Home  | Login  | Register  | Help  | Play 

=Elemental Championships 2022= OOC & Tournament Signups

  		Logged in as: Guest
  Printable Version
All Forums >> [Gaming Community] >> [Role Playing] >> The Championships >> =Elemental Championships 2022= OOC & Tournament Signups
Page 1 of 3123>
Forum Login
Message << Older Topic   Newer Topic >>
6/25/2022 0:00:04   
  Starflame13
Moderator


 Dawn curled delicate tendrils of amber and rose across the sky, the first rays of sun bleeding slowly from the horizon to chase away the smooth sable of night. Currents of power stirred softly across Lore to snake their way towards Bren. They whispered to the minds of those that they passed; soft caresses that quickened their hearts and stirred their blood. Greater and greater the flood of power grew, pulling at adventures near and far. Pulling at the desperate, the despairing, the brave. Pulling all to the eye of the storm.

At the epicenter, Bren stirred, shuddered - then surged. Citizens and strangers alike rallied at the call to join the festivities. Music wound its way through the streets, inns threw open their doors, shops set out their finest wares, and the city itself swung its gates wide to welcome the crowds now pouring into it. Young and old, rich and poor, families and friends and foes alike - all caught in the eddies of the building tempest.

Building until Bren could hold the power no longer. Building until the stones shook, the tension snapped, and even the most mundane could feel the pull of power as 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 2022 Elemental Championships!
Come ready your wits, sharpen your swords, and join in the festivities as Bren prepares for the coming tournament!


Welcome, everyone! Pull up a chair, whether to an inn or to your writing desk, and let’s get ready to role-play! I once again have the privilege of serving as the Director of the festivities this year, and I am extremely excited to see what everyone has in store!

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

The Elemental Championships (ECs) 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 both my inspection and includes the following general requirements:

quote:

Name / Title
Element
Age Range
Race (If non-human, provide near-human comparisons and any relevant physiology)
Appearance (Build, hair, skin, clothes, etc.)
Equipment (Armor, Weapons, etc.)
Skills, Spells, & Special Abilities
Personality / Backstory (Optional)


You must select a single element for your character to represent from the following eight elements: Energy, Wind, Ice, Light, Water, Earth, Fire, & Darkness. The element you select must align with your character in some way - whether due to their 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. I will be reading (and judging) the submitted 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 16th. Any bios still under review will then have 24 hours, or until 11:59 PM on Sunday, July 17th, 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 posting without my permission, as I must be able to trust that what I receive does not change after balancing or approval. Editing a bio without my express permission will result in the disqualification of that character, and you will need to submit an entirely new one to participate in this year's event.

I repeat, do NOT edit your bio after posting without my permission.

One more time for those in the back:DO NOT EDIT your bio after posting without my permission.

When revising bios after director feedback, you must submit an entirely new post containing the updated bio.

The preliminary round, or Paragon Phase, will begin on Sunday, July 17th and last for approximately three weeks. Currently, the period is expected to end at 11:59 PM EDT on Saturday, August 6th, 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 8th. 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 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. In the case of emergencies that prevent posting, please reach out to me directly as soon as possible.

4. Do not edit your posts or your bios 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:
On Collaboration: Though this is a competition, collaboration is both useful and necessary. Your character is in combat with other characters, but you are not in combat with the other players. If you are attacking another character, involving yourself in someone else’s duel, or performing some other action that will impact other writers’ plans, they should be made aware of your intentions prior to your posting. This is especially true given the tight time limits of the ECs, as surprise posts and encroaching deadlines do not make for an enjoyable writing environment and can result in emergency extensions and confusing situations.

I urge you to discuss combat and options with your fellow contestants. You are free to make collaborative posts and elaborate battle sequences. Often such collaboration is what enables your characters and writing abilities to truly shine. OOC threads will be provided for each arena for the express purpose of communication with your fellow contestants and with us, and please keep records of any collaboration discussions held in PMs, as they may be requested depending on how close the competition is!

On Communication: The notification system of PMs for the AE Forums is currently down. If you are collaborating with someone via the forums, please either use the public OOC threads, or be sure to check your inbox regularly. Additionally, you may make use of the AEF RP Discord Server. 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. I do ask that any formal extension requests be posted in the appropriate OOC threads for documentation purposes.

On Drafting: When writing your initial post, it is strongly encouraged to do this in any word processor that is NOT the forums. It has been known for the forums to log people out while they are drafting, which can result in losing an entire post when you go to finally submit it. Many people utilize Google Docs or similar so that they can share drafts in advance with others in their arenas, either to get extra eyes for editing or to confirm actions with other writers. Bonus cupcakes to the first person to spot an Anonymous Nyancat reading their drafts on Google Docs.

List of Accepted Entrants by Element

Fire [1]
Vu’ur, created by San Robin!

Darkness [3]
Sonder, created by Dragonknight315!
The Doom Weaver, created by Necro-Knight!
Alderbaran The Dreamer, created by GrimmJester!

Energy [3]
Alceia Pharae, Fatethief, created by roseleaf320!
Francesca, the Woman who Ensnared the Stars, created by deathlord45!
S.Y.M.B-01, created by markthematey!

Wind [2]
Nellone, created by shuurp!
Regina Sansa Rei, created by Selenianece!

Ice [3]
Eirin, created by Oddball!
Wister, created by Anastira!
Majordomo Jonathan Francisco de los Remedios Cipriano y Capicano, created by Ronin Of Dreams!

Light [2]
The Exudation of Radiance, created by nield!
Ambriel, Arbiter of Light, created by Synthe_!

Water [1]
Ulum, created by Chewy905!

Earth [3]
Snottrap, Slayer of DragonSlayer, created by Apocalypse!
Ribali, the Maiden of Marbles, created by Sylphe!
Helmold Jardinier, Knight of the Ivy Wall, created by Riprose123!

