@Archimedes Otto's pretty neat! Totally approved. :D

To everyone: I've also done some heavy edits to the first post of the OOC and the images I used in the Characters tab, to try and simplify things and keep to the style we seem to be developing here. :3

NAME: Elliana Faye

ABSTRACT: Wide-Eyed Dreamer

DETAIL:
Elliana -- or Ellie, as those close to her call her -- is a relatively petite and quiet young woman who's not quite yet out of her teenage years. While she doesn't dislike being around others (in fact, the truth is the exact opposite), she often overly worries about how to act and what to say, leading to her simply not saying much and resorting to slightly nodding her head a lot. What she lacks in confidence around others, however, she makes up for with her sincerity and inquisitiveness. She tends to be of few words, but is easily at her most chatty and open when trying to understand how something works -- especially when that something involves magic, something that has fascinated her since her earliest years. She's a kind soul, always trusting and believing the best of others, making her likable, if also a little susceptible to being taken advantage of.

Her family is lower middle class, made up of her mother, father, and younger brother. Other than with them, Elliana spends most of her time alone, either wandering around the city and seeing what see can find, or with her nose buried in a book -- often both. Her mind is quick to wander, imagining and exploring the places her feet can't easily take her, leading her to often be lost in her own head. As a result, she's very easy to startle, even when care is taken to not do so.

Despite her timid nature, at her core, she's a strong and adventurous person, having a desire to see and discover as much of the world as possible. That includes the world beyond the towering wall, despite the knot she gets in her stomach when she thinks about what it might be like to see a Grit face-to-face -- and wonders if it would actually be as horrific as she's been taught to believe.

For her birthday, she was given the opportunity to go up the wall by her parents, something she had dreamed of doing as long as she could remember. This will be her second time up, the first having been when she was barely old enough to string together a semi-coherent sentence.

MAGICAL INVENTORY:
Elliana has two sigils, burned into sperate thin, rectangular pieces of durable plastic, each slightly bigger than an average playing card. Nearly all the money she's earned in her short life has gone to acquiring them, and of course she dreams of having many more. She keeps them tucked away in a leather, buttoned pouch that she wears around her waist.

The first completely reverses the momentum of a target that she focuses on, within a short range. The second releases a gust of wind towards where the sigil is facing, the strength of which is entirely determined by how powerfully she feels the emotion she uses to cast it.

@XLegs Elliana is quite excellent! A great addition to the team! Totally approved. :D

Awesome, thank you. I'll post her in the Character section in a moment.

Alright, how does it look? any inconsistencies? forgive me for any typos. its been awhile, heh.

Sorry I didn't post my CS sooner! Again, school sucks. Please tell me if there's anything I should revise. :D



NAME: Reina Lexus

ABSTRACT: Independent Photographer

DETAIL: The Lexus family is a wealthy family, owning the third largest newspaper publishing house (Periphery Gazette). Roman Lexus, Reina's father, was a world-renowned writer and photographer. He was known for his feature articles about the wall. Roman passed his love and talent for photography to his second child, Reina Lexus. Unlike Roman, Reina was only interested in photography. No newspaper, no writing, no publishing, no fame. Reina, being strong-willed and independent, wishes for her father to not care about her a lot. Reina lives in a different house Roman lives in (though Roman lives in a mansion), one she rents. She makes money from the photos she sells to other publishing houses. When her photo doesn't sell, she goes to their own publishing house and sells it there. This, of course, is a rare event, as Reina usually takes pictures of Grits (from the wall) and the wall, two thing most people in Periphery care about. She spends most of her time taking pictures from the wall. She does not fear the Grit as other people do. Rather, she's curious on what they really are.

MAGICAL INVENTORY: Reina carries one sigil that has been passed through different generations of Lexus. Reina considers it a "photographer's best friend". It is able to make a target something monetarily, just enough for a shutter. The sigil is small, around the size of a picture that fits into a pendant. The sigil is also used as a pendant by Reina, always worn around her neck. Additionally, Reina always carries around a camera she uses to take pictures.

@MrSkelly@Riptide Davis and Reina both look pretty damn cool! Awesome! Approved! Please do carry them over to the characters tab. :)

Another question for everyone: what do you hope to do or accomplish in this rp? What sort of stuff are you excited about? The one thing that kills my rps most often is the fact that a lot of my crazy nonsensical plot twists are never as awesome as I think they are, haha! I want to do this one justice, and make sure that this game at least attempts to be everything you expected! So lemme know you expectations -- it'd help write a lot. :)

For me, the big thing that drew me in was this paragraph:

It's up to your character to decide whether to restore the city of Periphery to the haven it once was; to side with the Grit and return the city to the wilds; to take advantage of disaster for your character's own gain; or to broker peace between the city folk and the Grit and bring down the wall for good.

That sounds awesome on its own, and it reminded me of the set-up for Shin Megami Tensei games, which I've been into lately, where you generally go down one of three paths as you play, based on a Law - Neutral - Chaos idea. Most of the time in the games the morality is very gray-and-grey, with there being no 'right' choice -- the Law ending is often just as terrible for humanity as the Chaos one. The right choice would simply be whatever lines up with your character's beliefs.

