Sierra

Tear The World Down: A Different Fantasy Story

Avalon is a world in grave peril. The Third Age is upon us, yet few are aware of it. The great kingdoms are not prepared. This is a fantastical world about to be under siege. But this story is not about a band of heroes coming together to face the forces of evil, no. This is the story of those chosen to tear the world down.

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So I’ve been working on a little something in my spare moments that I want to share. Mostly I want to know if enough people are interested in this that it’s worth me pressing forth. Consider this an interest pre-check. This is actually here to gauge interest for data purposes. That means no interested parties will be contacted later and no official roleplay thread is coming in the immediate future. Not yet, at least. There is still lots of work to be done! The last time I GM’d something, I did not properly have everything laid out beforehand and the resultant lack of communication killed off a lot of my interest (at which point I was severely demotivated and threw in the towel). Lesson learned, I’m being very thorough this time. Carrying on, here’s some intro to the world:

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In the First Age, there was the aether: a powerful current of energy that flowed through the very fabric of reality given to the races of Avalon by the Benevolent Gods in the form of the Nexus. The Nexus was a crystal spire through which the most concentrated aetherwinds flowed. From the aether, came the practice of magic around the world. Jealous of the favor won by such a gift, the dark gods of Hell released their own mystical power upon the world. It is known by several names only spoken in hushed tones and terrified whispers. Fueled by lust and rage, its practice is strictly forbidden. Even the eldest sorcerers fear its power to overwhelm the gentle aetherwinds.

Twelve dark sorcerers of the forbidden arts rose under the name The Shadow Legion. Together they led a rampage through Avalon, bent on uniting the world under one banner: their banner. Their onslaught was devastating, tearing apart kingdoms that had stood for centuries. A league of the greatest remaining wizards gathered at the Nexus to halt the Legion’s attack. To defeat the Shadow Legion, the wizards sacrificed the Nexus to purge them of their dark powers. The plan succeeded, but the Nexus was destroyed, severing the flow of aether throughout Avalon.

Five hundred years have passed. The rulers of the kingdoms of Avalon have largely forgotten. At the time of their execution, the Legion placed a hex upon the world:

“Bodies may bleed and wither and die, but the souls of Shadow shall live on into eternity. Avalon may know victory and peace for five hundred years before our return. Our spirits, power and knowledge, will return from exile to reclaim this world. Our hosts will know power like no other. We will rise again to tear your world down.”

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The premise is to take the traditional dark fantasy notion and turn it on its head. The world is not already a grim dystopia that needs saving, and there are no undiscovered heroes being led along by fate to save the realm. This is the complete inversion of that. The player characters are mundane individuals who each carry a small trinket with them that harbors the soul of one of the Shadow Legion’s twelve sorcerers, unbeknownst to them. The souls can influence them, speak to them, and briefly become one with them if they allow it to. All their knowledge and mystical power is channeled through the body of a willing host. This is a story about the ordinary people chosen to rewrite the world order. This is their story.

The Hunters and the Hunted - Open for Applications

Okay so I said I was gonna work on something vampiric, and I still kinda want to, but I also want to recycle this guy maybe. Here's the first iteration of the converted CS (hence the formatting won't be 1:1 but all the requisite info is still there):

Expand:

Name: Levi Yve Nykolas
Age: 33
Race: Human
Gender: Male

Profession: Soldier of Fortune - Travelling from village to village, doing whatever work is available. Hunting the creatures of the night is a dangerous profession, but for someone with few other skills and no intention to settle down, it has its merits.

Appearance: Aged, scarred, gruff, not known for appearing friendly. He neither barks nor bites as harshly as he may appear however. He has a set of three scars cutting across the right half of his face, stemming from the corner of his mouth, the bridge of his nose, and just under his eye ... courtesy of a long night in the woods in winter and a pair of hungry wolves. His armor is a lightweight, yet durable mix of steel plate and thick leather, scratched and gouged by both blade and fang. His waistbelt is heavy with steel: his selection of blades curated over years.

some images

General idea. Armor is a bit bulky on this though (imperfect matches are why I don’t care for photos). The face is more accurate.

