The plaza was not quite a park - there were some benches, sure, like the one I was sitting on, pretending to read my newspaper, and there were rows of perfectly-groomed trees casting shade over lush green exspanses of grass - but mostly it served as the main pedestrian hub for the small suburb that surrounded it.  Some children used the plaza for endless games of tag or hide-and-seek, and students might stake out a shady spot to study or read in, but in general the people here were on their way somewhere else... though many succumbed to the charm of the place and dwadled just a bit.

Tama was just on the outskirts of the Tokyo metropolitan area.  It was far enough away that the smog only reached it on the very worst days.  Soyo Plaza, with its extravagant use of space and foliage, was meant to emphasize that spiritual and physical distance to visitors as they left the train station on the northeast side of the plaza.  Furthermore, its deliberately-planned walkways would guide those visitors into the shopping and administrative district to the west while soothing their moods, leaving them in the optimal attitude in which they could be sold consumer goods.

...at least that's what the local chamber of commerce's official description said.  I had read that booklet a few too many times in the days I had waited, and that chirpily, enthusiasticly cynical turn of phrase had inadvertently been engraved in my memory.

Nike had called and told me the girl was getting close, but she wasn't in sight yet.  I glanced down at my newspaper and read half a column about the investigation into the local clerk-treasurer's office - just your standard elected-idiot mess - then looked back up and scanned the sidewalks again.  It was a lousy way to read the paper, but then I wasn't here for my health.

A bobbing, shoulder-length, green ponytail caught my eye.  I leaned a few inches to the left to get a better view as the girl skipped through the middle of a wandering pack of salarymen.  Yup, that was my assignment, all right.

It took a few seconds for her to bounce obliviously past me.  I folded up the newspaper and tucked it under my left arm as I started after her.  I would have to hustle to keep up with her, and that would attract attention.  It might have been safer to pick her up in the train station, but I didn't know for certain that she was headed there and this plaza was a tricky place to tail someone.  I couldn't count on the inexperienced trailer I was working with keeping her in sight if she swerved into one of the dozens of stores lining the edge of the plaza.

So I hustled along with my newspaper clamped down against my side to keep the out-of-season jacket from flapping open and revealing the 9mm holstered underneath.  I scanned left and right along possible angles of attack, but the crowd limited the options to almost nothing.  I knew I was exposed - this one wasn't one of the really, *really* stupid girls, and if she had bothered to stop and check six just once in the last week this whole thing might have gotten very complicated very quickly.

Then again, it blew up in our faces anyway.

As she approached the center of the plaza and I struggled to keep up, the circular stone fountain there began to glow a dark, angry blue.  I'd seen this a lot recently.  Things were finally about to get interesting.  Strangely, the girl didn't seem to notice, at least not until the fountain burped out several thousand liters of water in a nifty little tidal wave.  She looked down at her soaked sneakers and a hapless goldfish flopping between them in disgust, then back up at the fountain in time to see a solid column of brackish water shoot hundreds of meters straight up in the air.

For once, the innocent bystanders actually knew the drill.  The plaza was pretty much evacuated before the water started to sheet back down.  Think of the worst rainstorm you've ever been outside in, then imagine that instead of nice little droplets stinging your skin as they fell there were huge, fist-size and larger, dollops of water being thrown at you by an angry weather goddess.  It was like being pelted by wet rocks, and if I'd been just another girl-on-the-street I doubt I could have kept my feet.  I draped the thick newspaper over my head - it wouldn't keep me dry, I just wanted the padding the makeshift helmet provided.

The geyser pulsed and expanded, and the fountain crumbled with an eerie racheting sound.  Stones and mortar flew everywhere.  The girl had been in this biz for a while so her combat reflexes were pretty good - she ducked and tucked into a neat little ball and only was slightly bruised by a couple of chunks that clipped her.  I sidestepped casually around some flying metal pipes and pulled out the pistol.  The timing was just right for an ambush, and I didn't want to let my opponent get the drop on me.

The insane laughter started at about that moment, cutting through the cacophonous sound of the erupting water.  I winced reflexively, then risked a glance up at the waterspout.  Sure enough, one standard levitating, blue-skinned, red-scaled, blonde evil mermaid was emerging from the side of the geyser.

