Roger roger, I expected some of these issues would pop up because of the assumptions I made. [quote=@PKMNB0Y] [@Zeroth]: Right, form by form then. Re: Mika: [list][*]This bit:Could probably be phrased a bit better. Yeah, that's how I'll put that. Could be phrased better. [*]Personality seems like it clashes with itself. A girl who tends towards teasing while also shouldering the burden of a clan's livelihood on her shoulders doesn't quite add up; if her wish is to raise it back up, you'd sort of expect her façade to reflect that to some extent, right? A personality more in line with that of a gyaru's would reflect similarly, and in this SPECIFIC case where first impressions matter a [i]lot[/i], letting that "true self" bleed through in either direction (at least for starters) doesn't make much sense to me. In my eyes, the character needs to pick a direction and [i]commit[/i] to it. That sorta applies to the whole form, honestly; pick a direction and stick with it instead of going 50/50. [*]Onmyodo technique names: I humbly request you reconsider how these are named. For example, "Kekkai no Jutsu" literally translates to "Technique of Barriers"　or "Barrier Technique" (or, if you're really stretching it, Barrier Style or something like that). This is very much a 'me' problem in this context, but, like... Yeah. I'll just leave it at that. As for the actual usage of onmyodo... See, logically onmyoji and all that stuff [i]should[/i] exist in the world, but in my head Attunement had only really started to come into being around the late Heian in Japan—so, like, around the events of the Genpei War, more or less. Onmyodo as a technique would likely be a line of techniques derived from using ether, and so would not require a Contract to use to begin with. Of course, not all humans should be able to use those techniques to begin with; maybe it'd be apt to call it a certain 'type' of ether that can be manipulated without outside interference only in certain individuals? That's probably the best way to explain it. [*]Backstory... Hm. See, with the knowledge of how onmyodo [i]should[/i] be, the story only half holds up... And, well, not just that, but also sort of doesn't match the personality (or, well, in my view, [i]personalities[/i]) given? On one hand, we have the personality, which is (in my opinion) a clash of two personality types that don't make sense without context. On the other, we have the actual backstory, which... Is [i]way[/i] more traumatic than I'd expect given the character's personality. You don't just recover from being backstabbed and seeing [i]all your friends and family killed[/i], much less to the point where you'd be able to tease and crack jokes with other people and be so [i]open[/i] with them. You know, after a [i]betrayal[/i] after doing [i]exactly that[/i]? It just... Doesn't make sense. Then you have the other half of the personality to compare to: a desire to 'rebuild' and 'recover' the prestige of a clan. On the initial read, I assumed this to mean that they were 'in decline', not 'wiped out'. The former would make a lot more sense, especially in matters where pride and public perception are involved, but... That isn't really applicable in this context. You have a backstory that seeks vengeance after a devastating betrayal and a personality that makes it seem like the weight of her family rests on her shoulders AND an open enough personality to be affable with everyone, but... These three cannot all coexist within the same character. [/list][/quote] [list][*]Yeah I'll probably just remove that, sorry. When I use a picture as an "Appearance" I have trouble elucidating in text anything that feels significant enough to be worthwhile, so I usually go for fashion sense, body language, and facial expressions. That line was probably intended more along the lines of how she holds herself, but comes off suitably creepy now that I'm not staying up late writing it. [*]Some parts of the personality are meant to clash because how people act outwardly and how they are inside, to me, are often unaligned until the person comes to self-understanding and grows. But that's obviously a cop out, lol, so:[list] [*]It says that she teases and cracks jokes with others, but it does not say that she [i]trusts[/i] others. She "likes to find out what the buttons do," or in other words, she wants to see how people are going to react. It says that she pushes her way into others' "personal bubbles," but it never says she'll let them into [i]hers[/i]. It's an intentional two-faced act--she doesn't trust you, so she'll pick at your methods, at who you are, at how you react to your surroundings. When she teases a person about their flaws, can they laugh it off with her, or will they get angry and hostile? Those