Better armor, slimmer and more lightweight, but the face is too young, nor does Levi carry shields. Both the swords in these are really too heavy and can’t be easily wielded off-hand.

Armaments:
Paired 36” jian blades, imported from the far east
Two 8” silver-plated knives

more images

Originally a weapon of chinese origin, it’s a double-edged, straight-blade sword that’s both durable and lightweight. It can be one or two-handed and derives its lethality from speed rather than weight. The fullers of his particular set are silver-plated.

A more local set of hardware for backup. These blades are fully silver-plated for use as a finisher of an eldritch abomination, or as a panicked self-defense tool when something goes wrong.

Personality: Blunt, brutally honest, and a bit pessimistic, but loyal to a fault. Though his line of work would suggest he is loyal only to wealth, he grew up on stories of heroes of old. But in his own words, “There are no great causes left to fight for, no feats worth fighting for, no battles worth dying for. There is no valor to be had in throwing one’s life away, and there is no man left to die.” He approaches any task with this skepticism. Suicide missions are not something he will willingly walk into, in part because of his ingrained stubbornness. When he sets out on a task, he will complete it or die trying.

Best Qualities:
-Loyal to a fault
If one good thing can come from his rigidity, it is his unwavering loyalty. It is incredibly hard to earn, but nearly impossible to break.
-Master Swordsman
If his blades can reach it, he can kill it. The only question is whether it can kill him first.
-Veterancy
He’s survived a rather long time for his line of work: product of skill and some measure of luck.
-Qualified Weaponsmith
He can maintain his own weapons and armor. This self-sufficiency is minor, but nonetheless often underrated.

Worst Qualities:
-Headstrong, stubborn
When he has made up his mind, he has made up his mind for better or for worse. There is no changing that, period.
-Leeroy Jenkins syndrome
He sometimes takes an overly brief assessment of a situation, and then charges in blades first. While this can sometimes catch enemies unaware, it is a dice roll and Levi should know better.
-Range
Zero ranged weapons, outside of using his backup knives as throwing weapons. If it can hurt him from outside of his sword reach, he is in trouble.
-Fear of Wolves
His hand magnetizes to the hilt of his sword out of pure reflex at the sound of a wolf’s howl.

History: Levi originally was an apprentice blacksmith. Working around swords all day gave him plenty of time to both admire them and to practice with them. He picked up the fundamentals somewhat quickly on his own before he was given proper training. The master swordsman he trained with was like a father to him, having grown up an orphan. Despite what was often assumed, it never bothered him that much. When it did bother him, he kept busy at his studies. He eventually became a qualified weaponsmith, and crafted his own set of swords. His first craft were a pair of single-edge backswords (an early predecessor to the sabre). Nonetheless, his craft had a long way to come.

He was originally trained solely for the purpose of defending their small town. It was a boring and uneventful post however, and Levi grew impatient. That of course would change soon enough, for Levi was not careful about what he sought. Every night, the warriors would listen to the howls of wolves and stand ready lest a horde of tortured abominations make for the townspeople. On a high moon the horde came as promised. The town gates - a barrier of thick logs bound by hardened iron - failed to hold back anything, and everyone who carried a blade was now in charge of holding the line.

The trained warriors of the village did eventually repel the lycan horde, slaughtering most of them. Even in their victory, it was not without cost. Two dozen lay dead and five houses were destroyed. Among the dead was Levi’s master. Levi took his death extremely personally, and had severed the head of the killer beast clean off only moments after. A life for a life trade didn’t suit him though. He could not suffer to see such eldritch creatures live, for they had sought the blood of innocents without cause. It would not be the last fateful encounter Levi would have with wolves.

