[OOC] Far From Home

[Vena Sera]

Character Sheets

Hiro Miyamoto

Display Name: Suto

Real Name: Hiro Miyamoto

Age: 17

Appearance:


Background: Hiro Miyamoto is a native of Ichigawa, having lived in the snowy vale all of his life. Born into a middle-class family as an only child he had plenty of attention growing up. Despite doing average in school his parents were happy with him, content on letting him do for the most part as he pleased as well, anything to keep their lone child happy. Outside of class he spent a great deal of time outdoors, taking up various different activities, with snowboarding sticking after many years. Being out and about and having fun is his main priority in life; always has been and always will be.
Having met his best friend Alexander Watanabe at an early age the two had been great friends ever since meeting. While Hiro loved the outdoors Alex played games, and eventually the two crossed over slightly, with Hiro in particular taking a bit more of a liking to video games. He played sparingly, really only when he and his friends spent time together. Upon the announcement of Sword Art Online though his interest peaked, and with little urgency from anyone else he went and picked up the game with Alex and their mutual friend Mizuki. Had he any idea what he was getting into he’d probably have stayed in bed that day.

SAO Player Build: DPS; Dagger and Martial Arts.

Status: Alive

Mizuki Yukimura

Display Name: Yari
Real Name: Mizuki Yukimura
Age: 17

Appearance:



Background: Mizuki grew up in Ichigawa with Alex and Hiro, a small town in the snowy mountains of Japan. She had great grades, participated in several extracurricular activities, and still made time for her two best friends. She had an air about her that just screamed “leader.” Despite her time being stretched so thin, Mizuki managed to keep up interests with them, from gaming to just generally spending time together. She was smart, got good grades, and was definitely on her way to getting into a new school until she and her two friends stepped foot into Aincrad for the very first time and were left with no way out. She was, perhaps, one of the most composed of them and quickly regained her bearings, thus snapping Alexander back to reality and helping him to be able to process the situation.

SAO Build: Spear-user and medium-weight armorer.

Status: Dead

Alexander Watanabe

Display Name: Fitch
Real Name: Alexander Watanabe
Age: 17

Appearance:



Background: Alexander’s mother was German and she met his father on a business trip to Japan. She was an interpretor for her company – a job which she left after finding out she was pregnant. He grew up with a very strict father who was often working, but his mother was more of a “free spirit” so he was able to live life far more loosely than his father would have liked. His grades were fair, but he didn’t want to stand out academically. Thanks to Mizuki, he actually stayed in good shape, because of her limited time, their small group would often be practicing sports or something of the like together, though he was never in pristine condition like she was. He liked technology and, while his father disapproved of it, gaming. He was one of the first to acquire a Nerve Gear and beta tested almost every game that became available to him – including Sword Art Online. Hiro was his best friend and the two were like brothers, despite their rather different personalities, and if it weren’t for him and Mizuki – as well as the other friends that they had from past games – he likely would not have been able to cope with the incident. However, he will reveal himself to be one of the strongest survivors eventually, but only due to the help of his friends with the initial shock of their situation.

SAO Build: Sword & Shield user with medium-light armor.

Status: Alive

Lynn Carter

Display name: Luna
Real name: Lynn Carter
Age: 17

Appearance:


Background:
Lynn Carter was born to two business crazy parents who were constantly trying to reach new heights and grab every opportunity before them. This wouldn’t have been a problem, if not for them constantly leaving the child to her own devices and placing crazy expectations on her shoulders.
“If it’s not the best…it’s not good enough.”
The sentence was drilled into her head ever since she was a child and Lynn learned to detest failure. The girl would do whatever she could to make her parents happy and it showed in her no-nonsense attitude and study habits. When Lynn went for something she gave it her all.
Life in Florida was good to her until her parents were assigned to Japan. It was like a promotion of sorts since it opened new opportunities and offered better pay. They grabbed at the chance and eight-year-old Lynn bid the home she knew goodbye.
Japan was new and it took some time to adjust, but her parents were happy…
The girl tried extra hard to learn the language, make friends and she did succeed eventually but it was hard and getting used to the strange place wasn’t easy. Still, Lynn continued with her life, eventually turning to video games when things were dull or uneventful. It became like a drug, something that added an extra kick to her everyday activities, so when homework was over she’d always come back to the worlds that awaited her on the other side of the screen.
When she heard of SAO, she rushed to one of the stores to get a copy.

