Terminal

The Twelve Labours: General Discussion

So hey, as I already stated (several times, repeatedly, in many other places), TTL is always in need of judges. I can operate the whole contest on my own and handle judging independently if I have to, but in order to ensure some degree of objectivity it is always preferable if there are new judges coming and going. Feel free to contact me directly to inquire about becoming a judge if you are at all interested.

TTL: The Fifth Labour

The Twelve Labours

The Fifth Labour reveals itself. For those of you who are just dropping in and have no idea what this is, take a peek at The Twelve Labours Introduction Thread (it's a quick read, I promise).

In regards to the results of TTL: The Fourth Labour, let it be known the winners have not been forgotten. @Mahz is still developing the moderator toolkit on top of basically a million other things, but your well-earned prizes are still coming. Soon™. As per usual, all winning entries will still be stored in the Victory archives immediately.

Also, November and National Novel Writing Month is almost upon us, and I have it on good authority that apparently that is a thing people care about. Thankfully, The Fifth Labour, lasting exactly Twelve Days as is standard, will only have open submissions through November First - so there is not much messy and inconvenient overlap for anybody to worry about.

Let the Fifth Labour commence. Submission ends at Objective Midnight, November First.

Entry Rules:

1. Jaffar's (left) thumb.
2. Follow the standard guild rules.
3. Obey the Dark Lord Sauron's rules as well (just to cover all the bases).
4. Follow MY rules too. Let it never be said we did not warn you.
5. Send your entry to @Terminal by November First.
6. Be sure to include whether or not you want your story to remain anonymous! I will add your name only if I am given your permission!
7. Any explicit/mature material must be kept off-site. I will only post links to them with NSFW notices.
8. I reserve the right to simply toss out any story if it doesn't possess a basic modicum of good sense and taste. Don't make me.
9. All stories must adhere to a certain standard of quality expected of good storytelling.
10. You must use your own characters. Preexisting characters from franchise settings may only be alluded to.
11. If your setting is borrowed from a franchise, make sure to include a disclaimer and credit the original inventor of the setting used.

Prizes:

All winning entries will receive a forum trophy as well as a unique, custom forum title which they can activate and deactivate at their leisure. Additionally, winning entries of particularly exceptional quality will be awarded Challenge Accolades.

All winning entries will also be saved to a public archive, a link to which will be permanently available in my signature! I personally post in the News and Discussion subforums of the guild to congratulate and announce the winners as well. As a reminder, unless you specifically give me permission to include authorship of an entry, every posted story will remain anonymous (awarded trophies can also be hidden in your user profile, so you will not show up if people are examining the trophy groups).

The Fifth Labour

In vino veritas.

Alcaeus

The Fourth Labour

The Fifth Labour

This labour calls for a character of great dignity and sobriety. Whether fiend or savior, whether pure or tainted, the object of this trial must be one of many estimable scruples. Those with bromidic and turbid mores shall find no welcome in this task. Reflect upon the dual nature of will as both impetus and impedance, and think upon the nature of necessity as the waters rise.

The Challenge

Write about your character being eased of the burden of their reticence. Unfetter their minds and their hands of all laws, both of nature and of their own. Have them confront a source of opposition, free of all restraint save the canalized manifestation of their very deepest desires and fears. Should they survive the ordeal, none must look upon them again without awe, terror, or disgust.

Clarification of the Challenge Parameters

This section exists specifically to ensure there is no ambiguity or ambivalence in what, precisely, the challenge requires of each participant. If you have any specific questions which are not addressed here, please send them to @Terminal for resolution.

For The Fourth Labour, I have asked you to write about a character being freed of all inhibition.

Q. My character must have dignity and sobriety?
A. They should have some sense of honor or pride - an ordered set of principles and standards. 'Lawful' in arbitrary D&D colloquialism.

Q. I can't use anybody with bromidic or turbid mores?
A. You can't use anybody who is either utterly shameless or unprincipled by nature.

Q. My character must be eased of the burden of reticence, and unfettered from all laws?
A. They must be freed of all inhibition and restraint, if not necessarily their reasoning and/or emotion. As if a switch were flipped in their head, possibly causing them to act seemingly without their own volition. While I might accept getting drunk as a crude manner of accomplishing this, a greater degree of sophistication is encouraged in your machinations.

