Ersa93

Ersa's Half-Baked Ideas

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Ersa's Half-Baked Ideas

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Five of the Sky (A Portal Fantasy Adventure)

A normal high school girl, a mysterious item/place that transports her to a completely different world where she learns that she has been chosen to bear a great power that could either save the local kingdom from their enemies or destroy the entire world. She meets those destined to protect her, goes on a quest, faces enemies who use dastardly tactics, learns about herself, and oftentimes finds love. Sometimes things end happily. Sometimes the protectors meet their deaths in brutal ways. Sometimes the girl returns home, unable to be with her love for the rest of her life. And sometimes, the girl meets with a dreadful fate.

And so it's gone in the world of Relgas as long as anyone can remember it. When the stars align, two of the Four Elemental Embodiments, must grant a portion of their powers to two opposing sides of a human conflict. The other two can either abstain from granting a human their power, or choose to do so, just a much smaller portion. This time, it is the Lord of the Skies, Mercurius' turn. He is still haunted by the unfortunate fate of his last chosen one and is determine to not let it happen again. His options are limited since direct divine intervention is not allowed. But Mercurius is known for being the most capricious and flexible of the Embodiments. He figures that if he can't intervention once he chooses his bearer, he'll just have to change up what kind of bearer he chooses. After all, there's plenty of other women who fit the requirements that aren't high-schoolers.

A young college student from another world who was a tourist stopping by an old well while visiting a friend in Japan over the summer between semesters should do nicely.

What this isn't:
-A modern person brings a gun into a a pre-industrial setting and dominates every fight
-A mean spirited parody of the genre or its characters
-An edgy retelling/subversion of the genre
-A modern person fixes all the problems of said setting
-A completely meta adventure. There will probably be some lampshading, but it won't be a constant thing.
-A romance with the protagonist. Probably breaking a cardinal rule of the genre, but I think other types of relationships would be more interesting to explore.
-A power fantasy

What this is:
-A fun romp in a setting typical to the genre. There will be tweaks, of course, but everything should still feel familiar
-A focus on the synergy and relationships of the main characters; no one just fades into the background after their discovery episode
-Facing opponents who aren't 100% evil (the "opposing" group is a typical portal genre style protagonist group who has been told that you are the baddies)

Kinds of players I'm looking for:
-A small group of no more than four
-18+ (more for comfort reasons than anything else)
-Communicative: It's all right if small talk isn't your thing, just be willing to discuss things like plots and characters and keep others in the loop if replies are going to be held up for a while on your end
-Willingness to play NPCs (ie the "opposing" group. I don't mind playing the NPCs myself, but trying to keep up with at least six NPCs might be a bit much for my abilities). The technicalities of this can be discussed if anyone has a better solution.
-All the usual RP courtesy things

Kinds of characters:
-Preferably over 18 years old, but anything above 16 is fine
-Any gender
-Some fighting knowledge. They don't have to be a warrior, but they at least need to know how to wield a weapon of some type

Some suggested roles the characters can play:
-The brother/best friend figure (I have some ideas for this one, but they're not set in stone)
-The royal
-The scholar/sage/priest
-The outlaw/outcast
-The healer/doctor
-The warrior/soldier
-The strong one/tank
-Any other idea you might have. These are just suggestions.

And one last small favor. Please send a brief writing sample. It's less the length I'm concerned with and more of the style and flow. I've never run a group rp before so I want to make sure things don't clash too much. And to be fair, here are some samples from me.

Hider

Long Sample (probably mostly occurs with scene-setting posts or starting posts):

Chase, or Tank when in uniform, sighed as he observed the unfortunate scene around him. He’d been in the middle of making a delicious dish when the call came in about a metahuman incident. He shoved the half-finished product in the fridge, geared up, and made his way over to the area with a policeman who was kind enough to give him a lift. The B Team didn’t have money for a vehicle of their own, so they often bummed rides off whoever could give them one, usually someone from emergency services. Oddly enough, he was the only one called in. Probably for the best. Shadowstrike was once again off on one of her off the books prowling in the slums and Blaster was still recovering from expending a lot of energy the night before. He’d call Kay once he knew the situation.

