@ArenaSnow So, out of that list of things I posted, any you think would do well for you and your stories? Otherwise I'll probably just use a dice and choose via that method.

The Orcish Blood-Shaman [+]

Name: Orkag the Bloodletter

Physical: At nearly 7 feet tall, Orkag is much taller than most other species and a head taller than many other orcs. While he is muscular and strong and could easily have become a warrior of his clan, he has chosen to be a shaman. His eyes, once brown like most of his kin, have become a deep crimson due to the type of magic he has been using.

Abilities:

Though it is called blood magic, it has nothing to do with the manipulation of blood, instead, this type of magic draws on the life-force of magic user and allows him to cast various types of magic, though the stronger the spell the more life-force needed to cast it. The advantage of this type of magic is that one only needs to have seen the spell once before he can cast it as well. The disadvantage is obvious, he can cast only a limited amount of spells before he has to rest, or risk death. Though the user can draw the life-force of other beings as well, he can only draw the life-force of non-sentient beings like animals and various beasts.

Starting Gear:

Personality/Goals:

Other than the clothing, armor on him and food rations, Orkag has only a few items of actual note.

• The Bloodletter's Staff - A complicated name for a simple tool, the magical staff allows him to channel his blood magic spells at a faster rate than he would without it.
• The Bonebreaker - Though a shaman, Orkag is still an orc and orcs are naturally born warriors and when he reaches his limit of spellcasting for the day, he relies on this trusty steel maul to get him out of any sticky situation.
• Beak and Claw - Though they are animals in form, these two ravens are pure magic that follow Orkag at all times and listen to his commands... most of the time. These magic ravens have incredible sight, nightvision and can see through illusions to a limited degree. He is able to communicate telepathically with these animals and give them orders when he needs them to do something secret.

Personality/Goals: Though the magic he casts is disliked by many, including own clan, Orkag means to help the world with his magic whenever he is able and though he is quite unfriendly and somewhat rude at first sight, he opens up to other people after some time spent with them. He disproves the wanton use of magic, he himself casting spells only when truly necessary, no matter if it is a combat spell or otherwise... he especially dislikes people who use magic purely to become renown.

As for a goal, he does not truly have one, he merely seeks to improve the world as best as he can, though the vision he has recently received, speaking vaguely of great evil approaching soon currently has him on edge and he has started to seek other powerful mages, or powerful people in general, be they mages or warriors, to warn them of this evil and to band them together against this incoming evil.

Backstory: Orkag was born in one of the many nomadic orc tribes that wander the continent and though they generally avoid coming too close to the settlements of other races, his tribe often approached towns to trade the various excess goods they had gathered in their travels. Thanks to this, Orkag had the opportunity of meeting many types of people of various other races and learn about them and their traditions on top of his.

Thanks to his large physique, Orkag was destined to be one of the strongest warriors of his tribe and for a while, he embraced that calling, as being a warrior meant that he would be the protector of the tribe and everyone within it. However, one day, the shaman council of the tribe said that his true calling would be that of a shaman, as the protector spirits of the spirits of the tribe gave a vision to the council that Orkag would be instrumental in keeping the world safe.

Though he respected the calling of the shamans and started to study under them, he did not like it at all as the magic incantations they taught him were complex and difficult to learn. However, upon meeting the shamans of a different rather disliked tribe, he learned of another type of magic that would allow him to cast spells without needing to learn the incantations... he started to learn blood magic.

However, when the shamans of his own tribe learned of this, they decided to cast Orkag out of the tribe as they considered blood magic the antithesis of life. Though Orkag disliked this, he once again accepted the fact and left the tribe, living his life mostly secluded from society until recently when he too received a vision speaking vaguely of a great evil coming. Upon receiving that vision, he has decided to come out of his self-imposed isolation and try and form a band of people to unite against this incoming evil.

First of all, I would like to apologize if there are mistakes in the sheet, and if there are, point them out to me please. As for the orcs as a species in general, I'll try to write about them either later today, or tomorrow.

Here you go. I've never played a monk-type character before so between the world building and magic we're allowed, I decided to try it.

