Were you planning on using my big murdering hobo (White Tiger) as a plot element??? I can still play him after I edit his sheet into a more protagonistic character. Or you can take him over as a npc.
No. If you can edit him into a more reasonable version of the initial draft, then that's fine.
Ok. Sorry if i overstepped my bounds of properness with that question. I will play my second character application, and send White Tiger to his death.
Thanks a lot for the big explanation of how the magic system works in this universe. I really was confused quite a lot. Zeroth's explanation in the discord actually confused me more because i misread something he said and thought Qi cultivation had something to do with understanding how the universe works and cultivating your mind, body, and spirit.
EDIT: oh wait, it does have something to do with mind, body, spirit. I guess the pure unrefined energy that is turned into Qi is used by the mind, body, and spirit.
>I'm a bit busy with an Elden Ring fanfic that's rapidly approaching novella length, and a bunch of reading I have to do for a programming logic course I'm taking. I don't really have that much motivation left for a casual RP at the moment, hence why I don't join. Plus I uh, have no ideas for characters.
Ok, that's fine. You're actually 1 out of 2 people who visited my profile. I thought if you joined this rp, we could have more grounds to make friends. Selfish, huh???
>Just a tad presumptuous really. I'm here for the RPing, not the friendship aspect. So long as the writing's thriving I'm here. When it's not I'm going right back to solo stories.
Looking for a bit of advice! Please let me know if anything needs developing.
Name: Sun Zhu 孫珠 Age: 18 Rank: Second Class Disciple Allegiance: The Heavenly Demonic Cult Appearance: A rather tall young lady, standing at 175 cm and 57 kg. Personality:
Of the corner of passersby's eyes is when one might catch Zhu in her best light. She's stolid in the way she carries herself, heavy-lidded & her chin high. She city hops, hardly ever stalled in one for more than a night or two. The seeming vagrant jingles in a crowd, small gems sometimes falling behind her to mark her trail, the only assurance of her being more than mirage. An illusive sight perhaps worthy of poem, but the mystery dies quickly over brief conversation. In truth, Zhu is only a youth with a penchant for decorating her person & a poor fate of being unable to raise her voice past that of a mouse.
Having spent the better half of her life within the infamous cult, its beliefs are her own & her mind is too narrow to change this, which sometimes comes at the discontent of those she's only just met. When her status as such a cultist becomes known, those who mean her genuine harm and those who simply find themselves at a loss for words become indistinguishable in her eyes; she'll find injustice where there is none & willfully rile herself up accordingly, without so much as the slightest regard for repercussions, legal or otherwise.
Zhu would love nothing more than to mind her own business & be spectator to the lively cities she visits, but her own pride keeps her. Zhu means no harm as she's a bit unworldly in her disposition; without her realizing, altruism & the well-being of those around her always finds a place to reside in her mind. Even in battle, her attacks are never so debilitating that her opponent can give up on recovery; though she's young, she's been in her fair share of engagements & her death toll remains zero even still. On a lighter note, she truly is genuine, although a bit brutish about it; if someone's mood can be improved & they'll allow her, trust her to try, though her solution might be odd.
Zhu relies on her actions to speak for her, as her weak voice is not able to & she hasn't bothered to train it. As a result, what often comes out of her mouth is simpleminded, sometimes inappropriately so, and often put too bluntly; her understanding of nuance & social graces is underdeveloped too. Only recently did she first breakthrough in her training, so her confidence is newly inflated. To her, it's not a matter of whether she'll come out of conflicts unscathed but, rather, how.
History:
Up until her recent breakthrough in her martial training, Zhu had kept her head down & away from the public aspect of her clan, never really speaking out besides to those who had a part in raising her & focusing on her own growth above all else, as she tended to tunnel vision in her training, viewing anything else as a distraction. She was so withdrawn that it wasn't until recently that peers she'd studied with for so many years became aware of her existence; for a while, the few fellow cultists she's since become acquainted with thought she was a late transfer, despite having been born into the clan.
Her young mother was a devoted cultist, dedicating her life to her people. Her mother was only a minor member & without many friends, so when her mother died giving birth in the company of her only friend, a fellow cultist, the situation of the surviving child became precarious. This friend would mourn over the body of her friend, conflicted as she held the only breathing thing that remained of her. As this friend was only a girl then too, the friend saw only one thing when she gazed upon this child: her dearest's friend's murderer. Out of obligation to Zhu's mother, the friend set aside her training to raise the baby, but only to the day that Zhu's gait didn't totter. When Zhu could barely pour tea without spilling, her guardian effectively walked out of her life & put her to work as servant within the The Heavenly Demonic Cult under the pretense of socializing the little girl.
It wasn't until she fostered an interest in cultivating her body did she see her guardian again. By this time, Zhu had spent her entire childhood a servant, within a demonic cult no less. One fateful week, Zhu stole a moment away from her duties to informally apply in front of one of the most important-seeming elders she knew at the time. When she could, she'd sneak off to listen to the elder's teachings & watch in awe as he led his disciples in practices. Thinking back now, Zhu's rejection was understandable but hindsight couldn't help her then. The frustration of having been surrendered to such a fate, doomed to watch others cultivate themselves while she could only wait on them, pushed her over the edge. Barely a teen at time, she committed to running away, as the worst thing her young mind could fathom.
It must've been only a week that she was on her own, but her form was worn as though it'd been a year. In her attempt to cultivate, the process backfired severely as a result of her lack of instruction. Most of that week she spent trying to recover, but her best efforts only made her condition worse. As though a higher power were looking over the girl, rescue came in the form of a familiarly disgruntled woman, drenched from a spring shower that fell upon the mountain the last day of that miserable week. The memory of watching this figure drudge up to little Zhu, hair stuck to the figure's face, was traumatic enough to instill within Zhu a fear of ghosts.
