Richard Horthy

Account Deletion Request

Blades of Iron Roses: An Anime-Inspired Knight RP

Psychic and Rich collab

---

A simple servant, dressed in equally simple barservant clothes, set a case of verdant-tinted glass bottles -- a dozen or so, corked and clanking together. He didn’t have a set position for any of it, and judging from the young human man’s wide eyes and uncomfortably scrunched face, the server seemed like he was barely told who the women he was serving were -- only that they were important clientele and he should treat them with the utmost care, but not to make it seem too obvious.

His face echoed odd sentiments one might only think when they’re young and in service for the first time, asking too many questions about who they were and what they were up to, and why someone so important was asking for ale from the bottom of the shelf.

Katerina just nodded at him, barely even cracking a polite smile.

“Thank you, darling.” She put on her best ‘noblewoman’ voice: A faux pas aristocratic ventriloquy she only performed when out in the Aimlenn public.

She waved him away. As soon as his back turned, the witch-knight pried open her metallic cigarette case -- now full to the brim with four neat stacks of perfectly-cylindrical little tobacco rolls -- plucking two out between her threemost fingers. A snap between her fingers and a flick of her wrist produced a light conflagration from her fingertips. Katerina drove her breath deep, the tip lighting the foggy outside day with bittersweet smoke.

Her middle and ring finger posed the second cigarette to Morianne.

Morianne accepted the witch-knight's offer, holding the cigarette between her middle and index fingers. She chuckled, looking around the quaint hovel of a bar where the two had found themselves. It definitely wasn't the type of place one would assume two knights of the Iron Roses would spend their recreational time but to Morianne, places like this were home.

"Now this," the troubadour gestured around the room, "this is a place to relax. Never really liked all that stuffy noble shit."

Katerina rolled her shoulders, glancing her eyes away at the mention, just following her compatriot’s way with a brief look-around of their surroundings. She looked back up, taking a brief drag from her cigarette, exhaling softly before her words:

“Aye -- A’ always feel like i’m going to break something when i’m oot in the castle.” she responded, “Nev’er felt too in place proper.”

Taking a relaxed lean back into her chair, little fumes of cigarette vapor trailed after her words, fuming off into the side with the mantra.

“A’ bloody break something here then it’s me an’ the whole tavern, blame some other bird for’it.” she commented, looking back onto Mori, “I dunnae aboot ye’ but a’ve nev’er been all too much for’ that lot of aristocracy-type. Makes me unsettl’ed proper.”

Morianne took a puff of her cigarette and let out a long sigh. She watched as the smoke danced upwards towards the ceiling. The troubadour nodded in kind.

"Yeah…when I became a knight I didn't think the job would entail so much bootlicking." With another puff from her cigarette, Morianne continued. "Had I known at the time, I probably would have hucked it out of here a long time ago."

The troubadour thought back to Serenity and her unjust praise for killing the griffin. Sure, in the moment Morianne might have accepted that praise but, as far as she was concerned, she didn't actually deserve it.

"After all, I'll admit that I'm not exactly a good fit for the 'level-headed, mighty dame in shining armor'," Morianne chuckled. "Unlike some people here, I don't wanna die for some songs and a history book. I'm going to be the one telling those stories." Katerina cracked a smile back in agreement.

The troubadour looked down at her lute which rested neatly propped against the chair she sat in.

"Besides, I'm hardly a decent enough spell-caster to try doing that," she said.

Kat propped up an eyebrow at her answer. She took her spare resting hand and reached forth to one of the bottles- her cigarette-resting hand nudging at the cork til it came off with an audible *thoomp!*

"You were doing right fine back in th'e weald, love." She inquired, taking a sip and a smoke while she pondered the troubadour's answer.

"Hardly," Morianne replied. "I can't do what you, or Tyaethe, or anyone else really can do." She sighed once more, taking a drag of her cigarette after doing so. "I can't keep the pace."

"Aye, it's not awl' fireballs and lightning, bonnie," Kat retorted, putting her cig down between her fingers, "From where I ken ye' were all fine. Ah, a' dunnae do something useful with your magic proper right and not just be th'e cunt in th'e back o' th'e hunting party peppering cunts with lightnin'g bawls."

Morianne raised an eyebrow. "Mind repeating that, Marble-mouth?" The troubadour chuckled, cutting off Katerina before she could snap back. Katerina chortled, fuming out a puffy trail of smoke from her nostrils.

"I get it. But I want to do more damage. I wanna shoot fireballs….send waves of swords at people…something. I'll admit blood does make me a bit queasy, but I guess I just…don't feel like I'm the right fit for this gig unless I can do some real damage, you know?"

Morianne leaned in closer to Katerina and spoke in a low tone. "You gotta teach me that fire trick."

The witch knight’s finger’s snapped -- Mori noticed from just between her two eyes a spark of flames, rupturing from her cigarette. A little wave ruptured from her, passing over her face like a bird rushing over her face about to take her eyes out. A quick, irritating burn rushed over her, irksome and incendiary in redolence. Morianne’s cremated cigarette capriciously capered in traces of tobacco-leaf embers, raining down on her like ashes from the Goddess’ cigarette.

“Not just you who can be a cheeky bird, nae’ love?” she confidently teased. The Witch-Bitch took a long, shit-eating drag from her smoke.

She laughed a soft, humming cackle -- the kind a nefarious witch only does when playing a trick, or making a deal knowing all too well the terms are skewed in her favour -- and popped open the metallic cigarette case. Katerina slid it across the uneven wooden table, an audible arboreal screech following it the whole way. She gestured for Morianne to take another.

