It has been nearly a century since the sounds of the Great Warβs great convulsive drums ceased, the air still and free of conflict for the first time in years. On the island of Vytal, a peace which has lasted seventy years endured the flames of diplomacy and forged four nations into one grand alliance. Huntsman academies were established, trade flourished, old grudges were settled and populations grew. The Grimm which had grown so mighty as shells flew and bayonets flashed were pushed back, and as the emotions which fed them subsided the great stockpiles of war were turned on the Old Enemy with tenacity and unity.
A golden age blossomed, one which for more than half a century saw the greatest strides in general happiness and welfare ever recorded, but all students of history know that no age lasts forever, no civilization is permanent. Every peak of culture, learning, wealth, looks from its lofty height and sees the yawning chasm looming in the future. Now, progress slows and stagnation has set in. Atlas and Mistral vie for the great Dust veins which promise such wealth along the northern shore. Client states, satraps and vassals of Vale and Vacuo squabble and bicker between the two great powers who watch the situation with measures of both fear and greed.
All the while, the creatures of Grimm stir. The antithesis of humanity, the Grimm who were so soundly defeated ad thrown back into the periphery of the world as their great forests were burned and their mountains leveled are resurgent. They move with coordination, appear in new forms, tear at the weaknesses of humanity and ignore the gleaming redoubts; the time of human victory appears to the most cynical to be at an end.
The hopes of humanity, and the faunus who with fire and sword broke their chains, are pinned on Hunters. Huntsmen and Huntresses, who wield coruscating souls of terrifying depth, whose every facet is a sword against the dark and a shield for the weak. The four colossal academies have birthed generations of the mightiest warriors ever to walk the face of Remnant, and in their hands the future of sentience itself rests.
All the world can do now is pray that its champions are strong enough to carry the responsibility.
OOC Information:
Welcome to Brilliant Horizon! In this RP, players will take control of powerful graduated Huntsmen or Huntresses, skilled career warriors armed with the light of their own souls. The RP is set five years before the events of the show, and as soon as the RP starts timelines will diverge: everything will change, the butterfly effect will ensure your actions shape the world into new and fantastic patterns. Your characters have just graduated as part of the same class from Beacon Academy as the shining stars of the institution, and great things are expected from you by interested parties and the proletariat masses. The responsibilities of a warrior are immense, and the stresses of the battlefield are hardly taught in classrooms. The way of a Hunter is one of violence and risk, partaken willingly, but what are you willing to sacrifice to save the world?
Dark forces conspire, danger looms, and the ties of family or alliance stretch to breaking points. The world is not simple, and solutions are not easy. When should idealism be compromised? When is altruism unequipped to bind the wounds of the world? What is the worth of a single soul, and what reasons justify violence? Has Humanity earned its lofty throne of existence?
This game encourages player agency both in the plot and the setting, and active, enthusiastic players are encouraged above all else. Post length is not heavily enforced, but quality writing and agency in the plot are asked of players looking to join. Players will be accepted into the game once they produce a character sheet of quality, following the template here:
Name: (Unless you have a good explanation, please follow the RWBY convention of color references, for consistency of tone) Age: (You will be playing newly-graduated hunters, so anywhere from 20-22 is the average. This may be higher, but probably not lower.) Gender: (Because of the colossal power of Hunters, natural physical ability is less important. As such, women serve alongside men in almost equal numbers as Huntresses unlike the national militaries) Race: (Faunus are much less common among the ranks of Hunters for many reasons, but they are still present in large numbers) Nationality: (All the characters have just graduated from Beacon Academy, but they can be from any corner of Remnant) Appearance: (A picture here is fine, but text is preferred)
Personality: (Who is your character?) Aspiration: (What drives your character?) Fears: (What terrifies your character to the core? Ethics: (What does your character consider right and wrong? How do they view the world?) History: (What shaped your character to be who they are? Include here past relations, positive and negative.)
Semblance: (The direct manifestation of the soul in the world. Each is unique to the person, and reflective of their character in subtle or obvious ways) Combat Style: (Every hunter fights in a unique way determined by their semblance: go wild here.) Weapon: (Huntersβ weapons are often as unique as their bizarre powers, as the requirements are different. Text or pictures are welcome, or both.)
Non-Combat skills: (Every Hunter is a talented fighter: what can yours do that the others cannot?) Deficiencies: (No-one is good at everything. What is your character bad at?) Miscellaneous: (Anything that doesnβt quite fit in the other categories goes here.)
