CS Template up. I generally prefer to have CSes made within the Int Chek before getting the OOC and IC up at the same time. Saves hassle and space.
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@Flamelord@CyanideSweetie@Rawk@Patches@Claw2k11@Shuck
All info I had in mind is done now. I'll probably set up a CS template after dinner or something.
If you have any questions that aren't related to "what does this weird term mean?", go shoot.
All info I had in mind is done now. I'll probably set up a CS template after dinner or something.
If you have any questions that aren't related to "what does this weird term mean?", go shoot.
@Rawk
It's based off a mix of ideas, the strongest influence being Ayanashi.
It's based off a mix of ideas, the strongest influence being Ayanashi.
@Patches
No combat system out of just...writing? I'm planning on being a little more lax than usual about what feats characters can pull off here. In terms of death, you're gonna die a lot, but Daybreakers are just as immortal as the Tyrants they face. Permadeath is still possible, but it'll be up to you if you want to go for your swan song.
They aren't particularly pyrokinetic. I'll explain this more in another info blurb.
No combat system out of just...writing? I'm planning on being a little more lax than usual about what feats characters can pull off here. In terms of death, you're gonna die a lot, but Daybreakers are just as immortal as the Tyrants they face. Permadeath is still possible, but it'll be up to you if you want to go for your swan song.
They aren't particularly pyrokinetic. I'll explain this more in another info blurb.
The sun doesn’t rise and the stars don’t shine. Utter darkness encapsulates the surface world, broken only by a Scarlet Moon that illuminates a banquet of bloodshed for the deathless Tyrants roaming remnants of the Age of Indulgence. A black miasma pervades civilization’s ruins, rotting the lungs and deluding the mind, white carcasses strewn everywhere as monsters enjoy their immortality within this lifeless landscape.
The world had ended, God slain and its children slaughtered.
But humanity’s last clung on, persistently surviving deep underground, huddling in the darkness of caves, subsisting off subterranean lifeforms and finding comfort in what flames could be cultivated within. Small communities flourished into multi-level towns, held together by scaffolding, rudimentary tunnels becoming the foundation for an entire network. They survived, yet still, they were vermin, hiding in the shadows of their predators, their desperation for survival enough that entire towns would be quarantined if monsters sniffed it out.
It was a pitiful, cowardly, disgusting way of life, one that was nevertheless ‘accepted’.
Indeed, humans could not face the immortal Tyrants, the immortal monsters that exuded a flesh-decaying fog.
No, a different soul was required. One that was not satisfied with simply ‘living’. One that still held dreams in a world that was already dead. One that had an irresistible longing for the unattainable.
Wielding the vestiges of a dead God, consuming the might of the Tyrants they slay, they are the last amongst humanity that still choose to fight.
With Hope as their spark, Desire as their fuel, their flames chase away the darkness.
With God as their blade, Corruption as their strength, their fangs reach even the undying.
No matter how many times they die, their will shall not collapse.
They are Daybreakers, illuminators of a lightless world, incinerators of a sin-drenched present.
The ones that fight for a happy ending in a world seeking tragedy.
Vegetation had long disappeared from the world, leafy canopies replaced by the rustic remains of concrete buildings that have been skewered by massive obsidian spikes. Often, a heavy cloud cover obscures the stars, leaving nothing but a dreary, dark sky to look to, revolving from dim to pitch black. This darkness is broken only by the advent of the Scarlet Moon, the only celestial object that still easily asserts its presence upon the land. A terrible sight to behold, this disc of red sets the entire cloudscape afire, serving as a six hour period where the Tyrants are ‘fully’ awakened and active, rampaging and reveling in the destruction they can cause each other. For humans, the Scarlet Moon serves both as a friend and an enemy, being their warning to scurry back underground.
Rain, snow, and other heavy weather comes regularly upon the Ashen Lands, violent lightning coursing through the ever-present cloud cover, while torrential rains can both flood tunnels and fill reservoirs. For all the dangers that the surface world presents, there are nevertheless a few salvagers willing to risk it. Wearing gas masks of questionable quality, they brave the dangers of the environment and the presence of the Tyrants in order to get their hands on technology from a lost era. An ill-advised, but incredibly ludicrous profession, only the best survive without the aid of the Daybreakers.