With a strike & a scolding, Zhu returned home with the woman who once abandoned her long ago; she didn't forget. Zhu was in no shape to return to her old duties as a maidservant, so the woman begrudgingly took it upon herself to teach the little girl how to repair her body. Her guardian's teachings would stagnant as her condition improved, so Zhu would take it upon herself to get into another scrap & compel her guardian to further develop her in order to repair herself. As her guardian's teachings progressed to the point of redundancy, Zhu was formally introduced to the cult as an aspiring disciple & reluctantly taken in as a result of the guardian's credence. With this began her journey under a formal master & has now led her to where she is now.
It was only recently that Zhu made her first major breakthrough in the way of her cultivation. With this newfound strength & freedom from being a young adult, she's now taken to using it to enact her personal means of justice. Though she dared not admit it at the time, she truly hated her brief time as a servant as it showed her the petty side of men; she'd be called for the most menial things & expected to carry out the task with a smile. When she walked through cities, it was no different; servants waited on petty men without shame & it angered her to see. As a means to enact personal amends, she would rob these nobles at night & spend it on the poor or working in the following afternoon. What was left over, she would spend on herself, buying herself little jewels to embed into her clothes.
Body Enhancements: Qinggong Expert - Zhu is exceptionally light & nimble compared to her peers. Her skill in manipulating & controlling her body to scale buildings or evade obstacles are near prodigious. She definitely has an affinity for acrobatics.
Hand-to-hand Combat - Zhu's most developed method of fighting. Without the use of qi, her style is focused on redirecting her opponent's weapon or strength.
Dual Blade Combat - Lesser developed, but still effective.
Cultivation Base: Techniques: Burning Body — Zhu can direct an abundance of qi to a given point in her body to create a surface similar to a burning stove for her target. This technique should be used sparingly, unless one has cultivated themselves to a point where they are able to withstand strong temperatures. In Zhu's case, though she's developed a tolerance through repeated use, burns are not uncommon.
A lesser form of this skill can be used to keep warm. Developing this skill further, fire instead can be conjured, characteristic of the Heavenly Demon Cult. It'll be a while before Zhu gets to that point.
Debilitating Strike - Utilizes one's knowledge of the body's acupoints against an opponent to disrupt their meridians and obstruct their energy flow. Receiving a blow like this can numb one's limbs or even freeze their movements.
Reinforced Palm - Releasing a great amount of qi in one burst, Zhu's strikes can send an opponent flying or break rock at a given point of contact. As this technique expels energy, it should also be used sparingly.
Weaknesses: — Doesn't heal well. Average recovery time is doubled for her, even with cultivation, as a result of a deviation early in life. — Projection; struggles to handle ranged opponents without closing the distance. — Low durability; very glass canon. — Self-preservation; blindly puts herself into the fray of things if she believes enough in a cause.
WOW, SHE IS HAUT. TOO BAD MY CHARACTER IS MARRIED AND IS ON A QUEST TO FIND HIS LOST WIFE AND CHILD. IF NOT FOR THAT, HE WOULD CERTAINLY... UH... PERFORM A DETOUR?
Looking for a bit of advice! Please let me know if anything needs developing.
Name: Sun Zhu 孫珠 Age: 18 Rank: Second Class Disciple Allegiance: The Heavenly Demonic Cult Appearance: A rather tall young lady, standing at 175 cm and 57 kg. Personality:
Of the corner of passersby's eyes is when one might catch Zhu in her best light. She's stolid in the way she carries herself, heavy-lidded & her chin high. She city hops, hardly ever stalled in one for more than a night or two. The seeming vagrant jingles in a crowd, small gems sometimes falling behind her to mark her trail, the only assurance of her being more than mirage. An illusive sight perhaps worthy of poem, but the mystery dies quickly over brief conversation. In truth, Zhu is only a youth with a penchant for decorating her person & a poor fate of being unable to raise her voice past that of a mouse.
Having spent the better half of her life within the infamous cult, its beliefs are her own & her mind is too narrow to change this, which sometimes comes at the discontent of those she's only just met. When her status as such a cultist becomes known, those who mean her genuine harm and those who simply find themselves at a loss for words become indistinguishable in her eyes; she'll find injustice where there is none & willfully rile herself up accordingly, without so much as the slightest regard for repercussions, legal or otherwise.
Zhu would love nothing more than to mind her own business & be spectator to the lively cities she visits, but her own pride keeps her. Zhu means no harm as she's a bit unworldly in her disposition; without her realizing, altruism & the well-being of those around her always finds a place to reside in her mind. Even in battle, her attacks are never so debilitating that her opponent can give up on recovery; though she's young, she's been in her fair share of engagements & her death toll remains zero even still. On a lighter note, she truly is genuine, although a bit brutish about it; if someone's mood can be improved & they'll allow her, trust her to try, though her solution might be odd.
Zhu relies on her actions to speak for her, as her weak voice is not able to & she hasn't bothered to train it. As a result, what often comes out of her mouth is simpleminded, sometimes inappropriately so, and often put too bluntly; her understanding of nuance & social graces is underdeveloped too. Only recently did she first breakthrough in her training, so her confidence is newly inflated. To her, it's not a matter of whether she'll come out of conflicts unscathed but, rather, how.
History:
Up until her recent breakthrough in her martial training, Zhu had kept her head down & away from the public aspect of her clan, never really speaking out besides to those who had a part in raising her & focusing on her own growth above all else, as she tended to tunnel vision in her training, viewing anything else as a distraction. She was so withdrawn that it wasn't until recently that peers she'd studied with for so many years became aware of her existence; for a while, the few fellow cultists she's since become acquainted with thought she was a late transfer, despite having been born into the clan.
Her young mother was a devoted cultist, dedicating her life to her people. Her mother was only a minor member & without many friends, so when her mother died giving birth in the company of her only friend, a fellow cultist, the situation of the surviving child became precarious. This friend would mourn over the body of her friend, conflicted as she held the only breathing thing that remained of her. As this friend was only a girl then too, the friend saw only one thing when she gazed upon this child: her dearest's friend's murderer. Out of obligation to Zhu's mother, the friend set aside her training to raise the baby, but only to the day that Zhu's gait didn't totter. When Zhu could barely pour tea without spilling, her guardian effectively walked out of her life & put her to work as servant within the The Heavenly Demonic Cult under the pretense of socializing the little girl.
