From Egs Mayhem

RichM90071 is a KeenForums user who is interested in participating on the EGS Mayhem. He has created a character, He Who Lurks in All Shadows, for this purpose.

Contents 1 RichM90071 2 He Who Lurks in All Shadows 2.1 Powers 2.2 Limitations 2.3 Inventory 2.3.1 Shadow Items: 2.3.2 Regular Material Items 2.3.3 The Lurker's Lair

RichM90071

RichM90071 joined KeenForums in October 2004, then apparently forgot about it for three years (he suspects it was one of those four-in-the-morning things). This may or may not have been Schlock Mercenary-related. The Crossover Wars came to his attention in March 2007 when the Muffin of Legostar Galactica was literally sucked into the wars. Many links later, he found himself in the Operation Lagomorph thread. He followed a link to the celebration party at Fort Mayhem and the rest is history. Or will be, if Hist-Div accepts the Lurker's application.

He Who Lurks in All Shadows

The problem with trying to do something original is you have to explain it. If I were playing something simple, like a zombie cyborg ninja catgirl, everyone would know what I was talking about without further explanation.

"He Who Lurks in All Shadows" is his full title. Usually referred to as "the Lurker in the Shadows" or simply "the Lurker" in dialog. "RichM90071" is a rough approximation of his name in the human mode of communication. If something more easily pronouncible is needed, he will answer to "Richard."

• Race: shadow-folk, "the Lurkers on the Boundaries," distant relatives (or perhaps descendants) of Nyartholep. Due to philosophical differences, he "left" his people aeons ago, and hasn't had much to do with them since.
• Occupation: Anthropomorphic Personification. "Discovery" is the closest English approximation. He represents the process by which Darkness becomes Light, Chaos becomes Order, and the Unknown becomes the Known.
• Age: not humanly measurable, but greater than 20 billion years
• Height: usually about 5'11"; Weight: negligible
• Hair: not really but may appear so; Eyes: yes
• Sex: normally appears male. Technically, he's a Thesis, the dominant gender. They get together with Antitheses and have little Syntheses. This process is not remotely sexual, but involves something like a mental debate.
• Appearance: When he wishes to interact with the physical environment, he shapes the local shadows into a semi-solid, vaguely-humanoid form.
• Interests: finding things out and writing things down. He's planning on applying for a job with Hist Div over at Fort Mayhem. May apply for a reporting job at the station they're setting up to compete with MNCAN.

Powers

• *Fourth-Wall Aware* Basically, the fourth wall doesn't exist for him. While in a thread, he can "see" the actual posts. He is aware that I exist, and mostly knows whatever I know. He thinks of me as his "meat avatar" on that plane of existence humans so laughably call "the real world."

• *Lurk in the Shadows*. He's a very accomplished lurker. He registered on the Keen Forums in October 2004, and lurked nearly three years before making his first post. He can lurk anything, anywhere on the Internet. When he shifts a portion of his attention to a thread location, the message *The Lurker in the Shadows lurks in the shadows* is posted. Those sensitive to the supernatural may notice his presence. When he "leaves" the message *The Lurker in the Shadows turns his attention elsewhere* is posted. The Lurker keeps track of his lurking in his LiveJournal. All pages linked there should be considered character knowledge.

• *Threadscan* While in a thread, he can scan its entire history. Like Dr. Manhattan in Watchmen, he perceives time as a long, extended present. Sometimes he loses track of when "now" is supposed to be.

• *Delurk*. The Lurker steps out of the shadows, taking on a human-like form. These "shadow-avatars" are something like a genius loci, semi-bound to the location where they manifest. A shadow-avatar can leave the location it's bound to, but the Lurker can't manifest in that location while it's gone. Usually he just Relurks and then Delurks elsewhere. The shadow-avatar can manipulate objects the way a human would.

• *Relurk* The Lurker abandons his form and merges back into the shadows. His Shadow Items (see Inventory) go with him, but he can't carry physical objects like that.

• *Multi-Locate* Can lurk multiple locations at the same time, and can have multiple shadow-avatars active at the same time. In practice this is limited to "a few places at once" by the frailties of his poor meat avatar in the "real world," who must spend many hours performing arcane rituals on teh internets to allow the Lurker to access the forum worlds.

Limitations

• *Pop* The shadow-avatars are not very sturdy. Any damage or excessively rough handling can cause one to *pop*. When that happens, his awareness returns to the shadows. He loses any items, Shadow or otherwise that he was wearing or carrying. If this is done in malice, it is a kind of banishment, and he cannot manifest a shadow-avatar in that location until he's invited back.

• *Glinda's Gag* As Glinda told Dorothy at the end of The Wizard of Oz, sometimes you have to find out things for yourself. GMs/moderators/whatevers can invoke Glinda's Gag to keep him from sharing his insanely overpowered character knowledge with other characters. When RPing, he tries to use common sense -- he's here to record stories, not derail them. However, if the moderator wants to make specific subjects off-limits, he will abide by that. He makes an effort to follow local narrative conventions -- if he makes a mistake, let him know nicely and he'll stop. Restrictions currently in place:
  • He sees a box, which is the EGS Mayhem forum, within it the smaller box-es that are the treads. He sees the box which is the Fort Mayhem thread, and the inside of the box, which is Fort Mayhem itself. Within the Lurker, corresponding partitions go up. Upon those portions of his awareness inside the thread box-es, new rules go into effect. What happens outside the Fourth Wall stays outside the Fourth Wall. OOC comments are to be replied to OOC only. Character thoughts are to be ignored unless specifically addressed to him.

