Stitches

Elder Scrolls: Skingrad Company

Surely there can't be too many of them left by now. Andrina's probably going to show up late for the action and loot all the bodies at this rate!

Elder Scrolls: Skingrad Company

Intriguing character history! With both her and Flavia possibly being in the company pretty soon I'm going to start thinking the Daedric lords have an interest in our fate for some reason, haha.

@Sad Ogo

Thanks! Vaermina's involvement with Andrina is minimal at best (and entirely dependent on the GM, since I'm obviously not going to take control of a literal daedric prince) with the focus mainly being on her interacting with and becoming friends with the other characters. I guess it'd be interesting in the long run to see if any of the mercs start piecing together what happened, especially since if - by some remarkable circumstance - she does succeed in her quest, her reward is basically undoing the one thing that's keeping her from remembering all the bad stuff in her life. But the goal really isn't to have her 'win' or ever find a way to reverse the spell. The goal is to see her grow and heal beyond it. Some things are best left untouched, especially if it involves suffering.

...The smaller but equally as important goal is having Calder give Andrina a piggy back, mind. I loved reading your sheet! Calder seems like the moral compass this group is lacking and he fits the misconstrued 'hero' vision that Andrina has assigned to the Company, so I get the feeling she'll be skipping away at his heels if they ever get a chance to get to know each other.

Elder Scrolls: Skingrad Company

Hi! I hope you're still accepting characters. I'd love to try my hand at a wood elf concept I've been playing around with for a while, in preparation to RP on ESO.

Andrina Lungwort

Name: Andrina Lungwort
Race: Bosmer
Gender: Female
Age: Adult

Appearance: Standing at 5’3, Andrina has a sunny complexion and a very flat figure. Her little packs of muscle are usually covered up by her fur, leather and chainmail armour which is durable yet heavily used. She wears a leather helmet with a face-mask decorated with emblazoned marks to resemble war paint. Her face is sharp and angular, her blonde hair usually gathered into little pigtails or twin buns on either side of her face. Her eyes are jet black and liquidy in the sunlight. A singular vertical black stripe has been inked into her bottom lip alone. Sometimes she’ll go barefoot, but often wears slippers.

Personality: It is immediately apparent that Andrina is somewhat addled; despite her age, she is quite simpleminded and endlessly fascinated with new things regardless of how mundane they might be. Underneath this surface layer of stupidity is a complex and sophisticated woman trying to worm her way to the surface. She shows understanding of more abstract concepts, follows her people’s beliefs such as the meat mandate and the green pact with absolute devotion, and adheres to her own moral code with a staunch stubbornness that hinders her efficiency. She clearly has her own opinions on politics and philosophy even if she no longer has the vocabulary to express them, and her intricate knowledge on illusion magic is objective proof of her intellect. She listens well, she takes to learning like a duck to water and strives for some higher purpose known only to her in fleeting impulses, following watery remnants of her oldest desires and memories in a sisyphean effort to break the curse she doesn’t even know she has.

But a lot of these complexities only show themselves under careful observation. The unfortunate truth is that, for the most part, Andrina is a naive and foolish creature. It is as if she has the mind of a child again; she enjoys exploring, her attention span is much shorter than a typical adult, she is highly superstitious, she plays with toys. She is uncomfortable in large cities and busy places, easy to frighten, a slave to her own impetuous moods and - worst of all - plagued with her insomnia which weakens her both physically, psychologically and emotionally. She seems self-aware, to some extent, of her embarrassing behaviour yet struggles to overcome it. She flourishes in the company of close friends; those who are willing to help her with whatever strange quest she embarked upon all those years ago are met with a dogged loyalty and affection that you’d only really find in beloved family pets. When left on her own she devolves into her usual abysmal state - lost, highly confused, frequently distracted and guarded around strangers.

Class: Haunted Huntress
Major Skills: Illusion, Marksman, Sneak
Minor Skills: Acrobatics, Athletics, Blade, Armourer
Equipment: A bone-and-sinew repair kit, complete with a variety of leather scraps, buckles and buttons for armour repair. A set of fur, leather and chainmail armour, complete with a leather helmet with a vizard. A hammock and a shortsword.