“Take one - ca’mon.” she kneaded. Her wide, witchy grin was locked into place the whole time. “I ken aw’ll show you.”

Morianne gave an inquisitive look to Katerina. She reached for another cigarette, a bit reluctantly.

"You sure you're not going to blow my head off?" the troubadour asked. "I kinda need it, ya'know."

The witch snickered.

“Focus on th’e tip.” she instructed, “and follow after my words…”

The Crimson Blossom - A Victorian Fantasy Horror RP

Here you go.
Do let me know if there are any issues.

Big Game Hunter

Name: Antoine Du Laurent
Age: 26
Gender: Male

Appearance:

Personality: He is a very self-confident man that could have been easily mistaken for arrogance if not backed up by his skill. Honorable as much as you can expect a man of noble birth to be. Very defensive and insecure about why he left his home Ark for Honshu. Despite this, tends to be an amicable fellow that is determined to assist humanity in reclaiming land and fighting off blood-beasts.

History: Antoine has only recently arrived to Hâncheau a few months back on one of the very rare trade ships. But he claims that he hails from a far western Ark to one of many a noble families that spent more time squabbling among themselves on how the Ark should be run, rather than actually running the Ark. He says that his mother was a rare breed of noble that was a proud boisterous woman but actually had the skill and work ethic to back her words up. Same cannot be said for his father who was a cold distant man that was more fond of drinking and gambling the family's funds away than to serve a day of work; claiming that he could hire others to do his work for him.

Said to have lived his life to an almost facsimile of luxury thanks to his mother, but as he grew older he wanted more in life and trained himself to be a hunter; much to the chagrin of his mother who wanted him in a safer professional field. But his mind was set and lo and behold years later he'd become quite a skilled hunter.

Motivations & Aspirations: He fights monsters while helping humanity and gets paid for it. What's there not to like? But he does aspire to the first one to discover the biggest and meanest blood-beast of all time and kill it.

Skills/Talents:
[Crack Shot] - Won't be shooting any fly's wings off by any chance but can pop a Crimsling in the eye from 25 yards no problem.
[Axe Fighter] - Would rather keep nasty beasties at a distance but his axemanship is nothing to sneeze at.
[Quick Reflexes] - He can't remember how many times his reflexes has saved him from getting killed.

Equipment of Note:
Sylvette: A reliable six-shot lever-action rifle of unusual make that uses the 8mm rifle rounds of the Lévesque Modèle 91. The stock has a built in axe to assist in dispatching ornery foes that get too close for comfort.

Favourite dish/food: Baked Snakefish Fillet and Asparagus

@Searat

I gotta wonder how comfortable that axe-stock rifle is...but aside from that, it looks good from where i'm sitting!

Maybe OOC you could tell me why his family came on over though?

The Crimson Blossom - A Victorian Fantasy Horror RP

"A stranger? Here? In Hōnshu-kuo? You've chosen a terrible time to come here."

"These are dangerous days...the Crimslings roam the Wilds -- That is their kingdom, and They rule it as if They are kings..."

"And what goes out to the Wilds nary come back -- and those that do...They are terrible things."

"Go, now."

"If the Beasts will not take you, the Kanbu will."

---

The world has become a small place -- so intimate, and all the more terrifying. What remains of mankind huddles together, scattered in the Arks: Entrenched hovels, platformed acropoli -- massive stakes of steel and concrete which pierce into the veins of the Earth. Each Ark is a colossal continuum of underground metropolis upon sprawling slum upon industrial park hath seen it blossom into a spoiled metallic onion. They are the collections of days long past, each one cradling the people of the world.

This is Honshu. It is known by many names -- to it's colonial overlords, past and progeny, it is Hâncheau, The Pearl of the East, and Dominion to Ardagne: Le Régime Éclairé. To those who have lived and toiled their blood away until they fainted white, it is Hōnshu-kuo. On their maps, The Dominion is a single entity: Honshu, in truth, was -- and still is -- a country of systemic irregularities: Administrative, legal, judicial, and ecclesiastic divisions and prerogatives frequently overlapped, while the Ardic nobility struggled to maintain their rights in the matters of local government and justice. All the while, the Samurai clans of Honshu met their fate, either as gravestones or as eager collaborators to the Régime Noveau.

But even this is but a tenuous connection: With The Fray receded, the powers which stay standing squabble over the remnants. Mayors and chieftains, like bickering children, argue over the responsibilities -- who shall re-tether the elektralines, who shall give the most men to scout the wilds, who shall fire their furnaces and forges the longest, who shall contribute the more food-stock: And who shall receive the lions share. Alliances formed in the fires of battle have grown brittle and cold, and the relations that kept the Dominion through peril for centuries is now poised to crumble at the seams. The Arks are all beset by bickering from within and beasts from without.

Now, it is a kingdom with no monarch -- a colony with no overlord. It is a confused and broken land, its image and identity long shattered and dusted to the winds of time which ground it all to grain in the sands of time.

The task before the good Hunters, banded in blood in their Kanbu, remains as steadfast as it was at its inception, even amidst this tumult.

The Crimson Tide must be stopped. The beasts within it felled, their bodies burned and scattered to the winds. Scientific samples collected. Fields and forests razed to contain its flow. And from this broken mirror, its pieces scattered before this ancient Earth, do what you must to gather the pieces, scraping them into some semblance of a whole, before the will to do so fades.

