Story
Estelle Fenix and Marcus Wiseman are two rookie Guilders based in Clockwork Town. Their job brings them into meeting various characters and embarking on adventures that will take them across the kingdom and to explore the world. There will be laughter, tears, life, death, romance, heartache, adversity, tribulations, conspiracies and a whole load of monster ass-kicking. This is a Legend of Heroes. This is Tales of the World.
The World and its lore is open for everyone to contribute and add to. Do you have an idea for a town, or a race, or a country or whatever? Then feel free to add it! This is a joint collaborative world building effort. If you have an idea then honestly, go for it, and be mindful of what others have contributed before. Don’t be afraid to build on, or have others build on your ideas. These are just a few pointers I’ve come up with that’ll start as a good basis.
The World
The Artar Kingdom: This is where Clockwork Town is based and where the story begins. The Kingdom is made up of numerous countries and is currently in the midst of wars with bordering countries, and has been so for the last two years. The Artar Kingdom has a royal family but their power has been diminished during the wartime. For the issues and problems that affect the home kingdom, members of the Guild are called to solve them.
Religion: The main religion of the Artar Kingdom is the belief that seven deities created the world, two for the sea, two for the sky, two for the land and one for mankind. Towns often worship at least one of, if not more of the older Gods. There are also minor gods belonging to each of these pantheons whom are worshipped by believers, such as a God of Art, Dance, Love etc within the God of Man religion, or other revered, mythological beasts within the sea, sky and land religions.
The Gods revealed so far:
The God of Man: Dyn
-One of the God of Men’s lesser Gods’ pantheon: God of Art: Aislin
(One of) The God of Land: Uru
-One of the God of Land's lesser God's pantheon: God of Weir: Damu
(One of) The God of Air: Vayu
The Guild
The Guild is an organisation set up across the kingdom that helps resolve any issues and problems that a client may have they desire to be completed. These tasks can range from menial to the extreme, anything from searching for lost cats, to bodyguarding, security, escort jobs, building work, craftsmen, negotiation, rescue operations and monster slaying can be included. Guilders are all ranked from Ranks A to H, A being the highest, and H the lowest. Ranks are given to identify the Guilder’s level of ability and also showcase the difficulty of the mission, the higher the mission, the higher the rank. A Guilder can only accept a mission of which they are equal or higher in rank to, otherwise for their safety they are prevented from doing so. The only way in which a lower ranked Guilder can participate on a high ranked mission is if they join the party of a Guilder who is of a high enough rank. The responsibility for that mission and the lower ranked guilders’ safety then falls on that Party Leader.
Guilders can increase their Rank depending on the success of their mission, which is determined by a number of factors, including speed, communication, responsibility and safety. Guilders can rank up to Rank C comfortably by being successful and specialising in a certain area, such as monster slaying, however Guilders can only reach Rank B and A by being successful in all possible aspects. A powerful fighter but a poor negotiator will never reach the higher ranks. Every Guild is managed by two Guilders who are Rank A and B respectively. Both of these Guilders of the Clockwork Town branch are currently away on a mission. A Rank C Guilder will always serve as the Guild’s secretary.
Every Guilder has a magickal ID, which is a simple card that displays their photo, name and rank. The card internally keeps a log of the number of points and mission records that the Guilder has been on, which means a Guilder can complete a mission at any Guild branch throughout the kingdom and have their rank and point automatically adjusted precisely.
There also exist rumours that there is a Rank S, which is above Rank A, although what that entails is a mystery as there have been no official reports of anyone holding such a Rank. If a person was to be of such a high rank, however, they would not reveal this.
Killing is not permitted. The Guild is not the Law. Anyone who does this, whether on purpose or accident will face severe consequences. Except for monsters, they’re generally fair game. But thieves, bandits etc, you can expect your character to be punished. :P
Age limit to join the Guild is 18. Characters who are younger are not permitted, although there can be exceptions, depending on the individual. But it is generally regarded as too dangerous for young people.
NOTE:- The end goal of this rp is not for everyone to reach Rank A. Some characters, such as Estelle, might desire to reach that rank to achieve her goal, others might not, such as Marcus. There is an overarching story in mind which will be revealed later. Ranks are merely to help show progression amongst the characters and show how they grow more powerful, in lieu of a levelling system.
However, any characters whose ranks will increase (or decrease) will be decided by myself not based so much on how successful a character completes a mission, but how well written a person’s posts are and their level of interaction with other characters. I want to hopefully curbstomp people from writing marysue characters who end up accomplishing missions with little problem just so their characters can rank up. That won’t be the case at all. I’m more interested in seeing grounded characters who are not always successful and can and do lose, or have difficulty in completing their missions, if not outright failing it. That is far more interesting to me and good drama. Characters who are able to run around and complete anything and everything without a problem is boring, lol. Not to say that characters should always fail, but what I want are characters who are balanced.
All characters within this rp will start off at Rank G to H. I’m willing to let a couple of characters be higher than that, from C-E, depending on who asks and if their character looks like it would benefit from that and help contribute to the story. If you’re interested, ask, but don’t feel offended if I turn you down. Those characters would be more powerful than others so the players using them would have to be more skilled, too. I will have a secondary(tertiary?) character who is Rank A who may be there to help players if needed (with explanations, showing the ropes etc). Ideally I want everyone to be generally rookie level so they can all grow together.
