A cold breeze. A hard surface. You slowly open your eyes.

Lying uncomfortably upon a cold, uneven floor made of dark stone, you slowly wake. You question how you were even able to sleep in such conditions in the first place. Then it becomes quite apparent that this was not where you were in the first place. You’re not even sure if you went to bed before arriving at this new location. Wide awake now, you quickly take to your feet looking around to gage just where you are.

The room you find yourself in is large ranging almost endlessly to any of the walls that surround you. You look up to see that the room reaches several meters into the air, meeting at the vaulted ceiling. Along each wall are columns that jut halfway out of them, separating it into segments. Carved into each frame are various battles of unknown faction or origin. The room is surprisingly well lit despite lacking any obvious light source. You spin suddenly when a cough echoes throughout the massive chamber.

You become aware that you are not alone. Lying on the floor around you are various other people, dressed in both familiar and drastically foreign attire. They begin to stir, waking up equally confused as you are. Many of them begin to murmur, question and group up trying to make sense of the situation. You join them but before any conversation could take place, the room is filling with another sound that seemingly originated from the ceiling. You collectively look upward to search for the source of the sound only to revolt against the sight.

Upon the ceiling sat what appeared to be a large spider, surrounded by webs that reached across to various corners of the room. The spider took so much space that you’re surprised that you didn’t notice it the first time you looked around the room. Yet despite the spider’s size, it was still dwarfed by the size of the room. The spider quickly descended the ceiling along a web reaching the ground, facing the few who had awoken. This was not any spider; it was some spider, human, monster abomination. The spider was black, covered in short silver hairs, and had a large abdomen. Each leg was slender, long, and also covered in hairs. At the head were several black void eyes, and two large fangs. From between these eyes sprouted a human figure, gray skin, and arms twice as long as any man would have. Each hand was equipped with long fingers, with nails resembling claws. From what you could see, the figure had the shape of a woman. The figure had extremely long black hair, covering the head, and most of the body. With a shrill, the figure screeched sending chills up your spine.

You stand there motionless, not sure of what action to take. You notice that the others in the room began to take up arms. Here a monster was presented to you and it looked as to be ready for a fight. Questions about why or how you arrived at this place began to be put aside as the threat loomed before you. Noticing you armaments besides you, you join the others in preparing for what is to come. Hopefully your questions about this place will be answered once the inevitable battle is over.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

So this is my idea. I've run something like it before on another site. So in a way this is the Gauntlet V2. After it concludes there might be a Gauntlet V3, but we'll see.

So, I just want to have an interest check to see if it'd be worth doing. The story is you and a group of other champions have somehow arrived in the chamber with no way in or out. You'll be fighting a bunch of powerful enemies in an effort to discover what happened and why. Think of it as a cross between Sword Art Online and Dark Souls if you're familiar with either series. There will be breaks in between fights to allow more in depth character development, interaction, and to accumulate the information you've discovered.

When it comes to characters, it's a fantasy world so you will not be limited on that. Also, there is no limit to time period, so you can design from any history you want, made up or otherwise. The more drastic the difference between characters ability and history the better.

Here's hoping it gets some interest.

EDIT: Here it is
The Gauntlet

sounds pretty cool! i am interested

any chance of PC death? you mentioned Dark Souls, will there be a respawn mechanic of some kind?

@Zoey White There is a chance of PC death. Though I’ll leave that choice to the players for the most part. I’ll bombard you with stuff and you can determine how survivable it’ll be for you particular character. All deaths are permanent. There will probably be a handful of fodder NPCs for that reason.

Haven't found a good one of these in awhile, I'd be willing to throw my hat into this.

hey you, you're finally awake
Mmm, seems nice.

I'm interested. Are these champions all pulled from the same word, or are they being pulled from anywhere?

A few questions to go along with my interest.

First, the extent to which fantastical elements are allowed. Should there be any limitations to the magic our potentially very diverse cast should have? Any rules you want to set in stone as to what it can or cannot do before balance comes into place or character creation begins?

Second, on the list of armaments available in the gauntlet, are we allowed to come up with our own or are we to pick from a set list of things that you, the DM, come up for us? I ask this because our characters would appear to be finding weapons within the setting and not have any that they would have kept with them during their average life.

@King Cosmos
Each champion will come from a world and history of your own creation. Alternatively you can share a world of origin if you wish.

@EvictedElement
There isn’t too much of limit. Of course magic or items that makes a character invincible, invulnerable, or have insta win effects are not allowed. Your characters are not gods, but there is some freedom to be overpowered. I’ll probably be looking at it from character to character. For now nothing that can teleport your character out of the room, portals that can do the same, summoning, mind control, mind reading, or possession. For the sake of story, your character can have abilities like those, but they will fail each and every time in this world. Lastly, anti magic if you so choose, should be limited to specific elements (fire protection, etc) and will only protect the player character in question.

Your characters will have woken with their own equipment. None will be provided from this strange world itself.

I'm interested!

So I imagine with tech it would be the same principle correct?

@Crazytazer Yes, but you can be pretty creative with what tech you have. I’ll judge how it’ll affect the story from character to character so feel free to try something. I’ll let you know be it magic or tech if it’s not allowed, or is allowed but won’t work within the world.

Also as an aside, some players may want some characters to have healing or medical abilities. Not all characters should have it, but it won’t hurt to have some medics on hand.

Could be interesting

This sounds super cool! Definitely interested!

It's great to see such interest. I've made the OOC now:

The Gauntlet