Not every vampire is a predator, treating humanity as merely a meal, merely something to play with. Some regard the humans that they live among and feed upon as their flock, whom they must protect from supernatural predators - vampire or otherwise - in recompense for feeding on them to survive. Called Shepherds, these vampires never kill humans, but instead feeding a little on many humans more often, erasing their meal's memory of the event and moving on.

But there are those vampires who not only regard humans as merely food, merely playthings, but who revel in the kill, who only restrain themselves from mass murder out of the risk of outing vampires to the world at large. And it is one of these vampires, a notorious murderess named Rebecca Fernandez, who has recently arrived in the city you call home - and even more, seems to have set her sights on the neighborhoods you've placed under your protection. Local vampires know, after many lessons over the decades, to leave the humans in your territory alone...

But Rebecca doesn't seem to care about that one bit. And the band of vampire hunters that come, tracking her bloody trail of corpses, don't seem to care about the distinction between you and her at all.

So as the premise suggests, your character is a 'Shepherd' vampire, one that protects her human flock from supernatural predators, and my character is Rebecca, a vampire with zero regard for human life. Events force the two of you, after much confrontations (and Rebecca flirting with your character even while they fight), to work together against the vampire hunters that come after you both, and potentially other threats down the line.

The idea is slow-burn enemies to lovers, as Rebecca is forced to stop killing people because you're working together and, as her interest in your character moves from simple attraction to something more, to try and be more appealing to your character. Though, if you want it to be initially a lot more of a hatesex sort of thing at first or take it a different route, the burn doesn't have to be that slow. Up to how we play it.

The advantage of being a obscenely rich old-money family is that strange oddities are seen as merely eccentric, rather than signs of insanity. A life spent raised by expensive nannies and tutors and then sent to high-class boarding schools has left you with not much of a relationship with your father - and with your mother dead by the time you were three, your parental influences were... minimal.

But when you return home from graduating college to find out your father is dead, you have more than an inheritance of money to work with - you learn the truth of just why your father was so strange and eccentric, just what he was doing.

He was an Alchemist, a master of the medieval art, working magic not with spells, but with potions and concoctions. And as his blood descendent, his grimoires and alchemical tools are now yours, and only yours. This legacy of your family earns you friends, and enemies, and soon you find yourself pulled into a world of magical power, politics and schemes, where the stakes are nothing less than life and death.

So obviously, in this one, your character is has just discovered your father was an alchemist and has to learn alchemy quickly to stay alive in a world of mages, warlocks, witches and sorcerers - and other alchemists - where magical power is the only currency that can keep you alive.

My character is a sorceress who owed your character's father a great many favors, and has decided to honor those debts by helping you stay alive as you learn about this new world you've been forced into.

And from there romance develops in the face of all that - or so goes the premise.

Five years ago, the armies of the Witch Queen came to Old Ravian. By the end of the first year of her campaign, the entire southern third of the territory once held by the great Ravian Empire of old was in her hands by conquest or surrender. By the end of the second, she had swallowed almost all of it. Now, only a few mountain holdouts in the form of Rebel Dwarves, the mighty fortresses of the Kingdom of Plerezanta and the Trallin March remain free of her grasp. Her army of trolls, orcs and conscripts from her conquored and 'allied' territories close in on the first two, but the Trallin March... a scrap of swamps and wasteland filled with bandits and oucasts, holds no value for her.

The Sareltine clan of bandits has plagued the Kingdom of Liaric for generations, hitting merchants, raiding small towns, sacking villiages... and fleeing back into the March to evade the King's forces, ambushing or even just letting the environment to their killing for them. But the rise of the Witch Queen has ruined that for them, and perhaps all other clans - for her greater armies have made raiding nearly impossible.

But when the Sareltine clan ambushes a band of travellers from Liaric, their leader finds that what they ambushed was the the Princess of Liaric and her bodyguard, fleeing in the aftermath of Liaric's surrender to the Witch Queen. The Princess promises the leader of the Sareltine's money, land and titles if he can escort her safely to the Sayana Empire on the far end of the March, home of the elves and their mighty magics. With their help, the Witch Queen can be fought... but unity among the bandits is a fragile thing, and the Witch Queen will stop at nothing to prevent the Elves from entering the war before she's ready for them.

So in this one, you play the leader of the Sareltine bandits, male or female, and my character is the princess. Its a story of political alliances, grand war and eventually, the retaking of Liaric and the other conquered lands... or perhaps the utter failure of that effort. The story assumes you take her up on her deal, but technically, you could turn her into the Witch Queen and we could take the story that way, though that might get a little dark and undermine the romantic premise of the Princess and the bandit leader getting together.

You never asked to be Queen. You joined the rebellion against the tyrannical king Syrokis, joining so many others in lending sword or bow or spell to the effort. You were an accomplished and famed hero already and soon you rose up the ranks, a leader of the rebellion. Over the course of three years, a coalition from all corners of the Kingdom of Halrun finally captured the capital city of Eridia and overthrew Syrokis.