reactions allow her to gauge the person from a safe distance, while always having the plausible deniability of "it's just a prank, bro!" She's confident enough to provoke people like this in the first place, because she's gotten used to having Kyozan looming over her shoulder at people. [*]The whiplash between "oh she's an Ojou whose family is in decline" to "wait, they're all [i]dead[/i]!?" is intentional, and it's part of why I say I'm bad at figuring out what should be left to discover in-RP. She wouldn't be open about what happened to her family, and one of the assumptions I made was that Old-Style families like the Aomori Onmyoji wouldn't be as famous in the modern day as top-level Contractors from big-name companies. So other Player Characters meeting her would ideally have gotten that same impression, that she's just a girl from a prestigious name trying to live up to it--and then find out it's much darker than they realized, after they'd gotten to know her better and started to peel away the surface layers of how she acts and why. [*]Addressing whether or not she seems traumatized felt hard to do without actually playing out the character a bit. But again, that "whiplash" is intentional--a [i]normal[/i] person can't go from "haha funny joke" to "I will find you, and I will kill you" at the drop of a hat. Without seeing just how far she goes for her training, or how she treats an enemy in battle, it's difficult to present the level of obsession with her vendetta. I tried to hint at it in how she feels like she has to be the one taking on a leadership role--like taking on the Family Head position--in that the idea of "I have to be the one, it's me," lines up with "I have to make up for what I did, it was my fault, I should've been the one to die that day, not them!" Going out of her way to protect people--whom, as previously mentioned, she would not trust on an interpersonal level--is meant to be an Emiya Shirou-level cope with being a powerless little girl who watched everyone she loved die. She can't let it happen again. And being forced to watch it happen again through RP--because undoubtedly a Grudge is gonna do some collateral damage, I'm sure--would've caused a crack in her shell to start exploring that trauma.[/list] [*]I figured giving the techniques "literally thing no jutsu" names would help reinforce the idea that they're the "fundamental" abilities, like how basic karate moves are "Straight Punch," and "Front Kick." Would you prefer more "creative" names, maybe with the implication that it's like "this is the Aomori-Ryu version of basic-thing-category techniques," or is the issue with the specific language used (-jutsu vs -do, Barrier vs Bounded Field, etc)? [*]I can do some rewrites based on what you've said about Onmyoji, again this was where I figured my assumptions would cause issue so that's no problem! I was under the impression that Attunement had only been a thing since the "modern" era, possibly Meiji or something at the earliest, so that's on me. I had figured that Onmyodo would use raw ether (or Ki?) instead of Attunement, which was why the Aomori clan had to "incorporate" Attuning techniques instead of having them from the get-go. The reason Aomori draws some of the energy for her techniques from the shared pool between her and Kyozan isn't because it's [i]required[/i] for her to use the spells, but because it strengthens them and grants her more spiritual stamina. Because her training was cut off when she was 12, she didn't have as much opportunity to train her "ether reserves/efficiency" or whatever a "normal" Onmyoji would do to increase their power. Without sharing Kyozan's energy, she would require much more preparation and ritual to use many of her techniques, whereas by drawing on him to strengthen herself she can cast them in the midst of battle with "preparation" reduced to "strategy." If it helps, I tend to view RP Posts as "rpg turns," so when I say things like "it takes time to use" I mean that I'd spend a post where Mika whips out the ink brush or starts folding the origami crane, and then the next post would have her use the Ofuda Tags or the Shikigami. Without Kyozan, though, she'd have to do more stuff like "petitioning the local spirits," "gather power," "set up a territory," so on an so forth like a "proper" Onmyoji.