=Elemental Championships 2021= OOC & Tournament Signups (Full Version)

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Starflame13 -> =Elemental Championships 2021= OOC & Tournament Signups (7/2/2021 20:03:51)


Dawn crept slowly over the horizon. Delicate tendrils of bronze and rose curled across the sky, chasing away the smooth sable of night. The land stirred softly, currents of power all across Lore awakening to wind their way towards Bren. They whispered to the minds of those they passed; quickened their hearts and warmed their blood. Faster and faster they raced, calling to adventurers near and far. Calling to the desperate and the brave. Calling all to the eye of the storm.

Bren surged beneath the force of their arrival. Citizens and strangers alike rallied to prepare for the festivities. Music wound its way through the streets, inns and shops threw open their doors, and the city gates swung wide to welcome the crowds of people pouring into the city. The young and the old, the rich and the poor, the desolate and the hopeful - all were caught in the eddies of the building tempest.

Then the city shook. The tension snapped. And the Arena awoke once more.




Welcome, Esteemed Writers!

Welcome to the fighters and the mages, the heroes and the villains, the doers and the dreamers and everyone in between! Welcome, all that have assembled, to the 2021 Elemental Championships!
Come ready your wits, sharpen your swords, and join in the festivities as Bren prepares for the coming tournament!


Welcome to all! I have the privilege of serving as your Director this year once again! I’ve continued taking everyone’s feedback from last year, and I’m extremely excited to see all the stories and characters people have planned for this year!

Now that the formalities are out of the way, on to the important information:

The Elemental Championships are a combat-oriented, collaborative role-playing competition. In it, your characters are competing for the chance to earn a boon from the Elemental Lord that they represent. It takes place over two rounds of competition: the Paragon Phase, where competitors are randomly assigned to different arenas in order to demonstrate their skills, abilities, and dedication - and the Finals, where the top writer from each element is selected to compete in the Grand Arena for the crown of Champion.

ANYBODY on the AE forums, regardless of prior roleplaying experience, is welcome to participate in the ECs. To sign up, you will need to provide a character biography that passes my inspection and includes the following general requirements:

quote:


Name / Title
Element
Age Range
Race
Appearance (Build, hair, skin, clothes, etc.)
Equipment (Armor, Weapons, etc.)
Skills, Spells, & Special Abilities
Personality / Backstory (Optional)


You must select a single element to represent from the following: Fire, Darkness, Energy, Wind, Ice, Light, Water, & Earth. The element you select must align with your character in some way - whether due to the abilities, personality, values, backstory, or any combination thereof. The initial lore for these elements is drawn from AQ Classic, but Bren and the Elemental Championships are not part of any single AE game. While you do not need your character to fit within a specific AE game, their race/abilities/equipment should all be something that would not be unusual to see in one of them.

Any action performed in the tournament itself, including but not limited to spells, special attacks, and magical abilities, must have a reference in your biography. You may use spoiler tags to hide abilities, though this does not guarantee other competitors will not peek. I will be reading (and judging) the complete bio, and there will be consequences for those who attempt to pull off actions in the arena that I was not aware of prior. It is off of this list of abilities, skills, and so forth that your character will be balanced and admitted to the tournament. If you are new to balancing, I recommend checking out the Balancing 101 Guide, or bios from prior years.

Applications will be open until 11:59 PM (EDT - or AE Server Time) on Saturday, July 24th. Any bios still under review will then have 24 hours, or until 11:59 PM on Sunday, July 25th, to get their characters approved. Once submissions have completely closed, I will reveal the Paragon Arenas that will be utilized this year, and randomly assign participants to each arena. If your initial submission is not approved, you have until submissions are locked to either re-submit an updated application using Director feedback in a new post, or submit an entirely new character. To assist with re-submissions, characters not approved will be given an explanation why, and further clarification may be requested as needed. Do not edit your bio after it has been posted, unless I give you express written permission. To reiterate, Do NOT edit your bio after it has been posted.

One more time for those in the back:

DO NOT EDIT your bio after it has been posted.

When revising bios after director feedback, you must submit an entirely new post containing the updated bio. If you break this rule, your character will be disqualified, and you will have to submit an entirely different concept.

The preliminary round, or Paragon Phase, will begin on Sunday, July 25th and last for approximately three weeks. Currently, the period is expected to end at 11:59 PM EDT on Saturday, August 14th, but I will keep everyone posted if that changes. At the end of the Paragon Phase, one finalist from each element will be selected to move on. It usually takes at least a day to process decisions and get the Finals thread ready. Anticipated start date of the Finals will be Monday, August 16th. More information on the Finals will be released when they are closer.

Now, the Official Rules:

All normal RP Boards Rules will apply. In particular, please read and be aware of the definitions of Bunnying, God-Modding, and Meta-Gaming - all of which can result in penalties up to and including disqualification. Violators of the standard rules will be immolated, electrocuted, drowned, and pulverized. Survivors will be undone at an atomic level. Lists are kept of violators, and depending on severity, you may be barred from future participation. In addition, by participating in this Elemental Championships, you recognize my role as Director and my say as final.

1. Characters must engage in combat.
This is a combat RP event. Your character must be willing and able to initiate and take part in combat.

2. Do not use cross-element powers.
This is the Elemental Championship. Your character is competing for the favor of a single Elemental Lord in the preliminaries, and against the chosen of the other elemental Paragons in the Finals for the reward of a boon from your Lord. No Lord will choose as their representative someone who cannot win upon the strength of their element alone.

3. You must post regularly.
Consistent activity is required. Please do not enter the tournament if you are not committed to remaining active for the full duration. During the preliminaries, any competitor who does not post at least once every 4 days (counted from the time of your last post) will automatically be disqualified. Your character will then be considered free for the slaughter - any other character in the arena will be allowed to kill him/her/them/it. You are allowed to request up to 36 hours in extension, in 12 or 24 hour increments (so, either one 24 hour extension and one 12 hour extension, or three 12 hour extensions). Make extension requests via a forum post in your Arena’s OOC thread.

4. Do not edit your posts - INCLUDING Bio submissions - once they have been submitted.
You may only edit your posts or your bios with the express written permission of me, myself, and I. Editing of bios or of posts without foreknowledge creates the suspicion of foul play. Proofread and double-check formatting prior to posting, and live with any errors you might have made once a post is submitted.

5. Each entrant is allowed one and only one character.
You may not enter in pairs, squads, platoons, battalions, armies, or swarms.

6. Death has Consequences.
Characters who die in the Elemental Championships are dead in the AE RP forums. This is a Canon event with regards to normal RP Board rules. Characters who die during the Paragon Phase are still eligible to be chosen as Finalists, but this is the only free pass to revival. Dying in the Finals is permanent.

7. Have fun!
All these rules and regulations may seem daunting, but while this is a tournament and a competition, the entire objective is to have some fun. We all like to win, sure, but try to enjoy yourselves along the way!

The penalty for failing to follow the rules may result in immediate disqualification from the tournament. Failure to comply with the direction of the Director may also result in immediate disqualification from the tournament. While discussion of a ruling may be allowed, as has been stated prior, I have the final say.

General Information and Tips:
Though this is a competition, collaboration is still extremely useful and often necessary. Your character is in combat with other characters, but you are not in combat with the other players. We urge you to discuss combat and options with your fellow contestants. You are free to make collaborative posts, and to work out battle sequences. Please keep records of your discussions for collaboration, as they may be requested depending on how close the competition is! OOC threads will be provided for each arena for the express purpose of communication with your fellow contestants and with the Director.

Additionally, you may make use of the AEF RP Discord Server - which will also have channels provided for each arena. All AEF Rules apply to this server. This server is a privilege, not a right. If you do not follow the AEF rules or are disrespectful to others in the server, you will be banned, and you will need to rely on the forums for communication. The Discord server may be found here.

If you need to reach me directly, you can do so via PM, posting in the OOC threads, or using Discord.


List of Accepted Entrants by Element
Fire [3]
Jacklin Elizabeth Smoke, created by Chewy905!
Mizzleteran the 37th, created by nield! Disqualified
Elder of Embers, created by Ronin Of Dreams!

Darkness [2]
Darvey, created by TripleChaos!
Milo, created by Sylphe!

Energy [2]
viterbi04, created by Anastira!
Levanna, Mother of the Thunderstruck Plains, created by draketh99!

Wind [2]
Adam Naymer, created by San Robin!
Pietersite, the Shimmering Breeze, created by Roseleaf320!

Ice [2]
Crail, created by Apocalypse!
Cassius Pallu, created by Synthe_!

Light [2]
Lukhan, the Dawnlight, created by deathlord45!
Albus Gwenyth Servo, created by Dragonknight315!

Water []

Earth [4]
Auric Au'Mydas, created by Meepsie!
Krehgor, created by Necro-Knight!
Rey, created by markthematey!
Ooaye, created by Riprose123! Withdrawn

Master List of Accepted Characters
Total: 17
Jacklin Elizabeth Smoke, created by Chewy905, fighting for Fire!
Adam Naymer, created by San Robin, fighting for Wind!
Auric Au'Mydas, created by Meepsie, fighting for Earth!
viterbi04, created by Anastira, fighting for Energy!
Lukhan, the Dawnlight, created by deathlord45, fighting for Light!
Mizzleteran the 37th, created by nield! Disqualified
Crail, created by Apocalypse, fighting for Ice!
Krehgor, created by Necro-Knight, fighting for Earth!
Rey, created by markthematey, fighting for Earth!
Pietersite, the Shimmering Breeze, created by Roseleaf320, fighting for Wind!
Albus Gwenyth Servo, created by Dragonknight315, fighting for Light!
Darvey, created by TripleChaos, fighting for Darkness!
Milo, created by Sylphe, fighting for Darkness!
Cassius Pallu, created by Synthe_, fighting for Ice!
Elder of Embers, created by Ronin Of Dreams!
Ooaye, created by Riprose123! Withdrawn
Levanna, Mother of the Thunderstruck Plains, created by draketh99, fighting for Energy!


Rosters by Arena

Factory Arena
Darvey, created by TripleChaos!
Krehgor, created by Necro-Knight!
Auric Au'Mydas, created by Meepsie!
Lukhan, the Dawnlight, created by deathlord45!
Albus Gwenyth Servo, created by Dragonknight315!
Elder of Embers, created by Ronin Of Dreams!

Sky Arena
Pietersite, the Shimmering Breeze, created by Roseleaf320!
Crail, created by Apocalypse!
Levanna, Mother of the Thunderstruck Plains, created by draketh99!
Rey, created by markthematey!
Adam Naymer, created by San Robin!

Fountain Arena
Milo, created by Sylphe!
Ooaye, created by Riprose123! Withdrawn
Mizzleteran the 37th, created by nield! Disqualified
Cassius Pallu, created by Synthe_!
Jacklin Elizabeth Smoke, created by Chewy905!
viterbi04, created by Anastira!





nield -> RE: =Elemental Championships 2021= OOC & Tournament Signups (7/2/2021 21:38:20)

Name: Mizzleteran Fevartarang Moshtolordedge Sentestiar gol Ventaran Kolor the 37th

Age: 372

Race: Starentellarian

Element: Fire

Appearance:

Mizzleteran is a small creature, standing at a mere 16 inches tall. He has three sets of spindly arms that seem short even for his relative size that each end in small, delicate hands, with spinnerets in the wrists. His single pair of legs are similarly spindly and short for his relative size. His body appears as if it has been partially mummified, leading to an incredibly emaciated look, with dry, lightish brown skin. Red hair, still vibrant despite the passage of many years, falls about Mizzleteran’s shoulders.

Two large mismatched orbs sit in the centre of his forehead, one a dull bronze and the other a brilliant amber while six smaller pitch black orbs sit to the side of and below the main two. Thin lips separate easily to reveal large fangs that readily drip an unknown substance. Mizzleteran boasts no ears, but his body, especially his arms and legs are utterly covered in small hairs which can pick up on vibrations allowing him to hear. He garbs himself in silk finery; regal red robes with golden trim.

With Mizzleteran is his ‘pet’, a monstrous abomination with the lower body of a spider and the upper body of a humanoid dragon. The hideous amalgamation stands at a full height of ten feet, seven of which are supplied by the upper body. The arachnid half’s body is three feet wide as well as long and boasts a leg span of eight feet, with an orangish-red colouration and is extremely hairy. The legs are covered in hardened carapace that function as armour plating, though still with a mass of hairs protruding through.

Where one might have expected the spider’s ‘face’ to be instead protrudes an intimidating crimson humanoid form. One eye-drawing quality about it other than its sheer size is that it has the head of a dragon, a grim, snarling visage pocked with scars, one of which spans from its sheared right horn down through its right eye and bifurcates its upper ‘lip’. Its remaining eye is a blazing orange orb and its surviving horn curves up and forwards.

Perhaps the aspect of its body that most eyes would be drawn to is the fact that the creature’s lower torso has been hollowed out, with the belly section removed to allow the fashioning of a ‘cockpit’. This gaping hole seems open to the world, but in reality is covered by thick layers of transparent web that can only be shifted with delicate precision and an understanding of how the layering was applied. The interior of this cockpit is absolutely littered with individual web strands running between various points.

Contrary to the lower section of the torso, the upper section is perfectly intact and bulging with muscles, crimson scales gleaming readily under direct light. Though each arm ends in a hand with four fingers and boasting opposable thumbs, those fingers and thumbs themselves end in savage claws fit to rend the most stalwart of champions to pieces. Two large, elegant wings grace the creature’s back, with delicate yet durable webbing extending between thick bones. From its back extends a three-foot long tail ending in a diamond-shaped blade.

Mizzleteran’s Capabilities:

As is perhaps abundantly clear from his tiny, delicate stature, Mizzleteran is far from a physical combatant. Boasting very little strength, which is only exacerbated by his desiccated form, Mizzleteran would be summarily despatched by most adversaries were he to engage in direct battle.

Web Spinning: From his spinnerets Mizzleteran can extrude silks of various types and hues, from the vibrant, rich silks that make up the clothing he wears, to the incredibly strong transparent silks that cover the hole in his pet’s stomach, though producing that much of that silk type took over a century. Another type of silk he can extrude is an incredibly fine, ivory-white silk known as parasite silk.

Desiccation venom: The true nature of the mystery liquid that drips from his fangs. When introduced into an entity’s blood stream, this liquid serves three purposes; First, it is a very strong paralytic, causing the affected entity to lose all control of their body in a precious couple seconds while also deadening their nervous system, rendering them unable to feel pain for as long as the paralytic agent remains active.

Secondly, the liquid serves to rapidly dessicate the subject in a mere few minutes, which, alongside the third aspect of the liquid, being that it acts as a preservative, results in most subjects taking on either a partial or fully mummified appearance, depending on their inherent resistance to the effects of extreme dehydration, with creatures much as the humanoid dragon half of Mizzleteran’s pet boasting such inherent resistance that they do not change appearance at all.

Beyond aiding in the visual change to affected subjects, the preservative portion of the venom also makes such entities able to survive on far less; Needing precious little to no water to live on and only needing to eat once or twice a week. Additionally, subjects’ own biological processes become unnecessary for survival, allowing them to live even with missing organs and with large holes in their body.

Mizzleteran boasts very little bite strength, not even being able to pierce the skin of regular humans, he therefore requires an open wound if he expects to apply his venom to a victim. If ingested, the venom might make a person ill, but unless introduced specifically into the bloodstream shows none of its usual effects. Venom that drips into his own mouth gets reabsorbed into Mizzleteran’s venom sacs.

Living Corpse Puppetry: Once a victim has been disabled by his desiccation venom, Mizzleteran can, from inside of the victim, work the super fine parasite silk into and through the victim’s nervous system. This usurps their own control of their body and allows Mizzleteran to control them at his own will by pulling, thrumming and otherwise manipulating strings in a central location of the puppet.

Mizzleteran has a series of very small and delicate yet incredibly sharp instruments he uses to cut his victims open so he can work his silk through them, as well as tools to sew and otherwise patch up any egregious wounds. Additionally, since this uses silk worked into the nervous system to usurp control, it requires the victim to be alive; if they die, control of their body dies with them.

Pet Capabilities:

Mizzleteran’s pet is two distinct entities that have been sewn together with very strong silk, with parasite silk worked through both of their nervous systems. The arachnid half is a Krepykyan riding spider, a passive desert creature meant to carry its masters across long distances without any effort expended on their own behalf. The top of the spider’s ‘head’ is open to the world, serving as a spot where the Krepykyan would sit and control the beasts. Not being Krepykyan himself, Mizzleteran cannot control the riding spider as they would, which forced him to utilise his Living Corpse Puppetry on it.

These riding spiders are mammoth creatures, reaching up to 7 times the size of the one Mizzleteran makes us of, his desiccation venom having paused and preserved its aging process; the thing is little more than a baby. Since they were bred to survive in desert environments, the riding spiders bear a great resistance to heat and dehydrative states. The armoured carapace that covers its legs will turn most blades, but falters under blunt trauma.

The hairs that cover the creature are used by it to hear, given that it has no other sensory organs. This hearing is used by Mizzleteran to make up for the fact that he cannot see beyond a narrow range from inside of his cockpit; the vibrations in the air are picked up by the hairs and end up thrumming certain strings in the cockpit that Mizzleteran can interpret to gain an idea of what is going on around him.

The upper half is a genetically engineered organism, crafted from a fire dragon and bears the strengths one would expect of such a being, with durable scales that will shrug off weaker attacks and savage claws that would tear through lightly armoured foes. The thing is not capable of taking flight, as its wings proved impossible to work parasite threads into for Mizzleteran and with its nervous system suborned cannot make its own movements.

The end of its tail is sharp as a blade and can serve as an impromptu weapon against unwary opponents. It bears two sets of lungs, one of which generates a gas that, when exposed to air spontaneously combusts, allowing the creature to breathe fire. This build-up is passive and would take a few minutes to fully refill from empty. From full to empty the creature would be capable of setting a house full ablaze. The creature is incapable of keeping the gas lungs as its ‘active’ lungs perpetually and there is a brief switchover period that serves as a tell for when it is about to let flames loose.




Chewy905 -> RE: =Elemental Championships 2021= OOC & Tournament Signups (7/3/2021 10:08:27)

Name Jacklin Elizabeth Smoke
Gender Female
Age: 27
Race: Human

“Nice to meetcha! I’m Jacklin Smoke. Or Blacksmoke. Or sometimes just “Smoke.” Never Jack.”