So that's basically what I'm hoping sort of happens. It'd be interesting to see how all the player-characters struggle with the choice (if at all) and to see the eventual decision they all each come to: to side with either the Grit or the city and go against the other, to take the idealistic, lowest-chance-of-success approach and attempt to get the two to co-exist at the great risk of losing both and more possible conflict in the future, or to use the whole situation to further themselves (or even do anything else that a player can think of). That would also make tons of opportunities for interesting player-character interactions and conflicts, due to clashing or common beliefs.

Also, the title of the RP, 'Moonfiend,' is the greatest thing ever, and I'm really wondering if it's just that, a title, or if it's the name of an actual person/thing in the story, because that would be awesome.

Ok, I've written up a CS! Let me know if there's anything I should change to be more in keeping with the setting :D



NAME: Katrina Meyer

ABSTRACT: Talented robotics mechanic by day; party animal by night

DETAIL: Katrina (Kat for short) has done her fair share of hard work. Growing up as the youngest of four, it was always hard work to get her parents to dedicate any of the limited time they had outside managing the family repair shop to her. It was hard work having to acknowledge that if the shop was going to survive the next generation, she was going to have to step up in place of her lazy siblings and study to be a top-class mechanic. It was hard work jumping through hoop after hoop, test after test, to get her qualifications. And now, after Kat’s mother has taken sick and passed the position of head mechanic at the shop to her in the meantime… It turns out that’s pretty hard work too.

As if to make up for the hours of exhausting effort which Kat puts into her work as a mechanic (which, despite her protestations, she genuinely enjoys), Kat also plays hard. She can drink a formidable amount of alcohol, regularly goes days without sleeping (in fact, just don’t ask how much sleep she gets- it’s a little scary) and is rarely seen without trendy tech-specs which keep her constantly hooked up to social media.

Now in her mid-twenties, Kat has managed to establish herself a solid reputation as a all-round mechanic (and socialite), but her talent particularly lies in more intricate robotics repair. Since shop is a family business she intends to run one day, Kat has tried to gain as broad an understanding of areas related to her work as possible (e.g. she can adequately program, and since she often works on bionic body parts she even knows a little biology). Kat’s near-obsessive focus on her vocation and going out has been to the detriment of pretty much everything else (her parents are hoping she marries an accountant, as Kat is hopeless with money)- when faced with the unfamiliar, Kat tends to try and solve problems by relating them to mechanics (this can lead to some very odd analogies). Never ask her to cook.

Outgoing and loud, Kat has never found it hard to make friends, but given how she never really has “downtime”- always either working at the shop or on some wild night out- she finds it hard to form deep bonds with other people. Although she thinks they are layabouts, the only people she is close to are her siblings (two older brothers and a sister). Today is a rare day off, as it is her sister’s birthday, and to celebrate their parents have given the Meyer siblings tickets for a tour of the top of the wall. Little does she know that, (incorrectly) anticipating their youngest sister will be so hungover the morning of her day off she would be late, the time to meet they gave Kat was an hour earlier than the actual planned meeting time...

MAGICAL INVENTORY: Katrina has tattoos of three sigils, all relating to her work:

A sigil of light is tattooed onto the palm of her right hand (Kat is left-handed) which produces enough light up any nooks and crannies in something she is working on.

The forefinger on her left hand has a sigil of heat tattooed at the tip- she wears a ring on that finger onto which she can screw two augments which allow her to utilise this heat for her work- either a pointed metal cover for the tip of her finger which heats up enough to act as a soldering iron, or a thermocutter attachment which heats enough to melt through plastic of a medium thickness. Without the augments, the heat produced by the sigil can still cause a nasty, albiet small, burn.

Finally, circular sigils of magnification are tattooed along the side of both her thumb and forefinger which form circles when her hands make an “ok” motion- looking through this allows her to zoom in on intricate work.

I like the part where you have a lot of crazy nonsensical plot twists. As long as you can keep the story going, then I can continue doing whatever I had planned to do, or work towards it anyways. Even if your plot twists go against my plan, normally after getting around any obstacle you will be a little closer than you were before.

@MsChimeric Katrina's pretty damn cool! Love the tech and the use of sigils. Absolutely copy her over to the Characters tab. :)

@XLegs Thank you!! I can definitely focus on planning for those paths, and make sure to present choices that lead down one path or the other.

I have an idea for what Moonfiend actually is, but it's sorta endgame -- and we can only hope we'll get there. xD

@rechonq Thanks for the confidence! But I just killed a steampunk RP by dropping the PCs down a surprise elevator and into a cave with a sleeping t-rex -- out of the blue, in the middle of a masquerade. You guys need to kick me in the pants of I pull something out of left field for the sake of being crazy, haha!

This one might take a bit longer than usual to set up, because you guys have inspired me to actually take it seriously. I've got that map to draw, and a plot to kick into shape, and NPCs to flesh out.

Suggestions always welcome!

