Roughly a year ago, I jumped on the end of a bandwagon of posting up what I played throughout the previous year (that being 2019). That list was a whopping 33 games long, for which my excuse was some personal issues that gave me an unusual amount of free time. Now, roughly a year later, there has been a global issue that has given me an unusual amount of free time!
This year's list has around 40 games on it, which seems like more than I played last year, but I also played a further 16 VR games in 2019 that I had posted about elsewhere. Still, my total hours played is probably greater because I got really in to some of these at the lowest points of 2020.
This is a very long post, with a paragraph or two for each game. For those who prize brevity (or are browsing on mobile, I guess), I apologize. I've provided a short list of games I found to be stand-out in one way or the other immediately below this; then I have a few lists of games categorizing them by whether or not I recommend them and my perception of their popularity. Then there's ~25,000 characters of my expanded thoughts on the various titles. I recommend ctrl+f if you want to know my thoughts on a given game.
A BRIEF TL;DR OF MADE UP AWARDS:
Game of My Year: Disco Elysium
(runner up: CrossCode)
Most Time, Best Spent: No Man's Sky
Hiddenest Gem, I Think: Super Daryl Deluxe
Oldest Game I Played For the First Time: Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines
Best VR Game: The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners
Biggest Disappointment: Indivisible
Commonly Recommended and/or Popular Games I Also Recommend: Disco Elysium, The Outer Wilds, Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines, Detroit: Become Human, Rimworld, Cave Story+, Deus Ex (2001), Superhot, Death Stranding, Sonic Mania, Among Us, Return of the Obra Dinn, Mirror's Edge, No Man's Sky, Elite Dangerous
Highly Recommended, More Obscure Titles: Cursed Castilla, The Messenger, Cosmic Star Heroine, CrossCode, Super Daryl Deluxe, Overgrowth, 100% Orange Juice, Barony, Druidstone: The Secret of the Menhir Forest
Popular-ish Games I'm Ambivalent About: Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor, Middle-Earth: Shadow of War, Pokemon Shield, Animal Crossing: New Horizons, Subnautica, Indivisible
More Obscure Games That are OK, I Guess: Graveyard Keeper, The Final Station, Chantelise, Out There: Omega Edition, The Invisible Hours, Dual Universe
Games I Actively Disliked: Fantasy Blacksmith, This is the Police
VR Exlusive Games (all more or less recommended): Sairento VR, Espire 1: VR Operative, The Walking Dead: Saints and Sinners
Without further ado, here's my List of Games I Played, Mostly in 2020, in a Very Particular Order that Only Makes Sense to Me
A Few Mild-to-Moderately Obscure Titles I Highly Recommend
Cursed Castilla (Maldita Castilla EX) (PC) - This is basically inspired by Ghosts and Goblins. It has a fun aesthetic and 'story' based around Spanish knights(?) crusading against demons. Its gameplay is a bit more forgiving than Ghosts and Goblins, but is still excellently done side-scrolling platforming in an SNES style. I highly recommend it for folks looking for a retro throwback.
The Messenger (PC) - This is to Ninja Gaiden as Cursed Castilla is to Ghosts and Goblins. It is much easier than its legendary forebear, but it's a fun retro romp through a ninja-themed tongue-in-cheek world. Gameplay is smooth with lots of movement options and fun boss fights.
Cosmic Star Heroine (PC) - Another SNES-esque game, this time harking more to Chrono Trigger and other RPGs. I had this on my list for a long time, and upon picking it up I was shocked that it looks like exactly the sort of game I would have made had I ever seriously gotten into it beyond dicking around in RPG Maker. There's a huge cast of characters, each with unique skills that all chain off each other and need to be managed through intricate cooldowns, all with a system that steadily increases damage over the course of combat to ensure nothing goes on too long.
Unfortunately, this was all so complicated for me to keep up with I bounced after the first couple of chapters. It's still an excellent experience, but you do need to either be in the right headspace or absolutely adore this sort of game and/or systems.
CrossCode (Gamepass on PC) - This is another 2D game with gorgeous pixel art that wouldn't look too out of place on the SNES. This time it's an action RPG with a sort of hokey 'you're playing an MMO' story ala Sword Art Online. The narrative actually goes to interesting places, though, but I won't spoil it. The gameplay is a top-down brawler sort, with a lot of choices between throwing energy balls, beating on things with your melee attack, and casting various elemental spells. There are also a handful of dungeons with progressively more interesting puzzle gimmicks, though it mostly involves variations on block pushing and ball bouncing. I do see this game mentioned sometimes, but not as much as it deserves, IMO. The only downside is the itemization and equipment takes a little too much inspiration from MMOs, but it doesn't really hold the action part of the game back much.
Super Daryl Deluxe (PC) - This is an absoutely criminally underrated game which I had mistakenly thought was more popular because several folks in my friend group had played it. This is a Metroidvania-esque title that plays more like a side-scrolling brawler, with a wide variety of skills to choose from and upgrade as you gain collectibles. The core brawler gameplay is just a real treat on its own. The game's narrative is a very surreal high-school themed experience, with the strangely silent protagonist running increasingly bizarre errands through bizarre worlds themed after typical school courses, like Science, History, and Music/Art. The aesthetic is a pleasant sort of squash-and-stretch cartoony thing. Despite a kind of mediocre payoff plotwise, I still enjoyed my time with both the gameplay and the narrative just because of that 'what's going to happen next?' factor. I highly recommend anyone with a remote interest in it to give this game a shot while it's still on sale on Steam.
Some of My Favorites That are Also Popular and/or Contentious
Disco Elysium (PC) - I cannot praise this game highly enough. It's a roleplaying game in the truest sense of the word. There is no combat, but the skills you choose and develop have so much impact on how you progress through the story it's kind of nuts. Every little bit of detail in the world is interwoven with others and while the core mystery of the game is a little simplistic, all of the sidequests and tertiary stuff impact each other and it is in general fascinating. The writing is excellent and the feeling of pulling at strings until you figure out what's going on is something I've never seen matched by another game of this type. I don't want to say anymore as I'll inevitably enter spoiler territory, but if this type of game is up your alley at all, I recommend picking this up.
The Outer Wilds (PC) - I played this immediately after Disco Elysium, and despite being two very different games, they excel in the same place: everything is so masterfully interconnected. The central mystery of The Outer Wilds is about what the heck is going on in your solar system, not a murder mystery, but nonetheless everything you see has some impact on something. It's absolutely fascinating piecing it altogether. Unfortunately, the core gameplay is a bit looser - some of the physical puzzles are tedious or obtuse, and the spaceflight in this game is difficult to control. You will pitch yourself into the sun more than once, usually on accident. I can't give it quite the same glowing recommendation as Disco Elysium because while you can blunder through and enjoy that game, it's entirely possible to be stymied entirely by The Outer Wilds.
Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines (PC) - This is such a strange piece of history. The game looks like it belongs in 2004 right until you meet one of the central characters from the act one plot, whose model wouldn't look terribly out of place in an indie game today. Honestly the whole game is like this given its apparently troubled development history, with some aspects shining bright and others just being awful. The writing is absolutely great from start to finish; the gameplay dips and dives from point to point, especially the oft-dreaded sewer levels which kept seeming not quite that bad except that they just kept on going. Some setpieces are well-realized dungeon romps, and sometimes you're beating off zombies in a crackhouse for way too long. Overall, it's just good enough that I'd recommend it as an invesment of your time if you can forgive a few gameplay sins in the name of good writing and a solid plot.
Detroit: Become Human (PS4) - This one had been on my list for quite a while. It's essentially a modern adventure game in the vein of TellTale, and while I'm not sure I'd say it entirely succeeds at the idea of making choice meaningful, the ridiculous number of branches in the story is absolutely unreal. The game even maps out all these branches for you after completing a chapter, often leading to a 'what the heck could have gone differently there?' sort of thing. This is my first David Cage game, so I don't have a history with his style. I found the plot to be merely so-so, and of the three playable protagonists, two are a little too simplistic and tropey for my tastes. However the writing and dialogue in Connor's segments is second to none, and I would love an entire buddy cop game in this style. Overall, I'd recommend it for what it is - a hamhanded morality tale with crazy production values.
Stuff You've Likely Seen Before
Rimworld (PC) (replay/new content) - Rimworld is a top-down colony building game where your colonists crash-land on a lowtech Rimworld at the edge of human space. You build a shelter and work towards either constructing you own spaceship or building up enough supplies to hike to one you're told the location of. It's got a solid gameplay loop in this vein, and I played it this year because of the Royalty expansion pack, which introduced a new faction and end-game goal - impress the feudal leader of a fleet over the Rimworld to take you to the stars. Overall, I highly recommend Rimworld to fans of the genre, and the Royalty expansion is also worth it as it spices up combat with psychic 'spells' and whatnot.
Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor (PC) - While this game does wear its Batman: Arkham Games inspiraton on its sleeve, it's a little more than that. Combat is more central than in the Batman games, and it's just a lot of fun skewering orcs and taking down Sauron's armies using the vaunted 'Nemesis' system. Shadow of Mordor - the first one, since I know it's easy to mix them up - is a nice, brisk game that has a reasonably quick core plot and doesn't overstay its welcome. In fact, I was left wanting more, so...
Middle-Earth: Shadow of War (PC) - In a lot of ways, this game is more of the same. It does, however, introduce more itemization; while in Mordor, you simply upgraded your weapons by completing challenges, War requires you to level up and replace weapons as you go. This does create a few more interesting systems with damage types and whatnot, but ultimately I stopped because the new elements just weren't much fun and I didn't need that much more Middle-Earth Batman in my life. The plot also goes from 'Well, it's Tolkienish, I guess' to just being kind of dumb all around.
Cave Story+ (PC) (replay) - It had been a while since I beat Cave Story, so I picked this up and did a full run including the 'true ending' hell run. For those who haven't played it, Cave Story is a charming little side-scrolling shooter with a variety of fun weapons. There's not a lot to say beyond that; it's a short, sweet retro experience I also recommend.
Deus Ex: Game of the Year Edition (PC) (replay) - I'm referring to the 2001 game, not the Square Enix one from whenever that was. Deus Ex is probably one of the earliest 'with RPG elements' games. At its core it's a first-person shooter set 20 minutes into the future, but your weapon efficacy is determined by skill points you earn by exploring, completing objectives, and interacting with NPCs. The plot has a lot of classic cyberpunk and conspiracy plot beats to it and I highly recommend it even though the core gameplay feels dated in 2020. It is still an absolute masterclass in level design, with so many little hidden secrets, bonuses for exploring, and ways to complete your objectives. I kid you not when I say that after a dozen playthroughs over 20 years, I still find entirely new side areas and routes. There are multiple modernizing mods; I used Deus Ex Revision, available through Steam if you own the base game there.
Pokemon Shield (Switch) - I wasn't patient for this, and in fact probably actually beat it in 2019, but it wasn't a Patient game at the time so it didn't make last years list. That said, it's Pokemon - you almost certainly have your own opinion on it at this point. That said I still felt sort of disappointed even with low expectations going in, as it was basically as brain-dead as other recent entries in the series. It's a shame we're not seeing more out of it given how stupidly huge the franchise is.
Animal Crossing: New Horizons (Switch) - This is a 2020 Pandemic Classic, but I kind of bounced off it despite enjoying previous Animal Crossing games. The only gameplay evolution is to add a weird survival-game element of your tools breaking and admittedly a sort of neat crafting/terrain alteration system, but this was gated behind so much grind I just felt I could get this same experience, only better, elsewhere.
Subnautica (Gamepass on PC) - Subnautica is a survival/exploration game set on an alien world after a crash landing. Basically the entire game is spent in the ocean, hence the name. The game is gorgeous and has some fun encounters, but the core gameplay is a bit of a slog, requiring you to scour the ocean floor for bits to find upgrades and slowly solve how to get your ass off the world. The intent is to force you to build multiple bases, but I short-circuited this by building the Giant Monster Submarine Mobile Base. Following the breadcrumbs of the plot is alright, but then you occasionally just hit a 'go scour the ocean floor for wreckage so you can get the upgrade to go past this arbitrary depth'. I think I dropped the game shortly before its climax because I just couldn't be bothered anymore.
Indivisible (PC) - This is a gorgeously animated game that at first glance, looks like Valkyrie Profile with a Metroidvania-ish overworld. In practice, though, it's very linear and the combat system has little more depth than button mashing. The narrative tries to do some interesting things but ultimately falls flat due to some mixed messages with tones and general pacing issues. The voice-acting talent in this game is top tier, though. Overall, I feel like this is a 'good enough' popcorn filler game that's worth your time, but I also feel like it could have been so much more.
Death Stranding (PS4) - I got a fairly solid deal on a used copy shortly after launch, so I wasn't exactly Patient. Hideo Kojima Pretends He's a Film Guy isn't exactly a gripping narrative, but I actually enjoyed the literal walking simulator gameplay. Other players affect your experience indirectly, sort of like the Dark Souls message system. But rather than crude jokes about awesome chests or but holes, they leave material goods. By this I mean both useful equipment and literally dropped cargo, and they literally alter the terrain by forming 'desire paths' as more people take the same route. The whole game is fascinating even if a lot of it is just Kojima being weird.
Superhot (PC) - I don't have a lot to say about this other than I played it. It's basically an FPS where you are in constant bullettime, with the world only advancing extremely slowly until you move. It creates a sort of puzzle game as you figure out how best to dispatch foes without getting overwhelmed. I played the VR version on PS4 in 2019, which has no locomotion. I preferred the 'puzzle solving' elements of this version where you actually have full freedom of movement rather than simply leaning in place.
Sonic Mania (PC) - This is a short and sweet love letter to classic Sonic. I only ever got into the blue blur with the Gamecube MegaCollection, so this just seemed like a welcome return to a familiar gameplay style. I don't have much more than a vague thumbs-up recommendation for folks looking for, well, more classic Sonic.