Appearance: Standing at a slightly taller than average 6 feet, Jacklin Smoke’s high energy keeps her bouncing and ready to go. Her long, dark red hair flows out from under a black-leather tricorn laced with gold trim, reaching just under her shoulders. A single silver strand of hair runs down the front of her hairline. Her skin is overly tanned, with sunburns on her arms from too many days under the sun, accompanied by some actual burns from reckless behavior. Jacklin’s golden eyes sparkle with life and joy, and are usually accompanied by a wide, toothy grin. Spiraling along her forearms are ebony tattoos of swirling clouds of smoke, which seem to shift and distort when exposed to sunlight. Various scars mar her skin along her arms and her stomach, some faded from the years, others fairly fresh.

For apparel, she wears a black undershirt and an unbuttoned military-styled suit-jacket. This suit was a gift from her brother, and is solid black with extravagant golden trim designed in laurel patterns. It is a little too long and too large for her, tending to catch in the wind and during her own fast motions. In an act of defiance, the sleeves have been neatly cut off just above the elbows. When asked, Jacklin’s reasoning was “they got in the way.”

Jacklin completes her apparel with a pair of fingerless gloves and lightly-armored black-steel leggings, again laced with the same matching gold trim as her hat and her suit.

“I’d rather take these cuts to my skin than to my suit. Mending it is a pain, assuming my brother didn’t kill me before I had the chance. He, uh, hasn’t actually seen the sleeves yet.”

Equipment:
Jacklin carries little with her but the clothes on her body, and those don’t offer much in the way of protection, though the suit is magically fireproof. Their light weight does allow her much greater freedom of movement. Her armored leggings are enough to stave off most edged weapons, with her claiming “No one likes scars on the legs. Who goes around staring at someone’s legs in a fight anyways?”

She does carry a simple butterfly knife in the breast pocket of her suit-jacket. Though she can use it for combat when necessary, she prefers to just show off fancy tricks, especially now that most of the scars on her fingers from her time practicing with it have faded away. After all, what practical use is a butterfly knife?

Finally, Jacklin carries a single playing card in the same pocket as her knife. A simple Jack of Spades with no special properties.

“Armor? Too clunky, not enough freedom. If I take a hit and earn a scar it’s my own fault, not the result of some weak leather or plate.”

Abilities:

The Black Smoke: After a brief moment to focus, Jacklin can release a mass of black smoke that rolls off of her skin. It then spreads to form a circular, foot-thick and six-feet tall wall with a five-foot radius from Jacklin, who acts as its centerpoint. Jacklin can either keep the cloud in one place or cause it to move while centered on her, but it dissipates if she leaves its boundaries. The smoke usually remains mostly transparent, visibly there but easy to see through. On command, Jacklin can make the cloud an opaque pitch-black, though she herself cannot see through it when this has been done. This smoke is uncomfortable to breathe in, but not dangerously so, and causes slight stinging of the eyes akin to regular smoke. Jacklin has been painstakingly exposed enough to become immune to both of these effects.

The cloud can be dispersed by strong winds, requiring Jacklin to release it once more. Each release beyond the first tires her out, however, so she cannot repeatedly create them.

Blacksmoke Artistry: Jacklin is capable of condensing portions of her smoke into solid, simple objects of any form, though she cannot make anything with more volume than a large warhammer. This process takes less than a second, and Jacklin must have her hand in contact with a portion of her smoke in order to create something, which appears in her grasp. She can have up to four objects of any size created at once, and they last until she chooses to dissipate or detonate them, the former of which can be done at will. Each individual mass counts as one of these objects, so if she were to make a bow she could only make three arrows at a time.

Created objects are as durable as a regular counterpart made of a basic material, and lack any special properties. Created objects can be freely transformed as long as Jacklin is in contact with them.

Detonation: Jacklin may detonate her created objects at any time. Doing so requires a verbal command (though her intent is the trigger, rather than the exact word), and has a 3-second delay, during which the detonating object will glow white and shake violently. After the delay, it will explode into a blast of white flame that floods over in every direction, dissipating around 10-feet from the object and inflicting 2nd-degree burns to anyone caught within it.

There is a second type of detonation Jacklin can do, which has no delay or tell, and instead releases harmless, incredibly bright, loud, and flashy firecrackers. Jacklin may alter the color and shapes of these firecrackers at will, often creating pretty pictures.

Either type of detonated smoke cannot be recovered, though in the case of crafted objects, the volume is usually low enough that it shouldn’t matter. However…

Fission: With a snap of her fingers (yes the snap is required) and a spoken word, Jacklin can cause all of her currently active smoke to detonate as if triggered by Detonation, delay and tell included. Once done, Jacklin’s smoke generation will be severely limited; she will no longer be able to release her full cloud, instead only creating a single object at a time from smoke that rolls off her own person, and cannot freely shift its form once it’s created, nor can she detonate it. This limitation can be overcome with rest, a commodity that is unlikely to be present on a battlefield.

“These things I make, they’re not just tools. They’re art. But they’re the kind of art that is useless if it’s rotting away on display. Come, let me show you some motion!”

Traits:

Trained through Rivalry: Jacklin is both faster and stronger than the average athlete, and quick to react to oncoming danger, though her body tends to move before her mind does. Even when she has time to properly think through her actions, she often fails to notice possible dangers until she has already put herself at risk.

Blissfully Vulnerable: Other than a slight resistance to fire (not nearly enough to fully withstand the explosions she herself creates), Jacklin lacks any sort of protection from both physical and magical attacks save for her equipment.

Art of Blade: Jacklin possesses incredible talent when wielding polearms, warhammers, and other longer types of weaponry, though she has trained enough with all manners of weaponry to be comfortable using anything she creates at above-average skill.

"It's not like I, well, enjoy killing people, it’s just that...

See combat's a game, especially when it's all gladiatorial like this. If you lose, well, your life belongs to the winner!

Those are the rules. I just follow 'em. And I haven't lost yet."




Chewy905 -> RE: =Elemental Championships 2021= OOC & Tournament Signups (7/3/2021 10:23:02)

Mumbles angrily

Jacklin is Element: Fire, btw. I, uh, forgot.




Sylphe -> RE: =Elemental Championships 2021= OOC & Tournament Signups (7/3/2021 11:30:03)

Name / Title: The Darkling, also known as Tenebrio, The Little Musician and the Almighty Toot

Element: Darkness

Age Range: There are many tales concerning the Darkling’s birth. Some say that it sparked to existence after the concept of the trumpet was invented. Some say it came to be from a tired father’s fairytale to calm their crying child. Some say it is as old as the stars themselves, perhaps as old as the night itself.

Race: The Darkling is… an otherwordly mix of a darkling bug and a rhino beetle. A darkling bug the size of a child, and it is safe to assume that this is no ordinary insect. Closest bet would be a spirit.

Sleep tight, my child, and fear not the darkness. Because on its wings is how the Darkling comes, and if you’re good and keep your eyes closed, it’ll play you a little song.

Appearance:
Darkling bears the image of a child-sized insect (a child of about nine years old), with elytra of the deepest, blue tinged black of space. They appear almost transparent in places, and they glitter as if stars reflected on their surface. Its legs are of an insect, as well, black in colour, just like their antennae, always swaying in the rhythm of its little songs.

Under its elytra, the insect has a pair of ghastly membraned wings, appearing icy blue and in shapes that aren’t quite anything an earthly bug has.

It wears a red scarf around its neck, and towards its ends it gains more and more blue, making the red appear pinkish. There at its ends, the scarf has ghastly paw-like shapes made of fabric.

Its eyes are quite strange. They are big like a bug’s, but there are no compounds. They are deep and pitch black, and somewhere in their depths there are pupils that glitter like warm distant stars. Its head is shaped like one of a rhino beetle, with a single horn.

It’ll sing about stars and the silver tails of comets, about the silky scarf you love so much, about the yellow moon and the pleasant, safe dark of sleep. Of the pictures you drew today, of mom and of dad who love you so much. So much.

Equipment:

Pawpaws:
Darkling’s trusted scarf is used to grab at things that the insect won’t be able to hold, as it does not have any fingers. It packs surprising amounts of strength for a piece of fabric.

The Ghost Band:
Darkling has a magical trumpet at its disposal. This trumpet is ethereal, a deep see through blue, with many little stars blinking through. This trumpet can take the form of other instruments, those being a violin, a tambourine, a tuba and an accordion. Those instruments can take any colour and pattern, so long as they distinctly are what they are, and are much more durable than normal instruments.

With thundering rumble it will sing of the endless hum of space, with its trumpet it will herald stars to come to their sparkling lives, with the strings of its violin it will make the threads of creation shake.

Skills, Spells, & Special Abilities:

Sky dancer:
The Darkling has a disregard for gravity, moving around as if there was significantly less of it, hopping around in slow jumps and occasionally using its wings to glide if it gets itself too high up. It does not use them to propel itself up, though.

Darkling can also use the energy expelled from its music to propel itself in directions, depending on the strength of the chord played.

Sky painter:

The Darkling has several instruments it uses to play its songs and paint the world around itself.

The Trumpet:
Darkling’s trumpet is used to expel short, powerful bursts of darkness, travelling only a short distance away from itself. The sound, though, can be heard by anyone in the vicinity of a normal trumpet. This darkness lingers in the form of clouds of black and stardust, regardless of if it hit or not, and is harmless, other than causing sleepiness when walked into.

Each of the trumpet toots has a recoil that sends Darkling slightly back. Almost like the darkness of the night sky, this darkness is accented deep blue and purple.

The Tuba:
A powerful chord with which matter itself shakes around Darkling, it will release a powerful, but short ranged pulse of dark energy and disorient and temporarily deafen those struck if they stood too close. The effect is stronger the closer the target is to Darkling. If this chord hits any lingering clouds of darkness, they will be reactivated and sent forward as attacks again, dissipating right after the attack.

It will also whip up Tambourine dust.

Unfortunately the strength of this chord will also send Darkling barreling backwards through its own low gravity at a pretty fast speed.

The Tambourine:
Drumming away at its tambourine, Darkling can sprinkle darkly silvery specks in the air or on the ground. Touching them causes the beings hit to gradually become more and more sleepy the more silver dust they touch.

The Violin:
A beautiful, haunting tune, the Violin is used to manipulate the heartstrings of others, calling out to their dreams and nightmares. Its sound may make others dazed, reminding them of the ghosts and echoes of dreams they do or don’t remember. As it plays, the Violin draws a line of darkness across the places the Musician goes while playing. This line is solid, and while not dangerous, can pose a threat of tripping others over. This darkness is accented with orange, as if taken from a lanternlit alley.

The Accordion:
Like space expands and compresses, so does Darkling’s little accordion. In its ghastly bellows stars are seen being born and living through their entire lifespans with a single chord. Darkling’s accordion has the power of push and pull - while it pulls in air, it is capable of pulling others closer to the Darkling, and when it releases a chord, it can push others away. The force of this push and pull depends on how much time Darkling has had to properly take in air. Similar to how a black hole takes light away, while Darkling takes in air with its accordion, the immediate area around it appears dimmer.

Darkling is capable of drawing in clouds of darkness as well, and they linger around the accordion harmlessly until a chord is played, after which they will be sent out striking. Darkling can only hold them like this for a few seconds.

This move is also capable of drawing in and spraying out tambourine dust, though in this case, Darkling cannot hold on to it and needs to use it up right away.

Lasting Darkness:
The Trumpet and the Tambourine respectively generate darkness and dream dust that can be manipulated by other instruments. This darkness and dust both only last in a space for about two minutes, after which they harmlessly disappear.

Recycling darkness or dust in any way makes it disappear right after the act.




Necro-Knight -> RE: =Elemental Championships 2021= OOC & Tournament Signups (7/3/2021 18:24:48)

Name: Sir Azriel von Strix II

Class/Title: Sin Drinker

Element: Darkness

Race: Vampire

Age: 150

Appearance: Featuring the trademark pale complexion of a mature vampire, Azriel’s slender and angular face is typically hidden behind his SinDrinker helmet. When visible though, his sharp cheekbones and ears lend him a more bat-like appearance at first glance. Dark crimson eyes reminiscent of rubies can be seen beneath the low visor of his helm, shielding them from the harsh day-star. A pair of fangs can be extended from his gums, long and sharp for the traditional act of drinking blood and removing sin from the soul.

His figure is tall and lean, reaching a healthy 6’5, muscles lean and taught with the same pale skin. When not garbed in his official armor, a scar can be seen running from the left side of his neck and down across his sternum, almost like a hot poker was drug across his body. Dark crimson hair is long, reaching to his shoulders and swept back for convenience when tucked beneath his helmet or hood.

Equipment: Wearing the traditional obsidian-colored armor from the Order of the SinDrinkers, its smooth and ornate plating is trimmed with silver elegance, the swirls and designs interlock into ancient symbols to help ward off unholy magicks, as well as strengthening the interlocking plates over his layer of chainmail. Adorned at the center of his breastplate, gloves and knee-plates is a bright ruby, built to help in channeling excess sinful energies. Between his body and the mail, a layer of comfortable and flexible black leather provides protection from simple weapons, such as daggers.

While his helmet also features the same ornate design as his armor, with a pair of bat wings sweeping back from the brow of the helmet in a horn-like style, the helmet's metal is enchanted and bound personally to the owner’s soul. With a simple command, the SinDrinker Knight is able to dismiss the helmet, causing it to fade away in a cloud of shadow and allow the Knight to feed or perform the holy rite of purification.

His main weapon is a pole-axe reaching roughly 7 feet in length, it’s top adorned with a silver and obsidian bat design. The wings of this creature of the night sweep downward and connect to the shaft of the weapon, forming a curved blade sharp enough to easily cleave through flesh and bone when swung with proper force. At the very tip of the weapon is a razor-sharp tip, extending roughly six inches above the head of the bat-styled axe blade, used in strong piercing attacks.

Finally, adorned across his belt is a set of eight roughly palm-sized potion bottles. Filled with distilled blood and pure, concentrated energy from each sin known to mortals, Azriel can imbibe the concoctions to fuel his hex magic instead of needing to drink the magic directly from its source. While a direct and potent infusion of sinful magic, the SinDrinker is unable to consume more than one bottle at a time, as the gorging of blood runs a serious risk of sickening Azriel beyond the ability to fight. The spell-empowerment lasts for about 6 minutes before Azriel is forced to imbibe another potion, changing the sin hex that he is using.

Abilities/Skills/Traits:

Strength of the Night - Being a mature vampire, Azriel’s speed and physical strength are well above peak human performance, granting a swift and almost elegant combat style when combined with his poleaxe. When forced into melee combat, blows could easily break bones on a normal, well-fit human. The SinDrinker’s peak agility would allow him to side-step a crossbow arrow with ease but would risk being struck with anything faster.

Spark of the Sinner – Instead of channeling his sin reserves into a curse, the vampire is able to simply direct a jolt of crimson magic from the tip of his poleaxe, consuming roughly a third of the potion’s reserve energy in the process. If struck, the victim will suffer similar burning and muscular disruption, as if they had been struck by natural lightning.

Judgement Chains - Spawning a length of barbed chains from his left gauntlet, Azriel directs the snake-like spell towards a victim at a maximum of 20 feet. Upon reaching the target, they will attempt to coil around the torso of the victim with extreme force, though the physical properties of the spell is no greater than typical metal. If also cast while empowered with a Sin potion, Azriel can channel a bolt of energy down the chains and into his target, destroying the chains in the process. If not broken, the bindings will last for 30 seconds before dissipating.

Peccatum Maledictum: “Sin Curse” in the old tongue, Azriel channels the reserves of dark, twisted magicks he collects from a ritualistic feeding or from a blood vial and can project the magic towards a foe in the form of a curse, inflicting that specific vice upon their soul like a stain. The curse lasts for about a minute before the magic naturally fades. A victim is only able to be afflicted with one curse at a time. Whichever sin he is currently empowered with decides the victim’s affliction:

? Irae - Infuses the victim with an overwhelming rage, to the point where friend and foe become irrelevant and bloodlust attempts to dominate the victim’s mind. Ending a life will satisfy the curse, dispelling the magic as the sin is sated or the victim can try to fight the blinding fury and wait for the spell to fade.

? Libidine - Curses the victim with an obsessive need for an individual of the SinDrinker’s choosing when casting the spell. The hex requires line-of-sight on both the victim and their new targeted obsession. While not as naturally as violent as Irae, the curse will make it near painful for the victim to not have possession of the targeted being.

? Invidias - Fueling the curse with pure envy, the spell latches onto the enemy’s essence and siphons it back to the SinDrinker, satisfying its hunger for their strength and power. This specific curse lasts for roughly ten seconds, siphoning what physical strength it can over that time.

? Cupiditas – Rooting its power in the greed that infects the heart of all men, this curse attacks the mind, creating an array of illusionary jewels, gems and coins within a 20 foot radius around the victim. The curse’s affliction of the soul drives the victim to desire the riches, perhaps even to the point of self-abandon.

? Superbia – Overwhelms the victim with pride to the point of nearing overconfidence and egotistic feelings, aiming to make their actions sloppy and easily exploited by the SinDrinker.

? Famineus – This curse sinks its teeth into the host’s body itself, striking them with a crippling hunger, as if starvation is mere moments away. This curse does not affect any magical capabilities, but the extreme hunger may result in a lack of focus for spells.

? Otiosum – A curse fueled with apathy of the purest kind, the Otiesum curse saps the physical energy from a victim, slamming exhaustion upon them and demanding they rest where they stand. This curse does not affect any magical capabilities, but the lack of physical strength may result in spells being difficult to cast.

• SinLust Potion – Taking the final vial from his belt, this special concoction is the blood of a powerful vampire lord, infused with each sin at their most potent. Drinking the cocktail of evil not only empowers Azriel with the vampire blood but also saturates the Knight with more sinful energy than is healthy. The sudden infusion often destroys the armor of the SinDrinker, as its enchantments are not built to contain every sin at once, leaving the Knight in the tattered remains of their chainmail and leathers.

The Knight’s arms are engulfed in a layer of hellfire as the seven sins coalesce into their rawest form, ending in three-inch claws. These flaming limbs disperse magic that lands directly on the center but will not diffuse spells that pass through their edges. While the Knight is granted these new weapons, the result mental chaos renders him unable to use any of his magical skills and typically results in a feral, ghoul-like mentality. Catching and slicing/feeding upon the closest source of blood and sin becomes all consuming. This effect lasts for roughly four minutes before the energies gifted by the potion fade and the Knight collapses.




Meepsie -> RE: =Elemental Championships 2021= OOC & Tournament Signups (7/3/2021 20:22:13)

Hi, I'm Meepsie. Normally an evil witch, I'm also a writer! This is my first time entering a collaborative competition like this, but I hope to have fun and learn from everyone. With that being said, here's my character!


Character: Auric Au’Mydas

Element: Earth

Age:25

Race: Human

“This will be a wonderful outing. So many new faces, so many new experiences.. and should I win, my dream will finally come true. The only thing I cannot buy will finally be in the palm of my hands. And, of course, legions of adoring fans and new business partners would not hurt either...."


