Kassarock

RPGC#34 - The moon and the sun (prompt and discussion)

Oooh this one sounds fun, think I might enter!

REACH HEAVEN THROUGH VIOLENCE

Stubby little mini sheet and a tale about one my character's many exploits in her original world.

Hashinau-I and the Mountain

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H A S H I N A U - I , M I S T R E S S O F B L A D E S

Art by Juliette ____________________________________________________ C H A R A C T E R I N F O R M A T I O N Name - Hashinau-I, also known as, The Mistress of Blades, Sword Sage, Thousand Army Killer, Mountain-Cutter, Swordsman's Doom. Gender - Female. Age - 120 Height - 4 foot and 9 inches. Class - Sword Art Wielder. Soul Type - Hot Black Flame.

H A S H I N A U - I A N D T H E M O U N T A I N There is an old tale told in Koshi'ni Highlands, peculiar to the local people there, who have inhabited those lands for countless aeons, of how the Great Mountain, Kuraka-Ko, came to be known as the Split Peak. Today, the Great Mountain is cut down the middle by the Gorge of Tenshai, through which the famous river of the same name now flows. But according to the Koshi'nin this was not always the case. Long ago, before the arrival of our Great and Bountiful Empire (long may it prosper), when a hundred squabbling pretty kings ruled and warred in these lands, the mountain of Kuraka-Ko was whole. There was no gorge cut through this highest of peaks, and the river Tenshai instead snaked its way through the wide valleys around its base. In those long ago chaotic days, a stranger came to the lands of the Koshi'nin. A warrior woman from the lowlands below, a mercenary who had fought under the banner of every king and who had bathed so long in the blood of a hundred armies that it had stained her hair the brightest red. Her lips were stained blue from the smoking of Oolachi leaves, and she carried a fine nikishi pipe of bronze and rosewood. This stranger was Hashinau-I, the Mistress of Blades, the greatest wielder of the Sword Arts to have ever lived, who you no doubt know from countless other stories. Hashinau-I had grown tired of fighting the wars of men, for men were too easy to slay and she desired a stronger opponent. The villagers, fearful of invoking the terrible wrath of the Sword Sage, delicately told her that there were no worthy opponents to be found amongst them. Hashinau-I only smiled, and told them she had not come to fight any of them. She had come to slay a mountain.

At first the villagers thought that Hashinau-I was joking, but as her face darkened at their laughter, they quickly realised that she was perfectly serious. Privately they decided that the great swords woman must have lost her mind. But they could ill afford to make an enemy of Hashinau-I, who had once slew the Titan or Yrre with nothing more than sharpened finger nail, so they humoured her, and gave the great warrior their hospitality.

Hashinau-I took up residence on the great peak of Kuraka-Ko, living as a hermit in a little cave below the summit. The people of Koshi'ni would make offerings to her, but seldom did the Sword Sage come down from her mountain. When emissaries from the petty kings below sought her out so that she would take up her blade once more in their service, she sent them away in disappointment, occasionally missing a few of their limbs if she thought they had been particularly disrespectful.

For the first three years, she wandered the surface of the mountain. Getting to know every feature of its sloping sides, its forests and streams, every rock and every crag, how the wind blew against it in the winter, how the sun warmed its flanks in spring. When she knew every blade of grass and every pebble on the mountain, Hashinau-I went back into her cave and started to dig.

She used the sword that she had cut down countless men with to dig a tunnel deep into the back of the cave. Scarce did she emerge from the tunnel, and few of the villagers were brave enough to enter to see it from themselves. Those that did said that she had dug her way deep into the heart of the mountain. Scraping away at the dirt and rocks for years and years until her sword was ground down to just the stump of a blade, its edge incomparably fine.

Finally, when Hashinau-I had reached the very centre of the mountain, she carved a small chamber there and sat and meditated. For thirty days and thirty nights she sat in complete darkness, unblinking, heart beat and breathing slowed to the point of near death.

On the thirty first day she emerged from her cave, walked down from the mountain, turned her broken blade to it, and cut.

And the mountain split in two.

Before she left one of the villagers asked Hashinau-I how she had done it. How could one woman cut a mountain in half with the stump of a broken blade? Hashinau-I had only smiled enigmatically as she had puffed blue smoke from her nikiseri pipe and said:

"To cut a thing, one must understand it. It took me three years to understand the surface of the mountain, and many more to understand what lay beneath it. But the most difficult part is learning to think like a mountain."

Hashinau-I never visited Koshi'ni again, but she would go on to have many other adventures, and cut many more things. To this day, however, there is still a shrine dedicated in Hashinau-I's honour that can be found at the mouth of the Tenshai Gorge, where the entrance of to her cave could once be found.

Oblivion: Wrath of Akatosh

@POOHEAD189@Gcold I present my fuck boy asshole thief to you.

Fuck Boy Thief

Gavas 'Gav' Oren

_{'Lock up yer' daughters and lock up yer' gold, but it shan't stop the fingers of the thief who is bold!' - Tavern Song of the Imperial City Waterfront}

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___________________________________ P R O F I L E Known as Gav o' the Gutter Height 5' 10" Weight 156lb Gender Male Race Dunmer Age 32 Birthsign The Tower ___________________________________ C A P A B I L I T I E S Deity Talos Attributes Agility (Major) Personality (Minor) Skills Sneak (Expert) Speechcraft (Adept) Security (Adept) Acrobatics (Apprentice) Blade (Apprentice) Mercantile (Novice) Light Armour (Novice) Hand to Hand (Novice) ___________________________________ I N V E N T O R Y Weapons and tools Steel stiletto dagger. Set of lockpicks. Rope and Grapple. Outfit Leather armour, tanned to near black. Black hooded woollen cloak. Black bandana, can be pulled up over the lower face. Fingerless gloves. Consumables Potion of Nightmask. Bottle of cheap wine. A vial of unrefined moonsugar. Valuables Several hundred septims. Pair of ornate silver candle sticks. Several gold finger and ear rings. Gold tooth. Misc Two pairs of dice, one loaded. ___________________________________

