Feyblue

To Become a Knight! ~ A Chivalric (Mis)Adventure

Alright, I've decided on the list of characters I'm adding to begin with. First I'd like to thank everybody for your interest and your patience, and apologize preemptively to those who didn't make it in. Eight total characters is already far more than I bargained for, and, at least to start out with, I don't want to expand the total number of players too much and end up bogging down the thread's progress with everybody reacting to everybody else.

There will be opportunities to join in as we go along, with more slots potentially opening up once we have things rolling, or if people drop out. When/if that happens, those who already have submitted bios will have first dibs on the available slots, since there are really no sheets here that I actually want to reject on principle -- I just ended up having to narrow things down based on which characters had a lot of overlap or fewer ties to everybody else and ended up picking those who I felt would give us the most varied cast with the most things connecting them to bond or fight over.

So, without any further babbling on my part, in the order the people applied, the characters we're starting with are...

@ERode - Rossweine Lupus Grayle

@Izurich - Liese Victoire Brendorn

@Zeroth - Kaiser Underwall

@webboysurf - Nathaniel Lothwren

@Mcmolly - Dorothy “Dot” Auferrum

@Zombehs - Signar Wayland

@pkken - Zenshin Ferros

For those who didn't get their sheets in on time, I'll also extend the same offer as I did to those who didn't make it otherwise, and reserve the first extra spots for you.

In any case, I'll try to get a discord established and a starting post up tomorrow evening after I get off from work, so that we can finally get this show on the road! Thanks a bunch, and looking forward to seeing where this wild story takes us!

To Become a Knight! ~ A Chivalric (Mis)Adventure

Alright, still haven't heard from Taka or Octo, so I'm gonna start reviewing bios now.

Since I'm starting a bit late, though, I may not finish deciding before I crash tonight, so please bear with me even though I was the one who set the stupid deadline. XD

Looking like we'll have a somewhat unbalanced gender ratio pretty much regardless of which sheets I pick, though, so this may end up going the reverse harem route if a lot of people decide to pursue romance angles. Gonna be a wild ride. XD

To Become a Knight! ~ A Chivalric (Mis)Adventure

@VitaVitaAR@Rin

No problems, thank you both for your interest! I'll probably be posting more threads sooner or later, so there's always next time! ^v^

@pkken

Gotcha, thanks for responding. I'll hold off a little longer to give you time to finish.

Since I haven't heard from the others yet, I'm not sure if they're still going for it or not? But since I'm gonna be waiting a little longer for Ken anyway, that'll give them some extra time to answer as well.

To Become a Knight! ~ A Chivalric (Mis)Adventure

Wub wub the day of judgment has arrived.

@ERode

That it has!

That being said...

@VitaVitaAR@Rin@Octo@pkken@Taka

Just gonna send out one final ping to check on how everyone's sheets are coming along, since I don't want to preemptively decide if you guys are close to submitting apps, but I was planning on getting things rolling today, so I would appreciate knowing who's still interested and how it's going.

To Become a Knight! ~ A Chivalric (Mis)Adventure

@ZombehsHe looks great! I can't help but wonder how well he'd get along with Julian, actually, given that they're both generally chill, informal, and friendly, both focused heavily on proving themselves, and both not too worried about whose toes they need to step on in order to get there.

...Which would... actually be a rather hilarious friendship, now that I think about it, given that he's like 6'4" and she's MAYBE 5'4" at most, and even that's putting it generously. Just the biggest, hulkiest knight candidate and the smallest, tiniest one palling around.

At any rate, he's definitely a neat and different take on the setting and has a great niche for himself, both as a support and equipment maintenance guy, and as an outsider/foreigner to Grayle and its whole tradition of knighthood. Seems like he'll have plenty of great potential interactions with the rest of the cast! ^_^

To Become a Knight! ~ A Chivalric (Mis)Adventure

@BirdboyDon't worry too much about it! I think everybody so far has all been aware that not every bio will be accepted right off the bat, so I doubt there'll be any hard feelings over it. If you're interested in the world and want to join, feel free to give it a try! I'm happy to look over everybody's submissions, and even if people don't get accepted the first time around, I intend to give them priority for any spots that open up in the future.

To Become a Knight! ~ A Chivalric (Mis)Adventure

@ERodeYeah, probably. That'll simplify things for everybody involved, and should allow for more easy work on collabs and stuff.

To Become a Knight! ~ A Chivalric (Mis)Adventure

Alright, just dropping a heads-up here for everyone. It's been about a week and a half, and I don't want to just let this stall out, so I'd like to start getting down to deciding which characters we start with and getting an intro post up. That being said, I think I'm gonna set the deadline for any applications that haven't been submitted yet to this weekend -- maybe Sunday afternoon? -- at which point I'll make the final decision on characters and then Sunday evening I'll try to get an opening post up.

Looking forward to RPing with everyone! ^_^

To Become a Knight! ~ A Chivalric (Mis)Adventure

@pkken Probably varies on a case-by-case basis. Since they're all derived from things Aura users did in the past prior to the development of Incantations, it probably depends on how well-known and how complex the "story" you're trying to invoke is.

To compare it to a real-world example, if Incantations were a thing in our world, you could just say "Excalibur!" and voila, you've invoked the sharpness of perhaps the most well-known legendary sword in the world. You don't need to explain what it is or does in order for the spell to work and cleave through whatever you're swinging it at -- though "telling" some of that story anyway could make the spell even more powerful in exchange for a longer cast time. On the other hand, if you were invoking something really obscure, like, say, a rain of spears conjured up by the Valkyrie Kara in a half-lost poetic epic only fragments of which have survived, then there would probably be some explanation necessary -- a few lines of chanting to sort of set the stage for what it is you're trying to do and direct the collective memory to what, specifically, you're trying to call upon.

Obviously, the history and mythology of this world as I've told it is extremely bare-bones, so I'd encourage people using incantations to go a little wild and come up with some heroes and stories of their own to flesh out their repertoires of combat spells. But obviously, there's also always the classics to fall back on. Statistically speaking, somebody somewhere has thrown a fireball around, so that sort of spell doesn't really need a big flowery justification.

To Become a Knight! ~ A Chivalric (Mis)Adventure

@pkkenDifficult, but not impossible. Aura is, as some of the other bios have mentioned, sort of akin to being a "chosen one" in a lot of respects. Prominent omens and signs tend to appear in the stars at the time the person is born, signifying their favor and destining them for greatness -- that sort of thing. So, if you have the ability to use Aura, you've always had it in you, right from your very birth. You are, in short, quite literally built different.

However, just because one has been blessed with that sort of favor doesn't necessarily mean that using it comes to them naturally. It requires incredible focus, discipline, and commitment in order to manifest the power, which means that it could lay dormant for quite some time if the user has issues with confidence or self-control that serve as a stumbling block and prevent them from reaching the sort of zen state you need in order to pull the Aura out. In that sense, it's possible that their power could go untapped for a long time before they ever actually pull it off successfully, and others might not necessarily know or believe that they can use it.