Among Us (PC) - I really appreciate the chance to murder my friends and convince them they didn't. I don't really see the appeal of playing with randos, but if you can get six-to-seven people together on Discord it's a grand old time. Your experience with more may vary.
Return of the Obra-Dinn (PC) - Sleek graphical style, and neat puzzle-esque gameplay. Basically, you're an insurance... person asssessing what happened to the crew of a ship in the Age of Sail (I forget the exact year). You progress through the stylish black-and-white ship using a magical timepiece that lets you see the last moments of the various corpses you find. The goal is to discover what happened to each of the several dozen crew members on board - how they died, whether they somehow got off the ship, and what (or who) killed them. It has some flaws, as a puzzle game, but it's still well worth trying out if this is the sort of thing you're into.
Mirror's Edge (PC) - I made it about three-quarters of the way through this game years ago, but dropped it for... some reason. It's famously a game about free-running, and it's essentially one long puzzle game about how to maneuver around an urban environment by maintaining momentum, jumping, climbing, and swinging. It's serviceable enough in all respects, though I had a rough time figuring out how to proceed in a couple of areas. The aesthetic is slick, and the plot is merely serviceable.
Some More Obscure Stuff
Overgrowth (PC) - This game is slightly hard to describe. Basically, it's a... character action game based around physics, I guess? About an anthropomorphic rabbit who fights other anthropomorphic animals. The plot has a gritty low-fantasy bent to it, but the meat of the game is in doing crazy high-jumps around the environments (including some parkour!) and sneaking around to grab weapons and slaughter your enemies. Both you and your enemies have very low health pools. The physics do feel a bit janky and floaty, but you can still do a lot of crazy cool stuff - like a flying kick that all but guarantees a kill, but if you miss leaves you very open.
100% Orange Juice (PC) - This is basically Honest Mario Party for weebs. It's typically referred to as orenji, i.e. RNG (randomly generated number). You roll a dice to move your ridiculous anime girl around a board, then roll some dice to see what happens, from simple combat to gaining stars to a very small smattering of minigames. Your goal is to go around the board and make it to your home square with a certain number of stars or a certain number of 'wins' from defeating other players or NPC encounters in combat (your choice). If you do this five times before anybody else, you win! It's a charming little game to goof around with friends on, and often very cheap.
Graveyard Keeper (PC) - It's like a grimly humorous version of Harvest Moon or Stardew Valley. A literal braying ass delivers corpses to your graveyard, you have to bury them with appropriate headstones and whatnot or, you know, throw them in the river I guess. Overall it's a bit too grindy and repetitive despite having a fair number of gameplay systems (having to kill bats on your way to quarry stone for headstones, etc.) Some folks might enjoy the dark humor more than I did, and the gameplay is roughly in line with something like Stardew Valley, so if you want a twist on that formula, give it a look.
The Final Station (PC) - This is a side-scrolling game in which you operate a train across a country while weird shit happens. Gameplay is split between tending the train, which involves fiddling with the train systems as they go down and tending to passengers by delivering food or medicine. At each station, the gameplay is more of a side-scrolling shooter mode where you methodically fight weird zombie-like creatures while looking for the access code to release your train for the next leg while gathering as many supplies as you can. The narrative is jank and intentionally obtuse, but I dug the moment-to-moment gameplay. Overall it gets an 'eh' from me.
Barony (PC) - I played this with my friends when it had a free weekend on Steam. It's a 3D Roguelike that plays in real time rather than the standard turn-based. You have several base classes that determine starting skills, but over the course of a run you may well develop an entirely different set. It's pretty standard stuff if you're used to Nethack or Dungeon Crawl, but the novelty of having multiplayer was good for a weekend. If my friends weren't such dumb butts I'd probably have played more of it.
Chantelise (PC) - This is one of those mid-2000s Japanese action games that got a Steam port at some point. It's got some janky camera issues and a fairly basic combat system where you swing your sword around and gather gems that allow you to release various elemental attacks depending on what's in your gem queue. The story's your typical anime bullshit with two sisters trying to discover why one of them got cursed to be a fairy. It's a solid romp if you can manage to acclimate to the weird camera and input scheme.
Druidstone: The Secret of the Menhir Forest (PC) - I was interested in this because it was by the folks who did The Legend of Grimrock. It's an isometric strategy game with the typical vaguely-X-COM 2012 inspirations. There are some interesting choices to be made in ability and equipment loadouts and I vaguely enjoyed the first several missions, but the story didn't grip me and the combats were a mix of uninteresting slugfests and overly tense 'how do I reach the objective while not dying?' sorts of things, at least as I recall it now. This is on my list of things to go back and give a more proper shot as I wasn't really quite in the headspace for it on my first try.
Out There: Omega Edition (PC) - I believe this is a port of a mobile game that is basically a weird sort of existential space exploration. You move from star to star, trying to keep your supplies topped off, and progress towards your homeworld. There are a few different endings, and in general the writing is OK. It's a fun little space-themed choose your own adventure/resource management sort of rogue-like-ish (I hate that I typed this) game.
I Didn't Like These Very Much
Fantasy Blacksmith (PC) - I installed this thinking it'd be a fun little sim game. While it is kind of neat to run around messing with the tools to go through the full process of heating an ingot, beating it into a blade, and performing minigames to sharpen and do final assembly, there's so damn much waiting involved. To profitably sell a sword, you need to wait until you hear knocks on your door (which may well be in the middle of you doing a time-sensitive step in the process). You have to wait for deliveries. You can mine in your basement, for some reason, but it's so agonizingly slow and, again, if you hear some knocking - you better rush to the door! Overall, this game was a disappointment.
This is the Police - On the surface, I really liked the idea of Duke Nukem voicing a tired old cop, with gameplay revolving around time management as you play admin and dispatch for your various police officers. It also has a great, sleek aesthetic and general presentation. In practice it's a needlessly gritty drama about crime and corruption with very little feedback on how well you're doing at the actual game portion. I intentionally ignored the mafia's attempts to bribe me into ignoring their activity, and my game officially ended when the main character got shot in a driveby at breakfast. The fact that it was preordained that I had to be a dirty cop, combined with the fact that the only warning of this was the same 'The Mafia will remember that.' message with no further escalation or actual warning about it being a gameover condition lead me to drop it there (on top of others saying this isn't the only incident of being in a losing game state without any real forewarning).
And Now for Some VR Games
The Invisible Hours (PS4) (also has a flat-screen mode) - This isn't really a game, as there's literally zero interactivity. All you can do is move the camera around, pause, and rewind. It self describes itself as a sort of play, which is appropriate. You follow the seven or so individuals as they interact and reveal more about their own personal mysteries and the central murder mystery. The plot is a little campy and the drama a bit melo, but overall it's still a neat ride and a novel experience, even if you aren't literally in the middle of it as it unfolds in VR. It's a neat use of a few hours of your time.
Sairento VR (PS4) - For those who don't know, VR is absolutely filthy with wave shooters - simple arenas where enemies come until you have spent enough time murdering them all. Sairento is basically one of these with the twist that throwing your hands in the air causes you to do a sick ninja flip into the air and slows down time while you mow down enemies with whatever silly cyberpunk weapons you have. It's all well and good for some dumb fun, but its central gimmick doesn't really carry it given the price tag. There are other, better shooters and explorations of VR mobility.
Espire 1: VR Operative (PS4) - This piqued my interest due to being a stealth game. The highlight, in my opinion, is your ability to climb almost any wall, which along with some solid, classic Deus Ex level design, leads to a lot of neat options for sneaking around. The campaign is fairly typical both plot-wise and gameplay objective wise, and after a while sneaking around in the rafters just doesn't carry the game anymore. By the end I'd just given up on stealth and was mowing down my enemies, which is also a viable gameplay choice. Overall it was OK, I guess.
The Walking Dead: Saints and Sinners (PC) - This is the first totally new game I played with my recently acquired HP Reverb G2. This is the first VR game I've played that really seemed to benefit from the previous years of design. Everything just seemed smoother and less janky. The core gameplay is basically scavenging and finding items you're sent for, which is well-suited to VR and the genre. Combat is very satisfying, and I had several tense moments where either there were too many enemies to handle in melee and managing the reloading and gunplay was just frantic enough to feel 'authentic' to a zombie apocalypse. The plot is very modern Walking Dead-ie, which you probably already have an opinion on. In the end I put more hours into the 'Trial' mode, which will being Yet Another Wave Shooter, was actually tense and engaging compared to the many, many previous games with the same formula. I think this has to do with the very satisfying 'pierce the skull' motion and literally grabbing zombies by the head and shoving them back to help manage crowds. All in all, I now consider this a quintessential VR experience alongside Beat Saber.
Unlimited Time Dumps
No Man's Sky (PS4, PC) - Like a non-trivial number of people, I watched the Internet Historian's The Engoodening of No Man's Sky. The game was on sale, it had relatively recently received a VR update for PSVR, and I said screw it and picked it up. This was right around when we were all realizing just how serious the whole pandemic was going to be, and I dumped an ungodly number of hours into the game during March through May. What I appreciated most about NMS - apart from being fairly breathtaking in VR, even in the muddy potato-water of a PS4 Pro's graphical capabilities - is how seamlessly the transition from on-foot to starship gameplay was. Neither is super deep, and the game is mostly about following quests from point-to-point, meandering exploration, or at-best-serviceable basebuilding with some survival elements. But it's all done well enough in the same package that it's entrancing. If you do pick it up, for the first time or to mess around, be sure to check out the crazy folks at the Galactic Hub.
Also yes, I bought NMS on both platforms. I used a program called iVRy to be able to use my PSVR headset on PC, but despite my best efforts I was never able to get anything other than head tracking working. NMS is sort of playable without motion controllers, until you try to build and your hands are behind you so you can't actually place anything. But this setup was fine for...
Elite Dangerous (PC) - There's a YouTuber by the name of Exigeous who says that Elite Dangerous is a pretty alright spaceship game if you play it normally. But if you play it with a VR headset, you are flying a fucking spaceship. I could not agree more. I spent an embarassing number of hours putting this game through its paces from late Spring through the Summer. The game has imeccable sound design, unbelievably good presentation, and a very solid space-dogfight flight model.
Unfortunately, it's hard to recommend almost anything else about the game. Doing almost anything involves either multiple-minute commutes in 'SuperCruise', the only-somewhat-faster-than-light in-system movement mode, or multiple loading-screen warp jumps between stars to get where you want to be. 'Space trucking', or trading, is very janky, as the economic simulation is fairly minimal. Doing anything to the 'background simulation' and affecting the galaxy requires a Herculean effort with a Byzantine system that is less clear than mud. The game probably has the most interesting asteroid mining systems, from relatively simple but pleasant to execute laser mining to cracking the cores with explosives and hoovering up the goodies, but it's still a very simple loop and relies on the aforementioned jank economics. The real strengths are the breathtaking universe (if you can stand jumping and supercruising for hours), and the remarkably complex, modular system for fitting your ships. This is especially true of combat, and with over two dozen ships to choose from there's a wide variety of options from stacking shields and wading into 'melee' with various lasers and kinetic weapons to hull-tanking and railgun sniping.
I'm still very mixed on Elite, but it's basically a must-have VR experience for the atmospheric aesthetics and sound design alone.
Dual Universe (PC) - I'm breaking patient rules here, as this 'released' as a beta in August, but it was in Alpha for a while before that. This is an MMO with influences from EVE, Avorion, and Space Engineers. It intends to be a 'civlization building' game where players run the sandbox. The core gameplay is voxel-based spaceship building, where you can freely design the ship's hull and apply various flight elements to give it capabilities (atmospheric flight, space engines, guns). Production of these elements is done by running Industry machines, and while it's not as complex as something like Satisfactory or Factorio, there is still a fun element of industrial planning (though currently this is a grind-gated gameplay loop).
It calls itself a Beta but feels much more like an Alpha, and frankly NovaQuark is a newbie developer who doesn't seem to have much of a clue. If this game didn't scratch all the right itches for me, I probably wouldn't even mention it; but it's such a fascinating project and is the only true MMO I know with such extensive usage of voxel deformation from everything from ship damage to terrain to mining, with an EVE-like sandbox ethos at least stated.
A Conclusion
If you read all that, I'm so sorry. This yearly roundup means a lot to me as I put my thoughts in order about what I played over the year, and recall some of the more obscure stuff I had forgotten I played. (In particular, I really enjoyed Overgrowth, which I played in July or so, and had totally forgotten Indivisible which I bought at the end of the 2019 Steam Sale, and was a real mixed bag).
I did play a few other games this year, but this list is exclusive to games I at least gave a fair shake of a few hours rather than simply playing for a tiny bit and putting down. My primary methodology was to pull the highlights out of my brain, then check the play history of my consoles (which is fairly inaccurate, probably). My PS4 got a lot of use on one game this year (No Man's Sky), but my Switch sat largely-dormant. PC was my primary platform, where Steam's excellent 'sort by recent activity' function gave me a fairly comprehensive list of what I had played and when.
I think my New Year's Resolution will be to actually post more about games as I play them here on /patientgamers, if only so I can just link to some posts and do a quicker list next year (though hopefully 2021 won't see me with quite so much free time).