By this time Nike was screaming at me to do something over the communicator, but we weren't here for the Ningyo.  This was her second assignment, she should know that.  I ignored her and got back to business.  The girl had finally decided to power up.  She posed, one hand in the air, the other on her hip, and cried, "Prominence Power, go!" or something like that.  Princess Flare has one of the more flashy transformations I've encountered:  First her clothes ignite, then after a beat her hair does too.  The flames increase in intensity for a couple of seconds, then they flare so bright that you can't make out more than her outline.  When it fades the flames are gone and she's all dressed up in her little Princess suit and ready to rock.

She re-posed and made a little speech.  The Ningyo laughed in her face and bragged about how the Queen of the Deep is already winning.  I tuned them out - I've seen this little play far too many times, and it's never any fun unless you're one of the players.  I was working from a script neither of them had read, and this was my cue to work the action on my 9mm.  I'd prefer to walk around with a round chambered, but the boss is paranoid about accidents.  Well, maybe just paranoid - but we'll get to her later.

It's no great secret that the best moment to assassinate any magical girl is the moment of their victory.  They have the stupidest luck when it comes to evading detection in their civvy identities - if the kid doesn't literally tell people, they just can't make the connection.  One has to wait for the girl to show up in her transformed form, an easier task than it sounds since the skirts can be counted to show up whenever there's some threatening paranormal weirdness.

So you've got your Magical Girl target spotted... but don't shoot, not yet.  Not while the monster the kid is fighting is still on its feet.  Sure, the girl is distracted, but so is the monster.  Kill her now, and you'll have to deal with a sea demon that is notably more resistant to bullets, swords, and harsh language than your average Magical Girl-on-the-street.  I've seen plenty of idiots get drowned because they opened fire as soon as they saw a sailor fuku.

Then again, don't go waiting too long after the monster evaporates to do the deed either.  Most of the girls will eventually notice somebody standing around with a gun, and trust me, their draw is faster than yours.  Sure, they usually shout out their little attack phrases, but only the dumb ones wait to release the attack until they're done.

My problem just then was that Princess Flare had a little more firepower than I had been told.  Sure, she was a Princess, not just one of the Ladies, but that difference usually isn't as big as most people think.  I blinked as jets of plasma quickly turned the poor Ningyo into crispy fishsticks.  The geyser sputtered and died.  The moment of crisis was upon us - and I hadn't found my target yet.
 
 

Hunters

An Improfanfic/Sandwich RPG
Created by Kerry "Ked" Stump
With sincere apologies to Mr. Shattuck, Mr. Gagne, Ms. Hamilton, and of course Takeuchi-san.
 
 

Sloppy, sloppy... I'd let myself woolgather and watch the fight in front of me instead of worrying about the real reason we were here.  Even as I berated myself, he struck.  A jet of gooey flame stabbed in from the left, cutting through the last of the water falling back to the ground.  It was just a few degrees off target, but whoever it was knew how to use a flamethrower.  The jet twitched back and forth across the (once-again) posing Princess Flare, covering her from head to toe with flaming napalm.

Shit.

She cried out, and I spun, following the spraying flame back to its source.  I wasn't carrying a fire extinguisher (or a complete burn ward, for that matter), so it wasn't like I could do anything for her.  I was on borrowed time already.  If this guy had any sense, I'd be his next target - you know, eliminate the witness.

The guy was standing just in front of a low stand of trees that he had probably used for cover during the Ningyo attack.  He was wearing sunglasses and a black trenchcoat that just *screamed* "Look at me!  I'm going somewhere to kill somebody!"  I started to wonder how he had gotten here with the massive 'flamer he was holding without attracting the attention of half the police in the prefecture, but pushed the thought back down before it could distract me.

I raised my gun, gripping with both hands and sighting over the barrel.  I squeezed the trigger just as Nike must have gotten a glimpse of what was happening to Flare.  She screamed straight into her com pickup, and it felt like someone had jabbed an icepick straight through my eardrum.  I twitched, and my shot went a meter high and right.

