applications

[groundrules]

APPLICATIONS

Eastbound is primarily an invite-only game — each existing player can currently invite up to one person per month, or get in touch about further invites. Existing players can hold two characters in game. A third character can be applied, if players can prove they have met activity requirements for two consecutive months with their existing two characters and have stayed engaged with the game. If you don't have an invite, somehow stumbled upon this neck of the woods, and you’d like to stay, drop the mod journal a line — we'll try to figure it out.

As of Oct. 1, cast/game caps are off. Please note, as of Dec. 1, Eastbound only has 3-4 months of gameplay left.

WHAT CHARACTERS CAN BE APPLIED?

YES: canon and original characters, if they have a solid and consistent personality and background. Characters brought in after they've died are a-okay. For characters taken from a time point just as they're in the process of dying, please read below on meeting medical requirements.

NO (at this time): real people, original characters set in a canon environment, characters from canons or canon instalments that have been released for less than one month, characters with imported development from other games (CRAU), alternate universe, or gender-swapped versions of canon characters.

Children or characters with very specific medical/magical/environment needs: appable, but please make a note of how your character will ICly meet their requirements and stay alive. Likewise, if you are applying for a character taken just as they're dying, provide a suggestion for how they can be kept alive on arrival (this might be easier in some app cycles than others). You can bend the world a little to make miracles happen (ex: a substitute for the medication your character needs to survive can be found for a high price at certain apothecaries, etc.)

Characters that were dropped or swept by activity checks: yes, but they’ll come back without their previous memories, if they are applied in by a different player.

APPLICATION FORM & INSTRUCTIONS

EXISTING / RETURNING PLAYERS

<b><Small>PLAYER NAME</small>:</b> <b><small>CONTACT</small>:</b> <b><small>CHARACTER</small>:</b> <b><small>CANON</small>:</b> <b><small>CANON POINT</small>:</b> <b><small>BACKGROUND</small>:</b> link out or write no more than two-three paragraphs...! <b><small>PERSONALITY</small>:</b> bullet points a-okay, or written out. You can also link out to it, if you agree to what's on your wikia. <b><small>SAMPLE</small>:</b> a written sample or one or more threads to show your character's personality. <b><small>NOTES</small>:</b> you know the ropes, jot down if your character has any world-breaking powers or accommodations you need for them!

NEW PLAYERS

<b><Small>PLAYER NAME</small>:</b> <b><small>CONTACT</small>:</b> <b><small>REFERRED BY</small>:</b> Who invited you, please? c: <b><small>CHARACTER</small>:</b> <b><small>CANON</small>:</b> <b><small>CANON POINT</small>:</b> <b><small>BACKGROUND</small>:</b> written or linked history both fine. Bullet points also a-okay. If no information is available in English, please write this out in short. <b><small>ABILITIES | POWERS</small>:</b> Include any relevant power restrictions, so you don’t break our playground. <b><small>PERSONALITY</small>:</b> make sure this ties back to the character’s time point and background. <b><small>SAMPLE</small>:</b> one or more samples to showcase the nuances of your character’s personality. Submit at least one prose sample of five comments or more. You can link memes, PSL or other game threads, provided they took place within the last 12 months. You can also write a single prose sample in the game or character canon setting, if you think you can cover good introspective ground that way, or a top level with enough variety to show how the character engages in various scenarios. <b><small>INVENTORY</small>:</b> No world-breaking items. For living or magical beings, or anything colossal (think... Gundams...) please let's talk beforehand! <b><small>SUITABILITY</small>:</b> Eastbound is a plot-heavy game that typically features sleuthing, action and the undead. How is your character likely to deal with all that (and the game bear)? <b><small>NOTES</small>:</b> Are there any particular accommodations your character will need? How do you propose to handle that?

APPLICATIONS CLOSED


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lorna dane | the gifted

[chromiums]

PLAYER NAME: Carlee
CONTACT: vdova
HOW DID YOU HEAR ABOUT THE GAME?: Sheep, and I'm also on the TDM!

CHARACTER: Lorna Dane (aka Polaris)
CANON: Marvel's The Gifted
CANON POINT: Post-finale (episode 2x16, oMens).

BACKGROUND: Wiki

ABILITIES | POWERS:

Outside of her magnetokinesis, Lorna has shown herself to be capable with throwing knives. She is athletic and quick on her feet and could probably adequately hold her own in a fight (early episodes of canon show her getting overpowered when outnumbered and she frequently relies on her abilities in combat, but she's portrayed by an athlete who is leanly muscular and flexible so if nothing else she could dodge and run, not that she would). She is also shown as being an organized, thoughtful, and efficient leader when it comes to the Mutant Underground (up until she leaves them for the Inner Circle). She is tenacious, quick to defensive anger, and there are times where she is shown to be ruthless, but she is shown to realize when she is in over her head and when to call on others for help.

Regarding her magnetokinesis, this encompasses several capabilities. They include:

- Ferromagnetism: the ability to magnetize metal and manipulate metal objects, sense the presence of metal (seen in an episode where Reed Strucker confronts her in prison and she's able to sense the screws in his knee from an old sports injury), and levitate metallic objects (seen in a later episode when Reed instructs her to tear the screws out of his knee to cut the ties binding them and escape; she is also able to levitate herself while wearing steel toed boots and metal bracelets several times in the series).

- Electromagnetism: the ability to use magnetic fields to manipulate electronic currents; she's been shown to be able to block cell and radio signals, hack into computers to obtain and change information, and use a limited form of telekinesis (if someone is wearing or holding metal, she can move them, if they have no metal on them she is out of luck).

I recognize these would need to be toned down in order for her to be able to play in the game, so I figure the range of what she can do could end up being limited to say about 50%, or she could lose the ability to manipulate electronics, especially since that will likely not be as useful in this world. I'm open to suggestion when it comes to this.

PERSONALITY:

One of the most notable things about Lorna is the fact that she embraces being a mutant. Most who discover they have the X-gene and the powers that come with it are fearful, knowing that it means a lifetime of persecution and danger. Lorna has always fully embraced it and used it to her advantaged, in spite of being incarcerated and even institutionalized for it. Her belief is that it's a part of who she is, and she even declares to Marcos that she wouldn't change it for anything. Another notable thing about her is who her father is - those familiar with X-Men as a canon will recognize the name Erik Lehnsherr, more commonly known as Magneto. Since The Gifted is a universe where the X-Men and the Brotherhood existed, Lorna grew up knowing who her father was and the things he's done, and she hates him for those things, but hates him even more for deciding not to be a part of her life, in spite of knowing she existed and that she was his daughter, even gifting her with a medallion with his insignia on it when she was thirteen.

In addition to being a mutant, Lorna was been diagnosed with bipolar disorder at a fairly early age (it is mentioned in a flashback when she is living with her aunt). At the point we see her in the series it is fairly well managed, especially given the amount of dangerous and stressful situations she is placed in, but she still copes with bursts of aggression and anger, usually when someone close to her is threatened.

Something else that's notable is that when she was tapped to help run the Atlanta division of the Mutant Underground, she thought they were making a mistake. Lorna is incredibly capable when given the correct motivation, and within a few years of meeting with Evangeline she and John had successfully set up and operated a safe space to house mutants on the run and had several methods of tracking them, suppliers, and those willing to transport mutants safely out of the country. Given the right motivation, Lorna is capable of organization and protection, but she can also be short-sighted, which I'll detail in the next part.

At the point in canon Lorna's coming from, she has made a lot of mistakes and done her best to atone and learn from them. One thing about her is that she is fiercely protective, and that increased tenfold when she found out that she was pregnant with her daughter. Mutants earning the right to live without fear of being jailed or killed for what they are had always been a long-term goal; once she discovered she was having a child it became one she was determined to fast-track as soon as possible. This is part of what lead to her joining up with the Inner Circle - she saw them as having the same goals she did, and the means and willingness to do more than those in the Underground were. Getting arrested and realizing Sentinel Services was starting to use those they had arrested against them by controlling them with collars and making them track down and fight or kill other mutants on the run made her all the more determined and by the end of the first season, she turned her back on the organization she'd built, the man she loved (who was also the father of her child), and her friends.

All of this said, she is not someone who's easily fooled, even when mental manipulation is involved (actually especially then). After being involved with the Inner Circle for several months, she realized how little she was being told about the plans the Inner Circle had and that she and the members of the Underground that had left with her were only welcome as long as they were useful. She grew more suspicious as the people they started bringing in were more reckless, with human and mutant lives, and eventually went to Marcos for help, realizing she was in over her head.

Ultimately, Lorna is a woman with a lot of anger and who has tried to use her negative traits for something useful. She can be reactionary to a detrimental point, but she is loyal, determined, protective, and kind.

SAMPLE:

TDM top level
Past game sample

INVENTORY:

- Clothes on her back
- The headpiece she's fashioned out of the medallion her father gave her on her 13th birthday
- The rattle Marcos made for Dawn

NOTES: I mentioned before that Lorna has bipolar disorder, this is confirmed within the series but only brought up occasionally. In canon she manages it well enough that neither a manic episode nor a depressive one is suffered in spite of a truly insane amount of stressors (there is a six month period we don't see, but an episode of either form is not mentioned). This may be something she brings up as a concern with people she comes to trust, but overall something she will try to keep under wraps, just because she won't feel it's anyone's business. I don't intend to have this become something that harms her or anyone else; I simply mention this due to it being a significant piece of her character's history.

IF ACCEPTED, WOULD YOU WANT A PLOT-LIGHT OR PLOT-HEAVY CUSTOM INTRO? I'm good with either! She would be coming in during the TDM if that makes a difference.

APPLICATION RECEIVED

[groundrules]

Marcos Diaz (aka Eclipse) | The Gifted

[soloritur]

PLAYER NAME: Lone Sheep (aka Sheep)
CONTACT: lonesheep
HOW DID YOU HEAR ABOUT THE GAME?: Current Player

CHARACTER: Marcos Diaz (aka Eclipse)
CANON: The Gifted
CANON POINT: End of Series (after Clarice tells them to follow her through a portal into an unknown hellscape... that's literally what they decided to do to us)

BACKGROUND: Wiki (I'll expand on this in the personality section.)

ABILITIES | POWERS:

Marcos is a mutant able to absorb and emit photons of light, heat and energy in a variety of ways.

Photogenesis: Marcos can generate and project light from his hands. He prefers to use powerful flashes to stun in a fight, but used in close proximity they can (and have) blinded his targets. He's also used his powers to project a beam of light as a signal, visible for miles. His powers are tied to his emotions, and while he has tremendous control over them, his hands will glow in his fists if he's angry enough.

Photokinesis: He can also manipulate the light from his hands as powerful laser-like beams. They're extremely hot, can easily start fires and have been shown to cut through cinderblocks. When used outside of combat, Marcos has taken a fondness for welding metal for practical and recreational uses. (ie - he's a decent mechanic and at one point made a very ornate rattle out of metal for his kid.)

Energy Absorption: Marcos is able to absorb all of the light in a given area to submerge a space in absolute blackness. This requires a great deal of concentration and the larger the area the harder it is for him to maintain. If someone were to shine a light in the darkness he created, it's physically strenuous and can tire him quickly. Generally, this technique is only useful to cover a handful of people who are standing close together for a few minutes at a time.

Super-Heated Luminescent Blood: Marcos has one major drawback from his powers (though it looks cool). When his blood is exposed to air it is extremely hot and glows. It burns his own skin and can eat through clothing, and it has a very difficult time clotting. At one point after he was shot, Marcos wrapped duct tape around his wound because it would eat through bandages and had to be stapled shut. However, once it's dried and cooled off it looks like any other blood.

Limitations: Like many characters with light-based powers, he can run out of energy in very dark places where there is no light to absorb. In those cases, he would only be able to fuel his powers until whatever he has in reserve runs out.

PERSONALITY:
Marcos' story isn't all that unfamiliar for mutants. His powers destroyed his life. He was disowned at 13, the very day his powers appeared, and had to find a way to survive on his own on the streets of Colombia. His own mother was a mutant who died from repressing her powers, and his deeply religious father thought they were a sign of the Devil. As a young man, his powers and vulnerable situation made him a prime target to be swept up in the Cartel, and he spent years trafficking drugs and being used as muscle to enforce their territory and torture their rivals. He accepted that as his lot in life until his paths crossed with the Mutant Underground.

Despite the condemnation from his father, his faith remains a source of strength and comfort for him. He was raised as a Catholic, and he kept some rosary beads to pray with whenever he's faced with a difficult trial. He's also shown to sometimes carry the a medallion of Santa Muerte, the patron saint of death, for luck and protection. He would wear it often when he was working with the Cartel, and it remains one of the few possessions he held onto.

Along with faith, family and the need to belong are his biggest driving forces. Before he developed his powers, he had a different path ahead of him. He was the oldest child of a wealthy estate, meant to carry on the family business, and never knew his mother was a mutant until after she died. He wasn't prepared to be out on his own, and he had a void in his life when they abandoned him. In the Cartel, he gravitated towards the family bonds that held them together. It was the first place that accepted him, and he eventually became romantically involved with the boss's daughter. It wasn't the family, but the business that he had a hard time with. He was expected to marry her up until he abruptly left to join a cause that was greater than smuggling drugs. Once he had the opportunity, he used his connections and dedicated himself completely to helping mutant refugees who were fighting for their survival in a world that doesn't understand them.

It wasn't long after he joined the Mutant Underground that he fell in love with Lorna. They became his new family; his best friend John, who supported him like a brother, those he helped rescue, particularly Clarice and the Strucker family. When Lorna became pregnant with his child, he saw a glimpse of the life he always hoped for, along with everything he had to lose.

His turning point may have come when he left the Cartel, but it was Lorna who gave him something to believe in. His entire life he wondered what he did to deserve being a mutant and have to live like they live, but Lorna taught him not to hate his powers. For the first time he met someone who said that she wouldn't change what she could do for anything. She convinced him that his past didn't matter and he could still do a lot of good.

So he was devastated when she stopped believing they had enough power to change the world; that he couldn't protect her or their child. He was plagued by self-doubt and terrified that the war that was brewing would tear his family apart.

Marcos is often described by those who know him as the 'emotional' one. He's deeply empathetic, and particularly sensitive to the hardships other mutants are faced with. He's likewise quick to anger, especially when it comes to the issues he feels strongest about, and prone to shouting matches to get his point across. Some of the most heated arguments he has are with Lorna. He never stops loving her, but he worried that they disagreed on their morality at a foundational level when she became willing to take more aggressive stances against humans. That especially seemed true after she left him to join a more extreme and better funded mutant terrorist organization (first the Hellfire Club, later usurped by the Inner Circle). When they were able to compromise, it usually came as a result of him bending and agreeing to support her rather than convincing her to see things his way. Part of that comes from his willingness to understand where she's coming from, and part of it has to do with his realization that he's in no place to act righteous.

With a past like his, he doesn't consider himself a superhero by any means. Although he goes by the moniker 'Eclipse' and the name is widely known in their network, he never introduces himself by it. He carries tremendous guilt for what he did in the Cartel, burning and blinding people to get them to talk, and now would do anything to avoid having to hurt someone. Part of his guilt comes from the rush he feels when he uses his powers to burn things, even when he knows how destructive he can be. When possible, he'd much rather not go down that road and prefers to intimidate without having to do more than flash a glowing palm.

There are some things that he swore he would never do again, but that line gets blurred if he cares enough. He did everything he knew to do to keep Lorna with him and he still couldn't. He was so afraid of losing Lorna for good, that he nearly went against everything he knew was right. After his daughter is born and he was finally able to meet her, he asked if he could stay and join their cause just to be with them. It was Lorna who refused to let him, because she knew it went against his beliefs, and she didn't want to see him become something he couldn't live with again.

When he isn't being reckless, he's often the one in the group pointing at the risks in their plans. He's watched too many of his friends get killed to believe that there won't be sacrifices with every move they make. The X-Men who helped to found the Mutant Underground disappeared, leaving them with limited resources and a dream that they could build a better world. He wants so badly to believe in that dream, but compared to the network the Cartel has and the strength and resources of the organization Lorna joined, he's resentful that they were abandoned to figure it out on their own. He starts to disparage the name of the X-Men, believing that they were set up for failure.

Although Lorna eventually has a change of heart when the Inner Circle crossed a line and she learned how far they were planning to go to create a mutant homeland, the experience left him with some deep uncertainties. Marcos forgave her when she owned up to how much her actions hurt him, and together they helped destroy the organization from the inside out, but not without some heavy losses.

He had his family. His faith was shaken but not broken. They were finally together, but they were starting over from nothing.

In game, he's being pulled from the end of the series not long after he's reunited with Lorna and his infant daughter. They were gathering to talk about rebuilding when someone they thought was dead appeared and insisted they come with her. He decides to follow her with his friends through the portal, not realizing he would be choosing to leave his daughter behind.

SAMPLE:
TDM with Lorna-babe

INVENTORY:
- Santa Muerte medallion
- One (1) burner phone
- The clothes on his back

NOTES: Nothing starting out. As long as he can keep from bleeding profusely when there isn't any duct tape around, he's fairly self-sufficient.

IF ACCEPTED, WOULD YOU WANT A PLOT-LIGHT OR PLOT-HEAVY CUSTOM INTRO? He came in during the TDM but if there's anything you want to add to my soap opera X-Men fantasy you have my express permission always! Throw him into plot rolls to get him acclimated as you like.

APPLICATION RECEIVED

[groundrules]

Sansa Stark | Alayne Stone

[notsansa]

PLAYER NAME: Jesse
CONTACT: Plurk!
HOW DID YOU HEAR ABOUT THE GAME?: Returning player! I played Merrill for a hot minute.

CHARACTER: Sansa Stark (Alayne Stone)
CANON: A Song of Ice and Fire
CANON POINT: After A Feast for Crows (If her chapter from the preview of Winds of Winter is permitted, so she knows she's to be engaged again.)

BACKGROUND: Too much history for a 13-year-old-going-on-30.

ABILITIES | POWERS: Highborn lady skills like needlework, singing, playing the harp and bells, writing poetry, etc. She can ride a horse but not as well as her sister. She's growing to be skilled at observing and utilizing people's expectations to work in her favor.

PERSONALITY: Sansa’s story was meant to be a fairy tale. Born to a proud and honorable house, she was rarely found wanting in comfort or in love, and enjoyed the luxury of hot baths and soft clothes in a rugged, northern climate. Even her direwolf reflected her delicate traits, fittingly named Lady. Far more interested in dancing than she was in horseback riding, Sansa was happy to live out this fairy tale right into a dream-like engagement to a prince. Such constant assurances of her place in the world did little to humble the girl, instead centering her thoughts on mostly her own well-being and future. Sansa rarely found reason to give much thought to others, except when they intersected somehow with her ambitions, be it positive or negative. In this, she was quick to judge anyone depending on how they were utilized in her goals. They were friend if they supported her, and enemy if they did not. It was a simple world for Sansa Stark, one full of promise and hope.

It didn’t take long before disillusionment crept in, at the cost of others’ lives, but even then she was slow to learn...this wasn’t going to be a fairy tale, after all. Lady’s death could have opened her eyes, but she couldn’t yet accept that her dreams wouldn’t come true, and so she redirected her blame and anger like she often did. Her father did the deed (to be kind), and it never would have happened if her sister Arya didn’t act like a barbarian (in Sansa’s eyes), and so she blamed them, when everyone else could see that the blame lied with the Lannisters. Sansa was special, though, she had to continue believing that the Lannister cruelty would never extend to her, or else what was the point? She would have lied...for nothing.

Unfortunately, she did lie for nothing. The only weapon she had, her courtesies, had been mishandled, and the price had yet to be fully paid. That time would come when she again miscalculated, all in pursuit of her own survival over that of her family’s. Despite seeing the dark nature of Joffrey and Cersei, Sansa tried again to secure her future by betraying another family member--this time her father. Though swiftly manipulated by Cersei into denouncing her father, in a situation where any child would have difficulty holding their own, she had been the one to seek out the Queen and bring the situation to light. It was a mistake that would cost Sansa her entire family, as well as her innocence. She had ignored the warning signs, and she wasn’t the only one that would pay the price.

Sansa’s selfish nature did not dissipate, but it changed with the new and true feeling of hatred, as well as guilt. She could no longer hope to live magnificently, she could only hope to live. Suddenly she understood that every day could be her last, or the last for her loved ones. Better not to love, then, isn’t that right? And yet she still so desperately wanted a friend. She wanted to trust, but every lesson revealed why she couldn’t. So Sansa watched and listened, and eventually she learned. She learned to sharpen her courtesies. It’s important to note that ‘courtesies’ don’t only mean manners; They are courtly manners and social conduct, from understanding the history of royal houses and their bannermen, to discussing politics and religion, to knowing how to dine, sing, speak, and walk, and much more. Courtesy is a lifestyle, or philosophy. It’s a multifaceted weapon, and Sansa eventually honed hers into sharp blades through painful lessons learned at King’s Landing.

There was no shortage of teachers, from someone as decrepit as The Hound, up to the vicious Queen Cersei herself, oft-times through discourse that was helpful as it was venomous. All of these relationships were precarious, but Sansa learned to balance as she walked that path of thorns. Margaery was the rose amongst the thorns, but even her gentle lessons couldn’t protect the realities beating at the Stark girl’s door every day, and this reality came to light with the death of King Joffrey. Again, she had to think for herself before others, even knowing the danger her husband Tyrion Lannister would likely find himself in. He had been kind to her, as well, but he was still a Lannister. He still looked at her with the same eyes as everyone else. Even those who were kind to her wanted to use her in some way, and she knew this.

Although Sansa escaped the Red Keep, she did not survive whole. So much was stripped away that it became easy to find a different role, and to remember Sansa Stark’s life as that of the nightmare it was and nothing more. Alayne Stone was born of Littlefinger, but given life through the death of Sansa’s dreams. She was no longer merely ‘repeating the words they taught her’ as The Hound had once accused her of, but connecting dots and making plans. She had shown a spark of this ability even in King’s Landing, when rescuing Ser Dontos through a quick wit, and Littlefinger nurtured and encouraged this skill by allowing her to feel included in his scheming. She understood that he couldn’t fully be trusted, but she couldn’t deny that he treated her as a woman who deserved respect. Now, she understands well how to control someone by giving them exactly what they think they want, even utilizing these lessons against Littlefinger in her carefully worded responses to him. She does not merely agree to do the thing; she skips right over that step and does the thing.

At thirteen, though claiming to be fourteen, Alayne Stone has all but abandoned her identity as Sansa. Even living as a lowborn bastard seems better than the memories Sansa Stark suffered, and the Stark name is a doomed one now. After a jealous betrayal via her Aunt Lysa, there was nothing of the Tullys to draw her loyalty, either. As a bastard, she can create a new life, and Littlefinger proves that even lowborn can reach high. Not that she wants to reach so high, anymore… She doesn’t think of fairy tales anymore, as those are for pure maidens. Now she thinks of security, which no longer means lemon cakes and laughter, but knowledge and power. Courtesy was once her armor; her defense. Now it is her sword; her offense.

Sometimes the dreams of the young Stark girl will drift in to catch her off guard, such as a longing for a carefree dance or the pleasure from a burst of rare citrus on the tongue, but she is certain they remain only dreams from someone else’s life. Alayne's reality is that dances are a tool for ambition, and too many lemoncakes will only make you ill.

SAMPLE: AU encounter with Five! I won't be treating this as canon if she's accepted, we just included Lady for fun.

INVENTORY: A dark blue and grey dress made of silk and wool, matching cloak, gloves, and boots. That's...it!

NOTES: She'll want to get her hands on some chestnut-colored hair dye before long, somehow without making it obvious. I'm fine with her failing at this, though!

IF ACCEPTED, WOULD YOU WANT A PLOT-LIGHT OR PLOT-HEAVY CUSTOM INTRO? Whichever works best for your narrative! I'm totally willing for plot heavy intro, but no pressure if it doesn't work. Can always sneak her in through the cracks.

APPLICATION RECEIVED

[groundrules]

Achilles | The Song of Achilles | Reserved

[glorioussong]

PLAYER NAME: Riddle
CONTACT: tiger_eyes, madviolinist#5122 on Discord and tigereyes1986@yahoo.com.
HOW DID YOU HEAR ABOUT THE GAME?: I'm already in it!

CHARACTER: Achilles Peleides (Aristos Achaion)
CANON: The Song of Achilles
CANON POINT: As he is sailing to Troy.

BACKGROUND: His biography. Copy-Pasted below for easier reading:

"Achilles, known also as Aristos Achaion (best of all the Greeks) is Patroclus' best friend, lover and soulmate. He is the son of the King Peleus of Phthia and the Sea Nymph Thetis.

Achilles is a demigod, destined to gain glory and immortality in a war. Because of his mother dipping him in the River Styx as a baby, Achilles is invulnerable and resistant to injures, however, his weakness is in his heel where her hand held him whilst under the water.

Early Life

Achilles was born after the Olympic Gods convinced Peleus to force himself upon the sea nymph Thetis, who then had to stay married to him for a year. They did this due to a prophecy by Eileithyia that said that Thetis' child would become stronger than his father. The moment he was born Thetis shed her mortal clothing and dived back into the ocean, only coming back to shore to visit him occasionally.

Because of the prophecy, Achilles was trained in different aspects of fighting since birth and no one was allowed to watch him practice. He was raised by tutors and nurses overseen by Phoinix, Peleus’ most trusted counsellor. By the time Patroclus is sent to Peleus’ kingdom, Achilles is trained only by a lyre teacher and Peleus himself, although this mostly translates into him teaching himself.

Achilles' father ran an orphanage on his island for exiled sons of high ranking nobles and Kings, although Patroclus suspected that the real purpose of it was to train up soldiers for Peleus' army as they became indebted to his hospitality and catering.

Achilles is first seen during the games in King Menoetius’ kingdom at 5 years old. He wins a running race and becomes the beacon of Menoetius’ vision of a son, being the inspiration for the phrase ‘That is what a son should be.’ He is next seen when Patroclus is sent to Phthia and has to greet the Prince as King Peleus was away with business. He is seen lazily playing with a lute and is dismissive of Patroclus. Achilles first began to notice Patroclus when he was studiously ignoring him- a surprise, since no one had ever ignored him before. To gain his attention Achilles steadily began moving closer during dinner times until eventually sitting at the same table; he throws a fig towards him to gain his attention.

Achilles found Patroclus hiding in a storeroom one day, as Patroclus did not want to go to his lessons with the other boys. Patroclus, not wanting to be punished by Peleus, asked Achilles to tell his father he was with him. So, because he does not like to lie, Achilles takes Patroclus to his lessons, and after they practice on Patroclus' mother's lyre for a bit they go and see Peleus. When Achilles speaks to his father, he says he has chosen Patroclus as his therapon, and that is that. They become the best of friends.

