ERode

Symphony of Espers

Oh hey, Broken, considering how Aegis has a function of gathering and concentrating mana, would that have the flavour effect of like, making Aria 'smell' better to monsters? Because they love dat mana and all.

Symphony of Espers

Most of it is just Q&A mannnn.

Symphony of Espers

The Maiden, Fair as Frost

Klava Pavlova

_{22 y/o | Female | 5'9 | 148 lbs | Freelancer}
❄

Snow melted to water, dripping down the side of the paper cone that held what remained of Klava’s shaved ice. The summer’s heat, complete with clear blue skies and an overbearing sun, was miserable for the pale-skinned woman, but still preferable to the funeral home that she stood outside of. Lines of black-clothed well-wishers still shuffled in and out, speaking in murmured tones as they wiped their brows. A few of them glanced in her direction, only to turn away when she glanced back. Strangers, all of them. She never knew her grandpa was so well-known.

Klava crunched on some more shaved ice, feeling it melt on her tongue. It was just water now, all the flavouring having dripped onto her fingers or been consumed in the first couple of bites.

More likely that she was the stranger here. Only residual memories and family anecdotes told her who her grandfather was, and the number of times she made the trip back to Japan to connect with her extended family could be counted on one hand. It didn’t feel like anything, this whole experience. She let out a sigh and rested her head against timber. Was it cold, to have a more emotional reaction to the weather than the death of a relative? Her mother was certainly crying, crying in that beautiful way where tears leaked but her face never reddened or contorted. Her father stood beside her, impassive as a cliff face and tall as a tree when surrounded by their Japanese relatives. Twenty years with them and she still couldn’t tell what was going on inside their heads. There’ll be drinking later though. The coolers stacked atop the minitruck ensured it.

“Um, excuse me…” A reedy whisper sounded beside her. A withered face framed by hair as white as Klava’s own, and a hunched form cloaked in a dark kimono, from which only two leathery hands extended out. The old lady continued to speak, her eyes squinting against the glare of day. “You are Kuraba, yes? Do you recognize me?”

She blinked, then parsed the face to what she’s seen from family photos and Facetime. It took another step to switch her thoughts and her voice to Japanese. “Yes. Grandmother, it’s been a long while. I’m sorry for your loss.” That was what you were supposed to say, right? “I mi-” She clamped down on the lie. “I hope he passed peacefully.”

“Oh, of course he didn’t.” Her grandmother laughed, familial familiarity removing what reservations she had. “Wouldn’t shut up about not being able to finish Berserk.”

“Um, ok.”

“But it was painless, yes.” She scratched her nose. “Passed in his sleep. Very uncharacteristic. Honestly, that grump. Enough about that though.” Her withered hands lifted up to pat her cheeks, then dropped back to their sides. She sighed. “Oh, old age. Kuraba, dear, could you slap my cheeks for me?”

What was this old lady asking for? Klava considered it for a moment, before deciding to go for it. She raised both of her hands beside her grandmother’s face and then lightly slapped it.

“Mm, you’ve got good hands,” she murmured. “Still playing tennis?”

“Coaching right now.”

“Oh.” A crinkling smile emerged. “Ah, we’re getting sidetracked again, aren’t we?”

Klava shrugged, then drank down the melted slurry sitting at the bottom of her cone. “I don’t know. What’s this about?”

From her sleeves, the elderly lady drew out a thin prayer stick, painted aquamarine with two Chinese characters engraved at one end. “A gift,” she said. “And a responsibility too.”

“Is that so?” The girl took the prayer stick in her hands. It was cool to the touch, cold even, and the wood was smooth in a way that only old, dried wood could be. She stared at it, then let out a deep breath. A breath that turned to fog in the heat of the summer day. “So it is.”

Her grandmother’s smile became apologetic; she bowed her head once and stepped away, leaving Klava alone at the wake once more, an empty cone in one hand and a wooden stick in another.

In time, she’ll have to talk to her again, get a proper explanation for all that she had seen in the span of a single second. But for now, what Klava wanted was simple.

A few moments later, a solitary cloud emerged to stain the blue sky, and from it, frozen flakes fell, melting to rain mid-descent.
Snow in summer.

Truly ‘Calamitous Luck’.

Grimoire

An aquamarine prayer stick. The fortune on it reads, in Chinese characters, 'Calamitous Fortune'. It's been repurposed as a hairpin.

Instrument

Moya-no-Yume – A dagger with a hilt long enough to be comfortably held in two hands. The construction of the handguard includes embellishments of carp and streams, while the fabric that wraps around the hilt is an aged indigo. The blade is unremarkable, but well-maintained.

GRADE: Bronze
KEYWORD: Dagger
DAMAGE TYPE: Physical
DAMAGE: D
SPEED: C
SENTINEL: E
SPECIAL: Frosted Sheen – Moya-no-Yume’s blade is cold to the touch, and in warmer temperatures will exude a faint mist.