The police were doing most of the investigating. Tank supposed he was mostly here to help provide crowd control or a shield if whoever did this was still around. He’d be able to take a few hits and buy time if someone more powerful needed to come and take care of it. Either that or Techton Enterprises didn’t think this was a big enough deal for one of the “main” heroes to appear. They certainly liked dumping the non-glamourous or attention getting jobs on them.

He had been talking to an officer when he noticed a car drive up and someone get out. “That would be Ms. Antonia Martinez,” the officer informed him. “The victims’ daughter.”

Now he knew why he’d been called here. No one on Team Techton either had time nor patience to deal with understandably upset and hurt relatives and he was such a good “people person” that this was just up his alley. It was probably a good thing the other B Team members weren’t here. Shadowstrike was often blunt to the point of hurtful even if she didn’t mean it and Blaster was bad at reading the room and might’ve made things worse despite his best intentions.

He barely felt her grab his shoulder plates. He knew how she felt, or at least had once felt the apparent despair that became visible. The officer he had been talking to stepped up to separate them, but Tank shook his head. She wouldn’t do any damage to him with her bare hands. He just wished that someone else would step up and give her the bad news. Someone trained for this sort of stuff.

“Ms. Martinez,” he spoke, softening his voice as much as he could. It made his Bristolian accent more pronounced. “We’re still investigating what happened, but the head investigator has some theories.” He nodded to the officer he had been talking to. The officer headed off to presumably go find the head of the investigation. “While we wait for them, why don’t we go sit down? I know that waiting for news is the hardest part.” His mind flashed back to waiting in a hospital lobby with his youngest sibling in his lap while his dad paced and the twins sniped at each other over a video game system.

He gently removed her hands from his shoulder plates and indicated the bumper of a nearby ambulance. “If it’s any consolation, they only found your parents’ bodies. All indications are that your brother is still alive.” But she probably wouldn’t be happy to hear the head investigator’s theory. “Would you like some water while we wait?” Even if she didn’t drink it, it would be good for her to have something in her hands. He’d even let her throw it at him if that made her feel better. He’d been hit with harder stuff than a water bottle before.

Shorter Sample (probably the length of my average post. Will vary if NPCs are included.)

The guns registered with Allison when he folded his arms and asked his question. She wasn’t sure what this particular ship’s policy on armed passengers had been, but it wasn’t unheard of for ships, especially if they were traveling through rough territory, to let their passengers keep their arms as long as they were visible. She made a note to watch him carefully.

“Well, can you name every planet a ship passes without a map?” She tried not to sound to annoyed that he responded to a simple question so rudely. “I’m Allison and who are…?

Then he started walking toward her, not looking too happy. Of course, the first person Allison could find had to be that way. After all, the universe was clearly against her right now. She scrambled back and to the side, only to realize that he was walking past her. She turned to see the smoking ruin of a spaceship. She was about to follow him when he started yelling at… well, nothing.

That meant two things to her. Either the man was crazy or he had an injury of some kind that was making him hallucinate. He almost seemed too well put together for the latter. Then came what he said after yelling at nothing.

Allison looked behind her. Maybe she should leave him and try to find someone else. After all, he was armed, he could probably take care of himself. But the logical side of her pinged in, reminding her that she was completely lost and not armed. He would be fine alone, but she probably wouldn’t. She almost missed his question.

“A wood and metal cube?” Allison eyed his hand on his holster. “No, I haven’t, at least not in the direction I came from. Did you have it on you when you landed or was it in a bag of some kind?"

If any of this interests you or you have questions (or even suggestions) please let me know through PM or here. The basic description of the setting and character app located here: https://www.roleplayerguild.com/topics/192086-five-of-the-sky/ooc

Five of the Sky (A Fanstay Portal Adventure)

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Ersa's Half-Baked Ideas

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Five of the Sky (A Fanstay Portal Adventure)

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Ersa's Half-Baked Ideas

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Five of the Sky (A Fanstay Portal Adventure)

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Five of the Sky

@irritablepuc@Girlie Go Boom

You can put your app here if you're still interested.