History:
Andrina lived quite peacefully in the Valenwood, following Y’ffre’s word and song from as early as her childhood. Like many bosmer she was given the bow as soon as she could use it and her marksmanship skills grew alongside her. Her parents were transient and nomadic in nature and wandered the thickest swathes of woodland with a small travelling party until they had found a place to call home. The Greenspeakers within their little group prayed to the Graht-oaks for shelter and, with their blessing, Andrina’s little tribe were given some simple dwellings to stay in. This moving settlement was known as Tripmarn, and it might have become a thriving trading outpost if the seeds of madness had not been sown in its creation. Hidden amongst the good intentions of the fishermen, trappers and weavers of Andrina’s tribe was a mage; a wisened scholar called Thoras, one who was looked up to in the community but largely left to his own devices. His magic was difficult to comprehend and, aside from getting the impression that he felt a bit lonely amongst his simpler hunting folk, the tribe never heard any complaint from him.

At this point in time he plays an infinitesimal role in Andrina’s story. Rambunctious and boisetrous in her youth, Andrina was more interested in climbing the trees and playing tricks on her many aunts, uncles and cousins instead of starting to consider a career and - gods forbid - a husband. She was irresponsible and frequently attracted to the hunt. She resented their settlement and preferred the gritty vagabond life of her childhood; desperate to recreate that, she often left the sanctuary of Tripmarn on her own expeditions to catch trophy prizes and assert her dominance amongst her competitors. With time and patience, her fiery streak gave way to many injuries that gradually chipped at her immaturity and made those simpler crafts seem much more important.

One day she returned to Tripmarn for the last time; she settled there for a decade or two, not knowing that when she would next leave she would never return. Whilst at home she learnt from her grandparents. They taught her how to work leather and sinew, carve bone with rock and metal, use the hammer and nail to protect herself instead of the bow and shortsword that she had grown so comfortable with. Andrina found that busy hands kept her temper in check and became an armourer for her tribe. She enjoyed decorating her finished pieces the most but respected the importance of durable and sustainable craftsmanship. She made paltry trinkets and charms to adorn weaponry and armour and gave them out as favours, especially to young Irkath - the village’s best huntsman who had a penchant for loitering around Andrina’s hovel in the mornings, eager to boast of his feats to her. Had Thoras made a better effort to give up his books and look around Tripmarn to see the community that had established during his studies, maybe Andrina would have married Irkath and taken off into the Valenwood with him to hunt large game and bear many children.

That didn’t happen. Thoras was lonely, and there were creatures in Oblivion that knew how to toy with lonely men. Vaermina, Lady of nightmares and dreams, became his idol. He worshipped the daedric prince in secret as whispers corrupted his mind and his spellcraft. And when the time was right and his madness had reached a critical point, he unleashed it upon all those who lived in the boughs of Tripmarn. The entire village was plunged into a new reality - sleeplessness or nightmares. It blossomed into irritation, then paranoia, and full out madness. Brother turned against brother; deceit and chaos reigned in the little village as man ate men felled by their own blade. In one final act of devastation, Tripmarn was set ablaze and the survivors were cast out of the Valenwood; those who pledged loyalty to Thoras were executed on the spot.

Andrina was one of those survivors, even if she was no longer aware of it. With only a handful of ‘victors’ from the daedric game, Vaermina rewarded Andrina and a handful of the remaining Bosmer with bliss; she cursed them each into a state of dream-like confusion, lifting the memories of Tripmarn and its people from their minds and letting them wander Tamriel in peace. Andrina joined and left a handful of wandering folk, from caravans to bandits, since her exile from Valenwood. She plunged into the new sights and sounds of Cyrodiil with glee and met many new people in her travels, but the truth gnawed away at some locked-up part of her psyche. Unbeknownst to Andrina, she started trying to rid herself of the spell placed upon her mind. But with such insurmountable odds to face - a tattered mess of memories that often slipped from her grasp, an attention span more suitable for beasts than men, and a thrall to her own emotions once more - it has not been easy for the young wood elf. She is no closer to achieving her goal than she was when she started it aside from reigniting her sleep maintenance insomnia and chronic nightmares, to a far lesser degree than Thoras’ magic had made them. She, like many others who were disturbed in her sleep, had visited Quagmire and became one of Vaermina’s thousands of curiosities. Amused at Andrina’s fruitless pursuit of madness, she started to nudge the wood elf towards illusion magic. It has become Andrina’s newest and most potent weapon in these unfamiliar lands.