SAO Build: Daggers and thrown weapons.

Status: Alive

Kenshin Takami

Display Name: Kenshin
Real Name: Kenshin Takami
Age: 17
Appearance:



Background: Kenshin was born in the coastal city of Niigata and is about as nerdy as you can get. His parents have always stressed the importance of following one’s own interests. The problem is, Kenshin doesn’t like social activities. Kenshin often overworks himself in school and is quite hard on himself when it comes to failure. He is pretty solitary in nature and enjoys reading or playing video games over all else. He mostly plays video games offline and by himself, though recently has been playing more online. He met Hiro, Alexander, and Mizuki separately in different video games and, despite never having met them in person, considers them to be among his few friends. When he heard of the Nerve Gear, Kenshin consulted with the trio and was persuaded to purchase it himself along with SAO. Kenshin planned on meeting up with Hiro, Alexander, and Mizuki in Aincrad and perhaps joining a guild with them if they’d have him. He thought it would help him get over his aversion to social interaction. When the game started however, Kenshin found himself trapped in an eternal hell surrounded with people and no way to get out.

SAO Player Build: Two-handed katana user with light to medium armor. Also carries several throwing picks for medium range.

Status: Dead

Alphard Shurai

Display Name: Alphard Shurai
Real Name: Ayano Nobunaga
Age: 18

Appearance:


Background: Ayano grew up in Niigata, a coastal town, and has been Kenshin’s neighbor for many years. The two often played together as children and to this day, still spend a significant amount of time together. In other words, it’s been just about enough time for Ayano to fall deeply in love with Kenshin. Nervous about what she’s feeling, Ayano never came out and told Kenshin her feelings, but has dropped plenty of hints. Upon hearing that Kenshin would be purchasing the Nerve Gear and Sword Art Online, she formulated a plan: to meet up with Kenshin in Aincrad anonymously and gauge his feelings for her “good friend”. Unbeknownst to her, Kenshin has also had feelings for her this whole time. He was simply unsure on how to express his feelings due to his general awkwardness.

Ayano, while being a generally nice person, has some deep seated emotional problems. Her parents had died when she was quite young, leaving her to be cared for by her aunt, who in turn left as soon as Ayano was old enough to live alone. This has led to some powerful anger issues and an abandonment complex. Indeed, one of the reasons that she loves Kenshin so much is that he is one of the only people that looks past her issues and accepts her as a person.

In the end, Ayano did end up purchasing the Nerve Gear, but was severely ill on the opening day. Instead, Asano was confined to her bed and, therefore, missed all the news regarding the trapped players. Sometime during the night, Ayano’s fever broke, and she decided to spend the next day relaxing and playing video games in bed. Unfortunately, the game she decided to play was Sword Art Online. Upon entering, Ayano was bombarded with questions from fellow gamers about her reactions to being stuck in the game, which only confused her. Finally, she hunted down an information broker and forced them to explain what had happened. The news was devastating for her. The deep-seated anger issues Ayano had worked her whole life to contain simply exploded, leaving her in a perpetual rage. It became her life’s goal to find Kenshin and, with him, utterly destroy the crowbegotten man who had trapped her in this hell.

SAO build: one-handed scythe user with a tower shield. Carries javelins for medium-range. Heavy armor.

Status: Alive

"Doku"

Display Name: Doku
Real Name: ???
Age: ???

Appearance:


Background: To be revealed.

Status: Alive

Kimiko Yagami

Display Name: Kimigami

Real Name: Kimiko Yagami

Age: 14

Appearance:


Background: Kimiko grew up in a rather low-end neighborhood of Tokyo. She had two little brothers, identical twins, who were quite a handful. Their father died when all of them were relatively young, thus causing their mother to enter a deep depression. Kimiko still doesn’t quite understand how they still have a home, but the cooking, cleaning, and care of her brothers fell on her shoulders. Nobody outside of her close family knew the kind of neglect they all faced… whenever they visited their relatives, Kimiko would even be sure that her mother was presentable and got to the train station on time. When one of her few friends from school invited her over to try out a new game on the first virtual reality system, she was very excited. She made her own character, and felt a guilty pleasure in escaping her real family for a while… That is, until it came time for her to leave and the logout button was gone.

