@13org: Okay, um... really my last concern is I still have trouble parsing his backstory. ^^; Could yo maybe re-write it to be less dialogue and more of a synposis?
Appearance: Kasami is a fairly ordinary girl who stands up at a height of 5'7 with her sleek frame that she has. Having light brown hair like bright autumn leaves and a pair of captivating sea green eyes that are hard to avoid. With a unique feature that is noticeable, as her hair touches the tailbone of her body even braided making it curious to how long she has let her hair grown. With lightly tanned yet pale skin, she carries around her an attitude of calm and grace that goes with the flow of life.
Personality: Kasami to her peers is a friendly and relatively enjoyable person to be around with a peaceful nature around her that is admirable. It isn't surprisingly to often find her alone and enjoying her silence, practicing her hobbies by herself but sometimes you can find her with peers who enjoy the same thing like her. Having an interest in the performing arts, she made her lot of friends with the quirky children like her and worked with people who did the same thing as her. However, not everything she did appeal to even the quirky children as they were very specific hobbies but nevertheless one of hers. Showing even more of her artistic side as she dipped into various creative hobbies and grew into them. Outside of her hobbies and school, she has a fondness for television as she can't help but binge watch her series or in consequence face anxiety should she have to wait week by week. Being a
Equipment: Kasami doesn't carry much on her everyday person, as she takes the usual things with her for school that she needs. Some extra things she needs for class is her violin which she brings to class along with a few other necessities like her phone and things like that. When being deployed for threats, the materials she may bring with her can vary depending on the situation that is at hand.
Abilities:
In the modern age, the natural forces of the land and divine no longer hear the voices of humans for a long time now. With the spiritual practice of men being diluted so much that they no longer hold any sway or grasp on its original meaning. Such being shown with the Native American Shamans with their practice lost through strife, the Onmyōji of Japan grown complacent and art left rusting, the Runes of Ireland discarded through time, and countless more of mystical arts which have lost its potency long along or gone entirely. In this day and age, communicating to the land itself is difficult and even trying to pierce the veil that separate the gods and the mortal realm is impossible by normal people.
However, while communing with the land or gods may be impossible for normal people that do not possess the ancient arts, people can be trained. Still, even with the proper training, there is still the withering of time that have render these mystic arts to its most basic roots. This can be mitigated through a ritual or even sacrifice to enhance one's connection for a brief time that allows the desired effect to happen. With the magic being labeled as 'The Light of Arte' which uses artistic rituals to fuel their prayers to the land or gods themselves should it reach.
On the side note, while it is possible to communicate to Gods it would require an prodigy of the divine arts to even try it. At most for even a master in this day and age will either receive vague answers or yes/no questions from them. Divine intervention is only something possible in the past when people were more connected to nature and the gods.
Kasami is a practitioner of divine magic, originally being trained by her family in the art of Onmyōdō and working at the shrine during her time there. Capable of working the spells of an Onmyōji with the numerous possibilities of their spells. Capable of casting a ward for protection, or a charm for good luck, in even dire cases a spell to 'bring upon omens' on those she cast them on. However, before unlocking its more advanced secrets such as the shikigami or the more complicated exorcism techniques, she postponed her training in Onmyōdō.
The Light of Arte is a relatively more modern form of the divine arts which involves the use of artistic rituals to connect and tap into the land and or talk to the gods. The Ofuda of an Onmyōji is similar as it is itself a basic expression of art but can be taken much further that what it currently is. In Kasami's case, her focus of floristry is her medium of focusing her magic that connects to the land which allows more potent effects. Channelings the emotions, intentions and passion of the caster into their work to create a stronger grasp over the magic they wish to enact. They are nearly limitless in what they can do but depend on the work that is used to fuel the magic, requiring not only time but dedication to focus on it. Focusing more on the working adjacent with the supernatural rather than simply beating it up, more 'offensive or negative' magic will be harder to perform compared to more positive or defensive magic in nature.
Also the Light of Arte is not restricted to floristry but all forms of creativity like acting, playing an instrument, wood working or painting and many more.