---

Character Sheet:

Hider

Name:
Age:
Gender:

Appearance:

Personality:

History:

Motivations & Aspirations:

Skills/Talents:

Equipment of Note:

(To let me know you've read the lore + fun question) Favourite dish/food:

---

Lore

History

- The Dominion was established over a long period of time, pieced together from bit-by-bit assemblies of the various shoguns, merchant houses, and warlord states across Honshu. Originally it was under the direct supervision of the Société de Négoce Oriental d'Ardagne (abv. "SNOA") before being transferred to the control of a government-regulated board of Oversees Departments of Ardagne.
- Most of the incorporation into the Dominion were done through a series of coercion tactics, intimidation, espionage, nepotism, bribery, and when all else failed direct military action. Ardagne often played local rivalries against one another to maintain systems of power and to give local pre-existing authorities a direct stake in the well-being of the colonial regime.
- This means that unlike most Ardelais colonies, Honshu maintained a degree of quasi-independence, and still maintained its local traditional monarchy -- although under direct supervision of the Colonial Authority.
- A majority of Honshu's modern infrastructure is strictly colonial in nature: Its industries were owned by Ardelais capitalists, Honshu children were taught in Ardelais schools, where they were taught the Ardelais tongue and the indigenous Honshu language was modified and revised to use a Western-styled, alphabet-based script. Though most of these institutions are barely kept afloat in even the best of Arks, their influence is felt throughout all of Honshu even to this day.

The Hunter's Equipment

Tasked with fighting the most vicious denizens of The Wilds, the Hunter's work is never complete. Although the Dominion is home to all manner of artisan's shops which constitute the hunter's arsenal, materials to produce the most modern of weapons are scarce, and the knowledge soon turning into ritual than rationality. Firearm ammunition is a labourious essential to produce, and remains uncommon outside of large marketplaces.

The respirator is undoubtedly the most invaluable tool in the Hunter's toolkit -- If a Hunter were to be ambushed, and they could either take their weapon or their respirator before their escape, all but the dead would choose the respirator. Respirators are large devices, composed of a mouthpiece connected to a filtered hose which connects to a larger air tank which is straddled either across the hunter's back or their abdomen via a harness. Additional filters and hoses are essential on longer expeditions. Most Hunters choose to decorate their respirators, adorning them with painted designs or good luck charms.

Goggles and fully-enveloped hoods are common additional pieces of protective wear, preventing stray winds from blowing Crimson Tide into their eyes and ears.

Your average hunter is outfitted with a variety of tools from which they perform their duties: Every Hunter has a firearm and some mêlée of their choosing. A single, well-placed rifle round to the eye-socket or heart can put down even the most fell of beast, and will at least wound them enough to be injured with proper coordination or trapping. Most beasts can easily shake off shots to non-vital parts and sport thick layers of fat, muscle, and bone to boot -- coupled with the scarcity of ammunition, and the need for a mêlée weapon becomes clear.

Rifles and shot-guns make up the majority of a primary ranged weapon for a hunter. The most common weapon in the Dominion was the Lévesque Modèle 91, a five-shot bolt-action rifle with handy characteristics and a flat-headed 8mm bullet. Revolvers were equally prized, as some hunters preferred the rapid shots of the hand-gun in their off-hand while utilizing a mêlée weapon in their dominant hand.

Mêlée weapons take a good number of forms: Swords of the Hunter are typically either of a native uchigatana make, or are swords of Arselais design -- typically these are either a heavy-bladed, single-edged cavalry sabre, or a thinner, harder-tipped estoc meant for thrusting. Perhaps more novice or less-affluent hunters prefer simple, blunt clubs, ranging from impromptu maces to work hammers.

Other tools vary considerably from Hunter to Hunter. Some prefer caltrops or bolas to incapacitate the blood-beasts, while others use incendiary Molotov Cocktails to stave away the beasts, whom possess an instinctual fear of fire.

Science & Technology

Science and technology in this setting is roughly equatable to that found in the 1900s of our world. Elektralines and telegrammes adorn the Arks, though selective and spotty in service, powered by the might of magic and machine. Organized factories are still in existence, though limited by Honshu's resources, difficult terrain, and lack of infrastructure. As such, a wide "artisan" class has emerged in its place, with a number of one to dozen-man shops organizing themselves as dedicated shoe-makers, ammunition loaders, gunsmiths, swordsmiths, locksmiths, and so on.

Magic

- It's magic. I ain't gotta explain shit. Okay, it turns out that I do have to explain some things about magic.
- The practice of magic is split into two fields of study: Witchcraft and Alchemy
- As a general rule, there is only a loose "professional" study of magic. All understanding of it is either loosely-defined and tends to boil down to intuition and tradition (in the case of Witchcraft), or is still a poorly-documented field with a lot of outdated understandings of it "grandfathered" into practice (in the case of Alchemy).
- Magic is capable of providing curses and boons upon people, creatures, and things, and is usually known for doing such.
- Some witches are capable of using it in more...creative applications, such as conjuration of spirits: Though, on Honshu this is a closely-guarded secret that many consider sacred and only teach to a selective few, trusted students.
- In the West, witchcraft has undergone something of a "soft renaissance" before the Schism.
-- There was a large resurgence in interest in witchcraft due to its taboo nature and the proliferation of it in "penny dreadfuls", which often contained highly-exaggerated tales of witchcraft's abilities.
-- However, witchcraft is still shunned and its practitioners are often seen as untrustworthy or unstable for dabbling in such affairs.
- Alchemy is similar to our world's version of chemistry, and has a strong focus on understanding how magical energy dabbles and interacts with the material.
- Alchemy is generally used to create or transmute substances.
-- Very basic substances like water or peroxide are simple to transmute due to their limited chemical and physical complexity: But complex compounds like biological amino acids are exponentially more complex to transmute, and well beyond the reach of all but the most accomplished of alchemists...and even they can't do it reliably.