SAO Build: Rapier and leather armor.

Status: Alive

Kazaro

Display Name: Kazaro
Real Name: Undisclosed
Age: 25

Appearance:
(Click for better resolution)

Who He is: Vice Commander of the Knights of the Blood, directly beneath Heathcliffe. He’s a strong leader and a forgiving soul. In fact, he’s quite kind, it’s what garners him so much respect. However, he’s also prideful, so if you’ve offended him with purpose, he will hold onto it until a proper, sincere apology has been issued.

SAO Build: One of few Katana users in the world, medium-weight metal armour. DPS.

Status: Alive

Jason

Display Name: Icefang336
Real Name: Jason Ritchie

Age: 19

Appearance:


Background:
Jason is one of the few Americans who was able to join Sword Art Online. He was raised in Pike’s Peak, Colorado after his parents’ untimely deaths. They had died in a car crash while on vacation in New York City. Jason was very young at the time. Worried about his emotional welfare, the Ritchie elders gave Jason everything that he asked for in life. Jason didn’t take advantage of their hospitality, though, and did his fair share of housework. Jason had always excelled greatly in school, mostly regarding problem solving and real-world application of his skills. It was no great leap in logic for Jason to apply these skills to gaming. Jason likes to grind the video games he plays into the dust by breaking the logic of the games. Take SAO, for example. Jason uses light armor and has put all his available ranks into increasing his speed. Following the game’s logic would give him a speed based weapon, like a knife or short sword. This couldn’t be further from the truth. Jason specializes in using heavy, high-damage weapons. This allows him to get up close to enemies, behind their defenses, and deal crippling blows. The only strength boosts Jason utilizes are those needed to wield his weapons.

His bizarre display name was a mistake Jason made while signing in. Jason thought that the display name was like a username in the U.S., not an actual name for his avatar. That said, he urges his friends to use his real name. Jason has an easygoing, jocular attitude. He constantly shoots off jokes and plays pranks to keep people’s spirits up. This outward manner is just a front, though. It hides an inner strength and resolve to protect those he loves.

SAO player build: Two-handed heavy weapons (Hammer/mace), light armor, and several speed stat booster items (circlet, bracelet, rings, amulet, and the armor's weight class). Carries an excess of health potions for himself and is more than willing to share.

Status: Alive

Nero

Display Name: Nero
Real Name: Unshared

Age: 16

Appearance:


History: Nero is known Aincrad-wide as the most wealthy player in SAO. He amassed his fortune by material hunting, giving him a hefty safety margin while simultaneously giving him the biggest bank of any other player. He is a member of the KoB, directly beneath Vice Commander Kazaro and his speed is rather remarkable. He has shared none of his life outside of the game and still few know much of who he really is. Currently, he has been able to sit on his metaphorical dragon's horde of cash by maintaining a level of strength above most other players. However, with the KoB behind him now, his personal coffers face even less danger.

SAO Build: Curved blade, light armor, speed, material hunter.

Status: Alive

Chronology of Events

• November 6, 2022: Sword Art Online begins. Akihiko Kayaba makes his fateful appearance and reveals to the players the true nature of his game.



• March 14, 2023: Floor 11 is reached by the players, with the group being among the Clearers. Luna is nearly killed in the ensuing boss battle, but is saved by the diligence of other players. Frontlines move to Floor 12.



• May 16, 2023: Currently on Floor 21, the group takes a reprieve to celebrate Yari's 18th birthday. Also the day Fitch and Yari are married, though they keep it a secret.



• June 10, 2023: The Floor 25 boss is set to be tackled by the Clearers. With no information available they go in blind, led by Heathcliffe of the Knights of Blood. The battle that ensues turns out to be against a deviant kind of boss, a dual wielding giant. Of the 49 players in attendance 17 fall to the beast, with Yari being among their ranks. The frontlines move to Floor 26, albeit after a hollow victory.