Original post created by FlagstaffMom in https://www.reddit.com/flagstaffacademy/.

Detailed Notes

1. Public Comment -
   1. Julie - At the Budget Board Meeting in March, Mr. Granger mentioned that the school wants to hire a Behavioral Interventionist. I think this is a great idea. Having a defined behavior policy at Flagstaff and staffing to back up the policy is a great first step. Mr. Granger also mentioned that there is currently no space this person’s office. Therefore, he suggested that since there are no longer art installations in the elementary art room that a section be cut out from the art room to make a new office or conference room for the Behavioral Interventionist. There are several practical reasons that this is not a good decision. Primarily, this particular locations is one of the noisiest and visible places in the entire school. Best practices would advise than an office such as this, or the current Dean’s office for that matter, should be in a more tranquil and private place. If best practices are to be ignored, it should at least be for a reason worthy of that. For example, would this change make the school more attractive to new families? Does it further enhance current programs or does it take away? Has our Administrative Consultant advised or weighed in on best practices relative to this? I have seen in recent years that the school has taken a position of expediency over creative vision when it comes to space utilization. As an involved parent, I have witnessed firsthand the reduction of the space of great programs, such as elementary music, tech, and now art, to make room for office space for individuals and printer rooms. For example, the Discover Art Program was one of the unique programs that drew our family and others to choose Flagstaff in the first place. Taking space away from the art room further the lack of support as it appears the program has dwindled over the years since Mr. Sumnicht ran it. While this isn’t about Mr. Sumnicht personally or Ms. Link, it is important to consider how we got to this choice in the first place. Making the case that the space isn’t being used by the current art teacher for installations is a weak justification that lacks vision as the space could still be used for that or something else just as grand with future vision and support. In my opinion, this well meaning, but ultimately short-sighted approach, reduces Flagstaff’s value. This approach discourages committed and inspiring teachers and in this case, undermines the stated goal and dire need to draw new families and retain current families. It takes away from what is unique and special about Flagstaff. Instead, the focus should be to develop and further support these uniques programs and teachers. Shining examples like the greenhouse, our elementary music program, our elementary band program, and some of the wonderful things now happening in P.E. are visible proof of what makes Flagstaff special. They inspire current students and draw new families to Flagstaff. At the Budget Board Meeting, Mr. Granger mentioned that the school had already started gathering estimates to make accommodations for a new office in that space and that they were coming in around $40,000, due to the lack of HVAC system and sprinklers in that area. $40,000 seems like a large amount of money to create space for one position. This need for space is a good opportunity to consider the bigger picture to meet Flagstaff’s long term needs and not just make space for one. I am also concerned that teachers should be included appropriately in the discussion. While, of course ,the administration and Board make the final decision on how to spend funds, have teachers been consulted about the impact these changes make on their programs? Has there been discussion between stakeholders about these proposed cuts currently or in the past? Before Flagstaff continues to proceed with possible cuts to this space, I hope the Board and the administration will look into other options, or at least establish a committee, to explore the best way to meet the school’s long term needs for space. Thank you for your time and consideration of this information.
   2. Raelene -

I'm Raelene Navulur. So just a little follow-up to what Julie said. I was not at the last board of directors budget meeting, but I was told that the matter of the art room was brought up and was suggested that $40,000 should be spent to close off a portion of the room for HVAC or something similar and the rest of the room would be turned into a room for a behavioral specialist. I would like to ask where the board is on that suggestion, maybe in a follow-up email if possible. I have to say taking an idea on how the school can get creative with space, to make money, and turning that around into how the school can spend money is a bit frustrating. Giving valuable real estate to a position that is the only one in the school that has more turnover than the executive principal seems like a waste of money. I am not saying we don’t need help which behavior was taking a room that could be used to ease congestion in the middle school and using it four offices seems like the wrong thing to do. Why can't language arts come back into the building and use that space in the trailer for behavior? It allows the kids to have their needs addressed in a more private space instead of in the heart of the school. The other option is to have them in the office for privacy is else to get into consideration. These are just a few of the things that concern me and I thank you for your time