But with Syrokis's infant son spirited away by Loyalists during the capture of the city, and no other members of the dynasty on hand, a new monarch had to be selected. Various names were raised and rejected by the great men and women of the realm - nobles, generals, ranking clergy, powerful wizards, merchants and even a few peasant leaders. This man had too many enemies, this woman had no spine for it. This woman was too old to lead for long, this man was promising but his children were non-starters. The list was endless.

Finally, you were settled on as a compromise candidate. Popular, few enemies, just and good, more or less, smart enough to not be easily led, but wise enough to know to seek the advice of experts and your court when needed. You had no noble blood, no claim to the throne, but you were crowned anyway. Maybe you were just ambitious enough for it, or did it to prevent Halrun from falling into chaos when no better choice could be found, or because you feared the Estates General wouldn't let you refuse their offer.

But now... you're queen. A Queen of a bankrupt country, with many farms in ruins, an army that lost half its manpower and is now being staffed with former rebels and militiamen. With powerful factions all pressing demands on you for concessions, for political deals... for marriage alliances. The new Queen must secure her dynasty, and that will mean a marriage and children... and soon. For one does not destroy a two-hundred and fifty year old Dynasty and not expect that loss of legitimacy to hurt your chances of staying in power.

So, in this one, your character is the Queen, a former adventurer/heroine who has been raised to the Throne. You must navigate the corridiors of power or see yourself killed and overthrown as more people begin to ask 'If she can be Queen why not me?' My character is whatever marriage option your character ends up picking, in terms of alliance - in this universe, there are ways of two women (or two men, though that's immaterial to this rp) magically concieving a child in one of them and same-sex relationships hold no stigma, hence why it can be FxF or MxF. You may end up meeting all the leading marriage prospects before picking the one that becomes 'my' character for good.

A thousand years ago, the world ended.

In the midst of plague and civil war that was consuming the continent of Kaylorin, barbarians took advantage of the chaos and poured out of the jungles, deserts and mountains, out of the wild untamed lands beyond the borders of the Civilized Kingdoms. Over the course of a decade, city after city, castle after castle fell to these invaders - weak and depopulated as they were, they fell quickly. People constantly fled towards the great trading cities of the coast, but even then, those fell under seiege. In the last days of the Great Fall, thousands of ships set sail for an only partially explored archipelago, a chain of islands that had proven to be rich in resources from early surveys, but that was all.

For some time, refugees continued to arrive, but eventually, fear of the plagues ravaging Kaylorin saw the incoming ships sunk as often as accepted, and eventually, they stopped coming. Over the next hundred years, the refugees, which had had many of the craftsmen and philosophers that had fueled the wealth of the coastal cities, formed into twelve city-states collectively called 'The Dodecopolis'. Continued exploration of the seas found more islands, which soon saw colonies planted by the cities of the Dodecopolis, and discovery of the continent of Nahkriin, ruled by large empires fueled by slave-run plantations and brutal mining practices. But the discovery of those empires and the ensuing trade of raw materials for fine crafts saw a golden age of science and art and infrastructure. The city-states would clash in small wars for control of colonies and trade routes and influence in the ports of Nahkriin, but it was all at a remove for most citizens. But Kaylorin remained taboo - any who went there were never allowed to come back for continued fear of the plague, and few ships that ever sailed to the continent were ever seen again anyway.

Sixty-seven years ago, the first steam-based devices were created, and soon, new weapons were created, ships that could sail the skies, and in time, new medicines that dampened the fears of most about plague and disease... and people's eyes turned to their homeland, to Kaylorin. Armed with these new weapons, these airships, and advanced medicines, perhaps Kaylorin could be reclaimed, perhaps artifacts from before the Great Fall could be recovered...

In the first truly unified undertaking by the whole of the Dodecopolis, hundreds of skyships were loaded with supplies and people, and sent back to Kaylorin, using old maps to find strategically placed mountains to set up waystations and fortresses on, where airships could stop before continuing on to wherever they aimed to go. And then the exploration and exploitation of Kaylorin began.

It was soon found that the beginnings of civilization had returned - the castles and cities reoccupied, partially repaired. New fortified townships settled. Small petty kingdoms. But many other ruins were still ruins, and disease still ravaged the land freely. But the price commanded for Kaylorin artifacts makes such expeditions and the cost in lives, men and money (the medicine exists, but is far from cheap or perfect) worth it to many... and over time, as the unity of the Dodecopolis fractured, rivalry between the cities struck once more. Piracy and Privateers began to raid the skyways, but still, there was enough profit to be had that people kept going.

But no one ever seeks to stay on the mainland for long, outside of the well-defended fortresses and outposts in the mountains. No airship lands for long outside of those safe spaces.

For so much is unexplored, for so much is Kaylorin still feared, the dark recesses of that continent still loom large in the imagination of the people of the Dodecopolis.

So in this rp, the notional premise is that one of the characters is the captain of a merchant skyship of somesort, or maybe a privateer, and the other is a regular pirate captain. You can play whichever one you want and I'll play the other. During a battle, after the Pirates have boarded the other ship, both ships become damaged enough to fall together towards the ground, in a mostly unexplored forested region of the continent, far from any if the mountain-waystations, and the two crews and captains must work together to survive the dangers of Kaylorin and travel to one of the waystations if they ever want to make it home again.