Setting

- Honshu, known to the Colonists as Hâncheau and the locals as Hōnshu-kuo, is a mountainous island-nation, isolated from the rest of the world.
- It was a colony in the days before the Fray and the Great War, and that colonial influence lingers still across it even as wider humanity seems to have crumbled.
- Ships from elsewhere in the world are very rare, and those that do seldom have anything to offer in terms of substantial knowledge of either the greater world's on-goings nor what happened that caused the rise of the Crimson Tide. They typically contain merchants or refugees, disdained to see that little here is different from the outside world, but carry with them a common trend that Arks seem to be nonexistent elsewhere.

Hunters & "Kanbu" Clans

From ragtag, raggedy militiamen to professional scientists and accomplished fighters, hunters are a motley bunch. In the most open-ended sense of the word, kanbu are any organized band assembled (ostensibly) to take on the threat of the Crimson Tide. Kanbu vary greatly in organization, discipline, equipment, and size.

Kanbu are -- for better or worse -- closely intertwined with the politicking that goes on within the Arks. Often employed by large merchants and influential aristocrats to protect their property and allies, Kanbu take after their samurai clan ancestors, operating somewhere between law enforcement and gangs-for-hire. Vicious rivalries exist between Kanbu and their various allies, often escalating into threats, arson, and open violence.

Crimson Tide

- Nobody is quite sure what the origin of the Crimson Tide is.
- Several theories exist that explain its conception, such as:
-- The curse of an ancient Honshu god, who has come to reap the bounty stolen from him long ago
-- Divine punishment from God upon man's hubris in the Great War
-- A mining accident which opened up a pocket of the noxious gas, rumoured to be from the depths of the Earth
-- A freak industrial waste accident, which over time fused and compounded to create the Mist
-- A new "superweapon" made to win the Great War which backfired.

- The Crimson always seems to spread out in like a thick blanket, meaning that it is densest along the ground and dissipates higher. Staying in The Crimson leaves a thick, paste-like orange residue that is difficult to remove.
- When exposed to The Crimson, plants change their pigmentation, seeping a thick, redish-orange pus, hardening like sap over time.
- Animals seem to rot in the presence of The Crimson, their bodies turning from viscera to thick pustules that seep into hard, chitinous exoskeletons which constantly weep the the miasma of The Crimson.
- Symptoms of Crimson Blight can vary immensely depending on depth of exposure. Common minor symptoms are nausea, vomiting, chest pain, and coughing. Severe symptoms include asphyxiation, hallucinations, confusion, loss of motor skills, and localized necrosis. Terminal symptoms include widespread necrosis reddish-purple in complexion, psychosis, loss of speech, and eventually stroke-like symptoms. Terminal Crimson Blight cases near-always result in death, and even survivors are typically comatose and bedridden for weeks after.
- Within the Tide is life, in the form of disfigured monsters. Some are quadrupedal, others are bipedal. Some are bestial in shape, while others almost humanoid. These monsters have been called Crimslings, or Blood-beasts. Oddly, some of the beasts seem to speak a pidgin language of their own, constituted of mangled words combined with bestial howls.
- Transformation into a Blood-beast happens in several stages, and it is a painful process. Most victims go mad far before their true transformation, and by their full development into a Crimsling they have long been rendered unrecognizable.

The Arks

- The Arks are large, sprawlng megacities made of colossal pycrete beams, cobbled together on top of one another.
- Each Ark is virtually its own self-regulating city-state. Theoretically they owe service to the Dominion like a feudal structure: In practice, this seldom occurs.
- Although stemmed in the old laws of the Arselais colonial system, law and order is very loose.

Life In Sainte-Azélie

First the Western Capital of Honshu's Khiba Dynasty, then the colonial capital of the Dominion, Sainte-Azélie remains as perhaps the largest Ark on Honshu, and undoubtedly its most important. Situated deep within the Ark along the foot of Mount Ame, The Empress has grown erratic and increasingly unpredictable in her old age, and spends near every waking moment isolated in The Ivory Palace. She remains as an important spiritual figurehead to the Honshu locals, although the Throne's true political power has long been withered to the stem. The main city centre has long been restructured and paved over, replaced with colonial-styled double-wide avenues and colonial Art Nouveau-styled architecture. Other noteworthy landmarks include the Kagito Forum, a sprawling open-air marketplace, the Junchiro Opera House, and the Verdant Fortress.

Sainte-Azélie is untypical from most Arks -- it is a sprawling, massive arcology which spans into sprawling spires that plunge upwards to the deepest of cavernous crevices from which whole avenues are carved. Near all housing in Sainte-Azélie is in one of its innumerate danchi: Massive tenament complexes with sparse decorations and few luxuries. Homes in danchi are often merged together, situating sometimes three or four families or tenants into one unit, which is often divided using curtains and wooden prop dividers. All denizens of the unit share the same kitchen and living space, and typically do not contain more than 4 total bedrooms. Bathing and laundry are communal, shared by all tenants on the same floor. Privacy in a danchi is a luxury ill-afforded to most as a general rule.

With the Crimson having claimed so much land to The Wilds, agriculture must be relegated to only the most compatible, utilitarian endeavour. The average Ark-located farm is multi-stacked, aquaponic venture, encompassing a fish farmery on top of a bed of waterbogged plants, similar in appearance a bog. Asparagus, carrots, rice, mushrooms, and kelp form the bulk of most plant-based staples, while crickets, crayfish, and snakefish are the most common meat sources.