Where men live alongside their buried dead, the Catacombs is a network of communities connected by tunnels, taking advantage of manmade and natural forming caves to create living spaces for them. Often situated close to an underwater lake or river, it isn’t uncommon for buildings to be stacked on top of each other in order to make space. Clay and stone are the most common building materials, though sheets of steel and canvas are similarly used. Most construction effort, however, is put on the reinforcement of the great gates that allow access to the tunnels. From deep moats that divert the flow of a rapid river in order to sweep away all that fall into it to massive gates that can collapse outwardly and completely block off a tunnel with the ensuring rubble, these serve as the only line of defense against any Tyrants that discover one of these tunnels.
While the majority of construction efforts are primitive, major cities can be found in what used to be large, underground shopping malls. Food is mainly gathered through carefully managing the population of fish within a lake, while a rare luminescent ore mined in certain towns allow for the growth of greenery underground, the few seeds scavenged from aboveground being incomparably valuable if they turn out to be edible. Outside of powerful individuals living within the Lastlights, underground metropolises that still have some degree of functioning technology, the towns of the Catacombs are bereft of any benefits lingering from the Era of Indulgence, homes lit up with torches or bioluminescent fish.
From skyscraping behemoths to the shadow of a small child, there is no rhyme or reason to the appearance of Tyrants, immortal monsters that have terrorized humanity for as long as anyone can remember. Their origin is unknown. Their physiology is extraordinarily varied. Their powers are innumerable. Even the weakest of Tyrants cannot be harmed by mortal hands, only buried or removed with traps that take immense amounts of manpower to set up, while the strongest of their kind have singlehandedly threatened the extinction of the human race with their colossal might.
For all that is unknown about the Tyrants, though, there are three things that are clear: their obsession with the eradication of humanity is reasonless, the strength of a Tyrant correlates with their intelligence, and, most importantly, they all exude a black mist from their body that spreads like a poison. Those that breathe in this debilitating fog will quickly collapse, their organs failing one by one before they die, flesh turning into ash a couple minutes afterwards. Even the usage of gas masks only delays the inevitable, a five minute death extended to ten to fifteen minutes. Only the flames of the Daybreakers can burn away the fog, and even then, that flame may not be enough to chase away the dark mist. It is this mist that makes it inconceivable for any sane human to seek cooperation with the Tyrants.
By their mere presence, life withers away.
It takes an unnatural soul to assimilate a vestige of a dead god, a soul that refuses death, a soul that yearns for the unattainable. The Daybreakers are the rare existences within the Ashen Lands that can still visualize a future, that still believe in the bottom of their hearts that their dreams will come true. Their motivations may differ from one another, and their heads may not be screwed on right, but for Daybreakers, their strength comes from their ability to continuously smash into the barriers that stand before them, an obstinate heart that refuses to give up. This willpower, this dedication, this desperate is what empowers the remnants of divinity that they house within their body.
Upon the invocation of their Epitaph, the keyword that fully awakens the vestige within them, their Cowl and their Crown, the garments and the weapons respectively, manifest, overwriting all else upon their body. The Cowl is an all-purpose armor, heaped with blessings that provide night vision, immunity to suffocation, and, most importantly, the ability to dull damage. The Crown, on the other hand, manifests as a weapon that aligns most accurately with the Daybreaker’s image of ‘power’. Whether it be a sword, a shield, or a gun, they are all invariably capable of being called to the Daybreaker’s side regardless of distance, and feel nigh-weightless in their hands. Furthermore, these Crowns are shrouded within a bright flame, burning in proportion to the strength of the Daybreaker. These flames are the only things capable of burning away and reversing the effects of a Tyrant’s black miasma.
But, most importantly, these flaming weapons are the only tools capable of suppressing the Corruption that dwells within the body of a Daybreaker and that enables the immortality of the Tyrants.
For all the blessings granted to the Daybreakers by their Cowl and Crown, however, they still must take a step further in order to match the incomprehensibly powerful Tyrants. The tools alone aren’t enough. To face them, what is needed is the power to match.