The *BOOM* of the 9mm discharging was easily audible over the wet, burning hiss of the flamethrower.  The guy had good reflexes - he flinched, but swung the flamethrower my way without hesitation.  I brought the pistol down from the recoil and doubletapped the bastard, not even trying to aim this time.  One round caught him in the chest and he pitched over backwards, jerking the flamethrower's aim high.  I ducked anyway as thousand-degree death squirted over my head.

Nike was still sobbing incoherently.  As I inched forward to make sure the guy was dead, I pushed the send button and snarled, "Stop blathering and check the damn perimiter," then pulled the earpiece out when she didn't stop.  Stupid rookie.  Stupid me, too, for letting this happen, but hysterics in a combat zone are a good way to get killed.  I'd save those for later.

I kept my gun pointed at the motionless assassin as I approached.  If he'd had a normal weapon I would have run up and booted it away, but I'd probably just bruise my foot on that hulking flamer.  His chest wound was wide and gurgling, but if he got help really quickly, it might not be fatal.  I fixed that problem from two meters away in the time-honored fashion:  One in the heart, one in the head.

With that formality completed, it was time for another quick scan of the surroundings.  Our enemies often worked in teams, and I didn't have any specific intelligence on this guy to indicate whether he was one of the loners or not.  I turned slowly in place, keeping as low as I could.  No villians in sight... but I got a pretty good shock anyway, as little Princess Flare had sat back up as the flames died down.

Flare wasn't even really singed - well, I guess that made sense, sort of.  If she was going to have an elemental immunity, fire would probably be it.  Awfully lucky of her.  Her chest was heaving as she struggled to get oxygen back into her bloodstream, but when she'd had a second to get her breath back and recover from the shock, she would no doubt be back on her feet and mad as hell.  I holstered my pistol and cautiously moved over to her side.  It wouldn't do at all if she decided to burn down the person who just saved her ass.

I helped her to her feet.  She nodded distracted thanks at me, then blinked as her eyes focused on the messy corpse behind me.  She looked back to me and noticed my gun, and would have asked the usual question had we not been interrupted.

"...aaaaaaAAAAAAAAA-OOF!"  Forty kilos of magically-strengthened girl plowed into me from behind at some ungodly speed.  I heard a nasty-sounding *crack* as I went sprawling twenty meters through the air to land on my back in the wreckage of the fountain, and figured that Nike had just broken her collarbone.  Again.  At least she had the sense to pull up this time - the goon she'd speed-tackled on her only previous assignment had literally snapped into two very messy halves.

...but then the sound came again, and again, and I rolled to my feet in time to see the last bullet punch through my partner-of-the-day's neck as she slammed Flare out of the way.  Gah.  No survival instincts in that girl at all.  If she survived this - hell, if I survived this, Nike and I needed to discuss a retirement.  Hers.

I don't remember drawing my gun again, but there it was, back in my hand.  I pointed it in the general direction of where the sound was coming from, but this guy was firing from cover and I couldn't spot him.  The gun cracked once more, and the shot spanged off the remains of the fountain's plumbing just behind me.  He might not have been a great shot, but I had no cover and no way to return effective fire.  ...well, okay, almost no way to shoot back.

I waved my free hand, and suddenly the air in front of me was filled with a thick, swirling mass of pink petals.  I suppressed the instinctive urge to scream "BLOSSOM STORM!!!" and instead plunged head-first into the mess of colorful cover I had just created.

So, yeah, I'm a "magical girl".  So is Nike.  Trust me, it's not all it's cracked up to be, particularly when the magic doesn't do anything terribly useful.  The transformed form is a good disguise, of course.  But cherry blossoms can't hurt a man, much less a Ningyo, and it's not like I'm able to magically see through the clouds of them I can call up.  Too bad that's my only spell.  Nike just runs absurdly fast.  If she had half a brain it would be a great asset in our line of work, but it wasn't nearly enough to get her on the magical girl varsity.

The two of us were transformed, of course, though the job forced (well, I don't prance around in my fuku at all anymore, though I know Nike wishes she could) us to change back into proper clothes.  That was why I still had some hope Nike would survive, and why I could summon the guts to advance directly into gunfire blind.  If we didn't die, we wouldn't need to check into a hospital tonight.