Master List of Accepted Characters
Total: 18
Sonder, created by Dragonknight315, fighting for Darkness!
Ulum, created by Chewy905, fighting for Water!
Snottrap, Slayer of DragonSlayer, created by Apocalypse, fighting for Earth!
Nellone, created by shuurp, fighting for Wind!
Vu’ur, created by San Robin, fighting for Fire!
Regina Sansa Rei, created by Selenianece, fighting for Wind!
Alceia Pharae, Fatethief, created by roseleaf320, fighting for Energy!
Ribali, the Maiden of Marbles, created by Sylphe, fighting for Earth!
The Doom Weaver, created by Necro-Knight, fighting for Darkness!
The Exudation of Radiance, created by nield, fighting for Light!
Helmold Jardinier, Knight of the Ivy Wall, created by Riprose123, fighting for Earth!
Eirin, created by Oddball, fighting for Ice!
Francesca, the Woman who Ensnared the Stars, created by deathlord45, fighting for Energy!
Wister, created by Anastira, fighting for Ice!
Majordomo Jonathan Francisco de los Remedios Cipriano y Capicano, created by Ronin Of Dreams, fighting for Ice!
Alderbaran The Dreamer, created by GrimmJester, fighting for Darkness!
S.Y.M.B-01, created by markthematey, fighting for Energy!
Ambriel, Arbiter of Light, created by Synthe_. fighting for Light!

Rosters by Arena

Factory Arena:
Ribali, the Maiden of Marbles, created by Sylphe!
Regina Sansa Rei, created by Selenianece!
Snottrap, Slayer of DragonSlayer, created by Apocalypse!
Alderbaran The Dreamer, created by GrimmJester!
The Exudation of Radiance, created by nield!
Eirin, created by Oddball!

Cellar Arena:
S.Y.M.B-01, created by markthematey!
Wister, created by Anastira!
Ulum, created by Chewy905!
Francesca, the Woman who Ensnared the Stars, created by deathlord45!
Nellone, created by shuurp!
Helmold Jardinier, Knight of the Ivy Wall, created by Riprose123!

Forge Arena:
Sonder, created by Dragonknight315!
Vu’ur, created by San Robin!
Alceia Pharae, Fatethief, created by roseleaf320!
Ambriel, Arbiter of Light, created by Synthe_!
The Doom Weaver, created by Necro-Knight!
Majordomo Jonathan Francisco de los Remedios Cipriano y Capicano, created by Ronin Of Dreams!




< Message edited by Starflame13 -- 7/17/2022 15:51:21 >
AQ DF MQ AQW  Post #: 1
6/25/2022 9:57:56   
  Chewy905

Chromatic ArchKnight of RP


 “Who… who am I…? I am…”

Name: Ulum
Gender: Varies, identifies as they/them when lucid
Age: Mentally mid-twenties
Race: Elemental
Element: Water

“Drifting… drifting… ever drifting. Seeking the island of lucidity within the sea of my mind.”

Appearance: Ulum’s general appearance, both in flesh and clothing, is inconstant. Upon entering the arena, they will appear as a young woman with long, dark red hair, wearing a black military-style uniform. When not fully lucid, they carry a nervous energy to them, slouching over to appear shorter than their actual height and keeping their limbs pulled in to create a generally smaller frame. While lucid, they stand up straight and remain more vigilant.

There are some constants to them, regardless of their current base appearance. Light filters over Ulum oddly, flickering and making patterns as if passing through clear water before reaching them. Their shadow likewise shimmers and moves as if underwater. When they move, parts of their image will falter, clearing away and appearing as the true moving water that constitutes their form, and small images of ripples will spread a few inches from their steps, like ripples on water. Additionally, regardless of the outward appearance they take, Ulum’s full height is always a slightly lower than average 5’ 8”. There is a faint glow from Ulum’s chest, where a regular human heart would be, visible through their illusory appearances. When clear and unshrouded, one can see a fist-sized pearl at this location. Finally, Ulum always has two objects on their person; a completely featureless white mask, dulled such that its surface reflects nothing, and a simple, bright blue umbrella. The mask is almost always worn to cover their face, while the umbrella will always be carried, as they lack any way to stow it.

Physiology: Ulum is a water elemental, and is thus made of water. Their physical capabilities (strength, speed, and senses) are the same as an average human’s. They are unable to change the shape or size of their body, and retain enough physicality to interact with objects and people as if they were mostly solid. Though physical attacks can pass through Ulum, Ulum still feels about half the pain from those attacks as if they were striking an unarmored human. This pain also lingers for a far longer amount of time than usual, and too many injuries can cause Ulum to succumb and become unable to continue fighting. Ulum is severely weak to electricity, which surges through their body and leaves them stunned. They can also be frozen with sufficient effort, which will immobilize them until they are able to shatter the frozen section. This will remove a chunk of themselves, causing continuous pain and leaving them unable to replace that lost water. Fire, meanwhile, is generally ineffective, though it can turn small amounts of Ulum’s body to steam before it is negated. Other magical effects can damage Ulum as normal. If the pearl in Ulum’s chest is damaged, Ulum will feel extreme surges of pain. If it is destroyed, Ulum will die, and their watery form will splash to the ground.

“This is my home. I open it, and it shades me. I close it, and it protects me.”

Equipment:

Clouded Surface: Ulum’s simple mask, a featureless, dulled white oval that bears no reflection. The mask is enchanted, and cannot be visibly marred or diritied in any way unless it is cracked through. Additionally, it shifts with its owner, allowing it to always fit regardless of the appearance that Ulum takes. The mask is fairly durable, akin to reinforced wood, but can be broken. It lacks any other special properties.

Home: Ulum’s umbrella is just under 3 feet in length, with a silver J-shaped handle and a blue exterior. When opened, the underside of the shade is a reflection of a quiet, sunlit pond. The umbrella’s use changes based on whether it is open or closed.

While open, Home acts as a defensive measure. The top of the umbrella becomes as strong as steel, and, when held upright, the opening projects a dome-shaped field around the holder and beneath the umbrella, visible as a faint blue glow that smells of a rainy day. Anything that enters this field (save for Ulum) feels as if it is submerged in water. This can slow projectiles, disperse fire, but will conduct electricity throughout it, heavily impacting Ulum. This also inhibits breathing, causing water to fill the lungs of those that attempt to breathe beneath it. Leaving the field immediately makes all of this water disappear. Tilting the umbrella more than 45 degrees or so will cancel this entire effect until it is raised overhead again.

While closed, Home can act as a weapon, with the exact nature depending on what Ulum believes it to be. Regardless of state, the size of the umbrella never changes, even if Ulum acts as if it does.

If Ulum believes Home to be a bladed weapon, such as a sword, knife, or spear, the surface will shimmer slightly. When in this state, the edges and tip of the umbrella act as if sharpened steel, and the umbrella itself becomes as durable as steel.