It wasn't until she fostered an interest in cultivating her body did she see her guardian again. By this time, Zhu had spent her entire childhood a servant, within a demonic cult no less. One fateful week, Zhu stole a moment away from her duties to informally apply in front of one of the most important-seeming elders she knew at the time. When she could, she'd sneak off to listen to the elder's teachings & watch in awe as he led his disciples in practices. Thinking back now, Zhu's rejection was understandable but hindsight couldn't help her then. The frustration of having been surrendered to such a fate, doomed to watch others cultivate themselves while she could only wait on them, pushed her over the edge. Barely a teen at time, she committed to running away, as the worst thing her young mind could fathom.
It must've been only a week that she was on her own, but her form was worn as though it'd been a year. In her attempt to cultivate, the process backfired severely as a result of her lack of instruction. Most of that week she spent trying to recover, but her best efforts only made her condition worse. As though a higher power were looking over the girl, rescue came in the form of a familiarly disgruntled woman, drenched from a spring shower that fell upon the mountain the last day of that miserable week. The memory of watching this figure drudge up to little Zhu, hair stuck to the figure's face, was traumatic enough to instill within Zhu a fear of ghosts.
With a strike & a scolding, Zhu returned home with the woman who once abandoned her long ago; she didn't forget. Zhu was in no shape to return to her old duties as a maidservant, so the woman begrudgingly took it upon herself to teach the little girl how to repair her body. Her guardian's teachings would stagnant as her condition improved, so Zhu would take it upon herself to get into another scrap & compel her guardian to further develop her in order to repair herself. As her guardian's teachings progressed to the point of redundancy, Zhu was formally introduced to the cult as an aspiring disciple & reluctantly taken in as a result of the guardian's credence. With this began her journey under a formal master & has now led her to where she is now.
It was only recently that Zhu made her first major breakthrough in the way of her cultivation. With this newfound strength & freedom from being a young adult, she's now taken to using it to enact her personal means of justice. Though she dared not admit it at the time, she truly hated her brief time as a servant as it showed her the petty side of men; she'd be called for the most menial things & expected to carry out the task with a smile. When she walked through cities, it was no different; servants waited on petty men without shame & it angered her to see. As a means to enact personal amends, she would rob these nobles at night & spend it on the poor or working in the following afternoon. What was left over, she would spend on herself, buying herself little jewels to embed into her clothes.
Body Enhancements: Qinggong Expert - Zhu is exceptionally light & nimble compared to her peers. Her skill in manipulating & controlling her body to scale buildings or evade obstacles are near prodigious. She definitely has an affinity for acrobatics.
Hand-to-hand Combat - Zhu's most developed method of fighting. Without the use of qi, her style is focused on redirecting her opponent's weapon or strength.
Dual Blade Combat - Lesser developed, but still effective.
Cultivation Base: Techniques: Burning Body — Zhu can direct an abundance of qi to a given point in her body to create a surface similar to a burning stove for her target. This technique should be used sparingly, unless one has cultivated themselves to a point where they are able to withstand strong temperatures. In Zhu's case, though she's developed a tolerance through repeated use, burns are not uncommon.
A lesser form of this skill can be used to keep warm. Developing this skill further, fire instead can be conjured, characteristic of the Heavenly Demon Cult. It'll be a while before Zhu gets to that point.
Debilitating Strike - Utilizes one's knowledge of the body's acupoints against an opponent to disrupt their meridians and obstruct their energy flow. Receiving a blow like this can numb one's limbs or even freeze their movements.
Reinforced Palm - Releasing a great amount of qi in one burst, Zhu's strikes can send an opponent flying or break rock at a given point of contact. As this technique expels energy, it should also be used sparingly.
Weaknesses: — Doesn't heal well. Average recovery time is doubled for her, even with cultivation, as a result of a deviation early in life. — Projection; struggles to handle ranged opponents without closing the distance. — Low durability; very glass canon. — Self-preservation; blindly puts herself into the fray of things if she believes enough in a cause.
Okay, my immediate thoughts: The character itself is good. No real issues. Just the main things to keep in mind (since the structure of the cult has very much been freeballed through PMs):
The cult is structured as such:
There is the Heavenly Demonic Cult proper. At the head is the Heavenly Demonic Master (as expected). The former (being that he died) Heavenly Demonic Master was more of a philosopher than evil demon man.
The mainline Heavenly Demonic Cult is pretty uncaring harsh and uncaring. It's pretty much sieve for humans to filter people that might be able to become his successor. 1 in all of them, though. The people closest to his direct disciples don't actually learn from him. They're just closest in the running to become his successor.
The auxiliary clans range from absolutely loyal attack dogs to mostly independent groups under the order of a high up within the cult. They're still part of the heavenly demon cult, but may go under different names such as Disciples of the Wilted Lotus.
How it would apply directly to your character? Not much. Just something to keep in mind moving forward.
As for things to change:
On body enhancement: This is kind of my bad for making it so vague and also just describing it as passives. What body enhancement is are effectively the one and done things your body should go through as you are a martial artist. This exists kind of because I had nowhere to put things such as damaged dantian (weird that it would go under enhancement, but it would go under here), bone modification (think the trope of a martial artist's bones being broken mid-meditation as they gain the perfect martial arts body), and purging all grime from your muscles would go. I, admittedly, played pretty fast and loose with this section since there are things that don't feel like they would be techniques.
Basically, qinggong and combat would both go under techniques since they are things that you are actively doing.
On cultivation base: I think you missed this one. It's a bit weird since most wuxia tales have a basic method that everyone adheres to. This section is basically about how your character gets qi for martial arts. Do they meditate, what types of energy do they use, etc. If you'd like help with this since it is admittedly kind of weird and open, just ask.
