The Mirror OOC (Open)

War has long raged in the land of Evanotia. Peace is but a whisper on the lips of old men, a generation on the brink of extinction. There are two kingdoms on this grand continent, at the heart of it all: Enola and Gornada. They lie to the far south of the continent, and the north, respectively. They have both contracted alliances with smaller kingdoms on the Grand Continent, throwing this continent into chaos. There are forces at work beyond the control of the sentient beings. Fate is up to his same tricks again. This war must end, if Evanotia is to exist.

You are agents of Chance, a sibling of Fate. Can you defy his majesty (Fate)? Will Evanotia escape this cruel future? It is up to you. either Gornada and her allies, or Enola must be stopped. You fight not for yourselves, but the world, you just don't know it yet.

World

Spoiler:

Characters

Spoiler:

Character Sheet
Name:
Age:
Gender:
Race: (see existing races, you may make your own, but please PM me the details so I may add it to the list)
Appearance:
Arsenal:
Bio:(2 paragraphs please. At the least. More is welcome.)

Races

Spoiler:

Bestiary

Spoiler:

Essence

Spoiler:

Rules

1.No God-mods.(this includes auto hits, power playing, and using player knowledge as character knowledge)
2.A minimum of one post a week is expected
3.Ask a person permission to use/kill/harm their character before doing so.
4.Two characters is the limit.
5.What I say goes. No matter what I say. Unless its something totally preposterous, in which case its still recommended.
6.Follow these rules.
If you fail to abide by these guidelines you will be given a warning. Three warnings and you are kicked from the RP.


Updates

2-26-11: OOC posted
3-11-11: IC Posted http://www.footstepsofghosts.com/t3488-the-mirror-ic
6-3-11: Temporary GM hiatus- RP is put on hold
6-7-11: RP resumes
6-12-11: Mariel added to "Characters" section/ Witches added to "Races"/ Bestiary added to intro post
6-13-11: Spoiler boxes added to intro post/ "Gameplay" section deleted
6-20-11: "Characters" section edited and up-to-date/ Title of the IC fixed
12-3-11: "Characters" section updated/ Title of OOC changed

First
Character Sheet
Name: Marik of Kieran
Age: 26
Gender: Male
Race: Human
Appearance: 6'3'' and heavily built. He has shoulder length black hair, and hazel eyes. His face is rough and square. His nose has been broken several times and there is a notch take out of the top of his left ear. His right arm and right half of his torso is covered in one large tattoo. It is mostly abstract shapes intertwined with the symbol of a silver wolf howling. His body is covered in small scars, and few large ones taken from fighting in a gladiatorial ring for so long.

Arsenal: Heavy articulated plate armor for his right arm and shoulder. This attaches to lather cuirass with ring mail over it that stretches down to his lower thigh and to his left forearm. His left forearm down is covered in articulated plate gauntlet. A deployable blade has been engineered to deploy over the forearm and extends half a foot past the wrist. The blade curves down toward the palm, and is edged on both sides. It is slightly wavy in structure with etched blood gutters periodically spaced along the blade. He wears hardened leather armor on his legs, and metal reinforced leather boots. While adept with all weapons, he carries the blade that made him a legend in the arena. The blade is six feet long, two feet wide, 80 pounds and made of a strange dark and dense metal alloy. Strange runes are etched into it, and his family's history claims it is the blade, the Slaughterer's Star, representing the legendary Akeursos Empire's top master-at-arms. While it is difficult, it can be dented and scratched, but will regain it's original shape and strength if heated in a forge at a high temperature. These two pieces of information came from a master smith Miles Rornhelm, an ex-captain and former champion of the elite religious military order the Scarlet Rose.