Thus, to truly slay a monster, they must become monsters.
Once the vestige is assimilated with their souls, the body of a Daybreaker is baptized in the Corruption extracted from the bodies of Tyrants. Through this exposure, their bodies undergo significant changes, becoming something no longer human. They too are immortal, possessing regenerative capabilities that allow them to come back even after being crushed to pulp or minced into tiny cubes. The blood that they bleed is endless, and they lose their need to eat or sleep, though both are still preferred when necessary. Beyond that, however, their physical bodies change as well, while many Daybreakers have encountered visions of a ‘demon’ that exists in their body. The physical strength that they possess becomes nothing short of superhuman, and the manifestation of a supernatural ability is to be expected.
The most frightening part, however, is the fact that the Daybreakers can, by giving away more of their humanity, increase their power further, using the protection of their divine vestiges in order to maintain their sanity. Most Daybreakers start off at 10% Corruption, but, as time passes, will incrementally increase that amount at the face of challenges they cannot surpass with their current strength. Once reaching 50%, most are no longer capable of deactivating their Cowl and Crown, for the constant presence of their cleansing flame is what keeps them sane. Once reaching 75%, only the most exceptional can still be sure that they are the same person they once were. At 90%, those that still maintain their identities as Daybreakers willingly banish themselves to the Ashen Lands, reveling in the god-like strength they’ve made theirs.
Past that threshold, no one knows. It’s commonly believed they too turn into Tyrants, devout to destruction.
Sometimes, the strength of demons and the might of your beliefs still isn’t enough to overcome the adversary before you. Sometimes, all you can do is pass your dream on to someone else. For Daybreakers, falling into despair is the same as death, as their Cowl and Crown lose their powers, Corruption eating away their mind and body.
And so, on the brink of despair, against a foe that they know they cannot defeat, there is a song that comes to the minds of all Daybreakers. A swan song woven from a tongue humans were not meant to understand. A password that unlocks the final power that can be granted by mixing divinity and corruption together.
Self Destruction.
Incineration is the last resort of all Daybreakers, a tenfold boost to their power that takes their lifeforce as a collateral, every remaining year in their lifespan converted into the tenth of a second, before, just like any other person poisoned by the Tyrant’s miasma, their bodies crumble to dust, leaving not a single trace of the person who was once there.
This is their prayer to the future that they believed in, the greatest symbol of trust they have to those who will come after them.
When making the CS, do not worry about powers or whatever else. I’ll manage those based off the content of your CS.
More info to come, perhaps. Got it in my head, but not on paper. Right now, I'm just looking for a group of 4-6 willing to put their characters through all sorts of agonizingly painful dilemmas. Show me what they're made of and all.
Face to Face
Brent | Siena | Chris
𝕊𝕖𝕡𝕥. 𝟙𝟜, 𝟚𝟘𝟚𝟘 / / 𝕎𝕚𝕤𝕗𝕠𝕣𝕕, 𝕄𝕒𝕣𝕪𝕝𝕒𝕟𝕕 / / 𝕋𝕠𝕨𝕟 / / ~𝟙𝟠𝟘𝟘
Collab with @Papitan@dragonmancer
The pain felt so distant...that was bad, wasn't it? When the pain faded and...no, it wasn't that the pain was fading, it was that the pain was...gone? Still feeling a wave of nausea wash over her stomach, Siena tried to glance at her injuries. Tried, only to find that they were gone. Entirely. The cuts, the nicks, the gouges and punctures--they were all gone.
'Wait, who healed them...? I didn't...' Her thoughts went to the blonde boy, Christmas. Vague memories of his method of healing making her grimace...but Lily too, right? Lily had...
Dizziness washed over her thinly, her view bursting with colors before she squeezed her eyes shut for a moment to block everything out. Her injuries were gone, so she should...walk. Right? Walk. No pain meant she'd be fine, right? The brunette released a breath she hadn't realized she was holding back, soft and weary. So tired still...
