Terminal

SACRILEGE WAR (Grimdark Fantasy NRP)

You already know about me.

Chronoclasm

Abridged Premise

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Welcome to Chronoclasm. This is a roleplay about intrigue across time by factions that want to change history in order to secure their own survival.

Each poster gets to write as one world, one reality. Each of these worlds exists in a separate state of time, apart from those of the rest, each derived from a unique combination of circumstances and potential histories of what would otherwise be the same planet. For the moment, each reality is stable, but the clock is counting down (relative between each world of course) to the next Chronoquake - and when that happens, whichever one reality is most likely, becomes the only reality within our frame of reference.

Each poster for the roleplay will be responsible for creating a history for their faction, including a list of imperative events that need to occur or else be preserved. During the roleplay proper, each poster will be writing from the perspectives of multiple agents sent into different models of time in order to cause or else safeguard these imperative events - all while dealing with their competitors.

Not big on science fiction or the complex ontological dilemmas born of multiple contradictory models of time? Relax. This is a soft science roleplay. Those who know me will tell you that I am typically strictly hard-science, but I also realize it is unreasonable to hold everyone to the same standard. The roleplay is also structured on the assumption that nobody knows how time in each model works - or if they do, they may still need practice in working in them. Everyone will get the opportunity to mess around with time-travel in a relatively consequence-free fashion in the beginning and to figure out the flow of things. Allow me to assure you: Time travel only sounds complicated^*.

Decompressed Premise

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As it turns out, everybody was wrong about time. No one particular theory of time in and of itself proved to be the undoing of conventional frameworks for understanding it, but all of them as a monolithic set of hypotheses had the same flaw: They assumed that, like other fields of physics, time was static and unchanging. That there was one 'perfect' model of time out there that nobody had discovered yet, but that once known, time would conform exactly to that model. The modern theory posits that time used to function as a nonlinear wavelike state and always had, always would have, up until we took the reins and forced it to make sense. How does one observe time though? Is not just living and being aware of reality sufficient observation? No. Because Human perception of time is strictly linear. We cannot perceive it as the ocean it is, nor how we can move through it as we might move through the rest of space. True observation requires that we reach out and seize time itself - touch it, hold it, sculpt it.

The modern theory of time ultimately came about by accident as a natural consequence of the development of room-temperature superconductors, resulting in the accidental creation of the first time machine. This is when the first Chronoquake occurred, and a seventeen year old spent the next three weeks in their garage looking up mathematical equations using Gogole in order to describe the phenomenon their science project was generating. This gave birth to the first false-positive definitive time model: That all of history was predetermined and set, completely intractable and unchangeable.

For a time, as it is now understood, that model was even accurate. Time genuinely worked that way. The world was briefly convinced that Humanity as a species was confined to an eternal, static, unbreakable if intangible prison. Thankfully, The same model also predicted that the indefinite waveform of time had broken down upon observation, with each separate 'model' of time, such as we understand them, operating in their own separate niche instances. Which means there were waves, strings, branches, segues - rooms of time where it did not behave in such a linear fashion.

Humanity then freed itself. The inhabitants of one such room used its newfound ability to control its own fate in a freeform, nonlinear setting of time in order to break the Linear constraints of their temporal neighbors. This resulted in the second Chronoquake and the first partitioning of rooms.

Now, our worlds exist in a state of strained tension. Every actor within our partitioned spotlight stands poised to shove the others out from under it, and to become the sole star of the show due to the peculiarities of the most recent Chronoquake. Not all of us desire conflict of any sort, but it is a simple rule of physics that two objects - or in our case, two realities - cannot exist in the same place at the same time. The twelfth Chronoquake is projected to occur relatively soon - and when it happens, only one world will be left. There can therefore only be one logical outcome: In a conflict of to be or not to be, between us and them, we must always choose ourselves.