If Ulum believes Home to be a blunt weapon, such as a mace or hammer, the surface will become coated in a thin veil of water. While in this state, the umbrella acts as if it is made out of stone, becoming significantly heavier and sturdier (though Ulum does not feel this weight).

If Ulum believes Home to be a ranged weapon, such as a bow or crossbow, the umbrella’s surface becomes covered in small droplets of water, which shed and reform as the umbrella moves. While in this state, Ulum is able to fire long streams of water akin to arrows from the tip of the umbrella. These have the same speed, travel distance and impact/piercing capability as a regular bow and arrow. Ulum must delay between firing as if they were loading a crossbow.

There is an additional neutral state that Ulum can have it take on at any time while it is closed. During this state the umbrella bears no special properties or durabilities.

“Don’t touch me! I don’t want to-

...Drown.”


Abilities:

Reflection: Reflection activates whenever a sentient humanoid, or anything worn or carried by them, comes in contact with Ulum. This is an involuntary process. Ulum’s body will shift, their outward appearance changing to become a perfect reflection of the triggering creature at the time of contact, though as noted above Ulum’s height and other features always remains the same. This copies their physical appearance, their voice, and any worn clothing/armor. This change is in appearance only; Ulum’s physical capabilities remain unchanged. There are some limitations to this; if the triggering creature is missing a limb, Ulum will change to also lack that limb. If they happen to have more limbs than a regular human, Ulum will gain those limbs, but be unable to make use of them properly. Ulum is not able to copy anything non-humanoid, including any creatures with more than two legs, even if they are otherwise humanoid such as a centaur.

Additionally, there is a chance (OOC: This requires explicit permission from the other character’s writer) that Ulum will copy a portion of the triggering creature's memories. These memories tend to be small facts, histories, or emotions from the person, rather than full details. Ulum keeps these memories as if they are their own, and they experienced them themselves. While Ulum is aware these are not their own memories, they are not always able to keep that fact straight. If Ulum does not get any memories, they will construct their own. This entire process is mentally taxing and more often than not leaves Ulum extremely disoriented.

Ripple on the Surface: Every 30 seconds or so, Ulum can cause a single step to propagate its ripple much further and with much more force. This sends a visual ripple, like a rock dropping into a lake, spreading out from Ulum’s footstep and traveling at a moderate speed up to 20-feet from them in every direction. If someone physically overlaps with the edge of the ripple, either through it reaching them or them explicitly stepping/landing on it, Ulum can cause a mirror image of Ulum to appear within 5-feet of them and make a single attack. If the image makes physical contact with someone, even if the attack is blocked, Ulum can swap places with the image, causing it to vanish as Ulum takes its place. If the image misses, is struck, or if Ulum chooses not to swap places with it, it detonates, exploding in a shockwave of water that expands out 5 feet in each direction and can knock the unprepared off their feet. Ulum can only create one image per use of this ability, even if more than one person makes contact with the ripple.

Traits:

Never Forget: Even as Ulum collects more and more memories, they are always capable of recalling any of them, though this can create as much confusion as it can be helpful.

Muscle Memory: Ulum is able to capably wield any weapon that they believe they can wield as if they had practiced with it extensively.

Clarity: Ulum is heavily susceptible to magic that can influence their mind, but once that magic has worn off they enter a state of intense clarity and lucidity, clearing away any doubts and confusion and allowing them to refocus themselves for a few seconds. During this moment, their body will become clear, taking on their regular form as a humanoid body of water. After the moment passes they may take on the form of any being they see as if it had triggered Reflection, though they do not gain memories from this transformation.

“Ah. Right. I am Ulum.

And on that name, I will make it mean something. No matter who I must be to accomplish that. So let’s begin, from the top. Share with me who you are, and I will remember it as I pass you by.”
Post #: 2
6/25/2022 19:30:19   
Dragonknight315
Member

“Who are you?”

Name: Sonder
Race: Dullahan
Age: Appears approximately in early 20s
Element: Darkness

Appearance:---

Sonder is a grim figure, a walking terror clad in human form. She is 5 feet 7 inches in height. Her skin is unnatural; pale white and smooth. Hints of red and blue run along her thin skin, showing some vestige of humanity. Little of it is exposed, however; most of her lean form is covered in black cloths and leathers. Plates of blackened steel are fixed to her chest and shoulders, each bearing numerous etches in the form of tally marks. Around Sonder’s neck is a tightly wrapped red scarf. Hints of blue flicker from beneath it.

Sonder’s hair is brown and messy, tied behind her in a short ponytail. A macabre mask obscures her face, gray like her skin and made of steel.

Abilities--- String of Curses

Scarred Flesh - As a Dullahan, Sonder is neither alive nor dead. She exists at the boundary between both. Her body is cold to the touch. She does not require food, drink, or air to breathe. Her body is tireless, though she can sleep to repair her body. As part of her nature, Sonder is exceptionally strong and durable, able to push her body beyond ordinary limits at the cost of potentially damaging herself in the process.

Her most notable feature is a large blue gash around her neck, covered by a scarf. Sonder can detach her head from her body.

Sonder’s consciousness and soul is split across her head and body, allowing her to take in information through both at the same time no matter the distance between the two. Through her head, she can perceive the world like an ordinary human would, as long as it comes in contact with her head. (Sight, sound, taste, touch, hearing, sense of direction, etc). Similarly, her body is able to perceive its general location in relation to her head, plus anything it touches. Furthermore, her body is able to passively detect the life essence of anyone in a 20ft radius around it (even with her head attached). This would tell Sonder a creature’s rough location and how close to death (or undeath) they are. Beyond that, her body is unable to perceive any other senses.

While attached, Sonder’s head is magically fused to the wound, requiring a strong blow to forcibly remove it. If she choses to detach it willingly, it takes little effort to do so. To reattach her head, Sonder must firmly place it against the stump for a few seconds before it is magically fused again.

While her head is detached, a wave of blue mist obscures the wounded areas of her neck and body.

Scarred Courage - When Sonder has her mask off, the very sight of her face can cause pain. If someone is actively aware of Sonder’s presence and can see her face, that person will begin to feel a sensation of sharp pain unless they have some form of mental protection. While the effects are unique to the individual, this effect is mental, potentially breaking their concentration or leaving them crippled. The effect is sharp but potentially bearable at first. The longer someone focuses on Sonder’s face and the more clearly they can make it out, the more drastic the effect becomes. Looking away will cause the pain to linger for a moment before fading entirely.

