"Well brother, if there is a God," said the usurper with a small, rueful smile, "Perhaps He'll have us share quarters in Hell. He'd consider that justice, I'm sure. Otherwise, though, this is goodbye."

When he was done cutting the King's throat, the usurper rose from his haunches, cleaning his dagger as he stepped back from the corpse, careful to avoid the spreading pool of royal blood creeping over the pale marble.

"Where's my nephew?" asked the usurper, his eyes still fixed on the dead king sprawled before him, "And where is that snake, Salazar?"

"The boy wasn't in his chambers," said a short, thickset man in the gold-and-white uniform of the Darkwatch, "My men are turning the palace over. We'll find him."

"And the wizard?"



Welcome to the city of Azon, capital and jewel of the mountainous Kingdom of Pharazon: most ancient and honorable of the Five Kingdoms of Geryon.

It has been over 300 years since the defeat of Daigon, the Dark Lord, a sorcerer of terrible power who, from the cursed lands of Nagath, launched an invasion of the Five Kingdoms of unprecedented scale and fury. Daigon and his legions of twisted soldier-fanatics were beaten back, barely, by the Kingdoms, under the leadership of King Odrossyan II of Pharazon and the Synod, a network of powerful wizards, who aided in combatting Daigon and his many fell lieutenants.

In the intervening centuries, the Five Kingdoms-- Pharazon, Phars, Caphad, Essur, and Glome-- have squabbled for dominance and have seen off invasions and raids from the desert peoples to the south, occasional incursions of mutants and monsters from Daigon's former kingdom of Nagath to the east, and the ferocious Ashlanders to the north.

Only once, however, have they faced a threat akin to Daigon: more than a century after the Dark Lord's defeat a rebellion broke out in the heartland of Pharazon, led by the Wretched Prince, a disinherited heir to the throne, who nearly toppled the kingdom by rallying a coalition of the dispossessed in the name of the Dark Lord.

The revolt was broken, along with Pharazon's preeminence among the Five Kingdoms. In the wake of the Wretched Prince's revolt, the Darkwatch, an inquisitorial order of battlemages was founded to root out followers of Daigon from Pharazon. Over time, the mages of the Darkwatch, loyal to the throne of Pharazon, have come to view the Synod- with its many foreign entanglements- with suspicion. Often members of the Synod have been banned from the Kingdom and suffered occasional bouts of persecution in Pharazon.

Based out of the mysterious mountain fastness known as the House of Wisdom, the Synod, some members of which are old enough to have participated in the fight against Daigon, have retained a place of respect and influence in some kingdoms beyond Pharazon, often mediating disputes and acting as courtiers, spymasters, and viziers, especially in Glome and Caphad.

In recent years, however, the Synod has made a notable return to influence in Pharazon, much to the chagrin of the Darkwatch. Odrossyan VI has reigned for ten years, after overcoming his older brother Valens in a succession dispute that would have turned into a civil war, if not for the machinations of Odrossyan's future vizier Salazar, a mage of the Synod.

Odrossyan's rule has been controversial and tumultuous, and has recently come to a bloody end. Valens, long in exile, has returned and with the connivance of the Darkwatch killed his brother and the king's chief supporters. Publicly, Salazar and the Synod are blamed for the murder, and Valens has promised to uproot the spies and agents of the House of Wisdom from Pharazon.

The King's heir, with the help of the wizard Salazar, just barely escaped his uncle's assassins, and now flees into the mountains with a small band of supporters....



Welcome to the Crownless King.

Writers are invited to submit up to two character applications- you will play principally as the companions of the heir to Pharazon's throne, though I will consider applications for third-parties, more distant allies, and even enemies.

I dont require a specific format for the CS, but invite you to write a brief scene that gives a sense of your characters' personality, looks, and motivation. You can use a traditional character sheet format if you like, but please do include a brief IC scene- it can serve as your first IC post if you wish.

Collaborative worldbuilding will also be a major part of this RP. The details given above are meant to be fleshed out by the players both in the course of the IC and OOCly. I intentionally gave more 'big picture' background than info surrounding the recent coup and the conflict between the late king and his brother Valens. I would like players to flesh out recent history in their own characters backstories.