Important Information

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There are currently three models of time, listed in order of least to most important to your very existence. The Nonlinear model, the Paradox model, and the Linear model. Once the twelfth Chronoquake arrives, each of these three models will merge, and their events will be translated in a final collapse event that will ultimately determine which world's reality is the one that actually happened. In order to manipulate these models of time, each world must send agents into each one in order to change history, all whilst thwarting the efforts of the other worlds and protecting events imperative to their own history.

Nonlinear Model

In the Nonlinear model, all of time and space is a cohesive structure, making it the most complex and incidentally the least important model given your understanding of the Twelfth Chronoquake. While nobody can 'win' in the Nonlinear model per-se, an analogy can be made to grabbing the biggest slice of the pie possible - how much you win overall, relative to everyone else, translates to the eventual final collapse event.

When you travel through time in the Nonlinear model, the timeplace you leave keeps going, running in parallel with the new timeplace you arrive at. In the original timeplace, you vanish into thin air, and for all intents and purposes will likely never be seen again. The world goes on without you. In the new timeplace, everything will be as you would expect it to for the time you traveled to. There may even be another copy of yourself present, but in the Nonlinear model killing them or otherwise inconveniencing them means nothing, since the original timeplace you left and the new timeplace you have arrived in are both distinct parts of reality that keep on going, with the events that happen in one timeplace not affecting the events in the other and vice versa.

Thus, an agent sent into the Nonlinear model can travel anywhere at any time with virtually no consequence. If you make a mistake, that mistake will remain in the timeplace you leave, but as long as you go back before the mistake is made you can then change events so that the same mistake does not occur in the new timeplace. If successful, there would then be the original timeplace, where the mistake has still been made, and the new timeplace, where the mistake has not been made. You cannot actually fix any mistakes you make, but you get infinite lives and infinite retries across an infinite spectrum of time.

To make things more complicated, each parallel track of time in the Nonlinear model preserves the original entry and actions of each agent sent into it, meaning that unless an agent can prevent their own arrival in time, the number of time clones in a given track will increase as agents travel between tracks.

This makes the Nonlinear Model the perfect testbed for practice in manipulating events across time and space, relatively risk-free of forever ruining your home reality's chance of surviving the Twelfth Chronoquake. When the Chronoquake occurs and when all three Models of time are translated during the Collapse event, the Nonlinear Model will barely factor in, since by that point every world will have created countless diverging universes with only a few adhering to the desired history of any given faction.

The only downside to the Nonlinear Model is that once you leave one of its effectively infinite universes, that one universe becomes wholly inaccessible - an indelible stain on the Nonlinear Model of time that everybody will be able to see and examine. Choose your actions carefully. Your competitors will be watching.

Paradox Model

In the Paradox model there are certain key restrictions to time travel. No faction can send anything further back in time than either the occurrence of the first Chronoquake, and additionally cannot send anything further back in time than the last thing they sent through time. The Paradox model is named so since past events are afforded overriding precedence that destroy and rewrite the future as the past changes. Thus, the faction that can make the best use of the agents at the earliest times possible will have the advantage here.

So if Faction A sends an agent to the year 100 to make a change, even if they succeed, if Faction B sends an agent to year 90 they can prevent Faction A's change from happening. Even worse for faction A, they will be unable to do anything to stop Faction B from doing so, since they can now only send agents as far back as year 100. As long as Faction B 'lags behind,' they have the advantage.

Unlike the Nonlinear model, there is no risk of time clones being present in the Paradox Model, since there is only one track of time.

This model of time is imperative; that which occurs here will lend valuable insight into the far-reaching consequences of acts taken in the Linear model of time, and the actual events in the Paradox model have a much stronger correlated rate of translation to the eventual final collapse event. When the Chronoquake occurs and when all three Models of time are translated during the final collapse event, the Paradox model will account for a significant portion of the translation. There is less room for error here, but even if a single world managed to completely secure the Paradox model that would not spell the end for the others.

Linear Model

In the Linear model, nobody can send anything further back in time than either the first Chronoquake, or any further back in time than the last thing any of the factions sent back in time. Once something happens, it becomes locked in place, immutable and unchangeable in the Linear reality. None of the factions can afford to make many if any mistakes in the Linear model. Not only are there no second chances to correct mistakes, but it has by far the greatest correlated rate of translation to the eventual final collapse event. A faction securing a definitive victory in the Linear model would not guarantee them victory overall, but would certainly put them far in the lead.