Stumbling into and around the plains of Cyrodiil, Andrina has caught the whiff of mercenary work on the breeze. Presuming them to be particularly bloody adventurers who travelled the world in search of coin and fortune, she started to follow them; she witnessed their deeds from the sidelines, became a bit enamoured with the rugged yet mysterious Quintus Jannus but mainly fell in love with the idea of roaming the countryside amongst such diverse ‘heroes’ and saving the townsfolk from monsters and ne’er-do-wells. Now, she has finally mustered up the courage to go and approach some of them...though perhaps not in the most ideal circumstances.

Thoughts on discord RP?

Thanks for the input guys, this is really interesting to hear - especially from the writers in this thread. I've decided to make the server but it's such an array of opinions on the topic that I still want to hear about it. I'm more on @Inkarnate's idea that it's all about the members, so I'm going to be pretty stingy on the application process. @BrokenPromise has an intriguing way of looking at it from a literary aspect, but would you say the character limit is too severe for a good quality post? Nothing would stop a player from sending multiple messages consecutively.

Thoughts on discord RP?

Thank you all for your feedback, it's been very interesting to hear from you guys!

From what I've seen, most discord RPs tend to be very "impulse" post driven, which isn't my cup of tea. But if that's your sort of thing, I don't see why you shouldn't.

@BrokenPromise

I'm curious to know what you mean by "impulse" posts. One of the main reasons why I consider a discord RP server is because I just straight up don't have the time to write lengthy posts anymore, nor do I have the patience to sit and wait for weeks so other people can slot in reply-writing into their schedule. This isn't out of anger, but I do like to use RP as a distraction technique so not having response-ready RPs at my fingertips these days has been affecting my health.

It also appeared to me that most discord RPs seem fairly self-sufficient as 'sandbox' roleplays, and with a team of moderators instead of a GM and co-GMs the workload is more efficiently spread out.

Regarding the CS/application process idea, as long as the server has a connection to RPG, you're likely okay. Offsite stuff (especially servers without any true connection to the forum) tend to be looked down on by the moderators, but regardless, there have been people who've recruited for Discord RP here.

@Euphonium

Yes, that's what I was thinking about...What would you mean by 'a connection to RPG'? If the CSes were kept on site would that be enough of a connection, or should I maintain and update an OOC thread as well? The way I see it, only players with accepted CSes would obtain the link to the server, meaning there still should be a trickle of potential players through the site and enough communication to keep things going?

If one wished to do so, they very much could assume the channel by and large and play to their heart's content, with the same sorts of protections afforded to the forum - meaning problem players can still be enforced against - all while having a foundation to base the roleplay topic off of. One could, should even, create a topic as normal and simply play as they will in the Discord's appropriate channel. As it is, the only issues with terms of quality or ability are really limited to the persons involved, not so much the chat service. While it is less in-depth as the forum for any number of reasons, it is still entirely possible to play anything from highly literate posting to near rapid fire single sentences.

@The Harbinger of Ferocity

Okay, so it looks like the general consensus is that you can't really run a discord RP server and advertise here. There needs to be a more cohesive link between the server and the guild, otherwise the mods will lock the thread. That's a shame but like Harbinger said, the focus should always be on the website and not drawn away onto different apps.

Thoughts on discord RP?

I've been tossing the idea around for a while now of opening up a discord RP server but I thought I'd ask some pbp RPers what their take on it is, and whether or not it's a good idea to store character sheets/do applications on RPerguild - I couldn't find anything in the rules that said no. Just want to open up a conversation about it and see what people's experiences of this medium are.

The Saltaire District

I'm so sorry for the delay, Dino had guests until very recently so it was difficult to get a moment to sit down and type. Responses will be much quicker with conversation, so if @Arkitekt wants to do a bit of back and forth, I won't mind chatting.