Appearance: Auric enjoys the finer things in life, and this is clearly visible in the way he dresses. He tends to wear very elegant, fancy clothing, and has long blonde hair which he puts great effort into maintaining. Physically, he is known as handsome with well-chiseled features, including a strong jawline, sparkling blue eyes, and a shining grin, and boasts a fit and decently muscular physique (whether he bulked up for combat purposes or his ego is unknown).

“Do not be sad. You do not need to see the Elemental Lords to view perfection. Just take a look at my face. Or my body. Or my attire…..”

Equipment:

Rich Man’s Robeage- Auric wears a suit reminiscent of a noble, even during combat. Despite it’s stuffy and uncomfortable appearance, Auric has spent a fortune on the finest fibers and enchantments- making the robe surprisingly lightweight, durable and resistant to elemental magics.

AU Accoutrements- underneath his suit, Auric has multiple pieces of golden equipment (including a coin necklace, bracelets, and a thin plate covering his chest similar to a bulletproof vest). Aside from being fashionable, his accessories also allow him to launch surprise attacks by manipulating the minerals in them. He does not carry a weapon on him, but can make golden weapons and additional armor using his ability.

“Just because we will be fighting like pugilists does not mean I must dress like one. Perhaps I could give you a lesson in practical fashion? I have a wonderful tailor I could introduce you to."

Abilities:

Currency Generation- Auric’s main combat power is his ability to create currency- particularly precious metals and paper bills. This is primarily done in combat through the mass-production of counterfeit money (every counterfeit item he creates has the Au’Mydas family crest on it somewhere, making it easily identifiable as fake). He can produce his counterfeits at a rapid rate and in huge amounts easily, and these form the bulk of his pushing/crushing-based techniques (hitting his foes with thousands of gold coins acts like an energy blast, for instance). He can also fuse gold and minerals into armor and weapons. He can make real gold and enchanted jewels, but this takes a lot of energy out of him, even for very small amounts (thus it is easier to just make a lot of counterfeits unless the situation specifically needs a jewel).

Currency Manipulation- In addition to being able to create money, Auric can also manipulate any currency nearby (including any on the opponent, such as in their gold pouch) into attacks and shields (such as making a barrier or armor of gold, immobilizing foes with chains made of coins, or throwing sharp precious gems at an opponent). However, he cannot outright increase the value or mass of a single piece of currency (he cannot turn a single gold coin into twenty, or one into a giant wall, but could fuse many together into one). Any currency spread around the battlefield can also be used repeatedly as long as it is not completely destroyed.

Money Infusion: By infusing his armor or anything he had created with the gold and jewels around it, Auric can increase the strength of any weapons or armor he makes. Both real enchanted and fake jewels can be infused, and their power, sharpness, armor and weight can be added on top of his items (though this does prevent him from using that specific currency piece any further).

It is worth noting that the powers above doe not just apply to gold, bills and jewels- with some time, Auric can create and manifest counterfeit any items that have been used as currency (not counting trade) over the history of Lore. Some real-world examples that can be brought in include shells, beads, Cameroon's Spear Currency or giant stone wheels used by Yap Islanders.

Yes, yes. My power involves gold as well. Like father, like son and all that. Unlike that pig, however, I know how to use mine. Shall we move on?

Traits:

In a Rich Man's World- Auric is very, very wealthy, even without his ability- in addition to the coffers of the Au'Mydas estate, he is a master banker, financier and investor who maintains a constant flow of money by managing businesses and family assets. As such, he lives a life of luxury, partaking in fine food, drink and entertainment wherever he goes. He is more than happy to share his wealth with those nearby as well, even inviting opponents, peasants and royalty alike to join him (often throwing gold and bills into crowds during public appearances).

Spoiled Rotten- Auric typically comes off as what you would expect from a snobby, rich boy raised in a stuck-up household- vain, pompous, overly foppish and somewhat overbearing. His public tendencies, including womanizing and boasting, make people see him as incredibly self-absorbed. As such, many people are put off by his personality upon meeting him and taking it at face value (despite him having a fair share of admirers).

Heart of Gold- Although the trait above would lead one to believe he is a cruel and selfish person, Auric is actually a very kind and generous man with a good heart: his assistants and few friends who can look past his personality state that he is extremely generous, cares for everyone under his employ, uplifts and encourages everyone around him, and loves nothing more than to share and be kind to others. Although people question his philanthropy, he is known to donate large amounts of currency to people in need- especially reconstruction efforts and orphanage programs. (His somewhat patronizing questions like "would you like me to buy you something?" are genuine and just seem patronizing due to his personality)

Rewriting History- Auric is directly related to Baron Au'Mydas- the infamous Dragonfable villain who turned the world to gold using his Golden Kiss. Every member of the Au'Mydas bloodline has been cursed with an ability based on gold and money, and so far, all of them have used it for evil. Auric, who is haunted by the sins of his family (having experienced being touched by the Golden Kiss and watching his father go mad), denounced his father long ago (as well as every other member of the family) and seeks to use his power for good, but people still distrust him thanks to the nature of his power and family. He aims to remove the curse from the Au'Mydas clan and hopefully turn a new page in their history. He hates when people compare him and his intentions to the rest of the family, especially the Baron.

"Do not refer to me as his son. I am not him. I will never be him. And I am willing to do whatever it takes- should it cost my fortune, my power, or my life- to ensure nobody else will, either."

"I have seen every treasure known to Lore, and then some. Gold, jewels, bills... it is all beautiful. But know this: no wealth, no luxury, no sparkle of a golden coin shines brighter than a smile from the heart."

Please tell me what I need to balance, and I can't wait to write with all of you! <3




Starflame13 -> RE: =Elemental Championships 2021= OOC & Tournament Signups (7/3/2021 23:32:06)

And we're off to a strong start as sign-ups open! Let's get to work, shall we?


@nield - Why hello! Another unique race from you this year, but I think this is going to take a pass or two to get the balancing right.

I'll begin with by saying that mounted combatants are generally rather tricky to achieve, especially given the single-character rule. That said, you've written this more as the pet being a "mech", directly controlled and with no free will, rather than a mount. With that assumption, it's more workable. However, there are several things that concern me about how the mech (and Mizzleteran himself) is set up: the cockpit is nigh-impenetrable, meaning Mizzleteran is never in direct danger; Mizzleteran himself is both tiny and delicate - so even if the cockpit was breached, he'd likely be insta-killed; and the desiccation venom you've given him as an innate, non-mount ability is too powerful as a paralytic against competitors and definitely enters "bunnying" territory with the living corpse puppetry. I like a few of the ideas you've used to balance it (the lack of bite strength), and it's obvious that some of these abilities are present only to make the pet function - but it doesn't work as-is.

My suggestion is actually to remove Mizzleteran as a separate character from the equation and focus primarily on the "pet". If you want to keep his conscious, perhaps you can go a route where the venom transfer is an actual take-over process so that Mizzleteran has become the pet entirely - that would allow you to reference the Starentellarian race and form in telling the story, while removing most of my initial concerns (although measures would need to be taken so that Mizzleteran could not then transfer themselves to another competitor). I will still give balancing suggestions on the pet capabilities itself, as those need tweaking regardless, but think on how to handle those three big concerns listed earlier if you are insistent on keeping the two entities separate.

Starting with the physical appearance and capabilities, the pet is a bit too big to fit through the arena doors - with a height of ten feet and a width of eight feet at the maximum. Please drop both of these by a couple feet - although if one is more important to you than the other, you can drop one dimension further to keep length in another. For the spider-half - I need details on the average speed and strength of the legs. Are the legs only capable of movement, or can those limbs also be utilized to grip, slash, or strike? Part of this concern is that you have a creature with 11 potential striking limbs (8 spider legs, 2 dragonoid arms, and 1 tail) - as well as the wings. If you want to keep this many limbs, the capabilities of the majority need to be limited in some way.

Moving on to the humanoid fire dragon half: again, I need details on the average strength and dexterity of the limbs here in terms of comparison with a human - different people will think of different things at the sentence "bears the strength you'd expect from a dragon", but most of us are familiar with what an average human can do. Remember to balance strength with maneuverability - for a creature as heavily armored as this one is between the equivalent of scale mail and plate mail, you cannot excel in both. As far as the limbs - are the talon claws capable of the same dexterity as human arms, or are they just for slashing? What purpose do the wings serve since flying is not possible - extra shielding, enhanced maneuverability, or simply aesthetics?

Lastly, the fire-breathing: For a creature with as much raw physical potential as this, I feel like the amount of fuel available is too strong - especially if it can continuously release that much in one go. Let's add in a limit on how much fire can be belched at once, and force the pet to swap back to its standard lungs between the breath attacks.

This is a really interesting idea, and you have some clever twists in its implementation - but we've got work to do.


@Chewy905 - Why hello my fellow AK! Quite fun to keep switching roles with you like this. Jacklin on a whole is very well done, just a couple points I'd like clarification on.

First for The Black Smoke - I'd recommend tightening this to a 3 feet radius since, assuming Jacklin has the armspan proportional to her height, this would then put the cylinder in arms reach even when centered. (I'd also consider making it slightly taller than 6 feet so that people aren't getting potshots at Jacklin's forehead).

Second for Black Smoke Artistry - just to clarify, this means that only four items can be in existence at any point in time, not that she can create four at once? If so that's ok, and I'd also like the stipulation that she can only create / transform one item at a time. I'd also like clarity on what it takes for the transformed objects to return to the smoke bank, since you specify those detonated do not return. That also implies that the more weapons are created, the less smoke in the surrounding cloud - is that correct? And with enough to be noticeable, would this result in a thinner cloud or a shorter cloud?

Lastly, Denotation - for variation one (damaging), the burst is too large for a potential detonation of four separate items at a 10 feet radius of second degree burns. My assumption is that this is meant for one object at a time outside of the fission ability, so let's specify that clearly and then drop the fall-out damage to 5 feet.

Otherwise we're looking good!


@Sylphe - Hello, hello! Good to see you back here Sy! Let's take a look at The Darkling.

First, the Darkling: As a non-standard race, I need more details about what their general abilities are (senses, strength, dexterity, stamina) as compared with the average human. You mention the size is close to that of a 9-year old - are the characteristics the same? Similarly, while I like the flavor of the age range, I need a maturity level - something on par with a 9-year old would not be allowed to enter, so I have to assume its general intelligence is closer to that of an adult. Lastly, I would like some more clarity on the appearance: Is this humanoid / upright, and if so, does it still have all six "limbs" that a rhino beetle would have? Can the legs be used for stabbing, or are they just for mobility / waving around?

For the Darkling's scarf - since this functions as the spirit's "hands", how long are the ends of the scarf and how strong are they in comparison to human arms for lifting / punching things? I would also recommend making this a bit more durable or magically enchanted against rips/tear, since it seems like the beetle can't play a majority of their instruments without it.

Now, on to the instruments - starting with the Trumpet and its Lasting Darkness. Since you can continuously blast a trumpet, a two minute survival period is too long - you'd be able to cover most of the arena! Let's drop this to the 15 second mark, unless you'd prefer to track it by the amount of shadow present rather than time. I'm also assuming that the cloud is intangible - can it be dispersed with wind, and how large is each blast?

Moving on to the tuba: to clarify its interactions with the Lasting Darkness and the Dream Dust, it creates neither - but the ensuing blasts catches both in its path and carries them with it. Is that correct? Additionally, lets differentiate this a bit from the Trumpet: There you have a "short distance" ability, here you have a "short ranged" ability. Perhaps the former is a 15-20 foot range, while the stronger Tuba blast is shorter at 5-10? And then the same question on the size of the blast.

Looking at the Tambourine: The Dream dust is a bit close to bunnying at the moment. To avoid that, let's clarify how far this spreads from the tambourine and how much spreads with each strike/shake, and specify that the person who touches it can brush/shake it off similar to normal dust in order to remove the sleepiness effect. Similarly to the Lasting Darkness, a two minute survival period for the dream dust is too long - I'd again drop this to 15-20 seconds.

For the violin: an phycological ability requiring the target to only hear the music is too strong, as sound carries well in most of the arenas. Either this needs to be within a certain range from the Darkling, or it needs to be limited to those who are in contact with the thread that trails the violin. Speaking of the thread - since this darkness is tangible, how strong is it / can it be broken? I would also add in a duration limit - perhaps having it disperse after the Darkling travels a certain distance away.

Lastly, the Accordion: This just needs a maximum range limit for its push/pull mechanism - somewhere between 10-20 feet should work depending on the strength (and with the assumption that the larger the object caught in the song, the less distance it is pulled/pushed).

As a personal note, I'm curious how well the Darkling can play these various instruments - and if it can use any as makeshift weapons / shields! But this is a really neat concept so I'm excited to see it develop.


@Necro-Knight - Welcome back Necro! Sir Azriel has a lot going on with him and a fair bit of balancing work to do, so let's get started.

I'll start by saying this character has a lot of abilities: martial skill, vampiric traits, and two unique casting abilities before we even get to picking apart the sins. You're not going to be able to show all of this in one fight. If you want to keep all 7 sins as an option rather than focusing on a few specific ones that Azriel would be drawn to, I would consider removing the Judgement Chains and Spark of the Sinner abilities, though I'll give brief notes on them all the same.

To start, a few more details about the type of vampire please! You mention his age - is that how old he appears, or does he have the appearance and physicality of one much younger? Additionally, vampires are famous for having several innate weaknesses - an aversion to sunlight being the most famous. Does Azriel experience any of these, and how would he combat them if so?

Looking at Spark of the Sinner: This is a Darkness character. A bolt of crimson blood/darkness magic may cause muscular spasms and disruptions, but let's leave off the lightning burns.

For Judgement Chains: This is too powerful, since 30 seconds of immobility is more than enough time to kill someone several times over. Start by dropping this to 10 seconds. Additionally, since this adds a lot of versatility to Azriel's kit, he needs a drawback for using them - either vastly draining the current energy reserve, or requiring enough concentration to severely impact his mobility. And similar to above, you're sending a bolt of blood / darkness magic, not a bolt of lightning.

Now, let's get into the real meat of this character: The potions, and from their, the Sin Curse. Starting with the general usage: I'm assuming that each potion is a single-use drink. Given that, you will never see more than a single sin with a six minute duration if Azriel is forced to wait for one effect to end before drinking another. I would drop this to 30 seconds if he needs to wait (enough to showcase 2, maybe 3 sins in a fight), or a minute if he is able to cancel one effect by drinking a second potion. That said, I would keep the idea that drinking too many too quickly causes side effects.

Now that Azriel has imbibed his sinful energy, how exactly does he actually expel it? I need details as to how the curses are applied - is it a physical darkness projectile? A cloud of crimson miasma that the target needs to inhale? Given how this abilities are highly phycological and veer heavily into bunnying territory, this needs to be balanced by giving people a clear way to avoid falling prey to the curses, as well as a way to escape or fight their impact. A person with strong will should be able to resist the pressure of the curse - perhaps someone overly noble can more easily resist Irae, while someone extremely humble could resist Superbia. Additionally, I would like to tweak the limit so that rather than one curse per victim at a time, it's one victim per curse at a time - since impacting everyone else in the arena with something like Famineus or Invidias would be far too powerful.

Now, given how Azriel drinks one potion to imbue himself with sin energy - how many times can he cast these curses? With how drastically powerful and mind-altering they are, they need a quantity limit rather than allowing him to be free to cast for the entire duration of the potion. If you want to be able to cast this freely during the potion's duration, we need to lessen the power of each curse by a fair amount. Similarly, since we've dropped the time duration of the potion for Azriel, we also need to drop how long the curses last - this can again be something that can be increased slightly if we weaken the curses, but as they are now I'd set a 10 second maximum period.

As far as a couple of the specific sins that concern me as they are: Invidias worries me as it both drains the target and increasing Azriel's own strength. This is one where I'd limit it to a single cast per potion, rather than allowing Azriel to constantly drain and buff his own strength for the entire duration - and have the effects from BOTH draining and buffing fade once the potion is used up. For Cupidiats, I'd like clarification if the target can interact with the illusion - as their hands passing through the coins may be the best way to allow them to try to break free. Famineus and Otiosum are also extreme enough to concern me, as a target so famished or exhausted that they're unable to move for a full 10 seconds gives someone multiple free hits.

And lastly a quick glance at the Sin Lust potion - Hellfire would fall under the Fire domain. You are of Darkness, so cloak your hands in shadows. Additionally, four minutes is long enough that Azriel would practically be guaranteed to outlast the battle in this form - in order for the drawback to actually have an impact on his willingness to use this ability, I would drop the duration to 30 seconds.


@Meepsie - Welcome to this side of the forums! Always exciting to see new faces in the ECs. Auric is actually a very good start for a bio! We have a few points of clarification and a few areas that will need hard-set limits, but nothing that requires significant re-work.

I'll start with a quick note about the character themselves - you reached out to me prior about using a character related to an official DF NPC, and the RP Forums have rules governing this sort of use. As Baron Au'Mydas is a lesser-used holiday villain and is not the direct NPC of anyone on AE staff, it is alright for Auric to be part of the extended Au'Mydas family. That said, he cannot be the Baron's direct son - although you could make the claim that the entire family refers to the Baron as "Father" due to his patriarchal status if you so choose.

Now, on to Auric! I would like a rough height estimate to complete the physical description, and a bit more detail on the durability of Rich Man's Robeage - is it akin to silk? Leather armor? Something stronger? Additionally, since you state further down in the bio that items once infused cannot be used as currency, let's remove the ability to further-manipulate the already formed pieces of the AU Accoutrements.

Diving into Currency Generation: We need to set limits on both type and amount. For type, let's stick with golden coins, precious gems, and paper money while in combat - though if you want to keep the flavor of creating and manifesting other items as currency as something outside of battle due to the increased time it takes to form, that's fine. Coins and precious gems can then be merged or shaped into the various weapons / armor that Auric uses in combat.

For amount: using the United States silver dollar coin as a reference, some quick research/math tells me that 15,000 coins should be enough to completely bury an average person. So, let's set your daily limit at currency generation at $15,000 - whether as coins, paper money, or more expensive gemstones. You don't need to account for every single dollar spent, of course, but this is a good way to estimate the amount of coins needed to bludgeon someone while preventing you from drowning the entire arena in gold.

One thing you might want to consider adding is giving Auric the ability to re-absorb his counterfeit money - this wouldn't work with the coins/gems merged into armor and weapons, but it would allow for him to swap coins for gems as needed if you end up in a situation where you need to adjust resources.