@Mokley

That was before the sky was ripped in two.

I can't wait to see this. I'm also interested to know about the driving force behind the Grit (maybe a little more background on this?). As far as Grit-NPCs are concerned, I'm not entirely sure where this is going. It seems as though they will be a mix of undead, ghouls and other monster-types...mostly humanoid. Also, any more info on the city's authority figure?

It's up to your character to decide whether to restore the city of Periphery to the haven it once was; to side with the Grit and return the city to the wilds; to take advantage of disaster for your character's own gain; or to broker peace between the city folk and the Grit and bring down the wall for good.

Looking at the background of the PCs so far, I can't tell which way this will sway. Depending on the size of the group, I can't say there won't be a split of factions either! It looks great thus far Mokley!

Oy we have so many characters I'm hyped. I gotta look over the OOC again I guess. I'm up for whatever, just as long as Ethan gets some more treasure (I like writing about objects a lot more than people).

I haves a question can a sigil create a familiar or is it just elemental magic?

I'm also interested to know about the driving force behind the Grit (maybe a little more background on this?). As far as Grit-NPCs are concerned, I'm not entirely sure where this is going. It seems as though they will be a mix of undead, ghouls and other monster-types...mostly humanoid. Also, any more info on the city's authority figure?

I'm totally psyched as well! Thanks! :D I'm considering posting up a few more NPCs before we begin, one of which would be the queen. She's only the queen of this one city, which I guess technically makes her a mayor, but don't tell her that. She's benevolent, but a little off.

The Grit I imagine to be more of varying degrees of chimaera -- some might be kind of fuzzy-adorable, and others are downright fugly. Their backstory right now is mixed up in popular books and movies in Periphery that depict the Grit as common terrible monsters to be defeated by heroes, or scarily intelligent humanoid-animals hellbent on destroying the world. A common horror movie scene is probably the Grit climbing over the wall and eating babies and raising the dead. Fun times.

I haves a question can a sigil create a familiar or is it just elemental magic?

It CAN, technically -- but that sigil would have to be enormous, extremely complicated, and requiring of a few people touching it at once to work it. Those ambitious spells are generally reserved for the mages who spend their lives studying sigils.

That's if you mean creating life. If you mean capturing an animal and binding it to yourself as a familiar, that's more of a job for rune magic and enchanting. A mage could place a piece of his soul into a collar, for example, and the animal that wears the collar could then be bound to him. A lot of mages would rather enchant robots, though -- having an animal familiar does absolutely nothing for the mage, but at least a robot is useful. :)

I feel like I'm rambling. Rambleramble....

@Mokley thank you for thy great ramblings GM. I am working on my app now.

Another question for everyone: what do you hope to do or accomplish in this rp? What sort of stuff are you excited about? The one thing that kills my rps most often is the fact that a lot of my crazy nonsensical plot twists are never as awesome as I think they are, haha! I want to do this one justice, and make sure that this game at least attempts to be everything you expected! So lemme know you expectations -- it'd help write a lot. :)

As you can see, my character is pretty mundane. I'd like to explore how he, as a regular Joe, will deal with his world as he knows it being shook up. I'm really hoping that you'll use his backstory in a way that I can play off of...

Also, I guess another request, when you want to have an NPC show up that our characters should recognize -- for example, my character Emmitt's wife -- could you perhaps post that information in the OOC with a mention to the people who need to know, or maybe send out PMs?

EDIT: I'm really looking forward to this! I hope I'll be able to participate and not get swamped... Eh, I should be fine as long as things don't move too fast.

Well that RP obviously didn't know how to ride a Steampunk T-Rex. I like to play games, A lot, and you can make whatever rules you want, but I will use those rules to my advantage. So if you drop a demon on my 50's housewife, she's gonna go terminator on you.

As you can see, my character is pretty mundane. I'd like to explore how he, as a regular Joe, will deal with his world as he knows it being shook up. I'm really hoping that you'll use his backstory in a way that I can play off of...

Also, I guess another request, when you want to have an NPC show up that our characters should recognize -- for example, my character Emmitt's wife -- could you perhaps post that information in the OOC with a mention to the people who need to know, or maybe send out PMs?

EDIT: I'm really looking forward to this! I hope I'll be able to participate and not get swamped... Eh, I should be fine as long as things don't move too fast.

I would love to use everyone's backstories! Once we've got a groove going, hopefully each steady character will have their time to shine. Character development is totally key.

The beginning of the RP is probably going to move quickly as everyone gets in their first posts, but I guarantee it will slow down before long -- you might have to bear with it for a bit, but please do stick it out. :) One story-post a week to 10 days is a maintenance goal, I think, with players posting as much as they want in-between.

Whenever I introduce a new NPC, I usually try to also post a CS in the NPCs section that tells what everyone should know about them. If only certain characters would know them, I'll poke you in the OOC. Good call!

@MokleyWonderful! I completely understand withholding specifics of the story before it begins. I'm just getting a feel for the scenario for my master CS. I tend to hold back as well. Why put all the goods on display, am I right? Do you have a date in mind for kickoff?