Some details to get us started are included under the hider below, but these are meant to be explored and deepened not just by me but by all the writers in the RP. In fact, if there is some aspect of the world you'd like to flesh out with an OOC description, you can submit that here and I'll include in in the OP.



Discord: discord.gg/WhnvBxCRbz

Name: Owun Thornwood

Age: 17

Physical Description:

Sir Owun stands six feet tall. He has white-blonde, shoulder length, hair, and mismatched blue and red eyes. His skin is fair and he has light scarring from sparring practice. He has sharp features with a slightly upturned nose and a heart chin.

Personality:

Owun prefers to be subtle in his actions and will try to deal with a matter diplomatically before he draws a blade. He often recites poetry to the dismay of some of his friends from his home. But he is by no means a coward and would step into the way of a charging bull if it meant that his charge was safer for it.

Backstory:

Owun hails from a small hold in the Thornwood south of the capital, Azon. His father, Oster, serves as liege lord of the region and takes his name from his holding. From a very young age Owun practiced with the men at arms at swordplay. His father declared him an expert of the art at the young age of fourteen. Though Owun knows he had much to learn and also knows he is no expert yet and that his father had simply done so for posturing sake. When he was sixteen he was raised to knighthood by his father’s lord, Harwick Reece to whom Lord Thornwood was vassal. At seventeen he chanced upon a small coterie traveling across the land via coach. Only they were being raided by marauders and one of their guards was dead. Owun rode into the fray and killed two before he and the remaining two guards were able to drive off the raiders. He later learned that the coach was carrying the crowned Prince. For his service he was later named to the King’s Guard and given the place of the fallen man on the Prince’s protective detail.

Flaws/Strengths:

As a discovery writer I like to flesh this part out as I write the character.

Other:

Owun uses a montante which is a light greatsword.



Example IC:

I hate applications, hope this works instead:

---

14 Months Earlier

Porous, jagged earth crunched softly under their boots as the Ordinators negotiated the craggy terrain up the mount and toward the derelict structure built atop it. They were five in number, creeping up the crags of glassy volcanic rock with a deliberate and cautious pace that was at the same time surprisingly swift. They scanned their hellish environs with utmost caution from underneath the shaded goggles and cloth facemasks they wore to keep the fine windborne ash out of their eyes and lungs, sweeping over their surroundings with the repeater bows cradled in their arms. Theirs were not the typical vestments of Darkwatch Ordinators; white capes and brass-trimmed plate armor of silvery steel had no place in the brimstone-encrusted badlands of Nagath Major. Thick woolen cloaks over a cuirass of studded leather provided adequate protection out here and were far less conspicuous. Sparsely-peopled as Nagath was in this age, a Darkwatch presence deep into Nagath would be noticed by someone and word would eventually get out.

The Ordinators reached the summit of the cinder mount and found themselves up against the footing of a towering ruin of corroded metal. Built directly inside the caldera of the small cinder volcano, it was constructed in the alien architecture of the Dark Lord's empire. Decaying buttresses anchored a funnel-shaped keep to the rim of the volcano. The rusted remains of metal smokestacks reached into the hazy sky some one hundred feet up above, badly damaged and eroded by frequent lightning strikes and ash storms. Dozens of similar clockwork factories had been constructed across Nagath when the Dark Lord ruled this land. Once these structures were home of the greatest technological marvels the world had ever seen, now they crumbled back into hellscape, howling wind whipping through their rusting skeletons like the fossilized ribs and backbones of primordial monsters.

There were no windows or openings into the ancient structure, only an iron door firmly sealed shut. Inset into the giant gate was a piece of brass clockwork stained blue-gray by corrosion, composed of four rotating disks. Engraved into the disks were devil runes spaced at even intervals such that a combination of four runes served as a pass-word of sorts. Such locksmithing made the simple locks on even the great vaults of Pharazon look primitive in comparison. For all the evils and follies of Daigon and his devils, nobody could possibly deny their ingenuity. Even after three centuries of complete abandonment, the looters, pilferers, and psychotic descendants of the Dark Lord's devils had all been shut out of this place by this piece of ancient clockwork.

Until now.

An Ordinator approached the door, slinging his repeater bow over his shoulder and removing the goggles from his eyes. From a satchel slung across his chest, he produced a scrap of vellum. Torn from a larger scroll and singed on the sides, a string of devil runes written upon it read ᛤᛠᛪᛮ.