Hopefully all of that makes seeeense.
Combat:
This is primarily a character driven, world exploration story. However there will also be elements of combat as well. Most rps with combat tend to use combat systems such as randomly generated dice systems to determine attacks and what have you. Tales does not have this, (I cannot stand such a boring system) but it does have a combat system of its own.
It’s called common sense.
Don’t godmod. Characters will start off fairly simple but they will grow more powerful later on. Don’t be afraid to have your characters lose. There will be a large party, so rely on others. I don’t want anyone to waltz through killing anything and everything without any problems. Same with stamina. They shouldn’t be able to run around and do anything and everything without the occasional rest. No endless casting of magic either. Be sensible.
Weapons and Magic:
Any weapons and types of magic are generally available, but remember to keep them basic to begin with and try to go for diversity amongst characters. Everyone having swords is lame. I don’t mind a few characters having swords, especially if they’re different types, but there’s all sorts of wild and pointy weapons out there to choose from, and diversity is always nice. Guns are allowed but they are not the typical overpowered weapon they are in real life. In Tales, like most jrpgs, they have the benefit of range but they are weak powered and do little more than often stun. Guilders are prevented from having access to the normal type of pewpew bullets that kill, only being afforded the type of magical ones that can stun and do weak damage. Empire soldiers might carry them for war sake, but I’m undecided on whether or not to outright ban that and just go for magical types for the sake of balance... something to think of but it shouldn’t crop up for a while anyway.
Mages tend to specialise in one type of magic and have another as a secondary that they’re lesser skilled in. For example, Marcus is a wind mage, with ice as a weaker secondary. You’re allowed to make an Ice mage if you want, but again let’s go for some diversity. No mage should be a master of every element. All magic is generally available but again keep it basic to begin with. There is NO resurrection magic available to mages however. Characters can be ‘revived’ from being unconscious but once a character is dead, they are pushing up daisies.
General rules:
The usual apply. No godmodding, no powerplaying, that type of thing. Posting frequency is ideally aimed at daily with exceptions given for exams, illness, holidays and micellaneous absences. Posts should be at least 150 words, I don’t want any one liners. There is no ceiling for post size other than to be sensible and don’t go off writing essays, for some players that’s daunting and an advanced level.
This is a high-casual rp, which means I expect good posting quality. That means good punctuation and good spelling. I don’t expect it to be perfect, no one is, not even me despite how much I might like to think it, but if I can’t read and understand it easily straight away then this is not the rp for you, I’m afraid.
I also want contributive posters who are able to go out of their way to interact with other players as well as create setups for everyone else. It’s debilitating to me as well if I have to introduce every situation and just have players react to that. It helps inspire me if players are able to offer that as well. Not everyone might be comfortable with that but it’s ok. Have a little courage and don’t be scared to, I won’t bite. Much. :3 The more involved you are the more you’ll get out of it. (Remember those Ranks? Yeah ;D)
I’d also like communicative posters. That’s not to say people should be talking all the time but the more open you are to talking, the better. Lack of communication kills an rp. Please feel free to mention and compliment people on posts that are good. Don’t be afraid to mention something that is worrying you about the story, or asking questions for help. Don’t be afraid to give, or take advice. Everyone can improve. But remember first and foremost that this is for FUN. Everybody’s fun. The OOC is open for people to talk about absolutely whatever the hell they want, whatever’s on their mind etc. You got a joke or a funny gif? Post it. The cool kids will respond.
Also on the subject of communication, if you’re going to be busy then please, please let everyone know and announce it. Nobody likes it when people go off and you’re given no explanation whatsoever. Whilst I said a post a week minimum, I’d ideally like people to be able to respond in the OOC if someone asks a question if they’re waiting for a reply from your character, or something. Activity and information on what’s going on helps people remain interested. I know there are some people who become busy and there’s nothing that can be done to stop that, real life trumps rping. But be nice and tell everyone that, whether it be due to exams, holiday, work, etc. I know of one person whose got midterm exams for the next two weeks, I wouldn’t be surprised if others do too. Good luck to everyone who has.
I’m looking for 6 to 7 other players. Depending on the level of interest this gets, players will be chosen based on the strength of their character sheets and rping skill. I’ll be willing to make exceptions if we have more players who are interested who are decent. This is less of a ‘first come, first in basis’ and more of a ‘trying to get the best I can’ approach.
Finally, character sheets.
I want to keep this kinda brief. Anything that’s relevant to your character should be written in the IC somewhere too. Same for the CS, I don’t need to know about your character’s 6th birthday. Follow my lead and let’s keep it mostly simple. This will be able to show people what type of characters/weapons/magic users we’ve got. (My characters look different inbetween their description and the pictures because I could find an exact matching picture but whatever, these are good enough)
The CS layout is:
Appearance:
Name:
Age:
Rank:
Class:
Weapon:
Personality:
Favourite JRPGS?:
