world will transform itself―in fire, if necessary, in blood, certainly―and be reborn, fresh and new, to gaze out on the universe with innocent and wondering eyes. And I am the herald of that Change. So forgive me if I cannot hear your words or your screams. They are too small. Do you hear the mayflies screaming tonight? Neither do I."


 * The Dark Side Will Make You Forget: Narcissism is their signature derangement.
 * The Determinator
 * Utopia Justifies the Means
 * Visionary Villain: When they go bad.

Klagen
"When I was in high school my teacher told me that there are more people alive today than have ever lived. Don't worry: she lied, then got cancer. (Not my fault.) We live atop a mountain of corpses. The Earth is swimming in humans, above and below the ground, so when I see you trying to raise the dead, I'm torn. On the one hand, I recognize your despair. On the other hand, do you really want to spend the rest of the week fending off a Zombie Apocalypse as the Earth vomits up her dead? AGAIN? Come on, man, think this through: every time you try this, we end up fighting zombies. I hate zombies. Just put the syringe down."


 * The Atoner
 * The Eeyore
 * Ignored Expert: Comes with being the Only Sane Man around lots of mad scientists who just can't wait to start tampering in god's domain.
 * Mad Doctor
 * My Greatest Failure
 * Only Sane Man

Neid
"First let me tell you that human beings without mathematical souls are transparent to God and thus mean nothing to Him. So you ask, why does God (who is the Equation) care about window-souls? He doesn't, but the Devil, whom I define as our negative thoughts, does, and directs window-soul humans at us to destroy us. These humans think they think and feel, but they are without the highest Number and their feelings are only our self-doubt. Destroy your self-doubt, be free of their hatred. Or destroy them, and be free of your self-doubt. Vengeance is time- and space-symmetrical, like any good equation."


 * The Aloner
 * Because You Were Nice to Me: Neids are unshakeably loyal to people who earn their trust.
 * Green Eyed Monster
 * Properly Paranoid
 * The Resenter
 * They Called Me Mad

Staunen
"I'm afraid I don't see things like you do. I mean it: I'm afraid. What if the things I find beautiful drive you mad? What if they hollow you out like clever little squirrels getting nuts for the winter, except the nuts are your eyes, and winter is, I don't know, maybe the Rapture or something? And I'm just smiling while your face gets ripped apart because I think it's beautiful? These things worry me sometimes, when I'm not looking at the night sky. So I spend a lot of time looking at the night sky, and not looking at your face and thinking about squirrels."


 * Cloudcuckoolander
 * Curiosity Is a Crapshoot
 * Forgets to Eat: Considering how obsessive they are, this happens a lot. Their peers usually have to drag them out of this.
 * For Science
 * Super OCD: With the emphasis on "obsessive".

Peerage

 * Genre Savvy
 * Mad Hatter

The International Union of Artifice
"Good, fast, and cheap: you get all three. And if you talk like that to my people again, you're going to wake up as a collection of spare parts."


 * Bungling Inventor:They can slap Wonders together faster than any other Geniuses, but unless they spend an hour testing it out, they won't know what the persistent fault is. This can cause problems.
 * MacGyvering
 * Ragtag Bunch of Misfits: Artificers come from all walks of life, but the younger ones tend to be, shall we say, "unpolished".
 * Weird Trade Union: Some of them take that "union" bit literally.

Fellowship for Manifest Direction
"Like even the strongest iron bar, every man has a weak point, and it can be found."


 * The Beast Master/The Minion Master: Many prefer to let Beholden or robots do their dirty work.
 * Bond Villain Stupidity: The younger Directors accuse their elders of this.
 * Diabolical Mastermind: A not-entirely-inaccurate stereotype of the foundation.
 * The Face: Often in player parties. This is important, since a Genius' ever worsening Science Related Memetic Disorder causes Jabir, which makes talking to normal humans rather difficult.
 * Guile Hero: When they're not outright Manipulative Bastards.
 * Omniscient Council of Vagueness: Older Directors love this trope.
 * Politically Incorrect Hero: Briefly. They've cleaned up their act.
 * Screw the Rules I Have Connections

Center for Circumferential Navigation
"I've seen things you wouldn't believe. Hell, I've seen things I don't believe."


