CURRENT EQUIPMENT

CURRENT SPECIMENS

To acquire SPECIMENS, you must take advantage of your THREE MAJOR STATS: CHARISMA, MIMICRY, and GADGETRY.
CHARISMA (currently ALRIGHT) accounts for your charm: your silver tongue, your persuasion, your impeccable penchant for looking and sounding trustworthy.
MIMICRY (currently UNRELIABLE) pertains to your SHAPESHIFTING ABILITIES (as well as standard mimicry practices). It determines the proficiency of your shapeshifting, how likely you are to be noticed while shapeshifted, and what you can shapeshift into. (It is also used for mimicking voices and/or mannerisms to achieve a goal.) As a SKRULL, your shapeshifting is purely SUPERFICIAL: you cannot copy the powers of anything you shift into.
GADGETRY (currently EXCEPTIONAL) refers to your excellence with electronic GADGETS. It is used for tinkering with GADGETS (and building new ones) and using energy weapons/GADGET-like weapons in battle.
(Put simply: CHARISMA will help you lure in your victims. MIMICRY will help you hide from the authorities. GADGETRY will help you experiment upon your captives and turn them into SUPERPOWERED BEINGS.)

MAJOR STATS depend both on NUMBERS and on RANK. Numbers are mostly used in determining ranks and rolling for/against DCs. STAT RANKS are as follows:

0-10 Horrible. Rarely likely to succeed.
11-20 Unreliable. Generally bad.
21-30 Alright. Pretty decent at this.
31-40 Very good. Likely to excel
41-50 Exceptional. This is often a special talent or well-mastered skill.

These major stats must be balanced with two MINOR STATS: POPULARITY and SUSPICION.
POPULARITY is a measure of FAME-- how well-liked or disliked you are. It works on a -100/100 scale-- -100 POPULARITY means that someone is VERY INFAMOUS, while 100 POPULARITY means someone is TRULY BELOVED. A high popularity can supplement your CHARISMA by making people more willing to trust you, but may also attract PAPARAZZI that will seek to invade your VERY IMPORTANT PERSONAL LIFE. Your POPULARITY will start at 0.
SUSPICION is a measure of REPUTATION-- whether the local authorities and/or do-gooders have their eyes on you. It works on a -100/100 scale-- -100 SUSPICION means that NOBODY WILL BAT AN EYE at you, while 100 SUSPICION means GAME OVER and a swift imprisonment at the hands of local vigilantes.
Your SUSPICION will start at 5. It is currently at 15.

GADGETS are the key to your SUCCESS. They bestow POWERS upon your captives, after all. What POWERs, exactly? You can't know until you use them at least once!
The application of these POWERS is somewhat reliant on a GADGET's QUALITY, which is determined throughout its creation through a series of rolls. A low-quality GADGET will malfunction very often, leading to very suspicious EXPLOSIONS coming from your headquarters and possibly harming your SPECIMENs, while a high-quality GADGET will rarely malfunction and sometimes grant BONUSES to particularly successful rolls. GADGETs can be used any number of times-- unless they're RELICs-- and using multiple on one SPECIMEN might change the POWERS they bestow upon them.

There are four types of GADGETS. The SKRULL EMPIRE has kindly supplied you with TWO TYPES to begin with:

FORMULAs-- basic chemical formulas you can manipulate with a bevy of ingredients (provided by the ever-benevolent EMPEROR). These GADGETs are very reliable, but rarely exceptional. The least-likely type to malfunction, but also the least-likely type to surpass expectation.

GIANT RAYs-- flashy machines of enormous size and power. These GADGETs are often very unreliable, but are MUCH more likely to grant bonuses at higher QUALITY.

HELMETs-- standard-issue GADGETs that come in the form of complex headwear. These GADGETs seem equally as likely to be exceptional as they are to be terrible-- in fact, almost every QUALITY seems to be of even odds.

RELICs-- >>THESE ARE VERY DIFFERENT FROM THE OTHER THREE TYPES. YOU WILL ONLY BE SUPPLIED WITH ONE RELIC. RELICs are ONE-USE GADGETs.<< They are derived from mystic sources, very rare, and highly powerful. They are GUARANTEED to bestow a fierce power upon your SPECIMEN that the EMPEROR will adore-- but these powers may sometimes come with CURSES, and are frequently of such great potency that the ability to control those afflicted with RELIC-DERIVED powers is questionable. Their use can sometimes alert nearby SORCERERS to their presence.

All of these GADGETs will come as PRE-MADEs with BLUEPRINTS for their replication (save for RELICs, which will only supply you with the relic itself).

[copy-pasting the in-thread explanation of STRIKES for now, will fix later]
SPECIMEN capturing and fights work on a 3-strike system. There are positive and negative strikes both, and they're derived from beating certain DCs. DCs rely on stats-- sometimes combined into a larger DC, depending on the action-- and rolls to beat them. Catastrophic failure (or catastrophic success) can bypass this system and grant you an instant win,