There is also the possibility that none of the factions can secure any kind of victory. Total failure across the board to secure a dominant history of events by the time of the twelfth Chronoquake would likely result in a Chronoclasm. A temporal reset button of sorts, blending all the histories of each distinct reality together to create an amalgam world, like and unlike all the realities drawn from in order to create it - with every composite reality drawn from being effectively erased from existence.

Setting Details

I would very much like to leave room for each poster to help sculpt how the world was before the first Chronoquake, but just to create a foundation to work off of, the world is called Earth, and is Earth-Like - but is not actually the Earth that all of us are familiar with. It has seven continents, which are arrayed in a different fashion and all in different shapes. It is rich with life, albeit life that is somewhat alien to us. A change in the disposition of landmasses implies drastically different selective pressures across time, so the flora and fauna of our Earth may be different as well. Or it could be the same. Use your discretion - keep it Earthlike and reasonable. This is science-fiction, not fantasy.

As alluded previously, there have been eleven Chronoquakes up until now, but you do not need to worry about most of them. The span of time any faction can appreciably send agents into and change is strictly limited between the time of the first and second Chronoquakes. To keep things neat, if perhaps somewhat contrived, it shall be assumed that a full hundred years passed between the first two Chronoquakes.

The First Chronoquake occurred the moment the first time machine came online - accidentally - when a seventeen-year old created a homemade room-temperature superconductor. After that, history is in your hands. Each separate world would have a different history within that hundred-year period.

Each faction in their respective presents are capable of sending agents back through time, into each separate model of time. Depending on how their specific time machines work, they may even be able to send the same agent into all three Models of time, or even into one Model of time more than once. Other hijinks are also possible. Factions cannot send agents into the present of other established realities. Perhaps it was possible a few Chronoquakes ago, but the nature of time has changed such that doing so is now impossible for reasons^*. Each faction knows the others exist, but know nothing about each others' respective histories beyond what they have conveyed to each other - which leads to the topic of communications. The factions can communicate between the present of each of their realities, as well as with their agents in the past of each model of time. Each faction can also instantly identify any change made to any part of the three models of time.

The structure of the RP is such that nominally, everyone will 'start out' in the Nonlinear Model of time, in order to keep a hang for temporal mechanisms, shenanigans, and each other - but, technically speaking, there is nothing preventing anybody from sending agents to the other Models of time early. However, each faction can instantly detect any change made to any of the three models of time, and being in the present, they do not have to rush in order to deal with inadvisable rush-tactics. Or more practically: All three models of time are accessible from the start, but the Linear model remains frozen until multiple people decide to act in it. A single poster, for all intents and purposes, cannot post multiple times in the Linear model without giving the other realities a chance to intervene - because logically, they would have had all the time in the world to do so. So unless they have specific permission to do so, nobody will be posting frantically in regards to the Linear Model of time.

More to Come

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Assuming this gets enough interest, there will eventually be a faction and character sheet templates, a Q&A, as well as a basic primer on conventional temporal mechanics as well as the specific intricacies of each Model of Time. If there are enough participants, I may even set up a chat group. Optimally, I would like for the RP to be able to begin on or about Friday.

If anybody has questions or would like to express interest, fire away.

RPGC#14: Reality! Voting and Discussion

Reviews.

These are not gentle. Though they are not cruel.

Latum Alterum

There is not much for me to comment on here in terms of grammar or structure. What is present could have been easily overlooked as no spell check could have picked it up and even have been missed upon multiple rereadings, but for lack of anything else to focus on it shall be presented. That said: Excellent work. This entry is very nearly technically perfect.

Instead he found ahead of him a vast desert. The sky was an endless dark blue, not a trace of a cloud in sight. The sand shifted endlessly, no form it assumed lasting nolonger than a fleeting moment before a dry, desert gust swept it into another shape. The only thing that didn’t change were the few rocky plateaus that dotted the landscape randomly, but Theo knew even they would be weathered away to nothing with time.