On techniques: The idea behind this isn't really to be a strict list of moves. Some people treat it as such and I don't mind, but it is fairly limiting. Effectively, it would make a bit more sense to call it things something like style. The idea being that in universe, your character would learn things from a martial arts manual. Each individual manual should be an entry here. So in effect, your character would have 4 entries in techniques: one detailing your qinggong, one detailing your hand-to-hand (debillitating strike and reinforced palm would be under it), one detailing burning body, and one detailing the sword technique. Generally, these techniques should aim to work together rather than a kitchen sink of things.
Also, for elaboration:
The Heavenly Demonic Master's fire is a very specific thing that's passed to 1 person (and is currently likely to be lost). It's fine to have another fire that mimics it or is just similar, but it's not the real demonic fire.
On cultivation base: I think you missed this one. It's a bit weird since most wuxia tales have a basic method that everyone adheres to. This section is basically about how your character gets qi for martial arts. Do they meditate, what types of energy do they use, etc. If you'd like help with this since it is admittedly kind of weird and open, just ask.
I took your advice to update this character, so let me know if there's anything that need further developing.
As for the cultivation base, I think I still need help with this. Is there a method closest to the HDC? I think it'd be interesting if Zhu's base could reflect her training under HDC. Otherwise, I went ahead and described typical meditation as the character's cultivation base.
Additionally, the names for her techniques/weapons/etc are a bit lackluster. If anyone has any suggestions, please let me know!
Also, I noticed too late that there's more women than men. Would y'all like me to change this character to be a guy? There's not too many references to her gender within her story, so it wouldn't be a huge change.
NAME
Sun Zhu 孫珠
AGE
18
RANK
Second Class Disciple
ALLEGIANCE
The Heavenly Demonic Cult
APPEARANCCE
A rather tall young lady, standing at 175 cm and 57 kg.
PERSONALITY
Of the corner of passersby's eyes is when one might catch Zhu in her best light. She's stolid in the way she carries herself, heavy-lidded & her chin high. She city hops, hardly ever stalled in one for more than a night or two. The seeming vagrant jingles in a crowd, small gems sometimes falling behind her to mark her trail, the only assurance of her being more than mirage. An illusive sight perhaps worthy of poem, but the mystery dies quickly over brief conversation. In truth, Zhu is only a youth with a penchant for decorating her person & a poor fate of being unable to raise her voice past that of a mouse.
Having spent the better half of her life within the infamous cult, its beliefs are her own & her mind is too narrow to change this, which sometimes comes at the discontent of those she's only just met. When her status as such a cultist becomes known, those who mean her genuine harm and those who simply find themselves at a loss for words become indistinguishable in her eyes; she'll find injustice where there is none & willfully rile herself up accordingly, without so much as the slightest regard for repercussions, legal or otherwise.
Zhu would love nothing more than to mind her own business & be spectator to the lively cities she visits, but her own pride keeps her. Zhu means no harm as she's a bit unworldly in her disposition; without her realizing, altruism & the well-being of those around her always finds a place to reside in her mind. Even in battle, her attacks are never so debilitating that her opponent can give up on recovery; though she's young, she's been in her fair share of engagements & her death toll remains zero even still. On a lighter note, she truly is genuine, although a bit brutish about it; if someone's mood can be improved & they'll allow her, trust her to try, though her solution might be odd.
Zhu relies on her actions to speak for her, as her weak voice is not able to & she hasn't bothered to train it. As a result, what often comes out of her mouth is simpleminded, sometimes inappropriately so, and often put too bluntly; her understanding of nuance & social graces is underdeveloped too. Only recently did she first breakthrough in her training, so her confidence is newly inflated. To her, it's not a matter of whether she'll come out of conflicts unscathed but, rather, how.
HISTORY
Up until her recent breakthrough in her martial training, Zhu had kept her head down & away from the public aspect of her clan, never really speaking out besides to those who had a part in raising her & focusing on her own growth above all else, as she tended to tunnel vision in her training, viewing anything else as a distraction. She was so withdrawn that it wasn't until recently that peers she'd studied with for so many years became aware of her existence; for a while, the few fellow cultists she's since become acquainted with thought she was a late transfer, despite having been born into the clan.
Her young mother was a devoted cultist, dedicating her life to her people. Her mother was only a minor member & without many friends, so when her mother died giving birth in the company of her only friend, a fellow cultist, the situation of the surviving child became precarious. This friend would mourn over the body of her friend, conflicted as she held the only breathing thing that remained of her. As this friend was only a girl then too, the friend saw only one thing when she gazed upon this child: her dearest's friend's murderer. Out of obligation to Zhu's mother, the friend set aside her training to raise the baby, but only to the day that Zhu's gait didn't totter. When Zhu could barely pour tea without spilling, her guardian effectively walked out of her life & put her to work as servant within the The Heavenly Demonic Cult under the pretense of socializing the little girl.
It wasn't until she fostered an interest in cultivating her body did she see her guardian again. By this time, Zhu had spent her entire childhood a servant, within a demonic cult no less. One fateful week, Zhu stole a moment away from her duties to informally apply in front of one of the most important-seeming elders she knew at the time. When she could, she'd sneak off to listen to the elder's teachings & watch in awe as he led his disciples in practices. Thinking back now, Zhu's rejection was understandable but hindsight couldn't help her then. The frustration of having been surrendered to such a fate, doomed to watch others cultivate themselves while she could only wait on them, pushed her over the edge. Barely a teen at time, she committed to running away, as the worst thing her young mind could fathom.
It must've been only a week that she was on her own, but her form was worn as though it'd been a year. In her attempt to cultivate, the process backfired severely as a result of her lack of instruction. Most of that week she spent trying to recover, but her best efforts only made her condition worse. As though a higher power were looking over the girl, rescue came in the form of a familiarly disgruntled woman, drenched from a spring shower that fell upon the mountain the last day of that miserable week. The memory of watching this figure drudge up to little Zhu, hair stuck to the figure's face, was traumatic enough to instill within Zhu a fear of ghosts.
