[OOC] Pariah Online: Prologue [ closed ]

[shylarah]

@Gowi creating does not mean deploying. Fear not, oh worthy leader.

[shylarah]

today was exhausting. Shy is going to BED. x.x Will respond to that sheet tomorrow because right now I'm not sure you'd get anything coherent. X.x

[Stern Algorithm]

@Stern Algorithm Hey you. I know you want an in depth review, and I know I did give you some feedback. But that character tab is looking mighty eager to meet Tessa. Gowi approved her, and my nits are...well, minor. ^.^

@shylarah

I was planning on implementing your feedback after also receiving @Gowi's eventual in-depth review of Tessa's benchmarks. For now I've posted her in the Characters tab, but I'll perfect it later.

[shylarah]

@Stern Algorithm <3 thank you~ And yes, updating minor things is fine. ^.^

[shylarah]

@Skyrte

Fencing! Nice~ Sensible hairstyle for fighters, kudos to you. Practical outfit plus style, more points. ANKD JUSTIFICATION FOR A MASK?! I like you, Skyrte. I really do.

Interesting that Olivia becomes more introverted when comfortable. I look forward to seeing how you implement this. (I'm the opposite. The more comfortable I am, the less I censor myself.)

Normal childhoods~! YAY! Emma approves. Ooh, and a brother she regards as a superhero. AND SHE USES A SABRE FOR FENCING. *fond of this because reasons*

And tragedy. The paragraph about Alfons in Italy is slightly confusing. I like the very bullet-point, factual style, but the first sentence confuses me and I would suggest rephrasing.

Haunt haunt -> **would haunt

And a change of goal. Aww~ I like her. I'm not clear on why she was so easily convinced to join Pariah -- might want to put a reason for that. Otherwise history is solid. <3

Very nice weapon description, based on a real life thing. Your terminology is lovely~ As an FYI, I recommend uploading to imgur or a permanent site, as puush (which I use) deletes images after a couple months.

AwWW! Her in-game history. Fist off, I like that she had to train. I imagine she'd have /some/ stamina, but as you say, it would require practice, and I love that you showed this. People gathering makes sense -- and perhaps @The Irish Tree's Hawkwood might be one of these people. This seems like his kind of scene. I'm not clear how the real-world to game-world timeline works, Gowi'd need to clear this up, but I'm going to assume this story fits because IT'S A GOOD STORY. Honestly, you gave me a bit of feels here. NIcely done.

Now for the fun part: benchmarks. I went back through what's been said about them, and the guidelines are as follows: these are abilities the char has gained or improved due to practice with something directly relevant, and they're generally passive benefits. @Gowi might want to phrase that more clearly, but generally you do a thing, and now you do the thing better, and doing the thing has additional perks! This is directed at everyone -- I've yet to even open your hiders, Skyrte. So let's take a look.

clicky

Right away, I see you have only three physical and three mental benchmarks. You are allowed up to five, though you don't have to have that many, and you might be able to add new ones later (don't know for sure). Just letting you know so you don't feel cheated.

Enhanced speed - while I think some fleetness of foot would carry over, to achieve a benchmark in the game you need to do things in the game. If you are saying she's practiced in-game a lot, this works (though years might be longer than she would have had, gotta ask Gowi). If you mean in general, then I would like an in-game reason. Her training in the park might be a decent reason. IT's phrased like a real-world skill though, and I think you should rework it slightly to reflect it being only in-game.

Gooing slightly out of order, Lightning Step. While I'm actually not clear on how abilities unlock, I'm going to say my understanding of benchmarks is that they are not specific spells, but benefits to abilities you already have. Perhaps you could attach this to the previous one -- she is fast, which carries from the real world, but then her training in-game gives her the lightning step when she is fighting? The stamina drain is a good way to limit it being overused, but I think narrative and common sense will handle most of that.

Saber expert - she knows how to use a saber. Okay, yes. But...how does this help her? I mean, practice with a blade in Skyrim can help you get your timing down, but with this being a benchmark, she should level up somehow -- what additional benefit did she gain? Does she do more damage? Does having a saber help her intuit where weaknesses are that she can strike? Maybe it stacks with lightning step and lets her even step past people or something? Just throwing ideas out, not sure wht would fit well. But right now this benchmark doesn't seem to do anything.

Studying her opponent and fighting lets her intuit if they'll attack with magical or physical means. She can tell if they're attacking or defending. Sounds good to me.

Wide variety of healing chants...are they stronger because she uses them a lot? What's the benefit here?

Oooh, stick Shorthand Chant (I'm guessing Cant is a typo?) with the previous -- she casts faster because she casts a lot?

Honestly, even after thinking I've got a handle on benchmarks multiple times, they still confuse me. I went back and looked at Elian's, and even hers didn't always seem to have a direct benefit. *sigh* @Gowi is the one who needs to solidify this, really, or just...tell ya to run with it. Still, they're none of them bad. Just perhaps on the weaker side when compared with some of the other characters.

So. Add more benchmarks if you want them. Gowi should look them over. Oh, and I can tell you right now he's gonna fuss because you don't have a color picked for her (yeah, I know, using colors is not everyone's cup of tea, but eh. *shrug*). Two typos and one unclear sentence, and otherwise very nice! <3

[Gowi]

Eventual will be tomorrow/thisweekend or we can go back to the Caesar/Brutus/Senate analogies.

[shylarah]

@Gowi I'm willing to stab you in the back but I don't think me taking power would be wise. Because I'm sure I wouldn't use it wisely....

[Supermaxx]

I'm too lazy to start an uprising. So I'll be over here, occasionally making dumb jokes, as is my lot in life.

[Skyrte]

@shylarah
Uh... what do you mean by fussing over colors?

CS v1.1 Changelog

CS 1.1
>Adjusted CS Skeleton: Changed color of name headers.
>Adjusted Background: Revised work. Paragraph 3, sentence 1.
>Adjusted Background: Grammatical fix. Paragraph 4, sentence 1.
>Adjusted Background: Revised work. Paragraph 4, concluding sentences.
>Adjusted Physical Benchmark: Revised and buffed 'Enhanced Speed'.
>Adjusted Physical Benchmark: Revised and buffed 'Lightning Step'.
>Adjusted Physical Benchmark: Revised 'Saber Expert'.
>Adjusted Mental Benchmark: Revised 'Healers Incantations'.
>Adjusted Mental Benchmark: Revised 'Shorthanded Cantation'.

To do list
- Maybe add more benchmarks.

Olivia // Ebon Horizon

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OLIVIA // EBON HORIZON

“I don't have any spells to dull the pain.”

O V E R V I E W

NAME

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Olivia de Verley

AVATAR

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Ebon Horizon

AGE

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20

GENDER

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Female

VISAGE

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Ebon is a carbon copy of Olivia, save for the hair which has been shortened to shoulder length, and perfect vision. Olivia is a short person, standing only at 5'2/157cm. Thanks to years of fencing and training in HEMA, she is fit and athletic. She normally wears glasses over her dark brown eyes to correct her poor vision, something she doesn't need to do in Pariah. She has black shoulder blade length hair often tied up in a ponytail or wrapped up in a bun, styles that she keeps while in the game. The outfit she wears in Pariah is only cloth, but it's comfortable, light, and lets her keep her range of movement. Although it was designed for practicality and comfort in mind, some parts are there for fashion. The shoulders have been padded, her shirt extends downward to her shins much like a dress, and her coat stops at the middle of her midriff. Her boots are thigh high, but still made of a durable, rugged material. She wears a metal mask which acts as her 'fencing mask'. She usually has a dark grey cloak wrapped around her shoulders for warmth.

PERSONALITY

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Olivia is an introverted, practical person, nervous and uncomfortable when outside of her comfort zone. She compensates for this by imitating confidence, following the saying 'fake it until you make it'. She would very much rather not be bothered, but the false confidence she displays when in social situations can cause others to approach her. While it is something she dislikes, she knows that she has to work on her social skills in order to avoid becoming a crazy cat lady when she grows older.

When it comes to other people, she is friendly and helpful. She's quick to make friends see the good in them, just as quick to become close to them and trust them. There's always a lingering fear that she'll be betrayed in some grand and cinematic way, but so far, none have done so. When she's in a familiar setting she relaxes and becomes more honest, quieter, turning back to her normal introverted ways.

BACKGROUND

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Olivia was born into a wealthy family on the east coast of the United States in the 2092. With one other sister and three brothers, she's the youngest in the family. As a child she was enrolled into public schools, raised as a normal child, with loving, caring parents with four attentive siblings. Remarkably she turned out to be very... normal. She connected the most with her eldest brother, Alfons, a man who wanted to live without any financial help from his family, he wanted to stand with his own achievements. On his own he had joined the military making a career out of being an Air Force Pararescueman. As a child Olivia always saw him as a real life superhero, after all he did jump out of planes and ride helicopters to save people for a living. Whenever he came home she was always around him and he always taught her a few things, how to dress a wound, how to fight, how to hide and evade from people chasing you. Skills typically utilized by an Air Force Pararescueman. Alfons the practical, special operations brother, made a huge impact on Olivia. She grew up to be like him.

When she was seven, her parents let her choose a hobby, ranging from sports to music to woodworking. When presented with so many objects, tools, musical instruments, she picked up one of her fathers sabers that was mounted on the wall. She wanted to be a warrior, like Alfons, someone who could fight and protect others. A week later Olivia had a fencing tutor. Throughout the years she kept at her swordsmanship, expanding her interest into Historical European Martial Arts as well, specifically Victorian sabre. As she went through middle school and high school, she had joined a club to further expand her knowledge, she had participated in a number of tournaments, winning more than a few of these competitions. In her club she was exposed to a number of other techniques, Fiore’s longsword and rondel dagger, Polish and French sabre, but she only dabbled in these, learning from other students when everyone was leaving for the day. She floated through life committed only to martial arts, not really knowing what she wanted to do in the future.

Two years after graduating high school, Alfons was deployed to a city in Italy that was struck by an earthquake. Alfons and his team prepared, flew, arrived and began operations for search and rescue in just a little over ten hours. Twenty eight hours after their arrival, a group of extremists attacked. As people ran from the fighting, Alfons and his fellow PJs prepared to fight back, armed with nothing but kitchen knives salvaged from the rubble and rocks. They fought for hours in the darkness of night before the area was mostly clear of civilians and the Italian armed forces had arrived. During the battle Alfons shielded a young Italian soldier from a grenade, taking shrapnel to his back and two bullets to his left leg. The battle lasted for ten hours more, Alfons laying in a field hospital with the people he had rescued just earlier, hating that he was taken out of the fight so early. He would be sent back to the states to recover from his wounds with two shiny medals pinned to his jacket, one from the Air Force, another from the Italians.

This story would haunt Olivia for a week after Alfons had told her. Soon after, Olivia decided to study to become a paramedic, understanding how fragile people are. It was nothing like the movies or books, where heroes would take sword blows to the chest and keep on fighting, where warriors would lose limbs and fight on. Her superhero was taken out of the fight by two bullets and a handful of shrapnel. She got her own apartment close to the campus. She stopped practicing martial arts to focus on her study. She kept in contact with the friends she made during those years fencing but she had very little luck making new friends. A year later one of her old friends had mentioned a new virtual reality game, Pariah Online. Olivia had no history of playing video games, but she found herself with more free time than before, since she had stopped fencing. It didn't take much to convince her to join.

A T T R I B U T E S

ROLE

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Combat Medic - Healer/DPS

AFFILIATION

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TYHRIEN

PROFESSION

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Healer

WEAPONS OF CHOICE

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Sunset's Edge - A military sabre based off of the appearance of the English Pattern 1853 Cavalry Sword, complete with three bar hilt. Crafted with blackening on the ricasso in the shape of a right triangle, the back of the triangle on the false edge of the blade. Further blackening follows the fuller and spine, halting where the fuller stops. Two angled stripes cross the weak of the sword. The black oxide coating represents the night, while the steel is day.

BENCHMARKS

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Physical Benchmarks

Enhanced Speed - Thanks to her intense training in the park, Ebon is remarkably quick on her feet. Her ability to dodge, dash, lunge and move in short distances is only rivaled by other competition fencers and martial artists. This benchmark increases Ebons speed and reaction time. The speed is dependant on how much she wants to exert herself, a sprint will be a normal sprint, but if she pushes herself beyond that sprint, this benchmark kicks in and allows her to run further and faster, but at the cost of stamina. Enhanced Speed applies to all physical actions.
Lightning Step [Storm Magic] - Ebons need for speed has granted her the ability to go above and beyond normal ‘fast’. With Lightning Step she accelerates with the speed of a lightning bolt, appropriately, observers have told her that she practically becomes a cluster of orange lightning bolts when using this magic. So far she is only familiar enough with this to use it while en garde, in a stance ready to fight, at a distance of at most 10 meters, and only with advances, retreats and lunges. If Enhanced Speed is one rating above normal human quickness, Lightning Step is two ratings.
Saber Expert - Her history with the saber has gotten her this benchmark rather quickly. However this only extends to Saber weapons, although she has experience with other swords, she cannot use them as effectively as the saber. This benchmark naturally increases the penetrating and cutting power of whatever saber she is currently using.

Mental Benchmarks

Experienced Warrior - Years of sparring and competing has given her a good sense of battle. When fighting she can tell when the opponent will attack, advance, retreat, guard or parry based on the movements of her opponent's body. This benchmark gives her the ability to feel if her opponent will be attacking physically or magically.
Healers Incantations- Not the best healer in the game thanks to her obsession with becoming proficient with the blade again, but she has a wide variety of healing chants. The spells are more effective when specific, a chant to heal a broken bone will heal much quicker than a general 'heal this warrior's wounds' spell. This requires her to identify the wound and then say the correct chant to heal the wound, her ability to see, properly diagnose, and heal has given her this benchmark. The benchmark acts much like a mental library, with this she will never forget the words to heal. It also allows her to invent new chants, for example in a situation where she has never seen a specific kind of wound before, and she has no existing incantation for it, she will be able to develop a new incantation just for it and deposit it into her mental library.
Shorthanded Cantation - Shorthanded Cant is a much quicker, shortened incantation which lets her heal while doing another action, such as moving or fighting. When most other healers need to concentrate fully on healing then halting to fight, Ebon is capable of both at the same time thanks to this benchmark. So far she is only able to shorthand her lower level, generic healing spells.