Well, you're certainly Johnny on the spot with the enthusiasm. How could I not say 'Please Jesus come join the fun'?. Also, Katars are baller, I can't wait to see your character in action.
Well, you're certainly Johnny on the spot with the enthusiasm. How could I not say 'Please Jesus come join the fun'?. Also, Katars are baller, I can't wait to see your character in action.
I only got into RWBY recently and bingewatched until I was caught up so I still have a bunch of fandom hype about it.
The idea is that all the characters will have worked together, become friends, perhaps even been in teams. The reason for this is just to give in character reasons for you all working together and adventuring together after you graduate, and fall headfirst into the plot as one. If you can think of a good way of having a Shade or Atlas graduate be so closely tied with Beacon graduates and think of why they'd be working in Vale as soon as they graduate, I suppose it's fine.
The idea is that all the characters will have worked together, become friends, perhaps even been in teams. The reason for this is just to give in character reasons for you all working together and adventuring together after you graduate, and fall headfirst into the plot as one. If you can think of a good way of having a Shade or Atlas graduate be so closely tied with Beacon graduates and think of why they'd be working in Vale as soon as they graduate, I suppose it's fine.
iMPORTANT: The RP will be starting on August 18th, if all goes well. Sorry for the delay, but on the 15th I'm going to be dropping off the grid for a bit. Please use this time to make your characters the best things ever, or just kick your feet up and wait.
I've been looking for a RWBY RP for a while now, so I'm very interested. One question though, how much are we expected to right per IC post? I'm comfortable with two or three paragraphs but I don't like to do more than that...
You're expected to write as much as you need to make your fellow players' posts easy, and to push the story forwards. I'd estimate that you'd probably want a few hundred words for that, but if you're someone who writes in very concise, very elegant prose then who am I to judge? Make it good, and make it enough to properly serve the story, and I'll be happy. I usually end up writing ~500 words per post, but that's just me: everyone is different.
The only hard requirement is grammar and prose that are not painful or frustrating to read. Consistency of tense, proper spelling, no unintentional grammatical ambiguity and things like that are the only absolute requirements. I'd put more in, but honestly if you want to write like James Joyce and you think you can do it well, then that's fine by me.
@Zugzwang Sounds fair enough to me. When are you going to put up the OOC and CHAR pages, just so I have somewhere to jot down my character when he's done?
I wrote in the OP that the OOC would probably be up on the 14th. You're more than welcome to put the character here, to stake your claim and make sure no-one makes a similar idea. It'd also let me give feedback if necessary: I'm going to be setting a pretty high bar for characters, so tweaking may very well be necessary.
Appearance: If there was one word to describe Mauve's appearance, it would have to be 'striking'. Her hair, which is medium length and held in a messy ponytail with a red ribbon, is a dark golden blonde. Her eyes are dark blue, and her face is definitely beautiful in an intimidating 'I could kill you in five seconds' sort of way. Nice to look at, but most people tend to admire it from afar, since she doesn't look very approachable. When she's relaxed, that tends to go away a little, mostly because she stops glaring.
She wears gladiator-style light armour that covers her right shoulder and arm as well as her chest diagonally with a couple of pouches attached to them in order to hold supplies. The armour itself is made from silver metal, with golden vine-like patterns around the edges of each individual plate. In the centre of the largest shoulder plate, her emblem, an ouroboros made from a pair of snakes, is etched in a reddish-purple. The straps of the armour are the same colour as the patterns, while the buckles are silver.
The armour also includes a segmented skirt around her waist, which is quite short in order to allow her freedom of movement - . The armour consists of four main plates, with one at the front and back, and one at each side. Under the plates, she wears a slightly longer normal skirt, again the reddish-purple colour seen elsewhere on her outfit. The plate at the front is engraved with an intricate design, and each of the plates is edged with gold.
On her feet, she wears simple, flat-footed sandals, designed to be light and stay out of the way. In general, the armour is slightly scuffed and scratched in various places due to the damage it has taken throughout her training and the time she's spent as a full huntress. She tends to keep her gladius in a sheath at her waist, while she keeps the dagger in a smaller one strapped to her leg.
Personality: Mauve is a person who struggles with herself. On the surface, she is calculating and ruthless, stone-hearted towards the weak and helping them only because it is her job. Nothing more, nothing less. She doesn't seem to consider others to be her friends, pushing them away and refusing to let out her emotions, bottling them up. Her manner is matter-of-fact, and deadly serious - she carries herself through each and every day as though it is a battle.
