BurningDaisies

D&D Casual Campaign Test

I'm tentatively interested, pending the edition of D&D we'd be playing with.

Dragon's Ascent - An Eastern Fantasy RP

This one is strange... I didn't think Dragon domain merchants were so aggressive. Maybe she's behind on sales or can't find a good market stall?

Lacking enough etiquette to prevent her own impropriety, she stared long at the gathering, before starting to lose interest. She wasn't in the mood to entertain a traveling merchant. They were usually selling snake oil and fake antiques anyway. Nor did she believe hunting bears would be to her benefit. Sure, they were cute and fluffy when you saw them at a distance, but they were all teeth and claws up close. Fei Lan wanted nothing to do with it.

She approached the bar and fumbled for the coin purse she had stashed in her sleeves. It jingled and shifted under her grip, but felt lighter than she had remembered.

Oh no...

Quickly, she pulled the drawstring on her coin pouch and checked the contents, desperately hoping her fears weren't true. Her lips curled into a pout. She winced as she counted only three stamped silver coins left, and frantically wracked her brain, trying to remember where the rest of it had been spent. There was barely enough here to buy breakfast, let alone a night's stay at an inn. Her trail rations were running low as well.

The tavern keeper shot her an expectant look. His wrinkled brow seemed to say "Either buy something or get out," as if he already knew what her dilemma was.

She choked down her exasperation, letting only a curt sigh escape. Often, she would stop by small villages to perform "miracles", cleansing wells and healing minor injuries to cover her travel expenses, but she hadn't come across even the smallest oasis of human life in the past week. Either she had terrible luck or this town was in the middle of nowhere.

Bears, hunh?

She definitely needed the money, and any job as dangerous as hunting bears would definitely pay well. She put two fingers against her brow and began kneading the tension under skin, hoping to massage away the frustration as she weighed her options. Fighting was not well-suited to her abilities, but she could be a scout. Very few beasts could sense her presence while she was shrouded in fog, and she could just call on the local water spirits to find the bears.

With a quick glance as the tavern keeper, she swallowed her anxiety, put down her last three coins on the counter and order a flagon of stew and skewered meat for the road. The food was promptly furnished in thin cloth bindings. She nodded in thanks to the bar maid who brought it, and started towards the job board.

In a soft voice, she hailed the adventurers and directed her attention at the swordsman.

"If you'll have me, I can offer my services as a scout."

There. She said it. Not an ounce of nervousness in her voice, but it knotted and bundled itself in her chest instead.
She wore a shimmering steel-white hanfu dress beneath a simple hooded cloth robe that was obviously much too big for her small frame. All of her clothes were immaculately clean and in pristine condition. She thought of the rangers she'd met previously, and recalled their tattered cloaks, dirty faces, week-old body odor. No forest tracker in the history of the world looked like she did, or so she believed.
She didn't know the first thing about tracking animals like those rugged mountain men in her homeland, and she was sure to garner some suspicion from this group. She kept her head lowered a bit to keep her face covered, leaving only the delicate features of her mouth and chin visible.

Dragon's Ascent - An Eastern Fantasy RP

It is going slowly.

And while I know I'm not helping the situation, there's not much I can do about it.
I'll finishing writing a post when my schedule allows for it.

(Which should be later today sometime actually...)

Dragon's Ascent - An Eastern Fantasy RP

As the Sun slowly climbed into the sky, a dry warmth sank through the canopy of dark orange leaves and reached the long, curtained boughs on which Fei Lan slept. The crisp autumn breeze felt cool and refreshing as it brushed against her skin. With a stir, her eyes slowly opened to the amber glow engulfing the treetop. She stretched lazily, drinking in the morning air. With the side of her hand, she dabbed her eyes, rubbing gently away the lingering malaise of her deep slumber.

Sitting up, she fumbled for the rucksack she had been using as a bed cushion and hung the strap over her shoulder. She cast her legs over the side of the bough to dangle freely and peered through the branches at ground below; no immediate threats caught her attention. She could easily outrun a hungry bear or a sprinting tiger, but being caught unaware was always a dangerous possibility, and Fei Lan was keen on not becoming some furry woodland creature's breakfast.