____________________________________________________________________________ A P P E A R A N C E The overall impression that Gav' gives, is one of sharpness. From his thin, blade like face, to the pointed tips of his ears, he is a mer made up of hard and dangerous edges. His dark hair is pulled back to reveal an angular face, the cheekbones high, the nose narrow and long. A perpetual smirk slashes across his ashen complexion, that widens when he laughs to show sharp white teeth and a flash of half hidden gold. His eyes are same, half hooded crimson orbs that flicker between amusement, hunger, and bored cruelty. A jagged scar runs down through the right right brow from forehead to cheek, evidence of a time someone tried to cut one of those arrogant eyes out. He's handsome in an unkempt and careless sort of way. Gav's hair often untidy and greasy, his jaw most commonly unshaven. His clothes are serviceable, not presentable, and he seems to put little effort into how he dresses. Excepting, that is, the gaudy adornments of golden finger rings and ear piercings, that look chosen more their weight and value as opposed to their artistic or aesthetic merit. Gav's height is a little below average for a Dunmer, but his build is lithe, yet surprisingly muscular. This is especially true for his upper body and the muscles that are commonly used to climb and scale buildings. Beneath his leather armour, there are markings all over his chiselled body. To most they would be meaningless, but to one of the Right Honourable Folk of the Thieves Guild of Tamriel, they tell a story. A story of scores made and scores lost, of hearts broken and men killed, of triumph and defeat. ____________________________________________________________________________ M O T I V A T I O N A N D O U T L O O K The beginnings of a thief comes from want, the desire to possess things that one does not possess. Its those thoughts that give birth to a thief, the actual stealing is just following through. And if want is the hallmark of a thief, then Gav' is a thief down to the bottom of his soul. He wants. Not just riches, but power, women, fame... happiness... love... He wants everything. And he'll do just about anything to get it. Lie, cheat, steal... kill. There's a thorough amoral streak in Gav' that runs deep. He's not a sociopath or sadist, he understands the difference between right and wrong, and he takes no enjoyment in the suffering of others. But what Gav' wants comes first, always. He's not just ruthless and naked ambition, Gav' can be quite charming in his own roguish sort of way. He has a quick mind, a wicked sense of humour, and a fondness for women, wine, and song that often makes him entertaining (if not entirely pleasant) company. ____________________________________________________________________________ H I S T O R Y The Dunmer hail from Morrowind, the exotic star-wounded east, a land of barren ash plains and glowing mushroom forests inhabited by living Gods. Gav' knows nothing of this, to him its all stories and tall-tales. A make-believe paradise passed down in the delirious whispers he heard from his mother's lips. Gavas Oren was born in the Imperial City, his mother was Nalasa Oren. Gav' never knew how his mother came to the great cesspit of a city that squats in the centre of Empire. He always presumed she came from Morrowind, but now he wonders if that was very the case at all. Perhaps she was just clung on a grand fictitious past that she had handed down to him. His father on the other hand, could have been just about anyone. Nalasa Oren had been a whore. The kind that you could find working the docks in any large port city that filled periodically with sailors bored of the sea and flush with fresh wages. The cheap kind. The kind that die from easily treatable diseases that they catch from then men who pay to fuck them. Those were his earliest memories, squalor and sickness. The delirious ramblings of a dying woman trapped in her sick bed, slowly rotting away from the inside out. They aren't pleasant to revisit. Perhaps that's why Gav' has no interest in his past, who his parents or his family are. There is only the future, there is no going back. It wasn't a long way from that dark fetid room to the gutter, and that's where Gav' ended up when his mother finally returned to her ancestors. On the street he had run amok with a gang of half starved ragged urchins and orphans. Taking work where they could running errands in the docks for a septim, and stealing bread from the baker's stalls when there was none to be had. That was the first thing he had ever stole, bread. It would not be the last. His career as a criminal started innocently enough. At first he only stole to cover those bare essentials required to live, food, water, clothing. But if stealing a sweetroll is just as easy as stealing bread, why settle for just bread? And for Gav’ it was easy, it had always been easy. From a young age he had been blessed with a small frame, fast legs, and nimble fingers. He and the other street kids of the Docks started out snatching from market stalls and street vendors. As they got older and smarter they turned to picking pockets, working in teams to spot and distract targets while their fellows pilfered the mark’s gold. It wasn’t a huge leap for the more violently persuaded of them to mugging. But that had never been Gav’s speciality, he had been a burglar. After one successful score, Gav’ was celebrating with a couple of other young ruffians when several unexpected visitors came calling on them. They had come to the attention of a higher power, the Thieves Guild. The Guild have always taken their role as a ‘crime regulator’ rather seriously. Too many thieves stealing too many things put too many noses out of joint and brought the law down on all of them. That and having thieves running around not paying dues might give their own members unhelpful and unproductive ideas about the possibility of free enterprise. Examples had to be made. Generally speaking, the Guild does not like to kill on the job if it could help it. It had less scruples when it came to dealing with the competition. But allowances could be made for foolish and impetuous youth, after all, the next generation of Guildsmen had come from somewhere. Hence, a choice was given to all those involved. Join the Guild, or never steal again. The first youth they put their question to, a lad named Ulfr, thinking himself a sly and clever fellow, promptly swore (lying through his teeth) that he would never steal again. After all how could the Guild enforce such a policy, even they could not watch and know every crime that happened in the Imperial City. He figured he would lay low a while and then be back to his old tricks in no time. He was wrong, of course. The Guild did have a way to make sure you never steal again. It involved pinning you down to the floor and taking a hammer to each of your fingers until they bent and snapped like brittle twigs. Only sticks didn’t bleed and trees couldn’t scream. Once they were finished, they turned to Gav’ and asked him if he would Join the Guild or never steal again. He remembered standing there, unable to tear his eyes away from the broken weeping mess that had once been his friend and brother-in-arms. Everything taken away from him in an instance, now helpless, powerless, broken. Gav’ decided that he would never let that happen to him. Gav’ joined the Guild, along with everyone else that night. It wasn't difficult for him to rise quickly in the organisation. He was a talented mer, who had already been running his own crew before joining up with the Guild. His determination to get ahead didn't make him too many friends, but his amoral nature and ambition was put to good use by the Doyens and their lieutenants. It didn't take long for him to be one of the breaking fingers instead of living in fear of it being done to him. Being with the Guild also meant steady money, and status in rough taverns of the Imperial City Waterfront. Gav' put that status and money to good use as a mer about town, getting a reputation as something of a rake, with a different girl on his arm every week. Things had been going well, until that blasted job in Kvatch. It had been a spur of the moment thing, during a stopover from a some business he had to take care of in Anvil. Chapel door had been wide open, Gav' had only meant to take a quick look around. But the place had been empty, the collection plate full, and the altar set with silver candlesticks. He had felt the itch, the compulsion, the want. A minute later he walked out with a full satchel and an arrogant smile playing across his lips. It was only then that the nightmares started. ____________________________________________________________________________ R E L A T I O N S H I P S A N D O P I N I O N S Gav' has many friends, but he would consider few of them to be particularly close. The exception to this are the two remaining Guild members who were inducted that same night as him, Helvius Saccas, an Imperial forger, and Lushak Shug, an orcish enforcer. They are the members of his first real gang, and together they are bonded in the blood and disgrace of their former fellow. A fate that nearly befell them all. The others are all gone, either hung, in prison, or broken shells of who they once were... like Ulfr.