I silently groped my way forward through the through the whirling pinkness, flinching every step as the assassin fired blindly in my general direction.  I felt one shot zing past just to my left, then the next glanced off the right side of my rib cage.  I had to stop there for a moment - the bullet hadn't knocked me off my feet, but somehow the pain surprises me every time I get shot.  I couldn't both move and not scream until I got my breath back.  The next shot seemed to go a half-meter to my right, and the ones after that I couldn't sense at all.

Hmm.  This guy was pretty cagey to be able to lay down a nice, even spread of fire with what had to be a relatively low-powered pistol.  It also meant he was inexperienced, if he expected to stop one of us with so little firepower.  Most usefully, it meant that he was standing his ground like a complete idiot.

I forced the pain down and jogged onwards towards the shooter.  At least I don't ever trip when I'm fumbling forward through my blossom-screen.  I guessed he had to be concentrating too hard on that perfect fire pattern to pick up on the soft sounds of my sneakers as I padded forward.  The gunfire let up and I heard the "click....ssshk!" as he changed clips.  The next shot seemed to be pointed a little more towards me, but I finally had come close enough to see the muzzle flare.  Showtime.  I raised the gun and banished the cloud of petals.  He (It was a guy after all, though so many of them are that by now I reflexively expect everyone shooting at me is going to be male.) was less than three meters in front of me, and I had the drop on him.

I don't make speeches anymore - this business is too fast, too deadly to take half a minute to explain who I am, what I think of you, what I'm going to do to you, and under whose aegis I'm doing it.  Unlike the ***mermaids*** my colleagues deal with, my opponents are more likely than not to pop you before you're half done.  I lost my second, fourth, and ninth partners that way.  The way we kill isn't very pretty, either, and flowery monologues just don't set an appropriate mood.  ...but I am still a magical girl, and given the chance it's nearly impossible to keep from saying something.

"Surprise, you're de-"  I choked on the last word as I got a good glimpse of his face over the sights.

Oh, he was surprised, no doubt about it.  He could suddenly see his surroundings again, and his target had a gun on his head.  The problem was that I was even more surprised than him.  He didn't recognize me in my transformed state.  My sister was dating him.

I liked the guy.

He blinked.

I pulled the trigger, and Takeshi's head exploded.

"Stop!  Put the gun down, or I'll... I'll..."  It was our rescuee, right on cue.  Dammit, I needed time to think this through, and I wasn't going to get it.  "Who are you," she almost screamed at me.

I put the 9mm away and bowed politely.  "Lady Sakura, at your service."  I ran forward to see if Nike was still alive, and Flare edged away from me.  I didn't like that wild-eyed look she was giving me, but I couldn't very well kick Nike off the team tomorrow if she was dead.

As I knelt down beside Nike I could tell that this was going to be a close one.  She had a clean through-and-through hole in her left arm, but that a minor injury for a normal, and would barely even slow one of us.  The chest wound... well, from the gurgling sounds it was making I knew the lung was punctured.  It wasn't gushing blood, though, so it wasn't an immediate problem.  If it wasn't an immediate problem, then it wasn't going to be a problem at all.

The neck wound was a different story.  Getting shot in the neck isn't instantly fatal, unless you get lucky and it severs your spine.  If it gets a big artery, you're basically dead but it takes a bit longer.  It hurts like hell, of course, and blood sprays everywhere, and the strangulation effect as your brain slowly starves for oxygen... well, it's not high on my list of ways to go out.  I don't think one of us could survive it without a little help.  I might have liked Takeshi, and I'm sure he hadn't been aiming for this effect, but I sure wasn't going to feel sorry for killing someone who had done this to my partner.

Nike was lucky - not only was I there to help, but the wussy little gun Takeshi had used hadn't made too bad of a mess, probably only clipped a major vessel.  She was even able to roll weakly towards me as I approached.  I put a stop to that by half-kneeling with one leg on her chest both to hold her still and apply compression to the chest wound.  I took off my jacket and wrapped it as tight as I could around her neck without choking her.  Sure, the jacket already had some of my own blood on it, but this wasn't the moment to worry about blood-borne illnesses.

I finished up in time to sense power building behind me.  I glanced over my shoulder at Flare, and she was on fire.  Not literally, of course, but if she used the spell she was working herself up to, Nike and I probably would be.