With a strike & a scolding, Zhu returned home with the woman who once abandoned her long ago; she didn't forget. Zhu was in no shape to return to her old duties as a maidservant, so the woman begrudgingly took it upon herself to teach the little girl how to repair her body. Her guardian's teachings would stagnant as her condition improved, so Zhu would take it upon herself to get into another scrap & compel her guardian to further develop her in order to repair herself. As her guardian's teachings progressed to the point of redundancy, Zhu was formally introduced to the cult as an aspiring disciple & reluctantly taken in as a result of the guardian's credence. With this began her journey under a formal master & has now led her to where she is now.
It was only recently that Zhu made her first major breakthrough in the way of her cultivation. With this newfound strength & freedom from being a young adult, she's now taken to using it to enact her personal means of justice. Though she dared not admit it at the time, she truly hated her brief time as a servant as it showed her the petty side of men; she'd be called for the most menial things & expected to carry out the task with a smile. When she walked through cities, it was no different; servants waited on petty men without shame & it angered her to see. As a means to enact personal amends, she would rob these nobles at night & spend it on the poor or working in the following afternoon. What was left over, she would spend on herself, buying herself little jewels to embed into her clothes.
BODY ENHANCEMENTS
(Sorry to take inspiration from you, but I realized that my character might have a similar affliction! I took the bullet points from the old "Weaknesses" section & put them here, since you mentioned this can fall under Body Enhancements.)
Damaged Dantian - As a result of an early deviation, Zhu doesn't heal well. Average recovery time is doubled for her, even through cultivation. Additionally, she can't project her qi past herself & struggles to handle ranged opponents without closing the distance. Combined, this all results in her having a generally low durability; she's a glass canon. Despite this, her self-preservation is lacking; blindly puts herself into the fray of things if she believes enough in a cause.
EQUIPMENT
— Cheap jewel-embedded clothing — Dual blades
CULTIVATION BASE
Zhu's base has been developed with a focus on healing from a young age, since her early deviation. She prioritizes the use of qigong to strengthen the energy within herself by meditating in natural areas & performing slow, meditative movements. She's found that her qi stagnates while remaining still; during sleep & in the mornings, after rising, is when she's at her weakest.
Additionally, she consumes qi-dense plants in an attempt to reintroduce energy into her system. In a pinch, it's not uncommon for her to crush her gems for a small boost.
TECHNIQUES
Qinggong Expert - Zhu is exceptionally light & nimble compared to her peers. Her skill in manipulating & controlling her body to scale buildings or evade obstacles are near prodigious. She definitely has an affinity for acrobatics.
Hand-to-hand Combat: Hand-to-hand combat is Zhu's most developed method of fighting. Without the use of qi, her style is focused on redirecting her opponent's weapon or strength.
Debilitating Strike - Utilizes one's knowledge of the body's acupoints against an opponent to disrupt their meridians and obstruct their energy flow. Receiving a blow like this can numb an ordinary person's limbs or even freeze their movements.
Reinforced Palm - Releasing a great amount of qi in one burst, Zhu's strikes can send an opponent flying or break rock at a given point of contact. As this technique expels energy, it should also be used sparingly.
Dual Blades - While less developed, Zhu also possesses the skill to wield dual blades; the reason this isn't her preferred method of battle is because she can't project her qi past her fingers or through her blades.
Burning Body — Zhu can direct an abundance of qi to a given point in her body to create a surface similar to a burning stove for her target. This technique should be used sparingly, unless one has cultivated themselves to a point where they are able to withstand strong temperatures. In Zhu's case, though she's developed a tolerance through repeated use, burns are not uncommon.
A lesser form of this skill can be used to keep warm. Developing this skill further, flame instead can be conjured, far from her cult's characteristic demonic fire, but a fire nonetheless. It'll be a while before Zhu gets to that point.
I took your advice to update this character, so let me know if there's anything that need further developing.
As for the cultivation base, I think I still need help with this. Is there a method closest to the HDC? I think it'd be interesting if Zhu's base could reflect her training under HDC. Otherwise, I went ahead and described typical meditation as the character's cultivation base.
Additionally, the names for her techniques/weapons/etc are a bit lackluster. If anyone has any suggestions, please let me know!
Also, I noticed too late that there's more women than men. Would y'all like me to change this character to be a guy? There's not too many references to her gender within her story, so it wouldn't be a huge change.
As for cultivation base, there's no exact method of cultivation. Each faction has a general rule (but is not a strict rule). Martial alliance methods should feel traditional and slow; no shortcuts or cheats. Recusant (unorthodox) should feel a lot more reckless. Shortcuts, cheats, etc. The devil clans should feel a lot more sacrificial. Sacrificing others, sacrificing the self, irreversible damage for extreme power. The Heavenly Demonic Cult generally falls under whatever for power, but doesn't go as far as the devil clans. Self-sacrifice is much more common here.
As for cultivation base, there's no exact method of cultivation. Each faction has a general rule (but is not a strict rule). Martial alliance methods should feel traditional and slow; no shortcuts or cheats. Recusant (unorthodox) should feel a lot more reckless. Shortcuts, cheats, etc. The devil clans should feel a lot more sacrificial. Sacrificing others, sacrificing the self, irreversible damage for extreme power. The Heavenly Demonic Cult generally falls under whatever for power, but doesn't go as far as the devil clans. Self-sacrifice is much more common here.
For her gender, it doesn't really matter.
Alright, with this, I think the character's done! I expanded her cultivation base to mention self-sacrifice. Let me know if I can post it in the Characters thread. ^^
NAME
Sun Zhu 孫珠
AGE
18
RANK
Second Class Disciple
ALLEGIANCE
The Heavenly Demonic Cult
APPEARANCCE
A rather tall young lady, standing at 175 cm and 57 kg.