Scarred Grace - For combat, Sonder can manifest weapons made from bones. This ability can take one of two forms:

•A large 10ft whip. Fashioned from a spinal column, each vertebrae is adorned with thin jagged spikes. When manifested, the whip is attached to her arm as if it were another limb. She can mentally command the whip, allowing it to move and thrash in ways an ordinary whip could not.
•A pair of two-edged swords. Each sword is fashioned from a massive, singular bone, shaped into a two foot long blade with a small, unworked grip.

After manifesting one of the weapons, Sonder can transform it to the other set, though she can only have one set active at a time. If at any moment these weapons are more than 30ft away from sonder, they immediately disappear into smoke.

While manifesting or transforming these weapons does not take any sort of energy from Sonder, the process takes around 30 seconds of intense focus to complete, and interrupting it will force Sonder to start again.

Scarred Companion - As a Dullahan, Sonder is accompanied by her magical shadow. Sonder can cause her shadow to take the form of a spectral warhorse.

In order to make her shadow tangible, Sonder first cannot be in direct sunlight or a bright light source, though it can persist in these areas after being created. Second, Sonder must be in possession of her head. After a moment of intense focus, the shadow will rise from beneath Sonder, becoming tangible and lifting her into the air. As this is happening, ribbons of black shadow wrap around her form, preventing her from stepping off or being knocked off her horse.

Once created, the shadow horse is under the direct control of Sonder, unable to act without Sonder’s will. She must actively focus to maintain and control her shadow, requiring drastically more effort to do so if she is in direct sunlight or bright light. If her focus is broken or she loses contact with her head, the warhorse will rapidly shrink, returning to an inert shadow. Sonder can choose to dismiss the shadow at any time, forcing it to fuse back into her form. In either case, Sonder cannot create her shadow horse again.

Any damage sustained by her shadow while transformed is immediately transferred to Sonder. For example, a slash on the shadow’s legs would appear and be felt by Sonder.

Equipment---

Threshold - An enchanted mask fashioned from steel. While the enchantment does improve its durability, providing some protection for Sonder’s face, its true purpose is more subtle. While wearing the Threshold, any magical effect that relies on eye contact/sight is drastically reduced or potentially nullified. This goes both ways. On one hand, this would allow for Sonder to suppress her Scarred Courage ability, preventing it from harming her foes and her allies. At the same time, if she wants to use Scarred Courage, she must take off her mask, exposing her to similar magical abilities.

Armor - Sonder wears a mix of ordinary cloth, leathers and steel plate, allowing for strong protection in vital areas without compromising too much on flexibility.
AQ DF AQW  Post #: 3
6/26/2022 20:30:55   
  Starflame13
Moderator


 Leeeeeeeet's get it started in here! Excited to have bios and activity already! Please remember, if asked to make any corrections, do so by creating an entirely new post for your revised bio.

@Chewy905 - Glad to see you here back on the other side! I can see the amount of care you put into balancing Ulum, but they're a complicated character so we still have a few things to iron out.

Let's start with Home. You give the length of the umbrella, is this the same as the diameter when opened? If not, please provide that. Assuming it stays in the 3-5 range, the Open position is okay as-is - any larger, and we need to tone it back a bit. For the Closed positions, I'm slightly wary of allowing you to cycle instantaneously and indefinitely between bladed, blunt, and ranged weapons. If this swap is tied somehow into Ulum's memory processing in a way that delays it, please mention so here. If not, I'd like you to incorporate a transition period of a few seconds or so as the umbrella swaps form.

Now, Reflection. As you've already implied, this is going to require heavy collaboration with your fellow writers. Additionally, I'm not overly fond of phrasing an ability in a way that is clearly there to bring it in line with OOC rules, rather than finding a method to meet the OOC rules in-character. The ability itself is acceptable as-is, but I would try to find a way to address that - if not in the bio, then for sure in your arena posts. My suggestion would be to introduce a "sieving" effect - where memories slide like water through mental fingers, and either catch as real ones (collaboration required), or slip away to have your own mental water rush forward to create the supplemental memories.

This surplus of memories ties into my last concern, with Ulum's muscle memory. Assuming that their capability to wield any weapon is tied to the memories, that gives Ulum far more expertise than I'm comfortable with by saying that they can wield it expertly as long as they believe they can. My suggestion is to change the wording to reflect that they wield their weapons with the skill of their inherited memories - which removes the surety of god-modding, although I will ask that you still be aware of avoiding it.

As an aside, I'm highly impressed with how you balanced Ripple on the Surface. Teleportation is a tricky ability, and this one was very well done. Let's bring the rest of the bio up to match, and looking forward to seeing your second post!

@Dragonknight315 - Hello, hello! Good to see you again! You've gone a bit of a complex route with Sonder but we've mostly just got minor things to clarify.

Firstly, I request an Age Range as a measure of maturity as well as physicality. Does her mental age match the age she appears? If not, please provide a maturity range.

Secondly, as a non-human, I need more details on a Dullahan's physiology. You've provided some of this scattered in Scarred Flesh - please pull this into the race section, and include human comparisons for traits such as speed, strength, etc. leaving Scarred Flesh to focus on the split between her head and her body. Additionally, as a creature that borders both life and death, I need to know if she feels pain the same way as a regular human, and if it takes specific methods to fully kill/destroy her.

Moving on to abilities, let's take a look at Scarred Courage. Since the impact of the pain is determined by clarity of sight, let's set a maximum threshold for the pain experienced at 20 feet for the average person (based off of the average "ideal" of 20/20 vision). The pain should then taper off the further someone is from Sonder, even if her face is in direct line of sight, with it vanishing entirely at the point all features are blurred. It'll require a bit more collaboration based on the eye-sight of the other characters, but it'll better avoid the potential for bunnying.

Now, Sacred Grace. 30 seconds is a long time in battle - long enough that Sonder would likely be unable to remain undisturbed long enough to swap weapons during battle. Let's drop the standard transition down to 5 seconds, with the caveat that if the bone weapons are broken, then re-manifesting them at this shorter duration does not mend them. If you wish to implement a mending effect at the longer duration summoning, you may do so.

