Swords of a Master

[Ekirei]

Sure, but I just thought a roleplay about swords would be the end-all-be-all. I mean, there's going to be combat, and I don't want to fight the guy with Witchblade if I'm not packin' something under the hood too.

[Imperfectionist]

:) How about good old fists? I'm going to be playing a Danlith priestess with rock-hard fists and few qualms about using them to defend herself. Even magic swords have to be used consciously, as well, so excepting Seer, stealth is another valuable option. Thinking outside the proverbial Blade-box, you see?

[Ekirei]

R.I.P Imperfectionist
????-2014
Never Forgotten

[Imperfectionist]

Oh, haha, very funny, but just you wait. When I'm snapping necks in the night, no magic required, you'll see that fancy pagan swords are laughably easy to overcome, if you're smart about it.

[Arthanus]

Lol, I see where the blades seem cool and awesome but we cant keep pumping out more just so each player can have one. They will be important and big parts of the plot, but having one also doesn't make you invincible, and not having one doesn't make you useless. Whats a story without its supporting characters. Han wouldn't of made it anywhere if it weren't for Chewie. As for myself I plan not to have a blade at all. I plan to play a support role and that is fine enough by me. As for wanting the Water Dragon blade it is up for grabs, but if you want it start a pm up with me so I can tell you more about the family and such.

[Ekirei]

You better keep your kung-fu away from me if you know what's good for you. See how silly a sword is then

[Imperfectionist]

^-^ Want to know another advantage of "kung-fu"? I can't be disarmed (unless, you know, I actually lose some body parts).

You, I can kick the sword out of your hand, no problem. Hehe, now you're defenseless, and I'm just warming up!

[Ekirei]

Whose to say I don't dabble in some Karate as well? The sword's just Plan A. I'm almost done with Plan B. Just you wait.

[Imperfectionist]

Hey, multiple plans are awesome. I look forward to this mysterious B.

[Gisk]

Arthanus is one of my collaborators, actually. So your count was off by one, Ekirei. We're at ten, total. Myself included. And I know not everyone is necessarily going to stick around.

I'm truly sorry for the way things turned out about the swords, I didn't mean for them to all be off limits. Truly. But you must know how a story can get away from you, and as I wrote it more of them kept being important. Three of them are off limits, yes. And Seer is taken by someone else. Arthanus has just freed up Water Dragon(I was wrong, it turned out. He didn't want it). And I've just confirmed that Vultus is free as well.

So that's Vultus, Water Dragon, Whisper, and Stormbringer that is open. Stormbringer and Water Dragon have little caveat's attached to them, about what sort of character you must play.
So there still isn't enough for everyone, but Arthanus is right: I can't keep writing them in. I originally meant for there to be only five, I ended up writing in three extra when I realized that I was going to be taking some off the table.

Whoever wanted Stormbringer: don't get too many ideas in your head yet. The prologue isn't finished.

[Gisk]

The Witchblade's magic interfered with his very thoughts. Every action he thought to make was instantaneously checked against the Witch's orders. Yllicus paced the room, frantic now. Every possible plan was disallowed by the Witch's cunning words. She had thought of everything... Or had she?
He still had Seer. Not only had she allowed him to keep it, but she had given no orders regarding it whatsoever. It wasn't possible that she didn't know about it. Her spy had told her everything. Could it be a lapse in her judgment? Or perhaps she didn't care for it. Maybe she saw its weaknesses more clearly than he had.
How could he use this to his advantage? No matter what Seer let him see, his actions were limited by the curse.
He took the sword from its scabbard, and gazed into the future. At the current course, he saw his own success in the task that the Witch had given him. He could tell no one, to weaken the prophecy. He needed to change events, something needed to happen or all was lost. But the only avenue that was free, was his use of Seer.

Or, the thought struck him, his disuse of Seer. He looked into the blade yet again, closer this time. Very close indeed. He saw Mountaintaker soaring through the air. The airshipmen were hard at work, concentrating on their own tasks. But outside, a smaller ship flew. He saw it, and he watched a possibility unfold. It wasn't much of an option, but it was a change to the game.

Yllicus did three things, then. He sheathed Seer. Walked out onto the deck. And then dropped the sword off the edge.

[Gisk]

The prologue, I hope, is showing you how the two most complicated swords work. Seer and Witchblade. IF you have any questions, feel free to ask. In fact, here is a convo between me and Imp from the thread on the temp site. It might clear up any questions before you have them.

[hider=Spoiler]

Imp said 1. What is the relationship between Seer and causality? The post above seems a bit... confused about it. Now, I understood that the act of telling the traitor about his vision of victory caused the future to change, and thus that the swords do not take into account the changes that viewing the future can bring upon it. Yllicus did not see himself telling the traitor of the foreseen victory, and thus couldn't prepare for the double-cross. Going from here, let's say later, on the journey home, Yllicus sees in the future-sword that the ship will encounter a powerful storm, and uses that knowledge to change course and avoid said storm. Based on what we know already, this would work, because when it saw that the ship would be beset by the storm, the sword did not take into account the fact that Yllicus was watching, and that he had the power to change this outcome.