Levi departed his village to hone his craft hunting down these monsters. He could not be appeased by merely defending against them. His skills with a blade where up to the task, but he had little knowledge of hunting down the creatures of the night. As with smithing, he learned the craft quickly. By the time he was 20, he was more than capable of tracking down and beheading almost any the various horrors that lurked in the midnight forests. Even still a hunter has to sleep. During a camp-out on a week-long track, Levi was alone in the woods. His fire had burnt out and the wolves were famished. Unlucky for them, Levi was quick on the draw. Unlucky for Levi, he wasn’t fast enough. He managed to spill the pouncing predator’s innards with a single well-placed slash, but the creature had managed to catch him across the face with its claws in its final breath.

The howl of a wolf keeps Levi paranoid to this day, and the scars on his face serve as a grim reminder. In the face of that fear he has made a successful career out of solving people’s monster problems. For as rash as he can be, he has lived a surprisingly long time in his line of work, making a rather significant reputation for himself. His age gives him a certain element of veterancy in his field that many often do not live long enough to reach. He is fairly known among towns north of the capitol, though he has traveled into the mountains before to answer a call. Now the king is seeking his help. Levi is certain there is more to it than that, and that something must be very, very wrong for the fortress that is the capitol to need the likes of a master hunter.

Site & Art issue.

if that happens to somebody and they really want to use that picture, they can just edit it a little. it's not like any lawyer in the world would take that to court.

@DeadbeatWalking

Uhm ... fair use and derivative works licensing doesn't work like that and, if used specifically to get out from under a copyright claim, can get you in more legal trouble than you were in before. I have to urge against this strategy.

Site & Art issue.

It would make sense for art thievery to fall under the jurisdiction of plagiarism rules, since both are essentially forms of intellectual property appropriation. Without bringing the potential and complicated legal liabilities into it, I think there's a place to separate benign neglect from malice. A case of someone pulling the first result they're pleased with off google image results is one thing and mostly harmless (these people will usually comply with requests for attribution, etc.) is completely different from someone advertising work as their own when it clearly is not. The latter case is genuinely malicious and deserves to be dealt with harshly.

As for years-old content, two options exist: I see no harm in removing content from long-dead threads, however it raises an interesting question of how and why a person in question is finding the offending art in these threads. I won't assume malice without probable cause, but I find the pretense there not quite so black and white. Your other option is to deny removal requests on old content on the basis of it being dead and buried; a statute of limitations if you will. The biggest problem with denying removal requests on that ground is potential basis for sheltering copyright infringement and that's a sufficiently large issue in its own right.

So in regards to the first major query of having a policy or not, yes. That's a no-brainer that there should be some formal policy for something that's already come up three separate times. In regards to protections of artists vs members, copyright law somewhat binds you in that situation. You can only say no up until someone files a DMCA takedown request at which point your hands are tied or the site as a whole becomes liable. You can have a thorough process to weed out cases of the claimant not actually being the artist or otherwise acting purely out of malice, but at the end of the day if they want to be a dick about it, DMCA lets them do it.

In instances where the user on the site is responsive, the situation is most likely a lot easier ... or in a few rare cases much more problematic. Two cases exist: case one is where the artist in question has failed to reach out to the user in question prior to contacting staff. So long as the user is responsive, this is an easy case to solve with minimal mediation. The second case is problematic as the artist has reached out but was met with refusal on the user's end. Here you already have two parties in heated disagreement with legal ramifications on the line. Best of luck. My input is that most responsive users will be happily agreeable to attribution, using an artist's original source over a rehost, etc. They'll be less agreeable to an insistence on removal, but if you have an open line of communication, that's better than nothing.

Steampunk ⚙ Big Ass Monsters

Thursday, 14 March
Early afternoon
Southside Air Docks

The Jade Dragon was a heavyweight for her speed. The ship was no brawling galleon for sure, but she could run down even an imperial hunter. The Dragon was technically in the hunter category of airships herself, but firmly on the fast side and with a large caliber chaser gun. During Sam’s time aboard, they had gunned down boats almost three times the length without difficulty. A pressure-driven slug gun on the port side made quick work of the larger boats’ larger crews. Sam had barely stomached the sight of a machine gun mangled corpse the first time she saw one, but that was well before her time aboard the Dragon.