 * Badass Army
 * Badass Bookworm or Genius Bruiser: They can use Mania to enhance their physical abilities.
 * Defector From Decadence: Because of Obstructive Bureaucrats and being Surrounded By Idiots.
 * Lightning Bruiser
 * Mildly Military: While still possessed of military trappings, formal organization and protocol have been relaxed in recent years.
 * Travel Cool

Reformed Society of Progenitors (formerly Children of Demiurge)
"It'll work this time, I promise. It won't hurt anyone."


 * Hollywood Cyborg: The absolute best at making implanted wonders.
 * Mad Doctor
 * Transhuman Treachery: Not always, but they get a lot of flak for this.
 * Professor Guinea Pig: Unlike their previous iteration.
 * Upgrade Artifact

College of Scholastic Theory
"If it's true, someone wrote it down, even if just to refute it."


 * Badass Bookworm: They're the oldest Foundation, and have been fighting Lemuria the longest.
 * Non Action Guy: Older Scholastics are often content to stay inside and theorize.
 * Odd Friendship: The ancient, methodical College of Scholastic Theory gets along pretty decently with the modern, revolutionary Free Council. Well, better than Mages and Geniuses usually do, anyway.
 * The Smart Guy
 * Trickster Archetype: A popular persona for younger Scholastics, much to their elders' chargrin. Tropes commonly incorporated into the Scholastic Trickster identity include:
 * Adventurer Archaeologist: A little Schliemannian globetrotting is much more exciting than hitting the books.
 * Master of Illusion: A prerequisite for any would-be conqueror of the human mind.
 * Rhymes On a Dime: Because puckishness just isn't the same without the odd couplet here and there.
 * Will Not Tell a Lie: For older (or old-fashioned) Scolastics, being truthful is Serious Business.

Lemuria

 * Totally Amoral Counterpart
 * I Reject Your Reality
 * Reality Warper
 * Reptiles Are Abhorrent: The Secret Masters.
 * Wrong Genre Savvy

Atomists
"There was so much potential. So much promise. So much that failed us, all those years ago. But not this time."


 * I Want My Jetpack: Or Hovercar/Invisible Zepplin/Robotic Spider/Horde of Gorilla Cyborgs
 * Determinators: They are the best at warding off Havoc- it happens sooner or later, but maybe next time...
 * Straw Man Has a Point: Despite their elitism, real world ideologies like the 1990s "New Economy" and singularitarianism show that they're much more in touch with mundane humans than unmada normally are.
 * Utopia Justifies the Means: All they ever wanted was to bring us into the future- not that they ever cared about the people who would have to live in it.
 * Zeerust: Not a defining trope, but certainly not uncommon, being formally founded in the 50s at the dawn of the Nuclear age means many of their elders have a pre-apocalypse Fallout style of Mad Science.

Etherites
"Now if you look here, you'll see that this is how things really work. Actually, really, positively work. But ignore that, that part is still being corrected."


 * Berserk Button: Question their theories. We dare you.
 * The Brute
 * The Fundamentalist
 * Lightning Bruiser
 * Raygun Gothic

Mechanists
"We're all just cogs in the Great Machine. Whatever we think we choose was actually predestined, part of the process. Part of the Plan."


 * Clock Punk: Sometimes.
 * Face Heel Turn: Sorta. Geniuses espousing what is now modern Mechanist philosophy have always been around, but the Baramin itself officially formed after a schism in the International Union of Artifice.
 * The Fatalist: They reject the idea of free-will and consequentially the idea of responsibility.
 * Steampunk: Other times.

Oracles
"No. No. This is absolutely wrong. Look, just let me fix it. All of it."


