Zugzwang — Roleplayer Guild

Brilliant Horizon


ELEVATOR PITCH: Graduated Huntsmen and Huntresses combat resurgent Grimm and carry the torch of humanity while war and strife loom in the shadows. 

The IC will be up August 18th, come hell or high water. Please have characters in by then. Post characters in the OOC first, and they will be subject to editing and approval. Once approved, please put them in the Characters tab.



It has been nearly a century since the sounds of the Great War’s great convulsive drums ceased, the air still and free of conflict for the first time in years. On the island of Vytal, a peace which has lasted seventy years endured the flames of diplomacy and forged four nations into one grand alliance. Huntsman academies were established, trade flourished, old grudges were settled and populations grew. The Grimm which had grown so mighty as shells flew and bayonets flashed were pushed back, and as the emotions which fed them subsided the great stockpiles of war were turned on the Old Enemy with tenacity and unity.

A golden age blossomed, one which for more than half a century saw the greatest strides in general happiness and welfare ever recorded, but all students of history know that no age lasts forever, no civilization is permanent. Every peak of culture, learning, wealth, looks from its lofty height and sees the yawning chasm looming in the future. Now, progress slows and stagnation has set in. Atlas and Mistral vie for the great Dust veins which promise such wealth along the northern shore. Client states, satraps and vassals of Vale and Vacuo squabble and bicker between the two great powers who watch the situation with measures of both fear and greed. 

All the while, the creatures of Grimm stir. The antithesis of humanity, the Grimm who were so soundly defeated ad thrown back into the periphery of the world as their great forests were burned and their mountains leveled are resurgent. They move with coordination, appear in new forms, tear at the weaknesses of humanity and ignore the gleaming redoubts; the time of human victory appears to the most cynical to be at an end.

The hopes of humanity, and the faunus who with fire and sword broke their chains, are pinned on Hunters. Huntsmen and Huntresses, who wield coruscating souls of terrifying depth, whose every facet is a sword against the dark and a shield for the weak. The four colossal academies have birthed generations of the mightiest warriors ever to walk the face of Remnant, and in their hands the future of sentience itself rests.

All the world can do now is pray that its champions are strong enough to carry the responsibility.



OOC Information:

Welcome to Brilliant Horizon! In this RP, players will take control of powerful graduated Huntsmen or Huntresses, skilled career warriors armed with the light of their own souls. The RP is set five years before the events of the show, and as soon as the RP starts timelines will diverge: everything will change, the butterfly effect will ensure your actions shape the world into new and fantastic patterns. Your characters have just graduated as part of the same class from Beacon Academy as the shining stars of the institution, and great things are expected from you by interested parties and the proletariat masses. The responsibilities of a warrior are immense, and the stresses of the battlefield are hardly taught in classrooms. The way of a Hunter is one of violence and risk, partaken willingly, but what are you willing to sacrifice to save the world? 

Dark forces conspire, danger looms, and the ties of family or alliance stretch to breaking points. The world is not simple, and solutions are not easy. When should idealism be compromised? When is altruism unequipped to bind the wounds of the world? What is the worth of a single soul, and what reasons justify violence? Has Humanity earned its lofty throne of existence?

This game encourages player agency both in the plot and the setting, and active, enthusiastic players are encouraged above all else. Post length is not heavily enforced, but quality writing and agency in the plot are asked of players looking to join. Players will be accepted into the game once they produce a character sheet of quality, following the template here: 

Name: (Unless you have a good explanation, please follow the RWBY convention of color references, for consistency of tone)
Age: (You will be playing newly-graduated hunters, so anywhere from 20-22 is the average. This may be higher, but probably not lower.)
Gender: (Because of the colossal power of Hunters, natural physical ability is less important. As such, women serve alongside men in almost equal numbers as Huntresses unlike the national militaries)
Race: (Faunus are much less common among the ranks of Hunters for many reasons, but they are still present in large numbers)
Nationality: (All the characters have just graduated from Beacon Academy, but they can be from any corner of Remnant)
Appearance: (A picture here is fine, but text is preferred)

Personality: (Who is your character?)
Aspiration: (What drives your character?)
Fears: (What terrifies your character to the core?
Ethics: (What does your character consider right and wrong? How do they view the world?) 
History: (What shaped your character to be who they are? Include here past relations, positive and negative.)

Semblance: (The direct manifestation of the soul in the world. Each is unique to the person, and reflective of their character in subtle or obvious ways)
Combat Style: (Every hunter fights in a unique way determined by their semblance: go wild here.)
Weapon: (Hunters’ weapons are often as unique as their bizarre powers, as the requirements are different. Text or pictures are welcome, or both.)

Non-Combat skills: (Every Hunter is a talented fighter: what can yours do that the others cannot?)
Deficiencies: (No-one is good at everything. What is your character bad at?)
Miscellaneous: (Anything that doesn’t quite fit in the other categories goes here.)

@Shadow Daedalus

You're expected to write as much as you need to make your fellow players' posts easy, and to push the story forwards. I'd estimate that you'd probably want a few hundred words for that, but if you're someone who writes in very concise, very elegant prose then who am I to judge? Make it good, and make it enough to properly serve the story, and I'll be happy. I usually end up writing ~500 words per post, but that's just me: everyone is different.

The only hard requirement is grammar and prose that are not painful or frustrating to read. Consistency of tense, proper spelling, no unintentional grammatical ambiguity and things like that are the only absolute requirements. I'd put more in, but honestly if you want to write like James Joyce and you think you can do it well, then that's fine by me.

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