1. Boone Starr - My name is Boone Starr. I'm a science teacher in the Middle School and I kind of wanted to divide my three minutes into three sections. The first thing I really want to talk about Is our Middle School. It is a magical place. It is a magical place because of the people that are here, the people that put in their time here and that show up every day. One of our strongest assets and greatest assets that we have in our whole entire Middle School is sitting at that table right over there - Ms. Katie Gustafson. The hours, the time, and the work that she puts in and the support that I get from her, on a daily basis, whether or not she has the time, makes our whole entire team stronger. The other thing that makes our middle school team strong is that we show up for each other. We have managed to build a culture in our Middle School. If we need help from another teacher or if anybody needs anything you send out an email and you've 10 emails by the time you get back to your computer on who can help you and what you can do. That speaks to the strength of our middle school. So far in our Middle School in the five years I've been there we've brought our language arts programs to the number one in the district. We’ve brought our math program to the number one of the district. And we're within the margin of error on our science program from number one in the district. The first year I was there, our science scores were raised 7%, the second year 10%, the third year another 8%. So our Middle School is kicking butt. I love that place and it’s because of all the wonderful teachers that work there and all of the wonderful staff and administrators that support us on that side. We won the robotics award. We've won awards for cyberpatriots. We’ve won awards all over the place for all sorts of reasons. Second, I'd like to address the behavior. The problem in my mind, without offending anybody, is that there is no real system. This is the eighth school that I've worked at in a long-term fashion. I was long-term sub for 5 years. I came to this school partly because of the restorative justice. That really appeals to me and my personal ethos. But restorative justice is not a behavior system, it's a process. The thing is we don't have a real behavior system. Most schools use love and logic, PBIS, there's a natural set of protocol in the system in ways that the teachers can lean on either way. to enforce stuff in our class and address behavior concerns. That’s a real thing. Our school does not have that system. There is no system for that. That concerns me. Ok? The third thing that concerns me, I think we’ve done a lot of good work on the compensation committee. I think that we've come a long way. But as a teacher like me I'm just starting my doctorate this year and we've eliminated all the doctorate. Most of the teachers in the school have a masters at this point. So if we're going to encourage our teachers in the school to pursue more education so that they can be current, relative to what is being taught in the classroom, and doing the best for our students, there has to be some sort of carrot there. in the compensation to encourage people to get there. The other part of that is that you know during the whole discussion right the idea is 95% of what St. Vrain pays. I've never really seen an analysis of what it would cost us to do 100% of what St. Vrain pays. And it seems to me and other teachers that this is part of an ethos of I tried to school. Because we are at Charter School. We have the ability to pay teachers less than what others are getting paid in the district. So that's we're going to shoot for. Not to mention longer hours, longer school year, less PTO, all these other things that working to it. Plus we have teachers here that spend hours and hours after school, but I know are not doing that at other schools. So for me to stay competitive even with my raise there's not a lot as a career point that's going to keep me here more than a couple more years, even though I love this place. It is a $20,000 swing for me to go to Boulder School District. It's a $15,000 swing on a $40,000 a year salary to go to Westminster. And so those are my three issues.
2. Sean Kemp - Band and choir Elementary School a little bit and Middle School. I usually talk about how much I love my job here at the end of our concerts and I know some of you have heard this, but I wanted to share this with others as well. People that have not been to those. I’ve been a teacher for the last 19 years. I have worked in regular Public Schools as well as other charter schools. This has been my favorite place by far, not even close. No school is perfect, but Flagstaff has been managed far better than the others I have worked at. The teachers who have never worked at another school probably see all of our faults through a magnifying glass, and they exist but I think sometimes we get a little too focused on them. it is easy to think the grass is greener somewhere else when you've never left your own yard. I've been in several other yard throughout my career, and my only complaints about this school are about the facility. Teaching music on a small stage with a constantly roaring fan make parts of my job much harder. Still, while I know all of that extra sound clouds what we do everyday, I also know that the space doesn't make the music. Everything else here is better than other places I have been. I have never seen such a transparent budgeting process as we use here at Flagstaff. I've never had easy access to all of the things we have on Dragon Staff Central, and I have rarely felt as supported by administration as I have here. My other teacher friends refer to Flagstaff as Disneyland, whenever I told him about the things I'm able to do with our kids, and the level of Technology available to do those things with. That's true. They actually say that to me. The Smart displays are amazing. So are our students. Almost all of them come to school ready to learn and the kids have been able to work with here I've been the most capable elementary and middle school kids I've worked with. I know there are some who are unhappy with their current compensation, and the recently released plan. Don’t get me wrong, it would be great to be paid more. And I do agree with what much of Boone said as well. that being said I voluntarily took a significant pay cut to come to the school and I've never once regretted that decision because the quality of my professional life here has been far better pain in other places. And to put a number on it... I wasn't going to do this but since you mentioned it, I took a $15,000 pay cut to come here, voluntarily. That's a big chunk of change. It was worth it to me. It was worth it. I'm not saying I don't want to be paid more, don't get me wrong. I'm personally pleased with the teacher Compensation Plan, even knowing that. And I know that but Wayne has done the best job he can balancing teacher pay and benefits within the confines of a very restrictive economic situation. We, basically as teachers and school officials, we work within a salary capped system. That's something that a lot of people don't really understand, but it is really the way it is. So anyway I'm happy to be a dragon. I'm hoping to stay a dragon for a long time.
3. Terri Reh - Can I follow up on that? I'm Terri Reh. I’ve been here for 12 years. I've taught 1st, 3rd, and 6th grade language arts and now programming. With the help of my peers we’ve started robotics teams to build a flourishing program. I've taken numerous classes understand programming and computer science in order to offer these things to our students. And we now have a very successful and very popular robotics team. Our programming classes are so robust that our eighth graders are allowed to take AP Computer Science and I want their freshman year. This is not something any other kids in the district get to do. I attended District computer science and robotics Cooperatives to keep our school relevance and in step with SVVSD. I investigate cyber security and cyberpatriots in order to help bring the electives and the teams to Flagstaff. During my time here I have been able to attend numerous conferences including ISST (?) and EDCO core knowledge (?) etc. And if you present a cogent argument For attending these things most often they are approved. My reason for giving you a laundry list of what I have been able to do is because I always have the full support of Katie, Wayne, the PTO, and my middle school peers to accomplish the things I desire to do and bring to the students. Who are my accomplices? The Middle School team of teachers. We work cohesively and creatively. We eat lunch together. We celebrate each other's events and foremost we pitch in whenever something needs to be covered or if somebody forgot their lunch, somebody else will run out get your lunch for you. The middle school team works together to write the weekly advisory curriculum, create special programming for students on late start days that includes things like hour of code, stress-free days, skyscraper day, etc. Katie Gustafson, we have all pitched in to help Katie make our Middle School become the Middle School to watch. It became just as important to us as to her, and we wouldn't be the well oiled machine without her. She allows us to have autonomy, trusts our work, and because of that we highly respect her and she respects us. (Someone yells out “Here Here!”). Wayne Granger. Wayne, StuCo, NJHS leaders, Richard and Rob, work for months on end to put together an off the charts robotics tournament that is the one to go to in the district. I get emails from people at the beginning of the robotics season you desperately want to find a way to be the first one to know that it's going to go live. Wayne along with Katie continue to listen and support new technological ideas. He understands our desire to be competitive with the district and works with us to help reach these goals. No school is perfect. There is still work to be done but after sitting on collaboratives and taking part in professional developments with other district teachers I feel we continue to move in the right direction.
4. Leigh Miller - My name is Leigh Miller. For those of you that don't know me I'm a third grade teacher here. I work here for five years. I worked in 4th grade before. The reason I'm here today is I don't feel like teacher representation has been true to the feelings of a lot of teachers that work here. Personally I feel incredibly supported by my Administration, incredibly happy with the new salary schedule that was released on Friday. I have worked hard for a master's degree and up until this point it didn't really feel like it meant anything. Working here there wasn't a big enough chunk of change for it to be worth it. I'm still paying for it. So, I'm really happy in the work that has been done. I'm getting over $5,000 more next year. That is incredibly important to me because up until this point I didn't think that I could survive working here another year. My paycheck doesn't cover more than just a little bit of my costs. I wanted to say that I really appreciate my Administration and I think Wayne for all the hard work that he put into that salary scale and I know he's I spent countless hours outside the school to make this a wonderful place just to be and I'm really thankful for that. I love working at the school. And I think you guys need to hear more positive things. And I know many other teachers feel the same way.
5. Leah Moskoff - I'll go next so Leah Moskoff 6th grade language arts. You know I don't have anything prepared, but listening to everybody and thinking about why I'm here tonight and why I'm here every single day, it all comes down to choice. It just comes down to choice. I made the choice to become a teacher. I made the choice to work at Flagstaff. I made the choice to stand up and make the changes but I saw fit at Flagstaff. I sit on committees because I make that choice to do so, to have my voice heard. And I come to meetings like this as a choice to be heard good night. So I personally every single day wake up and look forward to going to work. If that wasn't the case I might make a different choice in my life. That's it.
6. Jolene Rodemich - I was just following up, and you guys might touch base on this tonight I don't know and if not maybe you could just follow up with me. I was just following up in regards to the ODAC. Last that I had remembered is that we were putting together a team and whatnot. (Others start talking.) Is it on the agenda? Did I not read clearly enough? (Others explain it is on the agenda as ALAC not ODAC) Is that why I’m confused? You’re going to answer my questions then basically about where we are. I just wanted to know what the schedule was basically. Because I thought we were, from the last that we had talked about it, that we were a little bit behind, because I thought the application was supposed to be out by now and we were supposed to be getting candidates in April. And on another note, listening to all of you guys, all of you teachers that showed up tonight, I just want to say as a parent, thank you for coming to teach our kids and it means the world that you guys love our school. So, thank you.
7. Samantha Carter - Hi. I’m Samantha Carter and I have a 3rd grader. I have just a couple of questions for the Board. I just kind of feel like we need to close the Tony Fontana loop. Are we using him anymore? Is our administration getting any of his support anymore? If he is not, is there somebody else we’re getting support from. I just don’t feel like I have ever gotten any closure about what’s happening and he could still be here and I just don’t know. So, that was one of the things. The other one was… I wasn’t here, it was my son’s birthday on the last Board meeting, and I read about what Julie and Raelene touched on, which was the Behavioral Specialist. I think it is an amazing idea and support it 150%. However, I was really disturbed by the numbers that we’re coming up with $40,000. I mean that’s a position, an extra position. Serving on the financial committee, I just don’t know if that is a fiscally responsible thing to do to take that money to use it for facility for just an office for just one person. So I just wanted to make my voice heard that is something that is really concerning to me. And I don’t know if you guys are going to talk about that tonight. I don’t know if that is just a proposal, because we never really talked about it in our financial committee meeting. So, that was just news to me when I saw that. So, is that something that gets discussed to or can you follow up with me at least and let me know? Paul says “Yeah, we’ll follow up.” Ok. Thank you.