• August 14, 2023: The mood going into Floor 26 is anything but elated as Clearers are still recovering from their loses. To pass time, Nero opts for the group to take on a quest to collect a bounty, involving the slaying of a dragon. In the heat of battle a mistake leads to Kenshin being exposed, and ultimately his demise. The quest is completed, albeit with little sense of accomplishment. It is the second member the group has lost to date, and within one floor of one another. The group returns to town with hearts heavier than ever.



• October 24, 2023: Floor 30. With the recent struggles against bosses, the Clearers are much more hesitant to approach the tower. As such, groups splinter off for the time being to train until the time is deemed right. Members of the KoB, including Kazaro, Nero and Suto, travel out to the deserts in order to take on a quest. Along the way they run into Alphard and Jason, and later on Kimi as well. While inside the dungeon the group encounters ghastly apparitions of their fallen comrades and dispatch them with haste, with Nero being particularly haunted by them. Meanwhile, Doku has formally enlisted Fitch into his guild and they embark on their first task. Their mission is to track down "player killers" in the desert and kill them for a bounty. Under these pretenses Fitch agrees readily, and the pair proceeds to both find and slay the offenders. None the wiser, Fitch follows Doku back to town to collect their rewards.

[Goldenflame27]

Display Name: Kenshin
Real Name: Kenshin Takami
Age: 17
Appearance:


http://anime.desktopnexus.com/wallpaper/328142/

Background: Kenshin was born in the coastal city of Niigata and is about as nerdy as you can get. His parents have always stressed the importance of following one’s own interests. The problem is, Kenshin doesn’t like social activities. Kenshin often overworks himself in school and is quite hard on himself when it comes to failure. He is pretty solitary in nature and enjoys reading or playing video games over all else. He mostly plays video games offline and by himself, though recently has been playing more online. He met Hiro, Alexander, and Mizuki separately in different video games and, despite never having met them in person, considers them to be among his few friends. When he heard of the Nerve Gear, Kenshin consulted with the trio and was persuaded to purchase it himself along with SAO. Kenshin planned on meeting up with Hiro, Alexander, and Mizuki in Aincrad and perhaps joining a guild with them if they’d have him. He thought it would help him get over his aversion to social interaction. When the game started however, Kenshin found himself trapped in an eternal hell surrounded with people and no way to get out.

SAO Player Build: Two-handed katana user with light to medium armor. Also carries several throwing picks for medium range.

[Vena Sera]

Nice, added you to the list :D

[Goldenflame27]

Hey guys If it's all right with you, I have an idea for a possible boss for FFH. I will explain below:

The boss room is a rough square hewn from stone. It's lit from only a few torches set into the walls, so its pretty dark. The boss is a pretty burly guy with green skin and a row of spikes running down his back. the weapon he carries is a ginormous maul and a roundshield. pretty standard attack patterns, seemingly easy to beat. As soon as the boss reaches yellow health, he lets loose a roar that blows all enemy combatants backwards. His lower body then transforms into a base surrounded by legs vaguely reminiscent of a spider. another body, his one with red skin grows out of the boss's back, joined at the lower spine. This way the boss can cover both directions at once. The second body wields a one handed greataxe. the roar also can be emitted at various other intervals, at the boss's desire. When killed, the boss drops an amulet that allows for faster re-equipping of items, armor, and weapons in battle. Also dropped is a high-level cleaver and a crap ton of Col.

[Scout]

Hm... sounds like a boss for the 70s-90s floors. ^^ Good idea putting it here, so that we can reference it later.

[Vena Sera]

This idea, I like :) We shall sticky-note this for later!

