NOW LIVE! -- The Awfully Cheerful Engine on Kickstarter! An action comedy RPG inspired by cheerful tabletop games of the 80s! With a foreword by Sandy 'Ghostbusters' Petersen, and VTT support!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Davies" data-source="post: 8122628" data-attributes="member: 30538">Zhang Xingxing<img src="https://photos.smugmug.com/My-First-Gallery/i-KxJvDWC/0/17d07feb/S/RCO024_1474625842-S.jpg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" />Argus is officially not welcome in the People's Republic of China. Official disapproval, of course, is not viewed as a particular barrier by Argus' board of directors or those individuals in China who want to employ the organization's services. They operate under a variety of front organizations, some of which the Ministries correctly suspect as being fronts, some of which they don't know about. These operations typically last only a few years before they have to be rolled up, fairly quickly. One that has lasted a surprisingly long time is the Bèimó Corporation, run by Zhang Xingxing.Zhang's father recognized that she was a Hyperbrain when she was about two years old -- that was twenty years ago, incidentally -- and spent a day or so contemplating the future his youngest daughter would face when she was inducted into China's thinktanks, which have endured much longer than those in the West. That future was a sad one, but he knew that she would be trained to use her talents for the service of her nation, and took consolation from that. And then he saw that she was studying his company's spreadsheets and making adjustments to improve them, and decided that his nation could get stuffed.Zhang has been carefully taught to present the appearance of a giggly, boy-crazy airhead used as an attractive 'face' for her company by a group of evil old men who actually don't take a breath without consulting her. The 'boy crazy' part has not taken much effort, as she does in fact have a healthy desire for romance. But she's sure that will come after she makes her first billion or so, and confines herself to flirting without ever taking anything further. Anything she does for Argus is done entirely in her own interests. That's why she's associated herself with Sun Wukong, or whoever he really is, with the intention of using him as the keystone of a strategy to take down Thunder Dragon, for which she expects to be given a seat at the big table. That's all that she cares about.Except that's not really true. Spending time with Wukong, seeing the joyous way that the crazy hairy man lives his life, has opened her eyes to the fact that her own life is kind of sad and shabby by comparison. Sure, she gets excited when she makes a score, but it never lasts very long, and then she's back to living in constant apprehension about the next one. She's still not sure about any of this, and keeps telling herself that the reason he's so happy is that he is so very very dumb, but she can't shake the feeling that his genuine friendship might be worth -- well, let's not get crazy, only as much as all her money.And regardless, she still intends to send him into a fight that she thinks he probably can't win, but he's so darn enthusiastic about it that she's starting to hope that she's wrong about that.Zhang Xingxing -- PL 6Abilities:STR -1 | STA 0 | AGL 1 | DEX 3 | FGT 3 | INT 8 | AWE 4 | PRE 2Advantages:Attractive, Beginner's Luck, Benefit 4 (multi-millionaire), Connections, Contacts, Defensive Roll 2, Equipment 6, Evasion, Grabbing Finesse, Improved Defense, Inventor, Languages 2 (English, Mandarin, others, [Cantonese is native]), Ranged Attack 3, Redirect, Taunt.Skills:Deception 7 (+9), Expertise: Business 3 (+11), Expertise: Science 3 (+11), Insight 4 (+8), Investigation 1 (+9), Persuasion 7 (+9), Stealth 6 (+7), Technology 2 (+10), Vehicles 5 (+8).Offense:Initiative +1Unarmed +3 (Close Damage -1)Defense:Dodge 4, Parry 4, Fortitude 3, Toughness 5/0, Will 7.Totals:Abilities 40 + Advantages 27 + Skills 19 + Defenses 10 = 96 pointsComplications:Ambition--Motivation. Growing a Conscience. Secret (Argus agent).</blockquote>

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