They begin to spend more time together and Patroclus becomes the first person beyond his father to witness him fight, eventually challenging him to duel; their friendship is fast following. Nothing noteworthy happens during their childhood beyond Achilles visit’s to his mother (although the contents of which is unknown to both Patroclus and the readers).

When Achilles is thirteen his father begins to suggest for him to partake in sexual relationships with serving/slave girls however he ignores all offers and appears uncomfortable at the suggestion. Later he and Patroclus share their first kiss, a chaste peck on the lips, however he runs away back to the palace shortly thereafter.

The next time he is seen, Achilles announces that he is being sent away to Mount Pelion to train with Chiron and must leave Patroclus behind. When Patroclus awakes the next morning he has already gone. He would not return to Phthia again except for a call to war.

Mount Pelion

After Thetis sees that Patroclus kissed Achilles, she sends him to Mount Pelion to be trained by Chiron. Patroclus follows him there, despite Thetis telling Chiron that he is to be barred from seeing Achilles. Patroclus, however, follows Achilles to Mount Pelion with nothing but the clothes on his back. Achilles has been waiting at the base of the mountain in hopes that he would do so and tackles him. Chiron collects them and takes them up the mountain on his back. Chiron teaches them skills as they grow up. Thetis is angry to learn that Patroclus is there with Achilles, but she cannot see them there on the mountain. When Achilles learns this, he tells Patroclus and they kiss and have sex in the cave.

Scyros

Achilles pretends to be a woman and hides on the island of Scyros because it is what Thetis wants. She doesn't want him to go to war. When Patroclus comes for him, Achilles claims him as his husband. Thetis had forced Achilles to marry and lie with Princess Deidameia in exchange for telling Patroclus where he was, but she lied and Patroclus had to find out from Peleus. Deidameia then becomes pregnant with a child, named after Achilles, Neoptolemus or Pyrrhus."

The biography continues here. Again, I'll copy-paste it to make it easier:

"Patroclus follows Achilles to Skyros, where they live until they are discovered by Odysseus and Diomedes. Patroclus is obligated to join the war in Troy as a result of his blood oath, while Achilles joins after vowing that he will never fight Hector in order to avoid his prophesied death."

ABILITIES | POWERS: Achilles is the best warrior of the Greeks, Trojans and just about anyone else on the playing field he knows. He is swift, agile, graceful and completely mechanical when it comes to killing. No one can throw a spear as hard or fast as him; no one can bear his armor or use his sword like him. He is the son of an immortal and a mortal and the gods have blessed him with the ability to fight and kill.

I am however willing to make him vulnerable to injury since him being untouchable seems unfair. But it won't be easy to get the best of him and he will certainly seek revenge after.

On a lesser note, he is a gifted musician (on the lyre) and his voice is said to be hauntingly beautiful too.

PERSONALITY: First and foremost, Achilles does not like being forced into anything. He abhors lies (and refuses to make use of them); he has no time for those who seek to attach their names to his for glory or power or money. One of the reasons he was drawn to Patroclus when they were still boys was because Patroclus avoided him and refused to compliment him. He knew that prince at least would be honest and Achilles values honesty. As a result, Patroclus knows him in a way few others do - and ever will. With him, Achilles is open, gentle, playful and infinitely passionate. To the world, he is untouchable - like water turned to ice. Much like his mother, in fact, though the heart that beats in his breast is much kinder than hers will ever be (otherwise he wouldn't have noticed or befriended Patroclus in the first place).

However, since receiving the news that his dear Patroclus must fulfill a blood oath and fight the Trojans, Achilles has become quicker to anger as of late. The weight of the prophecy made about him (that he will perish once Prince Hector dies) is heavy on his shoulders and he is determined to not see it through. No matter what. His stubborn resolve will fly in the face of what the Greeks expect of him and even Patroclus will eventually beg him to intervene to save lives. Yet Achilles's pride will be his true downfall; he just can't see it.

At his canon point, he is the proud prince leading his Myrmidons (2,500 of them) to the Trojan shore. He has appointed leaders (each commanding 500 of his army) and he fully expects to be victorious. Surely within a season or two, he can return to Greek lands and make a home with his Patroclus. He can't foresee the war carrying on for a decade and he can't foresee how many will be lost - his sweet Patroclus included.

If you ever wondered how to break a demigod: slaughter his soulmate viciously. Achilles longed for death then and sought it viciously, tearing through anyone who stood in his way. But, for now, he can't imagine losing someone so dear to him. Who would dare? Who would dare touch him? Achilles trusts his battle prowess to keep them both safe and he looks forward to scaling and conquering the Trojan walls. The Greeks will cry his name in triumph - not in agony or anger.

Upon finding himself in a strange place, he will be tense, ready for battle. It will take time for those defenses to soften and for him to reveal the youthful prince beneath his flashing golden armor. However there will inevitably be those that call to his heart and he won't be able to deny them his ear or his might. He might even play or sing for them; Achilles is a talented musician.

SAMPLE: I.

He fastens his armor tight, flush to his skin, when the shore comes into view. His helmet is tucked under his arm, ready to be placed over his golden hair when his view shifts. The shore of Troy disappears and he is standing in the middle of a desert. A city lies before him - one that is opulent enough but certainly not Troy - and Achilles feels a curl of anger. Placing his helmet resolutely on his head and drawing his sword, he races to the buildings in the distance, his feet flashing, quicker than a deer.

His breath isn't even labored when he reaches the city, pausing on the outskirts, shining in the harsh sunlight. When he sees no enemies, no one to fight, his anger grows and he states, to any god who might be listening:

"What is the point of this? Have I sailed for nothing? Where is Prince Hector?"

Achilles has wanted to see the prince in battle; he wants to understand his prowess in the art they share. He doubts Hector will outshine him in any capacity, but he can't help being curious. Stalking through the city streets, he likely looks like a myth or a legend shining like he does. A star fallen from the heavens. Aristos Achaion indeed.

Later, he enters the palace proper and removes his helm, remembering his princely courtesy. For the time being, anyway. His green eyes seek the face of the one he loves, but he is disappointed each time Patroclus fails to appear. Swinging his sword absently, he takes his time in sheathing the weapon.

"Explain." he demands, unprompted, to the first person who approaches him.

II.

(Network; Video; UN: sing of the rage)

Bringing Achilles Peleides to your beck and call was a gamble. You took me from my ship; from my Myrmidons. Do you think I would allow that to pass without judgement? Without punishment? (The part that angers him the most is that he has been torn from Patroclus. But a warrior never reveals their weak spot.) Speak. I will only give you a moment before I burn your city to ash.

(Granted it is likely not the best idea, but he is a demigod. He doesn't have all of the needs of a mortal. Though when he finds himself changed, he might be forced to be more cautious.

Then again, likely not. Achilles lives life to the fullest; the gods be damned.)

INVENTORY: His armor (helmet and sword included), a shield and spear. And maybe his lyre (with an extra set of strings)?

NOTES: I think he'll fit in just fine. He doesn't need any pampering, though he won't say no to it. ;3

IF ACCEPTED, WOULD YOU WANT A PLOT-LIGHT OR PLOT-HEAVY CUSTOM INTRO? Plot-light this time. He has a lot to contend with and I don't want him to break.

APPLICATION RECEIVED

[groundrules]

Aang | Avatar the Last Airbender

[airbender]

PLAYER NAME: Cris
CONTACT: Discord: Cris#4369, or ensigncris@gmail.com, or PM this journal!
HOW DID YOU HEAR ABOUT THE GAME?: Invited by Chel!

CHARACTER: Aang
CANON: Avatar the Last Airbender
CANON POINT: Season 3, during the Boiling Rock episode. Aang will wake up in-game after having gone to sleep at the Western Air Temple.

BACKGROUND: Here! (Up to the second paragraph in the Summer 100AG section.)

ABILITIES | POWERS:

Elemental Manipulation: As the Avatar, Aang can manipulate (and weaponize) the four classical elements (air, water, earth and fire) through martial arts. He has attained the rank of Master in Airbending, and though there has been no formal evaluation of his Waterbending and Earthbending skill he is probably at or near mastery of both. He is still a novice Firebender, though.

Airbending: Or Aerokinesis. Based on the movements of Ba Gua, Airbending involves controlling the flow of air. For the most part this is used by Aang to aid in evasion and movement: with the help of his staff/glider, he can fly short distances by using the wind to pick himself up off the ground. He can also push himself forward with the wind to run super fast, or use the wind to slow a fall and land comfortably even from an extreme height. On the occasions that he uses airbending offensively, it can be turned into a concussive or even cutting force strong enough to destroy solid rock, especially dangerous when augmented by things like fans or his glider staff.
Waterbending: Or hydro/cryokinesis. Based on Tai Chi, Waterbending controls the movement of water in all of its states, including ice. Small amounts of water can be pulled from the air when it exists as vapor, or out of plants, but for the most part (and in Aang's case currently) effective use of Waterbending requires the practitioner to carry around a supply of water or to have it readily available in the landscape. Aang can create whips or concussive spouts of water to stagger enemies, or use his ability to instantly freeze it to trap people in blocks of ice. He could also create super sharp shards or disks of ice, but for moral reasons he does not tend to go this route when waterbending.
Earthbending: Or geokinesis. Based on Hung Gar, Earthbending involves the ability to move dirt, stone and sand. This can be done with natural Earth features, but also man-made stone structures (like flattening steps made out of stone to turn a staircase into a smooth ramp.) Aang tends to use this ability defensively, generally summoning walls or shelters to place between himself and opponents or wrapping his body in a layer of earth resembling extremely bulky plate armor. Aang can also use bending to throw rocks through the air at opponents, or to create passages through solid landscapes where there weren't any before (tunneling through a mountain rather than climbing it, etc.) When his feet are on the ground he can also use Earthbending to sense the movements of anyone around him, essentially using it to see without his eyes (must be Earth or rock, not wooden or metal floors.)
Firebending: Or pyrokinesis. Based on Northern Shaolin, Firebending involves both the generation of and control of existing flames. Aang only knows basic forms so far, but since his teacher Zuko is currently in-game he could progress in his mastery while present so eventually he'll be able to improve on the rudimentary skill he's already got to create fire, as well as put out or control existing flames. With enough training he will also be able to elevate his own body temperature and superheat the things he breathes on or touches. He could also learn to redirect lightning back out of his body once struck.

Avatar State*: Aang has the ability to access/channel the power and knowledge accumulated through his past lives by entering into an "avatar state," which can work two different ways. The first way we see is a sort of hibernation, triggered unconsciously, which Aang used before the beginning of the series to freeze both himself and Appa in time beneath the ocean for nearly 100 years. It is unknown if there is a time limit on how long he can sustain this, but he seemed unable to wake or move without outside intervention. (Might be useful in a hiatus situation? But not much else.) The second way is a very brief period of extremely enhanced energy output/elemental mastery, usually followed by heavy fatigue. This state is either triggered by emotion (in Aang's case, usually anger or fear), as a physical defense mechanism meant to ensure his survival at all costs, or (only pretty late in the show) purposefully. The only time Aang seems to be in control of his actions is when he enters the state the third way, otherwise he unleashes wanton destruction until he is calmed down by someone familiar or until the danger passes and he is safe.

*Aang's access to the Avatar State is currently blocked due to damage to his chakras sustained during an attack in the show's 2nd season finale. It can be unblocked by severe enough physical force being applied to the lightning scar on the middle of his back (aligned with the Anahata/heart chakra), but he isn't aware of that. If there is a plot opportunity to unblock it during the course of the game I will consult mods first and also nerf the Avatar State's ability to do anything game-breaking involving altering the landscape with bending.

Spirit Medium: Aang has the innate ability to sense, empathize with and understand spirits, which in-universe are supernatural entities that tend to represent aspects of nature or life (in-game probably someone like Anurr would count. Can be nerfed out or just not apply to in-game entities if that would get too infomod-y!) In-canon he could also access the Spirit World at will through meditation, but he will not be able to do so in-game because different worlds etc etc.

PERSONALITY:

Despite the fact that he has the potential to be the most powerful person in his canon world, at heart Aang just wants the luxury of living as the pacifist he was raised to be by the monks in the temple where he grew up. He would much rather goof around and play games than fight the war he was born to put an end to, and it's that specific desire to escape responsibility that led him to run away from his people, and (by accident or by fate) get trapped beneath the ocean, frozen in time while the war progressed and eventually engulfed most of the world above him.

Aang continuously grapples with the guilt of that act, while still having the natural inclination to continue making similar mistakes. Because most things (like bending) came so easily to Aang, he loses motivation very quickly if he isn't immediately good at something, and he struggles a lot when faced with failure. If a problem has no apparent solution, and trying to find one intimidates him enough, Aang will do his best to weasel out of dealing with the issue at all. Just before his canon point, for example, when faced with the prospect of trying to learn Firebending for which he had no available teacher, Aang kept attempting to run away and play games with the other kids that he was traveling with rather than sit with the team and come up with a plan. Even when a teacher conveniently appeared before them, he let his fear of Firebending keep him from immediately accepting the help offered—despite having attempted to reach out to that particular person again and again when they were still on opposite sides.

It takes a lot of patience and coaxing to deal with him sometimes, especially when trying to teach him: he responds well to praise, but immediately loses faith in himself when hitting nearly any roadblock, including just receiving too much criticism. He also loves attention, and can be bratty when he's not getting any, or jealous when his friends are too busy with other things to spend time with him. He does not handle things like crushes with much grace at all. He is also mischievous, he even takes pride in being a troublemaker, relying on his ability to charm and sweet-talk his way back out of trouble when he inevitably gets caught.

Which is a long list of flaws, but he is humble enough to admit to his mistakes and he has a genuine desire to improve himself and learn to do better by others and the world around him. Aang will go above and beyond to help anyone and everyone that he can, regardless of who they are. Despite waking up from 100 years underwater to find his entire people massacred, Aang doesn't hate the nation responsible and goes out of his way to sympathize with and try to get to know the fire nation citizens he has a chance to meet on his journey. He feels the loss keenly, but he tries very hard to not let tragedy change him so much as a person that he can't be kind or have fun. Aang is optimistic, and believes wholeheartedly in giving people second chances, no matter who they are. He is sweet and playful, always willing to take the time to cheer people up with games or shenanigans.

He's extremely adventurous, easily excitable, and very sociable—he doesn't go anywhere without making at least one friend. He's difficult to embarrass because he doesn't take himself too seriously, and his sense of humor lets him laugh off even pretty pointed jabs without returning them. He has a strong sense of whimsy, and he always tries to take the time to indulge in both his own and other peoples' flights of fancy. He loves animals, even if he sometimes overestimates his ability to corral them.

Unlike a lot of young protagonists, Aang never asks for or wants to be treated like an adult. If anything, he resents being forced out of his childhood so early, and he strives to remind other young characters who grew up too fast how young they are, too. Despite that, he is independent, self-sufficient, and wise beyond his years as well. He occasionally frustrates his friends by offering sage advice or having wise monk sayings on hand for their difficult emotional situations, even when they don't really ask. It comes from a place of experience, though, because Aang puts a lot of work into maintaining his sense of self and his spiritual well-being, especially knowing he is the last Airbender and that he must uphold the teachings of his people or they'll be lost in the world forever.

SAMPLE: Here!

INVENTORY: Clothes, staff/glider, a fistful of marbles and a Bison whistle (which works like a dog whistle would.)

NOTES: The only accommodation Aang would need is for diet, because he is a vegetarian, but he can simply not partake of any meat available for consumption. Because at 12 he definitely also fits into the "children" category, though, I'd like to note that Aang has been traveling on his own for some time with only other people around his age and can both fend for himself and survive off the land. He also has some experience (though he certainly needs more) acting as a diplomatic figure due to the status of being an Avatar in his own world. He won't require more looking-after by the group than any other older teen characters would.

IF ACCEPTED, WOULD YOU WANT A PLOT-LIGHT OR PLOT-HEAVY CUSTOM INTRO? Plot-heavy, please!!

APPLICATION RECEIVED

[groundrules]

Daenerys Targaryen | A Song of Ice and Fire

[song_of_fire]

PLAYER NAME: Rachel
CONTACT: la_fille_en_histoire
HOW DID YOU HEAR ABOUT THE GAME?: I was encouraged by Katie to apply

CHARACTER: Daenerys Targaryen
CANON: A Song of Ice and Fire
CANON POINT: End of A Dance With Dragons

BACKGROUND: Wiki

ABILITIES | POWERS:
*Daenerys has prophetic dreams, called "Dragon Dreams". They come in allegories for her to figure out. For instance, she dreamed of sprouting wings when she had the dream of how to hatch her dragons.
*Daenerys is a skilled horse rider, having spent a great deal of time on one with the Dothraki
*She's been trained recently in martial strategy
*She's adapt at governing, along with trade, financing and resources.

PERSONALITY:

Daenerys' journey from the first book through the series is one of self discovery. She begins the story "fearful and furtive" as Illyrio Mopatis calls her. She's abused and terrified of her brother, meekly following his plan of selling her in marriage to the Dothraki in exchange for an army to help him win back his throne. It isn't until she is given her dragons eggs as a wedding gift that Daenerys starts to grow and change. She slowly becomes more confident, standing up for herself and beginning to find the stronger aspects of herself. Moving forward, these begin to shape more and guide Daenerys through her journey.

More than anything, Daenerys is a leader. The beginning of this is seen when Drogo dies at the end of the first book and Daenerys seeks to claim the khalasar as her own. After her dragons are born and she begins leading her people towards water and safety, she continually reminds herself that she must be strong for them, that they are looking to her and they need her to survive. Many times Daenerys is offered the chance to go to Westeros, but because she isn't given the resources to take her people with her or is being asked to abandon the city that she is ruling over, she refuses. She puts the needs of her people above her own desires, often agreeing to things that she doesn't want to. She marries Hizdahr zo Loraq to try and stop the violence in Meereen, also agreeing to open up the fighting pits, even though it's a place where slaves are trafficked and forced to fight. She locks up her dragons when she learns that Drogon killed a small girl, choosing to put the safety of her people above her children.

Daenerys is a nurturing woman. Beyond her duty as queen, she cares about the well being of others. During the outbreak of the Bloody Flux in Meereen, Daenerys insists on going among the sick, wanting to tend and care for them. She's so desperate to look after her people and loved ones that it often leads her into drastic decisions. To save Drogo's life, she agrees to let a Magi tend to him, not knowing that when she asks for magic to be performed, she is sacrificing her child or that Drogo would be left in a living coma.

She has strong moral codes regarding slavery as well as honor itself. While she sometimes stoops to ruthless methods, she always tries to reassure herself that it's for her people's benefit. Whenever her advisers push her towards violent actions, she's always the one to resist. Daario urges her to agree to marry Hizdahr, but only to lure the nobles into one place, allowing her to slaughter them (ala Red Wedding). However, Daenerys is appalled by the suggestion and sends Daario away for a time. While she gathers a number of children to act as hostages against the nobles of Meereen, whenever the Sons of the Harpy begin killing her people again, she hesitates and then refuses to harm the children. The whole basis of her plan for taking them in falling apart because she can't bear to hurt the innocent.

This moral code is strongest when it comes to the subject of slavery. We see through the series that Daenerys identifies with the weak in society, whether they are slaves, the poor or the Lhazareen. When Drogo's khalasar defeats Khal Ogo and begin enslaving and raping the women of the Lhazareen village, Daenerys orders the men to stop and takes the women under her protection. When she comes into possession of the Unsullied, she first frees them and calls for them to break the chains of the slaves in the city, killing the Masters. It becomes her mission to free the cities of Slaver's Bay and break the chains of the slaves that have been living in subjugation. When she recognizes that some of her actions have left chaos, rather than abandon the cities she's recently freed, Daenerys stays on as queen to try and ensure that slavery doesn't return to Meereen. Much of her negotiations and continuing resistance to offers of alliance center around the bargains that some want her to make, such as accepting slavery returning to certain parts of Slaver's Bay. Each offer is refused and the number of her enemies grow. It's such a sticking point to her, that it's the root of her troubles in "A Dance with Dragons", her attempts to rule mired in her inability to bring peace to Meereen after uprooting the long standing tradition. However she believes so strongly in freeing the slaves that she doesn't back down.

She does have a temper that flares in the face of cruelty, especially towards women and slaves. The most notable example is her retribution for the 163 slave children that were nailed to milestones along the route. When the city is taken by Daenerys's forces, she nails 163 slave masters outside of the Great Pyramid as punishment. While Daenerys has a forgiving and tender heart, there is a part of her that can hold a grudge. When she learns that Jorah Mormont had been working with Varys and sent him information about her pregnancy (that lead to an assassination attempt), she sends him to attack Meereen through the sewers, hoping partly that he will be killed. He returns, but remains unrepentant. While she can't execute him, she does exile him and refuses to forgive him for his actions. She also uses more ruthless means, allowing a wine seller (who is suspected of harboring Sons of the Harpy) to be tortured. She can be stubborn as well. While she will listen to her advisers, she stands firm in what she thinks is the right course, no matter if it turns out to be a bad decision or not. One of the earlier examples is when she trusts Mirri Maz Duur to treat and cure Drogo. While there are signs of his rapid decline, she refuses to think that Mirri has betrayed her or listen to her bloodriders. She even ignores the cost of a blood ritual, despite being warned that only death could pay for life. She dismisses Jorah's appeals to sail to Westeros, focusing instead on Slaver's Bay, refusing to abandon the people despite the ever worsening situation she finds herself in. The costs are too high for her and she refuses to abandon what she thinks is right.

Daenerys is connected to magic in the ways of the ancient Targaryens. She possesses dragon dreams that give her glimpses of the future. An example of this are the dreams she had of her dragon eggs and how eventually she was able to hatch them, giving life to dragons again. Magic is rooted to much of Daenerys' story. She has visions of Quaithe who urges her to Asshai, she tries to deal with the Warlocks of the House of the Undying and experiences visions there of events that come later in the book and moments from the past. The most notable moment is when she was able to enter Drogo's funeral pyre and emerge from the flames with three newly hatched dragons. Daenerys isn't skeptical and believes in her dreams and the visions, but often puts those aside for the more pressing issues. Rather than embrace what Quaithe has said of going to Asshai, she instead takes the Unsullied and marches through Slaver's Bay. By the end of the book, however, it seems that she is starting to give into her visions as Quaithe comes to her while she's sick and dying.

There is a divide between Daenerys the Queen and Daenerys the Woman. She has dreams of a simple life, wanting more than anything to find the House with the Red Door (which represents her lost childhood) and marry a man she loves, being a normal woman. However, she understands that those desires are selfish and puts the needs of her people first. This is especially prominent when she imagines Daario stopping her wedding to Hizdar and stealing her away, the two of them living like smallfolk. The dream is ignored though and she marries a man she doesn't love. She sometimes contemplates giving it all up or how deep down all she really wants is someone to love her for herself. Beneath her crown and queenly exterior, Daenerys is still a young girl trying to find her way in the warning and still testing her strengths.

SAMPLE: Springwood TDM, Spingwood, PSL

INVENTORY: Only her Dothraki leather vest and pants, as well as grass sandals.

NOTES: N/A

IF ACCEPTED, WOULD YOU WANT A PLOT-LIGHT OR PLOT-HEAVY CUSTOM INTRO? Plot heavy, if that's possible, but if it's not, I'm okay either way.

APPLICATION RECEIVED

[groundrules]

Jon Snow ✥ Game of Thrones

[northerndragon]

PLAYER NAME: Elizabeth
CONTACT: detectivefiction
HOW DID YOU HEAR ABOUT THE GAME?: Heard on Plurk, invited by Rachel

CHARACTER: Jon Snow
CANON: Game of Thrones (with A Song of Ice and Fire being the primary source for filling in any information the show doesn’t give, as long as it doesn’t conflict with show continuity)
CANON POINT: Between 7x02 and 7x03, en route from Winterfell to Dragonstone. Jon has been King in the North for a few months and is trying to prepare to fight the White Walkers; Dragonstone is where he hopes to find help and equipment that he needs.

BACKGROUND: 1 | 2

ABILITIES | POWERS: Jon has the basic education and abilities that are reasonable for someone with his background: outdoorsmanship, survival, tons of training (and some teaching experience) in various medieval fighting techniques/weaponry (swords are a specialty), a privileged academic history for his time and place, administrative and military command experience, experience as a steward (general household servant), etc.

As far as potentially magical abilities: He has an affinity for and ability to bond with dragons (or at least dragons from his canon), which he is completely unaware of, and he has a skinchanger/warg bond with his direwolf, Ghost, which was not really depicted in the show anyway. Ghost's absence from this game means that it's likely irrelevant!

The rules for ASOIAF dragons are basically that each dragon only has one bond/rider at a time, for the rider’s lifetime, and each rider can only ever bond with a single dragon… but depending on whether or not you want to use this and how, his Targaryen dragonlord ancestry could still make dragons take a friendly interest in him.

PERSONALITY:

• Genuinely Good Person: Admittedly more of a cluster of personality traits than a single one. Jon is honest, kindly, fair, helpful, decent, affable, generous, humble, stoic, loyal, reliable, and relatively easygoing in most of his interpersonal interactions. While he is not universally popular, he loves his friends and family and they love and admire him in return. He's hard-working, almost uncomplaining, and at this canon point, there's little he thinks he's too good to do. In general, he's a solid, stand-up guy with a big heart.


• Quiet: Jon is soft spoken, an attentive listener, observant, reserved, sometimes so reticent as to seem gruff, and when he was a child, he was mature for his age in most ways. However, he was also considered sullen by people who didn't know him well, and as an adult, he's sometimes seen as brooding. There is an exception to his tendency to be soft-spoken: when he's commanding men or addressing a crowd, he speaks in a ringing tone that carries.


• He was raised to behave with integrity, and doing so is important to him, so much so that he's emotionally troubled in circumstances that make it difficult. His conscience weighs heavily on him, and he genuinely tries to do the right thing. In many situations, he acts selflessly, for the greater good.


• It is worth noting that integrity and reliability can shade into stubbornness. Determination to do the right thing is not always convenient or popular, and Jon can rarely be dissuaded from it.


• Brave: This is a good trait, in that it's tied to his integrity, his selflessness, and his care for others. If there's a chance that he might die protecting people, so be it: he's still going to try to protect them.


• But bravery sometimes combines with some of his other personality traits to manifest as reckless bravado, which nearly gets him killed on more than one occasion. Also, Jon enjoys the physical act of fighting in the same way that other people might enjoy participating in a sport. This is usually confined to training, but not always, and it contributes to the issue.


• Bright and capable: Jon is neither bookish nor intellectual. However, he is intelligent enough to have excelled academically as a child, to have been picked out as leadership material by a series of mentors, and to have both put together the broader implications of the things he learns about the Army of the Dead and a series of plans for how to deal with them. In the books, he adopts his dead lover's taunt about his ignorance of her people's ways -- "You know nothing, Jon Snow" -- as his own internal mantra to remind himself to be humble about his assumptions. In other words, he's smart enough to remind himself that he doesn't know everything, and he continues to seek out new information.