[Goldenflame27]

Display Name: Alphard Shurai
Real Name: Ayano Nobunaga
Age: 18
Appearance:



Ayano grew up in Niigata, a coastal town, and has been Kenshin’s neighbor for many years. The two often played together as children and to this day, still spend a significant amount of time together. In other words, it’s been just about enough time for Ayano to fall deeply in love with Kenshin. Nervous about what she’s feeling, Ayano never came out and told Kenshin her feelings, but has dropped plenty of hints. Upon hearing that Kenshin would be purchasing the Nerve Gear and Sword Art Online, she formulated a plan: to meet up with Kenshin in Aincrad anonymously and gauge his feelings for her “good friend”. Unbeknownst to her, Kenshin has also had feelings for her this whole time. He was simply unsure on how to express his feelings due to his general awkwardness.
Ayano, while being a generally nice person, has some deep seated emotional problems. Her parents had died when she was quite young, leaving her to be cared for by her aunt, who in turn left as soon as Ayano was old enough to live alone. This has led to some powerful anger issues and an abandonment complex. Indeed, one of the reasons that she loves Kenshin so much is that he is one of the only people that looks past her issues and accepts her as a person.
In the end, Ayano did end up purchasing the Nerve Gear, but was severely ill on the opening day. Instead, Asano was confined to her bed and, therefore, missed all the news regarding the trapped players. Sometime during the night, Ayano’s fever broke, and she decided to spend the next day relaxing and playing video games in bed. Unfortunately, the game she decided to play was Sword Art Online. Upon entering, Ayano was bombarded with questions from fellow gamers about her reactions to being stuck in the game, which only confused her. Finally, she hunted down an information broker and forced them to explain what had happened. The news was devastating for her. The deep-seated anger issues Ayano had worked her whole life to contain simply exploded, leaving her in a perpetual rage. It became her life’s goal to find Kenshin and, with him, utterly destroy the crowbegotten man who had trapped her in this hell.
SAO build: one-handed scythe user with a tower shield. Carries javelins for medium-range. Heavy armor.

[Goldenflame27]

here's the images for Alphard since the image input code apparently still doesn't like me.

http://cghub.com/images/view/435855/ http://anime.desktopnexus.com/wallpaper/1483582/

[Scout]

There's not a whole lot to see there, Nate O_O What does she look like without armour? Seeing as armour can be added via description later, we need to know what she looks like underneath. ^^

[Goldenflame27]

the rightmost link is under the armor. the leftmost is with the armor on. She does have some slight armor on in the rightmost, but that's because she always wears that much armor.

[Scout]

Ohh, I see it now. I thought that there was only one link - when you post a link type [ url=insert web address here ]Word(s)[/url ] (take the spaces out - you can see the codes below the text box for when you're writing a post) and do that for each one when you do. ^^ Makes it easier - I only saw the one with all the armour.

[Scout]

Kimiko "Kimigami" Yagami

Display Name: Kimigami

Real Name: Kimiko Yagami

Age: 14

Appearance:
(Click for higher resolution)

Background: Kimiko grew up in a rather low-end neighborhood of Tokyo. She had two little brothers, identical twins, who were quite a handful. Their father died when all of them were relatively young, thus causing their mother to enter a deep depression. Kimiko still doesn’t quite understand how they still have a home, but the cooking, cleaning, and care of her brothers fell on her shoulders. Nobody outside of her close family knew the kind of neglect they all faced… whenever they visited their relatives, Kimiko would even be sure that her mother was presentable and got to the train station on time. When one of her few friends from school invited her over to try out a new game on the first virtual reality system, she was very excited. She made her own character, and felt a guilty pleasure in escaping her real family for a while… That is, until it came time for her to leave and the logout button was gone.

[Goldenflame27]

just thought I would put in a suggestion for plot. Because everyone is distraught over Yari's death, we might want to give floor clearing a short rest and just stay in a city on the 26th floor. I will also be killing Kenshin, so we can work on very much character development. I was planning on killing him off on a side quest for an NPC by a giant, black dragon.