Paragraph 17

Grammatically awkward due to repetition of a superfluous word. Easily fixed either by inserting the word 'for' before the second no, or else by replacing the word before after the second no with a comma.

There is also a continuity error in the beginning. Theo is described as running towards a pair of headlights as they came on ahead of him, but he then immediately drives in the same direction as he had been running without performing a turn. An eldritch feat of maneuvering.

Overall, while there is enough substance here to qualify as a story, and while there is a narrative that can be interpreted, it starts, leads, and goes exactly nowhere. There is a conflict, a mystery - what is Theo running from? Who is the woman? How come Theo does not remember things? Why does he keep transitioning from place to place whenever he seems to die? Who even is Theo? The narrative is good for setting up questions, and while it is not a bad thing for a narrative to leave a reader without answers yours expressly leaves us without even the possibility of answers for even the most basic of questions. For all the clear care and attention to detail you put into the story, there is a complete absence of anything meaningful at any juncture. The story is pretty on the surface, but ultimately one-dimensional and boring.

Alternate Dimension

@vesuvius00 Since you were one of the only two posters who had the courage to include their name with their entry, I would like to give you the option of seeing my critique via private PM as opposed to be posted here publicly. Do let me know.

The Unknown Heroes

@WiseDragonGirl Since you were one of the only two posters who had the courage to include their name with their entry, I would like to give you the option of seeing my critique via private PM as opposed to be posted here publicly. Do let me know.

I see what you did there.

Shattered Realities

The most common error is a repetitive failure to capitalize letters at the beginning of sentences, which is curious given how clean the remainder of the text is. It cannot have been on purpose even when read in reverse, since even the the capitalization remains inconsistent. I am at a loss to think of how the rest of the entry can be so finely hewn despite the profundity of such an error.

The reversed order of reading seen herein is a well-performed classic, done neatly and tastefully enough so as not to be trite. The First and final line is, as was intended, of some faintly - if unimpressive - profound quality. However, as a continuity error, it is noted that the author deleted the first cheeky poem in its entirety, and so the only impetus to read the story in the order presented is because that happened to be the order you presented it in, requiring a direction of attention in the form of battering the reader about the head rather than trying to inspire a more natural, curious form of discovery.

Had the entry been one that invited a reversed reading on implication alone, that would have been profound - and markedly more so than the artificial kind of brilliance you have nailed in your glass case here like some kind of dead insect, with its tidy little label. I would recommend a better selection of muses - the fingers are surely spry enough, though they might develop a better familiarity with yonder shift key or mayhaps capslock.

The Six Truths

Once again, a nearly pristine entry. I had to comb for these crumbs.

Adrian whispered a prayer and turned her revolver to the door when hooves had changed to footsteps.

Paragraph 26

Technically correct. Grammatically awkward. The arrangement here should be reversed, "When the hoovebeats had turned to footsteps Adrian turned her revolver to the door and whispered a prayer."

He grunted painfully down each wooden step from the force of impact, rolling in the dirt until he lied on his back with his badge glinting up at the woman’s face above him.

Paragraph 31

Lie here is improper since it implies an active verb, which it is not since it was not volitional. Proper usage would have been lay.

“The bracelet, I know. The eye as well, I assume. It is no matter, I will start over with six new souls==> <==” He sighed. “I really wish you would have worked out better. You were so good at listening, too!”

Paragraph 210

Forgot a period.

Like other entries in this contest, you have presented the readers with questions that have no answers. However, in this specific context, the answers not being part of the story either emphatically do not matter or else enhance the overall narrative. Why did The Father need six souls? Who knows, not (necessarily) important with him dead and the souls in Heaven. Who is the Watcher really and why did he intervene? We can make guesses, but given the events of the story there is a good chance we will be seeing more of him in a future segue of questionable ontological potential, and the same goes as to the truth of what precisely Adrian is.