• Shame: Jon grew up painfully conscious of the popular Westerosi stereotype of bastard-born people: lustful, dishonest, worthless, malignant, and a stain on their parents' honor. Internalized shame related to this manifests in a lot of ways.
  
  
  • Jon has always had a strong motivation to disprove people's negative assumptions and to live up to the example set by Ned Stark, the man who raised him. It's not the only reason for his positive qualities, but it's a big part of why Jon seems to have a psychological need to be as good a person as he can manage to be. At his pull point, the fact that the Northern lords have chosen him as their king is a sign of Jon's success at proving that a bastard can be worthy of trust and respect.
  
  
  
  • Jon attempts to detach from sexual attraction, mostly because of a great resistance to the idea of fathering a bastard himself; his empathetic nature means that the idea of saddling his own child with the same stigma he grew up under doesn't sit well with him. While he becomes more willing to engage in relationships after leaving the Night's Watch, he doesn't do so easily, casually, or hastily. He is never opportunistic or predatory about sex.
  
  
  
  • Jon tends to isolate himself. He has both cultural and personal reasons to keep his emotional struggles close to his chest, and while he has many friends, he has few close ones to whom he'll open up. Many of his emotional troubles in early life were related to his bastardy: his fear that people would make negative assumptions about him based on who they might think he was rather than his actions, his worries about finding a place in the world, his profound wish to make his father proud, his feelings of otherness within the Stark family, and the fact that he never knew his mother and his father's wife wanted nothing to do with him. They wounded him deeply, and they were not something he could share with his trueborn siblings, who would not have understood. In adulthood, he rarely speaks extensively about his feelings to anyone other than his friend Sam, and being fully accepted and appreciated by Sansa as her brother is a big deal to him.
  
  
  
  • While he made great strides in overcoming the shame as an adult, it's still a core formative aspect of his personality, and his demeanor can be moody or brooding as a direct result. Jon grew up as an apparently sullen boy who often hung back on the sidelines while his siblings had fun together. As an adult, he's still too much in his own head.


• Dutiful: Jon's integrity, bravery, and drive to overcome his internalized shame combine into a strong sense of duty, which is an overriding motivation. If he is forced to violate one of his other ideals in the name of duty, he will usually do so, although it will distress him.
  
  As an example: Jon's Night's Watch vow of celibacy is very important to him, but he breaks it with Ygritte to preserve his cover as a "deserter," so he can learn what Mance's plans are. While he comes to genuinely care for Ygritte, he eventually leaves her, partly because warning the Night's Watch of the oncoming attack is part of his mission. It's enough of a betrayal to cause him considerable guilt, not what he wanted to do on a personal level, and not one he would have committed under other circumstances, but staying with her would have been a greater betrayal of his duty and values. The Watch, the North, and the people he has sworn to protect are more important than his happiness -- or hers.


• Violent temper: Like anyone else, Jon has buttons that can be pressed, and while other aspects of his personality help keep him on an even keel most of the time, sometimes he's pushed too far and his stoicism breaks. Threats to or disparagement of his family or others he cares about are most likely to cause a flare of temper, but when he was younger, taunts about his bastardy also acted as a reliable trigger. Years apart, he: pulled a knife on one man who mocked him while he was under emotional strain; nearly beat a man to death at the end of a hard-fought battle in which the man had just murdered Jon's younger brother; and nearly strangled a third man, who had exploited Jon's sister.


• He wants people to unite for practical reasons in canon (and to that end, he's a successful diplomat), but he is not a pacifist. He was raised to be a soldier in a martial culture. He's more likely to defend than to attack, and he'd prefer not to kill in situations where he doesn't feel that it's necessary; however, if someone is coming at him or someone he cares about with intent to kill or seriously injure, he has no problem meeting them with lethal force.


• Summary: There are few easy choices in GoT, and characters are repeatedly forced to compromise one of their values to serve another. What someone’s duty even is in a situation is sometimes a tough call. What if your loyalty to your lover is in conflict with your loyalty to your brother, or your king? What if obeying the spirit of a law requires breaking the letter of it? These situations come up again and again in Jon's storyline, and each time, the stakes are higher and the fallout is more devastating.
  
  Jon is only human, and deeply human. He’s a very good person, but not a saint, nor so bright and capable that he's any kind of tactical genius (his tactics aren't bad when he sticks to them, but his greatest skill is probably with a sword), nor so resilient that he never falters and never needs a pep talk, nor so charismatic and persuasive that he's always 100% successful at talking people into things. His strengths are always in balance with his weaknesses, and sometimes the weaknesses win; other times, his strengths are used against him; other times, his strengths simply aren't good enough on their own, and he succeeds partly because of help from his allies.

SAMPLE:

1: Jon apologizes to Yennefer: A note about context! This occurred just after a complex in-game AU that lasted something like 6-8 weeks in real time and in which characters had a lifetime of AU memories and no knowledge of their canon selves. In the AU, Jon was a spoiled, womanizing rich kid who had begun to awaken to his privilege and the rot in his society: my idea was to mirror a little of what he might have been like if he had grown up as a prince. This thread essentially involves Canon Jon’s disapproval of his other self, and remorse for his past actions in the AU.

2: A bunch of threads from a TDM earlier this year

3: A very recent thread that was also used as a sample by Dany's player

INVENTORY: Canon outfit (socks/underclothes, a high necked grey linen shirt, black wool breeches, padded arming jacket, brigandine/reinforced leather armor tunic, plate gorget with Stark sigils, leather boots and gloves, velvet cloak trimmed with wolf fur) with sword belt (includes his sword Longclaw and a small dagger for utilitarian purposes). Probably a few mundane personal items like a flint and a wooden comb, which are in a leather pouch somewhere on his person.

NOTES: Nothing exciting off the top of my head! This is a character who is pretty prepared for Adventure and can handle rough conditions, but was also raised in an aristocratic family. He might stand out as a soldier in a more refined setting, but he’s unlikely to come off as a barbarian. He's comfortable around people from all walks of life.

I would like to note that, if accepted, I don’t think it would be hard to work out ways to keep him from blowing any cover that Sansa needs to maintain. While he’s a protective big brother, he did also have that “Night’s Watch defector” arc: I doubt he’d cause trouble for a sibling who’s in a similar situation, outside of being sure they know he’s there to help whenever they need him.

IF ACCEPTED, WOULD YOU WANT A PLOT-LIGHT OR PLOT-HEAVY CUSTOM INTRO? I love plot, it’s the surest way to lock me into a game, but I am also always hesitant to tax mod resources. Do what’s best for you!

APPLICATION RECEIVED

[groundrules]

Wen Kexing | Word of Honor

[flirtatiousdancer]

PLAYER NAME: BG
CONTACT: PM
HOW DID YOU HEAR ABOUT THE GAME?: Ruxi/returning player!

CHARACTER: Wen Kexing
CANON: Word of Honor
CANON POINT: Just before confronting Zhao Jing and exposing him (aka getting his revenge.)

BACKGROUND: Wiki page however as it doesn't currently have a history section, here are bullet points of his influence in the show:

• Childhood; family was cast out of the Healer's Valley, father was wounded. They were helped by Four Seasons Manor's leader (Zhou Zishu's master) however as soon as they were left behind to heal, Kexing's parents were killed by the Ghost Valley leader and followers. Kexing was then raised by the Ghost Valley leader and changed his name from Zhen Yan.


• Kexing was forced to drink the Waters of Lethe, which makes people forget their greatest obsession, which in Kexing's case, was his need to get vengeance for his parents' exile and murder. Those responsible are the Ghost Valley Leader, and the Five Lakes Alliance Sect. Despite drinking the potion, he didn't completely forget his need for revenge, so would frequently fall into comas growing up and gets bad headaches when he thinks of his past and fights the potion's effects.


• He eventually became strong and vicious enough to defeat and kill the Ghost Valley Leader and take over the Valley. Leading the ghosts out into the martial arts world, he gave them the task of retrieving his stolen Glazed Armor piece, which was one of five pieces to the vaunted secret armory the Five Lakes Alliance protects.


• Soon after leaving the Ghost Valley with his ghost 'maid' Gu Xiang (treated more like a daughter who looks after his every need as best she can and follows his orders), Kexing met Zhou Zishu, who was disguised at the time as a beggar. Through watching Zishu move, Kexing figured out he was disguised, then that he was from the Four Seasons Manor.


• Plotting behind the scenes, Kexing hid who he really was from everyone, especially Zishu as long as he could, as ghosts and humans aren't supposed to have the same destiny, though he acknowledged the other man as his soulmate and that he would marry no one else.


• One after another, sects belonging to the Five Lakes Alliance fall and he watches, poking here and there and getting to know Zishu and Chengling, a boy from the first sect involved in his vengeance on the martial arts world but managed to ingratiate himself with Zishu and Kexing. He takes extra pleasure in flirting with Zishu and making sure the other is well dressed, fed, has plenty of good alcohol to drink - but they still argue, and as they grow closer, Zishu's words hit harder and separate them for a little while. Only for them to wind up right back together without apologies or explanations.


• At some point, Kexing finds out Zishu is dying and there is no cure, but resolves to find or make a cure himself. They run into Ye Baiyi, an old friend of Zishu's master who has one cure (Zishu had impaled seven nails into his own body as a means to escape his assassin sect and as penance, this method gives the victim about three years to live with ever diminishing senses) however the cure's effect is not what Zishu is willing to suffer (complete loss of his martial arts, making him unable to protect others) and so is turned down. Ye Baiyi leaves to find a better solution.


• Kexing eventually returns to Zishu's home where they live with Chengling for a while. Yi Baiyi sends a message saying he'd found a cure for Zishu, and that two people were on their way to administer it - Wu Xi and Beiyuan.


• Ye Baiyi found out Kexing is the leader of Ghost Valley and told him if he ever saw him again, Ye Baiyi would kill him.


• Shen Shen, one of the leaders in the Five Lakes Alliance, comes to the Manor and learns who Kexing is. Explanations are given, but Kexing was unable to handle all his beliefs being overturned and fell into a coma.


• Just before Zishu can be administered the start of the cure, the Manor is attacked and burned, Zishu captured and taken away. Chengling managed to get Kexing to safety, until Kexing woke up and went after Zishu to rescue him.


• Kexing saved Zishu's rescuers and brought Zishu away to safety, meeting back up with Chengling, Gu Xiang, Wu Xi, and Beiyuan, where the first part of the cure is immediately given.


• As he's finally discovered who he should really take his revenge out on, Kexing changes his manner of attack. Instead of waiting for Zishu, or including him in his plot for revenge, he leaves.


• He allows himself to appear to fall victim to schemes to reveal him being the Leader of the Ghost Valley, and even seems to let himself be killed by Chengling in a fit of rage and falls to his 'death'. This is the start of his deception.

ABILITIES | POWERS:

• Excellent Martial Skills - of varying styles.


• Excellent Qinggong (轻功) - doesn't leave any footprints or traces behind while traveling. Normally, one would stay silent during the travelling, so as not to lose their vital energy, but Wen Kexing doesn't act this way.


• Medical Skills - He has some form of medical skills. He methodically sucked out all the poisoned blood in Zhou Zishu's arm and treated his wounds skillfully. Knows how to use incense and music to heal.


• Storytelling - is fond of telling stories and poems that he has either read, or makes up himself.


• Exceptional Hearing


• Strong swimmer


• Excellent cook


• Exceptional musical ability - can weave spells into his playing the Xiao

PERSONALITY:
Kexing likes to say he's called 'Philosopher Wen' by those who know him, and that he's a good man despite his appearance. He's cheerfully social when not behind closed doors, happy to play or tease, and enjoys quoting famous poems or stories to add credibility or general enjoyment to his role as someone good. He loves eating and drinking and wearing beautiful clothes - and can be generous with those three things when it comes to those he likes. He likes to tease and flirt, is unashamedly gay and has been known to frequent brothels that cater to those like him. He playfully brags that he knows true beauty just by studying someone's shoulder blades, be they male or female. He tends to surround himself with beauty and cleanliness.

He's willing to spend money (his own, or Zhou Zishu when they're together) to cause chaos, especially when bored or when chaos is part of his plans for revenge. He's not afraid to use people to get what he wants or needs for this revenge, either those who work for him, or oblivious people all around him. He's even happy (especially happy) if it involves killing or murder of those he either doesn't care about, or are part of the Five Lakes Alliance (those responsible for his parents' exile and murders). However it's rare for him to get his own hands dirty, as blood disgusts him. If blood gets on his skin, he'll wash it off (or have someone else who knows him do it for him) but if it gets on his clothes, he'll cut the soiled section off or get a whole new outfit rather than bother to clean it.

He's much more likely to work in the dark to get his underlings to do the dirty work for him. Manipulations and threats and rewards are all for the taking if they do what he wants. He will take one of two visible roles, however. One, a backseat view where he only observes, claiming he just wants to watch how Heros work! Or he'll act in a way that gives him the appearance of being good and kind, even protecting people if he's been dragged into their story or he feels they are innocent. Even those he's close to tend to get used in some way.

He is jealously protective of those he considers 'his', to the point of actually being politely rude, dismissive, or out right inserts himself between them and the intruder until the intruder gives up and leaves, or he's convinced to let them stay for one reason or another. Though there are precious few he'll listen to even when presented with logic that associating with the newcomer/intruder will further his goals.

Most of Kexing's plans go just as predicted. When they miss, however, and there are unexpected casualties, he sometimes feels remorse and has been known to act in a way to seek forgiveness. Two important instances are with Chengling, a boy who's sect was destroyed due to Kexing's manipulations - he only felt bad because he grew close to the boy. And the Four Sages' deaths were unintentional, as he'd hoped to meet them and observe them for a while. As he caused their deaths, he tried to give them a grave by digging it with a broken sword with his own hands. Most frequent though is how often he helps Zhou Zishu (manipulates him into revealing information, then spends his own energy to heal him, among other instances). These mistakes slowly teach and help him to grow, however, and it's remarked that the more he's around Zhou Zishu, the more he seems like a human.

Kexing is, however, fragile, broken, and more than a little crazy at times due to his childhood and drinking a potion to be brought into the Ghost Valley that causes the drinker to forget their obsession. In his case, he was supposed to forget all the details of his parents' murder. As he's fought the potion, he gets frequent severe headaches to the point of occasionally slipping into comas. He believes he's successfully fought it so remembers all the details of their exile then murder, but eventually finds out that he was mistaken.

SAMPLE: Open game thread

INVENTORY:
-Robes he's wearing, including hair ornaments
-Fan (steel ribs and sharp paper, aka war fan)
-Xiao (type of flute, this one is made of jade)
-Small pouch of generic medicinal herbs

NOTES: Nope! All is golden with this canon point :3

IF ACCEPTED, WOULD YOU WANT A PLOT-LIGHT OR PLOT-HEAVY CUSTOM INTRO? Light please!

APPLICATION RECEIVED

[groundrules]

Wrathion | World of Warcraft

[blackscales]

PLAYER NAME: Jack
CONTACT: schematise, or PM my journal
HOW DID YOU HEAR ABOUT THE GAME?: Rei (reineke) assures me this is the perfect game for me and encouraged me to app, so I won't argue.

CHARACTER: Wrathion
CANON: Warcraft
CANON POINT: Patch 8.3 Visions of N'Zoth, before N'Zoth's defeat

BACKGROUND: Canon is a fucking abyss, and retcons itself regularly while claiming it was all some lengthy master plan by the writers, but here you go:

General warning here that there's some nasty stuff in his backstory! There's no deep detail in these links, but Wrathion's draconic mother is forcibly kept pregnant, beaten and her eggs experimented on.

Wiki for Wrathion.
Wiki for the Black Dragonflight as a whole.
A lore walkthrough for Wrathion in story-retell format instead of wiki-format.

If this glazes your eyes I completely understand, here's a short clip of him.

ABILITIES | POWERS:

Since Wrathion is an MMO NPC what he can do is often 'what the game currently requires him to be able to do'. I'll describe the abilities in broad strokes, though:

Shape-changing: Dragons in Warcraft can essentially choose to appear as any other regular race, pretty much at will. While they aren't limited to a single 'humanoid' form they usually have one that they continually use for ease and recognition, referred to as their 'visage'. Wrathion's natural form is a dragon, but he mostly interacts as a human.

Flying, breath weapon, big claws: in dragon form Wrathion can do all that sort of nonsense! He's unlikely to, as Wrathion is very familiar with the concept of Dragon Hunters and people disliking this sort of thing. While in his human form, Wrathion has been shown to be able to still use his magma/flame breath weapon. It's also worth emphasising that while he's a dragon he's not.... THAT big a dragon, in his natural form. He's not immune to things like spells and sharp objects, he's full of ego but very killable. He will therefore pretty much limit this problem himself by probably only shapeshifting when all else has absolutely failed.

Fire, General Magecraft: Wrathion appears to be a relatively powerful caster in general. He doesn't have any sort of world-breaking abilities, but in general magecraft terms he does things like breaking magical barriers by 'channelling' at them, making the floor fiery, sensing magical properties in things, exploding things with fires and 'channelling' magic to empower things. He can technically summon weird fire blobs to attack people: I'm very unclear if he is meant to be making them out of lava/magic or hammerspace summoning them.

Void Magic: Wrathion appears to be able to use Void magic (or Shadow magic, if you prefer) although the specifics are unclear. The biggest use is the reality-tearing portals he opens, but as that both requires an in-game item to start and is connected very specifically to an in-game realm I am going to assume it doesn't work here. Normal void abilities include nebulously named things like shadow bolt and health-sacrificing healing spells, but as I've never seen him use anything but the reality-tearing ability I'll consider it a school he is familiar with but won't have him regain anything (since, uh, the portal thing is world specific anyway). If anything, it's mostly an example that he can learn magic by examining other sources and experimenting with them.

Illusions: Wrathion often projects an illusion of something he is explaining or discussing, as a visual focus. He also displays use of a spell where he makes illusory duplicates of himself while casting, to buy himself time to complete a long cast.

Long range communication: Wrathion can put his 'mark' on someone and use that to see through their eyes and communicate with them at a distance. There's no canon detail on how long this is meant to last, but I'm happy to cap it since it seems to involve painting blood on someone (dragons, man) so it's definitely not permanent -- I suppose he could theoretically infuse that ability into something but that would definitely be a project. He's also able to project an image of himself when in communication with someone, though it's unclear if that is a literal projection visible to all or just in the head of the person he marked. I might guess the latter, since it's probably mental magic.

Crafting/Enchantment: Wrathion loves making magic items. He seems able to learn about magic fairly quickly and rework artefacts brought to him into other things. He loves making things, like enchanted daggers and... cloaks? I guess he loves sewing? He also sells a backpack. He's an odd duck. I'd pretty much put any enchanting/item crafting projects by you before I did anything, though everything he does in game takes a whole long questline to make one item so it won't be something he does every day anyway. This would be in the territory of 'either tiny cutesy gift for CR or he tries to do something plot relevant and it takes forever and I am okay if it blows up in his face, he's overconfident'.

Empathy/Corruption detection: Wrathion nebulously is able to 'cleanse minds' of the Old God N'Zoth's corruption. Since he specifically researched N'Zoth and corruption, I'll assume this ability is world-specific and not generally something that can be sideways mapped to any other sort of mind-control or manipulation. He does, however, manage to get an emotional read on a young dragon while doing it. It's not presented as a dragon-to-dragon specific ability: I'd class it as 'detect emotional state and signs of meddling in their mind', and I'll ask permission before using it on anyone. It's very easy to say it doesn't work on someone due to world differences.

Short range teleport: it's some sort of shadowy dodge affair, really. He might be able to do long range teleports too, since a lot of Warcraft NPCs can (and leave you behind to slowly catch up) but I honestly can't remember if I've seen him do it so I'm sticking to short range (within eyesight/not through solid objects) over the top dodge teleport.

Titan Power : Something to do with lightning I have no idea, Blizzard never explained, he claims he has Titan Powers since he ate an NPCs heart one time. Since I don't know what they are let us assume they don't work until Blizzard decides to explain!

If you need to nerf anything down further please go ahead,

PERSONALITY:

Wrathion is a dragon driven by the past. Little remains of the Black Dragonflight -- for a long time Wrathion thought he might be the last of them -- but their history is overshadowed by the actions of Deathwing. Deathwing became corrupted by the whispers of the Old Gods and turned on everyone, and Wrathion spent much of his history determined to set himself apart from this memory. To distance himself from Deathwing the Destroyer and everything that name brings to mind, to prove that he is different. That he is better.

It isn't just a matter of pride, either, it's a matter of life and death.

Since hatch his approach has been ruthless: his brothers and sisters are mad with Old God corruption, so he hires a rogue to kill them. He shows no emotion over this, only practicality and -- above all -- concern for his own safety. There's not even hesitation, no sense of familial connection. As far as he knows, this act may leave him the last Black Dragon but Wrathion shows no remorse regardless.

"My cowardly brothers and sisters will cause untold suffering if we allow them to stay in the shadows. Moreover, they are a threat to me. That's where you come in. Help us to slay them all, and I will reward you handsomely."

This early confidence and aggression is clearly.... compensating for something, which only becomes more obvious as he ages and the consequences begin to catch up. When people look at Wrathion, they see a Black Dragon first and make an unavoidable series of judgements. They compare him to members of his family, and wonder if he will turn out the same way. This gives all his actions an urgent anxiety to them, an awareness that he has to make this work -- that if he doesn't distance himself and prove himself his fate may very well be the same as his parents.

Yet Wrathion doesn't admit to this. He acts confident, funny, dramatic. He always does his best to appear completely cool and in control.

In this desperation to stay in control, Wrathion is capable of being an incredibly dangerous individual. His strong belief that the end always justifies the means is mixed with an incredible determination that leaves him a force to be reckoned with, but Wrathion is not self-sacrificing. He recruits adventurers to gather materials and go on dangerous missions while he bides his time, manipulating people and playing both sides of the war while he waits for the right moment to act. He knows, after all, that if he is to be protector of Azeroth that he needs to survive. This role, one he is reclaiming for the Black Dragonflight, is one he takes very seriously. Wrathion becomes a voracious reader, an obsessive researcher. He spends time with the lorewalkers in Pandaria learning of the Old Gods and the Titans, listening and writing an account of his findings.

This listening, however, is belated. As smart and as quick to learn as he is, Wrathion started his journey incredibly reckless. He pursued information with desperate zeal, but in a hurry and without stopping to talk to those who might understand the context better. When he focuses on an idea he can get tunnel vision, so determined to see it through that all the obvious flaws become invisible to him. Wrathion knew the Burning Legion would be a problem, but he became convinced that either the Alliance or Horde should win their war before facing this catastrophe. The advice of the Panderan that they should join together fell on deaf ears. ‘Stronger together’ meant nothing to Wrathion, he only understood ‘strong enough to win’. While lingering in Pandaria and the Timeless Isle he played at considering the philosophy of war, but his stance never truly changed. He believed might was everything, and that even if he had to turn on a friend to achieve his goal, it was for a greater good and thus worth it. Worth the short term pain to protect Azeroth.

Anduin Wrynn: What are you talking about? I don't trust you.
Wrathion: You are wise not to.

Yet Wrathion's cool confidence does crack, and it cracks as early as Pandaria -- well before the consequences catch up. When the Celestials make him face a challenge, Wrathion immediately claims he won't need help: until he's made to face an image of his father. The backtrack is instant: he begs them not to make him do this, despite his arrogance moments ago. When the mask slips, it's obvious a good degree of his confidence is falsified.

Wrathion's actions at the end of the Pandaria war have not been forgotten by those who knew of it, and certainly not by him. He knew he would make people unhappy in the process, knew that his tactics were not something that would be approved, but he never anticipated that his plan would backfire. The miscalculation sent him into hiding, fearing the wrath of the Alliance and Horde both, but although his tactics have adjusted he does not strictly believe he was ever wrong. Wrathion still sees merits in his plans, and he still believes himself a protector of Azeroth. Despite his previous missteps, Wrathion is still terribly arrogant. However, he has softened -- rather than his previous hot temper and tunnel vision Wrathion has taken to becoming more cautious. He spends more time thinking, is less driven by a desperate desire to outpace his own family history. He's still capable of reckless acts, but he learned from the damage his friendship with Anduin Wrynn took. His initial bitterness over being an experimented-on prisoner has faded a little, and his desire to win back trust and favour grew in its place. Wrathion knows he needs to make amends. He knows that he needs support, and that working with people requires a degree of trust -- in both directions, as difficult as that is.

"As the last black dragon, the former charge of my flight - to keep Azeroth safe - falls solely to me. I must honor that charge."

He comes back after his time in hiding just as determined to create a new legacy for the Black Dragonflight, and is now not alone in doing so. For Wrathion, actions speak louder than words: he has no intention of re-treading the things he did before, only of pushing forward against the new threat and proving himself.

At his best: Wrathion is a smart, driven individual who feels empathy for those who have suffered and who wants to atone and do right in the world. He is capable of working with others, of learning quickly, and adapting.
At his worst: Wrathion can come across cold and indifferent as he struggles to process emotional nuance. His 'big picture' mentality can trample on others in his way, when he is focused on an end goal, and his ego and firm belief in his own abilities can cause him to come undone when he misjudges. His ability to play in a team can be undermined by how slow he is to trust and share all the details.

SAMPLE:

I missed being active on the TDM so these are old game threads:

New and trying to bluster his way out in a power-removal game.

Starting a dubious friendship with Claude while pretending they are just normal regular teenagers.

Engaging with plot theory and being anxious about it.


INVENTORY:

- Clothing he's wearing (might be leathers? There's a long coat affair going on, certainly, and a pendant!)
- 1x Large Blade -- looks like maybe some sort of scimitar?
- 1x Gaming set -- Jihui which is a Panderan board game he plays a lot!
- 1x bundle of Panderan food and drink since he spent so long there. Food has restorative properties technically by WoW mechanics but purely bringing it as token food here.

NOTES: No particular accommodations that I can think of! I will keep an opt-out open both for people who want to avoid Wrathion due to things in his backstory and also just for people who want to avoid Blizzard Characters, which is completely fair I wish I could too.

IF ACCEPTED, WOULD YOU WANT A PLOT-LIGHT OR PLOT-HEAVY CUSTOM INTRO? Plot heavy would be fun, but if there's a timing issue I would settle for plot-light!

APPLICATION RECEIVED

[groundrules]

Zhou Zishu | Word of Honor

[eternallywandering]

PLAYER NAME: Riddle
CONTACT: tiger_eyes & madviolinist#5122 on Discord.
HOW DID YOU HEAR ABOUT THE GAME?: I'm already in it. /dramatic music

CHARACTER: Zhou Zishu
CANON: Word of Honor
CANON POINT: After he removes the nails and greatly shortens his life.

BACKGROUND: This covers his past, before the events of the series.

After leaving the Window of Heaven, and taking on the punishment of inserting nails into his body (one every three months), Zishu chooses to hide his identity by changing his name and disguising his face. He becomes Zhou Xu, a beggar of a man with a scarred and bearded face. And thus he plans on spending his days, drinking wine and avoiding trouble.