"I am Princess Flare," she declaimed and I sighed.  "My powers were meant for the higher calling of saving the Earth, but I need not ignore mere criminals that I encounter on my holy path.  In the name of the Queen of the Earth, I will-"

"Stop."  I put as much flat authority into that command as I could muster.  Not hostility, nor fear - she would have pulled the trigger had she caught a wiff of either - just six years of experience of dealing with this crap, of working with ignorant grunts like her who only knew how to obey or kill.  The spell flickered out, and I stood carefully and faced her.  Nike squeaked a little as I got off her chest, and one of her hands reached weakly to poke at my improvised neck dressing.  She'd be all right, if I could finish talking Flare down.

The Princess blinked, and she took another, longer look at us.  I think the fact that Nike was even younger than her was what finally got the mental gears in motion.  "You're..."

"We're like you, yes.  I told you, I'm Lady Sakura.  My partner here, the one who took a couple of bullets for you, is Lady Nike.  We were sent to protect you from... them."  I waved a hand, indicating the two men I had just killed.  That was a mistake, since it reminded her of why she thought we were the bad guys.

"You killed those men!  We're supposed to protect humans, not gun them down!  In the name of-"

"And I suppose you thought they hosed you down with a flamethrower for your health?" I cut in sarcastically before she could get up a full head of steam.  "Both of them shot at us first.  Both of them were here to *kill* *you*.  They would have, too, if Nike and I hadn't taken care of the situation.  And did you handle the Ningyo any differently?  You didn't exactly ask the poor thing to surrender before you started the fish fry."

"We're at war with the Queen of the Sea," she declared hautily.  "There's no room for compassion."

I sneered right back at her.  "That is exactly the point."  I know, I know, I shouldn't have baited her.  I do enjoy tweaking them when I get the chance - so many of the girls get wrapped up in that princess mentality.  ...but of course by then I knew she wasn't going to try to slaughter us.  That had only happened once, to my first partner.  Thankfully the boss wasn't too upset about what I had, uh, done to save myself.

Flare looked up at my face for a long second or two, then smiled nastily and crossed her arms as she decided what she was going to do with us.  "*Lady* Sakura, huh?"

"Yes."  Well, so much for the humility lesson.  She was going to pull rank.  This had been happening more often in the last few years.  I was one of the first of us, but more than half a decade later I'm still just a Lady.  The little girls like lording over someone half again their age.

"I, *Princess* Flare," she made sure to emphasize her rank, "declare that your little killing spree is over.  Give me your gun.  The Queen will decide your punishment herself."

One of the worst disadvantages of the transformed state is that one is compelled to follow orders.  But then, if one has reasonable orders in the first place...  "The Queen is the one who gave us this assignment, Princess.  We only answer to her, and I will report to her in due course."

That rocked her back on her heels, but only for a second.  "Then I will tell her what you are doing in her name, and she will bring you to heel.  No doubt she will find a better use for you... on a sea raid."  Which was tantamount to a death sentence.  Nice girl, this one.

I smiled sweetly at her.  "No doubt."  No doubt that it wasn't going to happen, but it was a shame the girl wouldn't get a good chewing-out either.  The Queen makes good use of us.  She positively dotes on her Princesses.

She sniffed and jerked up her chin.  "You weren't needed today, anyway.  I was in no danger.  If they were really trying to kill me, I would have defeated them without needing such primitive tools.  You amatuers," she gestured to me and nudged Nike's wounded arm with her foot.  Nike hissed in pain as the girl continued, "should just stay out of the way and let us pros take care of these things."  She turned away and stalked off towards the train station, presumably going on to whatever destination she had come here with.

"You just tell yourself that, Princess.  And just maybe, when you wake up screaming from a nightmare of being hosed down with that flamethrower, of slowly boiling alive as your resistance to fire is stretched beyond its limits, maybe it'll make you feel better."  Bleah.  She wasn't listening, and I was just ranting.

The cops would be here sooner or later.  It wouldn't be a good idea to be standing around with a gun when they did.  Nike looked like she could be moved now, though she wouldn't enjoy it.  It was time to go.  I picked my half-limp partner up as gently as I could and ran.
 