If I have any criticism for this story, it would be that Adrian discovering the truth is entirely too straightforward, and is a discovery made alone. The reader themselves already has plenty of reason to strongly suspect the truth even without the benefit of hindsight, which is telling of the greatest lack in the story. We are not shown Adrian's life up until her first kills. We are not told the surely convincing manipulative efforts of The Father as he raised her. We are not shown how what she saw with the black eye was so convincing. The manner in which Adrian is glamoured, compelled to kill for The Father is one-dimensional. It gets the point of cross but has no deep nuance to it - which is to say, it cannot fool the attentive reader. If you intended for readers to know from the outset that is one thing, but if you had really wanted to go the extra mile and added a layer of extra shine to the story, perhaps what you could have done was write the narrative both so the readers could fully comprehend Adrian's warped point of view and think it reasonable, while littering it with subtle hints only properly revealed explicitly upon review.

If you had done that, I would have been impressed. As the story is, it is merely adequate.

In-Between-Box

I could not find anything.

I know who you are.

I must say though that, for all the build-up and the mystery of the In-Between-Box, I was actually more enticed by the story towards the beginning when it was all still describing the Loch and Lachlan to us. Your visual prose is stunningly, lovingly descriptive. Your portrayal of a young Scottish boy having a grand o' time exploring the Loch had both a profound charm to it while also investing us in the nature and character of the figure. Then you throw him into a featureless dark black room with a Samsung and a literal metaphysical cliffhanger out of nowhere to polarize the detail and quite frankly astonishing quality that proceeded it. I get that is part of the point of the present contest's theme, but it is nonetheless both disappointing and disheartening.

My @vote is for The Sixth Truths. Which could have been better, but was nonetheless well-written.

A New Contest?

I will still also write reviews for various submissions in other contests, if people find them helpful. I did not stop out of convenience or choice, so I still have all the time needed. Look out for those.

Valour & Vale: A RWBY Roleplay

My concern with the character would be that of the Semblance ability, not in the way it works but more when they would have the opportunity to use it. It feel somewhat situational as I don't have any human fights really planned out (Mostly Grimm), meaning that it would more likely be used against other players. Do you plan on having some PvP banter with other players, or would this info change your views on what ability you would like?

@NuttsnBolts

A reasonable concern - I had not planned on Charis picking many if any fights with the other posters. She is caustic, but not disturbed or a lunatic. That said, I think back upon the RWBY series proper as well as the circumstances described in the OP and cannot help but feel we will be encountering Human foes at some point. If that is not the case I apologize for making the assumption.

I will say that Charis is an adapted character - she has a kind of template which I have adapted to the roleplay, and part of that template includes a Nullifying ability similar to how her semblance currently functions. I carried it over both because it seemed like it might prove helpful on top of being a normal part of her character. Even in light of the fact that we may not be facing any other Humans, I feel it would be best to keep the Semblance as-is. If you feel it would be better for me to change it in order to better synergize with the other characters/the overall theme of the planned encounters/story though, I have no problem doing so.

Your thoughts/verdict?

Valour & Vale: A RWBY Roleplay

Edited Charis' profile to include a skill elaborating on her ability to repel and attract Grimm.

Valour & Vale: A RWBY Roleplay

@NuttsnBolts

Hey I have a question. Been going back and forth with deciding if I wanna be a part of this. I know you had a good amount of interest and only want 3-5 people. Is this first come first serve or merit based acceptance?

Just wondering. I've been wanting to join a RWBY RP since my last one ended.

@FantasyChic

Listed below will be a topic guide on the details that should be included in the character sheet. I will be selecting sheets based on the quality of the writing; the balance and correlation of their Skills, Weapon and Semblance; and the level of passion for the project. Due to this the "First Come, First Served" expectations don't apply, nor do "Hold my Position".

So you still wanna join? Then show me something that you are proud of!

@NuttsnBolts

Valour & Vale: A RWBY Roleplay

Posting a character sheet here for your review and approval. I have been watching the interest check since it went up and am glad to see it finally have reached official status. I am open to constructive feedback and suggestions as to changes.