That is until Wen Kexing, Gu Xiang and Zhang Cheng Ling find him. The former rapidly becomes his guiding star in life, bringing back his fire, while the latter two become those he dearly wishes to guide and protect. Chengling even becomes his student after Kexing unmasks him and discovers his true identity as Zhou Zishu - and Xiang becomes his little sister, who is delighted to see married until the you know what hits the fan.

Yet no matter how hard he tries to mold the world into a better place - he even reclaims the Four Seasons Manor (a place he never thought he would see again) - the greed of the various sects (and their leaders) ruins everything. For the sake of the Glazed Armor (one of the keys to opening an ancient and powerful Armory in the mountains), many people die. Kexing even plays a hand in those deaths - something that disturbs and angers Zishu. Only after the other man shows his regret does he begin instructing and guiding him again.

There can be no doubt: Wen Kexing is his soulmate. But their paths in life diverged when they were separated as children. Zishu is delighted to see his friend again, but he understands that for Kexing, the truth is painful. So he treats his soulmate tenderly and with endless patience.

All the while the nails are sapping his life away. When Kexing faces the other sect leaders - for he is the leader of the Ghost sect - and fakes his death (with the help of Chengling), Zishu's heart breaks. No one informed him of the plot and so he takes the death as real. For the sake of his lost love, he expels the nails from his body (going against the sage advice of his dear friend Wu Xi) and sets off to get revenge, knowing he will die soon (and thus join Kexing).

ABILITIES | POWERS: Taken from here.

"Master Disguise - He has an unspecified amount of human masks on himself that he use to disguise himself. He has learned the technique from his former master, Qin Huaizhang. It is said to be impossible to recognize him the moment he joins a crowd. He is able to conceal himself, going from the most frightening individual in the palace to a free-spirited, miserable-looking wanderer riding a thin horse, gnawing a straw in his mouth while humming folk songs takes that place. He becomes the first to actually get away from the Window of Heaven network just like that.
Unique Qinggong (轻功) - He knows the one-and-only “No Boundaries, No Traces” (无际无痕) branch of the Four Seasons Sect. It was taught by Qin Huaizhang as well.

Flute Craftsmanship & Playing - He demonstrated them when fighting back against the musical (zither) skills of “Enchanted Song” Qin Song. He made a flute during the journey out of boredom with very poor craftsmanship. The notes are not right and the tuning is all over the place, thus he never got around to using it. A big crack appeared in it after a single use. His flute playing is described to be "an ear-piercing noise". However, normally flutes would never make sounds that sharp, so sharp to the point it felt like they could tear something apart.

Medicinal Skills - He himself states that he wouldn’t call himself an expert in medicine-related matters. He might not possess an intensive knowledge about the field. However, he had seen enough to know that there had yet to exist a poison that could cause hallucinations for a certain long period of time.

Enhanced Hearing - His hearing is retained due to the secret of the Nails Punishment. He could hear Gu Xiang, and didn’t miss a single word. Even though the former was a noisy road away, and her voice was at a medium volume.

Bad Swimmer - He is not good at swimming. The best he can do is hold his breath for a long time underwater."

PERSONALITY: First and foremost, Zhou Zishu is a disciplined man. He requires the best of himself, giving every task he undertakes his all. Those who serve him or learn from him are expected to do the same and if they fall short of that mark, his punishments are to be feared. Yet he isn't cruel; he never pushes those around him harder than himself and if a companion stumbles or falls ill, he is the first to carry them home and to nurse them until they are well again. Thus it is easy to see why his students, past and present, think highly of him and are willing to die for him.

Yet Zishu's life has been plagued with sadness and loss. The reason he drove the nails into his body, a punishment for leaving the sect he created, was twofold. On one hand, he was merely punishing himself in the same way he would punish one of his followers. On the other, the nails ensure that eventually he will be reunited with those he has lost and that his pain will have an end.

Of course when he is ready to bid the world goodbye, his senses fading, he encounters his soulmate again. And then he loses him too - or so he presumes after seeing Wen Kexing fall from a cliff after being stabbed. Zishu stops worrying about the nails shortening his lifespan - he stops worrying about spending less time with his fated mate - and he rips them out, freeing himself to use his full power one more time. He is dying and he knows it, but if he can kill the one responsible for the death of his soulmate, he doesn't mind.

Thus Zhou Zishu can also be called loyal and loving. He is a steady presence for those he cares about, often soft-spoken and willing to speak the truth no matter how uncomfortable the words might be. He is a good man who has undoubtedly committed heinous crimes - all for the sake of a cousin - a prince - he thought he owed his loyalty. Now he knows differently. He will be loyal to his heart until it stops beating. If he can't right the wrongs of the world, he can at least stop one man who has caused agony in every life he has touched. Then he can be reunited with his Lao Wen and all of the followers and students and teachers and family he has ached to see again for years.

SAMPLE: Soulmate Bonding~

INVENTORY: His sword, Baiyi, and the hair stick/ornament Kexing gave him.

NOTES: Because of his canon-point, he will definitely need healing. Or at least some way to stabilize him. I'm fine with his senses remaining dull, but I'd rather he not die so quickly.

IF ACCEPTED, WOULD YOU WANT A PLOT-LIGHT OR PLOT-HEAVY CUSTOM INTRO? Plot-light. He'll need to recuperate for a bit.

[groundrules]

Hi - thanks for your application!

Do you by chance happen to have a few non-shipping-oriented thread samples for him, please? I'd be especially interested in anything that showcases the tougher or more survivalist aspects of his personality, cultivated during the Window of Heaven period. Alternatively, if it's easier, I'd be happy to take a written-out sample in either the canon or game setting. Whatever works better on your side — if you can get back to me within the next three days, that would be wonderful. If you think you might need more time, let me know.

Rufus Shinra | Final Fantasy VII

[ambitiousblond]

PLAYER NAME: Hebe
CONTACT: mithryl#7232 on Discord, illuminations
HOW DID YOU HEAR ABOUT THE GAME?: BG is to blame

CHARACTER: Rufus Shinra
CANON: Final Fantasy VII Complliation (Does not include FFVII Remake)
CANON POINT: post-Advent Childre/The Kids are Alright after he speaks with Kyrie

BACKGROUND: Wiki

ABILITIES | POWERS: Ability to use materia (Note: he won't have any in game), technological proficiency with computers/cell phones, etc to be able to access classified information, very experienced/proficient with a shotgun, good at talking himself out of dangerous situations, and somehow manages to survive jumping off/down buildings three times. Also used to have the best puppy who shielded him in fights though Dark Nation isn't with him at his current canon point.

PERSONALITY: Rufus is the heir of the Shinra Corporation and that has shaped the person he is. He's ambitious, willing to do anything he has to in order to get what he wants. As a teenager, he managed to fund enemy terrorists just so he could usurp his father's position as the head of Shinra. That ambition has stayed with him as an adult- he's willing to sacrifice anything and everyone for his own purposes. After a certain period of time though, after Meteorfall when he had to face the end of the world and his own life and mortality did his worldview shift.

He is fearless in going after his goals even in the face of defeat or overwhelming odds. When Diamond Weapon fires at the Shinra tower, Rufus stares down the blast, only raising his arms to shield himself when the window is shattered. When kidnapped, he takes every opportunity to fight back against his captors even when gravely injured. In Advent Children, he throws himself off of a building to fire on Kadaj on the way down. One of his Turks remarks that he's like a cat, he has nine lives and always manages to survive against all odds.

Rufus is careful about the facade he presents to the world. Image is everything to him and Aerith's comment mentioning that no one has seen him cry or bleed is a part of that carefully constructed presentation. His father was hard on Rufus as he expected him to be someone worthy of being handed an empire. Rufus would never admit defeat, he does everything on his own terms. He does have his weaknesses though he may try to hide them such as getting upset and outraged when he's arrested as Vice President or his reaction to Tseng and Elena's bloody ids later.

He wields the facade he presents the world as a weapon as well. He is proficient with a shotgun but he knows that there are other ways to fight back and survive that he can use other than a gun- he's had to learn to adapt and use more subtle means even when under duress. He faked being sicker with Geostigma than he really was so that Kadaj would underestimate him. He played dumb while being tortured to buy time for the Turks to find him. He doesn't let anyone know exactly what he's capable of, that way they won't know what to expect and he can keep surprises (and guns) up his sleeves.

Rufus uses people like pawns on his little chessboard often. He prefers to use fear to control people- he uses the public's fear of Sephiroth and paints Avalanche as a terrorist group to justify what he does to try to stop Meteorfall. He doesn't spare the feelings of those around him, even going so far as dealing out biting remarks such as when he calls Hojo a second-rate scientist or telling one of the executives to stop their obnoxious laughter. His sense of humor is sarcastic and dry, manifesting in offhand remarks and well-placed jabs at the expense of others or even himself when he's feeling amused.

It's after Meteorfall and the downfall of the Shinra Company when Rufus starts to change his outlook on the world. When he used the escape chute from the president's office, he realized that he was just a son who wanted to live up to his father's expectations, and that had led him to his current situation. He has to re-evaluate the value of human lives and the future of the planet. He knows Shinra is to blame for the damage that has been done through the creation of Sephiroth and manipulating the Lifestream, his priorities have to shift as he decides that history will not repeat itself, he will put a stop to his father's legacy.

Rufus showed no regret about plotting his father's death- the only ones he's shown any kind of loyalty or trust towards are the Turks and later, his half-brother Evan. He saved the Turks from being disbanded/executed and then spent years under house arrest at Turk HQ. During Meteorfall, Rufus gives them a chance to stay with him or not before giving orders. While he is sometimes willing to defer to their input, Rufus still has the final say. The Turks have their specialties, and Rufus has faith in their capabilities. Rufus doesn't consider them mere subordinates- Kadaj is able to get him to get to him and cause Rufus to react openly when he throws Tseng's and Elena's bloody id cards down.

A lot about Rufus changed post-Meteorfall when he was thrown into a completely new life in a world that had changed literally overnight. He shows concern for those who have been infected with Geostigma, a disease caused by coming into contact with the tainted energy of the planet. He goes so far as having a former Shinra scientist shot after the scientist, instead of working on a cure as promised, instead tries to get Rufus to back another Sephiroth project. He's not tempted by the prospect of creating another super-soldier- in the Kids are Alright he's adamant that the crimes of Shinra end with him trying to fix them. He mentions wanting to atone for his crimes and it's heavily implied he's the donor funding World Regenesis Organization which works rebuilding Midgar and healing the damage done by Shinra.

However, his personality is essentially the same in many ways despite all the changes. He attempts to manipulate Cloud into helping him by mentioning the two children Cloud and Tifa care for. He outright lies to Kadaj about having Jenova's head while having it on his lap hidden under the blanket that covers him. He later tosses the head over a building ledge when it suits his purpose- he waits for the perfect time to distract Kadaj and give Cloud and his friends the chance to defeat Bahamut SIN.

He still wants Shinra to rise above the ashes and shape the world. The city of Edge is entirely his idea even if he can't/doesn't take credit for it and he paid for a monument in tribute to Meteorfall right in the middle of the city to stake a claim there. And that's who Rufus is- he's determined to do things on his own terms and make the world his even in some small way.

His relationship with his younger half-brother Evan is the other significant relationship in his life at the end of canon. He only hears of Evan's existence after Reno and Rude flag him post Meteor-fall and at first, he pretty much picks on his little brother by pretending that Evan was only brought to him to audition as his body double. But after just one meeting, Rufus has decided that he and Evan are definitely related and he's willing to help Evan and his girlfriend, Kyrie, in his own way. Kyrie remarks later that Rufus has a heart of gold despite how he acts and the methods he uses- he may seem to be the same President Shinra before Meteorfall but that underneath the facade, he's changed.

SAMPLE: One & Two

INVENTORY:

-his brother's small camping knife

-Clothes on his back (sans bandages)

-Custom made shotgun with a box of 50 shotgun shells.

-Black cell phone with 50% charge

NOTES: Rufus was recently dying of a fatal disease that caused him a great deal of pain, damaging a lot of his body. He's just been healed and the disease is entirely gone- he just needs to regain his old strength but is in otherwise good health.

IF ACCEPTED, WOULD YOU WANT A PLOT-LIGHT OR PLOT-HEAVY CUSTOM INTRO? plot-light to get the hang of things

APPLICATION RECEIVED

[groundrules]

Ken Kaneki || Tokyo Ghoul

[enucleation]

PLAYER NAME: Juu
CONTACT: vilani @ plurk
HOW DID YOU HEAR ABOUT THE GAME?: Once upon a time i used to play here

CHARACTER: Ken Kaneki
CANON: Tokyo Ghoul
CANON POINT: 121

BACKGROUND: History (contains cannibalism, violence, death, torture and other horrible things)

ABILITIES | POWERS:
- Ghouls are human-looking creatures that predate on humans as it's the only thing they can subside on; they can also eat each other. Half-ghouls are extremely rare, but it's possible for humans and ghouls to have offspring together and ghoul organs can be transplanted onto humans, which is what happened to Kaneki. Because of this, Kaneki is unable to eat anything but human flesh (also coffee, it's unknown why coffee is the exception), and he won't be able to digest anything but that.A ghoul doesn't have to consume meat as often as humans, but Kaneki is a binge eater and honestly he's is always hungry because his powers are demanding.

- Ghouls have specific organs, which is what was transferred into Kaneki to turn him into a half-ghoul. This organ is called Kakuhou, which will store a special kind of cells that ghouls obtain from eating humans. These cells (called RC cells) can be used by the ghoul's body for different things such as giving them above normal strength, reflexes, agility, speed; they also provide the ghoul with a body tougher than most regular solid materials which means bullets can't kill a ghoul and a normal human can't damage a ghoul so easily. These cells also accumulate on the ghoul's eye whenever the ghoul is hungry or excited, and it will turn the eye red and the sclera black. Since Kaneki is a half-ghoul, he only has one reactive eye.

- Another ability of these RC cells is regeneration. Thanks to them and as long a ghoul has adequate food supply, a ghoul can heal wounds in seconds; grave wounds may take days, but they'll still heal faster than any human could ever heal their wounds.

- The final and most important ability RC cells provide is fusing together and forming another extra organ which will be coming out of the Kakuhou and will use the stored cells it has. This organ is called kagune and it's used by ghouls to hunt, fight and defend. The type of Kagune formed differs depending on the type of ghoul; Kaneki is a Rinkaku type and it looks like four red scaled tentacles with a scary striking power and has powerful regenerative abilities. because Kaneki sought power so desperately, he learned to reshape his kagune and now it can take different forms such as claws, hands, blades, etc. Forming all these shapes cause a higher RC cell consumption (so Kaneki has to eat more).

- Kakuja is another power. Kakujas are those ghouls who have a mutated kagune thanks to the continued cannibalizing of other ghouls and after eating so many other ghouls, naturally Kaneki's kagune became mutated. It's not "permanently on" and it often happens when Kaneki needs an extra boost of power (it's a bit like a Dragon ball's sayan form). Kakuja works as some sort of armor that engulfs the ghoul’s body, amplifies their strength and resilience, their powers and their abilities. In exchange for this, the user will lose their mind, which makes it hard for them to actually control the kakuja as they please. Kaneki’s Kakuja is not complete (Half-Kakuja or Incomplete Kakuja) and it’s formed by twin arms/tails that are shaped like centipede bodies; these protrude from his lower back, and go up towards the shoulder blades. A mask is also formed, and it has a hole for his left eye and a beak that runs along the middle of his face. Visual, cw for body horror

- Ghouls do have limitations. Their weak points are membranes, such as eyes, lips and so on, and these can be easily pierced. Also, ghouls are always dependent on how much they eat and thus how many RC cells they have; if a ghoul doesn't feed enough or uses his powers too much, they won;t be able to keep going and their abilities will be crippled. While they can face most weapons, anything with enough impact could damage a ghoul, such as metal beams falling on them. Elements such as fire, water, ice, drought - those can all affect a ghoul as well, so it IS possible for example to burn a ghoul alive as long they are not given the opportunity to heal. Magic most likely will also have impact.

PERSONALITY:
At the beginning, Kaneki was a very kind, polite young man, extremely introvert and without many friends (he only has one, in fact). Very intelligent, and due to leading a very lonely life, Kaneki relied on books in order to learn and to be closer to his father who had passed away when he was still young. However, all of this hid how lonely Kaneki truly was, and worse: it hid how much he had been abused by his own mother, who was unable to get over her husband’s death and physically abused her own son in order to release her frustration. This same woman while taking care of her kid was also overworking herself to death in order to help her own terrible sister, and eventually she passed away from exhaustion.

Because of this, Kaneki grew up thinking that he had to hurt if he wanted to be loved. He believed by trying to speak up about his issues, his mind and his opinions, he was being selfish and that meant others would not love him. Kaneki was taught to sacrifice his own happiness and this is why he was quiet and would prefer to be hurt rather than hurting someone else. And he believed he had to help everyone all the time because that’s what his mother always did and that made her look like the kindest person, in his eyes. Kaneki always held on to the things his mother taught him through abuse, but he never really saw that as something bad.

Then he became a ghoul. Thanks to a crazy scientist, Kaneki became someone who had to consume others in order to survive and that caused him a lot of distress because it goes right against what he believed. However, through this, he was able to recognize the world is not black and white, ghouls are not just monster, and also was able to recognize his own weaknesses: he was unable to protect the ones he loves by just sitting around and hope everything got magically fixed. The first part of the manga focuses on that. And then he was kidnapped by a terrorist ghoul group called Aogiri Tree and he was tortured to extremes.

This leads to something changing within Kaneki. he realized the world is wrong, messed up. He admitted to himself his mother was weak for being unable to choose between her son and her sister, admitted he was weak too and that if he did want to protect his people, he had to go to extremes and eradicate anyone who’d threaten them; to be strong meant to eat others. Only this way he’d be able to protect his loved ones and be loved in turn, and so he would not be lonely because Kaneki can't stand loss and isn't able to live with loss.

So he went on rampage. He took upon himself to pluck out (kill and eat) bad ghouls, eradicate Aogiri Tree and the doctor who turned him into this. During this, his power grew out of control and Kaneki's mental health deteriorated so much that he became suicidal and started seeking death: he hoped to die as a hero and after sleep forever, because that was the only way for him to ever be forgiven or fixed. Kaneki is the epitome of tragedy and he shows us that his good intentions were very destructive.

Kaneki's core didn't change; he is a sweet, kind person who loves his friends and who'd do anything for them, and he doesn't like to hurt people. However as he became much more driven and obsessed with gaining power in order to protect said friends that sometimes, Kaneki started to jump from his gentle demeanor into a vicious state in just a few seconds.

In Kaneki’s mind, he was finally doing something and becoming merciless towards “bad ghouls” and consuming them had to be done so he could protect everyone. But Kaneki is not a cruel and vicious person by nature. Rather than being a repressed sadist, Kaneki's trauma twisted him into something he doesn't recognize, and in response he did exactly what his traumatic experiences taught him: be violent in return. He spiraled, violence and madness turned him numb, and suddenly he was relishing on other's pain.

And he hated it. He was scared of it, and he thought of himself as a monster for it. Kaneki’s violence came back to haunt him every time and ate away at his sanity, and devoured him from within. And he finally reached a point where he realized he was doing everything wrong: leaving his friends so he could protect them, going on rampage so he could become stronger, and even hurting his own friends with that power he always sought after – all of that was wrong. But he also came to realize a lot of what he has done was so he would not be lonely.

In the end, Kaneki realized a lot of things and decided to redo them, but Kaneki’s mind is broken. He is suffering from mental illness that drives him to do horrible things, and he still doesn’t know how to fix it other than hoping for death.


SAMPLE: TDM

INVENTORY: Battlesuit and mask

NOTES: Kaneki will be chewing on the undead for food, rather than on real people. He may also raid cemeteries if the opportunity presents itself.

IF ACCEPTED, WOULD YOU WANT A PLOT-LIGHT OR PLOT-HEAVY CUSTOM INTRO? GIVE ME ANYTHING i honestly don't mind any

APPLICATION RECEIVED

[groundrules]

Anduin Wrynn | Warcraft

[chosenbylight]

PLAYER NAME: Teresa
CONTACT: lycanthropy101
HOW DID YOU HEAR ABOUT THE GAME?: Referred by Jack (Wrathion blackscales)!

CHARACTER: Anduin Wrynn
CANON: Warcraft
CANON POINT: pre-Shadowlands; circa “Shadows Rising”

BACKGROUND: Anduin's page on Wowpedia

ABILITIES | POWERS:
Anduin is a Holy Priest, which means that he is a healer. His connection to the Light is largely based in Faith, which means that a lot of his healing spells are based in prayer as well. He can channel the Light to Heal wounds, to Cure Ailments, and to Dispel Harmful Effects. He can create a temporary barrier to protect a person from attack, and is able to do a few psychic abilities including: Mind Soothe (to calm the mind), Mind Vision (to see through the eyes of another within the same area), Mind Control (controls the mind, does not work on the undead/demonic/mechanical), Psychic scream (scares people away so they leave him alone and do not attack), and Shackle Undead (pins an undead enemy in place for ~50 seconds). He has the ability to Levitate himself or another person, which hovers them above the ground/helps them run on water/slows a fall, and similarly a quick-react spell called Leap of Faith which yanks a person directly to him (and ostensibly out of danger). He can also summon a Holy Fire for an attack.

Anduin's faith in the Light plays a large part in his abilities, though he is also capable of Shadow or Void magic. These spells cause a certain amount of Shadow damage, the severity depending on the spell itself. For example, Shadow Word: Pain deals a low amount of Shadow damage slowly over time whereas Shadow Word: Death is intended to execute an enemy with low health. Being the opposite of the Light, Shadow magic is far more volatile and can backfire to cause him damage himself if used improperly. Anduin is more susceptible to using Shadow magic when overcome with negative emotions though as a rule he does not choose to use this type of magic otherwise.

Also not exactly a power but worth mentioning: when he was younger, he suffered a severe injury when a magical item known as the Divine Bell was knocked over and nearly crushed him to death. Ever since recovering from this, he experiences jolts of pain whenever there is oncoming danger or when he might be about to make a poor decision: guidance from the Divine Bell.

In terms of making certain that Anduin's powers don't become too world-breaking, they do rely on his supply of mana, which is not unending. He is a powerful healer, in terms of his canon, but even he has his limits.

PERSONALITY:
Anduin is a quiet, thoughtful, pacifistic person. If given the choice he would much rather talk and reason his way through a conflict than allow it to continue. Before he became the High King of the Alliance, he was a priest of the Holy Light, and in truth if he could he would not protest giving up the throne to a person more deserving of the role. He harbors a lot of doubt in himself, in his ability to hold such a position and be responsible for the decisions of the Crown.

That is not to say that he is defenseless. Anduin will not stand back and watch other people fight for him, and has joined his army on the frontlines of the battlefield on several occasions. He also will not hesitate to stand up for his convictions. He has done so many times in the past against his father, Varian Wrynn, who had a brutal temper and was prone to violent outbursts, even standing his ground when Varian went so far as to injure him during an argument. He is insatiably curious and intelligent, and has studied under the Prophet Velen as well as the August Celestial Chi-Ji the Red Crane. He does not always do as he is told, refusing to be rescued from Pandaria when he believed that there was an opportunity there for him to be able to help, and then even going so far as to stand against Garrosh Hellscream to stop him from using the sha as a weapon -- nearly losing his life in the process. He has very strong morals, for despite everything Garrosh did to him and to Azeroth as a whole he still advocates for his fate to be decided by a trial, and when he finds out that Garrosh’s food is poisoned in his cells, he (after much ethical deliberation) lets him know.

Anduin is a person who feels very deeply for his friends, for his family, for his country, and his people. He takes every loss perhaps more personally than he should and carries the weight of the responsibility he has been given as king heavily on his shoulders. He is young, and though he has experienced quite a lot in his life, he still has a lot left to learn -- he could stand to be reminded of this at times. Anduin and Varian had only recently begun to patch their relationship, and thus Varian’s death and Anduin’s consequential step to the throne hits him hard. He has on several occasions snuck out into the city in disguise to destress and just be himself, at this point, against his better judgment.

When he is not being tested beyond breaking point, Anduin is an intelligent, curious, playful conversationalist, who is interested in learning more about the people and places and customs he visits. He does not have many friends but he will pull pranks on them and joke around with them, for example racing horses with his advisor Mathias Shaw and then ribbing him about being an old man when he beats him in the race.

Anduin is also a diplomat and strategist, and is willing to step up and defend his point of view against his councillors when he believes them to be wrong. He might have inherited the Fourth War from his father, but it is Anduin’s idea to broker an armistice between the Horde and the Alliance to end it, and it would not have been possible to achieve without Anduin on the throne. He understands how to communicate between different, sometimes perhaps difficult personalities, and convince them to agree with one another. He has had much practice doing this with his council, who are all wise and bring intelligent contributions to the table in their own ways, but are also sometimes stubborn and stuck in their ways. It is perhaps telling that Anduin’s favorite game is a Pandaren strategy board game called jihui where one must advance an attack against your opponent, though the goal is not to beat one another but to equal them.

He is stubbornly optimistic and hopeful, and is often too quick to trust. He believes in the truth of love and goodness, and he wants to believe that the best will work out in the end. When Genn Greymane pushes him to look for a suitor to find an heir, Anduin pushes back -- he does not believe in a marriage to someone he does not know or care for. That stubborn optimism can sometimes lead him into trouble, and people he has trusted have wound up using him for the sake of their own means, as Wrathion did to free Garrosh during his trial. Of course, not everyone has thrown this blind optimism back in his face and in many instances, despite how ill-advised his faith might have been, he has wound up the better for it. For example, Anduin only happened to meet the Tauren Horde leader Baine Bloodhoof on a chance encounter while visiting his “aunt”, but the friendship they forged after this meeting had many future political ramifications.

SAMPLE: Anduin on the TDM

INVENTORY:
• his (father's) sword, Shalamayne
• his court clothing
• his mother's locket
• his father's compass

NOTES: I don't think he needs any special accommodations in particular!

IF ACCEPTED, WOULD YOU WANT A PLOT-LIGHT OR PLOT-HEAVY CUSTOM INTRO? I enjoy plot, personally! I'm definitely looking to throw Anduin into the plot as much as possible, and the more reason I can have to do that from the start, the better!!

