I have no reason to call you a liar, but I really want to call you a liar.
Also! I'll post Father Ilya into the CS area with the adjustments, since all of them sound good. I missed the "no outside contact" part of Red Seminary training, and may rethink the sigil a bit.
@deathbringer I like it! And this is awesome, totally fits -- and it adds resentment for being beaten. And yes, I imagine those two fighting is...intense
@Scout ugh, paper work. Almost as bad as red tape, except the red tape leaves marks behind.
@Lovejoy AAAAH MOUSE ART BUDDY! *tackles* AND THOSE PICS! ESPECIALLY RODION, HE'S ADORABLE!
I can totally find more refs for Ziotea -- or sketch my own.
Standing in at over six feet tall, Galahad is a lithe and sinewy individual with the appearance of one who is used to continuous physical exertion, without some of the bulk of his fellow Inquisitors. As expected of an Inquisitor, his physique is in top shape, and his thin, but broad shouldered body is akin to the triangular build of that of a swimmer. His skin is a light and pale; and his body, while bearing an abnormally large number of scars compared to the average individual, when compared to a fellow Inquisitor, is relatively unscathed.
Galahad has strong and prominent facial features, with strong cheekbones and brow. His platinum blonde hair falls in graceful waves around his head, charming many a stranger, and his eyes are an icey grey, possessing a piercing, almost chilling gaze. His sense of style outside of his Inquisitor uniforms is modern and minimalist.
Personality:
Cool and collected, Galahad is a confident, yet soft-spoken individual. His calm and collected demeanor is often mistaken for an uncaring and aloof disposition, and his cynicism and pessimistic/realistic attitude does little to change the opinions of others. Underneath his quiet persona lies an innate brilliance, a highly intuitive and calculative mind. Highly logical and orderly, Galahad is efficient and analytical, but often accused of lacking outward compassion. He is a competent tactician boasting considerable knowledge of theory, though lacking in field experience. Strong willed and possessing an air of determination, Galahad can be highly critical and will rarely hesitate to call others out on their shortcomings, often leading to him butting heads with others.
Direct and to the point, this sharp witted Inquisitor avoids beating around the bush and doesn't mince words. Galahad likes to maintain awareness over every situation he's in and is quick on the ball, able to make snap judgements in combat and react to a constantly changing situation. Capable of operating at peak efficiency, even during times of great stress, Galahad has a very analytic attitude and can be very perceptive and intuitive in regards to people.
While a devout servant of Varya, Galahad is easily the least zealous of many of his compatriots, preferring calm rationale and reasoning to blind religious fervor. Though cold and solemn, Galahad possesses a well developed moral compass, and cares deeply for his fellow Inquisitors, though his tone and callousness might suggest otherwise. While Galahad is quite loyal to the Varyan state and his diety, the loyalty he shows towards his fellow Inquisitors is near unshakable, rivaling and often surpassing the bonds he feels towards his own blood relatives.
Background:
A child prodigy hailing from the former Capital city of Lanostre, Galahad is the only son of General Quaid, a prominent leader in the Lanostre secular military, and after the war, the Varyan secular-military. General Quaid is well known amongst his peers, and waged many vicious and successful campaigns against the Varyan state before the capitulation of Lanostre. Galahad's childhood was strict and rigid, and consisted of private lessons, tutors, fencing lessons, marksmanship, and statescraft among other things. Throughout his childhood, Galahad proved to be exceptionally bright, and often outperformed his tutors after periods of months, causing the Quaid family to have to cycle through professors and military instructors from all over Lanostre. An underspoken yet brilliant child, Galahad completed courses rated for adolescents several years older than him before he turned 10.
After his fifth birthday, Galahad's latent ethereal abilities began to rise to the surface. So prominent was the ether within him, that the Priests of Varya were quick to notice his abilities. When Galahad reached the age of 9, The Priests approached Galahad and his father, offering the young Quaid a place in the Red Seminary, to join the illustrious ranks of the Inquisitors. Though the offer was but a formality, General Quaid nevertheless gave them and his son his blessings, sending Galahad off to the Red Seminary to begin, and hopefully survive his training.
At the Red Seminary, Galahad excelled, and despite his physical shortcomings compared to his fellow trainees, easily propelled himself to the top percentiles of his class. His natural brilliance and aptitude with ether, along with his martial training as a child gave him an edge compared to some of the other trainees. Despite his advantages, training to become an Inquisitor was the single most grueling and difficult challenge of his young life. Galahad considers himself and his compatriots extremely lucky, and extremely skilled to have made it through their training alive.
Talents/Ethereal Abilities:
Ether Manipulation: Ether Well - While Galahad is capable of basic forms of ether manipulation, much like most soldiers, he lacks any particular talent in manipulating his own ether. However, Galahad's ether pools within his own body are surprisingly deep, allowing him perform powerful battle magic to support his allies. Despite this edge, he still supplements his own ether with vials of extracted ether.
Battle-Mage - A magic specialist in all definitions of the phrase, Galahad takes his place among his peers as one of the best mages in class. What allows Galahad to stand out is his ability to manage multiple destructive elements simultaneously, changing spell type, and form to fit his needs in the current situation. He can form and propel tiny chunks of stone, ice and metal like bullets, call down lightning from the sky, and loose a blinding flash of light without missing a step. While capable of shows of great power, Galahad prefers to make his magical attacks relatively small, precise and concentrated, favoring the preservation of energy and smart use of resources; and reserves flashy displays of power for intimidation and destruction of enemy morale.