Charis

Charis Andromache Carmine

_{Ｇ Ｅ Ｎ Ｄ Ｅ Ｒ}

Female

_{Ａ Ｇ Ｅ}

20

_{Ｒ Ａ Ｃ Ｅ}

Human

_{Ａ Ｃ Ａ Ｄ Ｅ Ｍ Ｙ Ｏ Ｆ Ｏ Ｒ Ｉ Ｇ Ｉ Ｎ}

Haven

_{Ａ Ｐ Ｐ Ｅ Ａ Ｒ Ａ Ｎ Ｃ Ｅ & Ｐ Ｅ Ｒ Ｓ Ｏ Ｎ Ａ Ｌ Ｉ Ｔ Ｙ}

Physical Description

Charis stands approximately 183 centimeters in height, with skin a light bronze in coloration, and a shock of unkempt, shoulder-length black hair. Charis possesses a modestly muscular build that wholly fails to convey her monstrous physical strength. Overall, Charis is more lanky than lithe with wide-set shoulders and toned limbs. Charis' face is somewhat angular with only slight roundness to it, with raised cheekbones. Her most distinctive feature are her orange eyes, which are set in somewhat wide but narrow sockets underneath thin eyebrows.

Personality

Charis is most politely described as brusque and most accurately described as harsh upon the sensibilities. She is brutally, rudely honest in regards to her opinions and thoughts on others and generally says exactly what she thinks and feels at any given moment. Originally something of a social predator and bully, Lionheart is pleased to have eased her down to the point of constructive if supremely caustic criticism. Carrying over from her past life living on the streets as an orphan, Charis has very little respect for others' property. Although she swore never to steal anything again as a condition of her joining Haven, she is known to occasionally slip up and take things belonging to others without realizing it (in the vein of using a neighboring diner's chopsticks without immediately realizing that this is very poor etiquette).

Charis despises infirmity and weakness, but conversely has developed an appreciation and respect for technique and skill over brute force due to her training. Her tremendous self-confidence and resolve serve as potent deterrents against the Grimm and she can often act as a beacon of morale for others, but these same qualities also make her brash and short-sighted, favoring immediate, direct courses of action. She has little respect for physical property but respects wealth and prestige, and has a soft-spot for musical arts.

_{Ｌ Ｉ Ｆ Ｅ & Ｍ Ｏ Ｔ Ｉ Ｖ Ａ Ｔ Ｉ Ｏ Ｎ Ｓ}

Unrequested Biography. Sorry.

Charis was born at the fringes of Mistral, with no father and a mother her abandoned her briefly into her childhood. Provided shelter only by intolerant slum-lords who reigned over packs of other orphaned and misbegotten children, Charis quickly learned that the only thing that mattered in a life on the streets, begging for money, was strength. It was needed to fend off not only predators, thugs, and other children - but also in order to stave off the nightmarish creatures of Grimm. The rush of power being the strongest brought, the sense of invincibility, was a potent drug for warding them off. When that was not enough and bravado and muscle could not tamp down on the despair, simply being strong could keep the weaker monsters at bay.

Childhood ends however, and as she reached the cusp of maturity Charis found herself drawing unwanted attention from local authorities, no longer keen to turn a blind eye to her trouble-making now that she had aged. Deemed by her former guardians to have attracted too much heat to be worth keeping, Charis was turned loose on the streets - filled with impotent rage at the figures surrounding her and the senseless resolve that she could somehow impossibly defy the odds simply by being the strongest. This attitude did not serve her as well in her adolescent years as it had during childhood, resulting in her suffering humiliation and indignity only infrequently rewarded with any substance.

As she was, Charis would likely have one day picked a fight with just the wrong sort of monster and vanished into the darkest pits of inequity in all of Mistral - but she was paradoxically saved, both by the ravages of the Grimm in outer Mistral during the course of the Great War, as well as by her chance encounter with the future headmaster of Haven - one of the few heroic figures of the Great War, named Lionheart. He instantly recognized that her great strength afforded her equally great potential if properly shaped and afforded with discipline - potential that the newly founded academy of Haven could make use of, one way or the other, and that the alternative was to leave her to be consumed by the Grimm or else the very worst and strongest of the remaining criminal survivors of Charis' decimated home.