APPLICATION RECEIVED

[groundrules]

Yan Zhengming | Liu Yao

[xinmoline]

PLAYER NAME: beren
CONTACT: tinuvielberen
HOW DID YOU HEAR ABOUT THE GAME?: friends!
CHARACTER: Yan Zhengming
CANON: Liu Yao: the Revitalization of the Fuyao Sect
CANON POINT: after the 100-year time skip, before he meets the new improved literally jade-like Cheng Qian

BACKGROUND:
Liu Yao: the Revitalization of the Fuyao Sect is a heartwarming story about five rag-tag disciples (“a narcissist, a troublemaker, a meanie, an idiot, and a wimpy kid”) and their silly master (who is also somehow a weasel?), and the hijinks they all get up to, as part of their modest, declining sect. Until tragedy strikes, and the narcissist, who thought he’d spend his life as a pampered rich kid whilst lazily cultivating on the side, gets thrust into the role of sect leader, for which he is woefully underprepared. This fledgling sect leader (Yan Zhengming), his three shidi, and his shimei are sheltered for a while by their shishu (Island Lord Gu Yanxue) in an isolated island sect (Azure Dragon Island) where they can cultivate, and have a few years to make up for the time they’d frittered away on Fuyao mountain. But that protection falters as well. It seems the Fuyao sect was once very powerful, and contains (questionable) treasures the rest of the cultivation world would (literally) kill for. Besides that, at least two of the previous generations of Fuyao Sect have spawned powerful demonic cultivators. Lord Gu is attacked, as other cultivators believe he, as a former member of Fuyao sect, might have these treasures on his island. Realizing that the next target would be the Fuyao disciples themselves, he arranges for them to escape.

With enormous difficulty, chased by multiple cultivators bent on murder, they manage to get away. They might have made it, except a powerful cultivator uses a demonic technique to control the fourth disciple (Han Yuan) and manipulates him into killing the third disciple. This is Cheng Qian, who dies in Yan Zhenming’s arms, as Han Yuan, still controlled, disappears into the ocean.

For close to a hundred years, Yan Zhengming and the remaining two members of Fuyao sect have to struggle to survive. They can’t go back home; Fuyao Mountain is sealed, and Yan Zhengming still lacks the ability to unseal it. Besides, the area is watched by powerful cultivators just waiting to pick them off. Yan Zhengming was a rich young master, but when he tries to return to his family home, that too has been destroyed, by the same forces that are after Fuyao mountain’s treasures. So all they can do is run.

At his canon pull point, Yan Zhengming has relentlessly cultivated to the point that he is a powerful sword cultivator, which is the rarest way to enter the Dao. It’s dangerous, difficult, and requires indomitable will. He has also managed to shore up his sect financially, and give them a home while he continues to try to break the seal on Fuyao Mountain. It’s important, because Cheng Qian’s final wish, as he lay dying, was to “go home.”

ABILITIES | POWERS:
1. He is a sword cultivator, which means he can form swords out of his own primordial spirit (which is a thing that apparently takes most people decades of intense practice to cultivate).
2. He’ll eventually be able to form himself into a sword too, or something.
3. He can do the standard wuxia stuff like fly on a sword. He can even ride on the sword formed by his primordial spirit.
4. He can carve charms which have a variety of convenient uses like warming things up or cooling them down, lighting a path, locking a gate, reinforcing a wall, etc. He can carve the charms into various objects, fabric, etc.
- One charm of note is called a “puppet charm,” which protects and identifies the location of someone who is under attack. It's good for absorbing one (1) life-ending injury, and then it breaks.
- He can also make imitation charms, and made a ring that forms a 3-D likeness of Cheng Qian. Apparently he constructed it to keep him company, but made a mistake somewhere, and now it only slaps people.
- Finally he can use charms to clean and change his clothes, swords, etc.
5. He can destroy magical arrays, if his cultivation is higher than the caster
6. He has a powerful "sword aura" which can repel people and objects, and cause pain and injury to people of lower cultivation than him, and be intimidating af

PERSONALITY:

The official novel summary identifies him as a narcissist. He’s obsessed with beauty, in others as well as himself. When his shimei tells him she’s met a man handsomer than him, he gets angry—not because he’s jealous, but because he’s annoyed that she could possibly think there’s anyone as good-looking as him. As a teenager, he’s pleasant to Cheng Qian mainly because he thinks the other boy is sufficiently attractive. Things like talent or dedication don’t matter to him, only looks. His second brother, Li Yun, is passable as far as looks go, but he has disgusting hobbies (frogs). His fourth brother, Han Yuan is a former beggar and ugly; Yan Zhengming won’t bother with him at all.

He's fussy to the point that his fellow disciples call him "niangniang." As a teenager, he couldn't bear to sit on cold stone and made his servants place cushions for him first. As a 120+ year old sect leader, he uses his prodigious magical talents to keep himself looking spotless at all times. When Cheng Qian touches something gross and then touches him, Yan Zhengming reacts like this:

The sect leader had been giving a completely solemn lecture, but when it occurred to him which hand Cheng Qian was using to touch him, his voice abruptly turned into a tragic scream.

He has a difficult relationship with money; after having spent his youth as a pampered young master, and then having to live in fear and poverty for decades, only in recent years has he become rich once again. This has led to some bad habits. Like a peacock, he arrogantly preens and flaunts his wealth, even more egregiously than he did as a youth, only ordering the "most expensive" dishes and staying in the "finest" rooms. However, he becomes very annoyed when he sees other people showing off as well.

Despite the above, he is very much able to rise to the occasion. Yan Zhengming, as a teenager, cultivated in a strictly desultory fashion. His main obsession was having his hair combed all the time, having orchid-scented clothes, and being looked after by maids. When he was presented with the Sect Leader Seal, his initial thought was, “I don’t want it.” His impulse was to bring his junior brothers and sister back to his family home and give up on cultivation, and be a pampered young master for the rest of his life. Instead, he stayed on Azure Dragon Island, despite humiliation, and worked extremely hard to bring his skills up as quickly as he could. At his pull point, he is said to have a sword aura so powerful that normally he’d have “tens of thousands of disciples” worshipping him for his skills. To achieve what he has in terms of sword cultivation, requires years of grueling physical and mental training. Most sword cultivators are not able to bear this, and qi deviate, making it one of the most difficult and dangerous paths of cultivation.

Yan Zhengming is described in the text as being "broad-minded." His fury is incandescent, a flame that burns itself out in a flash: he's quick to anger, but doesn't hold a grudge afterwards. His martial siblings prank and bicker with him constantly, but he never stays mad about it. Han Yuan was manipulated into killing Cheng Qian, and then became a demonic cultivator afterwards, doing great evil; but Yan Zhengming always wanted to find and protect him, and never expelled him from the sect, even as he grieved for Cheng Qian for a century, loathing himself for his failure to protect his martial siblings.

He had multiple opportunities to reject being the Fuyao sect leader, and given his personality, this is definitely what he wanted to do. However, despite himself, he has a powerful sense of responsibility, and refused to abandon his fellow disciples. Also, even when he was a pampered young master, as a teenager, he led his junior brothers into a cave of monsters, negotiated with a giant chicken, rescued Han Yuan (who had wandered in there), and got them all out safely—this even though the monster cave was a dirty, disgusting place, and Yan Zhengming is the ultimate neat freak. Yan Zhengming’s sense of responsibility is also the reason why he refuses to disclose his feelings for Cheng Qian, as he feels they're inappropriate.

Despite his achievements, he has a terrible sense of self-worth: he's a self-hating narcissist. He feels that he has “ignorantly muddled through his whole life." He frittered away his time with his master, on Fuyao Mountain. If he’d worked harder, perhaps he’d have been able to avert the tragedy that claimed his master. If he’d been stronger, he might have saved Cheng Qian. At his canon point, he takes little pride in what he's been able to accomplish as a sword cultivator, because he's still unable to open the Sect Master Seal, and so still cannot enter Fuyao Mountain, to lay Cheng Qian’s bones to rest.

SAMPLE: here!

INVENTORY:
- sect leader seal, that contains memories of former Fuyao sect leaders.
- his own sword, with a nick in the blade
- Shuangren, Cheng Qian's sword
- A fan
- A stone seed: basically a goose egg-sized stone that can expand into a villa complete with courtyard and bedrooms, and can then be packed up again
- gold, silver, and jewels, including several glowing pearls that work as flashlights
- a ring in the shape of a copper coin, that creates a half-bust figure of Cheng Qian that slaps people
- a bag of hoarding that fits in his sleeve and carries all the above (it's bigger on the inside).

NOTES: n/a
IF ACCEPTED, WOULD YOU WANT A PLOT-LIGHT OR PLOT-HEAVY CUSTOM INTRO? Plot-heavy!

APPLICATION RECEIVED

[groundrules]

Yun Yifeng | A Sword of Frost

[badlypoisoned]

PLAYER NAME: Orange Crates
CONTACT: orangeCrates @ Plurk
HOW DID YOU HEAR ABOUT THE GAME?: Just jut down a mod/player referral or link to your test drive meme activity, please!

CHARACTER: Yun Yifeng
CANON: A Sword of Frost
CANON POINT: After the fight on the Northern borders ends in victory for Great Liang's forces.

BACKGROUND: Born in the cold northern regions of Great Liang, he was found by a mad doctor and his assistant and whisked away with other orphans to be used as test subjects for poisons. Yun Yifeng, having a natural resistance to poisons was able to survive these tests and henceforth became the primary poison-tester. His resistance didn't mean he couldn't be poisoned just that he's unlikely to be killed by them though after a while he developed immunity to most of the ones he'd been fed...until he was given one that is going to kill him. Instead of letting himself be subjected to further tests he bargained for his freedom by refusing to eat or drink water.

In the end, unable to force Yun Yifeng to not starve himself Gui Ci let him go. Though Yun Yifeng hated the man, he had to rely on people who owed the doctor for his services, which he did not enjoy.

Years later, he had created his own sect, Fengyu Gate which specialized as information brokers. If you can pay the price, Fengyu Gate would guarantee to bring you the information you want, no matter what it is.

It is because of this that he meets Xiao Wang, Ji Yanran who needed his help to find a treasure that had been stolen from the imperial palace. Though as a person who runs in jianghu circles he initially declines to take the job Ji Yanran says he can pay with the blood lingzhi which Gui Ci had identified as the only cure to the poison Yun Yifeng was suffering from. So Yun Yifeng agrees not realizing it was a lie.

They go searching, are trapped in a snowy mountain, and murders happen that Jia Yanran and Yun Yifeng work together to solve. Also, a lot of flirting happens as they get closer and Ji Yanran begins to sweat about his lie. At the end of this, Ji Yanran does confess to his lie and though Yun Yifeng is mad about it he also acknowledges that it was his fault for believing in the lie. Though he also confessed that he was planning to accept the job anyway since Ji Yanran had cleared out the bandit problem at the borders which he thought had led to him being orphaned and causing his life to cross with Gui Ci's. He felt he owed Xiao Wang for that and he supposed now they're even.

The fact that Ji Yanran promised him a lot of riches in compensation also helped.

They went on different paths for a little bit and Yun Yifeng saw Ji Yanran's home and met his mother. Then discovered a plot that would implicate Ji Yanran in treason so he rushed to help...only to find that Ji Yanran had resolved it already.

They travel and try to figure out who is out to drive a wedge between Ji Yanran and his brother the emperor. In the process there are more murders, an evil cult, more murders, discovering that there was a map tattooed on Yun Yifeng's back which led to Ji Yanran nearly being locked in an underground cave/maze type thing, even more murders...there are a lot of murders in this series.

Then they receive a message from one of the tribe leaders that have been skirmishing with Great Liang for a long time: he knows where to find the blood lingzhi.

So they both go off even though Yun Yifeng isn't buying it. Because Ji Yanran is getting desperate, knowing that Yun Yifeng's situation is getting worse quickly. They arrive and there's some weird creepy technique that can turn people into puppets and change their face, and it culminates in another attempt at forcing Ji Yanran to fight with the emperor but they feel they've gotten closer to the truth...though for now they'd hit another dead end. Also the tribe leader wanted Ji Yanran to give up ten cities on the border to him in exchange for the blood lingzhi.

Yun Yifeng is definitely not accepting that and told Ji Yanran upfront if he accepts that deal, then Yun Yifgen will end his own life. Ji Yanran pretends to accept the offer only to use that change to take down that leader and have him sent back to the emperor as a prisoner. Yun Yifeng, who wanted to enjoy what time he has left and not let himself be used to hurt the man he loves any longer says that since the situation is settled they should stop looking for the blood lingzhi and travel together and enjoy the sights.

Ji Yanran reluctantly agrees.

And that's about where his canon point takes us to.


ABILITIES | POWERS:
- qinggong which allows him to jump really high, land softly, move quickly and walk on water.
- using qi to do long-ish distance attacks or to make healing go faster by regulating the energy in his body.
- immunity to most poisons due mostly to his upbringing. He also recovers from most poisons better than the average person due to the fact that he's implied to be descended from a tribe with celestial blood.
- basic medicine and poison making, though he may not find a lot of familiar ingredients
- Being good at starting and stopping rumours. This is a specialty of Fengyu Sect.
- The ability to fail badly enough at cooking to make people sick for days.

PERSONALITY:

Having lived a good chunk of his life basically being used as a test subject for poisons and their cures has left him not minding most things in life. He can even take having been lied to about a cure to his condition in stride. After all, for a person who has little time left, there's really no reason to sweat the small details. He'd rather take things in stride and enjoy the time he has rather than stressing out about things that he has no power to change.

Yun Yifeng is also protective. While he won't sacrifice others for no reason, he's willing to go very far to protect the people he cares about up to and including doing harm to himself. For example, when it was discovered that Ji Yanran was walking into a trap, he had thrown coal over the map that had been tattoored on his shoulder because he wanted to go save his love but also knew that if the treasure the emperor was seeking was lost while he was gone with the only map on his shoulders things would get ugly (and that was likely to happen given how badly someone wants to drive a wedge between Ji Yanran and the emperor). Even going as far as ruining his own repuyation to save him. He didn't feel any regret for any of that. The few times he's genuinely angry in canon is because someone had hurt the people he cares about.

He's also lonely. Having grown up without a family, he created his sect simply to have a family...and though he doesn't like acknowledging it, he had grown up lonely and because of that he's a bit weak to people who genuinely care about him.

He's the sort person to tease and speak nonsense...both towards people he cares about and strangers. It's never malicious in nature but he can't seem to help himself. Incidentally, the more he likes someone or the more they remind him of people he likes the more likely he is to tease them.

Even though he acts very blasé about everything and jokes a lot, when he cares about people he cares about them deeply. He seems to become fond of people easily. Despite everything he's gone through, he doesn't try to keep people at arm's length and, besides Ji Yanran, has lots of meaningful friendships with others as well.

At his current point he's not as desperate to find a cure. He had always had a strange relationship with death. Prior to meeting Ji Yanran he was desperate to find a cure but also didn't want to constantly soak in a painful medicinal bath to prolong his life by only a couple of days (his head disciple had had to chase after him). He wanted to live but he also wanted to be free. For a little while in mid canon though, he seemed less desperate for find the magical cure but also was more consistent with his medicinal baths. He wanted to spend more time with Ji Yanran and, as someone who has yearned for freedom so long in his life, it seems he didn't want to have that time to be controlled by his sickness. At the end of the whole situation in the north, seeing how Ji Yanran was put in a bad position because of his illness, he just wants to spend the time he has left in a more positive way.

SAMPLE:
https://westwhere.dreamwidth.org/21783.html?thread=1770775#cmt1770775
https://avalononline.dreamwidth.org/53238.html#comments

INVENTORY:
- Some medicinal salve good for external injuries. He claims slapping it on makes it more effective but in all likely hood he was just being an ass
- a sword
- a type of guqin called a Leiming Qin (basically, Thunder Clap Qin). Apparently it is louder than the typical guqin

NOTES: He's dying for poison. There seem to be more than a few doctor types in game so someone can probably help? He also knows the ingredients for medicine that will help. If not, well. There are people who can bring people back to life, surely.

IF ACCEPTED, WOULD YOU WANT A PLOT-LIGHT OR PLOT-HEAVY CUSTOM INTRO? Plot-heavy if that's possible! Otherwise either is fine!

APPLICATION RECEIVED

[groundrules]

Akira "Joker" Kurusu | Persona 5 Royal

[joker_wild]

PLAYER NAME: Em
CONTACT: cotume27 or Discord@cotume27#5389.
HOW DID YOU HEAR ABOUT THE GAME?: I'm on the TDM, but Alishia pointed me here!

CHARACTER: Akira "Joker" Kurusu
CANON: Persona 5 Royal
CANON POINT: After Okumura's death at the press conference

BACKGROUND: His wiki can be found here

ABILITIES | POWERS: Akira is a young man of two faces: on one hand, he is a simple student going about his day to day life. In that sense, he is studious, quiet, and apparently without any special abilities to speak of. Joker, on the other hand, has a whole bag of tricks to reach for.

Persona User: Akira has the ability to summon what are known as "personas", which are beings that represent different parts of him. As a persona user, he is able to summon these entities to act in his defense against attacks. Akira is also a "wild card" in that he has the ability to summon and utilize more than one persona (though he can only have one equipped at a time).

Depending on which Persona Akira has equipped, he is afforded immunity or weakness to various elements. For example, Jack Frost is strong against ice attacks but more easily damaged by fire.

In the game, Akira can carry twelve personas at one time. In the interest of keeping him from being too OP, I was going to limit him to six, but obviously I'm up for discussion on this one. The personas he will have available are:

Arsene

Jack Frost

Matador

Anubis

Pixie

Hua Po

As far as how this will work in the game, I'm up to talk about it. As far as his TDM TL, I hadn't had him realize he could still call on the personas and was planning to have him realize that if they ran into trouble. His transformation within the metaverse usually comes with a small flash of blue flame and a change of clothing - and then he just needs to call on the persona by name to command them to use one of their skills.

Third Eye: Akira can focus on his surroundings and find things that might otherwise be hidden. For example, he can see important or stealable objects, hidden passageways, and determine the difficulty of an enemy. He can also see things such as important locations or the location of his confidants.

Agility: Akira has excellent agility as far as running, jumping, and climbing.

Endurance: Despite looking like your standard high school student, Akira can endure attacks that would incapacitate a normal person.

Pistols: Akira is an excellent shot with a pistol.

Daggers/Knives: Akira is very talented with the use of daggers and other knives.

Technical Knowledge: Akira is gifted with his hands and creating infiltration tools such as lock picks and smoke bombs. He is also good with machines and can fix broken ones with ease.

High Intelligence: Akira is very intelligent, being at the top of his class at Shujin. He knows a lot of information on a variety of subjects and has a quick mind in general when it comes to working out details of a plan. He is also quick at thinking on his feet, shown by the number of times he has had a quick response to get them out of a tight or awkward spot.

PERSONALITY:

First and foremost, Akira has a deep sense of honor. The fact that he ends up in Tokyo because he dares to stand up to a man much older than himself who he sees harassing a woman is illustration enough of that - and even after being wrongly charged with assault, he continues to stand up against injustice as he finds it, no matter how outmatched he might be otherwise. Even with the threat of being expelled and having his parole revoked isn't enough to stop him from standing up to Kamoshida, and it leads directly to his awakening as a persona user, as the spirit of Arsene challenges whether Akira's previous decisions to help those in need were the right ones.

Akira is also very confident in himself and his decisions. Once he sets his mind on something, he isn't likely to back down - and thanks to the fact that he is also an excellent strategist, he can usually convince others to follow him. His confidence can also lead to him being something of a show-off, especially as Joker, where he isn't afraid to put a fluorish on things. He also isn't afraid to throw himself into new situations, as shown by the fact that he is willing to reach out to people of many different walks of life in order to learn from them and take advantage of anything they might have to offer him.

Akira knows how to think and plan ahead - but he can also think on his feet, as shown during his escape from Sae's palace at the beginning of the game when he ends up going through the stained glass window.

Okumura's death hasn't shaken Akira's confidence. Their history of changing hearts successfully does tell him that something went wrong - but he is well-prepared to blame the mysterious Other that has been following them in the Metaverse instead of doubting their methods. He does know that they need to be even more careful in dealing with their targets and those who are on the hunt for them.

Akira appears quiet and well-mannered - and while the latter is true for those he respects, much of this behavior is also something of a ruse. He isn't afraid to stand up to authority figures when he feels they deserve to be challenged, and he isn't afraid to reach out to people that look like they need a friend. He is extremely loyal to his friends and will do anything he can for them and even more dangerous to his enemies, and he will go as far as he has to to make sure they are taken down.

Akira does have a mischievous streak and isn't afraid to tease his friends and those he is close to, frequently tossing out puns or sarcasm. He is also still a teenager and can be socially awkward, as shown by how uncomfortable he clearly is when he, Ryuji, and Mishima call the maid service or when he accompanies the other boys in attempting to flirt with the girls on the beach.

SAMPLE: Akira is on the test-drive here.

INVENTORY:

Akira:

One pair of glasses

His Shujin Academy uniform

His cell phone

His wallet

Joker:

One pistol

One dagger

His costume

His mask

NOTES: N/A

IF ACCEPTED, WOULD YOU WANT A PLOT-LIGHT OR PLOT-HEAVY CUSTOM INTRO? I'm good with plot!

APPLICATION RECEIVED

[groundrules]

Wicked Thistle | DnD OC 1/2

[soulmonger]

PLAYER NAME: Sam
CONTACT: magickal
HOW DID YOU HEAR ABOUT THE GAME?: i'm in it!

CHARACTER: Wicked Thistle
CANON: d&d OC
CANON POINT: after finding her new adventuring group in Forest's Edge

BACKGROUND:

Thistle comes from a generic fantasy setting. A world full of magic and their effects on politics far and wide. Thistle herself comes from a town (Hilvale) that's been hounded by hags for an unknown amount of time. Hags that wound themselves into the very lives of all citizens, making it almost impossible for the locals to leave their daily lives with any kind of peace. At the opposite end, in a not so distant city (Rivagard), a dragon lady, worshipped as practically a goddess, takes care of her people and keeps them happy and whole. Lady Hildreth and the hags have been at odds since the dragon's very childhood, and many of the citizens of both towns have found themselves at the center of this silent war.

One such citizen is the young child, Thistle.

One half of a twinned pair, Bessy and Effy were young girls left at an orphanage in Hilvale as babies. The two girls lived very quiet lives in the orphanage, receiving minimal schooling and being raised to work as soon as they were able to leave the home. Life wasn't easy for the twins, but they had each other. And that was more than enough for the girls.

When the twins were eight years old, a woman of the local church of Selene asked the girls to help her bring her shopping back to the church. Raised to be polite and respectful, both girls thought nothing of following the woman back to church. Yet once they entered the church, they found it oddly empty and bare. Even covered in dust, as if it had never been lived in before. Before Effy or Bessy could leave, the wall of the church opened up and monsters pulled them deep into the catacombs beneath.

After that, neither girl had strong memories of what had occurred during their captivity until a tiefling, Wisp, appeared at the doors of their cell. Along with a group of fellow adventurers, Wisp made a deal with the hags in the catacomb promising to fulfill a request of theirs so long as Bessy and Effy were let free. The hags readily agreed to the deal, and Bessy and Effy were released along with Wisp and the adventurers. However, once freed, the adventurers were arrested for unrelated investigative purposes. Bessy and Effy were taken into custody, and when it was discovered they were wards of the city, the pair were sent back to the orphanage with promises from Wisp to come find them again.

At the orphanage, the pair were separated and sent far away from each other to foster homes in other cities. Bessy never learned where Effy was sent to, but Bessy ended up in a town so small it had no name with a family that worked her like a dog.

After the event with the hags, Bessy grew to be an angrier child. She would often lash out at her foster family and resented the chores given to her. Her foster parents were cruel and cold, and often locked Bessy up without dinner. For no known reason, Bessy found herself resenting her name and her ties to her former life. Abandoned by Wisp and the adventurers to this hell and lost without her other half of a sister, Bessy adopted the name Thistle for herself. A word that had gotten stuck in her head until it felt like her own name. Her foster family didn't really care what she called herself, so Thistle she became.

During the next five years of Thistle's life, her home was filled with strange incidents. One night Thistle woke to rats cleaning the house and her foster mother screaming. Another day, the crops in the field withered and died and bloomed black blossoms no one had ever seen before. It became known around town that Thistle was a cursed child, and Thistle slowly began to delight in her new role as town terror. She'd often use it to her advantage, manipulating the townsfolk and her family into giving into her whims for fear that Thistle might curse them. At the same time, Thistle would go to bed resenting what her life had become and who she'd become, missing her sister and the better side of herself. She vowed that one day she'd find Effy, return to the name Bessy, and go back to being that sweeet child she had been raised to be.

As Thistle grew closer and closer to her thirteenth year, she found herself having darker moments of cruelty that frightened even her. She dreamed of those catacombs all over again, until the very thought of the hags consumed her. Shortly before her thirteenth birthday, Thistle packed her things in the dead of night and stole away back to Hilvale to find those hazy catacombs.

The catacombs beneath the church were shockingly easy to enter, and Thistle found her way back in the familiar dungeonesque setting. Three old, terrifying women stood in the center of the room, but ahead of them was a familiar tiefling. Wisp, who had never come back for her.

Happy to see Thistle returned, the hags revealed to Thistle that Bessy and Effy had ceased to exist those many years ago. One of the hags, the one they called 'Grandmother' had devoured both children whole. Using their essence, Grandmother had given birth to two new twins. Changeling children that were born to grow into hags themselves. Thistle wasn't a name imagined by the girl herself, but the name Grandmother had incepted into her new child. Wicked Thistle.

Realizing the truth of her life, Thistle was revolted at the cruel child she had become and how she'd played into the hands of the witches. She refused her destiny, swearing to destroy the hags themselves, and her magic leaked and strained the walls of the catacombs unexpectedly. Thistle had an unexpected magic to her beyond the hag's bloodline, a sorceress in her own right. Grandmother and her Aunties only desired the child more, but here Wisp stepped in. Having been abandoned herself by her friends, Wisp had taken over the Hag coven and now lead it in the name of her devil father, Dis. Wisp promised Thistle once she'd save her, and Wisp vowed to make good on that promise. She offered to ask her father to save Thistle from her curse if Thistle completed a quest in Wisp's name. Seeking her freedom, and also desiring to find her sister and free her as well, Thistle took Wisp up on her offer.

A crown of thorns sprouted from Thistle's temples, surrounding her head to mark the hexblood for the cursed child she was. The hags curse was prolonged until her eighteenth birthday, and a hell hound was summoned by Wisp to aid Thistle in her quest. Wisp warned Thistle to beware, though. If she failed before she reached eighteen, the hound would bring Thistle back to Wisp and she'd join the coven in service to Dis instead.

From there, Thistle was set out on the world. She was sent to the mountains north of Rivagard, searching the frozen peaks for a beast of silver. She named the hound at her side Fluffy for his obtuse behavior. The hound seemed to ignore Thistle beyond following her forward, but he did provide her warmth in the frozen tundra. They spent weeks exploring together before Thistle finally found the cave of crystal ice Wisp had told her about.