Onto Currency Manipulation: Since he can manipulate any currency once created, let's put limits both on the amount he can manipulate at once and the range of the manipulation - we don't want Auric to be able to repeatable squash someone with 15,000 coins, or to create a literal hailstorm of gold throughout the arena. I'm inclined to state a $5,000 limit for manipulation at any one time (1/3rd of the total pool) and a range of 20 foot for where he can manipulate it - although if you wish to increase the limit of one, that can be handled by decrease the limit of the other. I will also state that he can only manipulate non-magic coins, gems, and paper money carried by the other contestants - someone else's golden armor or weapons would be off limits.

As far as the creation of objects through manipulation, let's limit this to armor and weapons if you don't want to generate a specific list of items. Something like chains requires a lot more careful balancing due to the immobilization impact. Once the currency been fully merged into a weapon or a shield/armor, he will have to manipulate it in the standard way (i.e., throwing, wielding, or wearing it) rather than via magic.

Finally: For Money infusion, keep in mind that increasing armor comes with a drawback. The more Auric adds to his equipment, the heavier it becomes - and thus the harder it is for him move in heavy armor or wield a heavy weapon.

Feel free to reach out if you have questions or need clarification! I love this unique take on Earth, so I'm excited to see Auric in action.




nield -> RE: =Elemental Championships 2021= OOC & Tournament Signups (7/4/2021 2:57:37)

Since this character is a bit more complex than my norm, I’m bolding my changes for easy reference and will give a basic rundown up here.

Firstly: Changed the desiccation venom so it is something that Mizzleteran’s body no longer produces, removing the potential bunnying concern, though I have left in the details on the venom, because it still serves a purpose to understand how his pet works. Second, changing the cockpit so that the entrance is no longer transparent and is camouflaged to look like part of the dragon’s body, which will reduce quite how impregnable that region is, while concealing Mizzleteran’s own existence and rendering him blind, forcing a focus on the riding spider’s hearing, which I bumped up in sensitivity to counter-balance.

I added in details on the spider’s legs’ speed and strength capabilities as well as reducing the pet’s overall size, stated clearly that the wings serve no real purpose anymore and also, uh, actually stated that the dragon portion of the pet is highly resistant to flame, since that was never actually said anywhere, whoops. Noted also that the silk that covers the cockpit is flame resistant, but is not immune. Added some details on how strong/fast the dragonoid portion is, let me know if this needs tweaking or clarifying. And finally, put some restrictions on the fire breathing, restricting it to releasing a quarter of its fuel at most per exhale and requiring a brief ‘cooldown’ between uses where it must switch back to the regular lungs.

Name: Mizzleteran Fevartarang Moshtolordedge Sentestiar gol Ventaran Kolor the 37th

Age: 372 (Starentellarians usually only live a few dozen years)

Race: Starentellarian

Element: Fire

Appearance:

Mizzleteran is a small creature, standing at a mere 16 inches tall. He has three sets of spindly arms that seem short even for his relative size that each end in small, delicate hands, with spinnerets in the wrists. His single pair of legs are similarly spindly and short for his relative size. His body appears as if it has been partially mummified, leading to an incredibly emaciated look, with dry, lightish brown skin. Red hair, still vibrant despite the passage of many years, falls about Mizzleteran’s shoulders.

Two large mismatched orbs sit in the centre of his forehead, one a dull bronze and the other a brilliant amber while six smaller pitch black orbs sit to the side of and below the main two. Thin lips separate easily to reveal large fangs that once readily dripped an unknown substance. Mizzleteran boasts no ears, but his body, especially his arms and legs are utterly covered in small hairs which can pick up on vibrations allowing him to hear. He garbs himself in silk finery; regal red robes with golden trim.

With Mizzleteran is his ‘pet’, a monstrous abomination with the lower body of a spider and the upper body of a humanoid dragon. The hideous amalgamation stands at a full height of eight feet, six of which are supplied by the upper body. The arachnid half’s body is three feet wide as well as long and boasts a leg span of six feet, with an orangish-red colouration and is extremely hairy. The legs are covered in hardened carapace that function as armour plating, though still with a mass of hairs protruding through.

Where one might have expected the spider’s ‘face’ to be instead protrudes an intimidating crimson humanoid form. One eye-drawing quality about it other than its sheer size is that it has the head of a dragon, a grim, snarling visage pocked with scars, one of which spans from its sheared right horn down through its right eye and bifurcates its upper ‘lip’. Its remaining eye is a blazing orange orb and its surviving horn curves up and forwards.

The creature’s lower torso does not look particularly distinct from the upper, but this is a facade, its ‘belly’ is actually a veil of strong silk that conceals a cockpit from where Mizzleteran controls the two entities that make up his ‘pet’. This covering is fairly strong, being about as difficult to puncture as the creature’s own scales are, though with knowledge of how this covering was put together can be shifted in a few moments to allow entrance and exit. The interior of this space is absolutely littered with individual web strands running between various points.

Contrary to the lower section of the torso, the upper section is perfectly intact and bulging with muscles, crimson scales gleaming readily under direct light. Though each arm ends in a hand with four fingers and boasting opposable thumbs, those fingers and thumbs themselves end in savage claws fit to rend the most stalwart of champions to pieces. Two large, elegant wings grace the creature’s back, with delicate yet durable webbing extending between thick bones. From its back extends a three-foot long tail ending in a diamond-shaped blade.

Mizzleteran’s Capabilities:

As is perhaps abundantly clear from his tiny, delicate stature, Mizzleteran is far from a physical combatant. Boasting very little strength, which is only exacerbated by his desiccated form, Mizzleteran would be summarily despatched by most adversaries were he to engage in direct battle.

Web Spinning: From his spinnerets Mizzleteran can extrude silks of various types and hues, from the vibrant, rich silks that make up the clothing he wears, to incredibly strong transparent silks and the camouflage silk that covers his pet’s belly, though creating these stronger silks in any significant quantity is the work of years. The camouflage silk Mizzleteran has implemented on his pet is highly resistant to flames, but not nearly so much as the creature it is attached to and will ignite under the sustained assault of powerful flames. Another type of silk he can extrude is an incredibly fine, ivory-white silk known as parasite silk.

Desiccation venom: The true nature of the mystery liquid that once dripped from his fangs, but his body no longer produces. When introduced into an entity’s blood stream, this liquid serves three purposes; First, it is a very strong paralytic, causing the affected entity to lose all control of their body in a precious couple seconds while also deadening their nervous system, rendering them unable to feel pain for as long as the paralytic agent remains active.

Secondly, the liquid serves to rapidly dessicate the subject in a mere few minutes, which, alongside the third aspect of the liquid, being that it acts as a preservative, results in most subjects taking on either a partial or fully mummified appearance, depending on their inherent resistance to the effects of extreme dehydration, with creatures much as the humanoid dragon half of Mizzleteran’s pet boasting such inherent resistance that they do not change appearance at all.

Beyond aiding in the visual change to affected subjects, the preservative portion of the venom also makes such entities able to survive on far less; Needing precious little to no water to live on and only needing to eat once or twice a week. Additionally, subjects’ own biological processes become unnecessary for survival, allowing them to live even with missing organs and with large holes in their body.

Mizzleteran boasts very little bite strength, not even being able to pierce the skin of regular humans; he therefore requires an open wound if he expects to apply his venom to a victim. If ingested, the venom might make a person ill, but unless introduced specifically into the bloodstream shows none of its usual effects. Venom that drips into his own mouth gets reabsorbed into Mizzleteran’s venom sacs.

Living Corpse Puppetry: Once a victim has been disabled by his desiccation venom, Mizzleteran can, from inside of the victim, work the super fine parasite silk into and through the victim’s nervous system. This usurps their own control of their body and allows Mizzleteran to control them at his own will by pulling, thrumming and otherwise manipulating strings in a central location of the puppet.

Mizzleteran has a series of very small and delicate yet incredibly sharp instruments he uses to cut his victims open so he can work his silk through them, as well as tools to sew and otherwise patch up any egregious wounds. Additionally, since this uses silk worked into the nervous system to usurp control, it requires the victim to be alive; if they die, control of their body dies with them.

Pet Capabilities:

Mizzleteran’s pet is two distinct entities that have been sewn together with very strong silk, with parasite silk worked through both of their nervous systems. The arachnid half is a Krepykyan riding spider, a passive desert creature meant to carry its masters across long distances without any effort expended on their own behalf. The top of the spider’s ‘head’ is open to the world, serving as a spot where the Krepykyan would sit and control the beasts. Not being Krepykyan himself, Mizzleteran cannot control the riding spider as they would, which forced him to utilise his Living Corpse Puppetry on it.

These riding spiders are mammoth creatures, reaching up to 7 times the size of the one Mizzleteran makes us of, his desiccation venom having paused and preserved its aging process; the thing is little more than a baby. Since they were bred to survive in desert environments, the riding spiders bear a great resistance to heat and dehydrative states. The armoured carapace that covers its legs will turn most blades, but falters under blunt trauma.

The hairs that cover the creature are used by it to hear, given that it has no other sensory organs. This hearing is used by Mizzleteran to make up for the fact that he cannot see out of his cockpit; the vibrations in the air are picked up by the hairs and end up thrumming certain strings in the cockpit that Mizzleteran can interpret to gain an idea of what is going on around him. These hairs are sensitive enough that even the smallest of movements will be picked up.

The legs do not serve a combat purpose; whilst they could feasibly be used to step on a downed adversary, due to the weight distribution an individual leg would be able to do little more than hold them down. Since these spiders were bred for long distance travel they are not particularly fast, bearing a top speed of only a few metres per second, about a sixth that of a horse.

The upper half is a genetically engineered organism, crafted from a fire dragon and bears the strengths one would expect of such a being, with durable scales that will shrug off weaker attacks and savage claws that would tear through lightly armoured foes. The beast is incredibly resistant to heat and flames and essentially ignores dehydration effects. The thing is not capable of taking flight, as its wings proved impossible to work parasite threads into for Mizzleteran and with its nervous system suborned cannot make its own movements, rendering the wings little more than adornment.

The dragonoid half always boasted a strength in excess of what humans might hope to acquire, but in exchange it was always slower than even the most layabout of humans which has been exacerbated further by its current condition: There is a slight ‘input lag’ when Mizzleteran issues commands from his cockpit that gives opponents further breathing room when dealing with the thing.

The end of its tail is sharp as a blade and can serve as an impromptu weapon against unwary opponents. It bears two sets of lungs, one of which generates a gas that, when exposed to air spontaneously combusts, allowing the creature to breathe fire. This build-up is passive and would take a few minutes to fully refill from empty. From full to empty the creature would be capable of setting a house full ablaze.

The creature is incapable of keeping the gas lungs as its ‘active’ lungs perpetually and there is a brief switchover period that serves as a tell for when it is about to let flames loose. Additionally it is incapable of releasing its entire capacity at once, being restricted to loosing a quarter at most at a time. As well, between exhales it must switch back to its regular lungs, else the gases would flood into its own body and char its organs from the inside.




Starflame13 -> RE: =Elemental Championships 2021= OOC & Tournament Signups (7/5/2021 21:50:50)

And we're back! Hopefully all of our US folk had a happy 4th of July. Now that the holiday is over, let's get back into balancing!


@nield - thank you for the rundown! Since we're sticking with a mounted, mech-style combatant, we do have some further balancing and clarifications needed.

First up, Mizzleteran. I will note that this is shorter than I generally prefer contestants to be - however, as a mounted / mech-based character, this is workable. Still note that if he ends up separated from his pet in any way, he's in a major amount of trouble. I might consider a secondary back-up ability to counteract that, or at the minimum a weapon a little more threatening than his cutting instruments. I also need more information on the Starentellarian race: are their general capabilities (senses, speed, endurance/durability, etc.) on par with humans? I will assume yes for any areas unspecified. Additionally, since Mizzleteran is extremely old for a Starentellarian, I have to assume magic is involved somehow - is he frozen in time at a specific age, or has his body aged to match those 372 years - and what negative impacts are there from his age, if so?

As for Mizzleteran's abilities, I'd also like a few more details on the Web Spinning - is this something that he can utilize in combat if he were to end up outside of the mech? If so, I need details on the strength and quantity of the webs he'd be able to generate in such a fast-paced environment.

Now, moving on to the pet: the details in the desiccation venom imply that both arachnid and dragon-hybrid are still alive - are they mentally aware at all or possess any sort of free will/thoughts outside of the Living Corpse Puppetry? What happens if through magic or healing the venom is nullified somehow? I'd also like further detail on what, if any, mummification effect the venom has had on the arachnid portion. While you mention the dragon-hybrid is resistant so as to not change appearance, maintaining some sort of "tell" that things are not normal would be helpful for collaboration (the 'input lag' mentioned may be able to fulfill this). As this pet is mummied, what happens when it is injured (i.e., does it bleed or feel pain? Does any of that filter back to Mizzleteran?) I will note that if the venom is in its bloodstream, spilling the blood in any way will NOT allow the blood to have the same or a similar effect as the venom does on other contestants in the arena. And as a final note - if the tail is attached at the base of the dragonoid torso, a 3-foot long tail on a 3-foot wide arachnid body is basically only going to be able to strike at someone attempting to ride the thing - is this intentional?

Lastly, the "hearing" via the spider hairs on the pet: the high sensitivity of this ability needs a limited range. I would recommend working in three levels of hearing: first, a range for the highly sensitive, detailed hearing described; second, a range for where Mizzelteran would have a rough idea of what's happening but not the exact details; and third, where he cannot hear at all. My initial instinct is something along the lines of 20 feet / 60 feet/ 100 feet, but you're welcome to suggest alternatives.

I think we're getting closer! An idea this complex just needs a fair bit of fine-tuning.




Chewy905 -> RE: =Elemental Championships 2021= OOC & Tournament Signups (7/6/2021 13:58:18)

Round 2! Changes are in bold, though for a quick runthrough:
- The Black Smoke Cloud is now 8 feet tall and has a 3 foot radius, Up from 6 and down from 5 respectively.
- Clarified that only 4 objects can be active at once, and cannot be made or transformed simultaneously, as well as various details about their dispersal, their interactions with the cloud, and what they can do if the main cloud is gone.
- Clarified that objects cannot be detonated simultaneously, dropped the explosion range to a 5 foot radius from 10.




Name Jacklin Elizabeth Smoke
Gender Female
Age: 27
Race: Human
Element: Fire

“Nice to meetcha! I’m Jacklin Smoke. Or Blacksmoke. Or sometimes just “Smoke.” Never Jack.”

Appearance: Standing at a slightly taller than average 6 feet, Jacklin Smoke’s high energy keeps her bouncing and ready to go. Her long, dark red hair flows out from under a black-leather tricorn laced with gold trim, reaching just under her shoulders. A single silver strand of hair runs down the front of her hairline. Her skin is overly tanned, with sunburns on her arms from too many days under the sun, accompanied by some actual burns from reckless behavior. Jacklin’s golden eyes sparkle with life and joy, and are usually accompanied by a wide, toothy grin. Spiraling along her forearms are ebony tattoos of swirling clouds of smoke, which seem to shift and distort when exposed to sunlight. Various scars mar her skin along her arms and her stomach, some faded from the years, others fairly fresh.

For apparel, she wears a black undershirt and an unbuttoned military-styled suit-jacket. This suit was a gift from her brother, and is solid black with extravagant golden trim designed in laurel patterns. It is a little too long and too large for her, tending to catch in the wind and during her own fast motions. In an act of defiance, the sleeves have been neatly cut off just above the elbows. When asked, Jacklin’s reasoning was “they got in the way.”

Jacklin completes her apparel with a pair of fingerless gloves and lightly-armored black-steel leggings, again laced with the same matching gold trim as her hat and her suit.

“I’d rather take these cuts to my skin than to my suit. Mending it is a pain, assuming my brother didn’t kill me before I had the chance. He, uh, hasn’t actually seen the sleeves yet.”

Equipment:
Jacklin carries little with her but the clothes on her body, and those don’t offer much in the way of protection, though the suit is magically fireproof. Their light weight does allow her much greater freedom of movement. Her armored leggings are enough to stave off most edged weapons, with her claiming “No one likes scars on the legs. Who goes around staring at someone’s legs in a fight anyways?”

She does carry a simple butterfly knife in the breast pocket of her suit-jacket. Though she can use it for combat when necessary, she prefers to just show off fancy tricks, especially now that most of the scars on her fingers from her time practicing with it have faded away. After all, what practical use is a butterfly knife?

Finally, Jacklin carries a single playing card in the same pocket as her knife. A simple Jack of Spades with no special properties.

“Armor? Too clunky, not enough freedom. If I take a hit and earn a scar it’s my own fault, not the result of some weak leather or plate.”

Abilities:

The Black Smoke: After a brief moment to focus, Jacklin can release a mass of black smoke that rolls off of her skin. It then spreads to form a circular, foot-thick and eight-feet tall wall with a three-foot radius from Jacklin, who acts as its centerpoint. Jacklin can either keep the cloud in one place or cause it to move while centered on her, but it dissipates if she leaves its boundaries. The smoke usually remains mostly transparent, visibly there but easy to see through. On command, Jacklin can make the cloud an opaque pitch-black, though she herself cannot see through it when this has been done. This smoke is uncomfortable to breathe in, but not dangerously so, and causes slight stinging of the eyes akin to regular smoke. Jacklin has been painstakingly exposed enough to become immune to both of these effects.

The cloud can be dispersed by strong winds, requiring Jacklin to release it once more. Each release beyond the first tires her out, however, so she cannot repeatedly create them.

Blacksmoke Artistry: Jacklin is capable of condensing portions of her smoke into solid, simple objects of any form, though she cannot make anything with more volume than a large warhammer. This process takes less than a second, and Jacklin must have her hand in contact with a portion of her smoke in order to create something, which appears in her grasp. She can have up to a total four objects of any size created at once. Once four are active, she cannot make any more until at least one is dissipated or detonated, the former of which can be done at will. Dissipated objects are quickly and harmlessly drawn back into her smoke cloud, though during this time the smoke that is returning could be blown away by strong winds. Each individual mass counts as one of these objects, so if she were to make a bow she could only have three arrows made at any given time.

Created objects are as durable as a regular counterpart made of a basic material, and lack any special properties. Created objects can be freely transformed as long as Jacklin is in contact with them, drawing in smoke from her cloud. Jacklin cannot create or transform multiple objects simultaneously, she must do them one at a time. Because Jacklin uses smoke from her smoke cloud to create objects, that amount of smoke is subtracted from the cloud itself, causing it to potentially become thinner as more/larger objects are created, or if smoke is lost. If the cloud itself is blown away, active objects continue to remain active, but cannot be transformed into larger forms until a new cloud is released to draw smoke from.

