Estella

The Gladiators of House Valens

Due to the unique situation of @Themerlinhawk's character I'm going to go ahead and say that Hakim is accepted. Feel free to move him over into the characters tab.

To the people that haven't finished yet or want to change anything with their CS, I won't be making any decisions tonight or tomorrow, so there's still time to work on those. I'm still not sure the exact number of characters I'll be taking, but that's something I'll figure out soon. For now I'm going to go sleep :)

The Gladiators of House Valens

@The Narrator Okay, I like having a mongrel, didn't expect anyone to go for that. I think one thing I might want to change is the source of his power? Specifically these things he summoned and offered his service to in exchange for power. I'm hoping to avoid any proven existence of otherworldly beings, it's something I had to make sure Draco wasn't doing with his Torgureni character. Characters can believe or have faith in whatever they choose, but I would prefer if no one had any direct contact with gods or beings not of the world. If that makes sense, dunno how well I explained that.

@DracoLunaris I like the changes, thanks for making the effort on those :)

@VoiD If you'd like to write up a different character, there's still time, though you do currently have the oldest character submitted, which is something of a unique spot. If you'd feel better going with something else, though, go for it.

@ShyDot I totally understand. Currently I have... 8 character submissions in a finished or mostly finished state, and I'm still expecting potentially up to 6 more (wow, that's... yeah, that's a lot). I think I could take maybe 10 in total? The number keeps going up, haha, but I really have to stop there. I don't want more than 5 fighting in the arena at one time except in very special cases, and too many characters in general will probably cause things to get a little out of hand. So it's up to you if you want to write up a character. I wish I could guarantee everyone a spot, but with this many people I just can't.

There's also always the (high) chance that a few will drop after the RP begins, it's just what tends to happen with RPs, so if people would like to be put on a waiting list to potentially be introduced later, that can happen too.

@Viciousmarrow Really nice character :) Should be very entertaining to watch. The only thing I'd ask spell-wise is that you make her Void Spear have a preparation time of a post, where she's vulnerable for a moment. Since it seems like seriously heavy damage or just death if it hits an enemy, it should have some substantial risk that goes with it.

In general that's the rule I want to have on spellcasting. The more powerful the effect, the more difficult it is to cast, the bigger of a target you put on yourself by casting it.

@CollectorOfMyst I'll be PM'ing you and @AngryBadger next.

@Themerlinhawk Fire away with the PM whenever you're ready.

The Gladiators of House Valens

Okay. Whew. Here now, lots to read and respond to. Bear with me, this will take some time.

The Gladiators of House Valens

Busy busy day, sorry guys. I should be able to catch up on stuff in a few hours.

The Gladiators of House Valens

Something I've been thinking about is that I might limit the actual fights to teams of five, meaning that if I accept more than five there will be substitutions from fight to fight, so to speak. There would be a few reasons for this. One, gladiator schools/teams vary greatly in size (House Valens used to have over thirty training there) so it makes sense to keep the number they can use in a fight even. Two, presumably fighting repeated battles can be physically draining, meaning there would be a strategic element to who you use to fight now, and who you sit out so they can be used later, that sort of thing.

And three, fights involving seven or eight different people can get very chaotic and confusing to write. Five to me feels like a nice number that will allow for lots of interaction between fighters as the battle evolves, while also not being too difficult to keep track of everything.

All of this is to say, having more than one person on the team that fills a similar role isn't the worst thing, as we can vary up our team composition so to speak from match to match depending on who we're facing, the arena type and conditions, and who sat out last time. Everyone takes breaks, myself included, and everyone gets their moment to shine.

Does that sound reasonable?

The Gladiators of House Valens

@Fisticuffs Looks really good! Another awesome CS.

The Gladiators of House Valens

@Fisticuffs There is conflict, but the Markothi are better at resolving it peacefully than say, the Torgureni. I imagine disputes that two tribes can't come to an agreement on are settled in one of their arenas, with neutral tribes there to spectate and ensure the result is honored.

@neogreggory Noted, and doesn't seem like it'll be a problem. Looking forward to your character. You're still going for that minotaur first, right?

@Viciousmarrow Sounds like it'll be an interesting CS to read, haha. I'm intrigued.

Having done a quick check, if everyone who expressed interest post a CS, I'll have around 12-13 in total, which is... a lot. I feel like 8 is the absolute max I'll be willing to take. Just as a heads up to everyone, if I happen to turn your character down, it won't be personal, and I'll hate doing it. But I do need to keep the cast size manageable.

The Gladiators of House Valens

@MegaOscarPwn@Kassarock@VoiD Nice job on all the characters so far. Surprised to say that nothing really stands out for me that needs adjusting in any of them. As I mentioned before, I'm gonna wait on officially accepting anyone until mostly everyone has had a good chance to send in a CS, since I've no idea how many we're going to get in total. But yeah, this is very good :)

The Gladiators of House Valens

I'll be able to catch up on PMs/submissions in an hour or so, sit tight erryone :)

The Gladiators of House Valens

@The Narrator@Themerlinhawk 5 is supposed to be average, yeah, but on a scale of arena combatants, not people in general. So a strength of 5 isn't bad at all, considering that the average gladiator is quite strong. No one should have a 10 in anything, unless there's a very specific reason for it. Everyone should probably have a few stats above 5, and a few below.

It's not a huge deal, just thought I'd get an overview of how people see their characters, and the actual stats won't have any effect on writing the fights. Just for fun/curiosity.