PERSONALITY
Of the corner of passersby's eyes is when one might catch Zhu in her best light. She's stolid in the way she carries herself, heavy-lidded & her chin high. She city hops, hardly ever stalled in one for more than a night or two. The seeming vagrant jingles in a crowd, small gems sometimes falling behind her to mark her trail, the only assurance of her being more than mirage. An illusive sight perhaps worthy of poem, but the mystery dies quickly over brief conversation. In truth, Zhu is only a youth with a penchant for decorating her person & a poor fate of being unable to raise her voice past that of a mouse.
Having spent the better half of her life within the infamous cult, its beliefs are her own & her mind is too narrow to change this, which sometimes comes at the discontent of those she's only just met. When her status as such a cultist becomes known, those who mean her genuine harm and those who simply find themselves at a loss for words become indistinguishable in her eyes; she'll find injustice where there is none & willfully rile herself up accordingly, without so much as the slightest regard for repercussions, legal or otherwise.
Zhu would love nothing more than to mind her own business & be spectator to the lively cities she visits, but her own pride keeps her. Zhu means no harm as she's a bit unworldly in her disposition; without her realizing, altruism & the well-being of those around her always finds a place to reside in her mind. Even in battle, her attacks are never so debilitating that her opponent can give up on recovery; though she's young, she's been in her fair share of engagements & her death toll remains zero even still. On a lighter note, she truly is genuine, although a bit brutish about it; if someone's mood can be improved & they'll allow her, trust her to try, though her solution might be odd.
Zhu relies on her actions to speak for her, as her weak voice is not able to & she hasn't bothered to train it. As a result, what often comes out of her mouth is simpleminded, sometimes inappropriately so, and often put too bluntly; her understanding of nuance & social graces is underdeveloped too. Only recently did she first breakthrough in her training, so her confidence is newly inflated. To her, it's not a matter of whether she'll come out of conflicts unscathed but, rather, how.
HISTORY
Up until her recent breakthrough in her martial training, Zhu had kept her head down & away from the public aspect of her clan, never really speaking out besides to those who had a part in raising her & focusing on her own growth above all else, as she tended to tunnel vision in her training, viewing anything else as a distraction. She was so withdrawn that it wasn't until recently that peers she'd studied with for so many years became aware of her existence; for a while, the few fellow cultists she's since become acquainted with thought she was a late transfer, despite having been born into the clan.
Her young mother was a devoted cultist, dedicating her life to her people. Her mother was only a minor member & without many friends, so when her mother died giving birth in the company of her only friend, a fellow cultist, the situation of the surviving child became precarious. This friend would mourn over the body of her friend, conflicted as she held the only breathing thing that remained of her. As this friend was only a girl then too, the friend saw only one thing when she gazed upon this child: her dearest's friend's murderer. Out of obligation to Zhu's mother, the friend set aside her training to raise the baby, but only to the day that Zhu's gait didn't totter. When Zhu could barely pour tea without spilling, her guardian effectively walked out of her life & put her to work as servant within the The Heavenly Demonic Cult under the pretense of socializing the little girl.
It wasn't until she fostered an interest in cultivating her body did she see her guardian again. By this time, Zhu had spent her entire childhood a servant, within a demonic cult no less. One fateful week, Zhu stole a moment away from her duties to informally apply in front of one of the most important-seeming elders she knew at the time. When she could, she'd sneak off to listen to the elder's teachings & watch in awe as he led his disciples in practices. Thinking back now, Zhu's rejection was understandable but hindsight couldn't help her then. The frustration of having been surrendered to such a fate, doomed to watch others cultivate themselves while she could only wait on them, pushed her over the edge. Barely a teen at time, she committed to running away, as the worst thing her young mind could fathom.
It must've been only a week that she was on her own, but her form was worn as though it'd been a year. In her attempt to cultivate, the process backfired severely as a result of her lack of instruction. Most of that week she spent trying to recover, but her best efforts only made her condition worse. As though a higher power were looking over the girl, rescue came in the form of a familiarly disgruntled woman, drenched from a spring shower that fell upon the mountain the last day of that miserable week. The memory of watching this figure drudge up to little Zhu, hair stuck to the figure's face, was traumatic enough to instill within Zhu a fear of ghosts.
With a strike & a scolding, Zhu returned home with the woman who once abandoned her long ago; she didn't forget. Zhu was in no shape to return to her old duties as a maidservant, so the woman begrudgingly took it upon herself to teach the little girl how to repair her body. Her guardian's teachings would stagnant as her condition improved, so Zhu would take it upon herself to get into another scrap & compel her guardian to further develop her in order to repair herself. As her guardian's teachings progressed to the point of redundancy, Zhu was formally introduced to the cult as an aspiring disciple & reluctantly taken in as a result of the guardian's credence. With this began her journey under a formal master & has now led her to where she is now.
It was only recently that Zhu made her first major breakthrough in the way of her cultivation. With this newfound strength & freedom from being a young adult, she's now taken to using it to enact her personal means of justice. Though she dared not admit it at the time, she truly hated her brief time as a servant as it showed her the petty side of men; she'd be called for the most menial things & expected to carry out the task with a smile. When she walked through cities, it was no different; servants waited on petty men without shame & it angered her to see. As a means to enact personal amends, she would rob these nobles at night & spend it on the poor or working in the following afternoon. What was left over, she would spend on herself, buying herself little jewels to embed into her clothes.
BODY ENHANCEMENTS
Damaged Dantian - As a result of an early deviation, Zhu doesn't heal well. Average recovery time is doubled for her, even through cultivation. Additionally, she can't project her qi past herself & struggles to handle ranged opponents without closing the distance. Combined, this all results in her having a generally low durability; she's a glass canon. Despite this, her self-preservation is lacking; blindly puts herself into the fray of things if she believes enough in a cause.
EQUIPMENT
— Cheap jewel-embedded clothing — Dual blades
CULTIVATION BASE
Zhu's base has been developed with a focus on healing from a young age, since her early deviation. She prioritizes the use of qigong to strengthen the energy within herself by meditating in natural areas & performing slow, meditative movements. In more intense exercises, she'll endure a great trial, like forgoing eating or meditating in the cold, to strengthen herself.