Hybrid Fencer - While normally preferring to conduct combat from a safe distance, Galahad is not out of place on the frontlines with his comrades, saber in one hand, and magic spell in the other. Darting in to deliver a few quick blows with his blade and then pulling back, Galahad is a nimble fighter when on the front lines, fully aware of his lack of bulk when compared to some of the other frontline fighters, and as such rarely stays in one place for too long.
A blade torn somewhere between modernity and the styling of the past. A gift from the esteemed General Quaid to his son upon completing his training as an Inquisitor. Despite its purpose as a gift and styling as a ceremonial weapon, in true Lanostre fashion it was designed as a weapon first and a symbol of prestige second. Housed in a scabbard of dark wood, wrapped in leather, with subtle veins of gold in such a subdued way that it undersells the fact that the scabbard alone probably costed as much as some vehicles. The blade is forty seven inches in length and seems to weighted perfectly to the hand. Running along the underside of the blade the barrel is designed to be as unpronounced as possible as to not interrupt the fine silhouette of the blade. The trigger and loading for the weapon lies on the hilt below the hand guard where also the chamber exists for loading into the equivalent of a handgun bullet.
Personal Seal:
Character Relationships: Once the cast is chosen, we're going to collaborate on creating the shared histories between the different people of our group. Your characters can be anything from friends, enemies, lovers, ect. Remember, you've all spent your time years training in the Red Seminary together and have suffered and bled throughout your time there, so your relationships must be forged of your experiences during that time together.
I think we somehow all went the non-zealot route. I think only one of us even remotely qualifies, and he just doesn't like thinking about it much.
when you say classical mage, it sounds like you mean standard offensive elemental casts, yeah? It does look like most of us chose just one or two elements (is force even an element? o.o) to focus on. ^.^ He seems interesting. If he's accepted, Ziotea most likely didn't even notice him right away. He's a couple years older, and seems to be an intellectual more than a melee fighter. My guess is when they eventually faced each other in a spar (because everyone's probably faced everyone else at some point, really) she was able to hold her own without feeling overwhelmed. He's Lanostran, but he's not as in-your-face about it as Astraea, so he'd be less of an irritant. Ziotea on her own would see him in default mode, so any complications to the relationship are up to you. ^.^
@Mercenary Lord Yes, I've been looking for a beautiful steampunk. Though I wasn't aware that submissions were closed- 8 pages of OOC is a decent chunk to go through and I was still making my way through. Thats unfortunate..
@vietmykeNeat character! I think everything is in order, except for him being 10 when his powers manifested. Pupils first join the Red Seminary when they're 7-9, so his "awakening" would've had to have happened sooner. As for his spells, I think if you keep a defined list of possible magic he can do, and then steadily add on to it or strengthen the ones ones he has as he steadily becomes stronger throughout the story, we'll be good. Just as long as he doesn't pull anything out of thin air when the situation requires it. I picture him as like, a songwriter who uses his exhaustive knowledge of magic to create spells and then master them. And like a songwriter, he wouldn't "debut" a new work if he hadn't mastered it yet. So yeah, time, research and mastery would be the three pillars of his magic.
Also, for these last two characters-- I think asking the rest of the class to create past relationships with you two would be a bit much, since they've already had to do this for 8 other characters. Also, I'm pretty sure everyone just wants to start this damned thing already and wouldn't want any added delays. So what if you two weren't part of our group but were students from a different graduating class/classes? You would be sent with us on this mission, but wouldn't have previous connections with anyone besides like, hearing about them during training (and vice versa).
@Draken In the interest of speeding things up, would you mind if Father Ilya was also in a different class?
Is everyone cool with this?
@Scout Don't mean to rush you along but we really need that CS buddy :p
@Lovejoy ooh fun. Will fix that. Though as far as being from a different class... That kinda just makes these 2 outsiders to the rest of the scooby gang. One of the bigger draws to this rp for me at least was the idea of everybody being fairly close knit. The character connections are what I like about these types of RPs.
I understand that everyone had already made up relationships with each other, so I was planning on kinda just winging it as far as relationships go. Kinda just writing about their past as it came up in relevant ic posts, sending a quick pm while writing to such and such saying 'oh hey, would it be cool if X' as opposed to predetermining it right from the get-go.
Well, excuse me whilst I praise the earth at your feet. Now; to figure out who my character could be in all of this...
One idea I thought could be interesting is an opium addict character - though since we're in a frozen world, I doubt many poppies would be blooming. Could we figure out some substitute?
@CollectorOfMystYes! That sounds like an awesome idea for a character! I like that there'll be someone with some real physical and maybe emotional handicaps that they'd have to fight through. I don't have any ideas off the top of my head for an opium-substitute, but what if it has to do with ether? I'm honestly not sure. Besides the ether idea, there's certainly a lot of places you can take this. I mean there would definitely be some kind of drug or substance that would be used as a coping mechanism in this horrible, fucked up world (especially in the slums and lower sectors of Magnagrad, where life just sucks). You can get as creative with this as you want.