Lastly, a quick note on Scarred Companion - you state that once the warhorse returns to shadow, it cannot be re-summoned again. I assuming this means without a long rest or similar significant factor, rather than only ever being able to summon the companion once. Beyond that, this is a well balanced mount! Further tweaks may be needed depending on how you clarify a Dullahan handles pain/injury in the racial features, but we'll handle that if we come to it. Looking forward to round 2!

As a quick aside - while I'm okay with people adding in extra categories to the bios template as needed to enable me to best understand your character, I do prefer if you give me the requested items in the order listed. It makes it a little easier for me to organize my thoughts during the balancing process, especially since the template has shifted slightly over the years to reflect what's best needed to ensure a developed character!
AQ DF MQ AQW  Post #: 4
6/27/2022 13:31:24   
shuurp
Member

Name / Title : Nellone (like anemone)

Element : Wind

Age Range : 26 years equivalent (122 years chronologically)

Race : Harpy

Appearance : Being a harpy, Nellone is covered in feathers save her face and her talons; standing at around 5’2, her strong talons are one of the only things that has kept her safe thus far. Her feathers range in color from a grey to a dark blue, with occasional flecks of white and a set of tail feathers that reach from the back of her waist down to half the length of her legs. Her arms double as a set of wings, and a more dexterous set of claws lie in place of her hands. She has white chest fluff, a pale face, and the feathers on her head are longer and almost resemble some sort of chin length messy hair. Her eyes have black sclera and large white irises, and her teeth give away her omnivorous state.

Clothing wise, she wears loose, plain clothing commonly worn by harpies from her home that resembles something of a dress. Aside from her light yellow colored clothing, she has a small brown bag from her sister that holds all of her items. She weighs less than a 5’5 human woman should due to her hollow bones, but she can still throw that weight around when she needs to.

Equipment : She has no need for extra weapons as she has her wings, feathers, and talons, and due to her hollow bones armor is almost impossible to wear. Luckily, her wings and feathers can substitute for the lack of armor and weapons, so her bag holds a plethora of consumables such as food, drink, and some healing salve.

Skills, Spells, & Special Abilities : Nell has a variety of skills that make use of her wings, talons, and abilities without requiring her to get more than 5 feet off the ground:

Wings: Nell has a finite number of feathers that she is able to use for a few different uses. In terms of defense, her wings are quite apt at assisting her in both avoiding attacks and tanking them. However, as she loses feathers, both her agility and her defense falls. Using her wings for agility is her primary advantage, and using her wings for defense is a back-up and costly move.

In terms of offense, Nell can do a few things with her feathers. She can use her wing and tail feathers as longer swords, but is unable to make an aoe attack with them. Alternatively, her body feathers can be sprayed out in a spiky attack. All of her feathers, when imbued with the power of wind, are quite sharp, and it’s best to think of them equivalent to long swords and daggers respectively.

All of her feathers are stronger against wind and water, as she is well adapted to these elements, but she is quite weak against fire and earth.

Although she has wings, Nell is incredibly scared of heights, and if she gets more than 5 feet off the ground or if she stays in the air for more than a few seconds, she will feel incredibly sick. In other words, she is able to use her wings for increased agility and evasion, but she cannot do more than consistently hover just above the ground.

Over time, her feathers can regenerate; depending on how injured she is, the regeneration goes faster or slower. Time varies, but for estimation purposes, she can regenerate about 1/3 of her feathers in ~24 hours.

Talons: Nell’s talons are sharp and strong. She is able to grab people, tear into them, and even attempt to use her body weight and strength to throw them around or disarm them. These attacks, however, leave her mildly vulnerable as she is unable to dodge when using them.

Daughter of Wind: Nell can conjure long-range slices of wind using her talons and wings. By utilizing a slashing motion, an arc of bitter air travels through the air, pushing or cutting opponents. The arcs can knock up or pick up debris as well, and has a maximum range of about 30 feet and a minimum range of about 10 feet.

Special Move -
spoiler:

Windstorm: Nell can create a gust of wind by channeling the power of wind and whistling. This ability can create gusts of various devastations, usually depending on the amount of feathers Nell has to back up the gust. The more feathers she has, the worse of a whirlwind she is able to conjure. This wind storm, with it’s varying ferocities, can sometimes take light bodies off their feet and sometimes knock down entirely armored foes. At most, the windstorm has a radius of ~30 feet, and doesn’t have to be centered on Nell but has to share at least some space with Nell.



Personality / Backstory : The earliest thing Nellone remembers is watching her sister grow smaller and small as talons dug into her wings and dragged her up towards the sun. Amily grew to nothing but a speck, the river of their canyon whisker thin, and right when the sun began to warm up her cheeks and back, the enemy harpy released her grasp. The sight down was a blur, as was the landing, and although her wings have done what they can to heal, Nellone’s mind still races at the thought of two feet off the ground. The only reason she survived the fall was the wind, and now it’s still the only thing keeping her alive. Amily, also grown, continues to berate her for her dependency, and until now it’s all fallen on deaf ears. As Amily befell a sickness so great that only a fruit found at the very top of the clouds can cure it, Nellone is desperate for an opportunity to save her sister.
Post #: 5
6/27/2022 13:37:38   
Dragonknight315
Member

Round 2 of changes! As usual, any changes made according to suggestions are going to be in Bold. I removed the ambiguity about her body/mental age. Plus, I am going to restructure the bio a bit to be more in line with the guidelines. Thank you for the opportunity!

"Who are you?"

Name: Sonder
Element: Darkness
Age Range: Late twenties.
Race: Dullahan

Physiology: In another life, Sonder was human, but magic has scarred her body, transforming her unto a Dullahan. Her new nature provides special powers, but often at a cost. Her base speed and strength is similar to an athletic human. She is incredibly resilient, able to survive without food, water, or air. Her body does not grow tired, but she can choose to sleep in order to regenerate her body.

Notably, Sonder is able to detach her head from her body. As a result, she cannot be killed due to decapitation. Furthermore, she is able to sustain a major injury without dying. (For example, if her arm was cut off, she would still be able to persist long enough to seek treatment). Even with this enhanced durability, she has limits. Sonder is still able to feel pain. While her body is capable of handling injuries, her mind would still have to bear the full weight of the pain.