Bio: Marik is the last of his people, and the son of one of their nobles. The small kingdom was casually annihilated on a rare and somewhat traitorous action between the Grand Regent when he was younger and Scarlet Rose, a zealous, racist military theocratic order. According to all accounts, Marik's people have been completely annihilated, except for him. He was captured at the age of nineteen and sold to a coliseum in the middle of Desert Confederacy's territory. The coliseum is located in the middle of a large oasis and trading center. The city is called Mari-Iblis, the City of Shadowed Bliss.

Six years before Marik was captured a man now known as the Raven, an invincible mercenary leader had been sold into slavery from a distant land, or perhaps even a different world. After a year of fighting and a thousand kills, he approached the owner of the coliseum with a simple proposition to make him famous through out the world. The wager was based on an old but still respected tribal law, a man may prove his innocence through trial of arms. The Raven gambled that he could wear only partial armor and kill one hundred men in a single event in the order of his choosing. Despite being only fourteen at the time, the Raven argued the merits to the owner, Asir Kh'alad. Kh'alad had agreed on one condition, each of the men he was to fight would have to pass their own trial first. They had to kill ten men in a single event the day before. The day is still sung about by bards, and Kh'alad retired as a Pasha, a man of enormous wealth and power from the money he had made by betting on the Raven who would not die until he had given justice to the king who had sold him into slavery.

Marik had a simple choice to make, to follow the Raven's footsteps and avenge his people or die. The instrument of his revenge had even been sold with him on the condition it stayed with Marik, a huge dark blade that the man had called the Slaughterer's Star. Initially, the weapon had been too heavy to use, and he had been taught to use every weapon at a gladiator's disposal. While successful in the arena, it wasn't until the dark blade had been used that Marik became famous. Working his way up the ranks, Marik became a grand champion of the arena, undefeated after fifty consecutive matches, the last ten with other popular stars. He approached the current owner after seven years and was the fifth person to request to undergo the Trial of Arms, commonly known as Raven's Ordeal. He was the third person to achieve his freedom. He is currently working as a bouncer at one of the roughest bars in Fossa.

Accepted, I'm loving the bio by the way, good use of creativity.

Character Sheet
Name: Miles “the Hammer” Rornhelm
Age: 32
Gender: Male
Race: Human, a touch of draconian in his blood.

Appearance: Miles has short cropped blond hair, and trimmed full beard. He has clear green eyes and strong regular features. His nose has a slight kink from being broken and healing improperly. The most noticeable thing about Miles is his sheer size. Being seven foot four and built like a brick house tends to make you stand out in a crowd. His blunt and intense nature does not help but intimidate others. Miles is usually seen in his own custom forged plate armor. The type of armor is called Dreadnaught plate, and is well known for its sheer defensive strength. It is covered in etched runes, painted gold, and white, with crimson along the edges.

Arsenal: Everything Miles uses is self-forged. Dreadnaught plate is heavy articulated plate covered in enchantments. Miles also uses a large and heavy war hammer, about sixty pounds, forty on the head, and fifteen on the pommel as a counter balance. He also uses a great sword that is similar to Marik's, which his own lesser creation.

Bio:(Miles was once the grandson of a master smith, a mage who managed to teach his young grandson how to forge at a young age. Miles trained as a smith and obtained his own forge and shop when he was sixteen. A year later he became engaged and married to a beautiful wife named Aria. They had a daughter, named Elizabeth, who he called Ellie.

Miles turned twenty, a master smith who was a friend of his grandfather invited Miles to Fester, as skilled journeyman to learn the skill of Drakonian smiths who work with metals that melt at such high temperatures. The entire trip lasted three months, and he learned the making of secret metals and the forbidden, sealed history of the world's most dangerous weapons and their creation. He was also entrusted with the method that turned regular juggernaut armor into dreadnaught armor by incantations and other methods of manipulating essence.