[/list] [quote=@PKMNB0Y] Re: Kyozan: [list][*]Uh... A 1000+ year old rakshasa? Let's start putting things into perspective. First, rakshasa bit. What bugs me more than anything with this section is that they're literally just described as 'oni, but better', which... Feels super off-putting to me? There are probably better ways to address the differences in this context without just going that route. And besides, it's not as if oni [i]can't[/i] do all the things you say they can't. Oni who are smart, who can use magic, who can use more than just weapons of brute force... They existed and continue to exist in-universe. There's no reason they [i]wouldn't[/i], given the multitude of myths that state they can do just that. Being the traditional (and stereotypical) norm isn't quite right in the context of this world and the way it has developed, honestly speaking. Now, the age. '1000 years ago' translated into a more apparent year is approximately 1000AD (duh), which places us right around when Heian-era Japan was starting to decline. Now, a thousand years is a [i]damn[/i] long time, obviously, but if we use that and reference a bit later in the form: things get a bit weird. Now, while this [i]does[/i] put us at the start of Attunement within Japan (relatively speaking), relationships between human and youkai would have still been pretty poor for at least a few decades (if not centuries) more. Where am I going with this? Well, as stated in the OP, a lot of ether's needed for a youkai to really start ramping up in power. That's a lot of kills. Racking up that amount of kills in that timeframe (as you put 1000+ and not, say, 1100+, I'm estimating it to be sub-100 years of chaos) [i]solo[/i] is insane and rather unfeasible unless he [i]really[/i] went ham murdering people... Which, again, paints a much bigger target on his back and probably has him approaching, like, famous named youkai status—[i]doubly[/i] so if the battle left a [i]canyon[/i] in it's wake. If he's [i]older[/i] than 1000, though, even if by a factor of 100-200 years, that [i]definitely[/i] puts him on Big Three level, which... Yeah, no, I'm not allowing that, even if they are depowered to some extent. [*]Backstory. I get... Like, nothing reasonable here. Why was he sealed? Why does he have affection for the people who sealed him away? We get the destruction of the seal and the temple, but no meaningful [i]reason[/i] behind the actions that he takes afterwards. A throwaway line about a promise or a vague allusion to watching generation upon generation of humans coming and going isn't enough to justify [i]any[/i] of what I just mentioned. I don't have a clue as to why he was as strong as he was, or why he was designated to be hunted, or even why he took any of the actions that he did after popping out of the seal. I can assume, yes, but that assumption alone isn't enough to let me give the okay here. This is also assuming that the battle you allude to at the end of this section did not result in a complete rout, because if it [i]did[/i], there wouldn't be any 'vengeance' motivation in play for Mika. [/list] That should sum up most of my thoughts on the forms. [/quote] I'll work on rewriting a lot of stuff for Kyozan too, since again it's my assumptions that caused the discrepancy. Here's what I've got on the point by point: [list][*]I based the similarity between Rakshasa and Oni on superficial appearances (both described as giants, having horns, etc) and also on the historical inspiration the latter seems to have drawn from the former. If the Oni of your setting, however, aren't the stereotypical ogre type then I'll definitely need to re-evaluate exactly what the differences between them are. A quick re-visit of my research shows that Rakshasa have more Vampire-like traits that Oni may not have--they drink blood, have to be invited into dwellings, and are stronger at night, especially during the new-moon. They're also said to be able to fly as well as cast the usual illusions and shapeshift, and I don't think Oni usually fly? Would it be okay to include that in a weakened form, like say just levitating the self or air-dashing over short distances, instead of up-up-and-away flight? As for why I went with "Oni but better," I wasn't sure how fluid demon speciation was so I went with a take that Oni were, in a sense, "descended" from Rakshasa and thus the older race would look down on the newer one. This could easily just be Kyozan's arrogance, rather than anything factual of the setting. [*]I'm a bit confused on the issue that starts with "the 1000 years ago." Is the issue that he didn't have long enough pre-Sealing to get to the level of power he supposedly had back then? Or that you're concerned that him being that powerful in the first place would put him too high up in the tiers of the setting? When I got the idea for the character, it was from one of those tumblr-prompts on a meme site which went along the lines of "An Ancient Evil has broken free of its seal--but finds that in the last 1000 years morals have degenerated so badly it's now not considered evil at all." I tried to twist this idea by asking myself "What does an Ancient Sealed Evil DO for a thousand