Sonder can still bleed out if she suffers too many injuries. If either her head or her body would suffer a lethal blow, both would die as her soul is severed. Similarly, she is also weak to any ability that would target spirits (for example, exorcisms).

Appearance:---

Sonder is a grim figure, a walking terror clad in humanoid form. She appears as a young adult, 5 feet and 7 inches in height. Her skin is unnatural; pale white and smooth. Hints of red and blue run along her thin skin, showing some vestige of humanity. Little of it is exposed, however; most of her lean form is covered in black cloths and leathers. Plates of blackened steel are fixed to her chest and shoulders, each bearing numerous etches in the form of tally marks. Around Sonder’s neck is a tightly wrapped red scarf. Hints of blue flicker from beneath it.

Sonder’s hair is brown and messy, tied behind her in a short ponytail. A macabre mask obscures her face, gray like her skin and made of steel.

Equipment:---

Armor - Sonder wears a mix of ordinary cloth, leathers and steel plate, allowing for strong protection in vital areas without compromising too much on flexibility.

Threshold - An enchanted mask fashioned from steel. While the enchantment does improve its durability, providing some protection for Sonder’s face, its true purpose is more subtle. While wearing the Threshold, any magical effect that relies on eye contact/sight is drastically reduced or potentially nullified. This goes both ways. On one hand, this would allow for Sonder to suppress her Scarred Courage ability, preventing it from harming her foes and her allies. At the same time, if she wants to use Scarred Courage, she must take off her mask, exposing her to similar magical abilities.

Scarred Grace - For combat, Sonder can manifest weapons made from bones. This ability can take one of two forms:

•A large 10ft whip. Fashioned from a spinal column, each vertebrae is adorned with thin jagged spikes. When manifested, the whip is attached to her arm as if it were another limb. She can mentally command the whip, allowing it to move and thrash in ways an ordinary whip could not.
•A pair of two-edged swords. Each sword is fashioned from a massive, singular bone, shaped into a two foot long blade with a small, unworked grip. When manifested, these simply appear in her hands.

While manifesting these weapons does not take any sort of energy from Sonder, the process takes around 5 seconds of intense focus to complete. If a set of weapons is already manifested, she can spend the same amount of time to reshape the weapons, either repairing the bone weapons or transforming them into the other set (Doing both would require a combined 10 seconds to do.) Interrupting her will force her to start over.

Sonder can only have one set of bone weapons active at a time. If at any moment these weapons are more than 30ft away from sonder, they immediately disappear into smoke.

Special Abilities:--- String of Curses

Scarred Flesh - As a Dullahan, Sonder is able to detach her head from her body.

Sonder’s consciousness and soul is split across her head and body, allowing her to take in information through both at the same time no matter the distance between the two. Through her head, she can perceive the world like an ordinary human would, as long as it comes in contact with her head. (Sight, sound, taste, touch, hearing, sense of direction, etc). Similarly, her body is able to perceive its general location in relation to her head, plus anything it touches. Furthermore, her body is able to passively detect the life essence of anyone in a 20ft radius around it (even with her head attached). This would tell Sonder a creature’s rough location and how close to death (or undeath) they are. Beyond that, her body is unable to perceive any other senses.

While attached, Sonder’s head is magically fused to the wound, requiring a strong blow to forcibly remove it. If she choses to detach it willingly, it takes little effort to do so. To reattach her head, Sonder must firmly place it against the stump for a few seconds before it is magically fused again.

While her head is detached, a wave of blue mist obscures the wounded areas of her neck and body.

Scarred Courage - When Sonder has her mask off, the very sight of her face can cause pain. If someone is actively aware of Sonder’s presence and can make out her face, that person will begin to feel a sensation of sharp pain unless they have some form of mental protection. While the effects are unique to the individual, this effect creates some kind of mental strain, potentially breaking their concentration or leaving them crippled.

At its base level, the pain is acute, painful but potentially bearable. However, several factors can increase or decrease the severity. As long as the person maintains focus on Sonder's face, the pain will increase. If a person is close (For the average human using their eyes, approximately within 20ft) and can make out her features, then the effect will be stronger at the start and progress at a faster rate. Individuals with enhanced vision may be suffer the same effects at a larger range (dependent on the individual).

However, if a person is far away or cannot focus on Sonder, then the pain will be weaker at the start and will progress more slowly. If her face is completely blurred or if the individual looks away, then the pain will linger for a moment before fading entirely.

Scarred Companion - As a Dullahan, Sonder is accompanied by her magical shadow. Sonder can cause her shadow to take the form of a spectral warhorse.

In order to make her shadow tangible, Sonder first cannot be in direct sunlight or a bright light source, though it can persist in these areas after being created. Second, Sonder must be in possession of her head. After a moment of intense focus, the shadow will rise from beneath Sonder, becoming tangible and lifting her into the air. As this is happening, ribbons of black shadow wrap around her form, preventing her from stepping off or being knocked off her horse.

Once created, the shadow horse is under the direct control of Sonder, unable to act without Sonder’s will. She must actively focus to maintain and control her shadow, requiring drastically more effort to do so if she is in direct sunlight or bright light. If her focus is broken or she loses contact with her head, the warhorse will rapidly shrink, returning to an inert shadow. Sonder can choose to dismiss the shadow at any time, forcing it to fuse back into her form. In either case, Sonder cannot create her shadow horse again for the remainder of the round.

Any damage sustained by her shadow while transformed is immediately transferred to Sonder. For example, a slash on the shadow’s legs would appear on Sonder's legs and be felt by her.
AQ DF AQW  Post #: 6
6/27/2022 14:28:12   
  Chewy905

Chromatic ArchKnight of RP


 Round 2! Changelog:
-Slightly increased the length and diameter of Home to just under 5 feet.

-Added a delay between switching forms of closed Home. This delay is longer and requires -specific motions when Ulum is not fully lucid.

-Added more in-character mechanics for the memory copying, including the ability for a character to resist it, resulting in fabricated memories instead of copied ones.

-Added details to both Never Forget and Muscle Memory, making it more clear that Ulum remembers recent things in more detail and only has true talent over weapons that they can remember properly.


“Who… who am I…? I am…”

Name: Ulum
Gender: Varies, identifies as they/them when lucid
Age: Mentally mid-twenties
Race: Elemental
Element: Water

“Drifting… drifting… ever drifting. Seeking the island of lucidity within the sea of my mind.”

