Well, I knew we were running at a snails pace from time to time, but I didn't think we were running that bad :p
I have some free time after work today, I will put a post up. In fact, I am working on it now, so it may be a bit easier to get up later this afternoon. And then hopefully we can move along with the plot.
In terms of a side rp, we'll see. I like Arena's ideas, but I also don't want to spread myself too thin, and I would like to see this rp get underway before anything else opens up. I am not opposed to opening the rp up for others to join, but I do think we've got a pretty good group already. You guys also don't hate me so much so that you're willing to stay despite the super slow pace of everything :p and I don't know yet if allowing another person or two is going to disrupt our flow.
@Amplatz so if we allow a new character, it is going to heavily depend on your cs, and how we can integrate you into the story. If you can come up with a good enough cs, and you don't mind the state/pace of everything, I would be open to considering your application. Our first ooc post will tell you everything we're looking for and I'd be happy to get you up to speed, not that our story has gone very far :p
We can be a bit of a rowdy bunch in the ooc, but it is all in good fun, we come from all walks of life and are just here, hoping to put out a good story. :)
I understand. No hard feelings if you reject the character then, its been a long time since I made a CS. Bit of a while since you said, been busy the last few days.
Name: Agade Tin
Species: Human
Age: 25
Description:
His clothing and rapier roughly fit this look:
He is 5,11, has curly ginger hair, kept short and pale blue eyes. Along with a high cheekboned-face dotted with freckles, he looks young for his age, but noticeable crows feet contradict the rest of his look. He has a number of shallow scars on his right forearm, from lost to-first-blood dueling matches.
Personality:
Agade is open minded and flexible, and has learned to roll with turns of fortune and situation. He is conscious of how his pride and anger proved disastrous for him, and tries to control both. The experience of having to leave behind his old life could have made him turn inwards, pushing people away out of caution as he moves from place to place. This did not happen, instead he tends to make friends quickly, looking to replace whatever connections he made in the last destination. In a sense it is him setting himself up for repeated loss. Rather than being a cold isolated loner, the loneliness gets to him, and he tries to find people in each new place he stops at.
Agade is independent, and highly confident in his own abilities. He understands the limitations of his fighting skills- a suit of armour and a shield used competently leaves him without a leg to stand on- and has a healthy respect for all ways of fighting. In general he has become much more humble since leaving Balpel, leaving the relatively sheltered environment there.
He has a sense of honour imparted to him by his upbringing. This clashes with involvement in organised crime at many times in many places; he has worked on cargo ships as a sailor and as protection, but also as muscle for cartels, and in underground fighting rings which are inextricably linked to crime. He tries to choose the 'best' group to work for, and sometimes goes after bounties for the authorities, but a good option isn't always there (if he wants to make money and be comfortable). A nagging sense that he is acting against his principles persists.
Agade tends to be optimistic, and has a sense that things will work out one way or another. This carefree attitude can go as far as recklessness, but he becomes more cautious if he's working towards a specific goal. Agade has a broad sense of humour, and an annoying tendency to point out the puns in everything.
Skills/Abilities:
Engineering trainingRarely matters. He can design and lead the construction of simple bridges and buildings (with a focus on things like forts, watchtowers), has a working understanding of many types of machinery (windmills, water locks, mechanical reapers). Knows a lot of applied mathematics.
Noble educationMore applicable than the above if only for the literacy. He can read and write, knows how to ride a horse as transport (not for war). Knows geography and history, and through that quite a bit about the world. Can speak [common trade language] as well as his native tongue.
SailingIs competent at a range of skills used as a sailor on a trade ship; needlework for sails and clothes, working with rigging, swimming, fishing, maintaining various bits of equipment, navigation at sea, working with ropes, basic construction/carpentry for repairing the ship.
CombatThis is his most useful, standout skill. Agade trained casually from a young age in Balpel Dueling, and then intensely and competitively from 18 to 22. Experience fighting in the real world (brawls, pirate attacks, arenas, actual duels) improved his skill further, forcing him to adapt to the range of fighting styles out there. His abilities go beyond Balpel Dueling, having learned to incorporate improvised weapons and what would be illegal moves in the dueling tournaments into his style. However his fighting is at its core based on it.
Balpel Dueling uses a rapier in the main hand, a small axe in the off hand (similar to a tomahawk), and allows kicking strikes. The rapier is primarily for offense but is used in defense too, and is used as a stabbing weapon. Precision is the focus more than power, small accurate movements delivering wounds to the neck or the eyes. The axe is used for parrying, and ripostes using it against the hands or forearms of an attacker are key to the style. Offensively it is not used often, however Agade has become very skilled with throwing it, delivering brutal blows that way. Finally leg strikes, as the enemy would have a rapier and an axe in their hands, leg attacks go low. Sweeping the leg or stamping onto a foot to interrupt movement and throw the enemy off balance, are both examples of common techniques. Generally kicks are not used with the aim of damaging or disabling an opponent, but to disrupt movement and knock the opponent off balance to create an opening for the bladed weapons.