Geniune meat as we know it is a luxury: Most land is simply unsuitable for the growth of large livestock such as cows or pigs, and foraging about in the Wilds is an escapade only left to the most cautious or daring of scavengers. The meat of the blood-beasts is tough and stringy, often foul of taste and even stronger of odor, though a select few butchers can make it at least palatable with enough seasoning and curing. Most protein comes in the form of Kiel -- a mass-produced pressed cake made from combining kelp paste mashed with some easily-farmable protein stock: Typically crickets or crayfish. Kiel has a mild flavor and is rich in protein, and is usually used as meat is in cooking, although its blocky, crumbly texture doesn't make the best for all recipes.

Crime and seedy behaviour is a simple fact of life in any Ark, and Sainte-Azélie stands as no exception. Gambling halls, bars, brothels, and various other "social clubs" adorn street corners and receive widespread patronage deep into the hours of the night. Protected by gangs and Kanbu in exchange for money, goods, or services, fights for territory are an unfortunately common sight in Sainte-Azélie. Conventional wisdom is to make one's self appear innocuous (or as armed) as possible as to deter potential muggings.

The Wilds

- General term for space largely made savage by the corrupting influence of the Crimson Tide.
- The Wilds formed from continuous exposure to the Crimson Tide. It seems to even distort the world around it, enveloping a red haze when inside it and discolouring all within its influence into a shade or orange or red.
- Areas are converted into Wilds very slowly, the Tide is slow to move across to higher areas.
- It is currently unknown if the Wilds can be de-contaminated, even if the source of the Tide is completely removed from the area. The process is speculated to take years, even decades.
- It can, however, be stemmed with some clever engineering.

Discord:
discord.gg/FfRT7aajvE

Blades of Iron Roses: An Anime-Inspired Knight RP

She stood over the finale of this escapade with a hunch -- it was the best her posture would do, for every time she attempted a straighter posture did Katerina feel as though there was somehow a more supermassive weight thrust unto her body. The beast, seared and incinerated its brown feathers to a soot-coal black, lay on its side along the moonlit ruddy Earth. Pigment of dying flames, cast off from the smoldering cinders before them, dashed specks of luminescence, caught in the feathers-gaps. With every heaving, slow breath the griffon made, its embers - latched on like scorching leeches - ignited a dying little flame from which its scorching wound burrowed itself deeper with every fading breath.

Katerina wanted to do something. Something. A gorgeous animal before her dying by her own hand, after an epic battle, where the Witch-Knight burned a whole fortress-side to cinders. And now here she was, wanting to help. Her wants were cut with a perfect gesture, more perfect than Serenity's throw. The hatchet whistled along its whirling path, the head spiraling in little orange circles like a spinning fire cantrip. Nothing escaped her. Not even a grimace or cringe. Hatred, grief, and acceptance, all in only a few minutes.

She barely held herself up: Katerina felt exhausted, stiff in mind, like a haze set into her mind and barely, iratingly, maddeningly seeped from a crack in the back of her head that just felt like even rupturing her skull wide open would be a welcome relief. Her muscles felt quaked, ripping and searing; Her robes, more than a little singed. Even a modest pack the likes of her worn to battle felt like a whole person clawing atop her, kicking, heaving, shoving, tearing her down until the half-elf would force to crawl from the weight of her own exhaustion.

The Witch-Knight -- oh...how she hated that name...and how many times she would have to hear it, and see it, and speak it, and know that that is the title by which she is and will be...

That Witch-Knight had seen and felt and done all of these things, these terrible things, and with nary some strength inside her, clawed out a secret reserve, like she always had: Like her wells of energy she plucked within her like cigarettes from her case...and spoke softly to Serenity:

"Aye." She made out. Katerina paused. The Witch-Dame didn't bother to look Serenity in the eye. "Good kill."

Her voice was beat, soft. Like she was holding back tears; Proud, painful tears, in a cracked slipping voice that constrained within her every last bit of strength in and out of that woman would do anything not to confess just this weakness. Not a comrade. Not to a friend. To none. Not even if she were to know it herself.

Katerina made one final, exhausted mental note: She'd need to go see her Regular after this.

The Blood of Beasts Feeds The Cherry Blossom - Victorian Horror Fantasy RP Inspired by Bloodborne and Sekiro

@Kazemitsu Sure is! I think about 8 or 10 will be my cap, depending on how much more interest we get.

The Blood of Beasts Feeds The Cherry Blossom - Victorian Horror Fantasy RP Inspired by Bloodborne and Sekiro

Since there's a decent number of you here now, here's a discord link!

@Dragonfly 9 @Haha@Vertigo @Searat @Skwint @PigeonOfAstora

The Blood of Beasts Feeds The Cherry Blossom - Victorian Horror Fantasy RP Inspired by Bloodborne and Sekiro

Looks like there's some solid interest so far! I have midterms today, so i'll give it another day to garner some more interest -- expect an OOC thread to go up Saturday.

The Blood of Beasts Feeds The Cherry Blossom - Victorian Horror Fantasy RP Inspired by Bloodborne and Sekiro

"A stranger? Here? In Hōnshu-kuo? You've chosen a terrible time to come here."

"These are dangerous days...the Crimslings roam the Wilds -- That is their kingdom, and They rule it as if They are kings..."

"And what goes out to the Wilds nary come back -- and those that do...They are terrible things."

"Go, now."

"If the Beasts will not take you, the Kanbu will."

