You have died. You know at least that much. Rather than growing old and passing, you left the mortal coil early. But you didn't die. Not in the traditional sense, anyways. Your eyes closed for the last time, yet they opened. You took your last breath, yet you breathed. You were gone, yet you're here. Except this wasn't your home anymore. It wasn't even Earth. This place was strange; you awoke holding your breath. It was difficult to open your eyes. But this feeling was familiar. It was cold and smothering, as if you were trapped underwater. In fact, you were trapped underwater. In a panic, you managed to stand. Your upper half erupted from the cold water. You were drowning in a fountain. Besides a few curious onlookers watching, nobody really cared about you.
Looking around, it was obvious this wasn't your world. Worn down stone tiles covered the ground. Wood and stone buildings had been built with impeccable craftsmanship, but gave wide berth to the fountain. The largest building had an extremely worn down path, but it was little more than a deep, uneven groove between the fountain and the building. It was the most ornate out of all of the buildings. Instinctively, you walked down the worn path. You saw hundreds of signs outside the building. Languages. Some were familiar like 'Bienvenido', 'ようこそ', and 'добро пожаловать'. Some were in odd languages you had never seen before. But the largest sign was above the door. It was written as a collection of lines and dots formed in a way you had never seen before, but you could easily read it.
'Welcome to Rengoku'
Upon entering, light seemed to vanish from the world. Whatever windows the building possessed were covered by stacks of books and papers. There wasn't a single place to sit. In the middle of the room was a desk. Behind it, a beautiful man sat. His face wasn't distinct. Rather, you couldn't make heads or tails of what he looked like. Like a dream, his face seemed to change every time you looked away. Flowing garments of silk shrouded his thin form. With wire-frame glasses that were the only constant feature of his face and long, silk-like black hair, he pushed the paper and pen on his desk towards you. Without so much as a word from the man, you read the paper. On it, a single phrase and a single line.
'What do you wish to be?'
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Welcome to Rengoku, a project that has been brewing in my mangled mess of a mind for some time. In essence, Rengoku is an RP about growth and character choice. Characters are intended to grow as the RP progresses, both in ability and character. Characters are intended to be at the beginning of their journey - weak, confused, but willing to push on. A core theme of Rengoku is uncertainty; the future of a character is uncertain. As a result, I would ask that people don't plan more than two steps ahead.
As the RP progresses, people will uncover the secrets of Rengoku. This is another core theme: discovery. Rather than being forced on a linear path, I will encourage freedom of movement. You can go off on your own, do things with friends, anything you want (not without consequence, however), you can do.
The RP will contain some level of randomization. Equipment gained, starting class, class abilities will mostly be done without meta-player input. The actions your characters take will directly affect how they grow and what they get. That being said, I won't force people to start out with things they don't want to. I will allow players to choose their own class at the start (if they so choose) and send me some abilities that they want, but I will be balancing that shizz out.
As fantasy adventures often have combat, I will have a D&D-lite type system. For some players, they might enjoy massive D&D battles, but others may prefer to write up simple fights. I will sort of split the difference and give players some choice. If one wishes to know what exactly their abilities do numbers wise, I will oblige and hand over the data. If one prefers a simple system that's pure writing, I'll hide all of the mechanics and translate them into plain text.
The world of Rengoku is neither light-hearted or grimdark. Rather, it remains in a state of purgatory between the two. While the RP will often be light-hearted, it will often go down dark paths as a more realistic view of a fantasy world. The world of Rengoku is standard to that of anime fantasy that's often seen in isekai. Safe areas are inhabited by weak creatures like slimes and oversized pests, seedy areas have goblins and orcs, while dangerous areas would be filled with demons and dragons.
As for posting expectations, I don't expect massive posts every time. After all, this is casual and I'm a sucker for quality over quantity. I would like to pace this RP at around weekly postings because that's a nice mix of not being rushed while actually progressing the story. Of course, that isn't to say you aren't limited to weekly posts. Posts that push the story forward would be weekly, but posts that are for interaction would be as many as you like (provided people aren't slammed behind via 8x posts in a day).
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