She's found that her qi stagnates while remaining still; during sleep & in the mornings, after rising, is when she's at her weakest.
Additionally, she consumes qi-dense plants in an attempt to reintroduce energy into her system. In a pinch, it's not uncommon for her to crush her gems for a small boost.
TECHNIQUES
Qinggong Expert - Zhu is exceptionally light & nimble compared to her peers. Her skill in manipulating & controlling her body to scale buildings or evade obstacles are near prodigious. She definitely has an affinity for acrobatics.
Hand-to-hand Combat: Hand-to-hand combat is Zhu's most developed method of fighting. Without the use of qi, her style is focused on redirecting her opponent's weapon or strength.
Debilitating Strike - Utilizes one's knowledge of the body's acupoints against an opponent to disrupt their meridians and obstruct their energy flow. Receiving a blow like this can numb an ordinary person's limbs or even freeze their movements.
Reinforced Palm - Releasing a great amount of qi in one burst, Zhu's strikes can send an opponent flying or break rock at a given point of contact. As this technique expels energy, it should also be used sparingly.
Dual Blades - While less developed, Zhu also possesses the skill to wield dual blades; the reason this isn't her preferred method of battle is because she can't project her qi past her fingers or through her blades.
Burning Body — Zhu can direct an abundance of qi to a given point in her body to create a surface similar to a burning stove for her target. This technique should be used sparingly, unless one has cultivated themselves to a point where they are able to withstand strong temperatures. In Zhu's case, though she's developed a tolerance through repeated use, burns are not uncommon.
A lesser form of this skill can be used to keep warm. Developing this skill further, flame instead can be conjured, far from her cult's characteristic demonic fire, but a fire nonetheless. It'll be a while before Zhu gets to that point.
Alright, with this, I think the character's done! I expanded her cultivation base to mention self-sacrifice. Let me know if I can post it in the Characters thread. ^^
NAME
Sun Zhu 孫珠
AGE
18
RANK
Second Class Disciple
ALLEGIANCE
The Heavenly Demonic Cult
APPEARANCCE
A rather tall young lady, standing at 175 cm and 57 kg.
PERSONALITY
Of the corner of passersby's eyes is when one might catch Zhu in her best light. She's stolid in the way she carries herself, heavy-lidded & her chin high. She city hops, hardly ever stalled in one for more than a night or two. The seeming vagrant jingles in a crowd, small gems sometimes falling behind her to mark her trail, the only assurance of her being more than mirage. An illusive sight perhaps worthy of poem, but the mystery dies quickly over brief conversation. In truth, Zhu is only a youth with a penchant for decorating her person & a poor fate of being unable to raise her voice past that of a mouse.
Having spent the better half of her life within the infamous cult, its beliefs are her own & her mind is too narrow to change this, which sometimes comes at the discontent of those she's only just met. When her status as such a cultist becomes known, those who mean her genuine harm and those who simply find themselves at a loss for words become indistinguishable in her eyes; she'll find injustice where there is none & willfully rile herself up accordingly, without so much as the slightest regard for repercussions, legal or otherwise.
Zhu would love nothing more than to mind her own business & be spectator to the lively cities she visits, but her own pride keeps her. Zhu means no harm as she's a bit unworldly in her disposition; without her realizing, altruism & the well-being of those around her always finds a place to reside in her mind. Even in battle, her attacks are never so debilitating that her opponent can give up on recovery; though she's young, she's been in her fair share of engagements & her death toll remains zero even still. On a lighter note, she truly is genuine, although a bit brutish about it; if someone's mood can be improved & they'll allow her, trust her to try, though her solution might be odd.
Zhu relies on her actions to speak for her, as her weak voice is not able to & she hasn't bothered to train it. As a result, what often comes out of her mouth is simpleminded, sometimes inappropriately so, and often put too bluntly; her understanding of nuance & social graces is underdeveloped too. Only recently did she first breakthrough in her training, so her confidence is newly inflated. To her, it's not a matter of whether she'll come out of conflicts unscathed but, rather, how.
HISTORY
Up until her recent breakthrough in her martial training, Zhu had kept her head down & away from the public aspect of her clan, never really speaking out besides to those who had a part in raising her & focusing on her own growth above all else, as she tended to tunnel vision in her training, viewing anything else as a distraction. She was so withdrawn that it wasn't until recently that peers she'd studied with for so many years became aware of her existence; for a while, the few fellow cultists she's since become acquainted with thought she was a late transfer, despite having been born into the clan.
Her young mother was a devoted cultist, dedicating her life to her people. Her mother was only a minor member & without many friends, so when her mother died giving birth in the company of her only friend, a fellow cultist, the situation of the surviving child became precarious. This friend would mourn over the body of her friend, conflicted as she held the only breathing thing that remained of her. As this friend was only a girl then too, the friend saw only one thing when she gazed upon this child: her dearest's friend's murderer. Out of obligation to Zhu's mother, the friend set aside her training to raise the baby, but only to the day that Zhu's gait didn't totter. When Zhu could barely pour tea without spilling, her guardian effectively walked out of her life & put her to work as servant within the The Heavenly Demonic Cult under the pretense of socializing the little girl.
It wasn't until she fostered an interest in cultivating her body did she see her guardian again. By this time, Zhu had spent her entire childhood a servant, within a demonic cult no less. One fateful week, Zhu stole a moment away from her duties to informally apply in front of one of the most important-seeming elders she knew at the time. When she could, she'd sneak off to listen to the elder's teachings & watch in awe as he led his disciples in practices. Thinking back now, Zhu's rejection was understandable but hindsight couldn't help her then. The frustration of having been surrendered to such a fate, doomed to watch others cultivate themselves while she could only wait on them, pushed her over the edge. Barely a teen at time, she committed to running away, as the worst thing her young mind could fathom.