Years have passed since then. As a student of Haven, Charis has been afforded with the proper training and care to have quelled her rage, to an extent. She still harbors a sick, paradoxical resentment of the weak and infirm, and is struggling to find any personal respect for the cause and duties of the Huntsmen. Lionheart recognizes that she is at a critical juncture, the tipping point between a Huntsman or woman simply being single-minded slayers of the Grimm, destined to vanish into the hills to meet certain death, or turning into the epitome of a heroic figure. Keeping her at the academy, where she has already developed an attitude of complacency and futility in attempting to further hone her abilities, would be detrimental to her growth. As one of the older and more physically robust Huntresses available to the still recently-founded academy, Lionheart determined both that she had the best chance of returning from the mission to Vytal alive, and that interaction with Hunters from the other academies in addition to being able to take actual responsibilities upon herself might be just what was needed for her to fully realize her true strength.

_{Ａ Ｆ Ｆ Ｉ Ｎ Ｉ Ｔ Ｙ}

Yellow Dust

_{Ｗ Ｅ Ａ Ｐ Ｏ Ｎ Ｓ & Ｓ Ｋ Ｉ Ｌ Ｌ Ｓ}

❖ Malleus Mundus

"Don't let the axis tilt you on the ass when you go to kiss the dirt."

A collapsible Bō staff with weighted ends resembled the head of a flanged mace. Small spines between the folded metal serve as emitters for the weapon's dust mechanism, allowing for the ends of the staff to emit particular or different elemental effects using loaded dust. By sliding a finger over a switch near the middle of the staff, one of the heads can slide open in order to transform the staff into a bolt-action, single-shot sniper rifle. The staff is fired using a tactile switch of the same design that Charis criticizes as being over-sensitive, and the limited sophistication of the staff's collapsible design precludes the use of any proper sights, stock, or grip - the rifle is therefore fired as though one were firing a large stick.

❖ Bōjutsu Master

The Bō staff Charis carries around is apparently not for show. Once she gets going, Charis turns into a hurricane of flips, kicks, and spinning weighted Bō. Charis is still a formidable hand-to-hand combatant when forced to go without, but her best techniques require its use.

❖ Might of the Horizon

As befitting somebody specializing in melee combat and the use of a weighted, striking weapon - Charis is monstrously strong. When she began her training, Charis would routinely cause training weapons to shatter in her grip, and her control was so poor that she often damaged weaponry by accident. This necessitated the use of a weapon that would encourage Charis to develop appropriate control and precision, while also being durable enough to survive the trauma applied to it - hence, her use of a Malleus Mundus is ultimately a consequence both of her training and of how much stress she applies to whatever she wields.

❖ Sunset Strike

With the flip of a switch, Charis can transform her staff into a bolt-action, single-shot sniper rifle. As an extension of her training to become more precise and attain better control over her own strength, her use of this mode reflects both her progress as well as how much she still has to attain. Charis is not a spectacular shot at any range, and mostly has only ever been able to make use of it in order to shoot fleeing opponents in the back. The stopping power of each shot is considerable and not to be taken lightly, but an agile or even simply a wary and alert opponent would be unlikely to ever be hit by a round fired by Charis.

❖ Shock and Awe

Charis is a beacon of mental fortitude, confidence, and conviction that serves as a potent deterrent to most Grimm - but this is due largely to her training and discipline channeling her inner anger to more positive aspects of her psyche. With some reflection, Charis could redirect her own thinking to bring it closer in resemblance to her more unbalanced prior state - allowing her to project her predatory, Darwinian aspects and transforming her into a beacon that could serve to attract the Grimm instead without succumbing to despair. A rapid switch between the two different states could even serve to drastically weaken or paralyze Grimm in close proximity, though what effect this might have on Charis' psyche is uncertain. Additionally, more toxic aspects of her nature are bound to arise when Charis reorients herself in such a way.