Stone gray eyes flitted from the paper to the disks of the lock. In a gloved hand, he seized the first disk and began to turn it. Centuries of volcanic grit and verdigris held the disk fast for a moment, but it soon relented and was spun until the ᛤ glyph was positioned facing directly outward. And so he went with the other three disks, until the combination on the lock matched the runes on the vellum.

As soon as the last glyph was spun into position, the door gave a creaking groan before slowly sinking into a recession into the floor. The compatriots behind him stepped back and trained their bows into the darkness beyond the sinking door. The anemic light of Nagath's haze-veiled sun filtered into the interior of the ruin, illuminating a stone walkway suspended over a confounding network of brass machinery and clockwork.

"Go," Erigos ordered, tucking the scrap of vellum back into his chest satchel as his subordinates passed him into the ruin.

Sconces bearing glass ampules containing a strange gas that burned with a weak, orange glow dimly illuminated the interior of the ruin. All around the Ordinators was a network of cogs, flywheels, and linking rods, all seized shut by centuries of corrosion and disrepair. The air inside was hot and reeked of brimstone, and somewhere below their feet, one could hear the hissing of volcanic gas venting freely into the air. In the age of the Dark Lord, Erigos surmised, this structure had been built to harness the vapors venting out of the volcano below them. Like a water wheel turning a grist mill, the volcanic gas was used to turn this vast array of clockwork. And that clockwork power was in turn harnessed to build machines, grind and carry ore, pump magma, and stoke forges. All without a spark of magic or divine power.

As far as Erigos could tell, that was what made clockwork "dark magic" and Daigon the Dark Lord. Because there was no magic to it at all. Complicated and difficult to master, certainly, but with determination and cleverness, this craft could be used by anyone. Daigon had mastered this craft, and with it nearly conquered the world and remade it in his own image. The Darkwatch, Synod, and the Five Kingdoms would ill afford to allow anyone an opportunity to wield such power ever again. And so Erigos and his subordinates had been sent 300 leagues from Azon into the heart of Nagath to destroy some artifact from Daigon's War.

They found that artifact in the upper reaches of the ruin. The stone causeway from the door went to a staircase coiled around a central pillar of volcanic stone, atop which was a viewing platform of sorts that gave Daigon's engineers a commanding view of the entirety of the structure's interior. In the center of the viewing platform was a raised stone dais and a stand of blue-tinged copper that held an armillary sphere of concentric rings of silvery metal. The rings orbited freely inside one another, tethered in place by some arcane force.

The Ordinators stood to behold the artifact before them, raptured in silent wonder.

One of the Ordinators removed his goggles from his face and stepped closer to inspect the device, slinging his bow over the shoulder. His eyes followed a flitting sliver of iridescent metal twirling inside of the rings. In the faint light of the burning gas sconces, the central needle shimmered dazzling shades of green, purple, and blue.

"In the center, is that.."

"Azjalum," Erigos declared. The rarest of all the precious metals.

There might have existed an ingot's worth of Azjalum in all of Geryon, as it doesn't naturally occur on this world. It could only be purified from some kinds of fallen stars or summoned from the Beyond. It was highly sensitive to magic and, rather predictably, strictly prohibited by the Darkwatch. Merchants were routinely arrested and tried by the Darkwatch simply for possessing little cogs and gears of Nagathi make; Erigos himself had confiscated a dozen cogwheels from a single wealthy collector in Azon. And so it was little wonder the Archlictor wanted this particular device so badly.

"What do you reckon it does?" Asked one of the Ordinators.

"Doesn't matter," spat the Ordinator nearest the sphere, watching the rings orbit about one another as he reached to pull the artifact from its stand. "It's dark magic, we're better off not knowing why the Dark Lord made these things. Our only concern is getting it to Azon so that the Archlictor may-"

The unmistakable sound of a repeater bow discharging could be heard behind him. Thwock-thwip, click. Once more, and then a third time.

The Ordinator turned and saw three of his companions laying on the stone gurgling bloody saliva out through their dustmasks. Each had a crossbow bolt embedded deep in their backs. Erigos stood above them, slinging his expended repeater bow over his shoulder as he drew his sword from its scabbard and closed the distance between him and his last surviving subordinate.