Q. What about that caveat, 'free of all restrained save the canalized manifestations of their very deepest desires and fears?'
A. Being freed of pointless and arbitrary rules does not free you from pointless and arbitrary wants and primordial nerves.

Q. They must confront a source of opposition?
A. There is usually something specific most people want, or that most people fear, or hate, etc. Something which they can shape a goal or directive around. Arrange for things to come to a head, as is want to happen. This is basically laissez-faire license to go crazy with the plot.

Q. Should they survive none must look upon them again without awe, terror, or disgust?
A. I am big on consequences, it is known. It stands to reason that few could act in the manner requested without others reacting in kind. The change is great. So too must be the change in how others perceive them...even should the change be transient or momentary in nature.

Q. How long can my story be?
A. As long as you feel is necessary. I will read any and everything submitted, irregardless of length, and write a review on it. Do not let the short three-day judging period dissuade you. If you have a 800,000 word brick for me, I will take it. Similarly, extremely short stories are also welcome. It is entirely possible for segues as short as three paragraphs long to clear the challenge.

Credits

Thanks again to @mdk, and the entire RPGC crew for helping with scheduling for The Twelve Labours!

Great thanks to @mahz and the other members of the guild staff for helping to renovate the guild and enabling the features that allow us to reward contestants and to advertise our presence.

The RWBY Fan Club

_{I think Neopolitan is cool.}

The Twelve Labours: General Discussion

A brief announcement. The Fifth Labour will be starting a day late, on Midnight of October 19th rather than the 18th.

As a general reminder, the contest will run for exactly twelve days. If you are planning on participating in NaNoWriMo, fear not! The contest itself will be over by November First, so there is no reason for one task to distract you from the other.

Unless you are one of those people who does everything at the last second. In which case, you probably do not have to worry about NaNoWriMo.

Dragonball: Final Hours

@Terminal I mean... why not just set her pre-game power level to a more equivalent level to the other characters? Keeping in mind that the characters we're playing as are nominally extraordinary examples of their respective species, save characters who are notably weaker than their racial norm such as the Arcosian twins, I don't think it'd be too horrendous to play as a human with a power level rivalling the relatively high-level fighters we've seen so far; hell, maybe that's why she's been vanishing so frequently, if she's been out training for extended periods of time in a place where time is sped up relative to the outside world. There are obviously limits to what's reasonable, but I don't think starting her off with a power level of, say, fifteen thousand is too unreasonable, again given that she's an exceptional example of how powerful human beings can feasibly get; I think that's about the level Halvtand planned to put his character at, anyway, and at that point, Expial is actually the weakest PC in the game outside of Thess' base form.

@BCTheEntity

They would still be stronger than @Halvtand's Harkon and unnamed android, actually.

And no, time isn't sped up relative to the outside world. It's just a training ground that enables enhanced training - it does not have the same properties as the Room of Spirit and Time or of the Gravity Chamber (I was just listing those as examples to help illustrate that it was an unusual training ground). She has been/will have to train at a normal relative rate.

As for the prospect of simply handwaving Charis up to fifteen thousand, I'm not necessarily against it, but that wouldn't be particularly fair to the other characters who are stuck in the same pit she is. The original implied intent of the thread was for a group of individuals, starting at a power level of around 1,000, working their way up while also getting pulled in to a plot involving the war between Earth and Arcosia, and eventually joining the tournament after a fair number of prior struggles - with Arcosian and Makaioshin templates provided for one or two poster-run antagonists on top of whatever @Thess originally had planned.

Harkon, our unnamed anroid, Expial, and Charis all occupy that approximate, original intended range. But they are the minority. If we were acting on the premise that they would have to grind their way up to the tournament-level while also participating in other plotlines, then that might work. But as it turns out, the tournament is almost ready to start and the preliminary 'arc' will deal mostly with intrigue and people getting into unofficial fights beforehand. If that's how we're playing it, then those four weaker characters simply cannot realistically participate in the tournament, full stop. They are consigned to a separate realm of activity unless they want to be reduced to smears on the wall.

I could boost Charis so that she could crash the tournament, but that would be leaving the other three characters behind in an already sparse character landscape. Doing so makes no sense unless you plan to boost all of them.