In reality, that impression is a persona of sorts, which she's crafted in order to try and keep people away. The primary reason for this is that she deals with a fair amount of self-loathing and doubt around her own actions. She doesn't view herself as a good person, which makes her feel like others are better than her, and she doesn't want to make them deal with someone like her. Rather than have to explain this every time, she'd rather just push people away in the first place.
While she will confront idealists, claiming that their worldview is unrealistic, it's at least partly based off of jealousy that they can stay that way, and that they're strong enough to keep that mindset. Despite herself, she tends to try and protect those sorts of people, even at her own risk.
Despite her intimidating facade, Mauve is actually surprisingly protective of others, and will give almost anything to stop the ones she cares about from getting hurt. She's steadfast, brave, and a pillar of support for others when they're suffering, accepting them for their flaws. After all, she isn't in a place to judge. She's determined and refuses to give up on her friends, even when they've given up on themselves - though she has a tendency towards tough love.
Above all else, Mauve just tries to live, in her own fashion. Her strength and unfaltering nature serve to make her a skilled huntress, who can be counted on no matter what. She's loyal to the people she cares about, but ultimately serves her own cause, and doesn't take kindly to the idea of being a piece in someone else's game. If she has to make sacrifices, or do bad things, then she will, not wanting anyone else to be forced to take on that burden. As long as she can do it on her own terms.
Aspiration: She wants to make sure that the people of Remnant are protected from whatever may try to harm them. Essentially, she's taken on the burden of being a huntress in the hope that no-one else has to.
Fears: Crossing the line and becoming as bad as the people she fights. Being trapped or locked up. Hurting someone that she cares about.
Ethics: Mauve places the ultimate victory above almost everything else. Her morality centres around the idea of the final outcome, and she is willing to do a lot of things in order to make sure that outcome is good. If it were necessary she'd be perfectly willing to let an innocent person die if she knew it would let her save more. She despises people who manipulate and treat people like pawns without taking part in their own game, and believes in sacrifice but only when it is for a clear, foreseeable goal. Vague notions of the 'greater good' are lost on her, and she dismisses them as naive and unrealistic.
She's all too aware that the world is a cruel place, and gets incredibly annoyed by people who try to pretend that it isn't. Despite firmly believing that she's trying to do the right thing, Mauve doesn't exactly view herself as a 'good' person or a hero, and discussions of morality tend to bring this to the forefront of her thoughts. When this comes to mind, she focuses on the fact that sometimes the right thing isn't the easy choice, and that she's trying to make sure that it gets done. By whatever means necessary.
History: Mauve was born in a small desert village in Vacuo. The place was vibrant and full of life, everyone seeming to live every single day to the fullest. Perhaps because of how remote the place was, the kids spent a lot of time outside, and formed close bonds with each other, making up stories of what they were going to do, or who they were going to be once they got older. Some wanted to be doctors, some wanted to be chefs and artists and singers, but Mauve always gave the same answer. "I want to be a huntress!" she'd laugh, dreaming of being a hero just like the ones you always heard about.
She was gifted her gladius at a fairly young age, although it was a few sizes to big for her back then. Her mother encouraged her dreams, wanting to make sure that she made something of herself and, to a certain extent, living vicariously through her daughter. Her father, a famous retired huntsman by the name of Rouge Vinho, trained her, but reluctantly. As she got older and he started to insist that she not become a huntress, their relationship became tense, and he refused to train her further.
Perhaps unfortunately, she was already at a high enough level that she could effectively train by herself, meaning that once she was old enough, she sent away an application to Beacon. She joined the school as a somewhat overenthusiastic and childish girl, with a romantic, glamorised idea of what being a huntress was. She wasn't a team leader, but was able to maintain her cheerful views of what being a huntress would be until her last year.
Her team, MMYD, got assigned a mission that was out of their league, to put it simply. The area hadn't been scouted out properly, and they were sent out to quell a Beowulf infestation near a small village. Thinking it would be an easy mission, the team split into their partner pairs to finish it faster.
Once they caught sight of the area, Mauve's partner, a reckless boy by the name of Dusk, charged in to the area without thinking once he saw a Grimm pass by, expecting to easily behead a weak, low-level grimm. Instead, he found his axe sinking into the leg of a Goliath. Needless to say, it didn't work out as planned.
To her credit, she managed to rescue Dusk alive, but his Aura had been broken earlier in the fight, and he had been tossed into the corner of a building, breaking his back. It was all that she could do to bring him back, bruised and battered with barely enough aura left to keep herself conscious. She was obviously in shock, unable to absorb what had happened - the reality of being a huntress hitting her square in the face.
