About fifty years ago, the Ashcroft Foundation shocked the world by going public with the following: magic was real. And they had used it to develop new technology capable of generating steady, clean energy. This Dimensional Engine soon propelled mankind forward by leaps and bounds. Finally, we had the revolution in energy futurists had anticipated would come with the atomic age. Soon after the development of the D-engine, antigravity systems were also developed, and humanity has leveraged them both to usher in a new age of exploration. Powered armor and even larger humanoid mecha have been developed for both peaceful purposes like construction and for war.

Additional advances in fields such as cybernetics, nanotechnology, and biological engineering have led to revolutions in medicine and everyday life. One can generate just about anything with a nanofactory...provided one has access to it. Medical cybernetics exist, although far more common are replacement tissues created using a person's own cells and then attached with the help of nanomedicine or beneficial sorcery.

Founded by renegades among the Children of Chaos who stole the Ta'ge fragments, The Eldritch Society is a loose society of sorcerers, psychics, and others who know of the hidden truths of the world and act to protect it and humanity from these darker influences. The society has developed the Rite of Sacred Union from information contained within the fragments, a ritual similar to the Rite of Transfiguration that does not force one to lose their mortality. Instead, it calls out into the universe, to bring a mortal and a "higher being" together in symbiosis. However, participants in the rite would be "judged worthy". Tagers, as they have come to be called, are mortals who have undergone the Rite of Sacred Union and survived. They are monsters with the hearts of men, and are the Eldritch Society's greatest warriors.

The Chrysalis Corporation is one of the world's most influential and largest megacorporations, often chief competitor to the Ashcroft Foundation itself. It is also rotten from the inside. Decades ago, Chrysalis rediscovered the Rite of Transfiguration, a powerful ritual that transforms a human into...something else. This attracted the attention of the god Nyarlatheotep, and it gathered its mortal cult, the Children of Chaos, and silently took over. Most Chrysalis employees are completely unaware of the cult's existence, or any other darker influences, although eventually cult initiation and promotion are one and the same.

A mortal undergoing the Rite of Transfiguration is changed into a form "more suiting to his masters." He becomes a shapeshifting monstrosity known as a Dhoanoid. Although they walk around like men, their true form lurks just under the surface. Utterly inhuman in body and soul, a dhoanoid is easily discovered by genetic scans or mystical means.

The Black Lodge is a cabal of sorcerers founded in America that has since spread tendrils of influence across the world. All members of the Lodge are dedicated to the practice of sorcery unrestricted by moral or legal boundaries. Many of its members are powerful maestros of evil enchantment, who have traded away their humanity for even greater heights of power.

In mortal human form,

• Minor enhancement to strength, agility, and so-on.
• Regenerate from injury at a slow but steady rate, recovering in only hours or days from most wounds. Any injuries suffered in your mortal form heal at this rate, even if you later change forms.
• Detect Dhoanoids and other nonhuman beings. This takes about a minute of observation. While dhoanoids are recognizable as such, anything else will simply be registered as something "Other."
• Communicate telepathically with tagers (shifted or not) within 100m. Sense other tagers within 10m.

In their clearly alien battle form, all tagers have the following abilities.

• Full enhancement to strength, speed, agility, etc.
• Ability to leap great distances with little effort.
• Stick to and crawl on walls and other sheer surfaces.
• Life support: your mortal form is mystically protected and you can survive in space or the deep oceans.
• Armored and more resistant to injuries.
• Regenerate rapidly from injury. You cannot shift back until any injuries suffered while in your alien form are healed.
• Every tager has a variety of weapons and other supernatural abilities, although the specifics differ between symbionts.
• Limit Weapon: A unique and powerful attack that you can use once a day, often to devastating effect.
• Communicate telepathically with other tagers within 2 km. Automatically sense other tagers within 100m.

Tagers can also manifest only part of their symbiont. Although this takes an act of will under most circumstances, your symbiont does appreciate the value of discretion. When active, a tager's still appears mostly human, although their eyes take on a clearly inhuman appearance, such as becoming pitch black, blood red, or segmented like an insect's. You gain access to one of your natural weapons or supernatural abilities, can leap great distances, and can cling to walls like in your shifted form.