 

***
 

Welcome to Hunters.

Hunters started life as an Improfanfic starter concept.  Magical Girl Hunters had finished a couple years before, and I had been a huge fan of it before it got too stupidly cosmic.  ...simply doing an MGH sequel would have been a cheap ripoff, and would carry too much baggage, so I decided to spin off a similar-yet-ironically-twisted concept.

There are a number of different reasons I've never finished this starter.  The biggest problem is that usually when I continue it from here, the tone becomes too dark, too bleak.  I have another 35k past this on the page that I'm satisfied with, but in rererewriting it, I've become too attached to the setting to farm it out to Impro at large.  Running it as an RPG will give me the opprotunity to continue the story and tap outside creativity (players) without completely losing creative control.  Similarly, I tend to be relatively gentle with my PC's, so it is unlikely to become too dark.
 

***
 

The setting is pretty much as described in the fiction.  Your character is a magical girl from the Tokyo region.  (Tuxedo Mask equivalents are possible as well, though I do not want more than a quarter of the players to take that option.)

The current generation of magical girls started showing up about six years ago, which makes the very oldest of them twenty.  Player characters should (mostly) not be among the older girls, but they also, as a rule, are not *new* magical girls, either.  Ages should be 13-17, probably mostly 14-16, as are the majority of magical girls in this setting.

Magical girls are relatively common in this setting.  There are perhaps a hundred of them in the Tokyo region.  They come and go... or perhaps I should say "show up and die".  Their main enemies are sea demons, most often taking the form of mermaids, who appear and try to cause floods.  Some work in teams, some alone.  Some fight crime where they encounter it, others only transform for the real enemies.  There is a hierarchy within the group - new and weaker girls have the title "Lady <name>".  The strongest (and favored) girls are given the title "Princess <name>".  And above them all is the Queen of the Earth.  There is some actual mystical signifigance to the titles - all magical girls are incapable of lying about their rank (and their titled name), and are compelled to follow orders from those of higher rank, especially when they are in their transformed state.  Male heroes in this setting are called "Lord <name>" and seem to have rank in between the Ladies and the Princesses - Ladies have a compulsion to obey their orders, but it can be resisted, especially when they know the Lord well.  (Yes, this does create problems.)  There appears to be no "Prince" or "King" rank.  PC's are all Ladies (or Lords).  (And almost certainly will *not* progress in rank during this game.)

For the most part, girls just wake up one morning *knowing* what they are and what their "name" is.  Inevitably they encounter a Ningyo or another magical girl, and get drawn into the whole lifestyle.  It occasionally happens that a girl goes for months, even years without being introduced to the broader Magical Girl organization/hierarchy, but usually they seek out others like them or are sought out when tales of a new girl reach the media.  Newbies are usually assigned to work with a team or at least a "mentor" for a while.  Girls do operate solo, particularly those with enough firepower to take down a Ningyo with one or two blasts, but it is a standing order that they must request permission from the Queen to do so.

Magical Girls in this setting transform with a pose and a verbal transformation phrase.  They feel a deep urge to call out power names as they use their special abilities, but this can be resisted with much practice.  Each girl's costume changes as they transform (note that there is no point cost for costume appearance effects, as long as you don't derive any added benefits).  All the costumes are unique - mostly they are modeled on the classical sailor fuku, but as there have been more and more girls showing up there has been more and more stylistic variety.  The only universal themes are that they emphasize a lot of leg and have the appearance of being more frilly than functional.  In the transformed state they are unrecognizable as their normal form, even in pictures, even if the pictures of the two forms are places side-by-side, even though their appearance does not appreciably change.  (Except for other Magical Girls, who are completely unaffected by this magic.)  (Again, this is a no-cost effect.)

The characters in this game have all been a part of the hierachy for at least a year, and have all gone through the "mentoring" period.  Most of them will have met the Queen and her court only once or twice and only on "business".  The Queen of the Earth is twenty years old, having emerged with the first wave of Magical Girls nearly seven years ago.  She lives in a mansion styled after the Imperial Palace on the far side of Tokyo Bay, along with about a half-dozen of her friends.  This inner circle seldom emerges from seculsion there, usually only to combat the most powerful Ningyo threats or to go shopping.  It is obvious that they have somehow gained wealth and infulence based on what they are (none of them were from backgrounds more affluent than educated middle class).  The Queen is usually polite to a fault, but it doesn't take long for most Ladies to figure out that she regards them as less than dirt, and there is often a disturbingly hysterical note to any conversation with her.

