Vega7285

Malevolence from Beyond (Vega7285 and LuckyBlackCat)

"Yep, gotta go on patrol!" Saya was her usual chipper, gung-ho self. "One time I rescued a cat from a tree." She was happy to agree to the race, even if Nanami tended to win. "Sure, let's go!"

Saya took off at her own pace, though she's definitely going harder than Nanami's leisurely jog. By the end of the race, she'd slowed down quite a bit, despite her best efforts. Panting and clearly running out of steam, Saya finished a bit behind her friend. "Jeez...I guess I'm still a little out of shape." She paused to catch her breath, keeping a smile on her face. It really wasn't about winning or losing. And there was conveniently a bench to flop onto, right there.

---

Beneath the surface, the fighting continued. It shouldn't have been possible for several reasons. The Children of Chaos shouldn't have known this was happening, much less where. And even then, there were wards in place that would serve to keep their dhoanoids out. They must have some serious sorcerous support. And more importantly, they were winning.

There was no rushing a ritual, but this one was almost complete. Monsters broke through, and rushed their way to the ritual site itself. They didn't dare step foot inside the circle itself, for fear of their own lives, but it was still a simple matter to deal with those present. Everyone involved was too exhausted and focused on the ritual to truly fight back. The lead sorcerer was the last to die, and in his final moments, did his best to prevent the ritual from simply shattering.

Maybe that was it. Maybe it was that outside influence taking over, or at least trying to. Whatever the case, the magical energy didn't immediately fizzle away. Instead, it swirled, barely contained, and before long, burst upward. Perhaps the beings that were called knew there was no one waiting for them. Or they knew that some attempt at tampering was at work, and moved to escape it. The truth was likely far simpler: unwitting and unprepared as they were, the two girls were within the circle. Thus, they would be...considered.

Realism no Mononoke: An Urban Fantasy RP

Name: Kiyohara Homura
Age: 16
Gender: Female
Race: Human
Appearance:
Full character artwork is pretty huge, so it just gets a link.
Homura is, at least appearance-wise, a fairly unassuming young lady high school student. She doesn’t dress to stand out, most of the time, wears glasses, and has long black hair with very visible white streaks in it. Take your best shot, she’s heard and deflected them all, by now. Homura is usually seen carrying a shinai bag. Its contents vary between practice weapons and her actual one, depending on the circumstances.

Possession mode appearance
When possessed by her sword, Most of Homura’s hair turns white, and the streaks that were already white instead take on a luminous red hue.

Personality:
Homura, despite her name, is a cool and collected individual. She tends to remain calm in most situations and isn’t the sort to back down from a threatening opponent. She is polite, kind, and dutiful, and takes her training seriously. Her somewhat detached approach to life can easily lead to her being “spacey”, and it’s not altogether inaccurate. She’d miss quite a lot if she didn’t have a second set of eyes watching out for her.

Homura’s life isn’t all training in kendo to inherit the family’s style and continue the family business as a youkai hunter. She enjoys anime and video games in her spare time, and plays some sort of otome game on her smartphone almost religiously. When particularly nervous or flustered, she has a habit of messing with her glasses, usually cleaning them.

Vermillion Harvest Moon (Mizuki)
Although “only” a sword, Mizuki deserves her own entry as well. She tends to view Homura with parental concern, and is often the one who has to warn her wielder of impending danger, especially of the supernatural sort. She’s not above a considerable amount of sass when she does, either. She seeks to understand humans through combat, or so she claims. Of the two, she’s often the more aggressive one, though beyond rattling in her sheath of her own accord, these aspects tend to only manifest when possessing Homura.

Abilities:
Homura herself is a more or less ordinary human, with the physical abilities one would expect. Also she has myopia, not that it’s a useful ability.

Her family has been youkai hunters for generations, and she trains in the family martial and exorcism arts. She can write talismans, but she has little to no talent for imbuing them with actual power. She does have a knack for things relating to her own body. She can enhance her own balance and lighten her body, to remain sure-footed in any situation, and stand on surfaces that otherwise would not support her. She can also leap exceptionally long distances horizontally or vertically.