But, something bugged me about what he did when the ambush happened. He looked into the past, and somehow then he saw the double-cross, as well as the identity of the traitor and the traitor's motive... I just don't really get it. How does the Past sword work? Can it only see trains of causality that affect the wielder in a major way (basically, it saw who the traitor was because the treachery threatened Yllicus' life)? Even so, how could it possibly see the traitor's motive? The train of events went as such: A. Yllicus used the future sword to see his own victory --> B. Yllicus told his men that they would be victorious --> C. One of the men was a traitor, and used the gifted foreknowledge to warn the Dan Hurmding --> D. The battalion was ambushed

So, looking back, Yllicus knew of A., B., and D. from his own experience, only lacking the knowledge of what happened between B. and D. Using the sword, he was able to ascertain knowledge of C., and worked from there. However, the traitor's motive is in an entirely different train of causality, looking like this: Q. Some event caused the traitor to change his loyalty --> B. The traitor heard of the foreseen victory --> C. The traitor warned the Dan Hurmding --> D. The battalion was ambushed. So, B., C. and D. in these trains overlap, but Q. is entirely different, separate from everything else that happened.

The end question is this: how far back is the sword able to see? In this case, it jumped into a different perspective (different from Yllicus), the traitor's, and saw into the traitor's personal history far enough to ascertain the motive for the treachery. Could it go back farther, and show why the traitor was loyal to the empire in the first place? Could it tell Yllicus what the traitor had for breakfast the day he turned turncoat? Or, now that he has been attacked by the Witch, could it not look into her past and see how she got the sword, because that event lead circuitously to the ambush? Does the sword only show the wielder what he/she needs to see at that moment? If the latter, how is the importance of any single event decided? By the Gods? Is everything fated to happen, including the visions seen by wielders of the Seer? Is there truly no free will in this universe? As you can see, it has opened a bit of a philosophical can of worms for me...

Yours truly said 1: Both sword require great focus to use, and even using the future sword, one could easily miss something important(as Yllicus did). When he was looking into the past, he was specifically searching for what caused the ambush. I guess I wasn't clear enough, by the by, but the traitor is someone under the Witchblade's spell. That's what I meant by he saw "why" that person betrayed him. They didn't have a choice, and Yllicus saw him reporting to his mistress, the same woman that Yllicus sees moments before defeat.

1B: It doesn't give personal perspective, it views in third person limited(to use a literary term). I believe I gave adequate explanation of how Yllicus divined motive. As for how far back it goes: I intended for it to be difficult the further back you tried to look, but I never really thought of a number, and any I gave would be arbitrary. So, since I'm looking for an arbitrary number: The wielder can never see any further back in time than the moment of their own birth. They also, I should note, can only see things that happen relatively nearby where they are presently standing. Relatively, being, let's say, ten miles? Again, arbitrary numbers, but I suppose a limit should be put on it. And it requires more concentration the further in space and time they might try to look. He was able to divine the betrayal because it all happened between where the ship was anchored, and a small ways beyond the site of the ambush, and all within a few days.

The gods live in time, just as men do. They actually cannot see the future. Seer shows possible futures. What it shows is basically the course that events are taking. Any action taken by the wielder after seeing a prophecy can change it. And the more people the wielder tells, the more opportunity there is to alter the foretold future. So no, there is no predestination. In this world, one does have free will.

[/hider]

[Gisk]

Character sheets must include, but are not limited to:

Name:
Age:
Appearance(not picky about how you do this, image or description or whatever(if you can find a third option, I'll fucking applaud you) but if you do use an image, I may nitpick about it. You are forwarned)
Country of origin:
Background.

Doesn't have to be terribly long, but it does need to be readable, and convey a sense of the character. If they have a sword, please mention which.

[Yevin]

right
this weekend I'll finish up both my character and his race-thing.

I'm wondering - how old can an undead be? Is there a limit as to how long they could be walking around?
My character won't be terribly old but his race isn't in its prime condition either. So I was thinking maybe he's been dead for half a century to 70 years. To be around long enough to learn saideways, backways and whateverways around the empire and whatever else I had in his previous draft BS but not too long enough that it seems impossible.

[Yevin]

turn that 50-70 years into 25 years.
Changed mah mind

[Bigg Slamm]

i dont think im interested anymore. take care and happy role playing.

[Eyeris]

Hello everyone! I shall be playing un barbarian Chiquita sans special sword.

a.k.a. Normal Lady Dan Hurmding

[Gisk]

Excellent. I'd love to see some characters. In the mean time, I'm finishing up the prologue.

[IVIasterJay]

I'm thinking this is something I'd be interested in.

Can I call dibs on using a massive skystone sword? And by massive, I mean like onlytobeusedagainstcastlesorgiantsorXXXXXXXXLpizzas massive.

[Dblade26]

While that sounds cool, since Skystone has negative weight and the negative weight-ness increases the more skystone you have, how would you even keep the sword from floating away or even pulling you with it, much less put any weight or power behind the strike to allow you to destroy things?