8. Tracy Applehans - I agree with a lot of my colleagues here tonight. Flagstaff is an awesome school. We have always set the bar high and we stand out. And our administration has supported us in many areas. My concerns tonight are regarding the upcoming compensation plan that is coming out and I just want to read a little bit to note some of my concerns. The 19-20 salary scale that will be presented, I feel like it is not a representation of what I brought to the compensation committee as a voice of the teachers that I talked with. Other than the grid and some increase in salary the new scale offers raise to some teachers and is overall an improvement, it also freezes a handful of salaries for many of our veteran teachers and does not allow for teachers to gain experience without seeking a degree. The new scale being presented is 93% to 95% of SVVSD salary scale, but it reflects the 18-19 salary scale and not the 19-20 salary scale. The compensation committee never discussed the proposed changes you will see. The salary lanes, steps, capping Flagstaff at 10 years for a BA and more. The 18-19 scale pays teachers with a BA up to 15 years. The new scale deletes salary advancement laterally for BA+10, MA+20 and neither offers a lateral advancement for a masters or doctorate. Furthermore 20 or 40 credits beyond a graduate degree is not being accepted for graduate level classes in education or related topics to education unless it is degree seeking. I have not found this to be the same at SVVSD and I have received an email from district to that effect. As a matter of fact, according to SVVSD, teachers shouldn't have to get graduate credits at all to advance on the schedule. Any professional development that helps a teacher to refine their craft, should be acceptable for lateral movement. That is any PD outside of what we do in house at Flagstaff each year. In our Handbook it states in section 2.16 "FSA values highly-qualified, professional staff trained in the latest trends and practice aligned with the schools mission and vision." I feel that is not being honored in the proposed salary scale. Many teachers want to be lifelong learners and earn graduate level credit without seeking a degree. This should be encouraged as it is in the best interest of our students. We even discussed this in the compensation committee meeting and at the time everyone seemed to be on board including the Executive Director. So it was a shock to see that once again, teachers are not being put first, nor are our students. The new proposed scale does not promote longevity, continuing education unless you are seeking an additional degree or for teachers to seek a PhD. Don’t get me wrong, the scale being proposed is an improvement, but I feel information being presented is not representative of all of the work from the compensation committee. The committee has put in many hours to try to present information to come up with the best compensation package for Flagstaff employees. The compensation committee did not have an opportunity to discuss or give input on salary steps, lateral steps, capping salaries and more. The majority of the time that I was involved as a teacher representative was spent discussing alternative bands/structure for compensation, asking how we could reward rockstar teachers, retain them and how to tie compensation to performance. Once the teacher representatives came back with info from the teachers stating that they basically wanted a grid to match 95-100% of SVVSD like this current year, more PTO hours, more time for planning, classroom work time and teaching (fewer meetings and PD) and consistent curriculum. I was pleased that the alternative models were thrown out and the ED said he would look at a grid. I am appreciative that the ED realized the new model structures were not going to work for Flagstaff. However, there were no more meetings to discuss the potential grid or what was to come next. Many of the plans have been shared with the board and teachers along the way, but the new pay scale just came out as far as I know. It was only presented to teachers through an email on Friday April 5th at 4:00, 24 business hours before it was going to be presented to the BOD. In my opinion this was unprofessional and does not represent Flagstaff standards and best practices. It seems as though time was running out and something had to be put together in order to present the preliminary budget to the board. I realize Flagstaff can’t please all the teachers all the time, however this is Flagstaff and we set the bar high. I am concerned that some of these decisions are being rushed. Flagstaff’s goal is to promote longevity and keep rock star teachers. Does the new pay scale represent Flagstaff goals for retaining quality, veteran teachers? The “family” part of Flagstaff is missing. Teachers and staff, at least in elementary, it sounds like it’s going pretty well in middle school (Leigh Miller interrupts and says “It’s going pretty well in elementary too.” Tracy responds, “That’s not what I hear from your teammates.”) Teachers and staff always hear “we take care of our own and once a dragon always a dragon”. Personally I do not see that happening consistently and many of my colleagues share the same concerns. Once again I have to say, most teachers are afraid to speak up or reply to the ED or VP for fear of retaliation or admin “finding a way” to fire them. Many teachers have also voiced “why should I, nothing is ever done”. I too have the same concerns but my gut instinct tells me it’s time to speak out for our teachers, students and community. I hope the board will do the right thing. I feel this is constructive information for everyone to hear before making final decisions. I have tried to inform my colleagues with my constructive opinion. That’s why I’m here tonight. And then I just have some examples of what I think could be done. (At this point, Paul Shoning tells Tracy Applehans that she has gone over three minutes and we need to move on. TA says that she will email her proposed changes to the Board. She has copies and offers them to others. John Mieras offers to give his public comment time to TA, and Paul responds, “No, we’re just going to limit each person to three minutes”. Tracy explains that in the past she’s heard others speak longer than three minutes and explains that it is disappointing. Paul explains that there is such a big crowd and we need to move on.) Below is the remainder of Tracy Applehans’ comment, which she has provided for these notes: I am happy to know that the budget being presented tonight is preliminary as I am proposing the BOD reject this pay scale and consider making a few changes before the budget becomes final. The 93-95% should reflect the SVVSD 19-20 pay scale, not this year’s. It should accept graduate level credit regardless of seeking a degree as long as it is education related. If there is going to be a cap, the BOD should consider grandfathering in the handful of teachers, who are veteran teachers or Flagstaff will risk losing them. The message being sent is “we don’t value” our veteran teachers.” Another idea is to at least offer the teachestaff with frozen salaries a cost of living increase. Annual bonuses could also be offered to these teachers to help with the impact of frozen salaries. The proposed salary scale that the ED shared with staff will have an impact on all teachers as they gain years of experience in our school. If we want teachers to stay and create that Dragon family, we need to incentivize them to make Flagstaff their forever home. Those are the teachers who will continue to strive and thrive for students. I do feel like Admin and teachers, including myself, have the student’s and teacher’s best interest in mind, but the approach and perspective is different. My intentions are not to hurt others or demean anyone's work, because we all work our butts off. The ED is always asking for feedback and I feel this is a constructive opinion as many staff members are not informed beyond presentations and are afraid to ask questions. Discussion makes a healthy and viable school and community. There is a lack of it because of fear. I am heartbroken and feel betrayed by my beloved Flagstaff. What has Flagstaff become? What direction are we going? Our teacher's should have a voice and not be in fear of sharing their opinion and ask questions. Thank you for your time and consideration. I sincerely hope you consider reviewing the proposed pay scale, best practices and putting our teachers and students first by making some changes before taking a vote. I would appreciate feedback on my proposals/suggestions.
9. Sheila Strukel - I would like to speak. Speaking as a staff member and as a founding staff member of this school. (Sheila asks someone else to take notes since she usually takes the minutes) I don’t stand up and make presentations ever. I would like to say that I was on the compensation committee as well and I was privy to the same information everybody else was and I feel that what was presented to the Board and the staff members was accurately what we discussed. And, I also feel that it is sad that some people are going to cap out at different places, but again, as many have said, we are a charter school. And to be able to say that we are the highest paying charter school in all of St. Vrain to me is a really big feather in our cap. To be able to say, we’re the best and we do the best for the teachers that we possibly can with what we have. If we had a windfall of a million dollars, there’d be no problem whatsoever, getting that money right up to that scale for everyone. And know that I’m not speaking for me, I’m speaking for teachers because I don’t know what the office is going to be reflected in this new scale or if it will, so for all I know I’ll be in the group where everyone that has theirs capped and that’s ok with me. Honestly, if I thought that the teachers were going to get a fairer shake in dealing with the students that we have everyday, I’d give it up. I love this school, and I love the people that work here and I love the parents that we have. And I have never seen an admin in the history of this school work harder for the teachers than this admin. (Some clapping)
10. John Mieras - I’ll say something. My name is John Mieras. I really wasn’t planning on saying anything. I think it is important to keep in mind that if someone is critical of a salary schedule it is not a reflection on Flagstaff as a school or Wayne Granger as the Executive Director or whatever the situation is. I hear lots of great things about the school. I don’t think that by wanting to talk about a salary schedule and making sure that it is fair or that it meets the objectives of what we set out to do is a bad thing. No one is attacking anyone personally around here. My experience on the compensation committee is that there were things that I was surprised to see when the new plan was put out, but as it has been stated, just because things were brought up in the compensation committee that didn’t happen, doesn’t mean that it is a bad thing. It just didn’t work out. But I will say, I am concerned that if we have a cap, if our stated goal is to retain veteran teachers, if we’re capping them, then there is no way to really retain them, so we haven’t really met that goal. I would just caution that we need to consider if that is really what we want to do, because I know some of the teachers that are capped are like, “Huh? I’m one of the veterans. I’m one of the people that took the time and stuck it out and I’m the one that is having to be capped.”
11. Terri Long - I’m Terri Long and as a former teacher and administrator at Flagstaff as well as a current parent and trusted mentor and friend to many of the staff here, I do tend to get reached out to a lot. And, I’m not here to judge opinions, I just really wanted to share a little perspective. Flagstaff teachers are the highest paid charter school teachers in St. Vrain. I would be they’re probably one of the highest paid outside of Boulder. I would research that, but I bet they are. Charter schools cannot budget the same way a district can budget. They just can’t. My current school right now is at 82% of the district and last year, we didn’t get to have raises until October Counts of this year. I have worked at four charter schools and a district neighborhood school. Flagstaff is the only school where stipends and bonuses are set aside in the budget, where there is a LONGEVITY BONUS BUILT INTO THE BUDGET (voice raised high, hence the all capitals), so that if you are here for a long period of time you get more money, (yes it’s once, but it is a good chunk of money), where there are instructional aides handling lunch duty. I have worked at a school where we have had to teach at a park because there wasn’t a facility, at facilities that were so horrendous that there were maggots in the bathroom, at a school where we didn’t have janitorial services and the teachers cleaned the bathrooms. People do not get into teaching for the money and they definitely don’t go to charter schools for the pay. Educators within a charter school have to be a special type of educator. They have to understand that they will never get paid what the districts are paid and that they will often work more hours, more days, and on more intense projects. However, charter teachers get to have more autonomy. They get to have some say in the delivery, the pacing of the assignments, and they assess their students on a day to day basis. They have the opportunity to join on to committees to help make the curriculum decisions, procedural decisions, policy decisions, and special programming for those late start days. The list goes on and on. Often those same decisions at a non charter are delegated down from a central office. I don’t know the details of what is happening here, and I don’t need to.. I actually don’t want to, but I know that the grass is not greener as Sean said in very many circumstances. In my experience, Flagstaff has always done a great job trying to find ways to incentivize their employees even ones who have been here for a long time as best they can.
12. Kristina Gudmundson - I am one of the teachers who are going to capped, and it’s frustrating because the teachers that are capped were expecting that projected raise every year for the next three years, so that part is kind of frustrating, and it’s kind of scary when you’re trying to plan budgets for your family. However, I also agree that at this school… I went and looked... So when Wayne proposed that budget, I went and looked up what I get paid, because I don’t like it, versus what I could get paid somewhere else. You know, I have more time off. I have more PTO hours. I have more pay. I have a ton of support. It’s frustrating, it is frustrating because the money is not going to come in. I wish we would be grandfathered in to that pay scale for the few of us who are still here, because that is kind of what we were expecting when we were budgeting for ourselves and our families. But, I also have to say too, I worked at a private school. I have worked at Title 1 schools. I have worked at regular public schools. I commute over an hour a day. I bring my children here, because this is an amazing school. Yes, we all have our problems. Yes, there are always issues. We fight. We argue. We scream. We yell. We do all of those things. But, I think in the bigger picture… I’m sorry, I wasn’t going to say anything. It’s just kind of two fold. Yes, I kind of was expecting the pay and I feel like we should be grandfathered in, because there’s really not that many of us left because we knew that cap was coming at 15 years, but on the flip side, I’m sure as hell not going anywhere, because I know I can come to her office (points) or her office (points) or Katie’s office, I could probably go into Wayne’s office and close the door and scream my head off and there’s no judgement there. So, and I did it when Terri was here (people laughing).
13. Closing words on public comment by Paul Shoning: Thank you. Anyone else? Alright, we will end the public comment portion. As I said at the start, unfortunately we can’t respond to everything. I’ve written it down and we’ll keep it in mind. I think in the big picture, you know one of our biggest goals is to find as much money as we can to put into the salaries. There is a certain amount of money that goes in. It’s expensive. We have to pay for it. We have to find creative ways and anything we can to do to (I couldn’t hear this part)... Our interests are along there. We appreciate you all showing up after you’ve had long days already so it is really important for the Board to hear this feedback so thank you so much for taking your time to come talk with us and to give us all of your feedback. Boone Starr: Thank you to the Board for listening. We appreciate that. Paul Shoning: Alright, we’ll move on to recognitions.
14. Recognitions and Appreciations
    1. Cary - K-2 science festival. Mrs. Wolff is awesome; Cardboard challenge
    2. Paul - 4th grade music concert, Katie and Gael have earned their master’s degrees.
    3. Julie - Jeanine Torres for rescheduling volunteer dinner
    4. ? - Festival of Cultures
    5. Stuart - Jantry Meyer mental health training; Choir got highest rating ever one; Staff basketball game; Ms. Cook bringing Shakespeare festival back
    6. Leah - Kahlie Benz for future problem solvers (middle school)
    7. Think I missed some...
15. 2019 Elections Update
    1. We have a record number of applicants this year, which is good. It’s great that there is so much interest. We have eight candidates. All eight applications are on the website now for review. We will have a Board blast on April 12th about the agenda and annual meeting and candidates forum, which will happen after the meeting on the 16th. Meeting is at 6:30pm and forum starts at 7:30pm. On April 17th candidates get there By Laws, Code of Conduct, etc. On April 19th, the ballots are created. Ballot close on May 8th. Will certify the results, which will be presented to Paul and he will notify candidates and membership of the results. May 9th candidates are notified of the results.