With a leap of faith, she dropped to the ground with a muffled sound; her footfalls rustled the leaves as she landed. She glanced around again, still wary. The woods were still, but the chorus of birds around never changed. Neither she nor anything else seemed to startle them.

Good.

A sigh of relief escaped her parted lips and her fingers ran through the bracelet of charms on her wrist and found a deep blue lapis bauble. She held it close to her chest and began to chant in a quiet cadence, using it as a focus to gather her Qi and manifest it. A current of vital energy coursed into her lungs at her beckoning call. She drew in a long, deep breath and exhaled her accumulated Qi as a cloud of fine mist that quickly eveloped her body and immediate environs.

She preferred travelling this way. With a nimbus of loose mist around her, most predators could not track her masked scent and brigands never found her. Having lost her previous travelling companions, it was necessary to take steps to protect herself.

---

Within a couple hours the beaten trail led her to the small town of Kizun. Upon seeing it, her heart sank.

"What rotten luck..." She grumbled quietly.

If she had known there was a town this close by, she would have travelled a bit further and slept in an actual bed rather than sleeping on a uncomfortable wooden hammock in the middle of nowhere.

After dispersing the envelope of mist she had created, she trudged into town with a sullen expression. Fortunately, her face was somewhat obscured by long hooded robes. The last thing she needed was some well-meaning numbskull to misinterpret her pretty face and sour mood as her being a "damsel in distress". It wouldn't be the first time.

Presently, she wandered toward the local tavern eager to find some breakfast. A real breakfast. Stale trail rations could only hold their appeal for so long. Her mouth began to water as soon as she caught the tempting aroma of cooked meat and rice.

From the corner of her eye, she caught the sight of three strangers gathering around some kind of sign board. Torn between a sudden pique in curiosity and the smell of hot food, she froze in place.

Dragon's Ascent - An Eastern Fantasy RP

I'm working on a post now, if it makes you feel any better.

Dragon's Ascent - An Eastern Fantasy RP

Full disclosure: I'm out of town for a convention. So I'll be scarce until Monday.

Thanks for the update though; I'll piece together a post when I have some spare time.

Dragon's Ascent - An Eastern Fantasy RP

So little faith.

An RP never dies unless everyone involved gives up on it.

Dungeons & Dragons - Tavern Table (All are welcome)

I don't really think it's feasible in normal table-top play for GM to balance both his own character and GMing the game. More to the point, I feel that it steals some of the spotlight away from the players, even if the GM is being fair about it.
The only way I've seen this done that I wouldn't mind personally, is when every player is also a GM. And in this particular example case, each person rotated the role of GM every week. So they all contributed as GMs, but were all also players.

In forum roleplays, it's not only feasible, but been done and, depending on the situation, encouraged. Some games have a team of CoGM's, making such an option even more viable.

Dragon's Ascent - An Eastern Fantasy RP

Fei Lan

.: Fei Lan :.

| : [ Appearance ] : |

Hider

Age: 19

| : [ Abilities ] : |

~ Water Augury ~
The spirits that inhabit rivers, lakes, and seas are always communing with one another, even across vast swaths of open land. Through this, Fei Lan too can commune with the myriad water spirits and if they are willing to offer up their senses, she can perceive the world as they do.
By offering her Qi to these spirits, she can view remote locations as long as both she and her desired location are in contact with water. The nearby water source must also be large enough to house a spirit, such as a small pond, well, or prodigious puddle.
In addition, neither clouds, mist, fog, heavy rain, snow, or any standing body of water can hinder her senses. By invoking the nature of her Qi and using it to enhance her senses, she maintains a supernatural connection to the water around her allowing her to navigate unimpeded and locate other creatures in the area. She experiences the world through the water, seeing and feeling it as if she were there herself. The range is limited to only a small area though.

~ Eyes of the Storm ~
Nature leaves subtle hints in the slow meandering of clouds and the whistling of the wind. There's a distinct pattern in the way weather forms and moves which Fei Lan is attuned with. She can perceive these subtleties and accurately divine the weather for the next couple of days.

~ Water Purification ~
By combining water and aether energies, Fei Lan can purify water of poison, disease, or filth. However, the cleansing is limited to only small bodies of water such as wells, ponds, and brooks.