---

The world has become a small place -- so intimate, and all the more terrifying. What remains of mankind huddles together, scattered in the Arks: Entrenched hovels, platformed acropoli -- massive stakes of steel and concrete which pierce into the veins of the Earth. Each Ark is a colossal continuum of underground metropolis upon sprawling slum upon industrial park hath seen it blossom into a spoiled metallic onion. They are the collections of days long past, each one cradling the people of the world.

This is Honshu. It is known by many names -- to it's colonial overlords, past and progeny, it is Hâncheau, The Pearl of the East, and Dominion to Ardagne: Le Régime Éclairé. To those who have lived and toiled their blood away until they fainted white, it is Hōnshu-kuo. On their maps, The Dominion is a single entity: Honshu, in truth, was -- and still is -- a country of systemic irregularities: Administrative, legal, judicial, and ecclesiastic divisions and prerogatives frequently overlapped, while the Ardic nobility struggled to maintain their rights in the matters of local government and justice. All the while, the Samurai clans of Honshu met their fate, either as gravestones or as eager collaborators to the Régime Noveau.

But even this is but a tenuous connection: With The Fray receded, the powers which stay standing squabble over the remnants. Mayors and chieftains, like bickering children, argue over the responsibilities -- who shall re-tether the elektralines, who shall give the most men to scout the wilds, who shall fire their furnaces and forges the longest, who shall contribute the more food-stock: And who shall receive the lions share. Alliances formed in the fires of battle have grown brittle and cold, and the relations that kept the Dominion through peril for centuries is now poised to crumble at the seams. The Arks are all beset by bickering from within and beasts from without.

Now, it is a kingdom with no monarch -- a colony with no overlord. It is a confused and broken land, its image and identity long shattered and dusted to the winds of time which ground it all to grain in the sands of time.

The task before the good Hunters, banded in blood in their Kanbu, remains as steadfast as it was at its inception, even amidst this tumult.

The Crimson Tide must be stopped. The beasts within it felled, their bodies burned and scattered to the winds. Scientific samples collected. Fields and forests razed to contain its flow. And from this broken mirror, its pieces scattered before this ancient Earth, do what you must to gather the pieces, scraping them into some semblance of a whole, before the will to do so fades.

---

So what's this about needing a GM?
I'm going to be honest. I'm a really busy guy -- I got college, rugby, and work to deal with. This idea itself was based off of another earlier RP idea with a similar premise that didn't get far because of the same thing. I think it'd really work best if there was someone else to really help take the reins, ideally several other people who are as really into it as everyone else in the group is!

What is this RP about?
In this Late Fantasy world, there was once ago a grave threat from a mysterious force that humans could only sense as a thick, crimson mist. The Tide transformed men and creatures into terrible, twisted beasts, and wrought terrible carnage upon the world. Only with the great efforts of The Hunters did the tide of the miasma stem, but the two have fought one another to a vicious and brutal standstill. As one of the hunters, you must fight the monsters when they appear, and find more information about where they come from and most effective ways to rid of them.

What are hunters and kanbu? What do they do?
From ragtag, raggedy militiamen to professional scientists and accomplished fighters, hunters are a motley bunch. In the most open-ended sense of the word, kanbu are any organized band assembled (ostensibly) to take on the threat of the Crimson Tide. Kanbu vary greatly in organization, discipline, equipment, and size.

Kanbu are -- for better or worse -- closely intertwined with the politicking that goes on within the Arks. Often employed by large merchants and influential aristocrats to protect their property and allies, Kanbu take after their samurai clan ancestors, operating somewhere between law enforcement and gangs-for-hire. Vicious rivalries exist between Kanbu and their various allies, often escalating into threats, arson, and open violence.

Where will the RP take place? What's the setting?
The RP will take place in the Dominion of Hâncheau (Honshu or Hōnshu-kuo), mostly containing the Ark of Sainte-Azélie (Honshu: Ayahara).

The setting is Middle-High Fantasy -- somewhere between the lines of steampunk and urban fantasy, with generous dashes of noir. Think something sort of similar to Yharnam, or Ghibli films even. Check out some more in the lore tabs if you want more specific examples.

Is the focus of the RP more on combat or the characters?
I'd like to think that we would have a seamless mix between the two. Ideally, I would enjoy something close to a 60/40 mix from Characters:Combat, as the tonal themes I was drawing inspiration from here were mostly noir horror and various dark fantasy anime such as Claymore and Attack on Titan. If you really want, you can think of it as RWBY, but like, not written by two inexperienced nerds who ship their self-inserts with their 17 year old OCs!

Will there be a Discord?
discord.gg/FfRT7aajvE

Lore

History

- The Dominion was established over a long period of time, pieced together from bit-by-bit assemblies of the various shoguns, merchant houses, and warlord states across Honshu. Originally it was under the direct supervision of the Société de Négoce Oriental d'Ardagne (abv. "SNOA") before being transferred to the control of a government-regulated board of Oversees Departments of Ardagne.
- Most of the incorporation into the Dominion were done through a series of coercion tactics, intimidation, espionage, nepotism, bribery, and when all else failed direct military action. Ardagne often played local rivalries against one another to maintain systems of power and to give local pre-existing authorities a direct stake in the well-being of the colonial regime.
- This means that unlike most Ardelais colonies, Honshu maintained a degree of quasi-independence, and still maintained its local traditional monarchy -- although under direct supervision of the Colonial Authority.
- A majority of Honshu's modern infrastructure is strictly colonial in nature: Its industries were owned by Ardelais capitalists, Honshu children were taught in Ardelais schools, where they were taught the Ardelais tongue and the indigenous Honshu language was modified and revised to use a Western-styled, alphabet-based script. Though most of these institutions are barely kept afloat in even the best of Arks, their influence is felt throughout all of Honshu even to this day.