Name:	Team:	Age:	Gender:	Species:	Aura:
Ishmael Felgrand	SIFM	19	Male	Human	Gold

Attributes

Mental	#	Physical	#	Social	#
Intelligence	2	Strength	4	Presence	1
Wits	3	Dexterity	2	Manipulation	2
Resolve	2	Stamina	4	Composure	3

Skills

Mental	-3	Physical	-1	Social	-1
Academics	0	Athletics	2	Empathy	0
Computer	0	Brawl	2	Expression	0
Craft	2	Drive	0	Intimidation	0
Grimm	0	Melee Weapons	5	Persuasion	3
Science	0	Larceny	1	Socialize	0
Medicine	0	Ranged Weapons	1	Streetwise	2
Politics	0	Stealth	0	Subterfuge	2
Dust	0			Investigation	0
Survival	2

Other

Merits	#	Flaws	#	Aura/Weapons	#
Armor: Archaic	3	Self Centered	1	Aura	3
Large Weapons	4	Overconfident (Physical)	1	Semblance	2
Custom Armor: Defense	1	Compulsion: Stealing	1	Weapon	3
Iron Stamina	1
Striking Looks	2

Advantages

Health	Aura Pool	Armor	Passive Defense	Speed	Initiative	Perception
13	10	6 / 5	2	10	5	6

Attacks

Name	Value	Notes
Brawl	6
Ranged	6
Thrown	7
Melee	12
Aura Strike	15	2 AP
All Out Aura Strike	17	No Defense 2 AP

Semblance

Eye of the Storm - Full Round (5 AP) Ishmael holds a hand into the air and calls upon the sky to aid him, creating an area in which only one will be able to walk away from. A hurricane of rushing wind, rain, and lightning made of streaks of gold reach out and tear apart everything around it. The high-speed winds of aura change the paths of projectiles shot at it. The storm's small eye is calm, all except for the raging individual inside. Ishmael himself radiates energy inside of the eye, streaks of gold lightning emanating from his eyes, arms, and torso for the semblance's entire duration. A marking of a single eye with a sharp pupil, like that on a Sea Feilong's mask, appears on his forehead and marks him as the storm's master.
Effect Ishmael creates a small whirling hurricane centered on himself, with a radius equal to [Composure/2] yards. This aura storm lasts up to [Composure] rounds, and remains fixed on the position where it was first triggered for the duration. The eye of the storm's whirling winds create a barrier around Ishmael, granting him a melee attack bonus of [Composure /2] while within the storm. If anyone, including Ishmael, attempts to pass through the storm wall, they must first perform a contested [Strength] vs [Ishmael's Composure] as part of their move. Subsequent attempts to pass through the wall of the storm may be made as a Move Action. Additionally, all ranged attack rolls passing through the wall of the storm take a [-Semblance] dice penalty. The storm immediately dissipates if Ishmael's AHP or aura Pool is reduced to 0, if he is knocked unconscious, or he exits the area of the storm.

Physical Description

Ishmael sits at an average height of 5'10" and a fairly stocky build with a skin complexion on the dark side. He has a well-toned back, broad chest, and strong arms which come from swinging around his greatsword, with the rest of his body being in good shape but is obviously neglected from time to time. He has snow white hair with most of it with golden blonde streaks that seemingly run through it at random. He has sharp ocean blue eyes. His hair is quite long and rests at his upper back, usually running over both sides of his shoulders. The hair itself is thick and mane-like as it connects with a very short golden colored beard that runs the length of his chin and connects to an equally short mustache that doesn't run past the corners of his mouth. The hair is cared for, but the nature of the long hair tends to tangle easily, creating a ragged and windswept look to most of it. He has a tattoo of a Sea Feilong that starts at his right pectoral and twists around his arm, stopping at his wrist with an open mouth as if it were attempting to devour his hand. The entire tattoo is colored with a vibrant hue of blues, golds, and black that bring the creature to life. Unlike its real-life counterpart, the serpent is colored gold instead of black, and has blue accents instead of red. The beast is surrounded by a myriad of streaking blue and gold colors that run around its body making it look as if it had just breached out of the sea. Small scars from small cuts are sparsely spotted around his body that are obviously from the light amount of fighting he saw in his younger days. He has a strong jawline and a rugged look to his face thanks to his sharp eyes and short beard with it usually being accompanied by a relaxed grin.
His clothing represents that of an urban deviant, making it seem like a stark contrast to his actual personality. He has a thin black leather jacket with a white-fur collar which is worn over a navy blue short-sleeve V-neck that reveals a bit of chest. The jacket is quite expensive, ends just past the belt, and is usually kept unzipped. The jacket has a large golden anchor on the back with the same Sea Feilong from his tattoo curled around it. In large writing of blue and white is written "Rogue Wave" in sharp letters meant to look like torrents of water. He also wears a pair of scuffed up black jeans with a couple of rips and tears across the pants legs. A white cloth belt forms an X and crosses over itself while resting on his hips with a golden rectangle for a belt buckle. On the belt is a mask that he usually wears in combat. The mask consists of two flat black plates of thin metal that form a vertical wedge at the center of the face, on the wedge is a blue serpent's eye like the one on his scabbard and sword. The mask has two gold horns that curve around the side of the head and are wide enough to fit just around his hip when attached to the belt. It also contains thin paneling that covers his forehead and a little bit of the top of his head. He wears a pair of black boots with and white laces to accompany the jeans. On his left hand is a nice silver and black watch that oddly has someone else's name etched into the bottom of the face and is accompanied by two silver rings that sit on his ring and middle fingers. He also wears a black leather necklace with a small gold anchor pendant that sits at the center of his chest.
A large black nylon sash with a thin metal rail in its center runs from his shoulder to his hip and connects to a belt of the same build. This rail attaches to a flat metal knob on a large scabbard that holds his greatsword up against his lower back. The scabbard itself is fine black leather with a metal border and metal Sea Feilong's eye etched into the entrance of the wide scabbard. The rail and knob locks into place at specific points and allows for the wielder to move the scabbard and sword from their back to their side or vice versa, allowing for the hefty sword to be easily drawn and sheathed. This translates over to his armor as well, which is accompanied by the mask and a hooded black cloak with gold colored tie strings. The armor itself consists of a half-plate cuirass, two pauldrons, and two thigh guards. The cuirass runs from his collar to the middle of his abdomen then stopping just before his armpits and has a very dull convex shape. The metal is colored black with a navy-blue colored gambeson (thick cloth jacket under the plate-mail). The gambeson comes down to just above the knee, forming a thin cloth kilt that has an open upside-down V shape in the front and comes to a point at his belt buckle. Roman centurion-like pauldrons with thick tiered pieces of metal are used to cover his shoulders. A gauntlet with pointed fingers and a matching vambrace covers his sword-arm while his left arm remains unarmored. The shoulders, vambrace, and gauntlet are all painted black with gold painted rivets. Two large thigh guards start just above his hips, are hooked onto the belt over the gambeson, and come down to the middle of the thigh. The guards are quartz-shaped with rounded points and wrap around the thigh to give mostly side protection, but to also provide a little bit to the front and back of the thigh. They are black with a navy outline and his signature image of the serpent's eye on the center of the guards in a gold paint. This same gold outline is also printed onto the left side of the cuirass as well as the back of the black cloak that accompanies the suit. All of this is usually placed over his normal attire, excluding the leather jacket of course.

