{"id":1662,"date":"2013-05-21T10:14:56","date_gmt":"2013-05-21T17:14:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/arcdream.com\/home\/?p=1662"},"modified":"2013-05-21T10:14:56","modified_gmt":"2013-05-21T17:14:56","slug":"barristerminator-a-new-gadget-for-better-angels","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/arcdream.com\/home\/2013\/05\/barristerminator-a-new-gadget-for-better-angels\/","title":{"rendered":"Barristerminator — A New Gadget for ‘Better Angels’"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Better-Angels-cover-v4-front-612px\"<\/a>Written by Greg Stolze, \u00a9 2013<\/em><\/p>\n

In <\/em>Better Angels<\/a>, demon-haunted supervillains can build superpowered devices from scratch to further their villainy. Here’s one ready to play.<\/em><\/p>\n

What happens if you get caught, locked up and charged with crimes? Well, if you\u2019re at all smart, you\u2019ve already got a lawyer on retainer.\u00a0 But wait: Why hire<\/i> a lawyer if you can just build one in the basement?<\/i>\u00a0That way you never have to worry about trusting your secrets and humiliating defeats to a mortal. Mortals are squishy and weak\u2014the hellbound know that if anyone<\/i> does.\u00a0 No, better to build an android that can argue law and which will have no urge to sleep with your wife or charge you billable hours for time spent waiting in the airport.<\/p>\n

(Note: A \u2018barrister\u2019 is a type of lawyer.\u00a0 Do not confuse it with \u2018barista,\u2019 a person who prepares and serves espresso.)<\/p>\n

The Barristerminator (so named because its builder felt that the movie The Devil\u2019s Advocate<\/i> was only so-so) easily passes for human on the outside\u2014it looks and sounds like a wry British man in his mid-fifties with a plummy Oxford drawl, and answers to Thomas Barnes-Bennet.\u00a0 It can hold a pleasant (if somewhat vapid and scatter-brained) conversation, it can dress itself, and it is inhumanly conversant with criminal law.\u00a0 Alas, its impersonation is only skin-deep. If physicall damaged, it reveals a substructure of whirring clockwork gears, each and every one carved from human bone.<\/p>\n

An investment of 1 <\/b>Knowledge<\/i> gives the Barristerminator a 4d pool for Patient <\/b>Knowledge<\/i> legal shenanigans.\u00a0 Four more points of <\/b>Knowledge<\/i> gives it +4 Advantage with its pettifoggery.\u00a0 <\/b>But as a five-point device, it needs two flaws.\u00a0 Those flaws are \u2018Fragile,\u2019 leaving it conked-out if hit by any physical attack that beats Difficulty 3, and \u2018Fuel-Hungry.\u2019\u00a0 In the case of Thomas Barnes-Bennet, to function\u00a0it requires tears from an honest woman unjustly convicted in a court of law.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Written by Greg Stolze, \u00a9 2013 In Better Angels, demon-haunted supervillains can build superpowered devices from scratch to further their villainy. Here’s<\/p>\n

Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1224,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[144],"tags":[11],"class_list":["post-1662","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-better-angels","tag-greg-stolze"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/arcdream.com\/home\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/08\/BA-logo-V4-e1400274327643.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1wrNI-qO","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/arcdream.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1662","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/arcdream.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/arcdream.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arcdream.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arcdream.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1662"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/arcdream.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1662\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1664,"href":"https:\/\/arcdream.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1662\/revisions\/1664"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arcdream.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1224"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/arcdream.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1662"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arcdream.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1662"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arcdream.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1662"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}