The Hunter's Equipment

Tasked with fighting the most vicious denizens of The Wilds, the Hunter's work is never complete. Although the Dominion is home to all manner of artisan's shops which constitute the hunter's arsenal, materials to produce the most modern of weapons are scarce, and the knowledge soon turning into ritual than rationality. Firearm ammunition is a labourious essential to produce, and remains uncommon outside of large marketplaces.

The respirator is undoubtedly the most invaluable tool in the Hunter's toolkit -- If a Hunter were to be ambushed, and they could either take their weapon or their respirator before their escape, all but the dead would choose the respirator. Respirators are large devices, composed of a mouthpiece connected to a filtered hose which connects to a larger air tank which is straddled either across the hunter's back or their abdomen via a harness. Additional filters and hoses are essential on longer expeditions. Most Hunters choose to decorate their respirators, adorning them with painted designs or good luck charms.

Goggles and fully-enveloped hoods are common additional pieces of protective wear, preventing stray winds from blowing Crimson Tide into their eyes and ears.

Your average hunter is outfitted with a variety of tools from which they perform their duties: Every Hunter has a firearm and some mêlée of their choosing. A single, well-placed rifle round to the eye-socket or heart can put down even the most fell of beast, and will at least wound them enough to be injured with proper coordination or trapping. Most beasts can easily shake off shots to non-vital parts and sport thick layers of fat, muscle, and bone to boot -- coupled with the scarcity of ammunition, and the need for a mêlée weapon becomes clear.

Rifles and shot-guns make up the majority of a primary ranged weapon for a hunter. The most common weapon in the Dominion was the Lévesque Modèle 91, a five-shot bolt-action rifle with handy characteristics and a flat-headed 8mm bullet. Revolvers were equally prized, as some hunters preferred the rapid shots of the hand-gun in their off-hand while utilizing a mêlée weapon in their dominant hand.

Mêlée weapons take a good number of forms: Swords of the Hunter are typically either of a native uchigatana make, or are swords of Ardic design -- typically these are either a heavy-bladed, single-edged cavalry sabre, or a thinner, harder-tipped estoc meant for thrusting. Perhaps more novice or less-affluent hunters prefer simple, blunt clubs, ranging from impromptu maces to work hammers.

Other tools vary considerably from Hunter to Hunter. Some prefer caltrops or bolas to incapacitate the blood-beasts, while others use incendiary Molotov Cocktails to stave away the beasts, whom possess an instinctual fear of fire.

Science & Technology

Science and technology in this setting is roughly equatable to that found in the 1900s of our world. Elektralines and telegrammes adorn the Arks, though selective and spotty in service, powered by the might of magic and machine.

Magic

- It's magic. I ain't gotta explain shit.

Setting

- Honshu, known to the Colonists as Hâncheau and the locals as Hōnshu-kuo, is a mountainous island-nation, isolated from the rest of the world.
- It was a colony in the days before the Fray and the Great War, and that colonial influence lingers still across it even as wider humanity seems to have crumbled.
- Ships from elsewhere in the world are very rare, and those that do seldom have anything to offer in terms of substantial knowledge of either the greater world's on-goings nor what happened that caused the rise of the Crimson Tide. They typically contain merchants or refugees, disdained to see that little here is different from the outside world, but carry with them a common trend that Arks seem to be nonexistent elsewhere.

Crimson Tide

- Nobody is quite sure what the origin of the Crimson Tide is.
- Several theories exist that explain its conception, such as:
-- The curse of an ancient Honshu god, who has come to reap the bounty stolen from him long ago
-- Divine punishment from God upon man's hubris in the Great War
-- A mining accident which opened up a pocket of the noxious gas, rumoured to be from the depths of the Earth
-- A freak industrial waste accident, which over time fused and compounded to create the Mist
-- A new "superweapon" made to win the Great War which backfired.

- The Crimson always seems to spread out in like a thick blanket, meaning that it is densest along the ground and dissipates higher. Staying in The Crimson leaves a thick, paste-like orange residue that is difficult to remove.
- When exposed to The Crimson, plants change their pigmentation, seeping a thick, redish-orange pus, hardening like sap over time.
- Animals seem to rot in the presence of The Crimson, their bodies turning from viscera to thick pustules that seep into hard, chitinous exoskeletons which constantly weep the the miasma of The Crimson.
- Symptoms of Crimson Blight can vary immensely depending on depth of exposure. Common minor symptoms are nausea, vomiting, chest pain, and coughing. Severe symptoms include asphyxiation, hallucinations, confusion, loss of motor skills, and localized necrosis. Terminal symptoms include widespread necrosis reddish-purple in complexion, psychosis, loss of speech, and eventually stroke-like symptoms. Terminal Crimson Blight cases near-always result in death, and even survivors are typically comatose and bedridden for weeks after.
- Within the Tide is life, in the form of disfigured monsters. Some are quadrupedal, others are bipedal. Some are bestial in shape, while others almost humanoid. These monsters have been called Crimslings, or Blood-beasts. Oddly, some of the beasts seem to speak a pidgin language of their own, constituted of mangled words combined with bestial howls.
- Transformation into a Blood-beast happens in several stages, and it is a painful process. Most victims go mad far before their true transformation, and by their full development into a Crimsling they have long been rendered unrecognizable.