Name: Your character's name
Age: Your character's age. Optionally, also include their grade/year in school.
Appearance Your character's appearance. Images are fine, and while artwork, particularly anime-styled is recommended, I will not require it either. Please also provide a good paragraph description of your character's appearance, should you feel the need to elaborate with additional details not present in the image.
History: At least a paragraph about who your character is. Where are they from? What's their family life like? What events have shaped who they are today?
Personality: A very brief sketch about how your character tends to act or see the world. Also consider how their ta'ge symbiont's influence has or will change their mentality over time.

Ta'ge Symbiont
Appearance: The shifted appearance you take on when you fully manifest your symbiont. While humanoid, one is still clearly alien, monstrous, and likely to frighten anyone who saw them. Think the Guyver, or other biological or living armors or just plain old cool looking monsters, really. Images are encouraged, just as before.
Natural weapons: The natural weapons available to you. Be they claws, blades, a powerful bite, tentacles, or even more unusual or mystical ranged attacks.
Limit Weapon: Your signature special move. Make it nice and flashy. Examples would include the Guyver's mega-smashers or similar anime wave-motion guns, an ability to create several illusory copies of oneself, an unstoppable armored charge, the ability to teleport around an area and make multiple attacks from many angles or against several enemies, and so-on.
Other supernatural Abilities: Other supernatural abilities you possess, if any. Some examples could include flight with or without wings, the ability to turn invisible, a sort of displacement effect to appear slightly next to where one actually is, or the ability to phase through solid matter.
Personality traits: The personality traits your symbiont tends to bleed into your own.
Hybrid Form: When you partially manifest your symbiont, what weapon or ability do you gain? What obvious change happens to your eyes?

I expect decent writing. As long as there’s a solid attempt at correct spelling and English grammar, I’m happy. Lord knows I make mistakes myself, anyway.

I expect reasonable posting times. At least once a week should be sufficient. If you have things happening in your life, I know that can happen. Please let us know if you can, and about when you’ll be back, if you know. I will be doing my best to move the story along regularly, and will not necessarily wait on everyone to post if enough has happened in the current scene.

This RP will contain violence, death, foul language, and possibly graphic descriptions of gore and grievous bodily harm. It might also contain alcohol and drug use and even mentions of sex, although I hope that last one is unlikely.

The Cthulhu Mythos
Deus Machina Demonbane
The Cthulhutech RPG - It’s based on an old campaign in this system, and a lot of the names, and everything about tagers is taken right from there.
Bioboosted Armor Guyver - Ctech’s already ripping this off to an obvious degree, it’d be wrong not to list it here.

:
Name: Mako Kuriyama
Age: 16, 3rd year at Kojiki.


Mako is a demure girl, small framed and easily identifiable by her bold red glasses frames and her strawberry pink hair. Other than being especially cute looking there is little about her physically that gets people talking. She is often seen with bandages on and would not be out of character or called into suspicion at all by there presence.

History: Mako is basically alone at the academy. She has a younger sister who is scheduled to start highschool next year, but she still lives at home with their father and his new wife. Mako's mother passed away years ago to a blood disease. Mako makes frequent visits to the doctor in order to have blood tests done to make sure that she didn't develop the disease as well, so far medications and good health have kept her clear of it. However, the frequent blood tests do cause her to be anemic quite a bit, and she has such a fear of needles that it is all that she can do to have the blood test done and cannot tolerate a transfusion. She is clumsy and accident prone because of this, hence the permission to wear a non-uniform sweater at school and the nearly constant presence of bandages.

Personality: Mako is generally considered shy. Introverted is more like it. She wants to be involved, and outside of her very small group of friends, has a very hard time getting out and doing the things that she wants. Instead she spends the majority of her free time reading Manga, listening to music, and eating pokey- strawberry of course, but chocolate is good too! She is exempted from physical activities at school and that has created a distance between her and her classmates. Those that do try to interact with her, only seem to regard her with pity. After the introduction of the Symbiont, Mako will generally become more confident in her abilities. The healing/regenerative abilities will alleviate her concerns over her health and she will become more involved in the world around her, often times at the prompting of her symbiont.