"I think...I think I can walk..." Was that her voice? Despite her best efforts, it sounded weaker, wavering in stability...flat. She tried to put a little more energy into the next words, but found them barely any more lively than the first. "You can put me down." Still bland. She tried to correct that with a weak smile. "Think someone else could use the help."
But she felt so safe there, carried like...
'Stop.'
...but she felt...so safe...
Dimly, he could hear concrete and tarmac break down behind him, collapsing onto itself as Zoe dealt the final blow, slaying the subnaturals that had taken so much effort to kill. Dust brushed against his body, into his hair, as air was displaced, but Brent hardly felt it. He barely cleared the collapsing zone of death before it fell, and in the past, perhaps, that brush of death would have got his heart racing, but now…
It was numb.
And he was tired. So tired of this conversation, of this situation, of how little he was able to actually accomplish. Always so close to doing something, only for it to ultimately not matter. Zoe must have attained a new power that gave her flesh-rotting ability some degree of range, while his inability to prepare lead him to contribute less than nothing during the entire fight.
Less than nothing, when he could have done more.
Someone’s voice sounded through the cuffs, alerting them of the presence of Cat’s Cradle. Were they the ones involved then? Cat’s Cradle didn’t recruit weaklings, did they? Something else then. Something that didn’t matter. Brent didn’t turn, continuing to walk away and away, approaching the APC that had arrived. Ernie burst out of it, running away, but he didn’t pay the blooddrenched x-mark any heed. After all, Sander was in there. Sander, the bloodlusted vampire that had done more than his fair share of work. Amethyst eyes followed his friend’s path behind buildings, but that was all the concern he could feel.
A bit melancholic now, wasn’t he? He chewed on the inside of his mouth, using a bit of pain to remind himself of the present. There was still work to get done. Siena was still…no, she wasn’t.
Her injuries were gone, taken away by Lily. Fragile as she was, she still put others above her own needs. But her flesh was too pale, her voice too weak, her body too light. She could walk, but he couldn’t like that. It was one thing to encourage someone with atrophied legs to attempt walking, and another thing to let someone who’s dead on their feet to continue walking.
Wait. Was it?
“We’re almost there,” Brent said, smiling down at her, “You lost a hell lot of blood, so just rest up, alright? Did more than enough. Hopefully they have juice or something in the APC.”
A bitter sensation spread on the roof of his mouth.
“Anyways, there’s plenty of others to help out the restt. Not like the Lily Team is just gonna leave everyone to sleep on concrete after healing them, right?”
Odd...maybe it was the blood loss, or maybe it was the familiarity of the situation, but Siena couldn't deny that she was...relieved at Brent's response. Odd. It was odd. Weird, strange, stop feeling comfortable. Her mind tried to rationalize it as a side effect of the exhaustion that threatened to overwhelm her.
...that was what it was, wasn't it?
"O-Oh..." Still flat, but...not quite. No. No, no, no. She didn't like this. Focus on something else. Like what? The fact that Sav was dead? That she had been the reason for that inopportune spike forest? That despite the literal arsenal at her disposal she'd been worthless in combat against the clockworks. Been a liability in the fight against the subnaturals. But...'Stop.' Where was her phone? She wanted that creature comfort back in her hands. "Thanks. You really do go above and beyond, huh?" A soft, breathy chuckle. "I kind of like that about you."
Unexpected. Thanking him now?
No, she could probably only show her gratitude because she wasn’t aware of how much he had fucked up all over the place. That one moment of emotional weakness, of a winning that one small victory, fucked everything up. It was a bullet that could weave through all obstacles to accurately strike a minuscule target upon someone’s body. The matter manipulator wouldn’t have stood a chance in hell if he held his fire and waited for a fleshier target than a gargoyle that could take a punch from Callan without exploding.
But he didn’t voice that bitter truth. Almost a man but still a child.
“You’re welcome,” he replied, averting his gaze to the APC, “But, well, I only go this far because everyone else can do so much more. Hazel’s a god of destruction, Sander’s an invincible juggernaut, Emma’s range is infinite, Grant’s a tactical savant, and you’re me except way smarter and more versatile.”
Ah, he didn’t like his smile right now.