Fang [+]

Name: Fang

Physical: Fang is a tall, muscularly lean woman. She has rough hands and wears foot wraps instead of shoes. Her lightly colored robes are maintained out of devotion to her goddess. Even still, the dark tattoos that wrap up and down her muscles are the most awestriking. Each one is intricately designed and it no doubt took years to acquire them all. Her head is shaved as a show of devotion to Shangri-La, and she has light olive skin. Despite her tough appearance, though, she has gentle brown eyes and a friendly face.

Abilities:

• Summoning magic. Fang's body is covered by a variety of tattoos, a host to depictions of animals and even weapons. The amount of energy she puts forth can affect how many summons she can control and how big they are. The animals found across her body include two snakes, a tiger, a bear, a turtle, and a phoenix. The weapons, usually incorporated in the intricate animal designs, include a staff, two swords, a bladed polearm, and knives. When being used, the summon's tattoo disappears. It takes energy to maintain the summons' physical forms for extended periods of time, but she can also dismiss them as she pleases. However, the tattoos won't immediately reappear once dismissed from the physical plane; over the course of a day, they will appear faded and then dark again once ready for use.

• Martial arts. Not only is Fang a fearsome master of her tattoos, she is trained in a style of fighting developed by followers of Shangri-La. The focus of this technique is to strike from afar and bring an opponent down in closer quarters. It's a style of fighting made to use an opponent's own force against them.

• Magic & soul sense. Through meditation and practice, Fang is able not only to sense the presence of magic or souls, but to also loosely read people and their intentions. It's, of course, fallible as the human and humanoid experience is vast.

Starting Gear: Save for the clothes on her back and a flat blade for maintaining a shaved head, Fang has no material possessions and seems to have no interest in keeping any.

Personality/Goals: Fang wishes to serve Shangri-La in maintaining a humble life and serving the greater good. A minority among her monastery, she was trained as a warrior, and is allowed to bend the otherwise strict rules of nonviolence. Even so, she maintains a demeanor of relaxation and is slow to anger. Beyond the years of training under her religion, Fang is kind. She has a surprisingly broad sense of humor, though likely developed later in life due to a sheltered upbringing in the monastery. Her journey alone is meant to push the boundaries of her devotion, however.

Backstory: Like most of the monks she grew up with, Fang was orphaned as a baby and left at the temple. She was trained among young boys and girls in the way of Shangri-La, a goddess figure. Unlike most of her peers, however, Fang displayed a rare affinity for magic. As a direct result, her training was altered and she was raised into the rare warrior role of her religion. She is a recent graduate of the student title, and is now traveling the world to reach a higher form of enlightenment and acquire the title of master.

Other Stuff:

• Followers of Shangri-La are known for their intricate tattoos and peaceful, charitable ways of life. Traveling monks receive mixed reactions, though: some are charitable and hospitable to monks, others see them as bums. They have a large following, but due to religious purges and wars, their numbers have been decreasing. Warriors like Fang are a minority and relatively new development as a defense against the violent world. Older monks in the religion may not agree with this development.

Seems good, though I would keep the soul sense to reading emotions and such, not able to pluck actual images or solid thoughts - more a "he looks happy and calm but I know he wants to try to kill me any moment now..." sort of thing, just to head off any use further than that, though I mostly speak to head it off as you never said you'd use it as any actual mind reading. Beyond that, looks good to me, and worthy of the CS tab.

I decided on someone. Let me know if there are any changes. Not 100% on the power levels and whatnot.

Mort the Plaguebringer [+]

Name: Mort the Plaguebringer
Physical: Mort stands at a standard 1.8m and has a sickly demeanor, although that doesn't hamper his physical abilities. He doesn't cough or anything of the sort, but his breathing sounds raspy. No one really knows what he looks like under his mask, as he rarely takes it off and will only pull it down slightly if he needs to. His scythe is a lot more basic and made of metal instead of wood.
Abilities:
Mort is a mage of death. As such, most of his abilities are based around manipulating death. While he can cast general spells that are based on death, he has some special skills that are of great note.

Disease immunity: Mort is unable to become sick, radiating sickness himself. In fact, any sickness in the air only strengthens his powers.

Plague Aura: Mort emits an aura of death around him, causing enemies to feel ill, become diseased, and slowly, VERY slowly, take damage and eventually die while they stay in his aura. Enemies that die by Mort's aura will reanimate to serve him, but will rapidly decay due to the innumerable magical diseases they carry. Mort can choose who is affected by his aura and diseases, but either way everyone sees the sickly bluish green luminescent light mist Mort emits.

