Gem Enemy Sheets

The Gems from Steven Universe require special attention to work within Arpeggio's game mechanics. They are an alien race with default female pronouns and many subtypes, each of which is named after a particular kind of crystal, jewel, or mineral. A Gem's type is also generally used as their personal name—e.g., a Pearl will just use "Pearl" as her name unless there is need to differentitate between multiple Pearls.

A Gem will always have an actual, literal gem somewhere on their body—I'll often refer to this as their "gemstone" for clarity, but they just call it a gem, little G, while the species is big-G Gem. The gemstone is a Gem's true body, while the humanoid bodies that they use to walk and talk are actually illusions projected from the gemstones, described as "holograms with mass." If this illusory body is destroyed (referred to as being "poofed" due to the resulting puff of smoke), the gemstone can regenerate it after a period of rest; regeneration often results in an outfit change, but does no permanent damage to the character. On the other hand, if the gemstone itself is damaged, the Gem starts to lose control over the projected body, and if the gemstone breaks completely, the Gem is effectively permanently dead. The remaining shards each still house a portion of the Gem's fractured consciousness and power, and can technically be put back together and healed using a combination of Gem-specific healing fluids, but these aren't the kind of thing that can be bought at the market. However, a gemstone that is merely cracked can be healed by just one of any of these four different fluids.

Since death in Arpeggio terms is easily reversed, for Gems it is equated to poofing, and therefore regenerating is mechanically little different than sleeping for the night. The main difference is that, unlike a dead body which retains the Weight stat of the living character, a Gem's gemstone that is left over after a poofing effectively turns into an item that can be placed in anyone's item inventory. Dealing damage to the gemstone itself is handled as a story element moreso than a battle mechanic, so gemstones have no distinct HP or Defense stats, but so long as a gemstone is still whole, I'm allowing most any healing ability to restore it to normal. A shattered gemstone would probably require an entire quest to repair, either to acquire the Gem healing fluids or to seek out a powerful enough alternative such as the Galdr of Rebirth or the Star Beam.

Speaking of healing, most healing items in Arpeggio take the form of food; Gems do not need to eat, or sleep for that matter, but they are capable of doing both, so using these methods to restore HP still works fine for them. A Gem who is psychologically averse to eating and/or sleeping would probably have to rely on Heal Points to recover HP, VP, and MP, but is still technically capable of eating and sleeping should the issue be forced (such as with the Sleep Status Ailment). Gems also don't need to breathe, so can survive in Space or Underwater, and their bodies automatically adjust to the gravity of whatever planetoid they're on, which makes them immune to the effects of High Gravity. These immunities will be assumed under the umbrella of "standard Gem abilities," so won't be listed in the "Notes" section of the character sheet, to save some space.

A poofed Gem can be prevented from being able to regenerate by putting it inside a bubble—that is, not a soap bubble, but a sort of forcefield bubble that all Gems have the ability to create. Thus, any Gem who picks up a gemstone (or in fact any item) may, for no cost, place it inside such a bubble, at which point it can still be stored in anyone's inventory, and by way of this, the poofed Gem is indefinitely imprisoned until the bubble is popped. Most any attack can pop one of these bubbles, but the bubble must be on the field in order to be targeted by attacks, so if it's in somebody's inventory, it must be stolen or the holder defeated to get at it. In addition to bubbling, all Gems have the ability to establish a mental link with a particular location, and if such a link has been established, that Gem can teleport any bubbles and their contents to that location for no cost. In battle, only one bubble can be teleported per turn, using up that turn, and the teleportation location cannot be changed mid-battle; only one mental link may be held at a time, and the location in question must be visited in order to establish the link in the first place, so changing the location requires visiting the new one. Gems cannot themselves teleport to this location, and cannot bubble characters, only items. (Hence the importance of poofed Gems effectively becoming items.) Bubbling an item or teleporting a bubble counts as a variation of using an item in battle, and therefore doesn't activate damage from a Burn.

Gems have a unique system for summoning weapons, detailed here.

And of course, the concept of fusion is taken from Steven Universe, and in a game that features Gems, it may be that only Gems or half-Gems are capable of fusing, as is the case in the show.

Now, the elephant in the room. Since Gems' bodies are illusions, any Gem can technically shapeshift into anything. This is rather overpowered in the hands of a creative player, so its use must be limited. In my interpretation, some aspects of shapeshifting should be factored into and expressed through a Gem character's normal field stats—for example, shapeshifting a finger in order to pick a lock would count as a use of the Hand-Eye stat, and stretching the limbs to pull oneself up a ledge would count as using Platform. More dramatic uses of shapeshifting in battle should be rendered as special attacks. Outside of battle, something like disguising oneself as another character would normally be rendered as a Unique field ability, but since different Gem types have different powers that would better fill that role, Gems kind of get a free pass in essentially having "shapeshifting" as a secondary Unique ability—the downside to this is that, if any other character has an actual Unique ability such as, to continue with the same example, disguising themselves as other characters, then that non-Gem character's disguises will be considered to be inherently better than Gems' disguises: the secondary nature of the shapeshifting ability means that it counts as inferior to similar but "primary" field abilities. (As it happens, in the show, Gems can change their shape but not their colors, so this particular example actually makes sense in that regard.) At any rate, whatever creative shenanigans players attempt using Gem shapeshifting, the Maestro always retains the power to veto them for the sake of game balance.

Also making shapeshifting less of a game breaker is Gem culture: each type of Gem was designed to fill one particular role, and is expected not to deviate from this, so from their perspective they almost never have any reason to shapeshift. They're all seen as interchangeable tools, and the slightest imperfection may be grounds for shattering, at least until Steven came along and undid all the fascism. Due to this rigid mindset and purposeful design, what I've made here is a single sheet for each type of Gem (at least, the types that we have enough information on for me to work with), which represents the "standard" version of that type—i.e., one that is adhering to Gem culture and not stepping outside the bounds of her assigned role. Other Gem characters who have defied this standard may have different stats than these, which is the result of alternate training and experience, or otherwise of physical variation which would have led to being labeled as defective (or "off color"), or on the other hand as a "perfect specimen" like Jasper. Thus, the sheets here can be used as generic enemy stats for when traditional Gem forces clash with the players, while a Gem player character can still use the normal player character level up system, and a boss Gem might have different stats than others of her type. I'm sticking to known canon abilities here because I don't want to lock down lesser-known Gems to one particular interpretation, but I am drawing from some secondary sources like video games.