Homura’s sword, Vermillion Harvest Moon is a tsukumogami. It has lived, and fought, for generations, and carries volumes of experience in combat. As a youkai weapon, it’s also quite dangerous to youkai and spirits of various sorts. It is also perfectly capable of speech, even when not possessing someone.

Through contact, the sword can possess someone to act as its wielder (or, perhaps,to wield their body as an extension of the weapon). In the case of the youkai hunters of the Kiyohara family, ancient blood contracts render this possession into more of a collaboration, where the youkai hunter is usually still in control of their actions, and merely benefits from essentially becoming a half-youkai while under its effects, gaining increased physical capabilities.

Skills:
Homura is training in her family’s form of exorcism arts, primarily using swords or unarmed strikes. She’s as good as one would expect for someone raised in a dojo.

She can follow a recipe and cook well enough, and is also quite good at making tea. Decent calligraphy skills, from making talismans and charms. Reasonably adept gamer.
Equipment:
Vermillion Harvest Moon - The Kiyohara family’s heirloom katana, and a tsukumogami in its own right. The spirit of the sword tends to go by the name “Mizuki.”

Smartphone, glasses, stockings, etc. If it’s the sort of mundane thing a teenage girl would have, she probably has it.

Brief Backstory:
Homura is an ordinary girl, her family just has an unusual job. They’re youkai hunters, and have been for generations. In the modern day, the true calling is hardly as important as it used to be, but that certainly doesn’t stop the passing down of the old traditions.

Homura began training from a young age at the family dojo, learning the ways of a youkai hunter. She didn’t necessarily understand why she had to go through such harsh training, but she was in no position to question it, either. She’d never even heard of a youkai terrorizing anyone outside of fairy tales. Or maybe some of those bedtime stories were family history? Regardless, while there might still be a need for youkai hunters, both the hunter and the prey have gotten subtler and adopted modern methods of living. Her family runs a cafe.

As the current heir to her family’s style, Homura wields the family sword, a tsukumogami blade. Given the state of her hair, she’s definitely had occasion to do so in the past, as the longer one remains possessed by the sword, the more of the victim’s hair turns permanently white.

While she avoided the repeated attempts of her high school’s kendo club to recruit her, she was given an offer she couldn’t refuse, when it came to the occult club.

Realism no Mononoke: An Urban Fantasy RP

I went ahead and added in a few things for fun acrobatic tricks. Past that, probably not much I'll need to do with Homura.

Malevolence from Beyond (Vega7285 and LuckyBlackCat)

Night
An Eldritch Society ritual space, beneath a park in Kojiki Arcology, south.

The Eldritch Society. A secretive group of like-minded individuals united in common purpose to protect humanity from the various other things that would do it harm. Unlike the government, however, they sought to do things their own way, and that way would often lead to conflict with the very same government, should they act too openly. Even if someone were to shout it from the rooftops, who would believe a man claiming one of the largest megacorporations was controlled by a dangerous cult and the physical avatar of their dark god? And they were far from the only threat, just the most obvious. It wasn't usual that the Society's underground activities were quite so literal, though.

Like any arcology, Kojiki had plenty of space where one could hide something like an illicit space for practice of arcane rituals. The buildings were always an option, but just as easy were the many spaces for maintenance, movement of materiel and personnel, and other such things just below the surface. Arcologies were, almost inevitably, far more than they let on, and someone had to be able to access things to repair the moving sidewalks, anyway. So it was that after much careful planning, a ritual space was set up under a park in an apparently abandoned section of the underground.

The ritual in progress had begun days ago. A long and grueling process for both the sorcerers and other participants, the Rite of Sacred Union demanded great asceticism and strength of will. It had been days since anyone present had had opportunity to eat or drink. But, the mystic energies gathering within the circle and poised to pierce the veil were well worth the effort and soon, with any luck, the candidates within would join the ranks of the Society's greatest warriors.