However, upon returning, he found the town he lived in had been attacked by a vampire gone mad. The vampire who wanted to become a lord had released a magic plague, and had started raising the occupants as undead. While charging into a town whose occupants have been turned into hungry undead isn't intelligent, Miles was desperate to find and save his wife and daughter. However, he was stopped by a party from the Scarlet Rose who had been hunting the vampire for close to a year. They made a deal with him. In return for guiding them around the town until they found the mad creature, the Scarlet Rose would first escort him home to try and determine the fate of his family. What he found at his home drove the stoic big man to tears. He found his wife and child just dead from the plague. He was a few minutes too late to even say goodbye. As their bodies cooled even more, they began moving living undead. Despite an offer of a compassionate Scarlet Rose knight to kill them himself, Miles used a hammer from the forge to paralyze them before cremating them in his forge.

After that moment, Miles the Champion of the Scarlet Rose was born. It takes a special kind of resolve to kill your own family to give them peace, and Miles was a man with long temper, but implacable when lit. He led the party around the town, killing the lion's share of his friends and acquaintances. Ironically to him at the time, they found the vampire raving in a church dedicated to serving the light. The vampire killed most of the Scarlet Rose as they charged first. Miles had been stunned by the emaciated figure and the vampire's demonic eyes had frozen him for a few moments. In what was described by the sole remaining survivor of that party, Miles had faced off, and crushed the vampire himself in barrage of pure brutal light. Then, he tended to the only survivor, a man named Erik, who had offered to purify his family for him. He became a zealous recruit, bitter about his experiences, and determined to protect the innocent and pure from similar fates.

It was five years later that Miles discovered the lies being perpetuated by his own high command. The raid on Kiernan was to purify a dark magician conducting twisted experiments on the helpless villagers. What had originally been a raid turned rapidly into a full scale punitive war. The high priest was the one who driven Mile's bane into a vampire and then mad. Another such twisted experiment had gone public and needed to be hushed up. The fact that Kiernan was actually supporting such things allowed Miles the ability to brutal and ruthless, crushing noble families searching for their number one enemy, who turned out to be Erik. Erik, the man who knew Miles, was the dark magician; he had gotten cold feet from performing what were twisted experiments in the name of the light.

Miles mechanically performed the man's purification in the power of pure light after Erik begged him for a chance at repentance. Erik did not scream once while he burned, only smiled in relief. Miles was only able to save one person, a young man, and only by beating him senseless in a fit of what appeared to insane fury. The man remarkably survived to the other members of the Scarlet Rose, and Miles pronounced the man fit to repent for his sins. He personally escorted and sold him in the Desert Confederacy to the coliseum after lifting the kingdom's forgotten treasure, a sword of dark metal.

Miles returned to the Scarlet Rose and very publically challenged the high priest, the grand champion and head of the knights to duels. He killed the high priest and the old grand champion easily, but had an epic duel with the head of the knights for dominance. It ended in a draw, and Miles exiled himself in protest of the order's deeds.

Miles is currently in Fossa, working in his own forge as one of the city's top master smiths.

Um, another character accepted, once we get at the bare minimum one more player, we will continue to the IC.

Name: Alexander Drakengard II
Age: 17
Gender: Male
Race: Human
Appearance: Alexander is tall, lithe, and built more for speed than for strength. He has soft blond hair the color of spun gold, cut short to his neck. His eyes are a deep blue, the color of the morning sky. He bears a slight limp from a childhood accident, and though it does not normally cause him problems, sometimes it will act up and cause him pain. His favorite colors are greens and golds, but he never seen without the Drakonian cloak given to him by his mentor. The cloak is charmed and can become hard as the scales of a dragon when the wearer is in danger. He also bears a necklace with his family's crest proudly around his neck, though his mentor has charged him to keep it hidden until the appropriate time.
Arsenal: Alexander has his own bow and he is quite a fine shot, though he has not seen the heat of battle. His mentor also gave him his father's sword, Vencier, just before he died.
Bio: Alexander is the son of the former King Matias Drakengard IV, and the only surviving true-blood heir to the Enolan throne. He was but an infant when his family was assassinated, and he was only saved through the quick thinking of his bodyguard. The bodyguard's name was Caeus, but he was no ordinary man. He was a loner Drakonian, originally sent to spy on the Enolan Royal Family. But Caeus eventually grew attached the infant he had been assigned to guard and when the assassins entered the palace, he escaped with the infant Alexander from the high window of the child's nursery, flying them both to safety.