 * Black and White Insanity
 * Crystal Spires and Togas
 * Sinister Minister: Not all of them, but enough to be worth mentioning.
 * The Fundamentalist: They believe in absolutes and are incapable of seeing a middle ground.
 * Tautological Templar: Since they define themselves as the "good guys", many Oracles firmly believe all of their actions are moral. Even when they make hallucination dust from toddler bones.
 * Values Dissonance

Phenomenologists
"Hmm. That's an interesting point, but is there really any kind of absolute truth out there? Anything that is immutable?"


 * Consummate Liar: And how! They can spend a point of Mania to gain a exceptional success on a subterfuge roll. This is because they aren't actually lying, they genuinely believe anything they say.
 * I Reject Your Reality: Even more so than other Unmada. Phenomenologists will reject their own reality when it suits them.
 * Not all of them do, though. For example, Belinda Czdenk (who is not highly regarded by other Phenomenologists) doesn't so much disbelieve in objective truth as believe that it's irrelevant and/or unknowable. So, while she may reject common reality, she can't substitute it with her own, much to her frustration. Yes, that logic is shot, but remember who we're dealing with.
 * Because of this the other Phenomenologists consider Belinda to e a phony.
 * Surveillance As the Plot Demands: They're in charge of Lemuria's intelligence operations.

Dharmists (destroyed)

 * Les Collaborateurs
 * Manipulative Bastard: Unlike the Directors, these guys were only good at manipulating beings touched by Inspiration

Numericals (ascendant)
"p4Wn All T3H N00b2"


 * Its Popular Now It Sucks: The Internet, that is.
 * Eternal September: They want to bring this to an end.
 * Serious Business: They have very strict beliefs about the Internet, but not a case of Internet Tough Guy as they are a very real danger to people who troll them on the web.
 * Troll: They justify their elitist ideology by the presence of online jerks; this may lead to a case of He Who Fights Monsters.

Formalists (Ten Thousand Fans)

 * Asian and Nerdy
 * Batman Can Breathe in Space: For about a minute per point of Mania expended. Mania is kind of like air, right?
 * Bollywood Nerd: Fewer, because of the Lemurian presence in India, but they do study ancient Indian mathematics.
 * Far East
 * Implacable Man: Their Grant and specialization in Exelixi makes this a definite possibility.
 * All Asians Know Martial Arts: If they didn't know it already, their exelixi can make it so.
 * La Résistance: Asia is principally Lemurian territory. These guys are a minority, but they're still fighting.

Thule Society (Revanchists)

 * All Germans Are Nazis: Neatly averted; if the majority of Germans really had faith in Nazi ideology, then these Manes wouldn't exist.
 * Blond Guys Are Evil
 * Blue Eyes
 * Cold Blooded Torture: Their science runs on it.
 * Evil Is Sexy: Bred to be good-looking, among other things
 * Ghostapo: Their occultists.
 * Good Powers Bad People: They study Exelixi.
 * Nietzsche Wannabes
 * Politically Incorrect Villains
 * Stupid Aeronautical Harness Hitler
 * Those Wacky Nazis: Pretty much the definition of this group.
 * Ubermenschen: They don't fit the trope, but like the mundane Nazis, they inaccurately cite Nietzsche's work and call themselves Ubermenschen.

Fellowships

 * Prestige Class

Elders of the Third Law

 * Clock Punk
 * Crouching Moron Hidden Badass: They may look primitive, but they're also passionate hunters of the Illuminated.
 * New Technology Is Evil: Inspired by Leonardo Da Vinci, and leery of the trappings of modern technology.
 * By modern technology we mean they consider steam power to be new fangled devil technology.
 * They like gunpowder, though.

Hermetic Order of the 28 Spheres

 * Clarks Third Law: Have fun with the Idea.
 * Elemental Powers: Choose one and stick with it.

Phantom Foundation

 * Who You Gonna Call: They make money by banishing ghosts.

Perfected Vision Institute

 * Psychic Powers

Iridium Sentinels

 * Power Armor
 * Superhero

Malcolm T. Washington Fellowship

 * Big Creepy Crawlies
 * Black and Nerdy
 * Overly Narrow Superlative: Moochava stated that this Fellowship is based off of college scholarships with ridiculously specific qualifications- in this case, being an African-American entomologist.