Roleplay Writing Games

Hello. Feel free to help yourself to the finely crafted link in my signature. Goodbye.

Dragonball: Final Hours

@Terminal Yeaaah... it's honestly kind of a similar situation with me. Like, there's Azamat, Piccolo, and maybe some NPCs for my characters (well, mostly Expial, since Luceptor's in his room) to interact with... and then nobody. Which could be solved if you had Charis turn up at the tournament too with a significant degree of power... I'm not sure why you're against that, but it's an idea.

@BCTheEntity

Mainly because she does not currently have a significant degree of power, and even with the suggested doubling of power she wouldn't hit that benchmark anyway.

Here are my plans for her at the moment though, in case anybody thinks something can be worked out.

-Charis has access to a training ground akin to the Room of Spirit and Time and the Gravity Chamber (this particular training ground is hardly unique and not particularly hard to locate, but until stated otherwise she is likely the only one using it), which will allow her to progressively train to become much, much stronger at a faster rate than normal training routines elsewhere would permit. But that sort of thing still takes time. Her power level isn't going to abruptly shoot up from 1,000 20,000 from in a few days.

And here's a snippet from a PM I had with Thess.

I was going to write Charis as having extreme anti-Saiyan sentiments, and holding immense disdain for transformation states - especially Super Saiyan, Arcosian, and Capsule-Derived States. . .[snip]

She's very big on skill and technique versus raw power, see, which was why I planned on pitting her as an antagonist tooled for a protagonist party I initially assumed would be a mix of Saiyans, Humans, Namekians, and Androids - and perhaps Majin as well, on the higher end of scale.

Cue everybody making Arcosians and Makaioshins.

As she gains more power she will gain increasingly sophisticated ki techniques that emphasize form over force - which is already something her current build is aimed at. As for boosting her up to two-four thousand, at best that would only really put her in the same ballpark as the Namekian character - making her 'third weakest.'

Terminal

So yeah. The current plan is to have her eventually start confronting people while weaker than them, yet somehow still able to hold her own and even win. But that can't realistically happen anytime soon, since the vast majority of characters present currently are, literally, an entire order of magnitude stronger than her.

Dragonball: Final Hours

I am here. I simply cannot proceed any further until other events happen. I cannot drive the plot by myself. I have a few things planned, but they cannot happen in a vacuum. Other stuff needs to happen. Preferably stuff posted by other people.

I would love to post some more. If other people post, I will.

NaNoWriMo Word Use

Not actually interested in participating, but I figured I had some time and impetus to burn. Here's some arbitrary usage of a selection from the provided list of words. Minus the 'your choice' one, which I substituted with something special.

Noun
Obelisk: A lower-upper-class marker, greater in status than a cairn but lesser than a monolith. A structure which enjoys an elevated ontological state of class and prestige by merit of having been made by rich people. Especially elaborate Obelisks may be mistaken for monoliths (thus conveying an artificial appearance of general upper-class congruity to the general populace of masonry), while particularly shabby obelisks may be mistaken for pillars. Much commentary is derived from their chief characteristic, namely their tipped apex which is incapable of acting as a form of structural support - thus giving way to the common accusation of the Obelisk being unsupportive of the general affairs of architecture despite representing a disproportionate degree of all expenditure involved relative to other classes of masonry.

Verb
Derive: To steal and distort, as a group or organization (being a plural form even when nominally used in the singular form), an idea under the pretense of either convenience, improvement, or elaboration. Widely accepted as socially acceptable despite its singular form equivalent being frowned upon socially and legally, the process of derivation is seen by many (mostly cunning linguists) as inevitable and thus not worth addressing - being an example of convergent linguistic evolution analogous to the contrivance of homophones.

Adjective
Facetious: Yes meaning no. The snobbier but equally slothful sibling of sarcasm, facetiousness is characterized by its relative passivity and less frequent active conjunction with imperatives and/or declaratives. Deluded by the pretension of subtlety and class despite its more frequent employment in regular conversations, with most treating facetious segues as being sarcastic due to widespread ignorance of the existence of the word facetious. Allegedly satirical before it was cool, although Satire itself could not be reached for comment.

Mine!
Ineffable: