[OOC] 'Misthophoroi' - A Sci-Fi Mercenary RP

[Bishop]

@Jeyma You basically write an autobiography of the character. A bio that contains parts of his personality, equipment and skills. An interesting form of CS for sure but the information is less concentrated and makes it harder for other players to find specific parts of said characters scattered through the bio, since most skip the bio and only read personality/equipment/appearance.

[Tortoise]

@Jeyma You basically write an autobiography of the character. A bio that contains parts of his personality, equipment and skills. An interesting form of CS for sure but the information is less concentrated and makes it harder for other players to find specific parts of said characters scattered through the bio, since most skip the bio and only read personality/equipment/appearance.

@Bishop

No no, I know exactly what it is already, I just want to wait for someone else- to be sure.

[Jb]

@Bishop That's why the CTRL-F function was probably invented, makes finding what you're looking for a lot easier.

If no-one else actually posts soon, I'll get on with it myself, or just give up on the RP - either way.

[Bishop]

Ssskarsciv That was his name, the name his parents gave him when he was born on his home planet of Risskorjav, sector 314-V standing south on the border of the Giant Ice Nebula that expands hundreds of thousands of light years, encompassing the whole northern sector of the galaxy. It was called the "Ice Nebula" because of the blue light it possessed, light reflected from the numerous stars surrounding it. Stars which coincidentally were blue themselves. Blue Stragglers they were called, countless of them surrounded the Nebula. Surprisingly they never got past the main sequence so they have been shining brightly way past their expiration date.

The planet itself is a desert, located past the frost line, a line beyond which all water turns into ice. For ages the inhabitants have been mining frozen ice from the depths of the ground and turning it into a drinkable cooler. The water on the planet has special qualities, it slows down and temporarily freezes the Fusion process that happens within the body of every Srathssarkthan, the same fusion process which gives them tremendous power by allowing them to release highly destructive bursts of energy from their mouths, also kills them slowly. The "older" they get the more powerful the energy releases are and they become mandatory. Past a certain age, their people have a tradition, once they feel that they can't contain the outbursts of power, they perform a ritualistic suicide and are honored by everyone around them until the end and after. Certainly there are those who don't wanna die and go on a rampage, but that is where the De-Fusion Corps comes in. Eliminating the most dangerous of them is their job and Ssskarsciv was the leader of the Corps. That all happened before the insurrection. A tragedy which led to the extermination of every single Srathssarkthan exept Ssskarsciv, the Princess, and the daughter of the Insurrectionist's leader, sister to Ssskarsciv, Anjesssa.

Leaving the history behind, lets focus on the present, how does Ssskarsciv look. He is 189 cm tall, weighing at 193 kg, his body is made of a special metal in a black metallic color.

His face is dragon like

His eyes are a dark amber in color with big black vertical slits for pupils. His night vision is extraordinary but suffers greatly in daylight and for this case he has included eye googles which regulate the light, also with enhancing abilities which he uses during the day. He has 3 eye lids which help protect his eyes from sudden bursts of light among other things. The neck is composed of tightly compressed metal rings which open slightly to occasionally blow of steam whenever the temperature of the inner body rises above normal levels. The metal that serves as a skin doesn't conduct electricity and isn't affected by electromagnetic currents but it's a superior conductor of heat, making staying in hot environments very dangerous. His tail reaches up to 5 meters when extended and 2 meters when normal, thickest in the base of his spine, being made by the same kind of compressed rings as his throat but these ones have a different function. They can open and retract within to effectively make the tail slimmer and taller. On the end of the tail there is a hole in which is sheathed a retractable stinger. The stinger itself has a smaller hole in the tip in order to summon the energy that is released from the inner fusion of the body, effectively creating a high powered short ranged plasma torch. He also has a breathing apparatus since most planets don't have the same concentration of elements in the atmosphere as his planet.

Since leaving his home planet Ssskarsciv has been in search of the Princess. The royal family of his race has a special ability, a key factor to reviving the Srathssarkthan. One of the jobs he found he was good at was being a mercenary. Soon he found himself being one of the most requested hired claw in that sector of the galaxy. Assassination missions, bounties, escort missions, being brought to fight in different wars on different planets, he did it all and earned a name and reputation for himself as the Black Claw. This, coming from those who witnessed him in combat, how he ripped his victims to shreds with a single swipe of his claw.

[Ozymandias]

Am indeed interested, but have no idea what to make :P helpful input, I know!

[Iuniper]

Interesting bio!

[Tortoise]

Mandatory Space Dragon!

[Tsar Gatto]

Nice - re-working my character though as was a little to similar to the space dragon. Or at least the practically extinct alien vibe anyways.

Will be getting a human character up soon.

[POOHEAD189]

I'mma go with a hard core merc.

[Jb]

@Bishop Right, I do have a couple of questions.

Why did you go with the 'dying race' and 'save the princess' tropes? I mean, there's a million reasons why one becomes a mercenary, mostly linked to economic or historical factors, but you went straight for the 'more-or-less entire race wiped out' path. Seems quite odd to me that you'd do that.

Secondly, why would he join a mercenary band at all? By your own admission, or from what I can gather, he is the foremost authority (or one of them) in his 'field' - so much so that he's even earned a nickname. Why would he not be too busy/too in demand to even bother coming to Taenarum in the first place? Surely he'd be too busy searching for the last survivors of his race or going on an assassination mission for someone somewhere? He honestly doesn't sound like a mercenary, he sounds more like a space dragon ninja assassin who be be more useful on his own than as part of a group.

Lastly, he's a walking arsenal (I know, he's a dragon), how are most of the other players supposed to measure up to that? Even a veteran or group would be hard pressed to take him down. His body is made of a 'special metal', his tail is a blow torch, he can breath bursts of energy, and although his vision in the day is poor he nevertheless has goggles to counter this.

Please believe me when I tell you that I'm not deliberately trying to knock you down, but your character just seems to go against most of what I asked for; there is little balance, his background tells me why he wouldn't become a sword-for-hire, and overall he just doesn't fit.

Now, whether you want to disagree with me (which is fine, I welcome debate), edit him or just retire completely is entirely up to you.

@Ozymandias What seems to be the problem? Perhaps we can help.

@Iuniper It is interesting...where's yours!

@Jeyma Pretty much.

@Tsar Gatto Fair enough, I look forward to it.

@POOHEAD189 Again, I look forward to seeing what you come up with.

@Ulstermann@Force and Fury@Sovi3t I'll assume you guys are no longer interested then, which is a shame, but fair enough.

[Bishop]

@Jbcool
When I started creating the character, I had these concepts in mind dragon/fire breathing/sentient
Dragon - hence the appearance you see and I added metal to look cool... also to enhance their weakness to heat, being a superconductor.
Fire breathing - I started reading about stars a lot so I went with the power coming from the process of fusion which also serves as his weakness
Sentient - the most interesting story that came to mind was a kingdom of dragons, not boring democracy. A kingdom with unhappy citizens which led to a rebellion. The rebels were a group of terrorists, as seen by all, but most members believed in the cause. The leaders though were real terrorists, unhappy with the governing body and instead of wanting change they just wanted the ones on charge to suffer. The planet was already in danger of being destroyed and on the day where everyone was supposed to evacuate it, they sabotaged all the ships, trapping everyone on the planet. A war commenced lasting for weeks, the time still to little to repair the damage so everyone ended up dying. Everyone expect the ones I mentioned that did so by other means. I found this story very interesting so I incorporated it.

Yes, so I built this character on the assumption that I would take the role of a leader. So my character will not be working with you but your characters will be working for him. While travelling as a claw for hire he was paying and hiring crew people himself. They were given missions, missions of searching for the individuals he mentioned, to search for people who know the individuals he wants and so on. Fits the whole why be a mercenary thing. He is still in the lead unless someone has already taken the role.

And why come there? Maybe he heard of someone who knows someone who knows about the dragon princess. He has been following ghost trails ever since he left his planet. Better than nothing. And this searching for someone excuse fits with ANY story.

Secondly, he was part of a force who dealt with these dangerous don't-wanna-die dragons and by "dealt" I mean face head first. Even in battle he was in the front line so I don't know where you got the ninja vibe. He is too big to be one, too heavy and his metal armor would suggest some affinity to combat on the battlefield like any armored warrior.

While true that the metal armor seems like over kill, but let me ask you this, does everyone fight with swords? I believe that at least a few people use energy weapons and the sort. Energy=heat. So even if the hit doesn't physically harm him, it raises his temperature, causes him to inject more cooler substance on his organism. And that's another thing, the cooling system on his body. Even if his body is made of strong metal, place a few well aimed shots at the system, damage it so it can't be used, a few more shots on his body and see him overheat. Maybe I should've written this somewhere, thought I did, but the reason the ones who refused to die were hunted down was because at the end of their life cycle, once there was nothing more inside of them to power the fusion, they would violently explode, damaging all near them. Staying in hot places for too long sped up the process, in other terms sped the aging. The cooling system is all that freezes his "aging". So take out the cooling system, put a some well placed shots with a powerful energy/laser blaster and see him explode.

And the tail being a blowtorch...
I ask you, which is more effective, a strong deep quick knife stab, or standing close to the enemy with a blowtorch in hand keeping it in their skin and wait until it has lethal effect. It is mostly used to cut metal structures/doors. And as I said, it uses the power of his inner fusion. Overheating= stronger power, not overheating weak power. Also Overheating= close to kaboom.

Is that everything?

[Force and Fury]

The truth of the matter is that I'm just too green for something like this and am likely to make a mess of it. I'd like to get an RP under my belt and just get a better feel for how this is supposed to work before tackling something that demands real collaborative storytelling and worldbuilding.

[Sovi3t]

I'm still interested, just been lurking around without logging in :P, I'll have something up soon.

[POOHEAD189]

I'm going after Qaurtermaster, and I'll start on him tomorrow.

[Jb]

@Bishop I can see we're somewhat on the wrong page here, so let me clarify for myself and others.

So, here is a sci-fi based role play - think of Warhammer 40,000 mixed with Star Wars mixed with Iain Banks' Culture series mixed with Xenophon's Anabasis mixed with the Hellenistic Era in general mixed with the Italian condottieri, and you'll have some idea of what you can expect. Throw in a spattering of adventure, world building, 'slice of life' antics and you're pretty much there.

As you probably gathered, we're going to be forming an inter-galactic band of gun slinging, blade-toting bodies-for-hire; exactly what form your characters take is more-or-less completely up to the player. I'm deliberately leaving the background/setting sparse and vague, as well as asking players not to reveal everything about their characters when it comes time to write them up.

@Jbcool

This is just a quote to highlight what I'm about with this RP, really, and that is 'the group' - your character, as he is, does not really fit into that dynamic. You say he was supposed to be the leader and yet fail to mention that, you say "So my character will not be working with you but your characters will be working for him." As if him being the leader of the group gives him some sort of authority to use them in his quest for his Princess. You say "Fits the whole why be a mercenary thing. He is still in the lead unless someone has already taken the role." And "And this searching for someone excuse fits with ANY story." When it simply isn't true for this RP.

If this was an RP concerned with individuals outside of a central theme, more like a D&D session, and the 'leader' wasn't just the one employed by the actual employer to find and hire his band of merry men, then I'd have absolutely no problem with him - and I actually have no problem with him as a character in general - but you already seem to have formed a narrative of your own into your character and mind before we've even started.

This (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercenary) is all you really need to see where I'm coming from.

Lastly you say, "Even in battle he was in the front line so I don't know where you got the ninja vibe. He is too big to be one, too heavy and his metal armor would suggest some affinity to combat on the battlefield like any armored warrior." This would be because he gets hired as an assassin, as you said so yourself, and an individual, and I ponder as to why the last of his race (more or less) would ever now risk himself in the front line of battle (by himself anyway). Surely a dead dragon is not a useful dragon?

I hope this has cleared a few things up, if not then I apologise and will try better.

[Bishop]

@Jbcool Yeah, it seems so. All that I'm trying to do now is to synchronize my page number with yours. After I achieve that I will instantly remove any thing you dislike, be it metal skin or tail blow torch. Most of the things I've put there are pure fluff. We may never see the princess or his sister. I mentioned his quest and things like that only to give my character some beef, to flesh him out so he doesn't look like a simple pawn in the greater game. But he always finishes the given mission and then recruits new members that were part of the same mission as him. So for the mission they will be only used for that mission. So for the mission/missions that are given he will be totally dedicated to finish it, to stay true to his reputation and whatnot. I wasn't even trying to start my own quest, just part of the bio and it is something which I find interesting to think about. Knowing that the current mission is part of something bigger, still pure fluff but the thought makes it better for me.

He does his job because it is what he is best at, fighting. And being a born fighter and talented as he is, he makes quite the profit out of it. And his people are a warrior race, they won't avoid a battle if faced with it. It is considered a shame for them to live a cowards life. And as I mentioned before, it is his main source of income. The main reason he does this high risk high reward jobs is to gain money. How he uses these earnings is just fluff.

Assassin =/= ninja. They are killers, as long as they fulfill their contract and kill someone, detected or not the job is accomplished.

I apologize for not mentioning most of the stuff. I have it pretty well fleshed out atm but been joining different Rps as crazy and am juggling between many settings. Apologies again. And once more, if after we come at the same page, you dislike anything just tell me and I'll change it.

[POOHEAD189]

@Jbcool What would be common weapons and equipment for soldiers/mercs? Is Plasma treated like it is in WH40K?

[Jb]

@Jbcool What would be common weapons and equipment for soldiers/mercs? Is Plasma treated like it is in WH40K?

@POOHEAD189

Finally, an actual question from someone, and probably yes; a not-so-rare but very unstable substance that can nonetheless be harnessed for things. Common equipment and weapons would be whatever you'd like, more likely on the lower-tech end of the scale (to begin with), but it really depends on what you want. In my example I based the character off a Greek hoplite, thus he had a basic flechette-gun, a sword, a shield.

Common weapons would probably just be a melee weapon of some sort, some form of protective body armour and a sidearm/primary firearm.

Doesn't help much I know, but that's why I gave you guys freedom to choose.

[Jb]

@Ulstermann@Vowel Vagabond@Iuniper@POOHEAD189@Bishop@Polybius@Force and Fury@Jeyma@Ozymandias@Tsar Gatto@Sovi3t

Okie dokie, well, thank you all - those who have posted and those who have not - but it has been two weeks now with only one character even presented. In my personal opinion that usually goes to mean that an RP is deceased.

If people are still around, and are still going ahead with characters then do tell me, otherwise I'll just move along and leave another RP to lie still in the cold, damp, ground.

[Bishop]

My character shone so bright that it extinguished any other star. They don't feel worthy to post a CS anymore...

On another more serious note, next time demand them to post a CS while in the interest check. If you gather a minimal number of CS, enough to start the RP, then go to the main thread. Others can join later if they are still interested.
Just a suggestion. Be well.