For seventeen long years, Caeus hid himself with the boy prince in the forest. Even though Caeus was originally from Fester, he became so disconnected from the outside world that when he heard news that his countrymen had allied themselves against Enola, he had not the heart to turn against Alexander, whom he had cared for so long. And so the boy grew under Caeus' tutelage. Alexander became skilled with the bow and arrow, though his kind heart quailed at the thought of harming animals. He mainly used his skills for sport, shooting at far targets such as fruits in the trees. He grew to be a likable, a child of sunshine who always saw the glass as half full, never half empty. Even in his teenage years he was marked with a gentle heart and a boyish grin that could cause even the coldest person to melt. Perhaps this heart was what allowed him to have a deep connection to essence, sometimes even greater than Caeus'. Though he was somewhat naive, he also became very brave under Caeus' training. Though Caeus did not curb the boy's temperament or sunny personality, the Drakonian would not allow him to grow soft or weak.

Alexander did not know about his heritage until his seventeenth birthday. It was at this time that Caeus entrusted Alexander with his father's sword, a sword Caeus had somehow spirited from the castle during the chaos of the coup. Caeus also gave to Alexander the pendant that would prove his Royal heritage. Even without the pendant, his striking resemblance to his father would cause many a person to wander. It was at this time that Caeus would have begun to lead the Prince back to his throne. But the Regent's men, who had been searching for the missing babe for so long, finally found them. In the attack, Alexander was separated from his mentor and guardian. He now is on a mission to find his best friend and confidante and to eventually reclaim his throne from the unlawful Regent.

I will add all three of the characters into the character section of the intro post for archive purposes. IC will be up in about half an hour to a full hour. I will explain more about the war in a coming post, it will include a full break down of the Northern and Southern fronts where the bulk of the war is being fought. However, for now, we will be focusing on introducing your characters in the city of Fossa. This is where our tale begins. From there the story will develop and we'll see where it goes. Try and get your friends to participate, I'd love to have them on board.

The IC is up and running and open for business! For quick acess here is a link-

http://www.footstepsofghosts.com/t3488-the-mirror-ic#82918

~Awesome, I'm going to get a post up soon!

Elric are you still in this?

Yes, I am. Life has been busy, and sleep has been little, but I have been writing about Marik's triumph in the coliseum.

Alright, excellent. I'm going to move the plot forward within the city then, and if you need time to catch up after that, you'll have plenty.

Hey everyone, I was wondering if I could get your instant message usernames so as to collaborate on future posts. Also, I wanted to just let you know if you ever have any questions, let me know. Please watch this topic for replies so as to know of any important posts.

Name: Clytie Neriss
Age: 16
Gender: Female
Race: Human, but she has some Viala blood on her father's side

Appearance: Standing roughly 5'5" and slight of build, Clytie looks relatively harmless. Her eyes are the bright blue-green of the ocean on a clear day and they contrast brilliantly with her sun-tanned skin. Her hair is naturally brown, but hours in the sun have lightened some of it to gold. She has a small scar beneath her left eye where her brother accidentally cut her with a fishhook.

Arsenal: She works best with things like spears and harpoons because of where she grew up, but those are cumbersome to carry around so her father taught her to wield knives; she keeps three knives on her at all times, two of which are balanced for throwing and one of which is a sort of all-purpose weapon.