Weapon Description

Wyrm's Avarice is a wide greatsword that doubles as a semi-automatic marksman rifle. The sword itself is four feet long in length 2 1/2 feet in width. The blade is 2 1/2 feet long and has a symmetrical concave curve that is wide at the hilt, slightly bottlenecks, then widens back up as it nears the point of the greatsword. The Blade is black while in the fuller of the sword are streaks of gold paint centered around a large blue eye with a sharp pupil that act as a centerpiece for the sword. Underneath the blade is the handguard which takes the shape of a flat cone in order to deflect glancing blows on the hands. The handle below it is black and wrapped with a navy-blue cloth for grip and it is accompanied by a wide ring with a flat bottom for the pommel. In its rarely-seen ranged form, the handle angles downwards about 3/4ths of the way down its length for the shoulder to rest on. A trigger guard and pistol grip swings out just below the hilt. The bottom half of the blade splits from the top half and lowers slightly before spinning around, revealing a foregrip that swings out, as well as the barrel of the rifle. The barrel of the rifle is attached to the stationary half and only runs about 3/4ths of the length of the blade. Two magazines of 10 rounds a piece are loaded diagonally into a large triangular piece in between the hilt and handle with ammunition being discarded out of the pommel. This design allows for the rifle to be fired even while the greatsword is being swung or double the top half of the blade as a bayonet, the drawback is that only half of the sword's blade is available, but the angled handle allows for the sword to be swung with better grip.

Backstory

*Deep in an impoverished subsection of Atlas on a cold winter night was a young boy with dirty cut up clothing and a frail frame akin to that of someone who hadn't eaten in days. He somberly walked through a cold back alley and began to rummage around for anything akin to food or warm clothing. People walked past him as he coughed but paid the small child no mind. The bright lights of the modern city shining down on the populated street and slightly shining over the dark alley. The boy simply watched people pass, he knew the typical routine and hated how they looked down upon him. Someone would stare, or dart their gaze away, but both would treat him as if he didn't exist. Sometimes they'd look and whisper to each other, looking down at the boy with faces of pity or fear. Many in the local suburbs knew of the boy's past, after all it had been plastered all over the news in Atlas when the disaster had occurred. The boy was known to have an odd semblance, some knew the truth, but many thought it was some kind of curse. The rumor is that the boy was part of an immigrant family from Mistral and came by ship as a toddler with his family but supposedly had brought disaster to the voyage. According to surviving witnesses the young boy had an odd glow to him and had supposedly attracted a powerful Sea Feilong to the ship like a lighthouse in the night. The powerful grimm easily tore through the transport ship, resulting in only a few of the voyagers reaching their destination alive. Oddly enough, the boy was relatively unharmed and had been saved by one of the survivors despite protests from the others. Upon reaching Atlas he was put into an orphanage but was kicked out due to his refusal to comply and the myths around his past. For survival, the boy quickly became a known pickpocket and a local petty thief. Anything that was shiny and could fit in his pockets tended to disappear around him. He would trade them to people on the street for food and other items, with some of his spoils being actual junk because the young boy couldn't grasp the concept of something shiny or metallic not being valuable. This would soon develop into a disorder, as he began to stockpile the few possessions he had, like how a dragon clings to its wealth, usually carrying it on a tattered bag on his hip. He always felt like he was saving it away in case he needed it and feared losing the only bartering chips he had. This caused the boy to get in trouble often and became even further notorious to locals as a troublemaker and cursed child. As he began to scavenge the alley, a backdoor opened from one of the business and two half-drunk men with surprised looks spotted the boat and quickly took pity on him but they had a different look in their eyes from the other passer byes that occasionally stopped. They walked back inside for but a moment before returning and gently picked up the kid and took him inside the pub they had been drinking in. At first, the boy thought he was being taken back to an orphanage but was too weak to fight back against his presumed aggressors. He soon quit his struggling as he realized he was being taken inside.
Instead of harming him, they sat him down in front of a magnificent man that wore fine clothes, an expensive ring on each finger, and a smile just as rich as his possessions. The large coat he wore was well-worn but showed great value in the texture of the lavish furs that lined its insides and was accompanied by a harness with two intricate pistols strapped to his abdomen. His face was rugged and ended with a thick pointed beard just past his Adam’s apple. His hair was long and went past his shoulders, having a mane-like thickness and colored a jet-black. He welcomed the boy over, and the two men, looking akin to street thugs, sat him down at his table. In return, all the man asked was of young boy's short, meaningless history and his name. The boy looked up to the captain with barren eyes and simply told the captain that he no longer had a name and was too young to remember his family. The captain and his men became very somber for a moment, the captain reaching over and patting the young boy's shoulder. The captain told him that he would give him an offer, and if he accepted, he would give him a name. This man of great stature, much taller and stronger than Ishmael was even now, responded in kind with his name and told the young boy of his offer. His name was Abraham Felgrand, in which his fellow shipmen endearingly referred to him as “Captain Ahab.” His proposition was a life like that of the men around him, merriment and luxury with only a small price to pay to acquire such ends. That small price would be the mortal danger that Ishmael would have to put himself through. Of course, being an impoverished kid, that’s all he had to say, and the young boy was practically already part of the crew. The man grinned and stated that with his acceptance he would become an heir to the Felgrand line, with his first name now being known as "Ishmael." The group finished their meal and took the boy to a long-abandoned section of the industrial district with an old factory that looked as if it had been long abandoned. There, they supplied Ishmael with clean clothes, a means for hygiene, and a place to sleep and eat.
What sat in that seemingly building of rubble were three Atlesian dropships, obviously stolen and repainted into a black and gold color scheme. On one of the three was nose art of a Sea Feilong’s head with two black swords crossed behind it, the Captain’s fancy personal ship of course. All three had a similar marking of a golden eye with a sharp pupil, like that of a serpent, around the cockpit for easy identification on sorties. The building itself had been a bit remodeled on the inside, with a combined mess hall and barracks of only forty beds that sat on half of what was once the factory floor. The Captain’s room was in a hanging room that could only be reached by the scaffolding and catwalks of the building. It had a view over the entire factory floor and could see into the open Atlesian bay when the heavy bay doors were open, allowing for the captain to watch his success and crew as he lounged. It was obviously the manager’s office at one point but was now covered in nice carpet and contained valuable furniture, with even a few animal heads mounted on the walls. The rest of the space of the factory floor were taken up by the three ships as well as all of the equipment used to arm and repair them. A team of five or so men were tasked with the ship repairs while the rest were used as the boarding parties and crew of the ships. After raids they typically would divide up tasks such as cleaning, cooking, or other mundane tasks then drink and party until they passed out. Ishmael would take part in cooking or learning how to repair the dropships with the maintenance crew after sorties for the first few days. The captain would give the boy a few days to settle in before announcing that he planned on teaching Ishmael how to defend himself, as well as teach him the tricks of the trade, he hoped that with time he could train Ishmael to take up the business after him.
The training began just a few days after an introduction to the base and would last for a couple of years under his strict supervision. Captain Ahab welcomed the young boy to the organization known as "Rogue Wave" and talked about the main rules of the crew as well as their goals in order to get him acquainted. Theirs goals were to simply become rich off of the pillaging of Atlesian transport ships. These were typically done in seemingly random strikes against small convoys that carried dust or raw materials which were then sold to underground markets around the city or shipped off to Mistral’s markets if the items were too high profile. The rules themselves were a loose code that everyone had to follow, the first being about following the chain of command, the second was about the distribution of funds which was also determined by rank. Ishmael would get into often trouble with the crew for taking the occasional extra share, being disciplined with no food for the day or a small payment to whichever crew member he stole from. The items he would usually take would be the rounds to other's weapons, shiny trinkets, and occasional armor plating. He would even fish out items from crew member's bags as well as the pockets of defeated Atlesian troops during raids. He usually hid piles of different types of rounds and metals under his bed, which would clink and jingle whenever the bed was pressed on. Finally, the most important rule is that under no circumstances that innocents should be harmed. The captain's reasoning for this was that they were “low down, no good thieves, but we’re not butchers and we shouldn’t aim to be.” This led to most engagements being against Atlesians robots or guards, the latter of which were treated with non-lethal force if required but most men surrendered as soon as the ships were boarded. Even when fighting Atlesian guards in open combat they would be instructed to not mortally wound or maim unless it was absolutely necessary for the safety of a crewman or themselves. This way the crew and their dealings wouldn't be as fervently chased by the military if the government or SDC ever decided to bring the hammer down.
By the time he had hit the age of fifteen he had been on a couple of runs with them and Captain Ahab had chosen him to be part of the second wave of the boarding party. Naturally he supplied Ishmael with basic gear and the crew gave him tips on how to go through the motions without getting myself hurt or worse. It took a while, but eventually he was able to shape up to the captain's expectations and became part of the primary raiding party just a year later. The setup for his new gear included masks to hide his face which he had custom made, as well as something dust-enhanced weapons in order to overwhelm the detachments of guards to most ships. Most of these weapons for the primary assault group were personally made by a black-market arms dealer supplied by Captain Ahab, with personal strengths from each member being implemented into the creation process. The usual raids consisted of using the stolen dropships to surround large naval vessels that were transporting dust shipments and military tech out of Atlas. Thanks to this new tech and all the funds they swiped the crew was able to live comfortably for a long time as well as tend to their wounded, which Ishmael was typically a part of due to his brash fighting style. It even made the base seem a bit more like a pub with how often the crew partied. All this downtime pushed Ishmael to focus into activities like learning how to build and repair different weapon systems, as well as enhance his combat capabilities. To train, he would challenge other crew members to sparring matches, taking much joy in one on one settings as well as betting on himself every fight. He was knocked down on occasion, and even beaten due to his lack of ranged capabilities but he soon became known as the best swordsman in the crew. His crewmembers would often bet on him to win, as he rarely lost in hand-to-hand combat, and this would significantly inflate his ego as well as a burning desire to further prove himself to anyone who doubted him.
As Ishmael began to mature, the Captain had decided to tell him about what had supposedly happened to his family. Ishmael was oddly unaffected and rejected the captain's offer of researching into the mythical beast. He explained that despite the tragedy, he never knew them, so he felt no connection or anger. What actually filled his mind was how common these kinds of attacks occurred. The Captain explained that hunters and huntsmen usually found glory and fame by slaying such beasts and were seen as folk heroes. To the young man that had only been called a curse, it interested him greatly. He soon began to think about it as a path of redemption, maybe being known as a powerful hero rather than a pocket picking curse. He began to ask for more information on the topic daily, with the Captain becoming increasingly annoyed but being oddly knowledgeable. One day he asked about the Captain’s connections and if he could secure him a way to one of these schools with something about the intrusive question hitting a nerve with Captain Ahab. After a bit of a heated argument about his unknown past and Ishmael's obligation to the crew, the Captain caved and dismissed it as a temporary fixation of the boy, telling him that would see what he could do.
Much of the crew's background began with impoverished drifters that had some kind of distaste for Atlas or the Schnee Dust Company and decided that they were going to be the exploiters instead of the exploited. Captain Ahab had the most contempt however, as it always seemed to be more than just business when he went out on raids, but he never divulged his past to most of his crew members. Many assumed he was some kind of hero at some point by the expertise of his combat skills as well as his knack for grand strategy. He always seemed to be two steps ahead of anyone that tried to openly confront him, like rival raiders or the occasional Atlesian ground squad. He also had a plethora of books on Grimm that were usually left open on the desk in his quarters as well as old books on naval strategy. Over the passing two years, Ishmael would often look at these books as the Captain worked, usually learning more about the Grimm and legendary heroes that defeated them as well as forms of combat strategy. As he flipped through the pages of a seemingly newer book, a picture fell out from one of the back pages. On it was an obviously younger Captain Ahab, with what looked to be a huntsman team. When handed the picture the Captain scoffed but could no longer able to hold back a grin. He finally revealed his past to him, one of aspiring dreams of becoming a professional hunter, and nearly achieving those dreams. He told stories of his victories over monstrous grimm in his youth, and how he nearly lost his life a few times. However, somewhere along the way the Captain strayed off in his youth and realized he could use his combat skills for criminal means. After years of working as hired muscle for the ever-competing noble families of Atlas, he saw the cutthroat ways they treated the lower classes and others around them. That was when the Captain became the man he was today, an odd Robin Hood-type figure that brought up impoverished youth while undermining the oppressive nobility. He hoped that by training Ishmael and by being a strong influence, he could push the lad into walking into his footsteps to enroll at a combat school then return as his successor. Naturally, Ishmael agreed to the Captain’s notions, hoping that one day he’d get the chance to confront the beast that had caused him so much suffering with a crew of his own.
As months went by, Ishmael became ever more suspicious of the captain's stories. The fairy tales of some powers called "semblances" and "aura" seemed a bit ridiculous but as always, he followed the Captain's training. Before long he came to understand aura, and it became more believable as he saw it manifested through his mentor. He pushed even harder to strive for it, knowing that an application to one of these schools would require more than his skill with a sword. After many weeks of attempts and failures he begrudgingly filled out his application for Beacon, feeling a little embarrassed about being unable to produce some extraordinary power. Regardless, his attempts continued and he pushed forward under the guidance of his still confident Captain like he always had.
Unknown to most of the crew, Captain Ahab's second in command had become increasingly annoyed with Ishmael's contention to what he saw as his claim to be the next captain. He planned to betray them and get rich off of payments for his cooperation, but he'd have to be fast if he wanted to capture Ishmael before he left. He would soon turn himself in and aid the SDC, as well as the Atlesian military, in locating the crew. The crew’s next small raid would be successful, but the trap had been set with a small taskforce being sent to follow them. The military would have them surrounded and despite Ishmael's opposition, Captain Ahab gave him an order to run while he and the rest of the crew kept them distracted. Ishmael protested, and began to charge ahead before the Captain demanded it as an order. Captain Ahab handed him a boarding pass for a ship to Vale as well as the completed entrance letter to Beacon, the bold fighter confused at why the captain wouldn't let him fight. He hugged his adopted son and told him to leave for the combat school in a few weeks’ time, using the enrollment to better himself in combat and to hopefully make him go down a better path in life. Ishmael could only grit his teeth and hang his head before slipping out of a small escape route under the cover of darkness. He fled to a small bar down the street and decided to lay low there, not noticing that a couple of the guards had followed him. They would barge in through all exits with weapons drawn and instructed him to surrender. Being the wise teenager, he was, he decided that the best course of action was to take a dive out of the second story window as an escape.
After a hard landing into a dirty back alley they caught up with him and reiterated their commands to drop his weapons and surrender. The anger of losing what he saw as his family and the jarring fall was too much for him to contain as he worked himself into a rage. He felt something surge through him, with crackling energy suddenly rolling off of his fingertips. The wind began to stir around him and whipped into a torrent, forming a thick wall of air and rain as crackling electricity began to pour from his body. The men opened fire, but their shots simply flew off their course in the maelstrom between them. Ishmael prepared to strike, crouching low and pointing his sword towards his targets, however the Captain’s words rang through his head. “We're not butchers.” He hesitated, looking at the energy suddenly emanating from his body he understood that the people in front of him didn't stand a chance. He used the threatening winds to push back the guardsmen and scatter the alley with debris before fleeing the scene himself. Thanks to his new ability he was able to avoid capture and hung around Atlas for a bit, traveling around with the generous amount of Lien he still had left. Besides food, most of it was spent on normal clothing, toiletries, and a bag to carry his stuff in. He was able to usually lay low by hiding the mask and armor under a cloak which was purchased in one of the many shops around the city. Wanted posters were soon plastered all over the city, headlined with the nickname "Leviathan" due to them only having a police sketch of his mask and the crew's insignia of a Sea Feilong. He had lucked out, as not even he knew his real name and the police lacked any information on his possible location. Not knowing the crew’s location or if they were even still alive Ishmael decided that it would be best for him to leave until things cooled down. He would catch his ship to Vale a few days later, with the acceptance letter to Beacon in his hand. He figured that maybe he could even do some good and make a name for himself outside of Atlas, then hopefully turn his return home. He turned and watched the skyline of Atlas fade away, telling himself that he'd find out what happened to his adoptive father, and hopefully find a way to save him when he would be able to return.*