Stay the Reaper: Mort can heal his allies and himself by using necrotic energies. This weakens his magic for a time after being used as it takes away from the death in the area.

Call the Reaper: Mort uses the death in the air to summon a sacrificial spectral altar on his victim, chaining them to it. Then a figure of the grim reaper appears and swings their scythe at the target, dealing damage equal to the amount of death in the air and how close to death that victim is. Victims killed by this spell greatly heal Mort, replenish his energy, and serve him in undeath, at least until they decay to dust. This spell requires a lot of energy to cast.

Starting Gear: Scythe: A basic scythe to show Mort's affinity with death. Very sharp.
Personality/Goals: Mort is a mage that most people tend to stay away from, especially considering his plague can be seen before he even appears himself. Mort himself isn't a mean person, and only tends to hurt people that have bothered him first, or that he is hunting. Due to his plague magic though, he doesn't have too much interaction with people, but people who get to know him know that he is quite chipper and upbeat. Well, minus the death and dark humor he has. He doesn't have any issues with the slow death he often brings his enemies, as thats just how death magic works, nor does he see any issue with the occasional undead minion he finds himself with.

As for what he wants, Mort is mostly interested in progressing his craft and showing death magic could be very useful. After all, when one can freely reanimate the dead, including demons, and cure disease, eventually there could be so much good that can be done by manipulating life and death. It would be very nice to be able to chat with people like normal mages do, after all. And eventually becoming a Lich sounded pretty good. Life beyond death and whatnot, and more time to do what he sought out to do.

Backstory: Born in a small farming village, Mort wasn't in the best of health most of the time. Often times he found himself sickly and unable to do much but read. One day a mage came to attempt to fix what was a long standing drought, and when they left, dropped one of their books about magic. Sure it wasn't the death magic Mort was going to be known for, but the basics of magic was all Mort needed get started. Turning his sickness into strength, Mort used his magic to cure himself of his aliment, and when he was old enough, departed to bigger and better places to hone his morbid interest in death, having been knocking at its door more than a few times.

Eventually his magic was shaped by this, and he became the plaguebringer. Always emitting an aura of sickness and death, Mort became an expert in death magic and as he learned more and more about magic, he also learned about those who used it for evil purposes. Sure Mort's magic was often seen as evil, but he himself wasn't and struck out to deal with those people. After all, he really couldn't stop his aura, so if he wanted to be able to talk to people without most of them running away in fear, it would be best to do that in the end.

Antoinette Larstradh [+]

Name:
Antoinette Larstrahd

Physical:
Somewhat frail and very fair of complexion Antoinette certainly doesn’t have a particularly imposing presence. Her hair, originally a deep chestnut brown became bleached white-blonde the very first time she uttered a spell. Often mistaken for a traveling sage or chronicler of sorts she certainly doesn’t look like she could handle herself in the dangerous wilds of the world, but of course appearances can be deceiving.

Abilities:
Antoinette follows an older and fairly obscure branch of arcana, one that carries quite the stigma amongst the ‘civilized’ folks of the world. She practises what was long ago referred to most simply as blood magic.

Different from the branch which now carries the name, Anto requires physical blood as a component to even the simplest of incantations. The source of the blood used can affect the potency of magics cast somewhat, however beyond that any serves as an acceptable catalyst. A notable exclusion would be that she is however unable to magically heal or restore vitality through this form of ‘Blood magic’ or ‘Blood weaving’.

Using this older school Anto has avoided specialising as much as most other spellcasters tend to, though she does have a natural affinity for abjuration and transmutation but tends to struggle more with evocation magics.

Due to the requirement of her magic she has a large scar in the palm of each hand, reminders of the many times she has used her own lifeblood as a component.

Starting Gear:
Anto’s clothing matches the style of the noble ladies of the city-state of Jumaban, renown for ease of movement and comfort whilst still being practical enough to travel in. Though comfortable they certainly lack any form of martial protection or even protection from the harsher seasons and weather conditions of the world. The travelling cloak she wears however is much sturdier and offers protection from the elements if nothing else and lined with thick golden-fox hair. She also owns a pair of thick padded gloves and wears finely crafted and well maintained traveling boots.