The Saltaire District

Victor and Adrian: Central District, Trade District
Morning - Early afternoon.

Adrian stared at Roman, seemingly unimpressed. Nevertheless she nodded and went back to peering around the room, absorbed in her own contemplations. Victor's brow furrowed as he listened to Roman's words with intrigue but he didn't have any questions to ask. Once the talk was over and they were permitted to leave, Adrian was the first to trot outside and stretch. She looked up at Victor dully.

“He didn't understand,” Adrian grunted.

“It’s fine, we’ll have to figure it out with the others.” Victor reassured her.

“Was it my fault?” Adrian asked, following Victor through the neat cobblestone streets of the central district.

“No, you’re just small so people understandably gloss over you.” he nodded.

Adrian made a thoughtful grunt and pulled on her bandana again. They squeezed their way through the trade district and up towards their tavern room; most of their gear was spread out across the floorboards. It didn’t take long to figure out the essentials, under the assumption that there wouldn’t be any civilised facilities inside of the district; things like torches, rations and water cantines were packed first alongside first aid kits and potions. Tonics and toxins were next; simple poisons and their antidotes alongside painkillers and fortifying brews made for strength and staminia. Two long coils of rope were attached to the pack with twine.

It started to become more tricky when they approached the issue of preparing for a particular beast, because no beast or being they’ve ever encountered before had any sort of similarity with the witness reports. “Eyes, flesh and cocoons. Sounds like...spider?” Adrian dug through the myriad of large, small and equally as dangerous weapons before her. “Many people lost, in short time. Whatever did it is big, many, or sneaky.”

“For all we know it’s not even a beast.” Victor remarked, making sure they keep their minds as open as possible when threatened by the unknown.

“Still could be many, big and sneaky,” Adrian pointed out. “What do you think it is?”

Victor let out a deep sigh, seemingly lost without any form of real evidence to go off of. “There’s a myriad of creatures that can cause something of this scale, especially in a crowded city…” he went quiet, seemingly lost in thought as he stared at the pieces of equipment they were packing. “I couldn’t tell, not this early.” he went back to packing.

Adrian made a quiet noise of acquiescence. She slipped in two invisibility potions into the pack as an afterthought but let Victor decide the majority of the equipment they would bring. Once everything was buckled up and ready to move, Adrian set about clearing up the non-essentials.

“We should meet the others. Didn’t someone welcome others to a drink?” Victor enquired.

Adrian nodded, but her expression was one of confusion. Similar to the meeting in the central district, she was woefully inexperienced with larger social gatherings that included more than two other people and drinking in a tavern was a foreboding prospect. “Yes. Why?” she asked, hoping to glean some more information from her travelling partner.

“We should take them up on it, it’ll be a good way to get to know our peers.” he explained, aware of her confusion.

“Like tracking a monster,” Adrian responded helpfully, trying to translate it into something she knew a bit more about. She nodded and poked her head out of the window - judging by the position of the sun it was coming close to noon. “Not yet, but soon,” she pointed out.

After some brief debilitation as to what they should do with their remaining time, Victor persuaded Adrian to plunge back into the hectic market for some supplementary supplies; notably, herbs that were as fresh as they could find within the city, a few spare vials and some extra antiseptic to widen the variety of potions Victor would be able to brew. Typically Adrian would have helped find the best specimens, but the sheer overwhelming amount of smells and sights made it difficult. She loitered in the back and helped with the shopping list instead.

Once they had their gear in order, they ventured into the Lazy Pheasant Inn and were perplexed to see that nobody was there yet; they had arrived somewhat early. Victor bought himself some ale, ordered a glass of apple juice for Adrian and they settled on some potage for lunch as they conversed quietly amongst themselves, waiting for their fellow adventurers to filter in (or, in Y'vanna's case, stumble downstairs.)

The Saltaire District

Brilliant, thank you for the information!

The Saltaire District

@Lord Orgasmo would Victor and Adrian recognise any sort of monster/entity that uses the abilities you described in y'vanna's response? Asking for the Collab.