Nine Vertex Devil Club

 * Defeat Means Friendship: To join the Devils, you must first win a race against them.
 * Travel Cool

Ressurection Consortium

 * Immortality Immorality: To enter, you need an Obligation of 6 or below.

Leonardo di ser Piero

 * Beethoven Was an Alien Spy
 * Evil Twin: Don't worry, he's got it covered.
 * Historical Hero Upgrade

Nikola Tesla

 * Beethoven Was an Alien Spy
 * Historical Villain Upgrade: Back then, it was a choice between joining Lemuria or having no resources at all.
 * And it must have been nice to have found a group that actually appreciated his ideas.

Robert Hook

 * Beethoven Was an Alien Spy

Dr. Vienna/Yancy Wolfgang Borcowitz

 * Ambiguously Jewish
 * Blue Oni: To Screaming Sam Paluxy's Red Oni.
 * Non Action Guy: Much to Sam's disgust.
 * Reality Warper
 * Reasonable Authority Figure: In the process of mental decay, sadly.
 * Ravens and Crows: He owns a maliciously literal-minded corvid automaton.
 * Steampunk

Gracie Calabash

 * Reasonable Authority Figure: Probably the most stable of the senior New Peers.

Screaming Sam Paluxy

 * All Love Is Unrequited: His unceasingly unstable love/hate feelings with Dr. Vienna might not be romantic, but if they are Sam is in for a long wait. Dr. Vienna is mentioned to have previously been in a fifteen year heterosexual relationship and there are no hints that he could be bisexual.
 * Instrument of Murder
 * Love Switch: One of his Wonders, appropriately called the "Fuck Switch", does this to the user. It's actual purpose is people puppetry.
 * Red Oni: To Dr. Vienna's Blue Oni.
 * Straight Gay

Captain Joe Calazzi

 * Politically Incorrect Villain
 * General Ripper: On a smaller scale than most, but he's real serious with the hate crimes, and has a posse.
 * Reality Warper: With a horrible racist philosophy.

Devon Ogura

 * Corrupt Corporate Executive: He's a Mechanist, it comes naturally to him.
 * Cyberpunk
 * Everything's Better With Giant Metal Monkeys
 * Freudian Excuse: Grew up as The Unfavorite, knowing his destiny was to become a faceless mook. Not hard to see why he snapped.
 * From Nobody to Nightmare: He was originally slated to become Beholden.
 * The Red Baron: They call him the Ogre.
 * The Syndicate: He's a respected (and dreaded) leader of the Pacific Gauntlet.

Melantha C. Dranias

 * Body Horror: Combined with Clock Punk. It's every bit as bad as it sounds.
 * Elite Mooks: Thirty-two of them, with a nautical theme, no less.
 * Even Treacherous Transhumans Have Standards: She actually managed to Squick out the Demiurges.
 * Mother of a Thousand Young: Not yet, but she has plans...
 * Spider Tank: The Clattering Crab. Also a Cool Sub.
 * The Dragon: For Ogura.
 * Fat Bastard

Erin Out-Of-Time

 * Alternate Universe: What if mankind had no metal, but managed to invent modern technology anyways?
 * Fish Out of Temporal Water
 * Last of Her Kind: She's the only remaining native of her timeline, a "Solitaire".
 * Time Cop
 * The Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer: Justified; being a Genius makes any technology easy to understand. She has a blog.

Detective Alice Gotti

 * Hollywood Atheist: Subverted; she didn't lose her faith because of her many hardships, she just can't sustain religious convictions as a Beholden.
 * Hot Mom
 * The Igor
 * Iron Woobie: Let's see... through bad luck, she lost her shot at the Ivy League, and her parents want nothing to do with her. She recovered from that and became a police officer. Then she got pregnant and her husband abandoned her. Then she discovered that her superiors were on the Pacific Gauntlet's payroll. Then she was made into a Beholden by Dr. Vienna. Life has not been kind to Detective Gotti, but she's taken everything it's thrown at her.