"The artifact is coming back to Azon," said Erigos as he planted his blade through the sternum of his comrade. "But the Archlictor will not be having it."

oh i like this. this all really tickles me, christ on a bike. fuck it, time to get back into advanced. i'm out of uni in a few days anyway.

It's 3:44 AM (fuck, 5:20 AM now) in my timezone at the moment so I don't have time to um... flesh out my ideas. But here's some vibe material.



To clear up some possible confusion I'm not spotting because I'm drinking dumb bitch juice and being awake this early.... The basic idea I'm going for is that Isylt is an esteemed physician who does dubiously legal work with bodies to advance both scientific and magical knowledge. I'm angling for a more morbid take on the "cleric healer" trope. I want to draw on historical theories about alchemy and medicine, and combine them with a folk-tale-esque take on healing magic. I'll write herbs, minerals, and explicit magic into a full character sheet when I (eventually) wake up.

@KitsuneWarrior@nasty

love it, accepted.

@Melkor

Accepted, tho the character seems a little mary sue-ish as it stands. but i gather you want to work out who he is as you write, so I'll trust you to do just that.

@Flagg I like making my characters fail and grow from it. Trust me, I have no plans for unbridled badassery.

@KitsuneWarrior@nasty

love it, accepted.

🥺

Still working on the scene part of the CS but just wanted to put this up to see if the bit of world building was okay.

Okayy here is a WIP. All the bones are there. Just gotta write out backstory as a cohesive thing. Posting this slightly unfinished because I'd like others' input.

Please let me know if you want to flesh out an existing relationship with Isylt! This will likely influence how I write the proper write up for backstory, so I wanna do this first.

And finally please let me know if you have any cool ideas on mundane or magical healing. I kinda have the very basics here, such as limits and stuff. But yeah, any flavour would be neat.

I don't even know what to do for my cs. Some of these are so extensive.

Ahh shit. Muh Rona lockdown got me back on this site and ya boi is very interested. Will edit this with a PC soon.

@Skwint My advice is worry about your character. It's not a competition and unless your character has no details or personality to them - they'll be just fine.

If your application is more than 500 words, you’re doing wrong in my opinion. Every roleplay should be Jump In, no cap.

If your application is more than 500 words, you’re doing wrong in my opinion. Every roleplay should be Jump In, no cap.

Bruh, your application was 1300+ words 😂

(I know it wasn't a regular app but like still lol)

Ahh shit. Muh Rona lockdown got me back on this site and ya boi is very interested. Will edit this with a PC soon.

yo samesies

Hello !
If you are still accepting, I might be interested to join if I can think up a character I fancy after I'm done reading the rest of the Lore given. :)

EDIT; I saw the Discord Link, but no info about it in the OOC saying if one can or cannot join depending on if they have been accepted yet nor not?

Lady Zamanu
"the Woods Witch"

Zamanu is originally from Caphad.
She is purposefully obscure about her age, but she looks to be in her late thirties to early forties.
She stands at 5’4 (162cm). She has olive skin, dark eyes, a good, youthful complexion and thick black hair.

Zamanu was initially an itinerant herbalist and trader in magical reagents who made a fortune while operating at the court of King Odrossyan and was ennobled for her charitable donations and foundations throughout the kingdom. A visible personality in the capital and at the court, Lady Zamanu is said to owe her fortune to the Synod and definitely owes her status in the kingdom to King Odrossyan, to whose court she has been attached for some years.

Lady Zamanu is a natural enemy for the Darkwatch, owing as she does her position and power to the magical elite and the rise of her fortune to the civil war between the king and his older brother. Her taste for extravagance and excess have made her a target of derision for some in the capital, while gossip about her supposed links to the Synod and the sometimes shadowy nature of the ingredients she purveyed through her work has earned her the enmity of The Darkwatch.

The moniker ‘The Woods Witch’ originates from the pro-Darkwatch camp, who paint Zamanu as a seductress, a poisoner, and a dark apothecary. In the heated days leading up to the assassination of the king, Zamanu, increasingly under threat of attack herself in the unsettled streets, has shut herself up in her urban manse a short distance from the palace:

*

This is my application. Want her to be some sort of Spymaster-esque character. Oh, and any instances of irony are 100% on purpose. Such as how she takes the name of Lowborn to mock the nobles, but is unknowingly a noble herself.

Bam. Here we go.