Five of the Sky

Some notes for characters:

Kinds of characters:
-Preferably over 18 years old, but anything above 16 is fine
-Any gender
-Some fighting knowledge. They don't have to be a warrior, but they at least need to know how to wield a weapon of some type

Some suggested roles the characters can play:
*: means people have already expressed interest in this role, but nothing's been confirmed
-The brother/best friend figure (I have some ideas for this one, but they're not set in stone)
-The royal
-The scholar/sage/priest
-The outlaw/outcast
-The healer/doctor
-The warrior/soldier
-The strong one/tank
-Any other idea you might have. These are just suggestions.

Character Application

App

Name:
Note: Can be of any origin you want. Or you can play it straight and have it in the flavor of the genre (think things like Inuyasha or Fushigi Yuugi or Twelve Kingdoms)

Gender:

Age:
Note: No characters below 16 please.

General Physical Description:
Note: No faceclaime necessary, but you can list one if you want

Role:
Note: Can be both job role and group dynamic role or just the job role

Abilities/Formal Knowledge:
Keep it down to three or four for now. This also includes any combat training they have.

Personality:
Note: List at least 3 positive traits and three negative ones

Public Knowledge:
This is what some random person or acquaintances might know about them, the things that no one has to dig too deeply to find out. This is not the place for a complete backstory.

Approved Characters:

Hikari Shimizu

Name: Hikari Shimizu (meaning “Light in the water”)

Gender: Male

Age: 19

General Physical Description: Hikari has a bit of a thinner and more androgynous build, standing at a height of 5’1, with short choppy black hair that falls just below his ears. His eyes are a deep brown which shine a reddish hue when sunlight hits them directly. His skin is a Honey tone, with patches of lighter beige scattered about his body, most notably around his eyes. His teeth are a bit sharper than normal.

Role: Scavenger/Outcast

Abilities/Formal Knowledge: Small Blade’s Prowess, Scavenging Knowledge, Keen Ear

Personality: Soft-spoken, Ambivert, Improvizational | Shy, Trusts too easily, Tends to wander

Public Knowledge: Hikari is of not entirely human lineage, everyone knows this, some people might even treat him differently because of it. He is also known to poke around abandoned places. His original place of birth was The Southern Region before he came to the Eastern Region at a young age.

@EchoWolff

Yusuke

Info

Name: Yusuke Sakamoto
Gender: Male
Age: 22
Role: Field Medic

General Physical Description:

Dark hair, blue eyes, pale skin. Yusuke embodies the adage "healthy body, healthy mind" with his commitment to both physical and intellectual pursuits. Clad in a modest scholarly cloak that veils his physique, and often seen with glasses perched upon his nose as he delves into his medical research, Yusuke's outward appearance belies the strength and athleticism that lie beneath. His unassuming demeanour conceals a body honed by the demands of rescue missions on the battlefields, where he deftly navigates the chaos of combat to retrieve and heal injured soldiers. Though his scholarly pursuits may keep him indoors, his time on the front lines has sculpted him into a capable and agile rescuer.

Abilities/Formal Knowledge:

Healing (Others):
Yusuke possesses the gift of healing, allowing him to direct restorative energy to mend injuries and heal wounds. However, the effectiveness of this ability is directly proportional to the severity of the injury, requiring varying levels of focus to achieve complete healing.

Medical Expertise:
Beyond the inherent healing power, Yusuke's mastery extends to an intimate understanding of the human body, enabling him to facilitate swift recoveries and manage chronic conditions. He supplements his healing abilities with knowledge of medications and herbology, ensuring comprehensive care for those in need.

Vigor (Self):
In addition to healing others, Yusuke can channel healing energy inward to alleviate physical strain, tiredness, and fatigue. This empowers him to surpass the limits of ordinary individuals, allowing him to undertake daring missions and risk entering perilous situations to save lives. Yusuke maintains peak physical condition through rigorous daily training, maximizing his potential to aid others.