Inside, Thistle sought out the silvered beast with Fluffy at her side ready to pounce. As they ventured deeper into the caverns, Thistle found a large nest made of trees and branches and beautiful treasures. And within the nest she found three baby wyrmling dragons. For babies, they were the size of Fluffy, one even bigger than him. But they were young, unable to speak still. Silver dragons with bright eyes and sweet curiosity. These were the beasts Thistle was meant to slay, with the vow to bring back the eyes of the creatures she found as proof of her task.

Thistle could not kill the children.

Before Thistle could leave, an old man entered the cavern behind her. Thinking Thistle was a threat, the wizard attacked the girl and her hound companion. Thistle reacted instantly, rushing for Fluffy before the wizard could kill him. She teleported them behind the wizard, and the pair took off running. Together, Fluffy and Thistle found a connection deep in themselves that allowed the pair to harness the magic in each other and they teleported even further. With the speed advantage, the pair escaped together to see another day.

Angry and desperate at having been fooled by the last person she trusted, Thistle was left with a five year countdown until her life was no longer hers. With no other options, Thistle turned to traveling the known world in search of another way to save herself from her curse. Indebted to her for his life, Fluffy continued to follow Thistle. During their adventures, Thistle learned to harness her magic as a sorceress even more powerfully while her bond with Fluffy deepened and the pair learned new techniques for fighting together. Thistle learned in her travels that her magic wasn't all hag magic. There was power all her own, a pull inside her she felt leading her to her lost sister. Not quite certain, Thistle could feel her sorcery was tied somehow with her twin. She hoped that if she found Willow (as Grandmother had called her) they might be able to harness their innate abilities to break their curse together.

Now, four years later, Thistle has found her way to a small town known as Forest's Edge chasing rumors of a dark being called Thornbrace. Desperate and fearing her last year was slipping by, Thistle vowed to break the curse through any means possible. Thornbrace is a dangerous being, hunting people and often called the Deceiver himself, but beggars can't be choosers.

In her hunt for Thornbrace, Thistle stumbled upon a traveling halfling woman and her wife. The pair were kind, making her a meal that made her feel fuller than she had in months, despite Thistle's own bad attitude. They allowed the young girl to camp with them that night, and Thistle woke to the sounds of the camp being attacked. There was screaming and fighting, and Thistle and Fluffy launched themselves into the fray, only to be attacked by the trees surrounding them and darkness filling her vision. When the spells lifted, Tay, the halfling woman, was gone and her wife remained distraught. Thistle helped the young woman back to Forest's Edge to report the danger to the local sheriff. A lord was arrested on suspect, and his mage came with him to the local jail to help investigate the disappearance.

While waiting, a small group of adventurers appeared in the doorway, claiming to have information on Tay. They spoke of how they'd been able to contact her via a spell and wanted to work together with the sheriff and lord to find out what had happened.

It was then that the lord's mage attacked the adventurers. Thistle, caught in the middle, helped the adventurers fight back the trees that invaded the small town, but the mage escaped in the chaos. Realizing that the adventurers and Tay herself were wrapped up in games with the Deceiver, Thistle joined the adventurers under the guise of wanting to help in order to learn more about the magic of the town.

2/2

[soulmonger]

ABILITIES | POWERS:

| INFOSHEET - full breakdown of abilities, powers, spells, and skills

HEXBLOOD > the cursed child of a hag, Thistle is technically immortal in the sense that she won't die of old age. She can still get sick and be killed in battle. She also has darkvision for up to 60 feet, seeing darkness as greyscale colors without light. Additionally, Thistle can create a token of a lock of hair or her teeth. These tokens allow her to telepathically communicate with the wielder of the token or scry on them. These tokens also grow back overnight for Thistle. And finally, Thistle has the ability to cast the spells disguise self (creating an illusory image over herself to appear as another humanoid) and hex (the ability to curse someone in battle to harm them further) each once per day.

SORCERER > in addition to being the child of a hag, Thistle has her own innate magic that marks her as a sorcerer. As a sorcerer, Thistle can cast spells, and has the ability to manipulate her own spells with metamagic. Currently, her metamagic allows her following effects: the ability to change a spells damage from one type to another (ie. a fireball can now be an acid ball), the ability to cast a spell without verbal or somatic components, the ability to manipulate a spell into missing some people she chooses, and the ability to quicken her casting of a spell. These can only be done a certain number of times a day.

ABERRANT MIND > as a sorcerer, Thistle's powers manifest in her aberrant mind skills. This power allows her to telepathically communicate with one other person for up to seven minutes at a time over five miles. Additionally, Thistle's special abilities give her access to spells not normally accessed by other sorcerers. These psionic spells can be used instead of using her metamagic if Thistle does not have the spell slots to spend on them. Doing this bypasses the spells required components. And finally, Thistle has psychic defenses from this ability that protect her better from psychic damage and give her better chances to resist being charmed or frightened.

BEASTHEART/INFERNAL BOND > through her journeys with Fluffy, Thistle has developed a battle rapport with the hell hound. This bond runs deeper than the pair really know, tying their spirits and magics together in unknown ways. It allows Thistle to communicate strongly with Fluffy, as well as utilize his ferocity in battle to their advantage. Her infernal bond with Fluffy, utilizing their ties tot he seven hells, also gives them greater exploits such as the ability to teleport greater distances more easily.

PERSONALITY:

Thistle has a complex relationship with herself that she's constantly running away from.

On the one hand, Thistle remembers a very human childhood. She recalls when she was just a normal girl in a normal town. A child willing to help the local church without a second thought. On the other hand, she remembers cruelty at the hands of humans. She remembers anger and hatred and darkness swelling in her in her youth and the dark thought of peoples' anguish when her magic exploded in tiny curses around her foster home.

Thistle has come to realize that that part of her is both natural and fed by the hags' curse. A darkness in her that she can't escape. But a part of her yearns for a humanity that was never really hers to begin with.

In what Thistle would call her "weaker" moments, she imagines she could be Bessy again. She yearns to return to that kindness and heart of her childhood. When Wisp gave her a shot at her humanity, Thistle had let herself hope and dream however briefly that she could. In her journeys since then, she's had moments of human empathy. Sitting by fires with other humans, eating meals with them, things that make her feel like a real person again. Seeing the kindness in Tay was odd, but it made Thistle feel like less of an outsider for the first time in years.

Then she witnesses the betrayal of Wisp or the mage or others like them, and it's like the darkness in the world claws at Thistle all over again.

Overall, the young woman has tried to strike a balance of the two halves of herself. A cynical, jaded child. Sarcastic and a bit biting. Thistle doesn't take the world too seriously because the world will always let you down after all. Yet she doesn't deny little acts of kindness. She doesn't outright reject everyone that approaches her. She'll even go out of her way to do a quest and complete it properly at times. For her, it's almost like an exchange of emotions. Her kindness done is a kindness earned. But expect nothing of anyone all at the same time. If you expect nothing, then it doesn't hurt when you get nothing.

Thistle tries to take the same approach to Fluffy, as well. She remembers the promise Wisp made her years ago about the hound, but it's hard to hold onto cynicism for years at a time when the only creature who's been at your side the entire time is a devoted hound. Fluffy has never acted like a watch dog over Thistle, but rather like a genuine companion. He can't quite communicate with her, but Thistle believes he cares for her as much as she does for him. She'd never say it out loud, but she's put her trust in the hound.

All in all, Thistle is still a young woman discovering who she is, trying to define herself in the face of great adversity. Deep down, Thistle would like to see herself a hero, but can only see herself the villain. These two trains of thought war in her mind constantly, and she knows one day the world will make up her mind for her. Until then, all she can do is try. Because Thistle has nothing else but her ability to keep fighting.

SAMPLE:

"As bad or worse than Forest's Edge?"

Thistle's standing at the edge of the chaotic town that she's learned is called Taravast. Beside her stands a rather large, black mastiff with a long drooping face and broad haunches. He's not bigger than a dog should be, just as big as a dog really gets...

The mastiff seems to regard the city a little too intelligently, tilting his head slightly then looking up at Thistle and giving a soft grumble. Thistle looks at the dog, purses her lips, and raises an eyebrow. "Not as bad? Seriously? I think a coup's at least as bad as invasion by trees." The dog gives a low bark in response, causing Thistle to sigh and shrug as she turns her gaze back to the city. "You can't win every argument with 'hell's worse.' Hell is always worse. It's not even a debate."

Thistle starts moving into the city, Fluffy plopping alongside her, as the pair look over the shops at the edge of the town that are trying to pick up their own supplies. The palace may have seen much of the chaos, but there are always people who take advantage of bad times. Thistle shakes her head at little shops that couldn't defend themselves properly from looters. Part of her thinks she should stop to help...

Then Fluffy nudges Thistle's attention forward. Yes. That's where she's heard the otherworlders will be. She has to keep to her task. She scratches behind Fluffy's ear and presses forward into the brilliant city. So much beauty in one place... It's garish, really. Thistle doesn't know how large cities with far too much money for their own good don't implode more often.

As she walks, Thistle notes a child wandering through the crowds. She doesn't mean to, but she finds herself lingering on the child. Surely it's mother is close. Someone will call it back soon or reach out to take it's hand or follow after it. It wanders further and further and Thistle's silent hope that it's guardian will stop it dwindle with each step it takes. No one else seems to pay the child any mind either.

Thistle groans.

She leaves her path with Fluffy huffing behind her. She approaches the child and squats down next to what she now sees is a young boy.

"Hey," she calls to the kid. "What are you doing?"

The boy turns to her, looking at her with anxious eyes and clinging to a blanket. He doesn't speak, looking skeptical of her and her large dog. Thistle glances back at Fluffy, then thumbs back at him. "Oh him? Don't worry. He's not important." She reaches back to shove Fluffy further back, the dog obediently stepping back at her urging. "See? Don't worry about him."

The young boy relaxed a little more, taking a nervous step towards Thistle. "Where's your mom? Dad?" She tries, frowning. "Yeah you've got nothing for me, huh?" She deduces as the boy finally shakes his head.

Thistle sighs, standing up and holding a hand out. "Come on. Someone around here's bound to know." She tells the kid. He eagerly takes the offered hand and plops after her. Fluffy follows at a careful distance, Thistle not really bothering to check. "You know your hand's sweaty right?" She asks the kid. "That's gross." The boy seems to laugh a little at that, bringing a slight smile to Thistle's own lips. "Yeah, you think that's funny, huh? Of course you would. Look at you." She reaches down, Lifting the kid onto her shoulders. "Keep laughing. I'll throw you in one of the canals. Then who's laughing."

The young boy only laughed louder.

INVENTORY:
1 Crossbow, light
1 Dungeoneer's backpack
20 Bolts
2 Daggers
1 Arcane Focus
1 Rope, hempen - 50 ft
1 Hell hound named Fluffy
1 Companion collar - magical collar that allows Fluffy to make his appearance that of a normal dog

NOTES: Thistle's Summon Aberration spell is pretty strong, and I had intended to take away the component for it that she had, but then I realized since it's psionic she can technically cast it with great magic expenditure. So I'm okay with just nerfing it entirely or else saving it for like some plot element?

IF ACCEPTED, WOULD YOU WANT A PLOT-LIGHT OR PLOT-HEAVY CUSTOM INTRO? something plot-heavy related would be fun!

moiraine damodred ► wheel of time

[cairhien]

PLAYER NAME: Kerry
CONTACT: skittys
HOW DID YOU HEAR ABOUT THE GAME?: from Sam! ( Alina Starkhov & Wicked Thistle )

CHARACTER: Moiraine Damodred
CANON: The Wheel of Time [ tv adaptation: 2021 ]
CANON POINT: 104 The Dragon Reborn [ nov 26, 2021 ]

I know it's a couple of day shy of the 30 day mark but I was hoping to just use the first scene of Moiraine's where she is healed so she doesn't die on entry? Timeline-wise it happens on the same day as the previous episode (picks up right where 103 ends). If not, I'm happy to use the previous episode and figure out something else to keep her alive/get her healing.

BACKGROUND: link [ + additional novelization background ]

ABILITIES | POWERS:

CHANNELING. Some that are able to channel are said to be born with the spark, others need instruction to be able to even access their power. The One Power stems from the True Source and once someone has touched it they are forever changed, able to do incredible things though at a great price. Moiraine was one of those who was born with the spark, training helping her to become an incredibly skilled and powerful channeler. To channel you draw on weaves, calling on the various elements in specific sequences to pull the power into what you need. Moiraine's channelling allows her to heal wounds, move objects, conjure elements (cloud dancing), create barriers etc. The more that Moiraine channels the more drained she becomes, with larger feats taking more from her. Channelers are also able to combine their power to create something stronger. [1] [2] [3] [4] [5]

AES SEDAI. As an Aes Sedai, a trained channeler, Moiraine chose the Blue Ajah when she was raised to the shawl -- a division that concerns itself with justice and noble causes, having the largest eyes-and-ears network. Blues are secret collectors, intelligence gatherers and know far more about you than you would ever wish. Aes Sedai are also known to have an 'ageless' look to them, something that comes from their ability to channel as opposed to being Aes Sedai. They are able to live for hundreds of years, shown only in the white of their hair, their expression ever-youthful. Channellers are also protected from illness, a natural immunity, with other Aes Sedai able to heal injuries or other ailments (such as poisoning) if needed.

CONCENTRATION. Unrelated to Moiraine's ability to channel is how she is able to use her focus and breathing, something that all Aes Sedai are taught. With a focused mind and breathing, Moiraine is able to not feel the surrounding temperature, no matter whether it is incredibly hot or cold. Though this breathing doesn't prevent them from external effects (such as frostbite) it allows an Aes Sedai to move through a blizzard without feeling the cold. Though new Aes Sedai can easily lose their focus and feel the temperature effects again, it would take a more skilled Aes Sedai more to lose focus as she is more practised in the 'trick'.

OATH-BOUND. Whilst this isn't a power as such, all Aes Sedai swear three oaths, ones that they are incapable of breaking. These oaths are [1] to speak no word that is not true, [2] to make no weapon with which one man may kill another, [3] never to use the one power as a weapon except against darkfiends or shadowspawn, or in the last extreme defence of her life, the life of her Warder or another Aes Sedai.

WARDER BOND. Should an Aes Sedai choose to bond a Warder, the sword to their magic, a weave that is only learned after an Accepted earns the shawl, several things come from this: both the Aes Sedai and the Warder are able to draw strength from the other when in battle, are able to feel the other's emotions or pain and can sense the other's presence or general location if they are separated. If an Aes Sedai dies, something rare before their Warder, the Warder rarely survives, it thought that they are consumed by the emotion and feeling of their Aes Sedai dying, feeling the death over. Should a Warder die, the pain is easier on the Aes Sedai who do survive, though they often choose not to bond another Warder. An Aes Sedai and a Warder are said to have the closest bond and relationship that any two can have, even above marriage. An Aes Sedai is able to conceal her bond with her Warder, preventing them from feeling each other or their locations, taken by the Warder as them being unable to protect their Aes Sedai since they cannot feel them.

NOTE. The One Power and anything channelled is usually only able to be seen by those that can also channel, the white glow of energy that fills and surrounds a channeler as they touch the power. However, for rp related reasons (and confusion!) if Moiraine channels anyone that possesses some form of power (supernatural, magic etc) will be able to see that energy around her as she weaves.

PERSONALITY:

LOYAL. Moiraine is loyal to her Aes Sedai sisters, the Amyrlin Seat and her Warder, though not necessarily in that order. Though Moiraine has taken oaths regarding how she is to act in the world as an Aes Sedai, her position and relationship with each of these people is important to her, even if the person in question is not someone most favourable to her. Moiraine's Aes Sedai sisters are people that she can turn to if she needs them, both from her own Ajah and from the others, alliances forged not only through history but from her own personal friendships. Although Reds and Blues have unpleasant history, their shared loyalty as Aes Sedai ensures that they work together on a task when it is needed. Moiraine's loyalty to the Amyrlin Seat, the leader of the Aes Sedai means that she follows her orders unquestionably, answering to them when called to, accepting their judgement for her actions and those of her sisters. Her loyalty to her Warder means that Moiraine is always there should he need her, that she doesn't keep secrets from him and that he can trust her just as she trusts and depends on him. With each of these people Moiraine has an unshakeable bond, something forged through both years, respect and her own integrity. Outside of the Aes Sedai, Moiraine does show loyalty to others but that is only situational. The potential Dragons that Moiraine travels with are given a sliver of her loyalty, enough to ensure that her promise to protect them is true but not enough that she tells them the full truth of her mission.

CARING. Caring is not something that is immediately apparent in Moiraine, a woman shrouded in secrets and mystery, someone that initially comes off as someone you don't want to trust. Some of that comes from the fact that Moiraine is Aes Sedai, a group of women that people know little about, rumours suggesting they are Dark followers themselves or should not be trusted, but when you see Moiraine for who she really is you begin to learn that isn't true even without her admitting it. When the Dark One's army comes to the Two Rivers it could be easy for Moiraine to leave even though what she seeks is there but instead she waits, fighting the army with just her Warder's aide, saving whoever she can at cost to herself. Moiraine continues this further, protecting the group that she travels with to the best of her ability, trying to boost spirits where she can, to train and hone their abilities even if some of it is for slightly selfish reasons. But Moiraine makes a promise to them to keep them safe and (bound by her oaths) it is one that she keeps -- protecting them from harm, saving their lives and hiding them from others that would try to use them or kill them.

A better example of Moiraine's care is something that comes more privately. Lan is Moiraine's closest advisor and companion, someone that when they're alone she lets her guard down, something she doesn't need to do due to their bond but does anyway. Each of their troubles and worries is shared, Moiraine not allowing Lan to take the burden of something by himself, sharing in his mistakes by their shared mission but also their friendship. When another Warder, one of Lan's friends dies she comforts him, sharing not only in a ritual but providing words and support for him to help him through his grief.

STUBBORN. Moiraine is ridiculously stubborn, enough that even when her Warder warns her that something is a bad idea if it's something she's determined about she'll ignore his recommendation. One example is in trying to protect the Two Rivers, to protect the five potential Dragons within the village. Though the Trolloc army was overwhelming them, Moiraine already having expended a great deal of power and then injured from the fight she refused to give in, determined to fight them back despite what the cost could be. Luckily she (and the five) survived though the same couldn't be said for all of the buildings in the village.

This isn't the only example where Moiraine has pushed herself past sense. When they meet with other Aes Sedai and Moiraine is healed she immediately puts herself into potential danger, offering herself to help her sisters even though she is still recovering from her injury and regaining her strength. In the face of danger, Moiraine will yell back at it and see her mission through, to protect someone she will give everything that she has and to keep a promise Moiraine will get as close to lying as an Aes Sedai is able to, hiding the truth even if it puts herself and others in a difficult position. She has a huge reputation for taking risks and being stubborn, commented on by other Aes Sedai and even the Amyrlin Seat, something she's admonished for more than once. And it doesn't stop her.

Another example of Moiraine's stubbornness is her desire to control her own life. Though she was born a noble, to a house that had held the throne of Cairhien, her family were not seen particularly favourably due to her uncles' actions. As a novice and Accepted in the White Tower it gave Moiraine the ability to distance herself from her family, her origins having no impact on her life or training on her path to becoming Aes Sedai. Until her uncles died. With no ruler of Cairhien people started looking to Moiraine, something she really didn't want and couldn't see a way out of, not if they selected to put her on the throne. It led to Moiraine taking control of her own destiny by running away, breaking the orders of the new Amyrlin Seat in order to escape what they wanted, planning only to return once someone else had been elected ruler instead.

INTENSE. As well as being stubborn, Moiraine has a fierce intensity that burns within her. During her youth she was known for having a fiery temper, something that hindered her ability to channel at times as you needed a calm mind, anger not only preventing channelling but being something that was incredibly distracting. Moiraine can be quick to react, something that she had to learn to reign in through her years of training in order to be able to succeed as an Aes Sedai -- she had to learn to use words rather than her power in order to give her oaths as Aes Sedai not only protect the world from the power but from themselves. That said, Moiraine's temper does help her be quick to react when she needs to be, to see danger and respond to it, or to drive her stubbornness when she cannot let herself quit a situation.

In her words, Moiraine can be incredibly blunt, deadly with her knowledge of others and the secrets she holds and willing to use them to not only make a point but to give herself the upper hand. When other Aes Sedai attempt to threaten her to unsteady her position Moiraine will show them something worse, pulling out a secret that would be even more devastating to be revealed. Aside from her secrets, and partly through her inability to lie, Moiraine will say things as she sees them unless she is specifically trying to hide something. Part of this is because she is a mentor, has taught novices in the White Tower and still does, part of it is because it has always been her way, knowing from her upbringing how to tactfully play the Game, to use words to strengthen your position over others or to hide what you don't want to be known. It helps make Moiraine not only formidable with the One Power but in a conversation.

DEMANDING. Moiraine speaks with authority, something that she was taught as a girl being a noble lady (no one ever questions those requests) and regained after taking the shawl and becoming Aes Sedai. As a novice or Accepted, Moiraine had to curb her natural impulses to demand or make requests of the Sisters which were out of turn, now as a Sister herself, Moiraine freely makes those demands, simply expecting people to follow. People that come across her that she makes such requests of have before commented that she's not someone that's used to hearing no very often, something she does confirm and admit to. Moiraine makes her requests and gives orders expecting them to be followed even when she provides little context or information surrounding them, simply expecting the tone of her voice and her position as an Aes Sedai to carry the weight that no one will question her. And usually, it does work.

SAMPLE: a link

INVENTORY:

-- her serpent ring
-- her angreal (a dark ivory carving of a woman in flowing robes)
-- her dagger
-- her kesiera

NOTES: None!

IF ACCEPTED, WOULD YOU WANT A PLOT-LIGHT OR PLOT-HEAVY CUSTOM INTRO? Plot-heavy could be fun!

APPLICATION RECEIVED

[groundrules]

John Connor | The Sarah Connor Chronicles

[baum]

PLAYER NAME: Kerry
CONTACT: halfbloodly
HOW DID YOU HEAR ABOUT THE GAME?: Mod referral!

CHARACTER: John Connor
CANON: The Sarah Connor Chronicles
CANON POINT: End of Season 2

BACKGROUND: The Terminator franchise has a number of different movies and variants, set in alternative futures and timelines. The Sarah Connor Chronicles was envisioned as a sequel series to The Terminator and Terminator 2: Judgment Day movies, so the events of those movies represent John's past and count as canon for him. The later movies in the franchise take place in alternate timelines, and so are not relevant to this version of John. John's history in the show can be found in full here: Season 1 and Season 2.

In the future, an Artificial Intelligence called Skynet gains sentience, and causes the end of the known world by taking control of humanity's nuclear weapons systems and using them against them. The event is called Judgement Day; it permanently changes the face of the globe, destroying the environment and killing billions of people at once. Those who survive organise into the Resistance, led by John Connor, a charismatic and intelligent strategist who becomes an almost Messianic figure of hope. The machines create a time machine to send infiltration units called Terminators back in time, first to try and kill John's mother Sarah before he's born, and when that failed, to kill him in his childhood. Future John sends protectors back in time to save his own life; first, he knowingly sends his own father, Kyle Reese, back to rescue his mother and ensure that he's born. Then, he sends reprogrammed Terminators back to save his life.

In the Sarah Connor Chronicles, one such Terminator, Cameron, finds John in school and rescues him from the Terminator Cromartie. Together John, Cameron and Sarah decide to travel eight years into the future to try and stop the creation of Skynet and avoid Judgement Day. Cromartie manages to follow them. In the future, the Connors and Cameron take on new identities and work in secret. They are eventually joined by Derek Reese, John's uncle, who has come from the future with the same goal in mind. On John's 16th birthday, their efforts lead them into contact with the criminal Sarkissian, who John kills in order to save Sarah. Cameron then attacks John, after an explosion causes damage that reverts her to her original programming. John is able to remove her chip, but against Sarah's orders re-inserts it, unwilling to see Cameron destroyed.

Thereafter the group moves house and continues their efforts. John, traumatised after what had happened, acts out against his family and starts a relationship with Riley, a girl from school. Meanwhile others from the future arrive; first a dying Resistance fighter, who manages to leave a message which points the Connors to new targets, and secondly, a woman named Jesse with whom Derek is in love. Unknown to any of them, another machine taking the name Catherine Weaver has come back in time to take over the Zeira Corporation, which focuses on making a new AI system of its own. The Connors' targets take them close to Weaver, without their knowledge.

It is eventually revealed that Riley is also from the future, and is following orders from Jesse to seduce John and try to get him away from Cameron. When Riley is killed by Jesse, John reveals that he had suspected the truth for some time. Over the course of the second season, John slowly begins to accept his destiny and embrace the person that he is fated to be. At the very end of the season, the Connors finally encounter Weaver and the AI she is building to combat Skynet. When Cameron allows the AI to take her chip into the future, John makes the choice to follow, leaving his mother behind. He emerges into a version of the future where his name is not known because he had removed himself from the timeline, and the series ends there.

ABILITIES | POWERS:

Computer skills - John is notably proficient with computers. He's shown to like and have an aptitude for technology, and particularly for hacking; he's shown to be able to hack into sophisticated government and police computer systems. He's able to build complex computer viruses with ease, and able to build and repair computer systems. His aptitude is such that even when he travels forward in time, he quickly acclimatises to the new computer systems he encounters, and he is able to break into and read the data stored on the chip of a Terminator from 20 years in his future. John is both gifted and well practiced in this area, a combination that makes him the go-to tech expert throughout his life.

Combat and survival skills - John has been trained in combat since childhood. In Mexico he received paramilitary training, and as a result he's capable when it comes to self-defence. He's highly proficient in the use of firearms and is shown to be an expert marksman. He can use a wide variety of firearms, from simple handguns to shotguns and rifles. He's also experienced in making and using explosives, and knows how to check for traps, make bombs from chemical and mechanical parts, and set bombs. He's also picked up various survival skills with a criminal twist, thanks to generally living outside the law for most of his life; he can pick locks and hot wire cars, and knows how to pick pockets, practice sleight of hand, hack ATMs, and so on. Essentially he has the kind of training that might be expected from a guerilla soldier or a terrorist.

Mechanical skills - as well as being good with computer systems, John is a capable physical mechanic. He understands and can build and repair machines, from small alarm systems to cars, and even complex machines from his future. He helps Cameron (a Terminator from his future) to repair herself when she is damaged. As with his computer skills, John's aptitude extends beyond the machines and systems he is used to; he's shown to learn quickly, and can apply his skills to complex and futuristic systems that he hasn't worked with before.

Strategic mind - John has an intelligent, strategic mind, which comes to the fore throughout the series. To cultivate his skill in strategic thinking, he was taught to play chess from a young age, and retains a strong interest in it, displaying an awareness of current grandmasters and the various techniques and famous plays they have made throughout the years. He tends to think ahead; he is shown to familiarise himself with the local laws and expectations of the places he moves to, in order to exploit legal loopholes when needed. He's quietly analytical, watching the people around him and picking up on subtle cues that indicate they are not who they say they are. John won't always call them on their lies, but will play a long game to discover what their plans are, again showing his aptitude for strategy and tendency to treat the situations he's faced with like a game of chess.