“Don’t want to become a liability and fall behind, you know? I want to be able to help everyone."
"A liability?" Siena questioned faintly. "I'm pretty sure Hazel 'n the rest of us would have been mincemeat if you hadn't been able to tell us what was happening." Not that it had done much with their relative lack of a strategy in the midst of combat. Not enough communication--probably something that could have been avoided. Peering up at her comrade, the bookworm flashed a grateful expression. Genuine.
'How utterly shameful.'
"I'm a far cry from everyone, but you certainly saved my skin more than once this time." Holding back the urge to close her eyes and just rest, the mage gave a weak laugh. "You could just as easily have left it to Chris and hope my Wishalloy was still useful if I fell. Wouldn't exactly call that a liability."
Chris remained in his spot, his eyes were closed to aid in his resting; however Brent and Siena's conversations occasionally caused him to peek every now and then. He'd be lying to himself if he said he wasn't a tad bit jealous. Siena in Brent's arm, talking to each other even with compliments. He tried to reason with himself that he shouldn't focus on such things in these situations. They had all nearly died and Brent was at least trying to help her out.
If Chris were to transform now and pick her up instead he would have been naked anyhow, so he convinced himself that Brent's cradling wasn't something he should be jealous of. He still felt it creeping on him though, it probably would have been worse if he wasn't so tired with physical pain still stinging him.
You probably didn't have a chance with her anyway"
“But…” Brent stopped himself before he went any further. He let out a deep breath, forcing his expression not to crumble apart. How would it make her feel, if he told her just how little he felt about his role, regardless? Of how much more he could have said, if he wasn’t so obsessed with trying to make his power seem useful? He could have noticed that Sander was coming as well, that the anti-gravity mage was the most dangerous one, not the gargoyle. He could have spotted the entire incident that messed Lawrence up and immediately fired, instead of trying to get all three of them at once. There was still so much that could be done.
His regrets remained unvoiced.
“…thanks. But it’s still my theory that Hazel could have rolled through the entire clockwork army if she just made a hamster ball and ran around.” He managed to laugh. “And you still owe me knife combat lessons, ‘ena. No way was I going to let you drop into rubble just to make things easier on myself.”
…
A bit of honesty.
“Though I was desperate to do something, after letting the situation spiral out of control as much as it did.”
Familiar.
'Stop.'
But it was familiar. She reocgnized the hesitation. The careful wording. Recognized the parts that had become like second nature in the short period she'd been in USARILN East...and it drove a spire into her more effectively than any of the spike-generating subnatural's attacks had. Too familiar. Uncomfortable. Too familiar.
Ah, and there it was. The truth, regardless of how muted it might have been. Something that Siena had evidently grown an aversion to recently. Damn, was she in any state--did she really even have any right to meddle?--to say anything? No excuses.
"'nless you have some secret clairvoyance, I doubt you were letting any of that happen." And a thought. No, she wouldn't have accepted anything as simple as that as an excuse. Wouldn't have let it go so easily. The smile flickered, then faded out as her desire to keep up the facade lost out to her desire to do something right. "But I guess that's hard to believe right now." Who would even believe that? "Still, you did plenty."
A fraction of a second where she hesitated...then a smile of some sort of genuine emotion. Gratitude? Camaraderie? What? It felt out of place from her usual expressions. Did she really keep herself from actually smiling that often?
"So again. Thanks."
When had his pace slowed by so much? When had he started using her pity as a salve? His eyes narrowed incrementally, even as some part of his mind was glad for her kindness. He made his choices, and they turned out to be wrong most of the time. He wasn’t sure he really did plenty, but perhaps it was fine to believe in someone else’s opinion for once.
Amethyst eyes flickered down, and something inside Brent cracked.
Ah, there it was. Something real. Different from the few that he caught while walking through the cafeteria. Different from the ones that emerged while in Crimen Culpae. Different from the one that set him off during Angelic’s training session.
This was worthwhile.
“That smile’s the only recompense I need.”
“Sorry, but…I’m out of power. I can’t do anything.”