_{Ｓ Ｅ Ｍ Ｂ Ｌ Ａ Ｎ Ｃ Ｅ}

❖ Parity

"Your petty tricks won't win you any encores here."

By clapping her hands or snapping her fingers, Charis can emit a shockwave of force which passes through matter and obstructions harmlessly at a range of ten meters. Charis may direct the shockwave as a ray, cone, or even as a spherical burst. Those caught in the shockwave have their Semblances suppressed and become temporarily unable to make use of either their innate, passive Semblance powers or any active abilities derived therefrom. The suppression wears away in time, with a full recovery by most individuals inside of a half-hour.

The Final Hazard

@Terminal

Kael wasn't caught off guard by the transition, not as such...

He just had essentially no options. He maneuvers himself as best as he can to take the shot in the same spot he took the last one, that way the metal would spread the same distance and merely coat metal with more metal, instead of spreading to cover something vital. At least if that worked, he would have access to the solvent now. He memorizes its relative position to him in case it doesn't work...luckily he'd gotten some out of the bottle before.

@Cruallassar

The last surprise of Kael's life was the revelation that the metallic coating spread across surfaces like a liquid when more of it was added - even if it already appeared to be solid. The cylindrical bolt exploded in a burst of iridescent light, a warm, burning mass of silver pouring across his chest and armors as the already existing mass spread further out, completely encompassing both his arms and enveloping the entirety of his head.

It did not even truly hurt. In fact, although he could no longer even move his arms or head whatsoever, Kael nonetheless felt fine overall.

Until his lunges started to twinge.

The sword landed on the tip of its blade on the ground behind the pavise knight, the impact and strange angle of landing causing the blade to shatter in a storm of deadly shards, peppering the back of the knight's legs. The last trace of Fortune De Worde broken and no more.

@Bright_Ops

The pavise knight glanced at their own feet in confusion as the sun bled back into being once more, the ground becoming recast beneath them for the second time.

"...You waited a third day? Why? They were already-"

Fortune de Vigny's sword shattered into fragments against the ground directly behind the pavise knight. By some twist of chance, a single fragment of the blade shot nearly straight back up from the angle of impact. The pavise knight was wearing even lighter armor than the first opponent the passengers had encountered in New Nemean had been adorned in. Demonstrably just as if not even more physically resilient, but altogether providing less coverage. In particular, the pavise knight lacked any kind of gorget, which had been supplanted by the low-hanging front of the helmet's transparent visor. Which left a single strip of exposed skin just above the helmet's rear lip, obscured from sight but still technically exposed to air, with the chainmail below it ending precisely where the helmet began.

The single fragment of Fortune de Vigny's blade shot straight up into the gap between the helmet and the pavise knight's head, carving a neat and surgical tear into the back of their neck. That alone may not have proven fatal. However, the sudden burst of the remaining fragments across both of the pavise knight's knees surprised the knight, forcing him to reflexively take a single step forward and crane their head to look down, even though none of the fragments could either penetrate his chainmail, or even stagger him from their impact.

The pressure exerted by the pavise knight's indestructible helmet, with the man's final jerking motion, buried the intrusive fragment fully into the back of his neck.

"...Me too?" The pavise knight muttered as he fell, further, and all motor control abandoned him. "Why did I have to-"

He never spoke again.

The cold sun shone upon the scene - the broken allineator, the pavise knight fallen on his face, and Kael's form - arms, head, and chest wholly ensconced in metal.

TTL: The Final Hazard OOC

@Terminal

I hope that even with the changes going on in your life that you're doing alright man. Take care of yourself.

@Bright_Ops

?

What changes?

There have been no changes in my actual living situation or life. My being forced to abandon The Twelve Labours and The Final Hazard was due to other events, outside the scope of this subforum but within the scope of the actual site, which preclude me from operating as a contest moderator. I am still an active roleplayer.