Combat:
While Yusuke's primary focus lies in rescue and healing, he is proficient in defensive combat techniques. This skill enables him to evade, deflect, or counter enemy attacks, providing crucial protection for himself and others in dangerous situations. Though his priority remains on saving lives, Yusuke's combat training ensures he can effectively defend against threats that hinder his life-saving efforts.

Personality:

Compassionate: Yusuke's commitment to healing and saving lives reflects his deep compassion for others.

Resilient: Yusuke's disciplined lifestyle and rigorous training demonstrate his resilience and determination. He perseveres through challenges and setbacks.

Altruistic: Yusuke's selfless actions shows he prioritizes the well-being of others above his own comfort and safety, willingly risking his life to protect and heal those in need.

Perfectionist: Yusuke's dedication to his work leads to perfectionist tendencies, causing him to be overly critical of his own performance or the outcomes of his treatments. He can struggle with feelings of inadequacy if he perceives himself as falling short of his high standards.

Overly Serious: Yusuke's solemn demeanour and intense focus on his duties can sometimes come across as overly serious. He finds it challenging to relax and enjoy leisure activities, prioritizing his responsibilities.

Self-Sacrificing: He has tendency to neglect his own needs and well-being in favour of others. He can struggle to establish healthy boundaries or prioritize self-care, putting himself at risk of burnout or exhaustion.

Public Knowledge:

Born and raised in the Eastern Kingdom, it's widely known that Yusuke is a highly skilled field medic, renowned for his ability to provide life-saving medical care on the front lines of battle. His reputation as a courageous and capable healer precedes him, earning him the respect and admiration of soldiers and civilians alike. They would recount stories about him risking his own safety to rescue wounded comrades, or tirelessly tending to the injured under fire.

@Ti

Mejiro Tsukiko

Tsukiko

Name

Mejiro Tsukiko (目白月子)

Gender

Female

Age

23

General Physical Description

Small and slim at just over five feet, Tsukiko doesn't quite look her age, and as long as she keeps her head covered, she doesn't stick out in many crowds. Once she takes the hood off, though, she tends to draw attention instead. The most notable piece of her appearance is its sheer paleness. Fair skin, white hair, white eyes, and predisposed to white clothing, she stands out like a lit candle in a dark room, or a thin slice of sunlight through a door held ajar. There always seems to be a faint smile on her face when she's speaking to people, faint and perhaps a bit self-satisfied, like she's thinking of something else far away from her conversation even when she's quite engaged.

But regardless how engaged she is, don't expect her to make eye contact with you, as Tsukiko is entirely blind, and has been her entire life.

Still, most people have no idea. Her other senses compensate for it rather well, even when her magic doesn't, and she's able to function almost the same as a normal person, if not even better at times; she carries herself with confidence, and it doesn't seem to intrude on any combat that may occur at all. In fact, that mysterious smile of hers can carry an implication that even then, she sees more than she's letting on.

And for reasons nobody can fully understand, she seems to always be followed by the heady scent of lilac and lavender.

Role

Lunar Sage, resident mysterious mage

Abilities/Formal Knowledge

Light Magic:
Tsukiko's most powerful and defining trait is her ability to channel and manipulate light. Though sunlight is of course subject to her powers, as a Lunar Sage they grow more potent during the night, waxing and waning with the moon. From weaving light into concrete objects to searing enemies in combat with blasts of silver and gold, this ability is the most notable she has.

Lightsense:
And part and parcel of her light magic is how she's able to move so smoothly despite her blindness: she may not be able to see light, but she can feel it. She's able to create a kind of...3d map in her head by using her magic to feel where light is and isn't. She can't feel color, she can't see patterns; but solely in terms of objects, she essentially has 360 degree vision, at least of a sort, though it can be a bit foggy and imprecise while the sun is up, and of course in places where there's little to no light it grows faint or absent completely.

All that being said, this isn't really a passive thing: she does have to consciously focus in order to utilize it, and if used for too long, it can exhaust her and prompt a recoil of confusion and disorientation afterwards. But it's a powerful tool, to be sure.