Style

Impermanence of Spring Snow – A modified variation of a shrine maiden’s garments, featuring colors that evoke both the cold chill of winter and the vibrant colors of spring. Purple and yellow sashes secure a dark blue hakama around Klava’s waist, while her bosom is wrapped in white cloth hemmed with magenta. Cerulean prayer beads hang from her neck, humming with spiritual power, and arcane tattoos are inscribed upon her arms to ward off the advance of evil.

Her footwear remain impractical, timber getas elevated like high heels, with a golden bell suspended within the soles. It’s no longer impossible to move in though, and the sharper corners allow for better gliding.

GRADE: Silver
PHYSICAL: E
ARCANE: B
CHAOS: C
SPECIAL: Boreas’s Caress – Klava’s sashes, three meters in length, have some degree of prehensility and autonomy. While she is in motion, her sashes act to assist in her movements, snagging onto the environment or weaving together into temporary cushions to allow for sharp turns and quick deceleration or to cushion impacts. These sashes can be destroyed by an E-rank attack, recovering at the start of the next round.

Genre:

Glacial Stream – The freezing waters that Klava eloquently manipulates to disarm and restrain her foes are but precursors to the glacier-sized mass she bludgeons them with when mercy is off the table.

GRADE: Silver
ELEMENT: Aqua
NOTES: [Freeze (2), Slick (2)] Damage (2), Restrain (4), Push (2), Extend (2), Construction (4), Craft (2), Mark (0), Blink (4), Bend (0)
SPECIAL: Rime Rose – Klava’s ice is as clear as glass and as enduring as permafrost. Elemental constructs formed from her Genre counts as one rank higher.

Leitmotif

GRADE: Bronze
SPECIAL: Meltwater Spring – Klava’s body and clothing remain clean no matter how dirty her surroundings or what attack she’s struck by.

Banner

22 | Female | Freelancers | Meltwater Spring
Moya-no-Yume | Dagger | Physical | Frosted Sheen
Snowdrop Vestige | Sangfroid Convention
Glacial Stream | Aqua | Rime Rose
[Freeze, Slick] Damage X, Restrain, Extend, Construction, Trap, Enhance, Mark, Blink, Powerful

DAMAGE: D | SPEED: C | SENTINEL: E | 750

PHYSICAL: E| ARCANE: D | CHAOS: C | 750

Banners

Symphony of Espers

Yeah. You know what'd happen if you rejected her.

Symphony of Espers

Aight, looks good on my end; toss it up in the Character tab.

Symphony of Espers

Oops. Was gonna also say that because Bronze specials are only aesthetic additions or flavor stuff, having detachable grapple hook arms might be too useful for something that's only Bronze. Would be better at Bronze just to say that his transformed body's interior is made up of gears and save the detachable stuff for higher grades.

Symphony of Espers

Whatcha mean by 'you can swap'?

The concept of any Silver special is that it's situationally useful. For a Silver Genre Special, you can imagine that it's something that grants a Rank up for either a certain type of spell or in certain circumstances.

As some examples...
Access the power grid and use Bend to increase the damage of spells by one rank.
Self-cast Speedster increases Damage by one rank as well, because robot overclock.

Symphony of Espers

Do you still want the Genre special to be Silver? Or it be a Bronze Genre?

If Bronze, then just think of anything that seems aesthetic to your steampunk theme. Like, idk, his lightning is just electricity-infused copper wiring.

Symphony of Espers

@mantou Looks good. For your weapon's special, slap on this line here: "The pulling effect of Aegis is an arcane ability equivalent to a D rank spell." You got a name for her nursery?

@Majoras End Most of it looks fine to me. In regards to your Automaton special, however, it sounds more like a Leitmotif or a Style special. Genre specials are meant more to center around the magic being cast, while Fable's detachable flying limbs is a good deal more physical than that. I'm personally leaning towards it being a Leitmotif.

Symphony of Espers

Klava Pavlova

_{22 y/o | Female | 5'9 | 148 lbs | Freelancer}
❄

Snow melted to water, dripping down the side of the paper cone that held what remained of Klava’s shaved ice. The summer’s heat, complete with clear blue skies and an overbearing sun, was miserable for the pale-skinned woman, but still preferable to the funeral home that she stood outside of. Lines of black-clothed well-wishers still shuffled in and out, speaking in murmured tones as they wiped their brows. A few of them glanced in her direction, only to turn away when she glanced back. Strangers, all of them. She never knew her grandpa was so well-known.

Klava crunched on some more shaved ice, feeling it melt on her tongue. It was just water now, all the flavouring having dripped onto her fingers or been consumed in the first couple of bites.

More likely that she was the stranger here. Only residual memories and family anecdotes told her who her grandfather was, and the number of times she made the trip back to Japan to connect with her extended family could be counted on one hand. It didn’t feel like anything, this whole experience. She let out a sigh and rested her head against timber. Was it cold, to have a more emotional reaction to the weather than the death of a relative? Her mother was certainly crying, crying in that beautiful way where tears leaked but her face never reddened or contorted. Her father stood beside her, impassive as a cliff face and tall as a tree when surrounded by their Japanese relatives. Twenty years with them and she still couldn’t tell what was going on inside their heads. There’ll be drinking later though. The coolers stacked atop the minitruck ensured it.