Your character has just been (or will shortly be) assigned to the group/team/unit that is described in this fiction.  Your duty is not to defeat the threat from the sea - you are assigned to investigate and protect against other enemies and situations that might interfere with the other magical girls' war.  The most common form of enemy is the so-called "magical girl hunter" - a non-magical assassin sent by someone to kill a one of your allies.  There are other threats, too, of the more-or-less supernatural variety.  And what is behind the growing tide of hunters, anyway?

This team has no official name.  Among those magical girls who know about it, it is regarded as a dumping ground for interesting rejects, an especially dangerous shit detail given to those girls regarded as too valuable to throw away on a sea raid, but otherwise too weak (or too problematic in one sense or another) to serve in primary combat roles.  As such, player characters will be relatively weak magical girls, without overwhelming magical abilities.  They may have a relatively checkered past as a magical girl, or other... issues.  I'm not fond of players running physically or emotionally crippled characters, but most of them will have some baggage in their background that resulted in being dumped here.
 

***
 

Character creation:

As an experiment, and because I like the concept of larger dice (for assorted technical/statistical reasons), this game will be run under the new Tri-Stat dX system, using d8.  If you're used to BESM, don't panic - dX is basically the same thing, with reworked costs, and even more customizability.  You can download the rulebook for free as a PDF.  I can DCC it if you desire.

When assigning values to stats, keep the different die sizes in mind.  Rolling 2d8 against a target of 8 is about like (really a bit better, though still not to 50%) rolling 2d6 against a target of 6.  I also intend to go against the intent of the rulebook (a little) and allow "average human" to inflate to 5 in all three stats.

Characters should be built from 75 CP, and 20 SP.  Use the standard stat costs, not the variable costs table.  Use the Urban Fantasy column on the skills cost table.

You must take (at least) two levels of (type 2 (9 CP)) Alternate Form to represent your character's transformed state.  The alternate form must include (at least) one level of Regeneration.  Taking more than one level of Highly Skilled is discouraged, but may be allowed in some cases.

The game will be played with energy points - thus, you are encouraged to design powers for your character with the linked "Burns Energy" disadvantage.  When I originally wrote these rules for plain BESM, I had intended to force characters to take a level of Magic.  dX lacks this attribute, and on further reflection I don't want to force you to take "spell lists", but remember that the canonical magical girl has just a couple of attacks or powers that are typically specific and announced.

Special Attacks are appropriate, of course.  Especially with fancy names.  I will allow players to take SA up to level 2.  Higher level attacks are negotiable, though the absolute damage ceiling for characters in this game is level 2.

Skills taken at the beginning of the game may not generally include combat skills.  If you build justification into your character history, I may waive this for unarmed/melee/hand-weapon skills to some degree.  Firearms skills (and possession) will not be permitted.

Character development in the game will mostly be limited to SP awards and occasional targeted attribute boosts.  CP will seldom be awarded.

A character description and history are required.  This need not be exhaustive (my character sheets often run to a thousand words or more - probably overkill here, but that's what I like), but CP and/or SP bonuses will be given for quality here.

I'm still figuring out dX, but all the character designs I've seen so far at 75 CP / 20 SP have been stronger than I'd like, but weaker than the player wants.  ...hooray for happy mediums, I guess.  Barring major game changes, those numbers are set.
 

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The game runs every Saturday at 1600 Eastern (US) time.  I'm not fond of excessively long sessions, so in most cases the main session will wrap up in less than four hours, sometimes less than three.  On the other hand, combat is a pain to run with large groups in IRC, and combat-oriented sessions may well run longer.  I will try to accomodate player needs when sessions go long, calling a halt if necessary.

For the most part, I don't insist on every player making it to every session and can deal with absences as they occur.  Nonetheless, if you sign up for this game I expect some degree of actual commitment.  If you don't believe you can regularly make the time slot (whatever it ends up being), I need to know up front.