ROUGH VIRTUAL HISTORY

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When Ebon first joined, she explored the starter areas, amazed by the landscape. Then she quickly became tired. This was a problem to her, a big one, in real life the amount of travelling she had done wouldn’t even have winded her. But there she was, panting. So the second thing she did was get a sabre, she tried it out and found that it felt heavy and sluggish in her hand. This coupled with her lack of stamina upset her. The third thing she did was train. She ran laps, practiced her advances, retreats, lunges, ripostes, parrys, attacks, she wanted that sword to feel familiar in her hand. She felt incomplete without it. For weeks she would stay in the same park, exercising, running through flow drills, practicing her techniques. So much so that others had gathered around her, mostly warriors, doing the same. With her as the center they exchanged their knowledge of weapons, armor and shields. They taught new players, and sparred with experienced ones.

It was here that the sword became familiar to her again, and it was here that she met a man named Elias. He was a blacksmith, wanting to adventure and travel, but he had no experience in combat. He wore a suit of armor that he made, wielding weapons that he forged. Ebon taught Elias what she knew and he invited her to party up with her. She agreed. The two travelled the forests and mountains, fighting wild creatures, discovering beautiful waterfalls and rivers, talking well into the night, seeing the sun rise and set. Then Elias told her that they should return to the city. When they did, he disappeared for a few days. Olivia had volunteered at the local hospital, where hunters would be healed. When Elias reappeared, he held a sword, a very specific sabre. He said that he was going to move, and he had to sell his module to make the trip. He wasn’t certain that he would come back. The two logged off for the night. When Olivia logged back in she was greeted by a message, Elias saying that he had walked to a cliff where they had camped and seen the sun rise and fall for the first time. If this was his last moments in the game, he wanted it to be in a beautiful place. She unsheathed the sword that he had given her as a parting gift, it was the Sunset's Edge.

[shylarah]

@Superboy There are no dumb jokes, only dumb laughs.

[shylarah]

@Skyrte I mean he'll probably mention that the headings of each section should use the character's color, not white. ^.^;; Because he's Gowi.

Revisions look excellent! I like the new benchmarks, very good. In particular, I like the idea of identifying specific damage to heal it better.

One final quibble. *kicks you in the gap where apostrophes would be if you'd used them* =P
Ebon's** speed and reaction time
Ebon's** need for speed
both under physical benchmarks.

<3 I have nothing else! She's lovely.

[Supermaxx]

@shylarah Wiser words have not been uttered.

(Also, thanks for being such an active part of the ooc. It's pretty cool to see how devoted you are to making this whole thing run smoothly. I declare today Co-GM appreciation day.)

[MissCapnCrunch]

ALL HAIL SHYLARAH

[shylarah]

@Superboy I prooobably shouldn't, but I'mma tell you a secret:

This is just me being me. I mean, yes I'm a little more attentive because coDM and I don't wanna let Gowi down, but I'm fairly certain you'd be putting up with just as much chatter if I was merely a player. ^.^ Shy is just really exuberant and likes to talk. ^.^

*small voice* seriously though you flatter me. >.<;; I'm blushing -- complete with goofy grin. ^.^;; *flailing*

[NarcissisticPotato]

I declare today Co-GM appreciation day

@Superboy

ALL HAIL SHYLARAH

@MissCapnCrunch

They never appreciated me when I memed the OOC to life ;-;



Potato vs Shylarah: Dawn of Memeage

[shylarah]

@NarcissisticPotato That's because MEMES. You needed memes. I was just a constant, jubilant presence. Concede, potato peasant, and I won't turn you into french fries.

<3 *giggling*

[MissCapnCrunch]

To be fair, they didn't even remember I was a co-gm.
They just send me nudes and say my butt looks nice. Pfft.

[Supermaxx]

@MissCapnCrunch When did that happen? I mean, uh, I appreciate you, person-I-totally-knew-was-a-CO-GM!

[MissCapnCrunch]

@Superboy

[shylarah]

@Skyrte I ALMOST FORGOT! I would think that Elian and Ebon at least know each other. Elian would respect Ebon, and her dedication to training, as well as her skill and real-world knowledge of healing. I could see them being at least friendly, maybe even friendly rivals. Possibly teaming up for things where one healer is not really enough? whatcha think?