The Arks

- Large megacities made of colossal pycrete beams, cobbled together on top of one another.
- Each Ark is virtually its own self-regulating city-state. Theoretically they owe service to the Dominion, like a feudal structure: In practice, this seldom occurs.
- Although stemmed in the old laws of the Ardic colonial system, law and order is very loose.

Life In Sainte-Azélie

First the Western Capital of Honshu's Khiba Dynasty, then the colonial capital of the Dominion, Sainte-Azélie remains as perhaps the largest Ark on Honshu, and undoubtedly its most important. Situated deep within the Ark along the foot of Mount Ame, The Empress has grown erratic and increasingly unpredictable in her old age, and spends near every waking moment isolated in The Ivory Palace. She remains as an important spiritual figurehead to the Honshu locals, although the Throne's true political power has long been withered to the stem. The main city centre has long been restructured and paved over, replaced with colonial-styled double-wide avenues and colonial Art Nouveau-styled architecture. Other noteworthy landmarks include the Kagito Forum, a sprawling open-air marketplace, the Junchiro Opera House, and the Verdant Fortress.

Sainte-Azélie is untypical from most Arks -- it is a sprawling, massive arcology which spans into sprawling spires that plunge upwards to the deepest of cavernous crevices from which whole avenues are carved. Near all housing in Sainte-Azélie is in one of its innumerate danchi: Massive tenament complexes with sparse decorations and few luxuries. Homes in danchi are often merged together, situating sometimes three or four families or tenants into one unit, which is often divided using curtains and wooden prop dividers. All denizens of the unit share the same kitchen and living space, and typically do not contain more than 4 total bedrooms. Bathing and laundry are communal, shared by all tenants on the same floor. Privacy in a danchi is a luxury ill-afforded to most as a general rule.

With the Crimson having claimed so much land to The Wilds, agriculture must be relegated to only the most compatible, utilitarian endeavour. The average Ark-located farm is multi-stacked, aquaponic venture, encompassing a fish farmery on top of a bed of waterbogged plants, similar in appearance a bog. Asparagus, carrots, rice, mushrooms, and kelp form the bulk of most plant-based staples, while crickets, crayfish, and snakefish are the most common meat sources.

Geniune meat as we know it is a luxury: Most land is simply unsuitable for the growth of large livestock such as cows or pigs, and foraging about in the Wilds is an escapade only left to the most cautious or daring of scavengers. The meat of the blood-beasts is tough and stringy, often foul of taste and even stronger of odor, though a select few butchers can make it at least palatable with enough seasoning and curing. Most protein comes in the form of Kiel -- a mass-produced pressed cake made from combining kelp paste mashed with some easily-farmable protein stock: Typically crickets or crayfish. Kiel has a mild flavor and is rich in protein, and is usually used as meat is in cooking, although its blocky, crumbly texture doesn't make the best for all recipes.

Crime and seedy behaviour is a simple fact of life in any Ark, and Sainte-Azélie stands as no exception. Gambling halls, bars, brothels, and various other "social clubs" adorn street corners and receive widespread patronage deep into the hours of the night. Protected by gangs and Kanbu in exchange for money, goods, or services, fights for territory are an unfortunately common sight in Sainte-Azélie. Conventional wisdom is to make one's self appear innocuous (or as armed) as possible as to deter potential muggings.

The Wilds

- General term for space largely made savage by the corrupting influence of the Crimson Tide.
- The Wilds formed from continuous exposure to the Crimson Tide. It seems to even distort the world around it, enveloping a red haze when inside it and discolouring all within its influence into a shade or orange or red.
- Areas are converted into Wilds very slowly, the Tide is slow to move across to higher areas.
- It is currently unknown if the Wilds can be de-contaminated, even if the source of the Tide is completely removed from the area. The process is speculated to take years, even decades.
- It can, however, be stemmed with some clever engineering.

Blades of Iron Roses: An Anime-Inspired Knight RP

_{With: @PigeonOfAstora @Psychic Loser @Saiyan @Rune_Alchemist}

As she lowered her hands and dropped her gesture, the Witch-Knight slumped forwards, stammering as she barely caught herself as the whole weight of her body -- armour and all. The incendiary delight above her lightened, turning forth into a swirl of embers almost with Cecilia's apt words cutting the maelstrom to a marisque tourbillion. Embers hummed around her in a dervicious dance, each passing rotation amplifying the exhausted demeanour to the half-elven dame. Katerina clearly grew visibly fatigued from the battle, growing into panting chants as she maintained her magics, the cyclone and her allies' ward. She held an instinctive, uttering hymn to her swaying movements, even as she was about to collapse, route and pressed into her mind.

"Eh? That's a bit too much fire don't ya think, Katerina!?"

And finally, as the words from Cecilia's comments registered unto her, her cigarette dropped from her mouth. A dead, heavy croak from Katerina beckoned her answer:

"No -- Not hardly."

She dipped into a lower position, scanning around the battlefield before her -- every gale-winded pass the mighty griffon made brazened a heat wave unto her back and front, drenching her in blankets of dust and sweat like blasts from the desert winds. The Lady could feel the embers sear into her back with every rancorous pass and daring dive. But, there were some larger affairs at play than whatever were to come of their two-pronged threats. Her friends would need much more than just her, as well.

Her heels dug into the dark earth before her, dropping into a heavy incantation. The embers which surrounded her joined to her cantar, growing in their dance as they conjoined and converged to her instruction. With a heavy wave of her arm, a blanket of molten flame blanketed above them, a drape of fire covering over their heads like a great tarp over a firetrap. And with any hope, blast the damnable beast into little more than a well-seared dinner worthy of the post-battle feast.