Languages - John's native language is English. Thanks to spending parts of his childhood in Mexico, he speaks fluent Spanish (with an American accent). He is good enough to hold detailed conversations with native speakers.

Part 2!

[baum]

PERSONALITY: John Connor has led a life like few others. From his childhood, his mother Sarah told him stories of a Judgment Day, when an Artificial Intelligence called Skynet would become self-aware and target the human population of Earth with nuclear weapons. In the war against the machines that followed John Connor would be a Messianic figure, loved and respected as the leader of the human resistance who would one day defeat the machines. His importance was such that the machines sent Terminators back through time to try and kill John before he could become their enemy.

John has a complex relationship with machines; although he is destined to be their enemy, he gives them more of a benefit of the doubt than the rest of his family. He is more willing to trust them, and more willing to work with them, despite the majority of the machines he's encountered being the kind who want to kill him. This is due to two very significant relationships with reprogrammed Terminators during his young life. The first became a pseudo-father figure for John in Terminator 2: Judgment Day. During The Sarah Connor Chronicles, John develops a strong attachment to the Terminator Cameron, for whom he cares very deeply. John is shown to trust and rely on Cameron, regularly sticking up for her when other characters are wary of her. Even after she is damaged and reverts to her original programming, John can't bring himself to destroy her; he re-inserts the chip (which he has tried to repair) in the hope that she will not try to kill him again, despite having no proof that his efforts have worked. After this event, John and Cameron's close relationship suffers, though it is not because John loses trust in Cameron - it is because she says that he cannot be trusted after risking himself to reactivate her. John takes this personally, holding a grudge against Cameron for some time. In spite of that, when he finds that she's been hoarding coltan for repairs, he tries to cover for her to Sarah. John's attachment to Cameron is a worry for Sarah, and certain sections of the Resistance in the future. Despite Jesse and Riley's attempts to drive a wedge between them, John ends the series closer to Cameron than ever, and is willing to risk everything to save her by travelling through time to try and get her back. Despite insisting several times that he knows Cameron, as a machine, cannot truly have feelings he spends a great deal of time trying to understand her, and is more willing to accept there may be a deeper level to her than anyone else. This is complicated even further by the knowledge that the machines are sent to John by his own future self, meaning that he is helping to cultivate their impact on himself. It's clear that Cameron means a great deal to John, both in the present and in the future; whether this is ultimately a good and healthy relationship remains to be seen.

The burden of his future weighs heavily on John's young shoulders. Throughout his life, John has seen the people who get close to him die just because he is in their lives. It is hammered into him, both by Sarah and by those who come from the future to protect him, that his life is what matters; he must be saved at all costs, because he will one day save everyone else. In the meantime, what John sees is a string of people either murdered because of him, or ready to sacrifice themselves for him. Derek tells John with some regularity that everyone in the Human Resistance would die for him, and many of them do. John is shown to deeply value human life, and is very upset when he witnesses a suicide at close quarters, and sees a Terminator kill people in front of him.

John is a lonely boy. Due to how often he and his mother have moved around, he has always found it hard to make and retain friendships with his peers. Even where he is able to make temporary friendships, he is not able to tell anyone who he really is. There is a part of John that would love to have a normal life; that would love to just go to school, hang out with friends, and think about what his life might be like if things were different.

As part of this, John wants a real family. He is extremely close to his mother, having spent most of his life only with her. Sarah is someone that John trusts implicitly, particularly after they were hunted by the T-1000 in his childhood. He has strong affection for her which is maintained throughout his life, with Cameron telling her that the John of her future still calls Sarah the best soldier he's ever known, despite him leading an army at that point. He is trained to protect himself, and knows to escape at all costs when he encounters a Terminator, but John regularly ignores this directive to save Sarah. Even when he knows she is being used against him, he struggles with leaving her in danger. He will always fight for her, and knows that she will always fight for him.

Despite this strong bond, John does struggle with the lack of other people in his life. He's very upset when Sarah abandons her relationship with Charley Dixon, who has become a father figure to John. Ultimately he still leaves with Sarah, but he reaches out to Charley more than once against her wishes, and when he discovers that Derek Reese is his uncle, he takes risks to keep him in his life. He displays the desire for stability in a world that's always changing, even going as far as to keep secret that a Terminator had come to his school searching for him so that Sarah would not move them on again.

This moment also showcases John's propensity for taking risks. His mother is cautious by nature; her focus is always on protecting and preparing John, and ensuring that their actions do not put him in any more danger than he needs to be. John plays somewhat more fast and loose with his own safety. John is more willing than Sarah to strike against the machines now, and try to stop Judgment Day from happening in the first place. He is seen to take risks with his own life early in the series, when he sneaks into the warehouse with the coltan despite both Sarah and Cameron saying it was too dangerous. While Sarah was horrified, Cameron was used to a future version of John who does such things regularly.

John's recklessness increases as the series goes on, and becomes more prominent after he develops PTSD following the death of Sarkissian. He begins to display behaviour which is likened to that of a war veteran; it's noted that he will check his exits when he enters a new room, and he becomes more intemperate, aggressive and rebellious. His desire to live his own life, unfettered by the demands of a terrible future, leads him to pursue a friendship and later a romance with Riley, a girl that he meets at school. Despite Sarah, Derek and Cameron all warning him about the dangers of it, John insists on keeping Riley in his life. More than once, he puts himself at risk of being caught by the Terminator Cromartie while separated from his protectors, and yet he keeps doing it. He also takes an enormous risk when he chooses to reactivate Cameron after she reverts to her Skynet programming and tries to kill him; he has no proof that his attempt to repair her has worked, but he still can't bring himself to destroy her and even holds his family at gunpoint to prevent them from stopping him. John is willing to take risks that other people wouldn't, even when he's advised against it and even when it directly puts his life in danger.

John also struggles to connect with the vast majority of other teens. Even before he kills Sarkissian, John has few friends; he's shown standing up for kids who are bullied, which alienates him from more popular crowds, and he tends to be drawn to and more interested in other loners. When he arrives at a teen house party, he's notably frustrated by the atmosphere of the place, and only wants Riley to leave with him; he has no interest in staying, and his PTSD appears to be triggered by the other kids pressuring him into playing video games (which, due to his lifestyle, he has never done and isn't good at). He quickly becomes aggressive, resulting in the other kids rejecting him. This moment, when he also seems frustrated and irritable with Riley for the first time, shows the distinct contrast between John and other teens his age; his experiences have made him more serious and more troubled than most of them, particularly as the weight of his responsibility gets heavier.

This is also the first sign that his relationship with Riley is not all it seems. After her death, it's revealed that John not only knew that Riley was not what she appeared to be, but that he had decided not to call her on her deception and put an end to what was going on between them. As a result, Riley's death weighs heavily on him. By this point, however, John has begun to accept the weight of responsibility that the future lays on him, and has begun to accept his destiny, rather than trying to run away from it. When he confronts Jesse, she realises that John is not trying to run away from his future; he's trying, deliberately, to turn into the man that the future needs him to be. John's trauma has matured him; he's no longer a boy looking for a way to escape a destiny that he cant handle. He's a man, willing to carry the burden of the future even when it hurts him.

Throughout the series, John is shown to have a brilliant strategic mind. He's an intelligent, thoughtful, and serious person despite his youth. He has an aptitude for tactics; part of his training involved learning to play chess, and he maintains a strong interest in the sport. He's also a quick thinker; when he and Sarah's presence in LA is questioned, John reveals that he has done research into legal particulars which give him ready answers for questions that appear to take Sarah by surprise. He has a tendency to keep his own counsel, particularly after struggling with PTSD; he keeps more to himself, and opens up far less to Sarah than she is used to. He doesn't tell anyone about his suspicions regarding Riley, instead choosing to investigate her for himself and make his own judgment about what should be done. This may in part be a reaction against his family's tendency to make decisions for him; John is increasingly prepared to make his own choices and live with the consequences of them. However, he does not do so without thinking about those consequences; he weighs them up and decides to take them anyway, though he is still young, and his decisions are not always the right ones. Despite that, it is already possible to see the John who approaches his life as though it's a game of chess; not everyone always agrees with the moves he makes, but more and more, he's willing to make them whether others approve or not, and he's willing to take responsibility if they're wrong.

SAMPLE: One; Two; Three.

INVENTORY:

• As well as the clothes on his back (a leather jacket, jeans, combat boots and several t-shirts layered over each other), John's items will be the following:
  
• A hand gun (Glock 17)
  
• An couple of extra ammunition clips
  
• A picture of his mother

NOTES: John is unlikely to use his real name in game. His 'John Baum' identity was blown at the end of the series, so if possible, he would adopt a different name; he'll call himself John Dixon, taking the surname of his surrogate father Charley Dixon.

IF ACCEPTED, WOULD YOU WANT A PLOT-LIGHT OR PLOT-HEAVY CUSTOM INTRO? Plot-light works for me!

yennefer of vengerberg | the witcher (netflix)

[violetchaos]

PLAYER NAME: Lily
CONTACT: lilbeejack or PM journal
HOW DID YOU HEAR ABOUT THE GAME?: Rachel (Daenerys Targaryen), but also on the TDM.

CHARACTER: Yennefer of Vengerberg
CANON: The Witcher (Netflix)
CANON POINT: Season 1; Episode 8, moments after being stabbed by a Sabrina on the tower in Sodden Hill.

BACKGROUND: Wiki

ABILITIES | POWERS: **Note: There doesn't seem to be a detailed list of Yennefer's powers, so I've done my best to list them here based on what we see throughout all of season one (and some of S2).

In Yennefer’s world, magic is synonymous with Chaos. Those who are born with the power are called Sources and are taken to a magical academy to master the Art. Doing so allows Sources to extract magical energy from the elements to perform incredible acts by speaking incantations in Elder Speech. These range from, but are not limited to:

✽ General Magic: This can include telekinesis, bending water, creating fire, regrowing plants, heating water, heightened senses, and illusions.

✽ Telepathy: Thought transference, reading minds and even mind control in some cases. (**note: this ability won't be used unless there is expressed consent from the player involved.)

✽ Portals: moving from one place to another, usually between great distances. (**note: this will be dampened considerably with Yennefer obviously not able to travel outside of the game setting, or anywhere that is off-limits).

✽ Healing: I am going to add this here, though, in season one, we don’t see her using it. She does, however, try to heal the Queen’s baby before realizing she was already gone

✽ Herbalism: Understanding of herbs, flowers, plants and other fauna and their applications in spells, potions, remedies and salves.

✽ Long Life: After ascending, mages effectively stop aging. Yennefer is currently 71 but appears to still be in her twenties.

✽ Combat: Yennefer is trained in swordsmanship, though she doesn’t carry one on her.

PERSONALITY:

Yennefer is who she is today because of how she started out; a young girl born with a curved spine and a misaligned jaw. Her hometown saw her as a vile creature, ostracized her and constantly mocked and ridiculed her when she crossed paths with townspeople. At home, she was not treated much better. Her step-father bullied and beat her, before selling Yennefer for half the price of what he could get for a pig.

Things didn’t get much better for her in Aretuza, despite showing an inherent ability to do magic. She was slow to perform the lessons asked of her and had very little confidence in herself, which eventually became the catalyst in her becoming one of the most powerful sorceresses on the Continent.

Temperamental and wilful, Yennefer is never satisfied in her life and always strives for more. The confidence she had desperately lacked before her ascension becomes a thing of the past with her confidence now making her conduct magic effortlessly. She presents herself as a direct force, in control and dangerous; not to be underestimated. This gives her the appearance of being standoffish, aloof and uninterested. But it also helps her keep most people at arm’s length.

Yennefer isn’t bothered by the perceptions of others. She is ambitious and cunning and will resort to playing people shamelessly to achieve what she is after, by whatever means necessary - mentally, emotionally or even sexually - even if it means making deals knowing she’ll end up breaking them. Physical intimidation and aggression are also tools she uses to get the job done.

On the other hand, under all the complicated layers, Yennefer feels very deeply and tends to act rather intensely on them when they aren’t bottled up to preserve outward appearances. There is a longing for a deeper connection; to find a place where she well and truly feels she belongs. She wants someone to love and need her for more than her magic or political opinions or advice, which is her greatest fear. And though she has had intimate relationships in the past, both have led to betrayals. So, trust does not come easily for her and with that, loyalty, to which the circle, to start, is very small.

SAMPLE: TDM

INVENTORY: Yennefer will be coming directly from Sodden Hill so she has only the clothes on her back and a choker around her neck with an obsidian star pendant.

NOTES: N/A

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[groundrules]

Rachel Silva | OC | Reapp

[thehoneybadger]

PLAYER NAME: Rin
CONTACT: chatvert

CHARACTER: Rachel "Honey Badger" Silva
CANON: Original Character
CANON POINT: After stabbing her friend/co-hero Umbra (at her request) with an obsidian knife to rid her of the Curse of Tiamat and running away to avoid the blowback; re: Eastbound, during the whole Taravast situation.

BACKGROUND: Rachel Silva looks like any other down-and-dirty delinquent teen you could find smoking behind the school between classes in Halcyon High, and you'd almost be right.

People have always said Rach has a hard head, metaphorically and literally, and well, wasn't her doctor surprised during a checkup to find her having developed bones so thick and dense that they had to recalibrate the x-ray five times to be sure that they were seeing them correctly. (They were.) So it's probably a little unfair that she does roller derby. She'd always been rowdy, a bullied child before this little mutation kicked in, and once she realized that there were essentially no physical consequences for her actions aside from bumps and bruises, instead of getting revenge on her bullies she went out and started fighting crime after school as a vigilante. Who was going to stop her? Hence, Honey Badger - because she just did not care.

This mutation of the pituitary gland wasn't just by chance, however. Her father, a scientist for HexaDyne, had taken some military-grade serum home and started putting some of it in his little girl's food, day by day, for years, using her as a guinea pig for repeated long-term exposure. And she got slowly bigger, slowly stronger, and slowly harder to hurt. One morning, she saw her dad putting something in her orange juice. He hemmed and hawed and hedged and said it was a vitamin supplement. But it was too late; she was big, but she wasn't dumb, and suddenly a lot of things that had never added up - like all of those doctor visits when she'd been perfectly healthy - made painful sense. And she clocked her dad hard enough to send him flying into the kitchen cabinets and breaking the dishes.

After that, Rachel didn't stay for long in one place aside from being with the little ragtag team of heroes she allied with, until she ran away from them, too, thinking she was a monster and that the team would agree. School was out of the question. The team had given her at least a little bit of stability, even if it had been a weird kind of stability, but now that's over and done with, and she's accepted her lonely existence, even though she doesn't like it. She doesn't know if her dad is alive and she pretends not to care, but she knows HexaDyne's not going to let their lab rat escape that easy. She also doesn't know that her former teammates and friends are looking for her, because they care about her and are worried she's going to get hurt...or worse, fall into HexaDyne's clutches.

She was previously present from the start of the caravan up until partway through the Taravast situation, and had made friends with Lily Evans during that time.

ABILITIES | POWERS: Rachel is extremely strong and extremely sturdy. She heals at about three times the speed of a normal human being. She also taught herself parkour, how to pick locks, and whatever an eleventh-grade education and a quarter'll get ya these days. Her best class was always physics - she may be strong, but she ain't stupid.

PERSONALITY: Rachel pretends that she doesn't care about things, but she cares about one thing: sticking up for the little guy. So she'll get in a knock-down drag-out fight with a villain just to be sure that someone who can't take the lumps like she can might get hurt. She acts tough, and for the most part, she is. She doesn't let little things bother her, but she's always more than ready to fight, especially if there's something in it for her. (Is it cheating to get in a fight for money if you have super-strength and super-durability? Probably. Does she care? No.)

She's contrary and rebellious, often for no reason. Sometimes, she just likes arguing. Catch her on a good day, and you'll get puns. Catch her on a bad day, and you'll get acid-tongued sarcasm. It's not only her bones that are hard to break. Much of it is a shell built up to keep herself from getting hurt. If you manage to get close to her, you'll find someone who's fiercely loyal and will fight for you and protect you until she can't fight anymore.

Rachel is like a wandering ronin, but with fists instead of a sword. She considers herself to be noble, while also thinking of herself as a monster. Her life is a constant battle between who she thinks she is and who she knows she is - the super-soldier and the superhero. She never wanted to be what her dad tried to turn her into.

But for all of that, she's still a teenager. She wants to do dumb things with friends and turn in her homework late and skip school, and she'll never forgive her father for taking that away from her. She wants friends, even though she decided to keep herself away from most people because she hates what she was turned into and the decision she was forced to make to save her friend Umbra from the Curse of Tiamat. Umbra had trusted her to do what needed to be done, so she's worried that her friend may have correctly identified her as a killer. She's desperately lonely, but she'd never, ever, ever admit it.

SAMPLE: Meme from Dec 2020

INVENTORY: A backpack containing a pack of cigarettes, a Leatherman multi-tool, a lighter, a pair of quad roller skates, a small journal with pen, a plush honey badger (a gift from her hero team), and a small, well-loved stuffed unicorn.

NOTES: Additional context/sample previously requested.

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[groundrules]

Ben Mason | Falling Skies

[chemlocked]

PLAYER NAME: Will
CONTACT: mythotica, disco mythotica#0741
HOW DID YOU HEAR ABOUT THE GAME?: Kerry

CHARACTER: Ben Mason
CANON: Falling Skies
CANON POINT: s5e9, just after Ben’s secret workings with the communication device uncover where the queen is

BACKGROUND: history here

Key Points:

• The middle of three kids, Ben was sickly since birth and missed out on a lot of the sports and adventures of his brothers.
• Early after the invasion happened, Ben was taken prisoner by one of the alien races invading the planet.
• He was harnessed with a biological device that connected with his neurological system and not only allowed the aliens full control over him and his actions, but possibly began the transformation from human to the skitter form of alien.
• Rescued by his family and with the help of another alien race, they’re able to mostly separate the harness from Ben. Mostly.
The connection is broken but he’s left with spikes jutting a couple of inches from his back. The spikes give him the powers and abilities listed below but he has control over himself and the bond that was created by them.
• With his new found abilities Ben finds himself much more useful to the military becoming one of their “star soldiers”. He works not only as a soldier in dangerous situations, but also as an interpreter for the rebel skitters that are revolting against their overlords. He’s also able to remotely spy on the Esphani through the link caused by the spikes. He does this despite the physical and mental cost to himself.
• When given the chance to have the spikes removed and revert back to his sickly self, Ben accepts the very real possibility of a shortened lifespan for the abilities he’s gained and the chance to be an asset and not a liability.
• Throughout the war, Ben works to prove himself as a soldier, willing to sacrifice himself physically as well as on the shadow plane to find the information the 2nd Mass needs to track down the Esphani queen and end the war.
• Even after being tortured because of his spikes, Ben embraces who he is, using that connection to explore the shadow plane despite the danger and damage to himself. Getting the information is more important, and at his canon point he has managed to do that.

ABILITIES | POWERS:
Enhanced strength and stamina: Both are greatly increased from his own abilities and much higher than most humans. It especially shows in being able to run and swim for long periods of time without so much as breaking a sweat. In testing the abilities, he jumps rope for nearly three hours without being winded or looking at all as if he’s been doing anything. When others are exhausted, he still has full energy.
Enhanced speed, endurance, and agility: With the spikes Ben is able to run and move faster than the most skilled humans. It allows him the ability to leap from the tops of buildings a couple of stories tall and to move through spaces easily that would slow down others.
Enhanced senses: In canon it is said he can “hear like a jackrabbit and see like a hawk”. Just wearing their own standard glasses he and another formerly harnessed kid are able to see the planets and stars because of these enhancements.
Health: The spikes not only keep Ben in perfect health but they also cured pre-existing conditions such as his asthma. So long as he keeps the spikes, he needn’t worry about illness or most minor wounds. Once they’re gone, that will return.



PERSONALITY: Much of the boy that Ben was before the invasion is known only through all the things that changed once he became harnessed. He was a sickly child who spent a lot of time indoors reading and studying, quite unlike his brother who was an athlete. He fought with his brother, nothing unheard of for a middle child, and was close to his father who often came and read with him.

All of that changed once the invasion began and Ben was, for a time, a prisoner of war. Finding himself freed from the biological harness the invading forces put on him, Ben found himself having to adjust to who he was and what his life would be going forward as everything had changed physiologically as it had physically in the world.

Much of the boy he was is lost after being a prisoner of the invading forces. As a harnessed child, he was one of the group, working without thinking, existing without freewill. Once the harness is removed - minus the spikes he still bears to this day - Ben finds himself in an entirely different place mentally and physically. Those physical changes slowly start to shape the man he’s becoming and how he views the world.

Having lived his life on the outside looking in due to his health issues, Ben finds himself changed more than just physically after his rescue and subsequent de-harnessing. With the abilities granted to him by his spikes, especially being healthier than he’s ever been, Ben finds himself a much more useful member of the family. He’s able to volunteer for missions, to hold his own during them, and as time goes on, discovers that his very unique talent of being able to connect to the enemy means he can do something no one else can in helping them find the Espheni queen and win the war.

Having a chance to prove himself is important to Ben, especially in ways he’s never been able to before. He has been given a chance to feel useful, taking pride in all he’s able to do for the unit and those around him. It’s a new experience for Ben and begins shaping who he is, developing a confidence in what he’s able to do, and a bravado to push himself even harder. These changes shape who he is so much that even when the chance comes to have his spikes removed safely, he chooses not to. Though he is also relieved that his best friend makes the same choice, not leaving him as the only one. Not that her choice was going to stop him from making that decision to stay spiked. Not even the knowledge he will most likely die young due to lack of production of stem cells is enough for Ben to want to give up all he’s gained. Despite the physical pain that can be caused, and worse the abuse he suffers because of them.

There is physical pain that comes with his choices, learning that the spikes can pick up radio waves, as well as causing him physical damage if an alien he is connected to for information is hurt. The pain can be bad enough to cause him to pass out, and this is shown not to be enough to stop Ben from pushing hard to do what he can. The hardest thing though for Ben to deal with is the emotional toll that comes from being a “razorback” or “superfreak”.

From the moment he was rescued, many eyed Ben with suspicion. He’d been mind controlled, still bore the marks of that, and was very obviously not entirely human. Not with the scarring and spikes seen above his collar even as he tried his best to hide them for the most part to the things he could do now that others couldn’t. It becomes a constant attempt at both appearing as human as he can while also trying to be as helpful as he can, no matter the price.

This leads to Ben living constantly on edge, surrounded by a lot of people that he couldn’t tell were on his side or not, especially with nicknames and insults being bandied about as much as jokes as serious jabs. As time goes on, and more and more of those who are deharnessed either giving up their spikes entirely or dying, Ben starts to have to deal with the concept of being the only one of his “species”. It feeds into his anger, that of a young man that has lost his mother, lost the life he knew, and even had given up his freedom. It’s an anger that leads him to being reckless, lying, and hiding what he’s doing to channel his anger into unhealthy activities and killings. Until his activities get another killed, and Ben realizes that his hate is only something that can end in destruction, and he breaks through that anger and begins accepting himself in ways he hadn’t been able to before. But in accepting himself, he finds himself seeking more as well.

Just as the spikes allowed connection between the aliens and those children with the harnesses, and later spikes, Ben finds himself seeking connection with others with an almost desperate need. Growing close to Denny, another deharnessed kid, and working like a team through many missions, he finds that he’s seeking and then losses with her death. Later when he gives up several of his spikes to save the life of another, he develops a needed connection with this person. When she chooses to give up her spikes, Ben sees this as a betrayal, seeing it as he gave up part of himself - revealing he wholly does see them as part of himself - and she just threw that away. Ben often seeks out others to bond with, wanting and needing that connection as a reflection of the family he grew up with.

So much of Ben’s actions and reactions reflect back on his family, even if he isn’t always aware of it. It’s why he works so hard to prove himself, needing to show that he can live up to the way others see his father. First a respected professor before the invasion to a respected leader of their encampment to be president of the New United States, Tom casts a large shadow that Ben feels the need to not only try and shine but to keep his father’s attention as well.

Used to having a special part of his father’s attention as both the sick one as well as being more academic than he is athletic, Ben aches for that back for himself as well as proving that he truly is Tom Mason’s child to others. Not that he would admit it in so many words but it shows in how much he pushes to prove himself after his return, especially to show that he is loyal and not a spy of any sort, something he’s accused of time and again. The combination leads to Ben pushing to prove himself, to show he can take on anything, and it’s a driving force he lives with to this day, leading him to endanger his life time and again as he pushes the limits of the alien connection embedded in his skin.

It’s all an unhealthy mixture of pride and the desperate need to be accepted and wanted, something he had known as the middle child and then as an outcast who slowly loses those that could understand what he’s been through and what he’s feeling. It’s left him caught in a dichotomy between a fairly bad ass soldier who is willing to do whatever it takes, and a hormonal teenager who just wants to feel like he can still be wanted and loved.

He regularly seeks connection with others which often leads to loss and pain, things that he works to hide and does so by sacrificing himself to bigger and badder missions, willing to accept that he is the only one that can do what’s needed and taking the chances that come with it. Though it’s much smaller than just after his deharnessing, he still has a chip on his shoulder that leads to reckless behavior to prove both his abilities and his loyalties, something that has been questioned often and ended up with him being tortured to uncover a “truth” that isn’t there. It’s an endless cycle of needing to prove himself and when that isn’t enough, doing riskier things to try and prove the same.

All he’s been through has brought Ben to a place where he is much more in control though. In control of the spikes, of his desires, and of his emotions though it is all about holding onto that control. Facing a firing squad he is calm and tries reasoning with those who are part of his execution squad, though just days before he had taken down a unit of trained and armed soldiers with his bare hands. He fully accepts his spikes, his status as more than human, and he’s prepared to move forward as a liaison and delegate between mankind and the other alien species out there.

None of this changes though that when faced with challenges, Ben will be the first one to throw himself into the fray. Finding himself in a new place without the pressures and perhaps without the judgments of his world, Ben will be eager to prove that he can pull his own weight plus some. Finding himself away from his own world, in the beginning, he will find a freedom he hasn’t had before, with a chance to prove himself without being judged for what he is. At least until he has to start answering questions about how he can do what he can.

SAMPLE:
sample 1
sample 2

INVENTORY:

• current outfit, including: henley and tee and tactical trousers
• fingerless gloves
• heavy duty hiking boots
• heavy duty army jacket
• slimline tactical jacket, kevlar lined
• Heckler & Koch G36K
• Bushmaster ACR
• beat up copy of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone

NOTES: Ben will have a fairly bad wound on his back, just between the shoulderblades, he’s nursing after torture. Because it’s a removed spike it’s not healing as he might other wounds but unless there’s a risk of contamination, it should be fine.