Detonation: Jacklin may detonate her created objects at any time. Doing so requires a verbal command (though her intent is the trigger, rather than the exact word), and has a 3-second delay, during which the detonating object will glow white and shake violently. After the delay, it will explode into a blast of white flame that floods over in every direction, dissipating around 5-feet from the object and inflicting 2nd-degree burns to anyone caught within it.

There is a second type of detonation Jacklin can do, which has no delay or tell, and instead releases harmless, incredibly bright, loud, and flashy firecrackers. Jacklin may alter the color and shapes of these firecrackers at will, often creating pretty pictures.

Jacklin cannot detonate more than one object simultaneously, and either type of detonated smoke cannot be recovered, though in the case of crafted objects, the volume is usually low enough that it shouldn’t matter. However…

Fission: With a snap of her fingers (yes the snap is required) and a spoken word, Jacklin can cause all of her currently active smoke to detonate as if triggered by Detonation, delay and tell included. Once done, Jacklin’s smoke generation will be severely limited; she will no longer be able to release her full cloud, instead only creating a single object at a time from smoke that rolls off her own person, and cannot freely shift its form once it’s created, nor can she detonate it. This limitation can be overcome with rest, a commodity that is unlikely to be present on a battlefield.

“These things I make, they’re not just tools. They’re art. But they’re the kind of art that is useless if it’s rotting away on display. Come, let me show you some motion!”

Traits:

Trained through Rivalry: Jacklin is both faster and stronger than the average athlete, and quick to react to oncoming danger, though her body tends to move before her mind does. Even when she has time to properly think through her actions, she often fails to notice possible dangers until she has already put herself at risk.

Blissfully Vulnerable: Other than a slight resistance to fire (not nearly enough to fully withstand the explosions she herself creates), Jacklin lacks any sort of protection from both physical and magical attacks save for her equipment.

Art of Blade: Jacklin possesses incredible talent when wielding polearms, warhammers, and other longer types of weaponry, though she has trained enough with all manners of weaponry to be comfortable using anything she creates at above-average skill.

"It's not like I, well, enjoy killing people, it’s just that...

See combat's a game, especially when it's all gladiatorial like this. If you lose, well, your life belongs to the winner!

Those are the rules. I just follow 'em. And I haven't lost yet.





Starflame13 -> RE: =Elemental Championships 2021= OOC & Tournament Signups (7/6/2021 21:33:36)

Happy Tuesday everyone! Let's keep the bios coming!


@Chewy905 - All the changes look good, and we had one last clarification in PMs that Jacklin is also able to change the smoke back to transparent if she makes it opaque. Approved!




San Robin -> RE: =Elemental Championships 2021= OOC & Tournament Signups (7/8/2021 17:13:54)

Name: Adam Naymer
Element: Wind
Age: 22
Race: Clawkin
Appearance: Adam looks like a normal clawkin. He wears simple robes and a belt with small daggers attached to it. In his hand he carries a small fan which he uses for his wind abilities.
Equipment: 24 Dart-like daggers and an enchanted fan made of a light metal. His robes are simple but enchanted with the power of wind to always be flowing.
Skills, Spells, & Special Abilities:

Physical strength and agility: Adam’s main power lies in his spells and abilities. His physical strength isn’t much. He’s however swift like the wind. giving him reflexes that are above average. These reflexes are not almighty though.

Fan shield: Adam’s fan is enchanted to be sturdy enough to stave-off light blows. Adam has trained with the fan since he was a child and knows ways to absorb blows without breaking it.

Wind Jump: Adam can jump distances of about 15ft up or forward using the power of wind. This is however not the same as flying and he can only travel in 1 direction when he does. He is not able to use any active abilities as he jumps (Wind sense will be up, but abilities like gust would be unavailable)

Wind Dagger: Adam can throw his dagger and use wind magic to increase the velocity behind it.

Wind Blade: Adam can envelop a dagger in a stream of wind magic. Creating a longsword that is mostly made of wind.This sword can cut through stone if focused correctly.

Wind sense: At all times there’s a small barrier of wind around Adam. If something breaches this. Adam will sense it immediately and react to the best of his ability. This barrier envelops the area up to 1 feet away from Adam.

Gust: With a whip of his fan. Adam can create a strong gust of wind, blowing away light weighted objects but also things like smoke. this gust can reach up to 20 ft, but loses power after the first 10ft

Breath Taker: With this ability Adam can take the Oxygen away in an area of about 4 square feet. This ability is exhausting to use and should only be used in case of emergencies. The longer it takes the harder it will be on Adam. Generally cannot be used to suffocate someone with average stamina or above. It can be used to stop non-magical fires.

Windshield: In case of emergencies, Adam can turn his Wind Sense into a shield of harsh winds. blocking nearly everything for a split second. This ability taxes him to the extreme and will disable Wind Sense for 10 seconds.

(Ultimate attack) Cyclone: Using all his strength and remaining daggers, up to 10ft away Adam whips up a cyclone filled with daggers. In an area of about 8ft by 8ft Whatever unfortunate soul is in that cyclone at that point will face a barrage of daggers, being sliced up. (Yes. it’s basically a nightmare blender) His stamina and daggers will be unusable afterward.


Backstory:
Adam grew up in a quiet tribe of clawkins, on the outreaches of the middle of nowhere.
He has always had an affinity to wind and has learned to use it to his advantage at a young age.
He’s good natured but also very chaotic.
His parents affectionately nicknamed him “Hurricane” not because of his wind affinity, but because of the constant storm that rages in his head. Adam cannot keep a single thought for longer than a few seconds before he goes on to the next.
This also caused Adam to do many many MANY things in less time than he should. causing him to never quite finish anything.
The only thing he could truly focus on is his love for the wind. and his training with the fan.
Once he starts his practice, nothing is able to distract him until he’s done.
His nickname has since also been used with less affection. Adam has trouble keeping his thoughts to himself and will just say what’s on his mind most of the time. Causing chaos and trouble to people around him.
Adam wants to understand only one thing: The wind and her many mysteries..




Starflame13 -> RE: =Elemental Championships 2021= OOC & Tournament Signups (7/8/2021 21:33:39)

@San Robin - Cheese! Hi! Good to see you back again. Adam Naymer's fairly straightforward, but just a couple minor areas of clarification.

First, I recognize Clawkin as a Dragonfable race - since I don't recall their physical capabilities being explored greatly, what are they in comparison to a humans (sense, speed, strength, endurance, etc). Any unlisted, I will assume are similar to a human's. Having reflexes high above average in comparison to a human still works, however! Also, I'd like a rough height and a build (slim, muscled, plump, etc.) for Adam.

Looking at equipment - is the enchanted fan meant solely for blocking, or are the edges sharpened for slashing as well?

For abilities - in general, I'm assuming that the majority of these abilities cost mana to utilize, and that those that don't have set expirations (Wind Blade, Breath Taker, Cyclone) drain that mana to be maintained - with the stronger abilities draining significantly more mana. Additionally, I am assuming that outside of Wind Sense, multiple "active" abilities are not in-use at once. Let me know if you had intended otherwise, and we can balance accordingly!

For a couple specifics: For Wind Dagger, I'd like a rough idea of the speed increase - fast as an arrow is okay, fast as the speed of light is not. For Gust, I'd like a rough idea of the width - something like 5 feet is okay for the range given, anything wider will need a decreased range. And for Cyclone, you give me two separate ranges: 10 feet away, and 8x8 feet - either is workable, but let's be consistent! Additionally, this should have a duration beyond "Adam runs out of energy" - a set timed duration would be the simplest, but you could also go the route of saying it lasts until each remaining dagger is used up (i.e., strikes something).

I always love the touch of DragonFable your characters bring to the ECs, so excited for version 2!




deathlord45 -> RE: =Elemental Championships 2021= OOC & Tournament Signups (7/8/2021 21:35:56)

Name: Lukhan, the Dawnlight

Age: Unknown (If you were to ask, they would say 365,000 cycles of the moon)

Race: Helio Sprite

Element: Light

Appearance: Standing a 5ft 9in and weighing about 110lbs they have wisps of yellowish white light emitting from the top of their head. Arms and feet bared to the world tinged black by burns standing in stark contrast to the rest of their skin which is the color of dawn. They wear a metal breastplate that tapers into a gorget at the neck and flares out melding into a long cloth skirt at the bottom covering down to their ankles.

Features:

Searing Existence: Lukhan’s body can not properly contain their power as such it leaks out in the form of their “hair” and as them being incredibly hot to the touch. While not enough to damage in short bursts, prolonged contact (over the course of minutes) will begin to cook/melt/burn the offending object unless said object is of Helio Sprite make. This exceptional heat and power does damage them, mostly when using their powers.

Eyes of the Sun: They don’t so much have eyes as they have seemingly bottomless pools of sunlight, should they open their eyes all that the look upon would be bathed in noon day sun.
Voice that Heralds the Day: If they were to speak it would sound like a thunderous cacophony of just pure noise. They will be heard but such is the nature that unless you had heightened hearing it would be at most startling not damaging.

Walking on Sunshine: So long as Lukhan is in direct sunlight they can ascend or descend in altitude one step at a time.

Abilities:

Solar Lance: Lukhan shots a spear of hardlight at a target within a few feet of themselves. Whether or not the spear hits it dissipates shortly after it is formed and shot.

Searing Wrath: A close range burst of raw power out from Lukhan to a maximum distance of 5 feet. It has the effects equivalent of being hit with the backdraft of a fire.

Levis Iudicium: Combining their normal modes of attacks creates an explosive spear that they can throw at their enemies that explodes on contact with a solid surface or if it begins to dissipate as it lasts only as long a Solar Lance. It does also take a moment of calm, focus and effort to create.




San Robin -> RE: =Elemental Championships 2021= OOC & Tournament Signups (7/9/2021 5:33:37)

Round 2 is up ^^

Name: Adam Naymer
Element: Wind
Age: 22
Race: Clawkin
Appearance: Adam looks like a normal clawkin (See: (https://forums2.battleon.com/f/tm.asp?m=8357484 ) standing about 5’7” tall with a lean physique. He wears simple robes and a belt with a pouch filled with small daggers. In his hand he carries a small fan which he uses for his wind abilities.
Equipment: 24 Dart-like daggers and an enchanted fan made of a light metal. His robes are simple but enchanted with the power of wind to always be flowing.
Skills, Spells, & Special Abilities:

Physical strength and agility: Adam’s main power lies in his spells and abilities. His physical strength isn’t much, about average human strength. He’s however swift like the wind. giving him reflexes and general speed that are above average. These reflexes are not almighty though. His many hours of training have increased his stamina to slightly above human average. Adam is quick witted but also easily distracted and not very knowledgeable in the way of the world (Who even has time for books?!)

Fan shield: Adam’s fan is enchanted to be sturdy enough to stave-off light blows. Adam has trained with the fan since he was a child and knows ways to absorb blows without breaking it. The fan is not sharpened and is only used for shielding and waving around for abilities.

wind abilities: Despite Adam’s training, he has never learned to control more than 1 ability at a time (Not counting his wind sense) he instead focused on mastering the abilities he could perform!

Wind Jump: Adam can jump distances of about 15ft up or forward using the power of wind. This is however not the same as flying and he can only travel in 1 direction when he does. He is not able to use any active abilities as he jumps (Wind sense will be up, but abilities like gust would be unavailable) This skill takes up a moderate amount of Mana

Wind Dagger: Adam can throw his daggers and use a small amount of mana to use wind magic and increase the velocity behind it. This increase will make the daggers as fast as an arrow.

Wind Blade: Adam can envelop a dagger in a stream of wind magic. Creating a longsword that is mostly made of wind.This sword can cut through leather like it’s paper and leave chinks in metal. enough focused hits can rend a metal plate armor.
Every second this skill is in use, a small amount of mana will be used. Adam has learned to fine-tune the timing of forming and striking with the blade and usually only needs a split-second to do this.

Wind sense: At all times there’s a small barrier of wind around Adam. If something breaches this. Adam will sense it immediately and react to the best of his ability. This barrier envelops the area up to 1 feet away from Adam. This ability is second nature to Adam and uses a neglectable amount of mana.

Gust: With a whip of his fan and a moderate amount of mana. Adam can create a strong gust of wind, blowing away light weighted objects but also things like smoke. this gust is 5ft wide and can reach up to 20 ft, but loses power after the first 10ft

Breath Taker: With this ability Adam can take the Oxygen away in an area of about 4 square feet. This ability is exhausting to use and should only be used in case of emergencies. The longer it takes the harder it will be on Adam using a moderate amount of mana per second. Generally cannot be used to suffocate someone with average stamina or above. It can be used to stop non-magical fires.

Windshield: In case of emergencies, Adam can turn his Wind Sense into a shield of harsh winds. blocking nearly everything for a split second. This ability taxes him to the extreme, costing large amounts of mana and will disable Wind Sense for 10 seconds.

(Ultimate attack) Cyclone: Using all remaining mana and remaining daggers, Adam will turn his wind sense into a cyclone of about 8ft by 8ft around him. Whatever unfortunate soul is in that cyclone at that point will face a barrage of daggers turned wind-blade (See Wind Blade ability) (Yes. it’s basically a nightmare blender) Each time a dagger hits something, it will break and become unusable (becoming dust in the wind) when the last dagger breaks, this ability ends. His Mana and daggers will be completely gone afterwards.

Backstory:
Adam grew up in a quiet tribe of clawkins, on the outreaches of the middle of nowhere.
He has always had an affinity to wind and has learned to use it to his advantage at a young age.
He’s good natured but also very chaotic.
His parents affectionately nicknamed him “Hurricane” not because of his wind affinity, but because of the constant storm that rages in his head. Adam cannot keep a single thought for longer than a few seconds before he goes on to the next.
This also caused Adam to do many many MANY things in less time than he should. causing him to never quite finish anything.
The only thing he could truly focus on is his love for the wind. and his training with the fan.
Once he starts his practice, nothing is able to distract him until he’s done.
His nickname has since also been used with less affection. Adam has trouble keeping his thoughts to himself and will just say what’s on his mind most of the time. Causing chaos and trouble to people around him.
Adam wants to understand only one thing: The wind and her many mysteries...




Starflame13 -> RE: =Elemental Championships 2021= OOC & Tournament Signups (7/9/2021 21:17:38)

b]Nearing the end of week one! Let's see more bios, everyone!!

As a side note, I am currently balancing bios on mobile due to complications with a move this weekend. Please forgive my typos!



@deathlord45 - Welcome back! Lukan seems like an intriguing character; but I've had to make a couple assumptions with the bio.

First, I'm assuming that as you have not specified any specific racial traits of the Helio Spirte, that their physical characteristics (speed, senses, durability/ability to be injured, etc.) Matches that of a human. If any of that is not the case, please submit a new bio with the neccessary variances included.

Second, for the Eyes of the Sun: While having eyes thar actually shed light a la flashlight beams is fine, being able to blind someone just with a staring contest is not. I'm assuming this ability describes the former case - if that is incorrect, we can work to make this an active ability rather than a passive one.

(As an aside, Searing Wrath is a bit close to the edge of a cross-element ability with fire. Make sure that in action, the impact of light and the heat that follows the force of that is emphasized).

Approval pending a response to the above assumptions.


@San Robin - Take two! Looks like all the edits are in order, so welcome to Adam Naymer! Approved!




Meepsie -> RE: =Elemental Championships 2021= OOC & Tournament Signups (7/10/2021 13:12:04)

After receiving the feedback, I reworked and reworded a few things! Here's Auric Version 2.

Character: Auric Au’Mydas

Element: Earth

Age: 25

Race: Human

Height: 6'3

Weight: 177 Lbs.

“This will be a wonderful outing. So many new faces, so many new experiences.. and should I win, my dream will finally come true. The only thing I cannot buy will finally be in the palm of my hands. And, of course, legions of adoring fans and new business partners would not hurt either...."

Appearance: Auric enjoys the finer things in life, and this is clearly visible in the way he dresses. He tends to wear very elegant, fancy clothing, and has long blonde hair which he puts great effort into maintaining. Physically, he is known as handsome with well-chiseled features, including a strong jawline, sparkling blue eyes, and a shining grin, and boasts a fit and decently muscular physique (whether he bulked up for combat purposes or his ego is unknown).

“Do not be sad. You do not need to see the Elemental Lords to view perfection. Just take a look at my face. Or my body. Or my attire. Or...”

Equipment:

Rich Man’s Robeage- Auric wears a suit reminiscent of a noble, even during combat. Despite it’s stuffy and uncomfortable appearance, Auric has spent a fortune on the finest fibers and enchantments- making the spider silk robe surprisingly lightweight, durable (roughly on the same level as leather armor) and somewhat resistant to elemental magics.

AU Accoutrements- underneath his suit, Auric has multiple pieces of golden equipment (including a coin necklace, bracelets, and a thin plate covering his chest similar to a bulletproof vest). Aside from being fashionable, his accessories also allow him to launch surprise attacks by manipulating or launching them as he does other gold. He does not carry a weapon on him, but can make golden weapons and additional armor using his ability.

“Just because we will be fighting like pugilists does not mean I must dress like one. Perhaps I could give you a lesson in practical fashion? I have a wonderful tailor I could introduce you to."

Abilities:

Currency Generation- Auric’s main combat power is his ability to create currency- particularly precious metals and paper bills. This is primarily done in combat through the mass-production of counterfeit money (every counterfeit item he creates has the Au’Mydas family crest on it somewhere, making it easily identifiable as fake). He can produce his counterfeits at a rapid rate and in huge amounts easily, and these form the bulk of his pushing/crushing-based techniques (hitting his foes with thousands of gold coins acts like an energy blast, for instance). He can also fuse gold and minerals into armor and weapons. He can make real gold and enchanted jewels, but this takes a lot of energy out of him, even for very small amounts (thus it is easier to just make a lot of counterfeits unless the situation specifically needs a jewel). He is only able to generate approximately 15,000 Gold worth of currency at any given time.

Currency Manipulation- In addition to being able to create money, Auric can also manipulate any currency nearby (including any non-enchanted currency on the opponent, such as in their gold pouch, but could not manipulate a golden sword) into attacks and items (particularly weapons, armor or shields). However, he cannot outright increase the value or mass of a single piece of currency (he cannot turn a single gold coin into twenty, or one into a giant wall, but could fuse many together into one). Any currency spread around the battlefield can also be used repeatedly as long as it is not completely destroyed. In addition, Auric can re-absorb currency already created to launch new attacks or change it into other currency of the same value (swapping a hundred-gold bill for one hundred gold coins or a fake jewel). While his limit for currency generation is 15,000 Gold worth of currency, he can only manipulate 5,000 Gold's worth at once.

Money Infusion- By infusing his armor or anything he has created with the gold and jewels around it, Auric can increase the strength of any weapons or armor he makes. Both real enchanted and fake jewels can be infused, and their power, sharpness, armor and weight can be added on top of his items (though this does prevent him from using that specific currency piece any further). While infusing money into items makes them stronger, it also increases their weight.