Something began to...shift, subtly, in the flow of the ritual. No fault of the participants, but of some other influence. And then, the sounds of violence. Their enemies had found them, but there was little that could be done to stop things now. At best, it would be a waste of the opportunity until the next time conditions were right. And the ritual was almost over. The beings at the threshold were practically scratching at the door. The defenders would hold the line.

Meanwhile, at the same park, on the surface
It was a pleasant night in the arcology. Not too hot, not too cold. Truly a blessing of the season and not the controlled climate and civil engineering. The park was almost empty, although the lights were still on. This was one of the nicer parks for an evening walk, with some lovely water features, and nice wooded areas, carefully curated to even look like the products of natural growth.

It was also pretty close to Saya's house, so that helped. She'd been doing well recently, so she and Nanami were out and about. It was getting pretty late, but things were still perfectly safe, so whatever. Neither of the young women would ever expect what would be in store for them that evening.

"It's so nice to get out of the house," Saya observed. "Even if I feel like some sort of vampire, doing it when the sun's already down." She had just as much reason to fear the sun, to be fair. At least at night, no parasol was required on her part. "It's been a while since we got together to really run around like this, hasn't it, Nanami?" She didn't mention why, but even if she usually had no problem making fun of her illness, some things just weren't worth bringing up.

Realism no Mononoke: An Urban Fantasy RP

Girl x Sword

Name: Kiyohara Homura
Age: 16
Gender: Female
Race: Human
Appearance:
Full character artwork is pretty huge, so it just gets a link.
Homura is, at least appearance-wise, a fairly unassuming young lady high school student. She doesn’t dress to stand out, most of the time, wears glasses, and has long black hair with very visible white streaks in it. Take your best shot, she’s heard and deflected them all, by now. Homura is usually seen carrying a shinai bag. Its contents vary between practice weapons and her actual one, depending on the circumstances.

Possession mode appearance
When possessed by her sword, Most of Homura’s hair turns white, and the streaks that were already white instead take on a luminous red hue.

Personality:
Homura, despite her name, is a cool and collected individual. She tends to remain calm in most situations and isn’t the sort to back down from a threatening opponent. She is polite, kind, and dutiful, and takes her training seriously. Her somewhat detached approach to life can easily lead to her being “spacey”, and it’s not altogether inaccurate. She’d miss quite a lot if she didn’t have a second set of eyes watching out for her.

Homura’s life isn’t all training in kendo to inherit the family’s style and continue the family business as a youkai hunter. She enjoys anime and video games in her spare time, and plays some sort of otome game on her smartphone almost religiously. When particularly nervous or flustered, she has a habit of messing with her glasses, usually cleaning them.

Vermillion Harvest Moon (Mizuki)
Although “only” a sword, Mizuki deserves her own entry as well. She tends to view Homura with parental concern, and is often the one who has to warn her wielder of impending danger, especially of the supernatural sort. She’s not above a considerable amount of sass when she does, either. She seeks to understand humans through combat, or so she claims. Of the two, she’s often the more aggressive one, though beyond rattling in her sheath of her own accord, these aspects tend to only manifest when possessing Homura.

Abilities:
Homura herself is a more or less ordinary human, with the physical abilities one would expect. Also she has myopia, not that it’s a useful ability.

Her family has been youkai hunters for generations, and she trains in the family martial and exorcism arts. She can write talismans, but she has little to no talent for imbuing them with actual power. She does have a knack for things relating to her own body. She can enhance her own balance and lighten her body, to remain sure-footed in any situation, and stand on surfaces that otherwise would not support her. She can also leap exceptionally long distances horizontally or vertically.

Homura’s sword, Vermillion Harvest Moon is a tsukumogami. It has lived, and fought, for generations, and carries volumes of experience in combat. As a youkai weapon, it’s also quite dangerous to youkai and spirits of various sorts. It is also perfectly capable of speech, even when not possessing someone.