Out of power? His eyes turned towards the situation that had steadily become more and more complicated, Kusari joining the fray while somehow, Callan managed to disable the anti-gravity effects with…black shadow? In what appeared to be an instant, the superhuman seaweed sent Zoe flying towards the anti-gravity girl, while Kusari’s monstrous body served to secure Marcus and Emma. It looked like even Chris’s arrival was more or less unnecessary now, the draconic roar that followed his presence serving to do nothing in particular.
Out of power?
He recalled. Emma running in, the first to arrive from Offensive Support, arriving upon her tank’s back. And yet, what happened to the tank afterwards? What else did she even do after arriving? His mind churned, and he grimaced. It had disappeared, crumbled away, and she did not, could not, resummon it. Out of power when she arrived. A rash decision made in the heat of the moment?
He didn’t understand the principle of her amazing power. She never explained any of her limits when they were strategizing. Back then, it had sounded like she could summon them constantly. Maybe that’s still the case. But now…
Out of power?
In the final minutes of the Flag and Seek fight, had Hazel’s presence and attack stunned her enough that she was unable to utilize her power? Or had she, upon witnessing her strongest summon turned into nothing with a casual swipe, given up?
In the face of the death and carnage that occurred before her very eyes, had she simply ran out of power by recklessly charging on the back of the dark humanoid or had she gone into shock, turning towards despondency as opposed to his own outrage?
In a world where she fell into the sky, was she incapable of pushing out even the fumes of power she had left, or was she resigned to her fate, realizing that if she didn’t die now, no doubt she’d just die a horrible death on another battlefield?
Had she pushed out all the power left within her just by arriving at the scene?
Or had her emotions crippled her instead of elevated her, leaving a pessimistic husk that could only be saved by others?
Brent let out a breath. Perhaps that was ‘normal’. Emma looked like she had been a well-adjusted member of society. Made friends real fast and formed a lunchtime clique before he even realized it. Actually enjoyed ‘school’, even though she wasn’t obsessed with studying or training. Probably…she wasn’t accustomed to this. Hadn’t adapted. Had no intention on adapting.
Maybe he shouldn’t be trying to ‘support’ her in this way then.
Mayb-
A scream ringed through the area, and he hardly had the time to turn before the ground below him rolled like mud, turning into a living thing. Spikes sprouted up all around, and it was all he could do to curl up, a strange ‘pinging’ sensation as sharp points struck, yet didn’t pierce him. The wishalloy was doing its work, but the force the spikes still launched him upwards, an architect’s avant garde nightmare realized by the ponytailed subnatural’s power.
Bouncing up and down with every spike that rose beneath him, he reached out and managed to grasp the tip of one of the larger spikes as it attempted to bore through his chest, shredding his bullet-resistant body armor like nothing. Grip tightening, the arbiter rose with the spike, his forearm bulging with exertion. He did one-armed pull ups before, to challenge himself. This was even easier! He just had to hang on!
“SHITTTTTTTTTTTTTTT!”
It shook underneath his grasp, but he managed to hold on still, a desperate climber using all his strength to hang on. The combat knife had long fallen off somewhere, and his vest was riddled with enough holes that it wasn’t bullet proof in any part of it. The growth of the spikes had stopped though, and he could breathe again.
Silver blood and red blood intermingled as his free hand grasped the climbing gear that he had brought along. The first overclock gave it a propulsion method, turning it into a grappling gun that was attached to his lower body by various leather harnesses. The second overclock improved the actual ‘grasping’ abilities of the climbing gear, replacing the barbed hook with a hand-shaped glob that pulsed blue.
Manually attaching the glob of sticky ‘something’, Brent released his other hand carefully, sliding down the slanted side of the spike before stopping, suspended midair by the translucent wire. It held his own weight. Probably could hold way more than that.
“Hahaha…”
A smile reflexively emerged on his face, as his amethyst eyes found their focus once more.
Thank god his bottle of pepper spray hadn’t burst. His machete was more or less in decent shape as well, though his clothes were a mess. And his radio phone…Brent clicked his tongue. It must have been turned into plastic bits within the forest of spikes. Blood continued to run from his left hand, but he hardly noticed.
The pain could come later.
Uh...ok??????
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