Personality

Ishmael is quite literally a vagabond in fancy clothing that may or may not be entirely his own. He is a very happy and laid-back person, nearly always having a smile on his face with a merry attitude among friends. He can be found openly singing tunes of old sea shanties or singing along with the music blaring out of his headphones. He can always be found in a pub or bar on the weekends drinking to his heart's content with Lien that also may or may not be his. Regardless, he will never truthfully tell how he received these nice items seemingly at random and lies about how he received them when asked. His laid-back attitude also prevents most rude comments from getting under his skin, he may even laugh if the insult is good enough. However, this merriment and laid-back attitude isn't because he is always a nice person, in fact he is very selfish especially when it comes to valuables and loot. His confidence knows no bounds on the battlefield, where he thinks of himself as quite the master swordsman and conveniently ignores any of his other flaws. The same goes for his lack of seriousness even in combat situations. It can be very difficult to get him to be serious about most matters, and even then, he'll find a way to be nonchalant about dire straits. His typical philosophy is that "what will happen, will happen" causing him to be very loose around things like planning, strategy, or practice. Despite this, he never backs down from a challenge and believes that his skill alone can push him past his obstacles. This causes him to sometimes shun or take offense when help is received from others, as he perceives it as someone pitying him or looking down upon him. This all creates a facade for his true self that is still out searching for a permanent, non-crime related family that he can latch onto. Due to his recent events he tends to spend most of his time around alcohol to drink away his envy and loneliness. He wears his fancy clothes and nice accessories to hide his impoverished background as he fears that others will take pity. This kind of thinking results in him feeling distrustful and confrontational to actual wealthy individuals, even more so of anyone with an Atlesian background that isn't from one of the lower classes.
He usually spends his free time taking long strolls and hanging out in town, or drinking in a local bar. If he isn't doing one of these three things it can be assumed that he is out doing something slightly illegal or working out in the gym. larceny at this point has become a bit of his lifestyle as he has depended on it for so long to get by that he just cannot help but take things he is interested in. He usually feels no remorse, as he assumes that if it were important, it wouldn't have been so easy for him to take. When confronted about stolen items, he acts ignorant, citing that his family from overseas in Atlas sent them to him as enrollment presents. This is another byproduct of his selfishness and self-centered nature. His pride also prevents him from practicing any forms of ranged combat. Despite his weapon coming equipped with a ranged form by the Captain's request, Ishmael finds it cowardly to defeat an enemy in ranged combat, resulting in his effectiveness in ranged combat to be quite horrendous and barely being able to hit the broadside of a barn despite having a high-quality marksman rifle. If defeated in a duel by someone using ranged attacks, he loses respect for them instantly and argues the victory's validity.
He is typically a very urban person due to his background and isn't much of a fan of travelling into the wilderness, even if he understands how to scavenge for food and shelter. He also likes to frequent parties but is never there to cause trouble. He always calmly plants himself near the action and takes his fill of drinks, usually laughing and teasing the inebriated until he eventually becomes one himself. He typically doesn't enjoy being the center of attention either but doesn't mind being in the spotlight with a group. He is usually upbeat and confident and doesn't let relaxed demeanor show any signs of nervousness or shyness. In all honesty if someone looked at him, they'd call him a bit childish, which he finds to be fair when citing his affinity for junk food, his common selfishness, and his refusal to stay in one spot for too long. He is also very open about his emotions, sometimes openly flirting, teasing, or making quick friends with the people he meets.

Notes

Links to rough sketches of the armoweapon: https://imgur.com/a/5ZYQiVg
Compulsion: Whenever Ishmael notices something shiny and metallic, and especially ornate or unique, he covets the item. He also likes to horde these items, hiding them in a stash in his room.He will lie and cheat to get to these items, but he isn't an idiot and will never do attempt to steal in the open or plain sight. However, the longer he doesn't have the item, the more it eats at him and the more it takes hold of his conscious.

Changelog

7/24/2019: Large weapons upgraded from 3 to 4. Iron Stamina added as a Merit for a total of 8 xp.
10/6/2019: Updated Overconfident to Overconfident (Physical)
10/21/2019: Added Striking Looks 2