Appearance: Ulum’s general appearance, both in flesh and clothing, is inconstant. Upon entering the arena, they will appear as a young woman with long, dark red hair, wearing a black military-style uniform. When not fully lucid, they carry a nervous energy to them, slouching over to appear shorter than their actual height and keeping their limbs pulled in to create a generally smaller frame. While lucid, they stand up straight and remain more vigilant.

There are some constants to them, regardless of their current base appearance. Light filters over Ulum oddly, flickering and making patterns as if passing through clear water before reaching them. Their shadow likewise shimmers and moves as if underwater. When they move, parts of their image will falter, clearing away and appearing as the true moving water that constitutes their form, and small images of ripples will spread a few inches from their steps, like ripples on water. Additionally, regardless of the outward appearance they take, Ulum’s full height is always a slightly lower than average 5’ 8”. There is a faint glow from Ulum’s chest, where a regular human heart would be, visible through their illusory appearances. When clear and unshrouded, one can see a fist-sized pearl at this location. Finally, Ulum always has two objects on their person; a completely featureless white mask, dulled such that its surface reflects nothing, and a simple, bright blue umbrella. The mask is almost always worn to cover their face, while the umbrella will always be carried, as they lack any way to stow it.

Physiology: Ulum is a water elemental, and is thus made of water. Their physical capabilities (strength, speed, and senses) are the same as an average human’s. They are unable to change the shape or size of their body, and retain enough physicality to interact with objects and people as if they were mostly solid. Though physical attacks can pass through Ulum, Ulum still feels about half the pain from those attacks as if they were striking an unarmored human. This pain also lingers for a far longer amount of time than usual, and too many injuries can cause Ulum to succumb and become unable to continue fighting. Ulum is severely weak to electricity, which surges through their body and leaves them stunned. They can also be frozen with sufficient effort, which will immobilize them until they are able to shatter the frozen section. This will remove a chunk of themselves, causing continuous pain and leaving them unable to replace that lost water. Fire, meanwhile, is generally ineffective, though it can turn small amounts of Ulum’s body to steam before it is negated. Other magical effects can damage Ulum as normal. If the pearl in Ulum’s chest is damaged, Ulum will feel extreme surges of pain. If it is destroyed, Ulum will die, and their watery form will splash to the ground.

“This is my home. I open it, and it shades me. I close it, and it protects me.”

Equipment:

Clouded Surface: Ulum’s simple mask, a featureless, dulled white oval that bears no reflection. The mask is enchanted, and cannot be visibly marred or diritied in any way unless it is cracked through. Additionally, it shifts with its owner, allowing it to always fit regardless of the appearance that Ulum takes. The mask is fairly durable, akin to reinforced wood, but can be broken. It lacks any other special properties.

Home: Ulum’s umbrella is just under 5 feet in length when closed, with an only slightly larger diameter when opened, and bears a silver J-shaped handle and a blue exterior. When opened, the underside of the shade is a reflection of a quiet, sunlit pond. The umbrella’s use changes based on whether it is open or closed.

While open, Home acts as a defensive measure. The top of the umbrella becomes as strong as steel, and, when held upright, the opening projects a dome-shaped field around the holder and beneath the umbrella, visible as a faint blue glow that smells of a rainy day. Anything that enters this field (save for Ulum) feels as if it is submerged in water. This can slow projectiles, disperse fire, but will conduct electricity throughout it, heavily impacting Ulum. This also inhibits breathing, causing water to fill the lungs of those that attempt to breathe beneath it. Leaving the field immediately makes all of this water disappear. Tilting the umbrella more than 45 degrees or so will cancel this entire effect until it is raised overhead again.

While closed, Home can act as a weapon, with the exact nature depending on what Ulum believes it to be. Regardless of state, the size of the umbrella never changes, even if Ulum acts as if it does.

If Ulum believes Home to be a bladed weapon, such as a sword, knife, or spear, the surface will shimmer slightly. When in this state, the edges and tip of the umbrella act as if sharpened steel, and the umbrella itself becomes as durable as steel.

If Ulum believes Home to be a blunt weapon, such as a mace or hammer, the surface will become coated in a thin veil of water. While in this state, the umbrella acts as if it is made out of stone, becoming significantly heavier and sturdier (though Ulum does not feel this weight).

If Ulum believes Home to be a ranged weapon, such as a bow or crossbow, the umbrella’s surface becomes covered in small droplets of water, which shed and reform as the umbrella moves. While in this state, Ulum is able to fire long streams of water akin to arrows from the tip of the umbrella. These have the same speed, travel distance and impact/piercing capability as a regular bow and arrow. Ulum must delay between firing as if they were loading a crossbow.

While lucid, Ulum requires just a few seconds of concentration to switch the weapon between forms. Otherwise, it will take a longer amount of time as Ulum takes actions as if sheathing and unsheathing different weapons. There is an additional neutral state that Ulum can have it take on at any time while it is closed. During this state the umbrella bears no special properties or durabilities.

“Don’t touch me! I don’t want to-

...Drown.”


Abilities:

Reflection: Reflection activates whenever a sentient humanoid, or anything worn or carried by them, comes in contact with Ulum. This is an involuntary process. Ulum’s body will shift, their outward appearance changing to become a perfect reflection of the triggering creature at the time of contact, though as noted above Ulum’s height and other features always remains the same. This copies their physical appearance, their voice, and any worn clothing/armor. This change is in appearance only; Ulum’s physical capabilities remain unchanged. There are some limitations to this; if the triggering creature is missing a limb, Ulum will change to also lack that limb. If they happen to have more limbs than a regular human, Ulum will gain those limbs, but be unable to make use of them properly. Ulum is not able to copy anything non-humanoid, including any creatures with more than two legs, even if they are otherwise humanoid such as a centaur.

Additionally, the contacting creature will feel a slight, benign mental tug, like water slipping through fingers. If they allow this mental water to slip away, Ulum will copy a portion of that creature’s memories. These memories tend to be small facts, histories, or emotions from the person, rather than full details. Ulum keeps these memories as if they are their own, and they experienced them themselves. While Ulum is aware these are not their own memories, they are not always able to keep that fact straight. If the tug is resisted, Ulum’s mind will fabricate new memories as their own instead. This entire process is mentally taxing and more often than not leaves Ulum extremely disoriented.