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[groundrules]

Hendrik | Dragonquest XI S | Returning character

[unswervingcompanion]

PLAYER NAME: Lynn
CONTACT: PM this journal, Plurk: raistlynn
INVITE STATUS: Mentioned to me by Solar (player of Eleven/The Luminary from DragonQuest XI here)

CHARACTER: Hendrik
CANON: Dragon Quest XI Definitive edition
CANON POINT: Act 3

BACKGROUND: Written out here. This is another reference, as is this.

ABILITIES | POWERS: - He's a tank, 6'6 and built like one. He's a warrior and a knight first and foremost, able to wield axes and shields. He does have the ability to use swords as well.

Spells -

Midheal - Restores hp

Buff - Significantly raises the defense of a single party member -

Kabuff - Slightly raises defense of all party members -

Magic Barrier - Raises the magic resistance of the whole party.

More heal - Mid level healing spell

PERSONALITY: Hendrik was born a son of a knight in the kingdom of Zwaardsrust. But an attack leaves him the lone survivor of the attack, losing his family, friends, home and everything. So he brought out of there to be raised as a knight of Heliodor which instills his loyalty because of being rescued. This childhood attachment is seen as he has a painting of the windmill there.

As a knight of Heliodor, he is given orders to capture the Luminary who at that time is referred to as the Darkspawn. So no matter what happens or what obstacles get in his way, since he was told to capture the Luminary that is what he'll do no matter what it takes to succeed. Hendrik dauntlessly and steadfastly follows orders and will carry them out no matter what since he is a sworn knight to the King of Heliodor. In his duty, Hendrik is both serious and unfailing and it's been said that he doesn't know when to give up, being called both pig headed and stone headed due to this.

As a boy Hendrik won most of his fights with Jasper through 'brute strength'. But even in victory there was mercy because Hendrik always offered a hand to help the other boy up off of the ground. So when the two separated, with Jasper learning military strategy and Hendrik had gone off to Puerto Valor to train to be a knight, when he'd come back, the two sparred again with the same results of the blonde falling and Hendrik offering a hand up.

Hendrik himself said that he always followed in Jasper's wake and that Jasper was the one who spurred him on and was the light that guided him. If it wasn't for his friend, Hendrik wouldn't have become who he did. And of the two in a race, he would definitely be the 'tortoise' and Jasper would be the 'hare'. And even after they find themselves on opposing sides, he still has kind words for his friend, marveling at his old friend's brilliant tactics at one point and says that the day Dundrasil fell, Jasper was brave and valorous. Then he takes on all of the blame and responsibility once he's had plenty of time to reflect and the self recriminations begin. He stands wondering why he didn't see what the King of Heliodor had become, and why he didn't see the darkness consuming Jasper's soul.

Though Hendrik has suffered the loss of his home and family when he was a boy, he rose up through the ranks and earned his knighthood through dedication and hard work. Sylvando later remarked that it took the man quite a bit of work but eventually he became what he had worked so hard for. Don Rodrigo who trained Hendrik called the man 'a lump of meat' when he'd first met the knight as a young boy. And this man has been known to be the type of person to 'train' in his down time when he's supposed to be resting up at camp.

Hendrik simply takes others at their word if he respects them so in this he can be blind and ignorant. There is no doubt, question or even hesitation, because Hendrik will accept it as law. If he is told something, then that is the way that it is and he expects others to keep their word as he does. The night Dundrasil fell and unbeknownst to him, King Carnelian had been possessed by Mordegon. The king accused the Darkspawn's father of being mad and just suddenly attacking him, and the knight took it as the absolute truth. For reasons like this, he is referred to as a 'simple boy'.

And once Hendrik gives his word, he won't go back on it so he's loyal to a fault. He has sworn his fealty to the King of Heliodor and to the people therein. He even faces off against Princess Jade of Heliodor, not realizing it's her at first but even when he does, he doesn't let her get away (though she does) just because she's the Princess. He coldly informs her that he's a sworn knight and that she's been away from home too long if she thinks he'll let her go due to that fact. He will also show respect such as bowing to Princess Jade when he realizes it's her, bowing or kneeling before the king as well as Don Rodrigo who trained him as a boy.

Gemma tells the Luminary the story that instead of facing death after being rounded up by Hendrik's childhood friend and fellow knight Jasper, (though she didn't know the man's name) their lives were spared. The only thing she recalled about him was that 'his eyes were cold.' However, Hendrik had intervened, sparing the lives of the villagers of Cobblestone and locking them up in the dungeons below the castle in Heliodor instead of outright killing them as would've been their fate otherwise. Death would have been their 'punishment' for raising the 'Darkspawn'.

King Carnelian calls Hendrik his 'ever faithful knight' because he's so dependable. Hendrik does what he is asked, even if he may initially disagree. In the end he will still be there to do what is required to follow and do his King's will regardless of anything else. And as a boy both he and his childhood friend Jasper swore fealty to Heliodor and to protect the kingdom together. The boys also received matching gold fealty token pendants from the king which are replicas of the Shield of Heliodor and they were the only two to receive them. So it's a shock and surprise when Hendrik escaped Krystalinda in Sniflheim and finds that she knows of the twin pendant to the one he always wears.

So in battle, will take hits meant for others and will stand and fight beside them, even using himself as a shield if that's what it takes to accomplish fulfilling his oath. He also can have resting 'frowny face' due to having such a serious outlook. In battle, he becomes passionate, and his sword deals swift justice to those who oppose him. So whenever he needs to do something (such as follow Jasper's black spirit) he asks only the Luminary and seeks only his approval or forgiveness for indulgence of things or actions.

And when the party faces Jasper as a black spirit later, Hendrik says that he helped create that very darkness and he had to destroy it alone. And after there's a reconciliation of sorts, he says he should've spoken and listened to Jasper and maybe he could've saved his old friend. So in the end there is friendship and peace between them as their boyhood pact is honoured.


SAMPLE: here, others can be provided if necessary.

INVENTORY: 2 phials of magic water, a few Antidotal herbs, Sleeping Hibiscus, Medicinal herb, Strong medicine, book

Wearing:

King's axe (carved with runes)
Oath pendant/token of fealty
Full set of black armour & cloak
Shield of Heliodor -

NOTES: Hendrik harbours an intense dislike for insects and he rarely speaks in contractions.

IF ACCEPTED, WOULD YOU WANT A PLOT-LIGHT OR PLOT-HEAVY CUSTOM INTRO? Light if that's ok, thank you!

APPLICATION RECEIVED

[groundrules]

Astarion | Baldur's Gate III

[good_taste]

PLAYER NAME: Spider! Hello, I'm already here. This is an app for a second character.
CONTACT: plurk: PaleAntiquarian, discord: CellarSpider#9984
HOW DID YOU HEAR ABOUT THE GAME?: Our fantastic friend and fellow player, Britt!

CHARACTER: Astarion
CANON: Baldur's Gate
CANON POINT: Act 1, all events are as implemented in Early Access update 6, Patch 19. Prior to completing the quest to side with the refugees or the goblins. Astarion has received the Necromancy of Thay tome, but he hasn't bitten anyone, and has received no illithid dreams. Those are horrors I wish to inflict on him and everyone else.

BACKGROUND: Astarion is a high elf and citizen of Baldur's Gate, from a noble family. He worked as a magistrate in the city government. One night, a group of men assaulted him over a ruling he'd made that day, viciously beating him and leaving him to die. He was found by the vampire patriarch Cazador Szarr, and offered the choice to be bitten and become one of his vampire spawn. Astarion accepted rather than face death. This brought him under Cazador's complete mental control.

Unable to resist the vampire's will, Astarion was kept as a slave for two hundred years, until one day he was stolen away by illithids. They placed one of their tadpole-like young in his skull, a process that usually ends with the host agonizingly transforming into a mind flayer within days. This fate was seemingly forestalled when the illithid's ship took an unscheduled detour through literal hell before crash-landing on the coast a few day's journey from Baldur's Gate, killing the mind flayer crew. This tossed Astarion out onto a bright sunny day, which should have burnt him to a crisp within seconds.

But for some reason, it didn't. Huh.

Now freed from Cazador's control for the first time in centuries, Astarion is absolutely focused on keeping things that way, and also finding some means to control the illithid tadpole. Preferably before it eats any of his brain. Astarion joins up with a group of fellow tadpole-infested misfits, each with their own secrets. Over the next few weeks, the group searches for a cure, and begins to learn about a mysterious deity called the Absolute, worshiped by a cult headed by fellow infected.

Over the course of their journey, Astarion's true nature is revealed to the others, he learns more about how the tadpole has changed the rules of his vampirism, and he gets the first warning that his master isn't going to let him go so easily. His ultimate goal: kill Cazador Szarr, and drink his blood to become a full vampire. Supremely powerful, feared, and, most importantly, free.

ABILITIES | POWERS: As a vampire spawn, Astarion would normally have all of the drawbacks of being a vampire, with none of the strengths. But thanks to the horrible alien brain parasite that wants him alive, he can walk in sunlight, and enter houses without permission. Cool! However, running water still burns like acid for some reason, he doesn't show up on reflective surfaces, and he needs to consume the blood of living creatures. It doesn't have to be the blood of sapients, but he very much prefers it. He also has a tendency to become giddy or drunk after, well, drinking blood.

As a high elf, Astarion is a bit more innately magical than the average denizen of Faerûn: He can decide each day which wizard's cantrip (basic spell, the list is available here.) he wants to cast, and can then do so at will. He can see in dim light as if it were day, and can't be magically forced to sleep. In fact, he doesn't sleep at all--the only rest he needs is about four hours of meditation per day.

Players can further choose Astarion sharpen his magical skills to become an Arcane Trickster, which sees him drawing from a wider pool of sneakier spells. He can only cast these a limited number of times per day. The full list is here.

The strange illithid tadpole in his skull can also provide further magical benefits: He can fight back against psychic intrusion. If he ever encounters another person who is marked by the Absolute, he can control them. And if he ever runs into another infected person, he can read their thoughts, but doing so opens him up to being read in return. It's also helping him be more sneaky: Twice a day, he can create an inky black patch of shadow, which no light can enter. While he can't see within it or into it, neither can anybody else.

PERSONALITY: Good lord but this man has a Personality, with a capital P. You'd think his backstory would all add up to an entirely serious and sad character, but you would be wrong. This man can be an utter, joyful disaster, albeit with some very, very sharp edges and sore spots.

First and foremost, Astarion hides what he is under a thick layer of flirty, foppish behavior. And it's not just an act, he really is just like that. However he will use it defensively to make himself seem less threatening, or to deflect people's interest from things he doesn't want to talk about. Like, say, 'why did you sneak off in the middle of the night?' or 'why is this corpse completely exanguinated?' Ideally, he'd rather most people see him as just a charming man with good hair.

Still, Astarion really is deeply traumatized by the two hundred years of abuse he was subjected to. He has triggers that can make him lash out at others, regardless of how supportive they might try to be. Or he'll sometimes fall back on fawning or placation to protect himself, especially around subjects that weren't safe for him under Cazador's control. It's difficult for him to approach these subjects. Still, he does seem to have an honest desire to be known and to connect with others.

His past leaves him with an obsessive desire to acquire enough power to ensure his freedom and one day kill Cazador. He's the only one out of the protagonists that initially doesn't want to remove his tadpole. If it's gone, he'll likely be forced back to being a tortured, starving puppet, never to see the sun again.

But! He's also sometimes given to impulsive decision-making, just for the fun of it. Don't tell anybody about the party's tadpole problem. But wait, no--tell the crazy old potion-seller everything. Help some goblins break into a druid grove, but killing their leaders is just as good, too! Indulge in your power! Cause a little random chaos! It'll be hilarious. It's unclear whether he's always been like this, if he became like this over the centuries, or it's his reaction to newfound freedom. In any case, he doesn't feel 'good' or 'evil' have anything to do with his behavior--good people never set him free, but the mind flayers did, in the course of carrying out their own desires. It's a hedonistic worldview, and he'll indulge accordingly.

While it's not technically a part of Astarion's personality, it's also worth briefly describing the behavior of the illithid tadpole. Because it is sapient to some extent or another, and its personality clashes with Astarion's in some notable ways. Illithids psychically control and consume other sapients, and they believe these acts are gifts to their victims. They are in fact dependent on controlling others. An adult illithid without thralls will often become depressed or otherwise unstable.

Thus, the tadpole sees Astarion's relationship to Cazador as something normal, possibly close to ideal. When it tries to reach out to him in his dreams, it takes Cazador's appearance. This is, understandably, intensely triggering for Astarion. Despite this, Astarion still uses its powers for his own benefit. He's used to bad deals like this, and he's going to wring all the use out of it that he can.

SAMPLE:

Where were you when it happened, people were fond of asking. What little shred of mundane life turned into a Historic Moment by sheer coincidence?

Honestly, he hadn't been paying attention when it happened. And when it started happening, all other thoughts were pushed aside in favor of Oh dear gods that's a giant tentacle. How. WHY. Oh shi--

And then a period of unconsciousness, followed by A mind flayer? How can my luck be this abysmal? What's it got in it's hand? Oh. No. No no nono--

And then more unconsciousness, slipping in and out of lucidity with a brief stopover at Where is this ship going? Where in the Hells--oh. Oh fuck I didn't literally mean it--Why is there a brain crawling around?!

And then unconsciousness took another bloody encore when the ship crashed and he was finally torn free of the horrible, moist pod he'd been trapped in, and he stumbled blindly through acrid smoke and into--

Sunlight.

And honestly, he was too stunned to even think that one through for a while.

He wasn't dead. He should be. It was the very definition of a beautiful sunny day. Instantly lethal. But he wasn't even singed. Either he was wildly hallucinating, or he was out in the sun.

Marveling over the impossibility of it all would have to wait. He had a horrible little parasite in his head. He was alone--no time to enjoy that yet either, if this monstrosity had crashed anywhere near Baldur's Gate, then he'd have to get back immediately or the consequences would be dire. He'd always been useless with pathfinding, ranger nonsense, and he hadn't left the city in two centuries. That trip through the literal Hells could have taken them halfway around the world, or dropped them a few miles down the road.

And, just to make everything that much more delightful, he could hear shrieking from inside the wreck. No, wait--he couldn't hear anything. Something had bypassed his ears for the sole purpose of screaming like an furious chalkboard. Crouching low and moving up to a vantage point, he watched as two of those brain-creatures threw themselves at...

He'd seen that face. That one had been wandering free inside the ship, following the brain that had skittered past his pod. Relations had soured since then, apparently. But still--they'd been trusted. Probably a thrall. Mind flayers had thralls, didn't they?

The figure paused over the squashed bodies of the brain-creatures, catching their breath, looking up towards the hole in the side of the ship. They were going to head this way next.

Well then. That gave him an opportunity to capitalize on. He retreated once they looked away. They'd looked tired, but they were armed. There weren't any fantastic hiding spots to ambush them from, although... Those bushes could hide something smaller. Hypothetically. Like a brain with legs.

He drew his knife, falling into a ready stance, waiting until he saw his target come into view below him.

"Hey!" he yelled. "I need help!"

Not his best performance, but it would have to do. If he could just draw them in close enough and get their back turned, then the rest would be easy. He could interrogate them, find out what those horrid things had done to him. Then cut their throat.

Spilling a little blood sounded incredibly appealing...


INVENTORY:
- A short sword and dagger
- A crossbow, and [mumblemumble] bolts. The game doesn't track ammunition unless it's enchanted.
- A set of thief's tools--lockpicks, etc.
- A trap disarming kit
- Four health potions
- A well-made set of clothes that double as padded armor. Some of the gold embroidery is slowly unraveling. Pity him :(
- The Necromancy of Thay, a book set with a really spooky face on the cover, gripping a large amethyst in its teeth. He can't actually read it, though--the spirits in the book talk too loudly for him to concentrate. He can sense that whatever's in it is deliciously dark, though. The only known spell that can be read and learned from it (as far as the plot's gotten) is Speak With Dead, though Astarion hasn't gotten that far.
- ...does the tadpole count as being in his inventory? Does your skull count as a pocket?

NOTES: Starting with some vampire basics: By D&D canon, vampires are undead. While that may alter how events in the game affects Astarion, the tadpole in his skull is not undead, and it's already shown the capacity to defy what's conventionally possible.

Astarion needs blood. He can hunt on his own or sneak a nibble while somebody's asleep, but he'll starve unless he gets a fairly regular bite or two. He probably can't take an artificial substitute either: as he explains it, he needs the life essence that the blood represents. The blood of thinking creatures is the best supplier of that. I do recall seeing that Kaneki's got some arrangements to solve his own similar requirements. I'd be happy to take advantage of the same, though he won't volunteer that information to the caravan NPCs. ...He's not super hiding it though, he has sharp teeth, red eyes, and the bite scars on his neck peek out from under his collar sometimes. He mostly skates by on the fact that the sun isn't a problem for him. god he's such a beautiful moron sometimes

Also, as mentioned before, he can't touch running water without suffering burns. If we end up in some place where fording a river is required, he needs some way to avoid touching the water.

One more thing about the tadpole--Astarion doesn't know it yet, but the tadpole has been magically altered to produce its strange powers, and to resist removal from the host. Surgery? Failure. Powerful fey magic? Failure. Deal with a devil? He doesn't call in the contract yet, indicating he's got no idea what the literal hell he's supposed to do to hold up his end of the bargain. While normally death of the host would cause a tadpole to flee the corpse, player characters can die and be resurrected within the course of gameplay, and they remain infected.

And a final note--While not yet available in the game due to its Early Access status, there are some Astarion-specific cutscenes that have been found by dataminers, which may become relevant during the course of his time in Eastbound. Datamined content can be subject to extensive changes based on the whims of the development team, and I will attempt to avoid drawing too literally from what's been found, and no datamined content has been used in his background or personality sections. Even though his dream sequence is so damn messed up jfc--

IF ACCEPTED, WOULD YOU WANT A PLOT-LIGHT OR PLOT-HEAVY CUSTOM INTRO? Plot-heavy could be fun! I'm sure the spooky book has some potential here.

APPLICATION RECEIVED

[groundrules]

Wanda Maximoff — Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) — RESERVED (expired)

[divaricate]

PLAYER NAME: Tessa
CONTACT: polarisation
HOW DID YOU HEAR ABOUT THE GAME?: tdm top level, but I also know a few folks currently here

CHARACTER: Wanda Maximoff
CANON: Marvel Cinematic
CANON POINT: post-WandaVision

BACKGROUND: Wanda ❝Scarlet Witch❞ Maximoff — Marvel wiki link.

ABILITIES | POWERS: I've proposed nerfs within here, but, of course, mods can modify those further as needed.

PSIONICS ➝ Wanda is able to move (including levitate and otherwise manipulate) a number of objects with her mind. She can pull things apart, and use this force to create a type of energy shield to protect herself and/or others. She can also send red energy blasts from her hands — this red energy also allows her to fly, levitate others, and perform actions such as filtering poison gas out of air or containing/causing explosions. She is also powerful enough to manipulate an infinity stone.

Wanda can read minds (thoughts/dreams), and mentally communicate with people. She can do this at a level that is shown to be a pretty narrow focus. Wanda can influence people mentally. She can put people in a trance-like state where she makes them see what she wants them to — things like their deepest fears, for example (though what they're afraid of isn't decided by her) — and trap them within that state while they interact with their hallucinations as if they're real. She experiences that along with them, though the victim is unaware of her being with them. With this, she can also influence the memories, actions, and thoughts of people, their emotions, senses, and feel their general aura. This ability also allows her to induce feelings of pain, or sleep, etc. She can also temporarily paralyze people with this.

CHAOS MAGIC ➝ Wanda has a form of chaos magic. Her magic is ill-defined in canon, so for game purposes, I am limiting it to the following spells with the following limitations:
✦ Teleportation— Wanda's teleportation associated with this will only allow her to teleport herself and up to two others a short distance.
✦ Cast spells to heal herself and others— however, if they die from their injuries, she cannot under any circumstances bring them back to life; she can only heal them as long as they're alive.
✦ Casting spells to transform one thing into another— She can handle anything that's up to the size of a human, so with this she can't do something like turn a large tree into a house or vice versa for example, but she COULD turn a coin into a sheet of paper for example.
✦ Conjuring liquid substances/solid substances/decor out of what seems like thin air— The limitations to this being that she cannot conjure living human beings under any circumstances, and can conjure any non-edible solid materials up to the size of a large car for usual playing purposes. Anything bigger than that would be impossible for usual gameplay and is therefore subject on my end OOCly to special plotting and mod permission. She can conjure up to five of each individual object (per month).
✦ Protection spells— These spells can protect a person or location from most magical or non-magical threats for up to one day before the spell wears off and she would have to recast the spell, unless she only makes the spell good for a lesser amount of time; if the threat were particularly large in scale -- like, a loooot of heavy weapons or just against magical forces more trained than hers, her spell would break under the pressure.
✦ Clairtangency— When she physically touches an object or person, this contact causes her to pick up a small amount of information from it (anything about the object or person; this can be history of an object or person, feelings/emotions of a person at the current time, or about a past event, et cetera). This won't happen every single time she touches something/someone, and no information will be obtained in threads unless discussed with all players involved about what she would find out beforehand, since I'm obviously not interested in using this to godmod/infomod. Same stipulations apply when it comes to finding out game metaplot info; mods will be chatted with first. Also, if your character is a robot/android/undead/etc, I will default to assuming, as with her telepathy, that she can't read their emotions or feelings, unless you'd prefer otherwise.
✦ Runes— She uses runes to do things like protect a room and make her magic the only usable one in it for a time.
✦ Astral projection— While she won't be able to travel to any actual other realms (i.e.: the afterlife, et cetera) in game, she will be able to use this more like she uses her teleportation ability. Except it's just teleportation for her astral self, not her physical self. She can only stay astral-ly projected for up to 30 minutes at a time without risk to her physical self; any longer and she'll be at risk of any number of things -- like her physical body being possessed, passing out, headaches, so on.

OTHER WEAKNESSES/POWER LIMITATIONS ➝ Even with her abilities, Wanda is still a regular human underneath that and can be killed by anything that would kill a regular human. Wanda's powers will not work on anyone who is immune to mental infiltration, or has any other kind of mental block skill that would not allow her to read their thoughts or otherwise mentally manipulate them. Any kind of sonic wave blasts sent at her will disrupt her focus enough to get her powers to be rendered temporarily unusable; shock fields of electricity will also block her powers. In games, I also play her powers to be something that doesn't work over network communications. As in, if she's communicating with someone via video/audio/text, she cannot use her telepathy on them during those mediums of interaction. Her telepathy is also null and void against any creature that does not have a living mind (i.e.: robots/androids would fall under this category, as would undead creatures like vampires).

PERSONALITY:

Wanda, a caring, perceptive individual lost her parents at the age of ten when the family’s apartment building was bombed (this tragedy planted a seed of vengeance in her; more on that later), but has been determined to turn the tragedy of growing up in the war zone into something meaningful. She and her twin Pietro were always front and centre in protests and riots against Western (USA, et al) powers at hand that were occupying and destabilizing Sokovia before hidden Hydra scientists approached them and promised the twins power. Not simply accepting their fates, Wanda and Pietro rebelled against it, supported each other and developed their co-dependent relationship. They balance each other out - Pietro convinced Wanda to participate in Strucker's experiments from the word ‘go’ and Wanda had to talk Pietro into not releasing Tony in Age of Ultron when they both held resentment for his Western weapons business.

Once she loses Pietro in the battle against Ultron, she presses on with her resilience by leaving Sokovia and joining the Avengers in New York. Seeing that SHIELD was not exactly the monster she had believed it to be, since they did show up to save her people, she gives them this chance -- despite her feeling guilt for her part in Ultron and what it did to Novi Grad and her brother. Wanda feels a need to prove both to herself and the world that she can be better than before. She grows stronger. Even in at the fight at the airport in Civil War, she knows more than anyone else what will happen to the ones that stay behind to try to press against Tony and his team -- what kind of place Ross will put them in, but she doesn't hesitate because she knows stopping Tony is more important.

After being tossed in the Raft, she's lost almost everything. Sokovia, her brother, her second home with the Avengers. The Avengers were her chance to find a new purpose and belonging, and she still looks for it now. Her instinct for kindness and protectiveness means that anyone who shows that to her will find her returning it to them. She can have trust issues, but she isn't so cold that she will be ice to everyone nice. Her anger and doubt can be her weaknesses, because if someone she loves is hurt, she will go fight hard at whatever or whoever wronged them, and she can get massive blinders and not see straight. Until a trusted friend comes along and talks her out of it. And despite her dark history, Wanda has found some light in dry sarcasm. She will tease her friends and family, lightly, in a blink and you might miss it, way. It keeps her going.

Moving mostly past her issues with the Avengers when she joined the team, and her issues with SHIELD, shifted her perception of how she can be a hero in this new age. She still hates Tony, but she can work with him. Even with Clint "retiring", she still has a soft spot for the Avenger who is like a father figure for her now, since his life is because Pietro gave up his. To close friends of her friends, she treats as close — when T'Challa went for Bucky, she protected Bucky, since he's Steve's friend — and she trusts Steve.

Wanda is still learning how to deal with failure and her powers. Her kindness means she wants to save everyone, but sometimes, as Steve says to her, that isn't always possible. Saving as many people as possible has to be good enough, even if it sucks that some people die. She wants her power to be enough, but it's not, and she can blame herself quickly for that. She expects so much of herself after gaining this power. However, once Wanda's made up her mind, she acts decisively and good fucking luck taking her out of it. She knows and is terrified of how destructive her powers can be, and how easily she can be made into a living weapon, which she tries hard not to be. Her confidence in knowing she has all of this power, and that constant fear in her own mind that she's going to mess up and kill people, eats away at her in an inner battle. Sometimes she ruminates in the guilt which motivates her to do better and be better, and also tells her to stand back and don't get involved lest people die.

Despite this, her vengeful nature comes back into play should people she cares about be in harm's way. Mostly, she takes actions which incapacitate (not harm) the threats to them, but if her loved one's lives are on the line? She's going for the kill. (Example A: In Infinity War, she threw shredded Proxima Midnight for almost killing Natasha.) When Wanda does have to kill, she surprisingly doesn't seem to show regret for that because she knew it had to be done, since it is a last resort for her.

After manipulating reality and holding a town hostage for a few weeks, Wanda is yet again isolating herself and trying to learn about her new chaos magic abilities. While also trying to figure out how to get back her children that she gave birth to in her fake reality, then had to erase. Grief is an understatement, but she's also motivated in a way she's never been motivated before.

SAMPLE: 001 & 002 & of course the TDM sample above makes 3

INVENTORY: This outfit and if possible the Darkhold. I won't have her do anything game-breaky with the Darkhold, and any major use of it will be mod-approved for a plot well beforehand.

NOTES: She shouldn't need any particular accommodations, or anything unusual like that.

IF ACCEPTED, WOULD YOU WANT A PLOT-LIGHT OR PLOT-HEAVY CUSTOM INTRO? Let's go light for sake of ease!

APPLICATION RECEIVED

[groundrules]