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groundrules) wrote2021-01-08 03:30 pm
groundrules) wrote2021-01-08 03:30 pm
Entry tags:
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.
APPLICATIONS CLOSED
→ NAVIGATION MENU
Xie Lian || Tian Guan Ci Fu/Heaven Officials' Blessing Novel
CONTACT: lomelinde
INVITE STATUS: Existing player
CHARACTER: Xie Lian
CANON: Tian Guan Ci Fu / Heaven Officials’ Blessing novel
CANON POINT: Post-canon
BACKGROUND:
[CW : contains reference to torture and suicide. May also have a few spoilers.]
° Xie Lian was born as the only son to the Emperor and Empress of the prosperous Xianle Kingdom in the Central Plains. When he was a teen, he saved Hua Cheng’s life and interrupted an important religious ritual he was taking part in to do so. Thus he gained his most devoted believer. At age 17, he defeated the demon ghost of Yi Nian Bridge and ascended to Heaven as a Martial God. He was greatly admired by his people and they built many temples for him.
° After his ascension, the Xianle Kingdom was struck by calamities, war and epidemics. Xie Lian broke the laws of Heaven and descended to the human realm to help his country, but because he was going against fate, every action he took to help his people turned out to make the situation much worse. He started being called a god of misfortune and being blamed for bringing catastrophes to the kingdom.
Unknown to Xie Lian, most of these events were being orchestrated by one of the Four Ghost Kings, a Calamity-level Ghost called Bai Wuxiang who seemed to be targeting him specifically and to want him to fall into despair.
Because he had disobeyed the laws of Heaven by intervening in human affairs, Xie Lian’s punishment was to be banished to the human world. His cultivation was destroyed and his spiritual power bridled with a curse shackle around his neck.
° Xie Lian was forced to live in the mortal realm where his kingdom had been overtaken by Yong'an Kingdom. He lived in a simple shack with his mother, father, Mu Qing, and Feng Xin. Life was hard and work was so difficult to come by that Xie Lian was forced to sell his prized legendary swords and later resorted to street performance and even attempted robbery.
Bai Wuxiang kept orchestrating events to pile up hardships and humiliations on Xie Lian, which culminated in Bai Wuxiang tricking the people of Xianle into torturing Xie Lian by ‘killing him’ repeatedly so they might be cured of the deadly disease ravaging their lands. Following this event, Xie Lian’s last servant left his side and his parents killed themselves. Xie Lian tried to join them but his immortality prevented him from doing so. Overcome by despair, Xie Lian vowed revenge on the Yong’an Kingdom who had destroyed Xianle and rose as the Second White Clothed Calamity.
° Before destroying Yong’an Kingdom while urged on by Bai Wuxian, Xie Lian decided to give them one last chance. He stabbed himself and laid down in the street for three days to see if anyone would try to help him. On the third day, a man gave him his bamboo hat to protect him from the rain and then helped him up and told him to go home. With this one act of kindness, all hatred for people left Xie Lian's heart, redirected towards Bai Wuxiang instead. Ultimately, Bai Wuxiang was defeated by the Heavenly Emperor Jun Wu and Xie Lian ascended for the second time. However, he did not want to live in the Heavens after this and asked Jun Wu to banish him to the mortal realm again with two cursed shackles : one as punishment for his wrongs and one to disperse all his luck. His second ascension took less than the time it took to burn an incense stick to end.
° Xie Lian lived humbly for years in the mortal realm, earning a living by gathering scraps and being a street performer. During the next centuries, he occasionally became embroiled in human politics again. He was at some point hired to be the Guoshi, or Royal Preceptor, of the Yong’an Royal family. He also was a soldier in the Banyue army, and got ‘killed’ when he stepped on a shoelace and was trampled while trying to stop a fight. He then just faked his death and left. He became known as the ‘Scrap Immortal’ because his bad luck prevented him from keeping any jobs but gathering scraps.
° 800 years after his birth, Xie Lian ascended to Heaven for the third time. The exact reason for his ascension is unknown, although it's likely due to his strict and continuous cultivation as the Scrap Immortal.
Following this, he was assigned to work on several cases of haunting and supernatural occurrences. In doing so, he started uncovering a web of deception and corruption within the Heavens, showing that many Heavenly Officials had dealings with ghosts and demons. He also met many people from his past, some of whom had ascended as gods and others who had become ghosts and demons themselves. He was also reunited with Hua Cheng, now become a Ghost King and the Great Calamity Crimson Rain Sought Flower, who seemed intent on protecting him at all costs. Xie Lian started developing feelings for him and was very confused and flustered by this.
During his travels, Xie Lian became aware that most of the misfortunes of his life had been orchestrated by Bai Wuxiang, who got interested in him because of their similar paths in life and who hoped to recreate a ‘Second Bai Wuxiang’ in Xie Lian. His failure to do so infuriated Bai Wuxiang and he now sought to eliminate Xie Lian. In the final showdown, the corruption of the Heavenly Court was laid bare and Xie Lian regained his honor and status as a god.