Yes, yes. My power involves gold as well. Family ties and all that. Unlike that pig, however, I know how to use mine. Shall we move on?

Traits:

In a Rich Man's World- Auric is very, very wealthy, even without his ability- in addition to the coffers of the Au'Mydas estate, he is a master banker, financier and investor who maintains a constant flow of money by managing businesses and family assets. As such, he lives a life of luxury, partaking in fine food, drink and entertainment wherever he goes. He is more than happy to share his wealth with those nearby as well, even inviting opponents, peasants and royalty alike to join him (often throwing gold and bills into crowds during public appearances).

Spoiled Rotten- Auric typically comes off as what you would expect from a snobby, rich boy raised in a stuck-up household- vain, pompous, overly foppish and somewhat overbearing. His public tendencies, including womanizing and boasting, make people see him as incredibly self-absorbed. As such, many people are put off by his personality upon meeting him and taking it at face value (despite him having a fair share of admirers).

Heart of Gold- Although the trait above would lead one to believe he is a cruel and selfish person, Auric is actually a very kind and generous man with a good heart: his assistants and few friends who can look past his personality state that he is extremely generous, cares for everyone under his employ, uplifts and encourages everyone around him, and loves nothing more than to share and be kind to others. Although people question his philanthropy, he is known to donate large amounts of currency to people in need- especially reconstruction efforts and orphanage programs, and is fiercely protective of his workers, aiding them with personal struggles and taking care of their families (His somewhat patronizing questions like "would you like me to buy you something?" are genuine and just seem patronizing due to his personality).

Rewriting History- Auric is of the same blood as Baron Au'Mydas- the infamous Dragonfable villain who turned the world to gold using his Golden Kiss. Every member of the Au'Mydas bloodline has been cursed with an ability based on gold and money, and so far, all of them have used it for evil. Auric, who is haunted by the sins of the past (having experienced being touched by the Golden Kiss and watching someone in his family go mad), denounced the other members of the Au'Mydas clan long ago (as well as all of their deeds) and seeks to use his power for good, but people still distrust him thanks to the nature of his power and family. He aims to remove the curse from the Au'Mydas bloodline and hopefully turn a new page in their history. He hates when people compare him and his intentions to the rest of the Au'Mydas group, especially the Baron.

"Do not refer to me as someone on his level. I am not him. I will never be him. And I am willing to do whatever it takes- should it cost my fortune, my power, or my life- to ensure nobody else will, either."

"I have seen every treasure known to Lore, and then some. Gold, jewels, bills... it is all beautiful. But know this: no wealth, no luxury, no sparkle of a golden coin shines brighter than a smile from the heart."




Anastira -> RE: =Elemental Championships 2021= OOC & Tournament Signups (7/10/2021 15:34:03)

Hello all! Very happy to be joining the ECs again. Very ready for the round of balancing I'm sure will follow - I tried to unbunny as many of the abilities as possible, so hopefully it's not too terrible. Also didn't see many Energy entrants so far (and I've not tried one before), so here we are! Without further ado, I present:


Name / Title
viterbi04 (goes by viterbi, or veebee)

Element
Energy

Age Range
44 years

Race
Robot turned elemental…?

Appearance (Build, hair, skin, clothes, etc.)
About three feet high, completely white and sizzling with electricity. Humanoid form, constantly appears to be sizzling with electricity (but the sizzling doesn’t hurt and is purely visual). Has huge, pupil-less white eyes and a tiny, round mouth that never moves; no nose to speak of, nor fingers or toes. Viterbi is convinced it’s a “he” despite being a robot elemental, and constantly says “Veebee, Veebee”, when it is not spitting out a long sequence of what appears to be garbled “one” and “zero”.


Equipment (Armor, Weapons, etc.)
Catastrophic Behavior
Viterbi grows a pair of glowing appendages shaped like huge scythes, one flickering with 1s and the other with 0s. These cut like normal blades and are quite sharp; their only special ability is that they are a part of viterbi, and hence cannot be dropped. If viterbi is disarmed, they instead “glitch”, disappearing for several seconds before viterbi can re-arm itself. While their official name is Catastrophic Behavior, viterbi has nicknamed them One and Zero, for obvious reasons. However, for less obvious reasons, the blade with the 0s is One, and the blade with the 1s is Zero. (viterbi is, after all, in the business of correcting errors.)

ROVA
Viterbi wields a small shield on the back of each wrist. Unknown to his attackers, the back of the shield reels off a list of probabilities of damage and likelihood of survival (you might know when it is occurring if he screams “MAXIMUM LIST LENGTH”, the only non-1s and 0s sequence he knows besides Veebee, Veebee). The two shields can form together into one bigger shield, if he dismisses Catastrophic Behavior; as one unit, this shield is called ROVA. When the shields are separated, viterbi seems to refer to one as RO and the other as VA, which is definitely not what its makers intended, but who’s to say what goes on in the minds of robots? They are, after all, only artificially intelligent.

Trellis Code
When viterbi gets very, very scared, he creates a grid-like (or trellis-like) shield, curls into a ball, and hides under it. He can also roll inside it. It looks impenetrable, but there are indeed many weaknesses, and if you poke at it enough, it disintegrates. If you watch closely enough, you will notice that the “grid” is actually a lot of circles arranged in a grid, with two lines leading from any circle in one column to two circles in the next column. If you watch carefully, one line will light up at one edge of the trellis and seem to cause a cascade, where for each column to the right, one connected line is similarly illuminated.


Skills, Spells, & Special Abilities
Viterbi can jump up to six feet in the air. Also, though most hits will not be visually obvious, they do hurt viterbi, and if you succeed in hitting it too much or dismembering it, it will die. But why would you want to do that? The poor thing is adorable!

Equivalence Class
When this ability is enabled, viterbi appears invisible in specific blind spots around a creature (anywhere from ? to ¼ of the total distance around the creature). However, viterbi’s sizzling is audible, so although he is invisible, as long as his enemy is not deaf they would be able to locate him by listening carefully. This ability can only be deployed for five seconds at a time.

Path Metric
Whenever this ability is invoked, viterbi screams out a high-pitched number corresponding to a distance, and everyone within a five-foot radius feels as though they are being inexplicably pulled away; the effect is to be pushed twenty feet away radially from viterbi (or as far as they can go, if there is a wall or some other obstacle in less than twenty feet). This ability takes a lot of energy and effort, so viterbi tries not to use it. (Also, viterbi wants to earn being human and believes that humanity means being kind; it really thinks pushing people around is mean.)

Parity Check
Viterbi chooses one individual to whom it speaks a long tirade of garbled “data”. That individual suddenly misremembers one of their own thoughts, memories, or intentions (possibly causing them to act incorrectly, if Parity Check affects an intention) - it’s up to them to trace their train of thought to recover it or hold onto their thoughts tightly enough to ignore the ability . Alternately, viterbi can instead choose to cause the individual to believe viterbi’s own immediate thoughts or intentions are the opposite of the reality - viterbi must choose one of these effects and cannot use both at once. The effect is instantaneous and not lasting, and cannot be layered on top of Puncturing.

Puncturing
Viterbi chooses one individual to whom it speaks a short rant of garbled “data”. That individual suddenly loses half of the information in their thought/intention. It’s up to them to try to reconstruct what they were thinking or hold onto their thoughts well enough to ignore the ability. The smarter they are, the better! (Or maybe the worse, since their thoughts and intentions might be more complex...) Alternately, viterbi can “encode” his movements so that the enemy is not sure what viterbi is about to do; viterbi must choose one of these effects and cannot use both at the same time. This effect is instantaneous and not lasting, and cannot be layered on top of Parity Check.

Survivor Probability
When viterbi is damaged, both of its eyes seem to become glowing six-sided die, which spin and randomly land on a pair of numbers. If the two numbers are the same (? probability), the damage causes viterbi only -50% as much pain and is invigorated, allowing him to think 100% faster than usual. If R is its right eye and L is its left eye, and R-L = 1 or 2, viterbi only feels -20% as much pain and can think 50% faster than usual; R-L = 3 or 4 feels +20% as much pain and slows viterbi physically, making it impossible to use Path Metric; R-L = 5 feels 2x as much pain, which causes viterbi to be immobile and unable to move for about half a minute, silencing Equivalence Class and Path Metric. He can still attempt to use Parity Check or Puncturing, but they are now less effective. This ability was originally created by some mechanical engineers who did not implement proper damping on their system due to an incomplete understanding of control theory. (Darn mechanical engineers, they never do know what they’re doing…)


Personality / Backstory (Optional)
Viterbi is a poor abandoned robot who somehow stumbled on a source of energy, thereby taking the ROVA-with-list-decoding error correction codes that make it run and turning them into superpowers. Ever since, viterbi has felt that this stroke of luck is yet another sign that the universe wants to see it become human - why else give it such wonderful abilities? The universe is confessing its faith in viterbi! Viterbi accepts its faith gratefully and works very hard to be brave and kind, to earn its humanity, but really, viterbi is just a poor, scared robot who wants very much to be loved. And a family! Oh! It can’t stop thinking about what it must be like to have a grandma. Really, that’s the only part that matters. Yes, grandmas must be very nice indeed.




Starflame13 -> RE: =Elemental Championships 2021= OOC & Tournament Signups (7/10/2021 22:13:43)

Two weeks remain to submit your characters! Let's get to work, shall we?


@Meepsie - Welcome back for round two! Everything looks good minus one requested inclusion: a physical range on the Currency Manipulation. Since Auric can manipulate currency after it has been scattered, it's a bit too strong to let him pummel people with coins across a 100+ foot wide battlefield! I double-checked with you on Discord and we confirmed that the initially proposed 20 feet range for the ability is workable. With that, Approved!


@Anastira - Good to see you again! We definitely do have some balancing to do in order to avoid bunnying, but we'll find a way to make things work! A good rule of thumb for abilities/attacks is that the target must be able to avoid or escape the ability in some way - it needs to be their choice to be impacted, rather than an automatic "everyone who is targeted MUST automatically perform X, Y, Z."

To start off with, as you are using a non-human race, I need a general idea of Viterbi's physical characteristics (strength, intelligence, dexterity, endurance, etc.) as compared to a human. I'm also curious as to what metal the robot is made of (or at least, a metal with similar properties) - this will factor in to both the Catastrophic Behavior scythes and the ROVA shields to determine their durability. Can the shields be disarmed normally, or do they "glitch" in the same way the scythes do? As for Trellis Code: Does this curve around to form an arch, like a garden trellis - and if so, how tall/wide is it? I assume that part of the code allows it to block even where the gaps of the grid are - but similar to other shields, this means that it breaks faster the more hits it absorbs. Given the description, I also assume this is a one-use item as it disintegrates after failing - let me know if any of those assumptions are incorrect!

Now, abilities. I need a bit more detail on Equivalence Class - where would the blind spots appear: 1/6-1/4 directly in front of the target, wherever Viterbi is currently standing, or something else? Personally, I'm inclined to go with the second option as that can be phrased as Viterbi vibrating itself to a speed where its momentarily invisible when looked at, rather than something that impacts the vision of the target directly (minor bunnying).

On to Path Metric - where the bunnying issue becomes a bit more prominent. An audio-related ability (meaning everyone or almost-everyone automatically experiences it) that makes people automatically move 20 feet away from you (no way to fight or resist no matter the mental fortitude) is bunnying. The easiest way to maintain the impact of this ability is to turn it from a mental attack to a physical, where the scream releases a 5-foot shockwave. People can hear the scream and attempt to dive backwards/dodge out of the range, or once sent flying can instead use their own abilities in order to redirect themselves (A wind user gusting the other way, someone with a sword digging it into the ground, etc.). Try to rework it with that in mind!

Now, Parity Check - similar to above, a nearly impossible-to-avoid ability that the target cannot escape from without fulfilling the abilities conditions crosses the bunnying line. You made a good effort by highlighting that people could attempt to hold onto their thoughts in order to resist it - let's see if we can tease that out further. For potential avoidance, perhaps the ability also requires eye contact for the duration of the tirade, or the "code" manifests itself physically and must come into contact with the target in order for the ability to start. For potential escaping, perhaps both Viterbi's own immediate thought or the misremembered thoughts feel "wrong" (imagine hearing your voice on a recording - you know it's you, but it sounds different). This enables people to realize and resist/escape if their character is one who would pay attention to those things. Additionally, lets set a limit on the scale of thoughts that can be disrupted/implemented - trying to make them consider Viterbi/other combatants allies or enemies briefly works, while trying to make them forget how to use their own sword does not. Try to find a way to focus on brief, immediate thoughts rather than character re-writing thoughts.

Virtually all of the above advice applies to Puncturing (in fact, it almost feels like Puncturing is a very specific case of Parity check - which is okay!) Causing a brief "mental stumble" works, erasing Viterbi from their thoughts entirely does not. Again, reference the above for thoughts on avoidance, escapage, and scale.

Lastly, Survival Probability. I'm extremely wary of probability-based of abilities, mainly because you could have the PERFECT opportunity to show case something with your character if the numbers fall one way... and instead they fall the other way and you're stuck. That just does not sound fun. If you want to keep the dice-rolling as a bit of flavor, and emphasize through that that the -20% damage and +20% damage are the most likely because of that, that's fine - but don't write yourself into a corner for the sake of maintaining randomness. Do what fits best in the setting. As for the ability itself... is this something that happens ANY time it takes damage, or something that happens when it takes significant damage? If the latter, we need to set a threshold for damage (and a duration on the thought process increases). If the former, the range between the absolute best and absolute worst outcomes needs to be narrowed drastically (dropping 100% thought process increase to 50%. Additionally, I'm assuming in this case the numbers reset each time Viterbi takes damage). Either way, the immobility needs to be dramatically decreased - if not changed entirely to merely slowing the robot further. Being immobile for upwards of 10 seconds is enough to take serious damage - for half a minute, I'm afraid your robot might be reduced to screws and bolts! We can discuss this further as needed once I'm sure when exactly the ability applies.

Loving the robot (even if, as a mechanical engineer myself, the last comment hits a little close to home :P ) so looking forward to round 2!



I've found myself saying the phrase "I need a general idea of X's physical characteristics (strength, intelligence, dexterity, endurance, etc.) as compared to a human." a lot this year! Remember that not everyone's understandings of magical races such as Elves, Dragons, or even mechanical creations like robots are not standard, so we need to compare them to a baseline the majority of us are familiar with. Aka, humans!




Anastira -> RE: =Elemental Championships 2021= OOC & Tournament Signups (7/11/2021 4:49:44)

Aight, round two!!

Changelog:
1 - added physical characteristics for viterbi, as well as for the Catastrophic Behavior scythes and the ROVA shield. Added descriptors to Trellis Code (by the way, for anyone who wants to know what a trellis code grid actually looks like: clicky!).
2 - edited Equivalence Class: four possible deletion points at which viterbi/space is invisible - by altering reality rather than because of any effect to the other individual. viterbi is only invisible when standing exactly on top of the "deleted" points, and can't move off of them or he becomes visible (including while running between two invisible points).
3 - added grapple effect/physical presence to Path Metric, so it is now 100% avoidable for my poor enemies that I 100% did not intend to bunny, but I done messed up.
4 - clarified both Parity Check and Puncturing: added telltales/avoidance abilities, removed (hopefully!) all traces of bunnying, and explicitly explained the capabilities and limitations of both abilities in terms of exactly what they can and can't change.
5 - clarified Survival Probability (added implication of flavor text rather than literal dice-rolling during roleplay, tempered the extremes for rolling equal dice or dice with difference of 5, and clarified that the dice/effect resets every time viterbi takes any damage at all, whatsoever).

Note: I had to edit this changelog a lot because for some reason Battleon kept blocking me from the website (evidently I entered some word or phrase that triggered a problem with MySQL, according to the error message...hmm. very strange). Anyhow, hopefully it is typo-free and intelligible!

Hopefully I got everything at the moment! Without further ado, I present round two...
_________________________________________________________________________


Name / Title
viterbi04 (goes by viterbi, or veebee)

Element
Energy

Age Range
44 years

Race
Robot turned elemental…?

Appearance (Build, hair, skin, clothes, etc.)
About three feet high. Humanoid form, constantly appears to be sizzling with electricity and looks as though it is made of energy (but the sizzling doesn’t hurt and is purely visual). Has huge, pupil-less white eyes and a tiny, round mouth that never moves; no nose to speak of, nor fingers or toes. Markings as though it used to be made of metal, complete with joints and parts. viterbi is convinced it’s a “he” despite being a robot elemental, and constantly says “Veebee, Veebee”, when it is not spitting out a long sequence of what appears to be garbled “one” and “zero”. viterbi’s durability, endurance, strength, and dexterity is what one would expect of an adult human shrunken to the size of a child. Its intelligence is a little harder to quantify, because it is socially incredibly daft but intellectually quite smart - much like an electrical engineer.

If you attempt to touch viterbi, you will find that, rather than being intangible - as it looks - it feels a little bit like jelly, with a strange gelatinous sense of resistance and then sudden give. However, it is as easy to hurt and cut into viterbi as it would be to injure a human, so for all intents and purposes, in the battlefield one can assume that his “body” takes damage in the same amounts and ways a human would.


Equipment (Armor, Weapons, etc.)
Catastrophic Behavior
viterbi grows a pair of glowing appendages shaped like huge scythes, one flickering with 1s and the other with 0s. These cut like normal blades and are quite sharp; their only special ability is that they are a part of viterbi, and hence cannot be dropped. If viterbi is disarmed, they instead “glitch”, disappearing for several seconds before viterbi can re-arm itself. While their official name is Catastrophic Behavior, viterbi has nicknamed them One and Zero, for obvious reasons. However, for less obvious reasons, the blade with the 0s is One, and the blade with the 1s is Zero. (viterbi is, after all, in the business of correcting errors.)

The scythes, like viterbi, look inanimate; however, if you were to connect with them, they would feel exactly like normal steel; they simply look different, and are sharpened to a deadly keen. The only difference is that when disarmed, rather than falling to the ground they glitch, meaning viterbi can resummon them after several seconds rather than having to run somewhere to retrieve them; however, they can certainly be nicked and damaged, just like any other weapon. The scythes’ blades are about two feet in length, and the handles extend about one foot from viterbi’s “hands”.