The boat had arrived at Aeraport for some much needed shore leave and restocking. The Jade Dragon’s captain had reserved the berth for two full weeks. The rest of the crew appreciated the downtime but Sam wasn't one to be overly comfortable stick on Aeraport for too long. She had already said her farewells to most of them as she disembarked. “Well Captain James, it has been my pleasure. I bid you adieu and may we meet again.”

She gave a tip of her hat as she turned away from the good captain. “Are you sure you won't join us again when we head out milady? Navy galleon take on the roster!” he called after her.

“Alas Captain, you know I cannot stay here got two full weeks. I will be long gone by the time you depart. Another time for sure!” and Sam turned and left.


Sam did little in the way of planning. Were she better at the practice she would have another ship to board the same day. Sam made her way through the less glamorous parts of the city towards an old tavern labeled the Traveler’s Lodge. Sam had learned early that illegal more fun activities were fairly readily available among the loose-lips drunkards, but not so much on public advertising notices. Honest work bored her. She took a seat at a table and ordered herself a bourbon on ice.

The table wasn’t for any expected company. Rather she wanted a workspace to clean a rifle. A barstool didn’t provide that. While her weapon did need it presently, it was as much habit of hers to do so when in a bar. Even the most wasted of sailors would think twice about making a fool out of himself at her expense with her shiny hardware scattered about in plain view.

Steampunk ⚙ Big Ass Monsters

Name: Samantha Whitmore, chooses to omit her last name to conceal family ties.
Age: 21 (almost 22)
Sex: Female
Origin: Whitmore Manor, Aeraport, Agartha Gates.
-The Whitmore family was originally from Texas prior.
Family: Andrew Whitmore (father), Rachael McCarthy Whitmore (mother)

Appearance: A slender young woman, her physical presence is hardly imposing. Sam’s fine boned face makes her wealthy upbringing painfully apparent. She keeps her light hair pulled back underneath a wide brimmed hat most of the time. Her emerald green eyes are brightly obvious even in such shade. She dresses in plain clothes, a shirt and pants instead of a blouse, avoiding the traditional wardrobe of most women.

Background: Sam was born of the Whitmore family, a wealthy name earning its fortune from goods transport into and throughout the new world. Her upbringing steered her towards being the perfect wife for another wealthy male, though she fought this every chance she could. She was constantly in trouble for sneaking out to the lower class districts with friends, or playing around on the docks near the airships constantly coming and going. She was obsessed with airships since she was a young girl. Of course, her parents would have none of their daughter being around the deckhand peasantry. More than once her father, Andrew Whitmore, third generation owner/operator of Whitmore Shipping Company, caught her in the carriage trying to sneak down to the docks whenever he went to attend to business matters.

Around 17, her parents were beginning to try to marry her off. Samantha made it a point to lead on every suitor, only to shatter their hopes and dreams as the adults began to press for an answer. After two years, Sam had grown tired of the game and on the eve of her 20th birthday, a party which was less for her, and more for her to be presented in a fancy dress to more men than she cared to be in eyesight of, she decided to leave. She dressed herself in deckhand’s clothes, a plain collared shirt, vest, and worn pants, and sneaked downstairs. Before she left the manor, she took one of her father’s mounted rifles off its plaque, a magazine-fed lever-action rifle taking standard 8mm full-power, and slung it across her back.

One of her “peasant” friends had arranged for her to have a place aboard a light freighter headed out into the frontier lands of Agartha. Wanting their daughter back, while also furious at her escapade, her parents arranged for a bounty to be placed for her safe return: a price on her head large enough that word of it would spread into the wildlands almost as fast as she could run. Now she takes various jobs aboard whatever ship will have her, making a name for herself as crew for hire while exploring the Scorpion’s Ville Frontier for herself.

