Force and Fury — Roleplayer Guild

The IruCa Four
So named because they all take the same Kotoden bus home and use those ubiquitous cards, these four third-year students at Kōkyo have gotten to know each other fairly well, despite their very different personalities and backgrounds. They comprise the character ideas that I had for this RPG and I hope that you like them! Since I can't truly play all four, I'll try to pick one based on the needs of the group and what'll be interesting to play. You're welcome to make the others into NPCs. Also, if anyone else is struggling with character ideas or likes one of these, feel free to adopt one!

Mio out of uniform, mugging for her Insta profile

17 | Female | Band, Art Club

Characterization

Mio's that girl who desperately wants to be someone cooler and more grown up than she really is. Her father is a manga artist who works long hours for a major studio and her mother is a nurse and part-time musician who never made it big. Both are gloriously unfulfilled people who love her very much and have very little time for her or her eleven-year-old brother, Daisuke. I suppose you could say that a certain amount of creativity is in her blood but, truth be told, she's always been more of a fan than an artist of any sort herself. She plays bass in a typical teenage garage band named Snorkel Bomb that mostly just hangs out and smokes (though she doesn't really like smoking that much). She likes to be thought of as a bit of a bad girl, piercings, short skirt, band t-shirts and all. She's a doodler and dreamer and probably has a mild form of inattentive ADHD, but has gone to primary, middle, and now high school with many of her classmates and isn't really the angsty social outcast or cold kuudere she'd have you believe, at least sartorially. She's either the normie among oddballs or the oddball among normies and she's secretly kind of happy with that.

In fact, under the right circumstances, Mio can absolutely talk your ear off about a subject that she's into. You see, she has these monthly obsessions, and she can go very far down online rabbit holes learning every inconsequential little bit of trivia there is to know about them. The posters on her bedroom walls are a memorial to her past obsessions and even the less-than-heavy-metal boy bands she guiltily listens to sometimes. There are a few things that she keeps coming back to, however: deep sea species of fish, the Titanic disaster, and zombie apocalypses. She knows exactly which lifeboat she'd get on and when were she to time travel back to April 15, 1912, and she has a Complete Written Guide to Surviving a (Theoretical) Zombie Apocalypse... mostly...in her head. Someday, she'll get down to writing it all. Not that such a thing would ever actually come in handy.

Character Ties

?? — TBD later if accepted. Do not fill out until then. Add more if needed.
(She takes the same bus home from school as Yuito, Akari, and Sota)

Inventory

1) Studded belt & chain because they're metal AF and Mio is metal AF, obv.
2) Pepper spray in her backpack because creeps are a thing. She really shouldn't have it.
3) A sketchbook and pencils for shading and colouring.
4) A bunch of random library books, most of them slightly overdue.
5) A torch-style butane lighter.

Yuito out of uniform, looking as relaxed as ever

18 | Male | Chess Club, Baseball Team, Student Council (Secretary)

Characterization

Yuito just might be the most easygoing guy you've ever met, though if you insisted otherwise, he wouldn't press the issue. More likely, he'd just shrug and smile. The only child of older parents - a salaryman and an early childhood educator, this eighteen-year-old is one of life's background characters. Truth be told, he's happy enough with that, since he's the main character in his own head. 

In truth, Yuito is one of the better-liked students in his class, even if some people consider him a bit boring. He's just genuinely good-natured and emotionally uncomplicated. His rock-solid mental health, strong academic performance, and friendliness stand in stark contrast to media portrayals of a troubled generation. There is not, nor has there ever been, so much as a hint of chuunibyo about him.

Yet, it is almost impossible to tag Yuito with a defining trait, and perhaps that is a symptom of his overwhelming averageness. He's a good student, but not the very best. He has friends, but isn't one of the 'populars'. He's tall and particularly good at baseball, but rather plain-looking, and he's distinctly shy and quiet. Sometimes, he feels like he's destined to be one of those people who just coasts through life, on autopilot, absolutely nothing special about him. Of course, he doesn't voice those thoughts. His friends have bigger problems than he does and his parents are very hard-working people. He wouldn't want to burden anybody, and he has his PC and videogames as an outlet. He's honestly quite good. Sometimes, he wonders if he should try a bit more in those. His reflexes and reaction time are amazing, and his tactical mind, honed through years of chess playing that started as a young boy with his father, is sharp. He'd rather play with his friends than advance to a higher league, however. The time that they spend together is valuable, and it's not like he could make a career out of gaming anyhow. Come September, Yuito's off to Kyoto University, where he's already been conditionally accepted. He doesn't imagine he'll return to Takamatsu except to visit.

Character Ties

?? — TBD later if accepted. Do not fill out until then. Add more if needed.
(He takes the same bus home from school as Mio, Akari, and Sota)

Inventory

1) 'Black Knight' chess piece that is the only one left from a set he got as a kid and lost in a house fire. It is always on him.
2) Louisville Slugger baseball bat that he takes home from school.
2) Two cans of energy drink, his keys, and a packed lunch.
3) A FitBit.

Akari lining up to take a free kick during a soccer practice

18 | Female | Fitness

Characterization

The first - and sometimes only - thing that people notice about Akari is her missing leg: result of a childhood battle with osteosarcoma (a type of bone cancer). In many ways, it defines her approach to life: nothing is guaranteed and nothing should be taken for granted. There are too many variables beyond your control, so instead of wasting your time worrying about them, just live the hell out of every single moment. Now, that's a wonderful bit of self-motivation to post on her social media profiles, paint on her bedroom wall, or recite as a kind of personal credo but, in practice, it's exhausting to keep up that level of intensity.