It must've been only a week that she was on her own, but her form was worn as though it'd been a year. In her attempt to cultivate, the process backfired severely as a result of her lack of instruction. Most of that week she spent trying to recover, but her best efforts only made her condition worse. As though a higher power were looking over the girl, rescue came in the form of a familiarly disgruntled woman, drenched from a spring shower that fell upon the mountain the last day of that miserable week. The memory of watching this figure drudge up to little Zhu, hair stuck to the figure's face, was traumatic enough to instill within Zhu a fear of ghosts.
With a strike & a scolding, Zhu returned home with the woman who once abandoned her long ago; she didn't forget. Zhu was in no shape to return to her old duties as a maidservant, so the woman begrudgingly took it upon herself to teach the little girl how to repair her body. Her guardian's teachings would stagnant as her condition improved, so Zhu would take it upon herself to get into another scrap & compel her guardian to further develop her in order to repair herself. As her guardian's teachings progressed to the point of redundancy, Zhu was formally introduced to the cult as an aspiring disciple & reluctantly taken in as a result of the guardian's credence. With this began her journey under a formal master & has now led her to where she is now.
It was only recently that Zhu made her first major breakthrough in the way of her cultivation. With this newfound strength & freedom from being a young adult, she's now taken to using it to enact her personal means of justice. Though she dared not admit it at the time, she truly hated her brief time as a servant as it showed her the petty side of men; she'd be called for the most menial things & expected to carry out the task with a smile. When she walked through cities, it was no different; servants waited on petty men without shame & it angered her to see. As a means to enact personal amends, she would rob these nobles at night & spend it on the poor or working in the following afternoon. What was left over, she would spend on herself, buying herself little jewels to embed into her clothes.
BODY ENHANCEMENTS
Damaged Dantian - As a result of an early deviation, Zhu doesn't heal well. Average recovery time is doubled for her, even through cultivation. Additionally, she can't project her qi past herself & struggles to handle ranged opponents without closing the distance. Combined, this all results in her having a generally low durability; she's a glass canon. Despite this, her self-preservation is lacking; blindly puts herself into the fray of things if she believes enough in a cause.
EQUIPMENT
— Cheap jewel-embedded clothing — Dual blades
CULTIVATION BASE
Zhu's base has been developed with a focus on healing from a young age, since her early deviation. She prioritizes the use of qigong to strengthen the energy within herself by meditating in natural areas & performing slow, meditative movements. In more intense exercises, she'll endure a great trial, like forgoing eating or meditating in the cold, to strengthen herself.
She's found that her qi stagnates while remaining still; during sleep & in the mornings, after rising, is when she's at her weakest.
Additionally, she consumes qi-dense plants in an attempt to reintroduce energy into her system. In a pinch, it's not uncommon for her to crush her gems for a small boost.
TECHNIQUES
Qinggong Expert - Zhu is exceptionally light & nimble compared to her peers. Her skill in manipulating & controlling her body to scale buildings or evade obstacles are near prodigious. She definitely has an affinity for acrobatics.
Hand-to-hand Combat: Hand-to-hand combat is Zhu's most developed method of fighting. Without the use of qi, her style is focused on redirecting her opponent's weapon or strength.
Debilitating Strike - Utilizes one's knowledge of the body's acupoints against an opponent to disrupt their meridians and obstruct their energy flow. Receiving a blow like this can numb an ordinary person's limbs or even freeze their movements.
Reinforced Palm - Releasing a great amount of qi in one burst, Zhu's strikes can send an opponent flying or break rock at a given point of contact. As this technique expels energy, it should also be used sparingly.
Dual Blades - While less developed, Zhu also possesses the skill to wield dual blades; the reason this isn't her preferred method of battle is because she can't project her qi past her fingers or through her blades.
Burning Body — Zhu can direct an abundance of qi to a given point in her body to create a surface similar to a burning stove for her target. This technique should be used sparingly, unless one has cultivated themselves to a point where they are able to withstand strong temperatures. In Zhu's case, though she's developed a tolerance through repeated use, burns are not uncommon.
A lesser form of this skill can be used to keep warm. Developing this skill further, flame instead can be conjured, far from her cult's characteristic demonic fire, but a fire nonetheless. It'll be a while before Zhu gets to that point.
One thing moving forward. Generally, freely manipulating qi is really far off so it wouldn't matter if your dantian is broken for this point. Pretty much no character should be able to project qi like they're flicking a booger.
Besides that, your character is good to move to the character tab.
Tse Hyu-lin is good to put in the character tab. Just keep the thing I said about strong poisons (see: poisons specifically made to kill martial artists) requiring a more active procedure in mind. I'll probably say something about it if it ever comes up, so it's not actually that important to remember.
<Snipped quote by Chairman Bao>
The character fits in better. I will say that you don't have to just completely 180. The big issue with your initial character was that he was effectively a murder hobo that had his motivations run opposite of everyone else. If you would like an example of a violent character that would work in this setting: The Fist Demon of Mount Hua (another manhwa) follows effectively a dude that kills a lot of people. However, his violence is generally aimed at people who he feels deserve it (attacks him first, attacks others, etc) and the protagonist of that series has no real reason to kill random people.
Misc changes and fixes:
Body enhancements are meant to be your passives. Since he activates his healing and strength/speed using a qi technique, you should probably just remove the two lines there and leave the body enhancement section blank.
Why do his memories give him energy? It feels a bit odd under any energy system. It would probably make more sense that his memories give him the willpower to refine his unorganized, unspecific qi. That's probably a small edit.
For his techniques, you could probably elaborate on his martial arts a bit. Is he an untrained monkey man? Does he have some background in some kind of fighting? etc etc.
Besides that, the big thing is editing. I'm not the biggest stickler for things, but give your posts a few checks to make sure everything looks good. There are some things here that feel like they would make things rough.
Awesome. Will do. Reading through the IC to catch up.
Can I move my character to the characters section?
While I'd like to thank you for sticking around for rewrites, I unfortunately don't think I can accept your character.
The character still has general writing and mechanics issues that have just persisted through multiple iterations. The suggestions have generally felt slapped on rather than integrated into the character.