Skills: Kasami isn't great in anything or special in any case, she is just a girl with a few hobbies that she likes to have. One such hobby is her interest in music, having her be the 2nd chair as a trumpet in the classes combined, making a statement on the practice she has put into it. Enjoying the time she plays with her instrument and the chance she gets to play in an ensemble, she always has wondered what it would be like to conduct one, though. A personal practice of her that stems from her family is floristry which came as a natural interest due to the massive landscape her family's shrine had. Ranging from the trees to the flowers that were placed in an organized chaos and in general an abstract creation of plants all around. In helping her with her passion, her aunt as a florist taught her the instincts to creating a variety of projects with flowers. Even as she grew up, she continued to expan and learn her own style of creating her colorful display that was personalized for each one she made.
Brief Backstory: Back in her family's more better years they use to be part of the Japanese Supernatural Self-Defense Force, or the JSSDF, which they offered the training of their family members. Using the art of an Onmyōji to solve the supernatural problems they were experience more peacefully rather than a head-first assault. However, their intervention and assistance slowly waned as they were called upon increasingly less before eventually stopping entirely in the early 2000s. Eventually, her family reverted back into a normal routine of a temple and focused more on the daily life rather than paranormal. However, stories and tales from her grandparents and older aunts or uncles were always told to Kasami about their exploits back in old days. Sparking her interest to become just like them, learning the arts of an Onmyōji and occasionally being taken along for a cleansing but nothing more.'
Growing older, the mysteries and tales of her family never faltered in her vision to becoming just like them as she poured her heart into it. Maintain her academic life and her unusual lifestyle at home both healthy active at the same time, learning the greater secrets. It wasn't until one night, a rare outbreak of Oni-type yokai attacked the Shrine and defeated the Komainu or Guardians of the Shrine before continuing inside. A situation so rare during a time of their declining abilities, her family had a difficult time containing the perpetrators. Resulting in the serious injury of several members of the family and the death of an aunt. Showing her the dangerous side of the supernatural if it wasn't taken care of if they didn't take the initiative of handling things peacefully.
The Outbreak Agency came shortly after the situation was handled and after some clarification, they recruited some of the members of the family to help the cause in a more peaceful manner. Accepting the help of the Onmyōji once again, they hoped that they could change the supernatural community for something better. Leaving an impression and fascination on Kasami that other people were able to solve the issue of the supernatural. She would continue to train herself before finally joining the Agency through the connections of her family after several years to grow up. With the change of an less optimistic viewpoint than before after years of reality rubbing off yet still retaining that willful stubbornness.
Hrmm I had a few character concepts, which do you think would play the most interesting role?
A member of outbreak capable of implanting, and removing memories, nobody remembers exactly when he joined Outbreak, but he seems to be in charge of covering up terrifying things so that humanity can sleep at night.
Some guy who doesn't seem to have powers, but who has survived impossible things and lived to tell the tale.
A formerly non-powered agent who has seen some serious serious shit, he has spent the last few years in therapy.
A formerly human agent who has become some kind of Ghost is trying to piece together its original identity.
A safety specialist, Has seen horrible horrible things happen when proper safety procedures are not followed., might have some minor powers, but is an expert on not destroying the world. Has been contemplating suicide as she is no longer certain she is safe with her new powers.
Most of these are support character ideas, Though the first one can play frontline support against others capable of fucking with peoples minds. The Veteran is more frontline.
Every kind of wave, be them sound waves, light spectrum, radiation.
Basically a supporter character. He wont go in the frontlines, but instead serve as infiltrator, saboteur, and of course, long range support. His powers would make him able to climb walls, turn invisible by bending light waves, hearing far away noises by controlling sound waves, or employ it as a more offensive manner with destructive vibrations, radiation would basically make him able to see through walls.
Personality: A despondent youth whose overall outlook on life is boorish, Ayumu is often perceived as a dark, mysterious rogue. He is far from someone’s “knight in shining armor” opting for ignoring a critical situation instead of lending a helping hand and gladly disposing of a nagging nuisance. He enjoys the small respites in life: catching the sunset on the school’s roof, people watching couples, engaging in hopelessly insane conversations with himself, and reading world news to his aunt’s tombstone. He puts little importance into money and values a lesson far more than a dollar. If it comes down to him saving the world, at the moment, he’d watch it burn for a while.
Equipment: Nothing of note.