[Vena Sera]

That sounds epic ^^ Poor Kenshin though D:

And yeah, now that we've gotten Yari's death done we'll be slowing the pace a little. There's plenty to do still though :D

[Goldenflame27]

I had a thought about the quest, if you guys are up for it. If we don't have an idea for floor 26s theme, it could be a medieval European city surrounded by fields and forests. An NPC enters the city and stays at the southern gates. When one asks what's up with him, he responds that his sister was kidnapped by evil knights in order to be fed to a dragon. he then requests that you help rescue her. If you accept, the quest <<Rescue the Damsel>> begins. The NPC gives each member of the team a special item, <<Dragonlance amulet>> whose effect is the only way that one can damage the beast.(paints He also escorts you to the beginning of the dragon's domain, a cave in the deepest part of the forest. When the players get there, they are set upon by the evil knights. These enemies are approx. seven feet tall and wear full black plate armor. They also have impressive, curling ram's horns. If the players defeat the knights, they can enter the cave and find that it is quite labyrinthian. The players navigate the tunnels and end up with the dragon and a young, beautiful woman tied to a stalagmite in a wide cavern. FIGHT! Kenshin gets eaten or stomped or impaled on a stalagmite. (I haven't decided yet but I'm leaning towards the last one.) if beaten, the dragon drops scales and claws that can be used to forge new weapons or upgrade current weapons, lotsa money (also opens a hidden door to his treasure trove if the players notice (it's hidden around the back of a stalactite nearly touching the floor)), and the players get to keep the amulets. The amulet abilities change to increasing damage against dragon type enemies.

sorry this is so long, but I was pretty excited when I came up with the idea.

[Vena Sera]

Oooooh, that sounds fun :D

The only thing I might have issue with is the amulet giving buffs against dragonkin, just because I don't imagine there's terribly many of them, making the amulet kind of obsolete in most cases.

Otherwise it seems like a fun idea :D Let's see what Brad thinks of it, but with a tiny bit of tweaking it could definitely work.

[Goldenflame27]

Sounds great. Can you think of a good buff from the amulet to be given after the fight? I'm kinda drawing a blank

[Scout]

I quite like it. For the record, Nero would certainly be going on this quest. Ties in with somethin I was thinking of, actually... Perhaps Nero invites them all to it? Seeing as he's a material hunter and there's money to be made. Kenshin dies, blahblahblah.

I think the amulet's buff is fine. It would likely be more of an aesthetic item and the quest would probably be one of those that only one group could do, or a few could do, before it stopped spawning for players. Much like the one where Kirito gets the crystallite for Dark Repulser. But I digress. ^^ I think it's great and seeing as the scales, claws, fangs, etc. are the bigger reward, the amulets would be just fine.

[Goldenflame27]

Sweet, thanks for your input guys.

[Goldenflame27]

Jason Ritchie

Display Name: Icefang336
Real Name: Jason Ritchie
Age: 19
Appearance:

Click Me
Background:

Jason is one of the few Americans who was able to join Sword Art Online. He was raised in Pike’s Peak, Colorado after his parents’ untimely deaths. They had died in a car crash while on vacation in New York City. Jason was very young at the time. Worried about his emotional welfare, the Ritchie elders gave Jason everything that he asked for in life. Jason didn’t take advantage of their hospitality, though, and did his fair share of housework. Jason had always excelled greatly in school, mostly regarding problem solving and real-world application of his skills. It was no great leap in logic for Jason to apply these skills to gaming. Jason likes to grind the video games he plays into the dust by breaking the logic of the games. Take SAO, for example. Jason uses light armor and has put all his available ranks into increasing his speed. Following the game’s logic would give him a speed based weapon, like a knife or short sword. This couldn’t be further from the truth. Jason specializes in using heavy, high-damage weapons. This allows him to get up close to enemies, behind their defenses, and deal crippling blows. The only strength boosts Jason utilizes are those needed to wield his weapons.

His bizarre display name was a mistake Jason made while signing in. Jason thought that the display name was like a username in the U.S., not an actual name for his avatar. That said, he urges his friends to use his real name. Jason has an easygoing, jocular attitude. He constantly shoots off jokes and plays pranks to keep people’s spirits up. This outward manner is just a front, though. It hides an inner strength and resolve to protect those he loves.

SAO player build: Two-handed heavy weapons (Hammer/mace), light armor, and several speed stat booster items (circlet, bracelet, rings, amulet, and the armor's weight class). Carries an excess of health potions for himself and is more than willing to share.