Inventory

When not in use, these items are stored in a private pocket of multidimensional space. The Lurker can delurk and relurk with certain items readied. These include the Shadow Items, the Hist-Div armband, and the water-framed sunglasses. It looks like he's using his back pocket, but the access to the inventory is actually inside the shadow-avatar.

Shadow Items:

These are basically semi-tangible manifestations of the Lurker's thought processes. They help him record his impressions in a form that human-like creatures can perceive. They can be manifested with the shadow-avatar. They can manifest in multiple locations at the same time. They can be *popped*, upon which they return to the Inventory.

• Glinda's Gag -- may appear as an actual gag around his mouth to keep him from sharing things that Characters Were Not Meant to Know.

• Shadow-Cam -- records audiovisual impressions, which can be downloaded to the Laptop. Autonomous -- it can float around and operate itself. Can operate in Lurk mode.

• Shadow Copier -- copies text from the Tome of Shadows, makes copies in human-readable format. Works with the Laptop as a scanner and printer. May copy ordinary documents as well. Has been modified to use the Infinite Scroll of Doom-ish as a paper supply.

• Shadow Laptop -- accepts input from the Shadow Cam and the Shadow Copier. Can burn DVDs or other digital media readable with human technology. Can interface with human electronic equipment. Has full access to the real-world Internet.

• Shadow Mike -- Works with the Shadow Cam

• Shadow Pen -- Used with the Tome of Shadows. Uses liquid shadow as ink. Is linked to the Shadow Laptop so that everything he writes is recorded on the Laptop.

• Shadow Sunglasses -- Okay, these just protect his sensitive shadow eyes from the light. His shadow-avatars usually wear them.

• Tome of Shadows -- Tome-sized notebook he uses to write things down in. It's in a private shorthand unreadable by other beings. It vaguely resembles Cyrillic. When you try to read it, you get the feeling it's reading you back. It has an unlimited number of pages. Can be used in Lurk mode -- you may hear scritchy noises coming from the shadows

Regular Material Items

• Beretta with spare ammo, holster and belt (from the Armory)
• Six more Berettas, a whole mess of ammo, four stabby knives, three deadly daggers, a short swords (from the Armory)
• The Blood Sword. A short sword. The blade is a sickly blue-green. Glows in the presence of Lovecraft Mythos entities. Glows faintly whenever the Lurker holds it because he is one himself. Imbued with the Lurker's own Mythos energies and the geometric essence of the Elder Sign. It should act something like a Short Sword +1, +4 vs. Mythos entities. They should want to avoid it, especially if they've already been injured by it. The blue-green color is the blood of one of the Editor's spiders killed on the CameoComic battlefield. This is a visible sign of the Lurker's loyal service to EGS-DF. When weilded on behalf of the DF, it cancels out the Lurker's 3D reaction-time penalty.
• A copy of Cthulhu for Dummies (checked out from L-Space)
• a flashlight (from Jorlem). This thing is probably powerful enough to *pop* a shadow-avatar
• Hist-Div armband (worn)
• ~4 spare Hist-Div armbands and a bag of spare patches (from Piebunny)
• Infinite Scroll of Doom-Ish. With pen. (from littlebeast) Currently being used in the Shadow-Copier
• a TF gun (from Nikolai)
• some rope. "They always have rope wrapped around 'em in the movies and they always end up usin' it." (from Boondock Saints (never seen it myself) by way of Fishstix)
• two sniper rifles, fully tricked out, with ammo (from the Armory)
• a pair of water-rimmed sunglasses (worn) (from Nikolai)
• Yarnball of Distraction (from Kalga)

The Lurker's Lair

The Lurker's room in Fort Mayhem, a small, cramped room containing:

• A narrow, uncomfortable cot (which the Lurker doesn't need -- he doesn't sleep)
• A footlocker
• A table or desk
• A lamp (on the desk)
• A chair
• A partridge in a pear tree (on the desk -- it's a small tree in a pot. From Supply. Yes they do stock these, for a reason I may eventually get around to explaining.)
• A W-Space spider named Raleigh (making some wall hangings)
• Bird food and a water dispenser (from supply)
• A Recycle Bin full of old computer files (food for Raleigh, from the Shadow Laptop)
• An infinite number of carrots. (from Jenerix525)
• Cleaning supplies, to include kits for cleaning blades and guns (from Supply)
• A squirrel teddy (from Nikolai)
• Iron and ironing board (from Supply)
• Office supplies (from Supply)
• shiny hubcap (from Cheez) mounted on the wall
• A copy of Humorous Fantasy Ornithology (checked out from L-Space)