London Calling (Stands So Far Series)

In retrospect, we—no, I was a fool.  Fighting London Calling would not have been half the challenge it was if I had not delayed, worrying it was Grandfather and not wishing to fight him.  The Four Horsemen are challenges, yes, but not half so bad under weakened power and alone.  It takes time to assemble the army.  The Four Horsemen are the actual Stand.  These Horsemen slowly and passively bring to life statues in the immediate vicinity.  It is best to deal with London Calling quickly, though in my defense, Fitz says, I had no reason to believe this would be the case.  Most Stands do not grow more powerful over time.

—Captain Beefheart

London Calling

Stand User: Courtney Love

Power: A	Speed: B	Range: A
Durability: B	Precision: D	Potential: E

 

            London Calling is an unusual version of an automatic Stand, acting on simple instructions.  It has some characteristics of a swarm Stand as well.  Courtney Love meant the attack as a wake-up call to inform everyone of the existence of Stands.  The various Horsemen showed different levels of autonomy and intelligence.  Death, for example, was able to hold a conversation and was aware of his User’s upcoming death, but either didn’t feel able to prevent it or didn’t feel the need to do so.  Famine had some rudimentary intelligence, but was certainly not on the level of Death.  Pestilence seemed more instinctual than sentient, and Jojo assures me that War had an alien, Lovecraftian type of intelligence.  They took their instructions and acted with them as per their personality.  Destruction of each Horseman caused no harm to the User, and if she’d lived, Love may have been able to re-summon them as if nothing had happened.  As it is, two of four Horsemen also continue to “survive” past the death of their User.

Similarly, the statues brought to life showed a similar difference in intelligence, causing trouble for the average London civilian, but only truly tried to kill those they considered ‘threats’.

It is unknown if the London Calling Horsemen, once defeated, could be re-summoned.  However, as the User is dead, this will not be learned.

For all its power, though, London Calling is unable or unwilling to complete more detailed instructions, and particularly once the secondary swarm-like wave of living statues is brought in, is nigh-uncontrollable.  It is also unlikely that the Stand had any hidden secrets or new powers that Love had not discovered.  (Though how she discovered its use is another unanswered question—maybe this, too, is another reason she was secretive and solitary?  It’s clear she hadn’t tested it quite on that scale before.)

Play to Win—London Calling is a very mentally-based Stand.  If you believe you can defeat it, you can.  If you believe you can’t hurt it, nothing you do will work.  Confident Stand Users will eventually find a way forward.  Even if you do not destroy the Horseman, this acknowledgement of defeat

Four Horsemen—Pestilence, War, Famine, Death.  Pestilence is a glass sculpture of a scorpion Kaiju.  Humans around can be turned into a clay soldier under its control using its stinger, or from the touch of a clay soldier.  Like the others, its presence awakens other statues, but at a lower level than the other Horsemen.  However, the more clay soldiers are created in its vicinity, the slower it moves.  It lives on as a rumor in the sewers.  War is a Cthulhu statue.  It phases in and out of reality and causes insanity in those who look at it too long.  It (probably) doesn’t exist anymore (or if it does, it is stuck in some other plane of existence where it can’t affect our own).  Famine is a green horse statue.  Wounding it also weakens yourself, so the only way to win, really, is Play to Win.  It was melted.  Death is a dragon statue.  It kills anything living around it, which means that it can’t bring statues around it to life and, in fact, can’t be near the others’ statues or in fact the other Horsemen (or possibly the User).  This characteristic has changed due to Don Giovanna’s intervention.

Movers and Shakers—The presence of the Horsemen wakes up statues in the vicinity.  These statues are much less durable than the horsemen, have less strength, and none of them have side effects.