Through contact, the sword can possess someone to act as its wielder (or, perhaps,to wield their body as an extension of the weapon). In the case of the youkai hunters of the Kiyohara family, ancient blood contracts render this possession into more of a collaboration, where the youkai hunter is usually still in control of their actions, and merely benefits from essentially becoming a half-youkai while under its effects, gaining increased physical capabilities.

Skills:
Homura is training in her family’s form of exorcism arts, primarily using swords or unarmed strikes. She’s as good as one would expect for someone raised in a dojo.

She can follow a recipe and cook well enough, and is also quite good at making tea. Decent calligraphy skills, from making talismans and charms. Reasonably adept gamer.
Equipment:
Vermillion Harvest Moon - The Kiyohara family’s heirloom katana, and a tsukumogami in its own right. The spirit of the sword tends to go by the name “Mizuki.”

Smartphone, glasses, stockings, etc. If it’s the sort of mundane thing a teenage girl would have, she probably has it.

Brief Backstory:
Homura is an ordinary girl, her family just has an unusual job. They’re youkai hunters, and have been for generations. In the modern day, the true calling is hardly as important as it used to be, but that certainly doesn’t stop the passing down of the old traditions.

Homura began training from a young age at the family dojo, learning the ways of a youkai hunter. She didn’t necessarily understand why she had to go through such harsh training, but she was in no position to question it, either. She’d never even heard of a youkai terrorizing anyone outside of fairy tales. Or maybe some of those bedtime stories were family history? Regardless, while there might still be a need for youkai hunters, both the hunter and the prey have gotten subtler and adopted modern methods of living. Her family runs a cafe.

As the current heir to her family’s style, Homura wields the family sword, a tsukumogami blade. Given the state of her hair, she’s definitely had occasion to do so in the past, as the longer one remains possessed by the sword, the more of the victim’s hair turns permanently white.

While she avoided the repeated attempts of her high school’s kendo club to recruit her, she was given an offer she couldn’t refuse, when it came to the occult club.

Realism no Mononoke: An Urban Fantasy RP

I might as well say I'm also going to put a character together. I suppose it's reasonable to have families of youkai hunters or similar, so I could incorporate such a thing in my character's history. Not that it'd potentially mean much in the modern day. I'm also not sure if she'd necessarily need to be an onmyouji or the like, given my plan is to have her using a sword that is, itself, a youkai, and that's probably one way to get around some of the issues there'd otherwise be.

I probably could also just do proper onmyouji stuff, but hey. I like the idea of working with a sentient object that can take care of most of the supernatural work and even just straight up possess its wielder if need be.

Realism no Mononoke: An urban fantasy RP interest check

I might app a character, though I'm not sure I really have the time for it. Also not sure if something like a normal human wielding (or possessed by, as the case may be) a tsukumogami sword is too out there.

Malevolence from Beyond (Vega7285 and LuckyBlackCat)

Name: Saya Koizumi
Age: 14, 3rd year middle school
Appearance:

Normal appearance

Saya is average in overall height and build. She obviously suffers from albinism, with characteristic pale skin, eyes that are a sort of pale pink or purple in color, and extremely light hair. She usually wears sunglasses when out and about, or wears glasses with lenses that tint automatically when exposed to bright light or UV. She isn’t the sort to keep up with current fashion, and most of her clothes that aren’t her school uniform are far behind the latest trends. Due to her illness, Saya has several surgical scars.

History:
Saya’s family are caretakers and priests for one of the local shrines. As a result, she has an actual house that’s a good size and something of a rarity in an arcology. Her parents are traditional and strict when it comes to duties to the shrine, but otherwise Saya can usually avoid trouble if she’s got a good enough cover story and luck on her side. She has an older sister whom she adores. The two sisters get along well enough ,with the usual amount of friendly ribbing, and they split the household chores between them. They both have to work to maintain the shrine’s grounds and help out during festivals.