Generally speaking, Akari supplements her extended periods of go-getter attitude with shorter ones of indulgent, self-aware, sweatpants-wearing laziness. The second youngest of four siblings from a family of farmers who very much represent the fast-disappearing rural roots of Kagawa prefecture, there has never been any option not to be active, play outdoors, and keep up. However, during her cancer scare as a child, her parents moved their family to the city for her treatment, and her father took a job as a cab driver while her mother became a waitress. Money has never been abundant in the Hondo household, but there's a stubborn pride to them - Akari included - and you'll never see them asking for handouts or sympathy. They make do.   

That's another part of her motivation: she's determined to justify what her parents and siblings went through - what they gave up for her sake. She'll never admit to that feeling of guilt, of course. She'll probably just punch you on the shoulder and make a joke or tell you about a great place she knows where you can get really cheap ice cream or Udon. Akari's a very hard worker in school, to the point of not having the kind of social life that she could and perhaps should. She also trains for hours a day in multiple sports and is already on the shortlist for the 2024 Japanese paralympic soccer team. She wakes up at 5:30 AM every Saturday and takes a train to Osaka to practice with the team, coming home at about 7:30 in the evening. Coming home with a medal around her neck someday would be the sweetest thing ever. While she's a teenage girl and far from immune to the allure of pop culture, Akari doesn't indulge herself in it. In fact, she attempts to bloc her time and schedule her day quite strictly, though usually with limited success. She has a sneaky, understated sort of natural curiosity that often gets the better of her, and she enjoys joking and taking a joke, often at her own or someone else's expense. However, one senses, sometimes, that she's not quite as chipper as she seems.

Character Ties

?? — TBD later if accepted. Do not fill out until then. Add more if needed.
(She takes the same bus home from school as Mio, Yuito, and Sota)

Inventory

1) Numerous hair-ties and a pair of fingerless gloves.
2) A small sport bag with a soccer cleat and shin pad, sports drink, teriyaki beef jerky, and lanyard with keys.
3) A pocketknife and multitool with wire cutters and a screwdriver for... reasons.
4) One half of a paired koi pendant, carved out of wood. Her older sister Misaki has the other half.
5) A pair of light, sturdy forearm crutches. Yes, she has a prosthetic. She just doesn't wear it all the time, and not for soccer.

Sota out of uniform, as always...

17 | Male | Photography Club, Baseball Team

Characterization

Sota was never going to be anything but the school troublecauser and sometime class clown. A fairly recent arrival (circa three and a half years ago) from Okinawa, he stands out in his spoken dialect, heavily Americanized interests, and darker skin tone. His parents, who both work in the travel and tourism industry, upped and moved to Kagawa to take advantage of its recent rise in popularity as a place for Tokyo and Osaka-ites to get away. They bribed him with a new Nintendo Switch and his sister with some girly thing. It wasn't like they were going to listen had he said 'no' anyways. He just figured he'd kick up a bit of a fuss and get something out of the move. If his classmate Akari is 'the straight-laced girl from the sketchy family', then Sota is the 'sketchy boy from the straight-laced family'. His father, being a bit of an outsider and representative of a major hotel company, works hard to maintain a positive public image, something that this teenage 'bad apple' always seems eager to undo. 

While most people assume that Sota doesn't really care and see him as a bad influence on their children, the truth is that he just doesn't care about school. He's dyslexic but has never been formally diagnosed due to the lack of awareness surrounding this learning difference in Japan. His parents recognized that something was wrong, and paid to have him privately tutored when he was eleven but, by that point, he'd become used to finishing bottom of the class and being the family embarrassment. Instead, he's circled the wagons around other pursuits - basically any other pursuits. Regularly found smoking behind the school with the likes of Mio and crew, he plays a lot of baseball, steals from vending machines (though not as often as people accuse him of) and shoplifts for the thrill, composes freestyle rap verses and works on his DJ skills, and indulges in long energy drink-fueled gaming sessions funded by his parents' credit card or whatever side hustle he has going on at the moment (some are quite ingenious while others are pretty harebrained). Sota's also a member of the photography club. It's not that he particularly loves the hobby. He just loves a girl who's in the club and... yeah, that's definitely the only reason. Soft side!? Pfffft! Yeah... no way, Jose!

Character Ties

?? — TBD later if accepted. Do not fill out until then. Add more if needed.
(He takes the same bus home from school as Mio, Yuito, and Akari)

Inventory

1) Nintendo Switch that has been confiscated by teachers more than once.
2) Ziploc bags of... products for sale.
3) Laser pointer and a cheap digital camera filled with nature photos from Ritsurin Garden.
4) Pocketknife, lighter, and brass knuckles because 'bad boy'.

Changes:
1) Mio: Changed the completeness of Mio's Zombie Apocalypse Guide. It is now partially complete. Her band also now has a name: Snorkel Bomb. Horrible Engrish lyrics, activate!
2) Yuito: Added some more on Yuito's motivation to spend time with his friends. He is headed to the very prestigious Kyoto University in September and is probably not coming back to Takamatsu except to visit.
3) Akari: Mentioned Akari's Saturdays in Osaka training with the national team. Also included a video from another amp soccer player showing how fast she could be expected to run. Start at 2:20 if you want to see more than just running.
4) Sota: Altered the description of Sota's dyslexia to reflect how little awareness there is in Japan. Also made it clearer that his bad boy behaviour is not nature and is mostly a front for his insecurities.
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