Friends/Allies: Sam does not settle down much and therefore does not keep in contact with many people. She knew a great many people in the upper class society of Aeraport, especially centered around the Avalon district where she lived. However none of those old names mean anything anymore, as a return to Aeraport is quite risky to her. Her family’s influence has made certain that she would be spotted almost immediately.

Enemies: Having a several thousand dollar price tag for her capture put a lot of people on her trail, but the frontier is a large place to hide. In rare instances, a lone pirate-wannabe will find her out and try to make himself rich, but is hardly a challenge for her to evade or dispatch.

Dreams/Life Goals: Sam hopes to one day captain her own airship providing ‘goods procurement’ to frontier towns (piracy). She also hopes her parents can one day understand her desires to be a frontiersman, rather than a perfect princess to be married off, however she understands the cultural barriers of the wealthy elite that stand against such.

Best Qualities: For a frontiersman, Sam is quite optimistic. Her upbeat attitude can help motivate those around her. She is also a quick study, going from almost no firearms training to accurately hitting a man-sized target at 100 meters within a few months of being on the frontier. Such distances are still short for ship-to-ship combat, but her progress as a marksman is remarkable nonetheless.

Worst Qualities: Sam has an almost-complete disregard for etiquette, heavily stemming from it being shoved down her throat from a young age. She can sometimes come across as brash without trying. She is not very tactful even if she needs to be.

Weaknesses: The frontier of Scorpion’s Ville is still new and exciting to Sam. It’s all still a game to her, even when bullets are flying past. She does not yet fully grasp the seriousness of it all. Underestimating the frontier is a grave mistake, and the life and death stakes of these lands do not always give second chances.
She sometimes jumps straight to violence, or threats thereof, if she perceives it to be likely in the near future. This ‘jumping to guns’ has caught her more than once in a shootout that wasn’t entirely necessary.

Paraphernalia: Sam carries most everything with her in a brown leather rucksack. That which she does not includes her rifle and an ammo belt with three spare magazines and twenty additional rounds, which she wears loose around her waist. In the rucksack is two changes of clothes, one spare box of rifle ammo, and a smallish leather coin purse never holding more than fifty dollars, and other miscellaneous items. She never carries much in the way of money.

Her rifle is a lever-action with replaceable magazine holding ten rounds, made of machined steel. Firearms of such quality are almost unheard of on the frontier, and very expensive. The valuable bits are set in a lightly stained white ash body with a polished brass casing around the receiver action. Save for the reward attached to her name, the rifle is the single most valuable thing she carries.

Lords of The Seven Points [Gothic Fantasy involving Cosmic Horrors]

I want to see where this goes. I also want to bring up a character of mine I would like to adapt. I will thus definitely be around. Also I'd like to ask ... what would the goal of the party actually be? Beyond being travelers braving the wastes, what objective brings the player characters together?

The Pretties, Uglies, and Elites

Do you have a CS template? Tis a much more effective way to gauge who will actually play when you make the main thread, and it gives me something to do in the meantime.

I apparently don't notice links on this site far too often.

Let's B!tch. I feel it's a healthy release for our roleplay annoyances 2.0

I wasn't actually throwing shade at DeadDrop. I don't believe I've ever even put in a CS for one of his RPs (nothing personal there bud, just never saw anything there I was really excited to do). Neither of my callouts have been on people who actually read this thread ... and if for some reason they do see it and know I'm calling them out, I really don't care. That was the damn point.

Revamping a Supernatural Medieval Roleplay

I think I was interested in this last time but I opted not to work through a CS. I can't actually remember why. Gonna look through and give it another shake. I'll say something if I end up making appreciable progress on a CS.

EDIT: I actually cannot figure out why I passed on this. I didn't find a single one of my usual write-offs which would send me packing. Only guess at this rate is that I couldn't work out a character or I was too busy. That said I might have a vampire idea. >:) Still don't count on me yet, but the odds are improving.