Saya wasn’t really born healthy, and she wasn’t born lucky, either. In addition to her lack of pigment and associated vision problems, she’s struggled with illness for much of her life. Modern medicine keeps her living a surprisingly active lifestyle, but she still needs frequent hospital visits and surgery to replace failing organs or otherwise treat her frequent medical woes.

Saya’s school life is probably what one would consider unremarkable. She’s not very smart, so she works hard for her grades. She has a few friends and hangs out with them. She watches weird shows and makes costumes based on the characters. Sometimes she tries to drag her friends into doing the same. Her unusual appearance alone is enough to set her apart, leading to the occasional odd look or people talking behind her back. Usually, it stops there, but sometimes things escalate into outright bullying. Saya putting up with things in as much good humor as possible likely does not help matters either.

She met Nanami several years ago, when the older girl intervened to rescue her from some bullies. They’ve been friends ever since, even if they’re something of an odd pair. Saya might struggle to keep up with Nanami at times, but she does her best to stay active as much as possible. If anything, she probably idolizes her friend a bit.

Personality:
Despite her weak constitution, Saya is energetic, outgoing, and positive. She works hard to get what enjoyment she can out of her good days, and rather than depend on others, tries to be someone they can depend upon. She helps others who she feels are suffering or in trouble, and she is perhaps a little too naively trusting.

She is also delusional. She believes herself to be a magical girl, even if she is demonstrably not. Surely, she can rush headlong into danger and things will work themselves out just like she’s the protagonist of some sort of show. This seems to be something of a coping mechanism for what’s happened to her.

Since her union with her symbiont, Saya has slowly become more cold-tempered, cruel, and violent. She’s more intimidating than she has any right to be, and seems to enjoy frightening her enemies with displays of her own strength. Even if she wants to befriend or get through to an enemy, she’s more than happy to beat them into submission first.

Ta'ge Symbiont

This is so old I see all the bad things about it

Natural weapons:

• Talons: The nightmare’s hands are tipped with long, deadly talons.
• Tentacle sheathe: The nightmare grows a set of tentacles that are usually retracted into one forearm. They can be used to entangle or grapple an opponent as well as do damage.
• Shoulder Pods: Each shoulder pod fires crimson bolts of energy capable of punching through walls.
• Depthless Strike: A wave of energy fired by striking the ground or another surface. It travels along a physical plane and can even follow it around corners to strike foes out of sight or in cover.

Limit Weapon:
Mystic Blast - Both shoulder pods charge up and unleash a terrifying blast of energy 2 meters wide and as tall as the tager. This blast is capable of taking out walls and even powered armor, damaging anything in its path.

Other supernatural Abilities:
Standing a full head taller than most tagers, Nightmares are stronger and more terrifying. They can often lift and throw cars, or similar feats of extreme strength. Nightmares are just as quick as their brethren, they just hit a lot harder. As well armored as most combat tagers, nightmares regenerate very quickly, often returning from near death to deadly within the span of several minutes. Saya’s has also manifested the ability to detect things by heat signatures.

Personality traits: Aggressive, violent, and overconfident. Nightmares are menacing, bloodthirsty, and always ready to pick a fight. While not driven to be in charge, a nightmare is the sort to question authority, if not outright rebellious.

Hybrid Form: Saya’s eyes become solid black, she gains her thermal vision, and may sprout her claws.

EDMG Alpha

<Got it.> Mana replied. I'm not the best with barriers, but I'll try to keep the Bydo off your back. Join up with me once you have those civilians safe.>

She knew she'd be buying time, but that makes it a bit more pressing. Mana looked up at the Bydo streaming down, and it seemed that other mages had already moved to join the battle, as flashes of light were exchanged between flying opponents up above. Her grip on the hilt of her sword was hard, to stop her hand from shaking. Was she afraid of these small fry? Nonsense. Mana rocketed into the sky to meet the enemy.