Agade could fairly claim to be an expert duelist, and is good enough with his axes to pull of trick shots i.e. hitting the center of a bullseye.
Magic: No magical ability.
Equipment and PossessionsRapier, 1, slightly used. Nothing special, regular swords tend to break; this is his 5th.
preferredarms.com/images/weapons/large..Tomahawks, 5. Kept on a belt.
knifecollector.net/images/Tomahawk2.jpgLeather and reinforced cloth armour (as in the picture in his description), metal plates inlaid in the gauntlets.
s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/5a/b..Misc equipment like compass, waterskin, fire starting kit, metal pot, etc.
Backstory:
(I assume we are meant to do worldbuilding here, I'm imagining the Communion as about Mexico sized in a region that's slightly larger, but it could slot in wherever, if there is actually a full world to work off of I'll rework this or scrap it depending on which works, his home country isn't super important to him.)
Agade comes from a human dominated nation, the Tengata Communion. The Communion is a collection of individual city states, city state leagues, and moderate sized kingdoms. It is a diverse nation holding many cultures and is about 30% non human. As might be guessed from the name, it was unified by religion, lacking unity in culture or species. How tolerant the nation is is also diverse; some parts accept being in the same country as other peoples so long as they don't come 'over here', others are more accepting. Some parts want the 'convert or die' process that formed the nation to continue unabated, others treat foreign missionaries with respect. And so on.
The religion itself is known as The Faith of the Needed. It is a slightly panicky duotheistic religion with a good and evil deity, the main talking point for its early prophets was not 'victory in battle' or 'unconditional love' but 'the world will end if you don't believe'. Arising during an unstable time for Tengata, rife with war and famine, it stated that the benevolent deity (Ounael) was losing massively to the malevolent deity (Verace) and that they had to convert and start spreading the faith or the world would be plunged into unending suffering. Most of the fanatical devotion burned itself out in the first few decades after it appeared, but in that time the armies of the Needed by conversion and warfare had secured nearly all of Tengata.
Agade heralds from the city of Balpel, a member of the Merchant's Communion, a loose league of city states itself formed within the Communion. He is a member of the upper class, a son to a minor merchant house (the nobility of his home), wealthy enough for an easy childhood and an education, not so wealthy that every son could inherit a part of the business. With two older brothers, he would struggle to find anything worthwhile for him out of his family's holdings, at least relative to the expectations put upon him. While there were options like joining the military as an officer, or becoming a merchant captain, when he started at university he decided to try and win recognition in the dueling circles. Across the Merchant's Communion, it is understood that a noble son goes into university to either become a merchant or to prepare them for officer school- as a classical education is expected for generals and commanders. Their actual study is normally unrelated to the military if taking that second option. Because of this, education tends to have a militaristic bent, so competitive dueling was encouraged between students, to prepare them for the rigour of war. The light scars gained from the to-first-blood bouts became to be seen as a sign of bravery and courage. Balpel dueling resembles real world main gauche fencing with kicking strikes allowed. The off-hand weapon is very similar to a tomahawk, which he also taught himself to use as a throwing weapon. He possessed a natural talent for it, and alongside his studies (only going into engineering in depth, and covering a lot of military engineering) dedicated massive amounts of time to becoming good at it.
Within his university, he became one of the best, competed in tournaments and became proud of his skill. In the last few months of his education, he defeated a well known duelist, using the off-hand axe as a throwing weapon to knock his opponent's rapier from his hand. The victory and the innovative technique both gave him recognition across the community. He celebrated, drinking and boasting with his friends. He made a boast that he could defeat anyone in the drinking hall he was in, and suddenly found an officer taking him up, making it a bet. In his pride and with the glow of victory still with him, he agreed, and put down far too much money, and arranged to a fight the next day. He was good, talented and had trained well and long. He lost horribly in full view of the men who's respect he had gained, and in a split second of anger used his prized technique. A thrown axe can draw blood like a rapier tip, but it can't as easily stop at just that. Lodged in the victor's windpipe, Agade realised he had managed to turn around his path in one night and one morning, from 'rising duelist' to 'actual murderer'.
He fled the country, and spent the last few years in various ports around the world or traveling between them on ships. His main marketable talent is fighting; various kinds of arena fights, hired muscle, helping fend of pirates and so on. However other skills he took for granted that all wealthy children learn (literacy, numeracy), and those taught in his studies would also prove useful. Working in underground fighting rings, or being paid to fight for one set of dockyard racketeers against another, would frequently put him in contact with higher ups in whatever criminal organisations operated in the area. This has on a few occasions allowed him to leverage these skills; running numbers for cartels (normally while recuperating from injuries), planning break ins, designing vaults and so on.
The letter found him as someone known as resourceful, very used to traveling, skilled as a fighter, and without much preventing him from picking up stakes and throwing himself into a new battle.