Hook-Man/David Islington Whittlesworth

 * Rusty Fishhooks and Crooks
 * Sophisticated As Hell: "Hook-Man is here for to put your ass on a hook!"
 * Superhero
 * Thememobile: Yes, a Hookmobile.

Megiddo

 * Complete Monster
 * Master Computer: Rules over his own private Bardo, and desires more power every day.
 * Milkman Conspiracy: The mail-order denture business funds an evil computer mastermind.
 * Names to Run Away From Really Fast/Who Names Their Kid Dude: Who names a sentient being "Megiddo" and expects it to be nice? Mad scientists, that's who.
 * The Patriarch: Megiddo is very fond of this archetype, and sometimes holographically manifests as various father figures.
 * Robotic Psychopath
 * Reality Warper
 * The Unfettered
 * Villainous Breakdown: It started decades ago, and may be ongoing. That doesn't make it any less dangerous

Argentine St. Croix
"St. Croix is a bitter, tired woman, touched by sadness at the disappointments in her life. While insane and, when the mood takes her, tremendously cruel, hers is the small, weak kind of human cruelty that encourages as much pity as loathing."
 * Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Her sons.
 * Jerkass Woobie: As her bio says:


 * Raygun Gothic
 * Reality Warper
 * White Dwarf Science Star

Belinda Czdenk

 * Butt Monkey: Even as a Genius, she gets no respect.
 * Character Filibuster: Like many Neids, Belinda is prone to bitter ranting.
 * Disproportionate Retribution: She once killed a man for revealing her love of machinery.
 * Obstructive Bureaucrat
 * Wrench Wench: Would've loved to be one, but was afraid (rightly) of her snobbish friends' reaction.

Erwin Tycho

 * Adventurer Archaeologist
 * Hellish Horse: Given his "Western Gothic" aesthetic, it's probably safe to infer that his Skafoi Wonder "Bony Tess" looks like a skeletal horse.
 * Only Sane Man: Compared to the rest of the Klondikes
 * Unfazed Everyman: The two Beholden that accompany him on his expeditions.

Rapata/"Mr. Shark"

 * Badass
 * Da Chief
 * Fish Out of Temporal Water: If he's in a hurry, otherwise averted.
 * Good Is Not Nice: He's abrasive and demanding, and not above intimidating Geniuses into working for him, but it's all for the sake of preserving the timeline.
 * Scary Black Man
 * Time Cop

Prof. Partridge Crown

 * Complete Monster: He's Illuminated. That comes with the territory.
 * Obsidian Gryphon Satan: believes he's the "Self-Eating Fire", opposing the Crystal Dragon Jesus figure called the "Metal Peacock God".
 * The Devil Am I
 * I Reject Your Reality
 * Reality Warper
 * Robot Me: Built so he could ignore his job, and human interaction in general.
 * The Unfettered

Arturo Banger

 * Conspiracy Theorist
 * I Reject Your Reality
 * Politically Incorrect Villain

Dr. Keiko Takamori

 * Power Tattoo: It makes her skin bulletproof.
 * Woobie Destroyer of Worlds: Has had a miserable life. Wants to timeshift the Cold Ones to this reality, uncaring of what kind of weird shit this would cause.

Dr. Ilsa Hauser

 * The Baroness
 * Blondes Are Evil
 * Good Powers Bad People
 * Mad Doctor
 * Reality Warper
 * Those Wacky Nazis

Walking-Man, Peripatetic Dreamkiller

 * Brown Note
 * Complete Monster
 * Evil Luddite
 * Humanoid Abomination: Possibly. He's described as "less a person now than an elementary force."
 * Lean and Mean
 * Mass Hypnosis: If you want to fight him, you'll have to get past his entire cult first.
 * Names to Run Away From Really Fast
 * Nigh Invulnerable: He's immune to all non-natural weapons.
 * Science Is Bad: Certainly thinks so.
 * Torches and Pitchforks
 * Villain Team Up: May or may not work with the Phenomenologists.
 * Walking Techbane