Adorned in intricate silverwork jewellery from Jumaban, Anto most notably possesses a ring that holds a small concealed blade which though not effective as a weapon can be used to draw blood against unprotected skin.

Anto carries a small satchel containing her personal items and fairly meagre supplies. These comprise of a leather-bound book, writing inks and implements, several days’ rations in the form of nuts, roots and berries. She also carries several linen bandages and a flask of Jumaban Alvo (a strong spirit that doubles as a disinfectant).

She owns a single stiletto knife which is small and easily concealed on her person. Though certainly putting her at a disadvantage in any straight up fight, it again serves primarily as a tool to ensure there is always an open wound for her to channel her abilities and as a last resort when otherwise unable to do so.

Personality/Goals:
Antoinette has developed a rather pessimistic and detached view of the world after the events that have shaped her life.

Despite this she continues to travel and seeks to meet others that practise the arcane arts whilst having little positive interest in those that do not. Where she once saw the majority of those without any disposition to magic as simply misguided and misinformed, she now believes that the vast majority will always violently shun what they do not understand no matter what attempts are made to better educate them or even help them.

The population of ‘ordinary people’ represents the biggest current threat to mages that exists. She views anyone who would harm a magic-user simply for being one as an enemy or at the very least an obstacle that must be overcome through whatever means necessary.

She does however have a very strong aversion to those who would use their magical powers to harm those who cannot defend themselves (particularly due to the negativity and hostility towards mages this behaviour brings).

Backstory:
Antoinette’s first memories are of misery and slavery and her early life amongst the wealthy and elite of Alibari. She does not often think back to this time and remembers practically nothing of her life before her eighth year.

This however all changed when she was purchased by an old Jumaban Noblewoman named Christelle that sensed the untapped abilities within a nameless slave girl and so ‘saved’ her from a short and miserable life.

Taken to a small compound within the remote foothills of the Aganorat region the next several years of the newly named Antoinette life became a flurry of education, discipline and secrecy as she found herself thrust into a lifestyle she had never expected. Christelle belonged to a practically extinct order of mages that had been hunted to the last several surviving members despite their mostly altruistic tenants and noble intentions.

Antoinette’s life was difficult and demanding, but in turn she was provided with knowledge and a lifestyle that she would have never otherwise experienced as she was trained in the old arts of Blood-weaving. Though incorrectly viewed as a dark or evil form of magic, in truth simply another arcane tool to access the innate abilities within she was raised and trained to ‘serve’ the now extinct Aganoratan merchant Kings.

However before her eighteenth year a series of events involving Demonic forces and the nation of Alibarith spiralled out of control as the few senior members of the order including Christelle fought unsuccessfully to thwart the corrupting influence of a demonic entity they knew only as Ulgozil. In turn the corrupted agents of Ulgozil struck against the compound slaughtering and destroying all they could.

Antoinette escaped into the desert with another older initiate named Sylvie and they wandered for days before eventually finding one of the few oasis sanctuaries that nestled deep within the foothills narrowly surviving the ordeal.

Life from then on became much harder as the pair struggled to survive together in a world that hated them, finding solace only with each other and those very few other spellcasters they crossed paths with. Travelling northwards away from the harsh arid climate and enemies of the past they found that as long as they kept their abilities a secret they could survive and do what small deeds they could to better the world. Their relationship deepened and became more intimate as they worked as partners in everything they did.

Six years later however misfortune struck again as in the process of clearing a cult from a town they put their trust in the wrong person who in turn betrayed and exposed them as blood-mages. A mob formed and where Antoinette was willing to use her abilities against those that threatened her to escape Sylvie was not. When Sylvie did not meet her Antoinette returned only to learn the crowd had beaten, bound and burned Sylvie alive in their ignorance of the fact she had just saved them all.

Filled with loss and despair it took every ounce of self-control she possessed to leave without incinerating town in turn for what they had done.

Six months passed as she continued to travel, however now withdrawn from the outside world as she simply watches life instead of interfering as she reflects upon her own existence and that of others. Having spent much time submerged within her own thoughts she has now become far more pessimistic in her views and is struggling to find any meaning or goal worth pursuing beyond the improvement of her arts. She has continued to struggle with the concept of being ‘alone’ in the world after the loss of such a close relationship.

@ArenaSnow Alright here we go. Any feedback let me know.

I am looking forwards to seeing everyone's characters in action.