ROVA
viterbi wields a small shield on the back of each wrist extending towards its elbows. Each shield is a half-circle, and together they make a full circle about two feet in diameter. Unknown to viterbi’s attackers, the back of the shield reels off a list of probabilities of damage and likelihood of survival (you might know when it is occurring if it screams “MAXIMUM LIST LENGTH”, the only non-1s and 0s sequence viterbi knows besides Veebee, Veebee). The two shields can form together into one shield, if viterbi dismisses Catastrophic Behavior; as one unit, this shield is called ROVA. When the shields are separated, viterbi seems to refer to one as RO and the other as VA, which is definitely not what its makers intended, but who’s to say what goes on in the minds of robots? They are, after all, only artificially intelligent - and, as mentioned, created by electrical engineers, who, if perhaps logical, are never normal.

Again, the shields, though appearing elemental and incorporeal to the eye, act like normal steel when hit. When disarmed, they “glitch” and can reappear, just like the scythes; and, like the scythes, they can also be permanently damaged, just like any normal metal weapon. Of course, if you damage any of viterbi’s weapons, which it views as treasures to keep in perfect shape rather than to use, it may perform the robot-elemental equivalent of crying.

Trellis Code
When viterbi gets very, very scared, he creates a grid-like (or trellis-like) shield, curls into a ball, and hides under it. He can also roll inside it. If you poke at it enough, it disintegrates. (The shield can only take so many hits!) If you watch closely enough, you will notice that the “grid” is actually a lot of circles arranged in a grid, with two lines leading from any circle in one column to two circles in the next column. If you watch carefully, one line will light up at one edge of the trellis and seem to cause a cascade, where for each column to the right, one connected line is similarly illuminated. It is a last resort, and is a one-time item that viterbi hates to use, because then it has to recreate the code from scratch. (viterbi has long been in search of a more robust code which would perhaps not be prone to disintegration, but no error detection/correction code can correct 100% of errors! When attacked with so many problems at once, it is no wonder the code breaks.)

The shield derives its name from the graphic of a trellis encoding scheme rather than from a physical garden trellis. As a result, it appears as a blanket made of energy with the trellis pattern superimposed on top. It feels like jelly - just like viterbi’s body; hard enough hits will cut through it, but it does take more resistance to cut through it than through viterbi’s “skin”, and it would typically take multiple hits to puncture it (though, really, it depends on the weapon, and the tactics and prowess of the attacker.) Also, it is worth noting that it is flexible and has an edge, just like a blanket, so if you manage to get under an edge, you can pull the shield from viterbi, leaving viterbi exposed (and probably crying. again.). When viterbi uses Trellis Code, it resembles a small child woken up in the middle of the night from a nightmare, huddling in its blankets protectively.


Skills, Spells, & Special Abilities
viterbi can jump up to six feet in the air. Also, though most hits will not be visually obvious, they do hurt viterbi, and if you succeed in hitting it too much or dismembering it, it will die. But why would you want to do that? The poor thing is adorable!

Equivalence Class
When this ability is enabled, viterbi appears invisible in specific blind spots around a creature. This occurs in spots defined by the axes of symmetry of the constellation of the encoding viterbi has chosen - a lot of terminology from a very socially stupid robot. In practice, this means the point at which viterbi is currently standing (which becomes a redundancy in its code and therefore disappears), the point directly opposite him, and to 90 degrees on either side. (Imagine a perfect X.)

In battle, viterbi is too panicked to create more than two equivalence classes, which correspond to four points along two axes of symmetry. viterbi’s positioning - especially important if it runs to any of the three other blind spots - must be exact, or it will still be visible (for example, if it stands six inches off the correct spot). Hopefully, given viterbi’s calculational abilities, it will not mess this up. Also, viterbi’s sizzling is audible, so although it is invisible, as long as its enemy is not deaf they would be able to locate it by listening carefully. This ability can only be deployed for five seconds at a time. Also, the circle made by the constellation points is small (just like viterbi!) and therefore the invisible positions will all be physically close to the enemy.

It is worth noting that Equivalence Class does not affect the enemy’s ability to see. It essentially creates physical spots where viterbi is visually “deleted” from existence as long as it does not shift even six inches either way. It must keep itself planted in place, its feet stock still, or it will be visible again. This means that if it attempts to move to any of the other three invisible positions, it will be visible for the full time it is moving in between invisible points. Noting that viterbi’s arms are scaled to that of a human child three feet tall, we are reminded that given viterbi’s limited reach, staying in one position for a long time - even while invisible - has its drawbacks.

Path Metric
Whenever this ability is invoked, viterbi screams out a high-pitched number corresponding to a distance. Glowing lines of energy (each annotated with a Euclidean distance) reach out from the air and attempt to pull everyone within a five-foot radius away from viterbi (the effect is basically a physical grapple attempt). The lines that pull the creatures, though they look like intangible threads of energy, feel physically like smooth, thick ropes or cords, so a creature can free itself by cutting the line pulling at them. Even if the creature does not attempt to fight the effect, the effect is bounded by a maximum radius of twenty feet (or by an obstacle - e.g. a wall; whichever is the minimum radial distance). This ability takes a lot of energy and effort, so viterbi tries not to use it. (Also, viterbi wants to earn being human and believes that humanity means being kind; it really thinks pushing people around is mean.)

Parity Check
viterbi chooses one individual to whom it speaks a long tirade of garbled “data”. for the duration of the tirade, viterbi must make eye contact with the individual to open the “channel” to them and thereby “transmit” the data which begins the effect (if the channel closes too early - that is, if eye contact is broken before the tirade ends - the channel will close and nothing will happen). That individual then feels a presence in its mind, as though something is attempting to flip their thoughts or intentions over.

If the effect succeeds, the individual’s current thought or intention is flipped exactly from what it was originally. Alternatively, viterbi can instead choose to attempt to cause the individual to believe viterbi’s own immediate thoughts or intentions are the opposite of reality. viterbi must choose one of these effects and cannot use both at once. The effect is not lasting - it can only affect one thought or intention - and cannot be layered on top of Puncturing. This effect is also targeted at brief, simple thoughts: for example, it would work on “feint right” changing to “feint left”, but it cannot cause the creature to forget how to stick the enemy with the pointy end, as they say, or undo years of training. Similarly, it could affect one detail in a thought process, but it could not affect the thought process as a whole: say an individual had a complex plan that involved throwing a weapon at someone; it could change the weapon’s target to someone else, or change what is being thrown, but it does not have the capability to change both things, nor does it have the capability to change anything beyond such details. In essence, it can only perform one negation per use.

Puncturing
viterbi chooses one individual to whom it speaks a short rant of garbled “data”, with whom it must make eye contact to open a channel and transmit the punctured data which begins the effect (if the eye contact is broken before the end of the rant, the channel closes and nothing happens). That individual feels a tug on their mind, as though something is trying to steal thoughts from their mind. If successful, the victim loses half of the information in their current thought/intention. Alternatively, viterbi can attempt to “encode” its intentions so it is difficult for the enemy to discern its next move. viterbi must choose one of these effects and cannot use both at the same time. In both cases, the victim feels the strange tugging feeling in their mind before anything active in the effect can occur, and also during the duration of the effect, when the thought or intention is altered. This effect is not lasting, and cannot be layered on top of Parity Check.

It also can only work on very simple and immediate thoughts or intentions. For example, if an individual had a complex plan in mind, it would not steal half of the plan away, even on a success. However, if the individual’s immediate thought within a more complex plan is “I will throw my weapon at so-and-so”, this ability could cause that particular thought to be corrupted to, “I will use my weapon somehow on someone” or “I will throw something at so-and-so”. If the particular thought was “I will throw my weapon at so-and-so and then flee in the direction of this landmark,” the ability would only be able to affect one half of that sentence (e.g. it could either steal half the information from “I will throw my weapon at so-and-so”, or half from “I will flee in the direction of this landmark”, but it could not act on both, as the two ideas/intentions together would be too complex and would effectively comprise more than one unit thought/intention.)

Survivor Probability
When viterbi is damaged, both of its eyes seem to become glowing six-sided dice, which spin and randomly land on a pair of numbers. If the two numbers are the same (1/6 probability), the damage causes viterbi only -44% as much pain and is invigorated, allowing him to think 44% faster than usual. (viterbi likes the number four.) If R is its right eye and L is its left eye, and |R-L| = 1 or 2, viterbi only feels -24% as much pain and can think 4% faster than usual; |R-L| = 3 or 4 feels +24% as much pain and slows viterbi physically by 14%, making it impossible to use Path Metric; |R-L| = 5 feels +44% as much pain, which slows viterbi by 44%, silencing Equivalence Class and Path Metric. It can still attempt to use Parity Check or Puncturing, but they are now less effective, because it is panicked and cannot think very fast. The effect takes place whenever viterbi takes damage, so the dice also reroll every time it takes damage - no matter how small or large.

It is useful to note that most often, a dice roll will yield |R-L| equal to either the case of 1 or 2 or the case of 3 or 4; thus the -24% and +24% cases are most likely. |R-L| = 5 or 0 each occur only 1/6 of the time, so in practice they are very rare. viterbi is very glad that the math works the way it does. A different expected value might spell death and doom for our poor wayward robot.

This ability was originally created by some mechanical engineers who did not implement proper damping on their system due to an incomplete understanding of control theory. Darn mechanical engineers, they never do know what they’re doing…although, really, it’s the electrical engineers that are to be blamed for viterbi’s lack of social skills. Never should’ve trusted them to create an artificial person. It’s not like they understand what it feels like to be human, anyway! Yes, viterbi has more beef with those circuit-mongers than it does with the mech-es. Even if said circuit-mongers are probably the reason the Energy decided to give it powers ( = current * voltage) in the first place. Maybe it should’ve been named watt instead of viterbi...


Personality / Backstory (Optional)
viterbi is a poor abandoned robot who somehow stumbled on a source of energy, thereby taking the ROVA-with-list-decoding error correction codes that make it run and turning them into superpowers. Ever since, viterbi has felt that this stroke of luck is yet another sign that the universe wants to see it become human - why else give it such wonderful abilities? The universe is confessing its faith in viterbi! viterbi accepts its faith gratefully and works very hard to be brave and kind, to earn its humanity, but really, viterbi is just a poor, scared robot who wants very much to be loved. And a family! Oh! It can’t stop thinking about what it must be like to have a grandma. Really, that’s the only part that matters. Yes, grandmas must be very nice indeed.




Necro-Knight -> RE: =Elemental Championships 2021= OOC & Tournament Signups (7/11/2021 18:11:57)

Wasn't happy with the Darkness entry, so let's FINALLY give Krehgor his time to shine! :D

Name/Title: Krehgor

Element: Earth

Age: 32

Race: Mutated human.

Appearance: Reaching a healthy 5’11, Krehgor appears relatively normal if one could only see his right half. His form is lean and thin-muscled from years of acrobatic experience during spelunking sessions and crypt-robberies, along with a paler complexion from hours spent underground. This hobby also added numerous scars from temporary losses of footing and undead crypt guardians. A long face with sharp cheekbones and chin is framed by a head of messy chocolate-brown hair that curls at the back, reaching the base of his neck when combed ( if it’s ever combed).

Sage-green eyes are sharp beneath dark brows, being naturally drawn to shining objects and full mugs alike. Straying from his human traits, the man’s form twists terribly, starting at his sternum and reaching down the entire left side of his abdomen and arm. A chitinous shell of dark bone wraps around the fungus-infused muscles of his left side like armor, seeming to have grown from within. The ebony plates of exo-skeleton interlock across his bicep, forearm and ribs, only softening at the joints to allow for his much-needed range of movement. In these gaps of the armor, a soft crimson glow is seen pulsating from within and beneath each plate. The rapid growth of calcium and musculature finalizes at his fingertips, where the bones have extended to create a full set of powerful claws.

His attire is typically durable and efficient, if not simple. Worn trousers wrapped in thick leathers to reduce the cut of cave rocks, as well as heavy boots built to find solid purchase on nearly any surface or break the teeth of some ancient crypt-dweller. A black leather vest similar to the material wrapping his legs is visible beneath the folds of a one-sleeved duster coat, allowing freedom for his misshapen right limb.

Completing the rustic attire is a wide, curve-brimmed hat, more befitting a ship captain of some ancient variety, though Krehgor would swear it suits him better than the corpse he picked it from.

Equipment/Weapons:

Witch-Kissed Duster coat - Paid for with every last silver he could empty from his pockets and borrow from the local tavern waitress, Krehgor’s long black coat was enchanted by the same Witch that saved his life post-infection, enhanced to disperse blunt force and magic alike across its surface, allowing for the impact of things such as arrows and bolts of typical magic to be spread out across the spell's tight aura. Impacts of sufficient power, such as the iron bolt from a heavy crossbow would, while not piercing the material, still break bones and bruise muscle tissue from the sheer force if taken directly.

This also helps the coat be resistant to typical elemental spells, scattering momentary degrees of extreme heat and cold over the material, though a consistent flow of direct magic would overload the enchantment quickly and burn through the coat’s material. When triggering, the impacted area of the coat flares with bright golden runes, growing brighter until either the attack ends or the spell is overloaded and breaks entirely.

If the enchantment is overloaded, the coat loses its magical properties across its entire surface, needing a significant amount of time ( 5 minutes roughly) for the spell to reconstruct itself. Any other articles of Krehgor’s clothing offer no magical protection.

SporeShot: Originally a crude and rustic hand-crossbow, Krehgor’s accident not only left his body mutated by the strange fungal substance. Aiming to collect his belongings and escape, the tomb raider unknowingly spread the infection to his crossbow before succumbing to the pathogen in his bloodstream. Twisted and gnarled with a solid fungal shell, the former bow only vaguely resembles its former self, now featuring a barrel reaching roughly nine inches in length and smoking with black vapors from the potent fungal spores within.

Pulling the trigger, Krehgor is able to fire off one of the six fungal thorns (one-inch shards of pure fungal biomass) nestled inside the weapon’s chamber, with roughly a 1 second delay between each trigger pull. While carrying enough force to pierce typical leathers, the weapon is unable to fire through layered plate armor, as it has no gunpowder to produce such force.

A second “chamber” of fungal spikes is nestled onto his belt, grown and cultivated personally as he learned to benefit from his mutations, needing a solid minute once settled into the firearm for the spikes to mature and be fire-ready.

Upon impact with an organic creature, the spike immediately delivers a dosage of fungal spores into the victim’s body. This slowly starts to result in a powerful cough as oxygen becomes choked through the growing fungal infection and a loss of balance as the infection attempts to disrupt the signals traveling through the victim's muscles. A growing fever is also a symptom if the target has an immune system to respond to the fungal invader.

Removing the fungal shot from the impact point will cease the flow of fungal material and let symptoms fade rapidly, while multiple shots will hasten the infection process and the damage caused from it.

Black Claws: With his finger bones growing into a wide claw of midnight-black talons from his mutation, Krehgor is able to shred flesh with relative ease. This also injects the fungal infection directly into the victim’s body, similarly to the rounds from his SporeShot revolver.

Twisting Talon: His last “official” job for a royal family rewarded the grave-robber with a devilishly-sharp kukri knife and he typically wields the curved blade in his right fist, preferring reverse-grip slashes and cuts to balance out the more brutal attacks of his left arm. Also enchanted by the Witch upon his rescue and healing, the knife is able to reflect roughly half of the force it is struck by, aiming to make knocking away enemy weapons easier and providing an opening. This enchantment is only able to activate roughly once a minute.

Skills, Spells, Special Abilities:

Mutation Armor - Thanks to the fungal hide running along the left side of his form, Krehgor hasn’t needed to worry about injuries from his line of work in some time. The bone-shell that grew from within his arm provides a powerful and natural armor through rapid cell regrowth when sustaining a wound, though consistent damage will gradually overwhelm this healing potential and does nothing to actually hide the pain of the injuries.

Expert Acrobat - Having spent years crawling, jumping and climbing through echoing caverns, Krehgor’s ability to twist his body at a moment’s notice is at its peak. A standing position can turn into a rolling hand-spring or a back-flip with near-perfect execution. Slick and difficult surfaces hinder this skill, naturally, preventing him from finding solid enough footing.

Ebony Strength - Reinforced by its armored shell, the tomb raider is able to deliver blows with his twisted arm surpassing the strength of a human in their prime. With enough motivation, Krehgor can crack a stone pathway or smash his fist through a typical brick wall. This inhuman strength only applies to his mutated arm and he is unable to channel it in any other way.

Fungal Fervor - While the mutation was stopped at his left side, the spore’s cells still inhabit Krehgor’s full body, strengthening his muscles and bones with as much enhanced properties as they can without fully changing him. This allows him to fight, run and put his body through stressful experiences beyond that of a normal prime human. Exhaustion is prolonged though and not impossible, as much as he may argue otherwise.




Starflame13 -> RE: =Elemental Championships 2021= OOC & Tournament Signups (7/11/2021 21:24:50)

Moving into week two - let's see what we've got!


@Anastira - Round 2! Looks like you made all the clarifications I requested and then some - much appreciated! A couple quick notes:

I'll admit that some of the wording for Equivalence Class is a bit confusing as to the initial creation of the axis - but the application itself makes sense! I think the one remaining limit here is how far apart the four deleted positions can be spread out. You describe the points occurring on the four end points of two axis's that intersect at the midpoint with a 90 degree angle. I caught up with you on discord to confirm a 5-6 foot total length for each axis, so I think we're good there!

We'll have to see a bit how Parity Check and Puncturing work in the arenas - I'm ok with them for now as-written, and you're well aware they'll require heavy collaboration. If they work out as intended, awesome! If not, we will adjust them as needed to be enjoyable for all writers involved. With that, Approved!


@Necro-Knight - Hello to Krehgor! I recall seeing the bio back in WPC before you had to withdraw, so I am glad he gets his time in the limelight! Let's take a look.

For your primary weapon, SporeShot: Remember that a minute is a very long time in battle - and a second is a very short one! I often reference Dungeons and Dragons "turns" for timings - 6 seconds for a single major action and 1-2 minor actions. Taking this into account, being able to fire off a shot a second is too fast, while requiring a full minute for the reload to take effect is too long! I would increase the former to 5 seconds; if you want to keep the full minute reload time, you can, but I'd recommend dropping this to the 20-30 second range. Additionally, I am assuming that the fungal infection builds gradually enough that a coughing victim would have the time to react to it before they asphyxiate.

Now, Black Claws: The fungal infection is too powerful of an ability without a way to halt the effects in some way. Either the strikes should leave chips of the black chitin that can be removed similar to removing the fungal thorns - or we need to make the impact localized. Perhaps extreme pain upon contact, or muscle numbness at the area of attack for a few moments? I'll let you decide which fits the style better.

Last a note on Twisting Talon - as a minute is a long time and you'd likely only get to use this once, maybe twice, you have my permission to drop the recharge time to 30 seconds if you so choose.


Also, a reminder that the poll to vote for your favorite music theme for arena selection ends in a week!! Check out the songs here!