Abilities: Ayumu is a monstrously powerful ESPER. He is capable of telekinesis, kinetic energy absorption, and empowering his own body with his psychic energy. Whatever fuels his powers seems near endless and for some reason engages a kind of thrumming of danger in the air. It amplifies the intentions of his emotions, making them palpable--near visible. He’s capable of twisting weak-willed people to his whims, lifting massive objects, and performing precise actions all with his mind. His only weakness lies in his emotions, if not kept in check his powers could damage him far more than his opponent.
Skills: Composing music has always been a pastime for him, with his accelerated mental capacity he easily string notes into beautiful melodies. Otherwise he can be found cataloging stars.
Brief Backstory: Ayumu was robbed of something precious at the age of eight. When his elder brothers fought over the decision to either kill him or keep him alive. Their indecisiveness kept him imprisoned with the victims, the butchered bodies of his father and mother. The damage it brought to him was incomparable, it nearly crippled him. When the eldest of the two brothers finally opened the door, a pool of red growing on his shirt, he greeted Ayumu with a smile. He slid to the floor in pain and told him that he was free to leave.
It was a slow process but after the trial and conviction Ayumu recovered enough to be adopted by his aunt’s family. During a particular harsh conversation with his Uncle, who had always been a “face the truth” kind-of-man, Ayumu ran. He ran so far that time blurred; buildings, trees, and people. When he realized how far he had come from running, he knew that those moments in time, those stutters and frozen seconds were his brain tapping into his abilities; that he was invoking some psychic territory around himself.
Months later his Uncle found out about his abilities and called the police. Somehow the JSSDF found out and recruited him. His rebellious attitude and gifts had given him plenty of room to duck and dodge orders. However, occasionally he grows bored and decides to lend a helping hand to the agency.
Hmm. On one hand I'm kind of wary of time travel in RP's, on the other hand I like the character... though at the same time I did plan for advanced humanoid robots to be around in the modern time too. Hmm.
Finally home. My phone died a few minutes after sending the CS along.
I've worked on restricting her powers. She can't use them on unwilling people and can't actually move backwards through time at all. It's just manipulating how fast time passes in areas. The only thing that might be considered time 'travel' is the Limited Reset which just brings a past version of her to the present moment.
Personality: Once a firm believer in the potential of humanity provided they were guided by the right people, after tragedy destroyed his dreams and loved ones ages ago Merlin has long since given up on humankind. Now he mostly works either towards his own goals to fulfill his visions of the future or occasionally just for his amusement. While Both of those occasionally involve taking an interest in or even mentoring specific humans, though he insists he's incapable of truly relating to or caring for humans anymore given his vast age, unusual view of time and the bitter experiences of his past. That said in his prime he was something of a humorous trickster and perhaps even a bit of a troll even when he was playing the wise and benevolent adviser. Now he still 'jokes' occasionally, but more often than not there's a harder, crueler edge to it. He's defined first and foremost by his desire to see humanity overthrown and as far as he's concerned, the rest of his personality is an unfortunate leftover from another life.
Equipment: Typically none except what he picks up to use.
Abilities:
Magic-Merlin is undoubtedly one of the most powerful wizards to have ever lived, if not also one of the oldest. His mastery of western styles of magic is of the highest level, allowing him to summon up primal forces of nature and manipulate them as well as the energies of realms beyond the physical. The four classical elements of Fire, Water, Earth and Air are under his command and his Faerie blood enables the manipulation of unintelligent biological matter as well as the casting of illusions. Greater power can be gained through the invocation of various spirits, demons and angels but this tends to require prep time, sigils, some of his blood and a specific effect desired. He has no specialization or one particular ability or affinity, instead his mastery is over Western Magic itself. As such he has an even wider range of abilities, but like his pacts they tend to require extensive ritual or some other complexity. He can perform magic without any tools and can trace his sigils and symbols in the air out of pure energy but casting Wordless Magic causes great strain on his body and can injure or kill him if taken too far and too many uses of quick, gesture-based magic instead of sigils tires him out quickly. Because of his young body, he is no longer able to make use of his famous Shape-Shifting magics.