ABILITIES | POWERS:
° Immortality : As a god, Xie Lian is basically immortal, so no human-level characters can kill him for good. He can, however, appear dead, and has faked his own death several times, but wounds and injuries that would normally kill someone do not work on him. He cannot even kill himself.
° Swordsmanship : to put it simply, he’s a sword jock, and he’s an expert at using all kinds of weapons.
° Physical Strength : Xie Lian originally ascended as a Martial God, and he is extremely strong physically.
° High Pain Tolerance: Due to the amount of torture, battles, and pain he suffered, he has an extremely high tolerance for pain. He has mostly become unbothered by almost any kind of pain, although he does still feel it. He barely reacts to physical pain most of the time.
° Spiritual Power : Post-canon Xie Lian has regained his spiritual powers. As such, he can use most of the powers the gods have access to such as communication arrays, spirit detection, bursts of spiritual power, barriers, talismans and charms.
° Bad Luck : although this is mostly due to his curse shackle, his luck is so bad it’s almost a superpower. He’s basically a walking example of Murphy’s law. If something can go wrong for him, it will. Being around Hua Cheng seems to negate this.
° Bad Housekeeping skills : While he is skilled at craft work and combat, he is horrible at household chores like sewing or cooking. His cooking, in particular, is so bad that no one can stomach his food except Hua Cheng. In fact, some people eating his food have been known to be grievously injured by it, including certain gods.
To avoid any world-breaking stuff, I would propose the reactivation of his curse shackles which greatly limit his access to spiritual powers and some of his physical strength.
PERSONALITY:
Xie Lian is a kind, gentle and down-to-earth person. He does not use his status to tower over other people, and in fact often seems reluctant to disclose his actual identity (for many reasons). He is more likely than not to try and go for the pacifist option first and stop the fighting, and try to hear out everyone’s explanations. When faced with a ghost or a bad spirit, he is very likely to try and talk them down first, even if he ends up having to fight afterwards.
He does not hold grudges, and cares little about what other people’s opinions of him are. He embraced the title of Scrap Immortal, which was given to him mockingly at first, and usually responds to sarcasm with smiles. He will protect even people who have done horrible things to him in the past, and while he was at one point consumed with thoughts of revenge, he has now completely let go of that mindset. he has seen the worst of both humanity and gods, but prefers to see the best in people and try to understand them. He is very loyal to his friends.
He is unfailingly courteous and polite. While he does occasionally get angry, it takes a lot for him to actually get to that level. Even when he is angry, he doesn’t use rude words or derogatory language.
Having lived for a long time, he has wisened up a bit from his younger years where he didn’t have an interest in politics. He is smart, calm and collected and usually able to discern people’s motives, and in a fight, he doesn’t lose his cool and can think up strategies on the fly.
Xie Lian is a little more stunted emotionally. His cultivation path required him to abstain from both sex and alcohol, and while he is not completely innocent, he did remain a virgin for 800+ years. He is usually flustered by flirting attempts, and has been known to deflect them by claiming impotence. In general, he is pretty uninterested in romance for himself, at least until Hua Cheng enters the picture. Even then it takes him quite a long time to realize that Hua Cheng’s feelings for him are not just those of a believer for his god and run much deeper than that, and that no, kissing is not just a way to ‘transfer spiritual power’. He battles with his body’s reactions to Hua Cheng for a while before he finally admits his own feelings to himself.
SAMPLE:
https://weifinder.dreamwidth.org/597.html?thread=116821#cmt116821
https://bakerstreet.dreamwidth.org/6548084.html?thread=2879110516#cmt2879110516
https://scrapgege.dreamwidth.org/497.html?thread=6897#cmt6897 (somewhat NSFW)
INVENTORY:
Ruoye, his sentient silk bandage spiritual weapon
A crystal ring on a chain that he usually wears around his neck
A beat up bamboo hat
The white robes he’s wearing
and that’s it, he’s poor. Possibly at a later point, he might be able to regain his spiritual sword, Fang Xin?
APPLICATION RECEIVED
ACCEPTED
Aaaaaaaaall aboard… the absentee caravan! Thanks for applying and welcome to the game.
A few loose ends, for your pleasure:
ADMIN
NOTES
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For the mirror, I'm going to say about 3 times, and as for things surrendered :
(highlight for spoilers)
- His bad cooking.
- The time when Bai Wuxiang convinced his people that they needed to have killed someone to be immune to the Human Face disease, and then helpfully mentioned that Xie Lian is immortal, so they can just take turns 'killing' him and then they will all be fine and then Xie Lian was stabbed approximately a thousand times.
- The time when he was hired as the Guoshi of Yong'an and he was 'killed' by the young Crown Prince supposedly for massacring the whole royal family (he didn't, he only killed the King to prevent a whole out civil war but it was easier to take the blame for all of it), and then decided to just chilled in the coffin he was locked into for about a hundred years.
no subject
no subject