years? Just sit there? Sleep?" So I answered my own question with the idea that, while Kyozan was sealed, he would eventually become a "fact of life" for the people who sealed him, and vice-versa. In the First Generation, their interactions would've been like "One day, wretched human, I will escape this prison! On that day, your entire bloodline will become my banquet!" "Foul demon, accept thy fate and disappear! So long as the Aomori remain, you shall never walk the earth again!" By the Third Generation, it might've become, "Answer me this, Human--why continue this farce? Why be bound to this land, sacrifice your life for the wishes of those who died in vain? If you're so confident in your seal, just leave me be!" "Because that would mean, one day, even if we were long gone, you would once again rampage. We may not be as long lived as you, but that allows us to look towards the future, and pave the way for our children--something your kind would never understand!" And by the generation of Aomori Yuuki, Mika's father, it's become "Blasted boy, what is that noise?! Are those metal birds back in the skies!?" "It's called a radio, Old Demon, and it's "rock music!" I snuck it out cause sitting here on Sealing Gate duty is boring as hell, no thanks to you!" Essentially, Kyozan was in jail long enough that he had [i]nothing left to do[/i] but [b]think[/b], and those thoughts were influenced by the people he saw every day. He's an Ancient Evil that's developed Stockholm Syndrome bordering on actual rehabilitation. As for the Power Scaling, I didn't know what the "upper tiers" of your setting would be. Since it seems clear that the canyon feat is too close to the Big Three, I'll nerf that along with some of the details of his initial rampage. What would be an acceptable level of power that would require a Clan to take care of his seal afterwards, but without infringing on "why doesn't everyone know this legend" levels of infamy? [*]As for "what he did to get sealed," I had originally included a bit that started with "The Rakshasa came from across the ocean, having already bathed in the blood of many victims. Fleeing his homeland's own powerful demon-slayers, he found himself in Japan, a hostile invader to a land already in the midst of conflict between Youkai and Humanity..." The intent there was that he'd have fought other Youkai as well as Humans to carve out a territory for himself, and then past that it was just the usual "big scary demon lives on a mountain and comes down at night to eat people/steal maidens/get drunk" and so forth. So his body count might be high, but would've been stretched out over a long period of time, first in India, then moving across borders, then settling in Japan. But I took that part out for both length and because I wasn't sure how relevant his whole "journey" would be to the synopsis of "he came, he did a crime, he got sealed." I eventually figured just stating that he's a Rakshasa would be enough to get the idea across that he's an older, foreign demon who must have come from another country. [*]On the subject of his age contributing to the power scale, isn't it significant that the vast majority of that age is actually just from being preserved inside the seal? "Older Demons are Stronger," has to be based on the fact that they're spending all that time growing, fighting, feeding, and all that right? But if you take away the years that he was sealed, Kyozan's actual "life" spent doing those things probably tops out at two centuries or so. So the fact that he might be 1000-1200+ in age doesn't immediately put him on the same level as demons who have actually lived free for that same period of time, right? So would it be more reasonable that he originally only had the power level of a 200+ Years-Spent-Eating-People Youkai, or maybe 150+, and then over the time he was sealed it dwindled down further? [*]The battle indeed did not result in a complete route. Kyozan took a serious wound to protect Mika after dealing similarly serious damage to the attackers. The killers didn't have a contingency in place for this scenario since they expected Kyozan would immediately be on their side, and while they could've probably slain him doing so would've cost them more numbers for nothing. Kyozan had the priority of keeping Mika alive. So both sides made a last show of force to cover a retreat, and since then they haven't encountered each other directly. I left a lot of stuff about the hooded folks vague since I wanted to offer you the option of GMing some side-story for them or having their leader show up as a subordinate to your own Big Bad, whatever would work for you.[/list] Would the rewrites and clarifications I've mentioned thus far fix things, or does more need to be done?