“Um, excuse me…” A reedy whisper sounded beside her. A withered face framed by hair as white as Klava’s own, and a hunched form cloaked in a dark kimono, from which only two leathery hands extended out. The old lady continued to speak, her eyes squinting against the glare of day. “You are Kuraba, yes? Do you recognize me?”

She blinked, then parsed the face to what she’s seen from family photos and Facetime. It took another step to switch her thoughts and her voice to Japanese. “Yes. Grandmother, it’s been a long while. I’m sorry for your loss.” That was what you were supposed to say, right? “I mi-” She clamped down on the lie. “I hope he passed peacefully.”

“Oh, of course he didn’t.” Her grandmother laughed, familial familiarity removing what reservations she had. “Wouldn’t shut up about not being able to finish Berserk.”

“Um, ok.”

“But it was painless, yes.” She scratched her nose. “Passed in his sleep. Very uncharacteristic. Honestly, that grump. Enough about that though.” Her withered hands lifted up to pat her cheeks, then dropped back to their sides. She sighed. “Oh, old age. Kuraba, dear, could you slap my cheeks for me?”

What was this old lady asking for? Klava considered it for a moment, before deciding to go for it. She raised both of her hands beside her grandmother’s face and then lightly slapped it.

“Mm, you’ve got good hands,” she murmured. “Still playing tennis?”

“Coaching right now.”

“Oh.” A crinkling smile emerged. “Ah, we’re getting sidetracked again, aren’t we?”

Klava shrugged, then drank down the melted slurry sitting at the bottom of her cone. “I don’t know. What’s this about?”

From her sleeves, the elderly lady drew out a thin prayer stick, painted aquamarine with two Chinese characters engraved at one end. “A gift,” she said. “And a responsibility too.”

“Is that so?” The girl took the prayer stick in her hands. It was cool to the touch, cold even, and the wood was smooth in a way that only old, dried wood could be. She stared at it, then let out a deep breath. A breath that turned to fog in the heat of the summer day. “So it is.”

Her grandmother’s smile became apologetic; she bowed her head once and stepped away, leaving Klava alone at the wake once more, an empty cone in one hand and a wooden stick in another.

In time, she’ll have to talk to her again, get a proper explanation for all that she had seen in the span of a single second. But for now, what Klava wanted was simple.

A few moments later, a solitary cloud emerged to stain the blue sky, and from it, frozen flakes fell, melting to rain mid-descent.
Snow in summer.

Truly ‘Calamitous Luck’.

Grimoire

An aquamarine prayer stick. The fortune on it reads, in Chinese characters, 'Calamitous Fortune'. It's been repurposed as a hairpin.

Instrument

Moya-no-Yume – A dagger with a hilt long enough to be comfortably held in two hands. The construction of the handguard includes embellishments of carp and streams, while the fabric that wraps around the hilt is an aged indigo. The blade is unremarkable, but well-maintained.

GRADE: Bronze
KEYWORD: Dagger
DAMAGE TYPE: Physical
DAMAGE: D
SPEED: C
SENTINEL: E
SPECIAL: Frosted Sheen – Moya-no-Yume’s blade is cold to the touch, and in warmer temperatures will exude a faint mist.

Style

Snowdrop Vestige – A fusion of a backless summer dress and the ritual garments of a shrine maiden. Vibrant sashes add color to the simple blue-white design, while kanji embroidered onto the long skirt improves resistance to supernatural effects. The sandals are impractically raised, and contain small bells within them.

GRADE: Bronze
PHYSICAL: E
ARCANE: D
CHAOS: C
SPECIAL: Sangfroid Convention – The impractical sandals offer no disadvantage to the wearer’s mobility, and the bells within them only sound in appropriate circumstances.

Genre:

Glacial Stream – The freezing waters that Klava eloquently manipulates to disarm and restrain her foes are but precursors to the glacier-sized mass she bludgeons them with when mercy is off the table.

GRADE: Silver
ELEMENT: Aqua
NOTES: [Freeze (2), Cold Insulation (2)] Damage X (6), Restrain (4), Dispel (6), Rain (6), Trap (0), Enhance (2), Trigger (0), Blink (4), Powerful (0)
SPECIAL: Rime Rose – Klava’s ice is as clear as glass and as enduring as permafrost. Elemental constructs formed from her Genre counts as one rank higher.

Leitmotif

GRADE: Bronze
SPECIAL: Meltwater Spring – Klava’s body and clothing remain clean no matter how dirty her surroundings or what attack she’s struck by.

Banner

22 | Female | Freelancers | Meltwater Spring
Moya-no-Yume | Dagger | Physical | Frosted Sheen
Snowdrop Vestige | Sangfroid Convention
Glacial Stream | Aqua | Rime Rose
[Freeze, Cold Insulation] Damage X, Restrain, Dispel, Rain, Trap, Enhance, Trigger, Blink, Powerful

DAMAGE: D | SPEED: C | SENTINEL: E | 750

PHYSICAL: E| ARCANE: D | CHAOS: C | 750