Ta'ge Symbiont

Taking on the appearance of her Symbiont, she manifests the attributes of the Virgo Harpy. Just like the image above, but the ends of the claws, wings and hair, all tinged in red. The eyes are a solid red. The halo appears to be made of blood and will occasionally drip. Even through the appearance of looking soft and supple, her skin has taken on a stone-like durability.

Natural weapons: Claws and talons, a sword seemingly formed from her own blood, even the halo that floats above her head can be split into two chakram that will bounce twice before automatically returning to her once thrown.

Limit Weapon: Mako can place her clawed hand on a nearly defeated foe, draw out its blood and transform it into a swarm of Chakram to be directed at other foes.

Other supernatural Abilities: Flight, perfect sight (can even see in magical darkness), and a telekinetic ability to manipulate blood, even when inside the body (requires a great deal of focus)(think avatar blood bending). Heat resistance.

Personality traits: The symbiont of Virgo regards itself as perfect. Therefor it is bold and overly confident. Oftentimes impatient to take action.

Hybrid Form: Mako's eyes will turn a solid red. Hidden by her red frames she hopes that the sudden flash of red in her eyes might be missed by her overlooking classmates. She gains the perfect sight ability, as well as the ability to manifest her blood sword.

Name: Saya Koizumi
Age: 14, 3rd year
Appearance:

Saya is average in overall height and build. She obviously suffers from albinism, with characteristic pale skin, eyes that are a sort of pale pink or purple in color, and extremely light hair. She usually wears sunglasses when out and about, or wears glasses with lenses that tint automatically when exposed to bright light or UV. She isn’t the sort to keep up with current fashion, and most of her clothes that aren’t her school uniform are far behind the latest trends. Due to her illness, Saya has several surgical scars.

History:
Saya’s family are caretakers and priests for one of the local shrines. As a result, she has an actual house that’s a good size and something of a rarity in an arcology. Her parents are traditional and strict when it comes to duties to the shrine, but otherwise Saya can usually avoid trouble if she’s got a good enough cover story and luck on her side. She has an older sister whom she adores. The two sisters get along well enough ,with the usual amount of friendly ribbing, and they split the household chores between them. They both have to work to maintain the shrine’s grounds and help out during festivals.

Saya wasn’t really born healthy, and she wasn’t born lucky, either. In addition to her lack of pigment and associated vision problems, she’s struggled with illness for much of her life. Modern medicine keeps her living a surprisingly active lifestyle, but she still needs frequent hospital visits and surgery to replace failing organs or otherwise treat her frequent medical woes.

Saya’s school life is probably what one would consider unremarkable. She’s not very smart, so she works hard for her grades. She has a few friends and hangs out with them. She watches weird shows and makes costumes based on the characters. Sometimes she tries to drag her friends into doing the same. Her unusual appearance alone is enough to set her apart, leading to the occasional odd look or people talking behind her back.

Personality:
Despite her weak constitution, Saya is energetic, outgoing, and positive. She works hard to get what enjoyment she can out of her good days, and rather than depend on others, tries to be someone they can depend upon. She helps others who she feels are suffering or in trouble, and she is perhaps a little too naively trusting.

She is also delusional. She believes herself to be a magical girl, even if she is demonstrably not. Surely, she can rush headlong into danger and things will work themselves out just like she’s the protagonist of some sort of show. This seems to be something of a coping mechanism for what’s happened to her.

Since her union with her symbiont, Saya has slowly become more cold-tempered, cruel, and violent. She’s more intimidating than she has any right to be, and seems to enjoy frightening her enemies with displays of her own strength. Even if she wants to befriend or get through to an enemy, she’s more than happy to beat them into submission first.

Ta'ge Symbiont


Natural weapons:

• Talons: The nightmare’s hands are tipped with long, deadly talons.
• Tentacle sheathe: The nightmare grows a set of tentacles that are usually retracted into one forearm. They can be used to entangle or grapple an opponent as well as do damage.
• Shoulder Pods: Each shoulder pod fires crimson bolts of energy capable of punching through walls.
• Depthless Strike: A wave of energy fired by striking the ground or another surface. It travels along a physical plane and can even follow it around corners to strike foes out of sight or in cover.

Limit Weapon:
Mystic Blast - Both shoulder pods charge up and unleash a terrifying blast of energy 2 meters wide and as tall as the tager. This blast is capable of taking out walls and even armor, damaging anything in its path.

Other supernatural Abilities:
Nightmares are stronger than most tagers and regenerate very quickly when shifted, but otherwise unremarkable. Saya’s has also manifested the ability to detect things by heat signatures. Nightmares are big, strong,and just as fast as other tagers, but about as subtle as a brick to the face.

Personality traits: Aggressive, violent, and overconfident. Nightmares are menacing, bloodthirsty, and always ready to pick a fight. While not driven to be in charge, a nightmare is the sort to question authority, if not outright rebellious.

Hybrid Form: Saya’s eyes become solid black, she gains her thermal vision, and may sprout her claws.

Name: Kishimoto Haru

Age: 16; Second year highschool

Appearance: Haru exudes an unfriendly aura, with her eyes usually in a glare when someone looks over to her. However, this is just her case of a resting bitch face. Nevertheless, she doesn't mind that it seems to repel people from nosing into her business. She often dyes the tips of her hair various colors, currently it is dyed blonde. It wouldn't be a rare instance to find Haru with fresh wounds and bandages. She usually has a bandage over the tattoo under her eye which most brush off. She has many faded scars littered all over her body.

History: Haru did not grow up in a good place. With her father being a gambling addict and her mother barely having enough energy to keep up two jobs and taking care of her useless husband and Haru, she ended up being neglected. She had to grow up fast. However unfortunate it was, Haru had turned to destructive hobbies. She had begun staying out when she was starting out middle school, getting into fights at a very young age. Her mother was always worried whenever she came back from a fight but Haru never listened to her. Maybe she should have. Maybe her life wouldn't be like what it was if she did.

The streets taught her many things about life. If you weren't strong enough, fast enough, skilled enough, you weren't going to survive. The rebellious young girl would go against school rules until she just became a problem student who most teachers just didn't want to deal with. It was a miracle she wasn't kicked out of the school yet, and maybe it's because she got decent grades and the academy just gave up on trying to reign her in. The sooner she graduated, the sooner she would be out of their hair.

Five years ago, her mother died. That year she got a tattoo under the bottom of her eye for her mother. And yet, Haru simply became more detached to the world. Her mother's sister came and took her away from her father, who was now wasting his life away even more. Haru heard later that her father had owed the local yakuza a big sum which was why her mother was overworking herself. She never wanted to see the waste of space she calls a father ever again. Rurika was taking care of her now and she seems to have instilled a sense of calmness into Haru. She's mellowed down from seeking constant fights but she's still seen as one of the delinquents of the academy. Arguably infamous in it, even.

Personality: Haru comes off as detached from the world, most of the time. She doesn't want to bother with most people and is just waiting to graduate and somehow find a job. She's generally seen as unfriendly by most of the populace, and has been described as "scary" and "should be avoided". She avoids physical fights nowadays but is still uninterested in school or following authority. After all, they haven't really done any favors for her or her family, have they?

To those who approach her in a cordial manner, Haru does try to prevent herself from snapping at them but she retains her blunt attitude. She tries to not be unnecessarily rude but she still tends to come off as this due to the lack of proper interaction with other people who aren't jabbering at her to in anger or reprimanding her for doing something. Haru does have a penchant for helping others in her own way, usually preventing other delinquents from bullying others. Was it repentance? Perhaps.

After the Symbion'ts fusion, Haru would find herself to be impatient and uncaring to the world, even more than she originally was. She becomes more goal oriented instead of pushed by sympathy. Haru would try to be as efficient as possible, doing things quickly instead of elongating a process, even at the risk of a break in morality. Intimidation and veiled threats become more commonplace instead of outright aggressiveness.