Despite having been obviously outmatched, Mauve at least partly blamed herself for not getting him out of there. She started to lash out, developing a grudge against Ozpin. If he hadn't spent his time playing with them like it was nothing and actually did his job, they would never have been sent there. As far as she was concerned, he'd sacrificed her partner's chances for the sake of some sort of game.
Once she'd properly recovered, Mauve's worldview had been drastically altered. Gone was the girl who'd idolised the job of a huntress, and who'd always believed that things would go her way. Some sparks still remained of her kind heart and open nature, but she always struggled to get closer to people at the Academy after that. After all, they would just be taken away, unless she made sure they were protected.
Her boundless enthusiasm was replaced with steely resolve, her open affection and kindness morphed into a quiet and fearsome protective instinct. It took a lot of convincing on her teammates' part to convince her to remain at Beacon, and while she did so she certainly didn't make an effort to disguise her hatred of Ozpin and his lackeys, openly refusing to have any part of any of their plans. She wasn't going to let them sacrifice her for nothing the way that they did her partner.
She graduated as a very different person than the one she came in as, but she'd found a new goal. For the sake of her partner, and for everyone else who'd been hurt by the Grimm, she decided that she would take on the task of being a huntress and make sure that Remnant's people were protected. Both from the monsters that battered at their doors, and from the people that would use them as pawns. She was determined to be the one standing against that, no matter what it took. Whatever was necessary, to make sure that the people were protected. That was the promise she made to herself as she graduated from Beacon Academy, and the one she's stuck to since.
Semblance: Mauve's semblance allows her to emit light from her hands. On the face of it, this doesn't sound too powerful - after all, compared to some semblances, being able to make things a little brighter doesn't seem all that impressive. People who think that, however, underestimate exactly how bright it can get. Instead of just lighting things up, Mauve's semblance can be the equivalent of a flash grenade if she chooses, blinding her opponents with sudden, intense light.
Combat Style: Mauve's fighting style is all about distraction. Movement is the primary focus of the way that she fights, and she aims to make sure that her opponent can never tell what's going on. Her light flashes mean that her opponents can't watch everything that's happening, and she capitalises on this by moving around the battlefield at a high speed, or, against human and faunus opponents, unbalancing them and moving them around until they can't tell which way is up, or just tearing them apart with quick, slashing strikes. This makes her incredibly difficult to deal with in close-combat, especially for fighters with more precise styles, who can't stay focused on her because of the light.
Against smaller opponents, she normally uses her dagger's pistol form in conjunction with her gladius, and rarely uses the latter's hook to do much more than move herself around when necessary. The main things that she has trouble with are opponents whose fighting style is based off of larger and less precise attacks, because her semblance is much less effective in stopping them from hitting her. Against long-range combatants, she tends to focus on closing the space as quickly as she possibly can, but her parkour and grappling hook mean that she's normally able to do this in a short amount of time.
Weapon: A roman Gladius sword in her right hand with a dagger/pistol held in her left hand. The sword's blade has wind dust forged into it, meaning that she can use it to launch 'blades' of air when she slashes. The downside to this is that the weapon itself can't transform. The dagger is able to transform into a pistol with a built-in grappling hook, which is capable of supporting her weight. When she fires a hook from the crossbow, it can be retracted, allowing her to essentially launch herself at anything it hits.
The handle of the gladius is made from dark, richly coloured wood, with a golden pommel which is carved into the shape of a beowulf's snarling head. The blade's metal is tinted slightly green from the wind dust that was forged into it. Its sheath is made from plain brown leather, and kept at Mauve's waist. The dagger is made entirely of metal, with a maroon handle and silver blade, while its pistol form maintains the same colour scheme. The grappling hook is on the top of the pistol, in the space where a bayonet could be placed in most weapons. It is surprisingly small for the amount of weight it can handle.
Non-Combat skills: Skilled at parkour and climbing, is a talented tracker, and is good at finding out information, although she can sometimes use less than savoury methods.
Deficiencies: Bad at comforting people and dealing with children, is a terrible negotiator due to her stubbornness and attitude problems, and can't do first-aid or any kind of medical help to save her life. She also sucks with computers.
Miscellaneous: Really, really doesn't like Ozpin and his people. If she's asked to have anything to do with them, then she will react with slight hostility at best, and cold fury at worst. She basically thinks he just plays with people's lives, and despises him for it.
That is an excellent character, I love her already. Thank you so much for getting it out so quick, I'm impressed. I think her worldview and her self-image are going to work really well with the plot I have outlined