Durability-Partially due to his Half-Fae nature, Merlin is extremely durable and able to survive damage that no human rightfully could as well as heal unnaturally rapidly from injury. In the days of King Arthur, it was said that the only way to slay Merlin would be to kill him thrice at one time either by removing his head, dismembering his body and cremating him or stabbing, impaling and then drowning him. Whether any of that is true or not it's been proven that he is extremely difficult if not impossible to kill. Fortunately aside from this feature his body and physical abilities are that of a young boy albeit one with countless lifetimes worth of training and conditioning.
Prophecy-Due to the circumstances of his birth, Merlin at least claims to have been able to reach out to the Akashic Records from the time he was originally a small child, gaining the gifts of past and future sight. However, because not even a half-human mind is meant for such secrets and because he's more or less lost his sanity after the traumas surrounding the fall of Camelot Merlin's visions have become clouded, broken and imprecise and can no longer be relied upon. However, he is sometimes able to use it to preemptively find victims of the Red Strike due to the disturbance in the supernatural world that it causes.
Skills: Having had an innumerable amount of decades if not centuries of life experience, there are few skills Merlin doesn't have at least some aptitude in. In terms of combat, traditional weapons are best for him as he's had the most amount of practice with them so he generally dislikes guns and other modern human weapons. In his travels he's picked up extensive knowledge of empty-handed and eastern forms of combat and is quite skilled in them as well, because as his child's body can only be conditioned so much for strength he has decided to compensate with skill and experience. He also has a wide range of non-magical mortal knowledge. Overall the only skills he really lacks are the ability to drive motor vehicles partially due to physical limitations and then knowledge of most mortal electronics due to their (to him) relatively recent appearance.
Brief Backstory: Emrys Merlin was born from the unusual union of a True Fae male with a human female and even before his meeting with Uther Pendragon and tutelage of Arther tales beyond counting are ascribed to him. He once had great dreams not just for the British Isles but for all of humanity to come to a golden age under his beloved student's guidance but human frailty and human flaws including his own left those dreams in ruins and him trapped in (or as, it was a hard experience to remember) a tree for several centuries. When he finally escaped the tree, Merlin had convinced himself to discard what was left of his humanity, because mankind was no longer worth guiding and saving. Because of this he became increasingly interested in the phenomenon of the Red Strike and its' transforming effect on humans, traveling the world to study it. He became convinced that it was meant to be, no random or malicious force but the true next step for a flawed and broken species and the key to the destruction of human society. Now he has come to Japan, a country with some of the highest rates of occurences for the Red Strike, in order to begin enacting his plans to gather Opened and Closed Eyes.
What about the Veteran? He is still quite functional, He cares deeply about the safety of others and protecting the world. If that doesn't work that's fine.
@VitaVitaAR I was thinking yea... It doesn't seem right for a Telekinetic (atleast in my eyes) to not be able to move people with them. But, I can restrict it if it pleases the GM ;)
@Lucidnonsense: Well, I suppose I just feel, while I've accepted serious and dark backstories(thought I don't want them all to be dark at all), I'd honestly say they seem a bit too on the dark side for this.
@Renny: Hmm, I know it's an arbitrary limit but I do feel like it's a bit easily abused. Hmmm.
I'm also going to say I don't want more people having really dark backstories unless it's VERY warranted by the character you're making. ^^;
@VitaVitaAR I know the "magic is dying" is the vibe you are getting from her, but its not! Its more like... fewer people know how to achieve that tier of power, with it still there its just that there are fewer people able to do things like that. My character's ability is a representation of that idea, which is using emotions instead of knowledge to access magic which will have its selective benefits and drawbacks. So no uprooting of entire forests or meteor swarms anytime soon but maybe 50+ pg of character development and maybe we'll get closer to that mark...
BUT yeah, I understand this isn't a 'magic is dying' setting. So hopefully that's cleared up! (Its just people are getting lazier setting)
@Lucidnonsense: Well, I suppose I just feel, while I've accepted serious and dark backstories(thought I don't want them all to be dark at all), I'd honestly say they seem a bit too on the dark side for this.
@Renny: Hmm, I know it's an arbitrary limit but I do feel like it's a bit easily abused. Hmmm.
I'm also going to say I don't want more people having really dark backstories unless it's VERY warranted by the character you're making. ^^;
Hrm alright, So what about one of these, they are a bit more over the top.
MAGI, The robotic wizard who utilizes a blend of science and technology.