Bio: Clytie was raised with her twin brother Daren in the harbor city of Llyr. Her father was a fisherman and part Viala, and her mother sold jewelry made from sea shells and fish bones, so the sea is very much part of her heritage and she loves everything about it. By the time they turned twelve she and her brother were incredibly strong swimmers, fishers, and sailors. Clytie and her family led happy, carefree lives on the coast with its sun and surf, but if that were still true there would be no story!

When Clytie was fourteen her mother became very ill, and despite the cleansing air of the ocean she died within months. It was a hard time for the family; Clytie's father, once a jovial, spirited man, became withdrawn and distant, and his detachment made the loss even harder for his children to bear. The three of them were struggling through it, though, and beginning to pull the broken pieces of their lives back together when disaster struck once more. Two days before she turned sixteen, Clytie's father and brother embarked upon a deep-sea fishing voyage, leaving her to tend the shop she had taken over since her mother's passing. A sudden and horrible storm tore their ship to pieces. There were no survivors.

Clytie's love of the ocean could not keep her in Llyr after that. She had lost too much and her grief was too heavy, and she could not live on that beautiful shore and tend her mother's beautiful shop anymore. She couldn't face the waves that had claimed her father and her twin, not now. So she packed what she needed in a little traveler's sack and set out for Fossa in hopes of either learning a new trade or using what she already knew to put her pain behind her.

Um, I don't know if you guys overlooked my post or not, but to avoid super short posts I'd like you to PM me or post your IM addresses. Besides that I'd also like to know what times zones you guys live in. Also, last but not least, I like how this is developing. Good job guys! The city is under siege by the Reardonians, I'd advise you to escape, because no doubt you want some combat, but we can't take on an army However! You may fight some stray soldiers who have invaded the city. Good luck my friends and happy RPing!

Hey guys, sorry for the short hiatus, I"ll have another post up within 24 hours

Guys, is there confusion as to where the plot is going? Its been over a week since everyone has posted, so everyone has accrued one warning (its nothing against you guys, just enforcing the rules, the warning will disappear after 2 weeks). If you are going to be late (1 post per week is required) please PM me. THank you. And if you guys need any help to move forward let me know. If no one posts tomorrow, I will personally PM all of you to see where the confusion lies, or maybe help with writer's block?

Ah, sorry for that! I've been really busy with student teaching, but I only have two weeks left so soon I'll be able to post fairly regularly. My post is now up.

Thanks Ruu! I really appreciate it. I'm not mad or anything, I was just enforcing the rulees and making sure I get advance notice before long absences.

I'm still here, Elric and I are just coordinating a post so we can start making longer ones.

Awesome, collabs are a great idea. Like I said, I would just like some notification next time.

My fault, I am working with rusty for a collaboration post and dragging my feet

Its okay Elric, now that I know there is still activity, I am more than welcome to give you some time. By the way, is anyone involved a good artist? Maybe good with computers or photoshop? I would like to know, so as to enhance the RP experience with an extended network of illustrations and maybe signatures.

As you can see, I made a poor attempt at an official "The Mirror" signature. hahaha If any of you are good artists, or graphic designers please let me know.

EDIT: Also! Ruu, I did see your post, rest assured I will respond, but I am waiting for Elric and Rusty before I move the plot forward.

Haha I'm certainly not artistic. My stick figure superheroes are as good as it gets.

haha well in that case, we'll have stick figure signatures

For the sake of progress, I am moving the RP forward TOMORROW. Rusty and Elric may still improve upon their post, but events may occur which may interfere with those in your post. If this happens I apologize, though I feel I have given a reasonable amount of time for a post. Thank you for your understanding and please note that I will not harm, or exclude your characters in any way. Believe me, you are all part of the story and a BIG part.

Don't worry guys, I am still very much alive and writing Next post will be up within the next couple of days.

Hey guys, sorry about the delay, finals week is coming up and my time is short, so for now, this RP will be put on hold. I will personally message all of you when this RP resumes

Alright, I'll still be here whenever it's ready to start again.

Me, too, but I'm confused about whether or not I should go on without Elric.