Acute Senses:
Along with her lightsensing, Tsukiko has a more pedestrian ability on her side: to compensate for her sight, all of her other senses are quite a bit sharper. She can hear things that other people might not be able to, tell (roughly) what's around her by the way the air moves off of objects, and so on and so forth. This doesn't edge into the supernatural or absurd, of course, but it serves as an excellent early warning system that might prompt her to use her lightsense so she can really tell what's going on.

Sage's Rapport:
While her blindness precludes from doing things like reading, or writing with any degree of precision, she's still a Lunar Sage, which can perhaps open doors for her in places where a Sage of any variety may command a degree of respect.

Personality

Favors

+Sweet:
On the whole, Tsukiko is pretty nice to be around. She's a very kind person at heart and offers it liberally to most everyone around her, even those that may stand in opposition to her. A firm believer in the healing power of a smile, she truly loves people and wants them to be as happy as they can.

+Moral:
In addition to that kindness, Tsukiko is the proud owner of a very powerful moral compass, and believes that all people are basically good, and they only need the chance to show it. Very much chaotic good, she's not one to let laws and strictures get in the way of what she believes to be the right thing to do. Of course, she never breaks the law with impunity, she's not a fool and works within it as long as it's possible. But if her guiding principles overpower the potential consequences, she'll do what she must to meet them.

+Canny:
It may come as a surprise to those that see her smiley exterior or hear her extolling the innate goodness of people, but Tsukiko is quite a shrewd individual and tends to be good at judging how any given scenario may play out, and how best to work within that scenario to reach the outcome she believes to be the best. Such is how she's so good at pursuing her morals alongside the law, even if they may contradict it: she's a good judge of how people think and is skilled at leveraging it.

Disfavors

-Vindictive:
As one who has not uncommonly been assumed as frail, fragile, or uncapable because of her blindness, Tsukiko has developed a bit of a spiteful streak that can come out on occasion. It's not particularly common in everyday life, and she doesn't begrudge people not understanding how her powers work. But if people question her abilities or standing even after she demonstrates that she's perfectly competent, she tends to simmer with suppressed frustration and anger that can boil over at inopportune moments.

-Duplicitous:
Just as she's predisposed to genuine smiles as described, and just as she's good at leveraging social situations to her own ends, she's also rather skilled in in false smiles. She has a tendency to be two-faced, most especially around people she doesn't trust, but occasionally even with her closest friends, and she's good at it. It's a habit she's aware of and struggles to get a handle on, and she often catches herself in the act and corrects it. But even if she's aware of it, it's a habit regardless, and it can cause people to distrust her.

-Self-Righteous:
Another foible that she struggles to control and subsume is her ingrained sense of self-superiority. The dark side to that powerful morality, she has a tendency to naturally assume that she's in the right of a problem. It's not an unbreakable thing; if you prove to her she's wrong, then she'll eat her words with at least some measure of grace. But it can take a bit of doing to convince her she's in the wrong. It's less common these days as she's been mostly successful in downplaying it, but in higher stress situations especially there's still a not unlikely chance it'll rear its head again.

Ambiguities

-+Secretive:
Neither a boon nor a blight upon her character is the simple fact that she tends to speak little about herself. She doesn't speak little overall; while she's not a particularly talkative individual, she's also not excessively reticent. No, this is almost exclusive to talking about herself, especially her history and dreams for the future. That's not to say she point-blank refuses to talk about herself, but rather she tends to move the conversation when it starts to drift to subjects she'd rather not touch on.

Public Knowledge
Tsukiko was born, raised, and trained in the south, and how and why she ended up in the Eastern Region is unknown. Some say that she left out of protest for the incredibly long and powerful dynasty of the Southern Region; some say that she was chased out for speaking out against them; some say that she's a spy sent by them to weaken the East. Whatever the reason, her secretive nature holds strong, and she's not telling anyone (except the spy theory. When that comes up, she denies it without exception).

@Lemons