~ Unyielding Vigor ~
The abundance of Aether element caged inside her small body allows her to continue moving, when others would collapse from exhaustion. She is preternaturally athletic and can subsist on her own Qi instead of natural physical energy. She can run and swim for hours, scarcely needs any rest, and is active throughout most of the day and night, needing only to nap lightly for a few hours to cleanse any fatigue.

| : [ Affinity ] : |

Water - Primary
Aether - Secondary

| : [ Personality ] : |

A bit bull-headed and willful at times, but Fei Lan is usually gentle and easy-going like the lazy rivers around where she grew up. She does everything at her own pace and in her own time. Sometimes she's seen as being air-headed for paying little mind to how she trouble's others with her behavior, but this belies her sharp wit and lifelong pursuit of fun-filled mischief.

| : [ History ] : |

Hider

Where the twin rivers meet and spill out into the sea east of the Turtle domain is a small fishing village, Shengshan. If the local folklore is to be believed, it has been there since the age of creatiom, when the sacred beasts of ancient legend rose the land and mountains. There's never been more than a hundred or so residents at a time. Many venture off and settle elsewhere.

Shengshan is a village steeped in old and strange traditions. Among them is the long line of shamans and oracles; these shamans have no blood lineage, but every generation one is born among the villager who is blessed by the nearby water spirits and gifted with oracular abilities. Fei Lan is one of them.

Born to humble parents, a fisherman and a seamstress, she was quickly discovered as the next oracle and raised in the local shrine. The all-seeing eyes and keen intuition of the village elders are not to be underestimated.

The next thirteen years of her life were spent preparing to succeed the previous generation's oracle. She went through rigorous study to learn the ways of nature spirits and how to entice them with her potent Qi so she could become a vessel for them. Her innate talent was extroardinary, allowing her to achieve a high degree of control after almost a decade of strict training. She could attract water spirits for miles around and take them into her body with little to no resistance. She let them feed on her Qi and in return they suffused her with their own power. She could see distant lands and feel the mixing of natural energy in wild sanctuaries, but her clairvoyant visions couldn't be a substitute for actually being there. She longed to visit those ancient and wild places.

As a child, she befriended a young scoundrel by the name Jizu. He would often hide inside the shrine to escape punishment for pranking the adults and diving into the sacred springs to chase the koi.

Through him, Fei Lan learned about all the fun things outside of the temple. And through her, Jizu learned about the old spirits of the deep sea and the fierce serpents of the river.

As the time for Fei Lan purification ceremony drew near, as the realization she would be committed to this tiny village for the rest of her life began to set in, so too did the shadows of doubt. In secret, she planned to escape, and journey to the places she saw in her visions.

She and Jizu stowed away on a merchant vessel bound for foreign shores, but a storm swelled and under those dark clouds brigands fell upon their ship, slaughtering much of the crew.

The two were taken prisoner. Combining Jizu's burgeoning powers of water manipulation and Fei Lan's ability to read the weather and influence water spirits, they were able to trick the pirates into believing they were descended from some powerful sea gods. Bluffing their way through the ordeal, both safely made it to a small port town, and from then have been travelling ever since, indulging in their wanderlust.

| : [ Equipment ] : |

~ Medicine Pouch ~
filled with dried herbs, as well as small containers of unguents, salves, and healing balms

~ Hanfu-styled traditional dress ~

~ Small pieces of jewelry ~
Each of piece is used to entice a particular kind of water spirit, some prefer crystals, other metal or ceramic

~ Sacred Gourd ~
filled with purified water and a large copper bowl for divination rituals

~ An heirloom pendant made from a shard of a large pearl; supposedly, its a remnant of a Dragon's sacred pearl of wisdom.

| : [ Other ] : |

Despite her affinity for Aether, her skill in it is low and every technique she's learned about controlling it thus far has been self-taught.

Likewise, she has no formal training in any martial arts, but with the help of her village's elders, instead developed her natural born talent for manipulating Qi to make up for it. She knows few self-defense techniques, but can often outrun any would-be pursuer.

Dragon's Ascent - An Eastern Fantasy RP

@PKMNB0Y, Would it be alright to add my CS to the character list?
I'm more or less done with the history.