Most of the Bydo were some of the usual small mechanical craft. Small, mobile, and not very dangerous to any mage capable of paying attention, they were only a real danger in massed swarms, and even then wouldn't be much of a threat. Of course, the little guys usually were just a screen for something bigger. Hopefully, nothing bigger was going to drop down, or there could be real trouble.

Mana met the first group she encountered head-on, cutting through several of them with a single wave of energy from her sword, before she had to flit out of the way of the ones trailing behind them. Big groups like these were never her strong suit, but did she feel up to a duel with something more dangerous?

"Stardust tears," Mana shouted. "Full auto fire. Airgetlam, I'll leave the targeting to you." Blades of silver light formed around her, a few at a time, and launched themselves at nearby enemies as Mana focused on maneuvering around. As long as she could keep it up, that should put a dent into the enemy groups. At least enough to get their attention. Her real goal was to keep an eye out for anything falling right to the ground, because the last thing the city needed was some big ground-pounder running amok down there.

EDMG Alpha

Planet Shandoria
Climate: Temperate
A typical world with large oceans and continents supporting a variety of biomes.

Shandoria's capitol, located on its northeastern continent, was experiencing another beautiful day. Although relatively close to the borders of human space, they haven't had any major incidents in some time. That was about to change. In the UGN base of operations, a space station located in low orbit, an alarm was blaring.

"We're detecting a dimensional disturbance forming in the upper atmosphere," one of the technicians currently monitoring for such things relayed across the command deck. "It's got to be the Bydo, nothing else makes sense. From the size, it can't be a full-on invasion force."

"What the hell are they doing here then? Did they get lost or something?"

"That's really not for me to say, sir. It looks like there shouldn't be anything too big coming through, at least."

"Well, who do we have planetside? Send an alert and start evacuating the area. Contact any UGN mages available and get them there ASAP."

---

On the planet's surface, raid sirens that hadn't seen use in years began to wail to life. The sky darkened, clearly not from normal weather phenomena, as a crack scarred the heavens. The Bydo Incursion had begun.

On a military base nearby, Mana had a call. "Hello? Mana speaking."

"Good," the voice on the other end of the line was brusque, and one could hear some of he chatter going on in the room over the microphone. "The Bydo are here, we need every available soldier out there."

"I noticed," Mana replied. "The old air raid sirens are pretty unmistakable. I'm ready, if you need me."

"Thank you." A pause. "Are you sure you're up to it? If you need more time, I'm sure we can manage."

Mana sighed theatrically. "Of course I'm good to go. I've had enough time to process things, and I'd rather be out there than hiding in a bunker anyway."

"In that case, prepare for transport. We'll get you right there."

Teleportation. Safe, convenient, and always a little disorienting when some station grabs you and throws you somewhere else. At least Mana was in uniform and had Airgetlam on her. Not that she wouldn't, unless for some reason she was caught in the shower or in bed by the enemy. There's a thought. She stood where she was in her room, to give the station's tech an easier time. They probably did just get a lock on her comms or device, but every little bit helps. It wasn't long before she was enveloped in the familiar cool light, and dropped on a city street.

The young woman looked around. Things didn't look too bad, yet. Though, right up above, the pit the Bydo had crawled out of was just closing. Monsters were already swarming downward. It was time to go to work. "Arigetlam, switch on!" Mana shouted the activation key phrase for her device. Surrounded in silver light, the mage's clothing was replaced by the barrier jacket she wore, and her weapon likewise reformatted itself from its small, inactive form to that of a proper sword.

"We need a barrier field," Mana said to her device. "Set it to link up with any others, but the more area we can cover, the better to minimize the collateral damage." "Yes sir," replied her device in its posh accented voice, "deploying temporal field." A hemispherical bubble of energy began to expand from where Mana was standing. Barriers like these were a mage's battleground, a magic circle that would keep anything inside slightly out of step with reality, protecting anyone who wasn't a mage themselves from the consequences of the fight.

Mana sent out a general call via telepathy. <This is Mana Septima, preparing to engage. Anyone else out there?>