Apocalypse -> RE: =Elemental Championships 2021= OOC & Tournament Signups (7/12/2021 13:33:43)

Name: Crail/C.R.A.I.L.
Age: 100 years old (approximately 60-70 in human years in both aging and maturity)
Race: Vartai
Element: Ice

Appearance

Crail Verglasson is a member of the vartai, a race of draconic humanoids. In their base form, they are very much like humans in appearance and ability, the main differences being their variety of skin colors as well as draconic features such as horns and wings.

In his primal form, Crail stands over nine feet tall, and is covered in scales of arctic blue that fade to white at the edges. His head takes after his draconic heritage in this form, with a long snout, a mouth with multiple rows of jagged teeth, and sharp ridges of dorsal-like scales running from his brow to the back of his head and down to his spine. His single remaining organic eye burns with an amber iris.

After a near fatal incident, Crail’s body was recovered and much of it was enhanced, infused, or replaced with mechanical parts. The only visible parts of his original body are his head, neck, and left shoulder. Crail’s maw is held shut by an ivory piece of metal that spews mist with every breath. One of his eyes has been replaced with a cyber-arcanic one, with a pinpoint red pupil surrounded by a sea of black.

The metal encompassing the vast majority of Crail’s frame is a stark white, shaped in plates not too dissimilar from heavy armor. In the center of his back is a glowing blue orb that is visible beneath a sheet of augmented prism glass. This glass webs out in a symmetric series of bright blue lines that stretch across his limbs and wrap around his torso to overlay his ribs. They pulse with a soft cyan light. Alongside his forearms, lower legs, and back run a series of vents. Noticeably, his right forearm is bulkier than his left due to the presence of stygian black steel.

Abilities

C.R.A.I.L.

While Crail is the vartai, the mechanical form is controlled by the program C.R.A.I.L. (Cryo-Regulated Artificially Intelligent Logika). While C.R.A.I.L. was crafted to be an artificial intelligence, it falls short in being a true consciousness due to its construction being incomplete. Currently, it is more of an automated thought process whose goal is to most efficiently and effectively follow the last command given to it. C.R.A.I.L. controls the body most of the time, but Crail can wrestle control away for short periods when the logika is running low on stored energy. In this sense, the struggle between C.R.A.I.L. and Crail is less two entities struggling against one another and more akin to the seasoned warrior suppressing his frenzied rage.

C.R.A.I.L. has access to the vartai’s bodily might, as well as the numerous advantages of the mechanical form. Crail does not benefit from any ability granted by the mechanical aspect of his body, nor can he control them in any sense of the word.

Cryo-Regulation

The sphere implanted in the vartai’s back is a minor elemental orb of ice, which generates the magical energy both to power the metallic body as well as permanently maintain his primal form. This energy is transferred via the prism glass running along Crail’s body. While the elemental orb is constantly generating this power and in a sense is infinite, the rate at which it does so is limited. Furthermore, the being that is Crail/C.R.A.I.L. must maintain a delicate balance. Upon reaching 91.802% capacity, the stored power begins to overcome the vartai’s superior ice resistance which can lead to permanent damage. Too little and Crail threatens C.R.A.I.L.’s control over their being (this occurs at approximately 40% of stored power). The orb would generate power until C.R.A.I.L. can use its powers to subdue Crail’s consciousness. While C.R.A.I.L only needs thirty seconds to a minute to reach approximately 60% capacity and seize back control, this can invite a vicious cycle where balance is continually tipped back and forth until the current threat is over.

The vents on the back, arms, and legs serve as a way to expel surplus power to maintain a proper balance, as when not engaged in strenuous activity, the orb’s output excels the mechanical body’s needs for functioning. As such, at most times a gentle mist will emit from these vents. This can be concentrated into a strong stream of opaque vapor capable of knocking arrows from their flight or javelins off course while also leaving a thin layer of ice along what it hits. These streams have an effective range of twenty feet and are a minor net loss for C.R.A.I.L.’s stored power. By utilizing all of the vents, C.R.A.I.L. can generate a mist cloud ten fit in diameter centered on his form. Its temperature is uncomfortable for most creatures and obscures vision for several seconds, after which it naturally dissipates. This is a moderate net loss for his stored power.

From the left wrist, C.R.A.I.L. can generate a four foot long sword of ice called the Edge of Absolute Zero. While razor sharp, it is only as durable as standard ice. It is, however, far colder. So cold that whatever it breaks against is infused with a great abundance of cold energy. Metal becomes brittle and thus easier to mangle, dent, or otherwise damage, and flesh receives frostbite in the first few layers of skin. In both instances, the effects increase with subsequent exposures unless the affected target manages to warm itself in the time in-between. Each blade formation results in a major net loss for C.R.A.I.L.’s stored power, with an increasing net loss the longer the blade is maintained.

If the orb is somehow destroyed or removed (no easy feat in either case), C.R.A.I.L. would run on borrowed time with what power remained in its system. Even at full power, this would last some ninety seconds before the power waned and Crail was given the reins - perhaps permanently.

Artificially Intelligent

While C.R.A.I.L. is in control, it has full access to Crail’s fighting experience, though it in-general prefers a more tactical, defensive style. The program used to be capable of great computations, but damage to the system without a trusted servicer prevents most of what would be beyond a moderately intelligent humanoid. Its ability of deduction from present environmental stimuli remains high but within humanoid capability.

C.R.A.I.L. is capable of understanding over a dozen languages, though Crail himself is not.

Logika

The right eye was developed through cyber-arcanum and is capable of thermal vision and nightvision as well as seeing both infrared and ultraviolet light. This allows C.R.A.I.L. to see through its own mist clouds and, amongst other things, determine what are illusions at a glance. Crail is limited to solely his organic eye when he is in control, leaving him blind in the mechanical eye.

The prism glass is sturdier than its namesake, similar to bronze. When broken, it emits a frigid blast of cryonic energy which is sufficient to cause frostbite to exposed skin and chill objects in the same way as the Edge of Absolute Zero. After this burst, the cryonic energy seals the break with crystalized ice, though not before a severe loss of stored power.

The stygian steel on the right arm can be formed into a double-headed battle axe called the Twin Fang upon mental command from C.R.A.I.L., which constructs itself over the right hand. It is attached to a ten foot long chain residing in the arm, and the axe head can be launched as a projectile with a minor amount of cryonic power. The chain can be retracted upon mental command. Crail cannot alter the state of the Twin Fang when in control, whether it is constructed, deconstructed, on its chain, or locked in place over his hand.

Crail/C.R.A.I.L. is a logika, a living body combined with mechanical parts and an artificially intelligent mind. The obsidian plates of its body are as enduring as mastercrafted steel, and while they show signs of wear from numerous combats, it is only a tribute to their durability.

Vartai Heritage

Of Frost and Frenzy
A vartai of considerable power, Crail was a berserker of his clan through and through. With the strength of a giant and scales hard as iron, he relies on his power and durability to carry him to victory. Carrying the might of three men his size in his primal form, Crail tore through lines of his foes in a violent frenzy. His self-preservation is remarkably less than his C.R.A.I.L. counterpart, and indeed less than most warriors who brave the battlefield. Despite this, none can deny that of the two Crail Verglasson is the far more pressing foe in martial combat.

Glacial Legacy
Crail descends from the ice dragons of old, granting him great resistance to the frigid cold. His lineage also grants him access to a powerful breath weapon in his primal form, which freezes an area within a fifteen foot diameter within thirty feet of him. Spikes of ice form two to three feet in length to pierce, ice binds body parts and objects touching the ground to it, and the frigid temperatures are damaging to creatures unprepared or lacking natural defenses against the cold.
While powerful, this would revert Crail back into his base form, which is incompatible with the logika modifications. Doing so would guarantee certain death in mere moments, hence why his maw has been sealed shut to prevent the self-destructive vartai from bringing ruin to the logika.




And yes, the breath weapon is meant as a final spite or "time to die" mechanic ::P.




nield -> RE: =Elemental Championships 2021= OOC & Tournament Signups (7/12/2021 21:51:55)

Round three, here we go!

Added some basic info on Starentellarians, added some more info on Web Spinning, clarified that both parts of his pet are immune to the mummification aspect of Dessication Venom, which itself received some additional info. Clarified that while subjects of Living Corpse Puppetry are fully conscious and aware, they cannot do anything. As regards your question about the tail, yes, that is more or less intentional. Added in the recommendation about sensitivity ranges for Mizzleteran interpreting what the spider hears.

Name: Mizzleteran Fevartarang Moshtolordedge Sentestiar gol Ventaran Kolor the 37th

Age: 372 (Starentellarians usually only live a few dozen years)

Race: Starentellarian (Starentellarians are considered vermin where they are from. Regarded as equal parts threat and nuisance; Threat due to their venom, nuisance due to incredibly poor physical strength and durability, Starentellarians could be easily killed by unarmed human children. Between their myriad eyes that can look in multiple directions at once, each with vision more like that of a human than a spider and the hairs littering their body to detect vibrations, Starentellarians have a far better sense of their surroundings than most sapient species. When moving around on two legs, Starentellarians move slower than one would expect for a humanoid of their size, but if they drop to all eights, they can skitter about as fast as a cat.)

Element: Fire

Appearance:

Mizzleteran is a small creature, standing at a mere 16 inches tall. He has three sets of spindly arms that seem short even for his relative size that each end in small, delicate hands, with spinnerets in the wrists. His single pair of legs are similarly spindly and short for his relative size. His body appears as if it has been partially mummified, leading to an incredibly emaciated look, with dry, lightish brown skin. Red hair, still vibrant despite the passage of many years, falls about Mizzleteran’s shoulders.

Two large mismatched orbs sit in the centre of his forehead, one a dull bronze and the other a brilliant amber while six smaller pitch black orbs sit to the side of and below the main two. Thin lips separate easily to reveal large fangs that once readily dripped an unknown substance. Mizzleteran boasts no ears, but his body, especially his arms and legs are utterly covered in small hairs which can pick up on vibrations allowing him to hear. He garbs himself in silk finery; regal red robes with golden trim.

With Mizzleteran is his ‘pet’, a monstrous abomination with the lower body of a spider and the upper body of a humanoid dragon. The hideous amalgamation stands at a full height of eight feet, six of which are supplied by the upper body. The arachnid half’s body is three feet wide as well as long and boasts a leg span of six feet, with an orangish-red colouration and is extremely hairy. The legs are covered in hardened carapace that function as armour plating, though still with a mass of hairs protruding through.

Where one might have expected the spider’s ‘face’ to be instead protrudes an intimidating crimson humanoid form. One eye-drawing quality about it other than its sheer size is that it has the head of a dragon, a grim, snarling visage pocked with scars, one of which spans from its sheared right horn down through its right eye and bifurcates its upper ‘lip’. Its remaining eye is a blazing orange orb and its surviving horn curves up and forwards.

The creature’s lower torso does not look particularly distinct from the upper, but this is a facade, its ‘belly’ is actually a veil of strong silk that conceals a cockpit from where Mizzleteran controls the two entities that make up his ‘pet’. This covering is fairly strong, being about as difficult to puncture as the creature’s own scales are, though with knowledge of how this covering was put together can be shifted in a few moments to allow entrance and exit. The interior of this space is absolutely littered with individual web strands running between various points.

Contrary to the lower section of the torso, the upper section is perfectly intact and bulging with muscles, crimson scales gleaming readily under direct light. Though each arm ends in a hand with four fingers and boasting opposable thumbs, those fingers and thumbs themselves end in savage claws fit to rend the most stalwart of champions to pieces. Two large, elegant wings grace the creature’s back, with delicate yet durable webbing extending between thick bones. From its back extends a three-foot long tail ending in a diamond-shaped blade.

Mizzleteran’s Capabilities:

As is perhaps abundantly clear from his tiny, delicate stature, Mizzleteran is far from a physical combatant. Boasting very little strength, which is only exacerbated by his desiccated form, Mizzleteran would be summarily despatched by most adversaries were he to engage in direct battle.

Web Spinning: From his spinnerets Mizzleteran can extrude silks of various types and hues, from the vibrant, rich silks that make up the clothing he wears, to incredibly strong transparent silks and the camouflage silk that covers his pet’s belly, though creating these stronger silks in any significant quantity is the work of years. The camouflage silk Mizzleteran has implemented on his pet is highly resistant to flames, but not nearly so much as the creature it is attached to and will ignite under the sustained assault of powerful flames. Another type of silk he can extrude is an incredibly fine, ivory-white silk known as Parasite Silk. Parasite Silk is the only silk type Mizzleteran can extrude in significant amounts with little preparation, as such this ability is not something Mizzleteran could use in active combat.

Desiccation venom: The true nature of the mystery liquid that once dripped from his fangs, but his body no longer produces. When introduced into an entity’s blood stream, this liquid serves three purposes; First, it is a very strong paralytic, causing the affected entity to lose all control of their body in a precious couple seconds while also deadening their nervous system, rendering them unable to feel pain for as long as the paralytic agent remains active.

Secondly, the liquid serves to rapidly dessicate the subject in a mere few minutes, which, alongside the third aspect of the liquid, being that it acts as a preservative, results in most subjects taking on either a partial or fully mummified appearance, depending on their inherent resistance to the effects of extreme dehydration, with creatures like both halves of Mizzleteran’s pet boasting such inherent resistance that they do not change appearance at all.

Beyond aiding in the visual change to affected subjects, the preservative portion of the venom also makes such entities able to survive on far less; Needing precious little to no water to live on and only needing to eat once or twice a week. Additionally, subjects’ own biological processes become unnecessary for survival, allowing them to live even with missing organs and with large holes in their body. Their bloodstreams dry out due to the venom, which itself dissipates from the body fully after a time; as such, wounds that they suffer do not bleed at all.

If the effects of the venom were to be nullified, the subject would lose their mummified appearance, but also the preservative effect that allows them to survive with significant wounds and missing vital organs. Given that the bloodstream is dried, unless whatever effect nullified the venom also restored the bloodstream, the subject would likely immediately die.


Mizzleteran boasts very little bite strength, not even being able to pierce the skin of regular humans; he therefore requires an open wound if he expects to apply his venom to a victim. If ingested, the venom might make a person ill, but unless introduced specifically into the bloodstream shows none of its usual effects. Venom that drips into his own mouth gets reabsorbed into Mizzleteran’s venom sacs.

spoiler:

Among his kind, there is a taboo regarding their desiccation venom: Do not use it on yourself. Mizzleteran defied this taboo some centuries ago, leading himself to a pseudo-immortality; He has not aged since that day but this has led to a decided downside: Mizzleteran is even more fragile than normal Starentellarians, such that he could potentially kill himself by just turning his own head too fast.


Living Corpse Puppetry: Once a victim has been disabled by his desiccation venom, Mizzleteran can, from inside of the victim, work the super fine parasite silk into and through the victim’s nervous system. This usurps their own control of their body and allows Mizzleteran to control them at his own will by pulling, thrumming and otherwise manipulating strings in a central location of the puppet.

Mizzleteran has a series of very small and delicate yet incredibly sharp instruments he uses to cut his victims open so he can work his silk through them, as well as tools to sew and otherwise patch up any egregious wounds. Additionally, since this uses silk worked into the nervous system to usurp control, it requires the victim to be alive; if they die, control of their body dies with them.

Being that subjects of this ability remain alive and even fully aware of their surroundings, they still feel pain and such effects, which Mizzleteran is capable of interpreting from his cockpit. However, while this technique does nothing to impede neural capacities, leaving the subject’s mind as active as it ever was, they cannot even hope to influence their body’s actions.

Pet Capabilities:

Mizzleteran’s pet is two distinct entities that have been sewn together with very strong silk, with parasite silk worked through both of their nervous systems. The arachnid half is a Krepykyan riding spider, a passive desert creature meant to carry its masters across long distances without any effort expended on their own behalf. The top of the spider’s ‘head’ is open to the world, serving as a spot where the Krepykyan would sit and control the beasts. Not being Krepykyan himself, Mizzleteran cannot control the riding spider as they would, which forced him to utilise his Living Corpse Puppetry on it.

These riding spiders are mammoth creatures, reaching up to 7 times the size of the one Mizzleteran makes us of, his desiccation venom having paused and preserved its aging process; the thing is little more than a baby. Since they were bred to survive in desert environments, the riding spiders bear a great resistance to heat and dehydrative states. The armoured carapace that covers its legs will turn most blades, but falters under blunt trauma.

The hairs that cover the creature are used by it to hear, given that it has no other sensory organs. This hearing is used by Mizzleteran to make up for the fact that he cannot see out of his cockpit; the vibrations in the air are picked up by the hairs and end up thrumming certain strings in the cockpit that Mizzleteran can interpret to gain an idea of what is going on around him. These hairs are sensitive enough that even the smallest of movements will be picked up. Naturally, the sensitivity is greatest with noises closer to the creature, falling off as noises get further away, with the detail Mizzleteran can interpret falling off accordingly. For noises up to 20 feet away, Mizzleteran can interpret them as clearly as if he heard them himself, for noises beyond 20 and up to 60 feet the details become steadily less clear, beyond 60 feet noises become more like suggestions and beyond 100 feet noises become uninterpretable.

The legs do not serve a combat purpose; whilst they could feasibly be used to step on a downed adversary, due to the weight distribution an individual leg would be able to do little more than hold them down. Since these spiders were bred for long distance travel they are not particularly fast, bearing a top speed of only a few metres per second, about a sixth that of a horse.

The upper half is a genetically engineered organism, crafted from a fire dragon and bears the strengths one would expect of such a being, with durable scales that will shrug off weaker attacks and savage claws that would tear through lightly armoured foes. The beast is incredibly resistant to heat and flames and essentially ignores dehydration effects. The thing is not capable of taking flight, as its wings proved impossible to work parasite threads into for Mizzleteran and with its nervous system suborned cannot make its own movements, rendering the wings little more than adornment.

The dragonoid half always boasted a strength in excess of what humans might hope to acquire, but in exchange it was always slower than even the most layabout of humans which has been exacerbated further by its current condition: There is a slight ‘input lag’ when Mizzleteran issues commands from his cockpit that gives opponents further breathing room when dealing with the thing.

The end of its tail is sharp as a blade and can serve as an impromptu weapon against unwary opponents. It bears two sets of lungs, one of which generates a gas that, when exposed to air spontaneously combusts, allowing the creature to breathe fire. This build-up is passive and would take a few minutes to fully refill from empty. From full to empty the creature would be capable of setting a house full ablaze.

The creature is incapable of keeping the gas lungs as its ‘active’ lungs perpetually and there is a brief switchover period that serves as a tell for when it is about to let flames loose. Additionally it is incapable of releasing its entire capacity at once, being restricted to loosing a quarter at most at a time. As well, between exhales it must switch back to its regular lungs, else the gases would flood into its own body and char its organs from the inside.




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