Couldn't be arsed to write out a full flaw list as I think you can the picture with his general personality and demeanour, but I can do so if you desire. Needless to say he's an arrogant serial womanizer with a eminently punchable face. Oh, and Valinor.

REACH HEAVEN THROUGH VIOLENCE - Cosmic Isekai Asskicking Adventure

Still interested, although I am also looking at joining other new stuff, so will have to see what the posting frequency ends up as.

Oblivion: Wrath of Akatosh

Talos Dunmer Rogue incoming.

Lost Mine Of Phandelver (D&D 5e) (CLOSED)

I've been thinking this over for about half of today and trying to figure out how I feel about trying to DM Phandelver. And I simply don't want to try doing something I've already tried, especially since it wasn't the best experience for me personally. It caused me some real stress, so much I left RPG for days to avoid dealing with the shit that happened.

If anything I just don't really think I want to specifically run this module. I love D&D but god damn running one here is absolutely difficult. I hope everyone understands. I should really try to take a step back and try to review what I as a DM and a person can do. I just don't want to feel like I'm attempting to do something I simply don't have the drive to do at this moment right now.

@Dark Cloud

No worries mate, take all the time you need. If you ever feel like running some 5e again in the future, then just give us a shout.

Lost Mine Of Phandelver (D&D 5e) (CLOSED)

So we have a Warlock and a Druid so far yes?

I think I might play something tank-y in that case, maybe Barbarian or Fighter? I'll play around with some stuff.

REACH HEAVEN THROUGH VIOLENCE - Cosmic Isekai Asskicking Adventure

@Kassarock So, Meti?

@Dead Cruiser

There may be some similarities.

What Are You Listening To?

REACH HEAVEN THROUGH VIOLENCE - Cosmic Isekai Asskicking Adventure

Anyone else have character ideas they'd like a first pass over?

@Dead Cruiser

Bad Ass Sword Grandma.