Ta'ge Symbiont



Natural weapons:

• Claws: The Blademaster has long, sharp claws that are capable of slicing through flesh easily. These can also be used for climbing onto vertical spaces.
• Tail: The Blademaster grows a prehensile tail that acts like a third hand. It can be used to pick up objects to throw or to simply be used as a whip. It has a razor-sharp tip.
• Blades: The Blademaster has blades portruding out of its arms which can be taken off to be used as proper swords in a fight.
• Throwing Knives: She is equipped with eight sharp, feather-like substances that she can throw like knives and has the ability to will it back to her. These are three inches long each.

Limit Weapon:
Demon's Run: Once she activates this weapon, she is practically gliding off the ground as her speed is nearly indiscernible by even the supernatural sight of her enemies and allies. This allows her to make multiple attacks in quick succession within a fraction of a second.

Other supernatural Abilities: Blademasters boast speeds that exceed that of other tagers and a faster reaction to match up with this. While they are as strong as the other tagers, they rely more on hit and run tactics. Due to their speed, they can create harmless afterimages to confuse their opponents. They have a sharper sense of hearing which makes it easy for them to navigate through echolocation alone. They emit this clicking sound from their throats to use for echolocation.

Personality traits: Blademasters are subtle and they wish for things to end quickly, no matter the resolution. They have a manipulative streak but isn't opposed to taking things into their own hands.

Hybrid Form: Haru's eyes turn into a solid midnight blue. She gains the power of the claws and the supernatural hearing.

✣ Name: Mana Kuroi
✣ Age: 16, 2nd Year

✣ History: Mana’s life was never labeled as “normal”, especially in her earlier years. As the daughter of a powerful Yakuza who oversaw many of the local comings and goings, it was only natural that those who found out the truth to her heritage would regard her with scorn. By choice or chance, Mana’s early life involved making several enemies, though not of her own making. The sins of her family lineage weighed heavily in her blood and one day those sins would be hers to pay.

Even so, Mana generally ignored the shady dealings of her family and committed to living a regular school life. Those that stuck close even through hardship were true family as far as she was concerned and worthy of her presence despite the risks it gave. Of course, she couldn’t ignore the Yakuza forever; indeed, it was only a matter of time before the darkness within her clan began to grow rampant and spread like wildfire.

Only Mana knows exactly how she came to obtain her Ta'ge Symbiont. Some have come to guess it was by experimental summoning on the Yakuza’s part, to bring about more power and control through means of other worldly forces. After all, the perfect vessel would be the up and coming Yakuza Princess; but in the end, these are just rumors. Who really knows what occurred in these certain events? The only one willing to share is Mana herself and only to those she deems worthy.

✣ Personality: Mana is a girl of few words. That much has been bred into her just in proximity to her family, though she’s not to the point of becoming a social recluse. She prefers to rely on actions more so than words and values the intent behind them. After all, words can hold little to no meaning, but there is no questioning the extent of one’s actions; or so Mana believes. She speaks only when needed to and only when addressed, but in Mana’s experience, getting things done is more favorable than any sort of empty talk. This dogma persists even under the influence of her Ta'ge Symbiont, though in more drastic measures. When transformed, she has a certain tendency to shoot first and ask questions later.

✣ Ta'ge Symbiont: As per all Tagers, Mana has access to powers unbefit of mortal beings. Her particular Symbiont takes the form of a monstrous gunslinger clad in crystal. Whether this form has any bearing on the being attached to Mana or something more personal has yet to be seen.



✣ Ta'ge Persona: While ordinarily quiet and almost reserved, Mana’s personality becomes slightly skewered when transformed. Communication is almost nearly impossible to make with her as she prefers to let her guns do most of the talking than anything else. Some could say she even enjoys the act of murder and gunning down her enemies, though it’s difficult to tell when she’s so close-lipped. Even so, closed-eyed observers can note the subtle body language she gives off to display her enjoyment of bloody and wretched situations, especially in combat.

✣ Hybrid Form: When sliding into her Hybrid Form, Mana’s eyes become slit like a cat’s pupils. When using her powers in this way, she gains her control over space. She’s freaked out her fair share of hapless victims by suddenly tapping them on the shoulder via an arm sprouted from a portal behind them.