Ripple on the Surface: Every 30 seconds or so, Ulum can cause a single step to propagate its ripple much further and with much more force. This sends a visual ripple, like a rock dropping into a lake, spreading out from Ulum’s footstep and traveling at a moderate speed up to 20-feet from them in every direction. If someone physically overlaps with the edge of the ripple, either through it reaching them or them explicitly stepping/landing on it, Ulum can cause a mirror image of Ulum to appear within 5-feet of them and make a single attack. If the image makes physical contact with someone, even if the attack is blocked, Ulum can swap places with the image, causing it to vanish as Ulum takes its place. If the image misses, is struck, or if Ulum chooses not to swap places with it, it detonates, exploding in a shockwave of water that expands out 5 feet in each direction and can knock the unprepared off their feet. Ulum can only create one image per use of this ability, even if more than one person makes contact with the ripple.

Traits:

Never Forget: Even as Ulum collects more and more memories, they are always capable of recalling any of them, though this can create as much confusion as it can be helpful. More recent memories are easier to access, while older ones take more effort and may not be recalled in perfect clarity.

Muscle Memory: Ulum is able to capably wield any weapon with as much talent as they remember having with that weapon. This means, in line with Never Forget, that more recent memories will result in clearer talent over an associated weapon than older ones.

Clarity: Ulum is heavily susceptible to magic that can influence their mind, but once that magic has worn off they enter a state of intense clarity and lucidity, clearing away any doubts and confusion and allowing them to refocus themselves for a few seconds. During this moment, their body will become clear, taking on their regular form as a humanoid body of water. After the moment passes they may take on the form of any being they see as if it had triggered Reflection, though they do not gain memories from this transformation.

“Ah. Right. I am Ulum.

And on that name, I will make it mean something. No matter who I must be to accomplish that. So let’s begin, from the top. Share with me who you are, and I will remember it as I pass you by.”
Post #: 7
6/27/2022 15:30:08   
Apocalypse
Member

Name: Snottrap, Slayer of DragonSlayer
Element: Earth
Age: 17 (equivalent to mid-30s in human years)

Race: Kobold

Overall, a kobold look like if one took a child, stuffed them in a crocodile suit, and then pushed them down a large hill for appropriate wear and tear.

In terms of physical attributes, kobolds on average are equivalent to humans of similar builds. There are several racial differences though, the most immediate being the tail which, while not prehensile, helps with balance and can provide a good walloping in a pinch. The next is the snout and jaw filled with several rows of chipped and jagged teeth. The average bite strength of a kobold is sufficient to break a human arm, and the teeth sharp enough to puncture low quality steel. A third visible physical difference is the nictitating membrane or third eyelid of the kobold - beneficial for cleaning the eyes or keeping it free from stray debris.

One quality that is easy to overlook is the kobold’s speed. While bipedal, kobolds are a step slower than the equivalent human of their size and have a harder time accelerating. However, while on all fours they are significantly faster as well as more agile. In a short sprint, kobolds can outpace seasoned human runners, though the former lacks the latter’s stamina and endurance.

Kobolds also carry a venom in their bite which causes the area surrounding the point of injection to swell and itch. The itching begins as a slight sensation but over the course of a minute aggravates to an almost compulsory need to scratch. In and of itself, the venom is not deadly and can be treated by moderate medicinal practices or healing magic despite what the kobolds themselves claim.

Appearance

Standing at a mighty three-and-a-half feet tall, Snottrap stands heads and shoulders above the rest of his clan. His scales are a luscious green across his back, tail, head, and limbs with wavering vertical strips of black. A softer brown colors his scales from his lower jaw to his inner thighs. His eyes are wide and yellow with slits for pupils, and they sit over a mouth lined with a series of mismatched scars.

Equipment

Armor

Snottrap dons a matching leather vest and kilt (both with plenty of pockets) of garish merigold with thick gloves that are one size too big for him. A chainmail shirt of mangled links is worn in the manner of a cape and reaches to his knees. On his head he wears a knight’s helm with blue plumage that has been chewed on. The visor and much of the face of the helm have had bites taken out of them to accommodate Snottrap’s snout.

Shield

An arming sword that was broken near the guard some time ago. The emerald hilt is now attached to the blade via a three foot long chain through a small hole in the steel. Snottrap flourishes this weapon as the most unwieldy flail known to man and at least top ten most unwieldy flails known to kobolds. Upon the mastercrafted steel of the blade is scratched the barely legible word “shield”.

When Snottrap is holding the hilt of Shield, the blade part of the sword can absorb the kinetic energy of an outside force. For example, Shield can absorb the kinetic energy from an arrow or sword strike. Once this energy is stored, it needs to be released before Shield can be used in this manner again. Which brings us to…

Sword

A buckler shield of shimmering gold with the hastily carved word “sword” along the bottom rim. The paired item to Shield. When kinetic energy has been stored by Shield, Snottrap may release that contained energy via Sword so long as as Sword is within thirty feet of Snottrap and Snottrap is holding the hilt of Shield. The kinetic energy is dispersed via the entirety of the face of Sword and has negligible range - it is only useful if used with physical contact. If someone or something is only in contact with part of the face of {i]Sword, then they only are hit by part of the kinetic force equivalent to the percentage of the face of the shield they are touching.

Odds and Ends

On his person, Snottrap carries three strips of jerky, one flask of honey, a few dozen gems worth a small fortune, a bone flute, a pocketful of sand, a necklace with a dozen of his own teeth, and sixteen sets of keys belonging to various citizens and visitors of Bren.

Abilities

Tarshaper

Snottrap is a self-proclaimed tarshaper, capable of secreting tar from between his scales all over his body or spit some out from his mouth and nostrils. Snottrap has enough in his body to begin with to coat his entire body with a thin layer or area equivalent to his torso in a thick layer.. He can also suck back in any tar secreted in this manner so long as it was not detached from his body, otherwise he must eat the loose tar for it to rejoin his stores. Tar that has hardened into stone will take fifteen seconds after being consumed to become fluid enough to be usable again.

The tar itself is sticky and will cling to whatever it touches. Over the course of a minute, it will cool until it becomes a brittle stonelike substance. The stone can be chipped off and broken with relative ease, and no longer possesses any sticky property. In terms of heat, the tar will burn the average human akin to a minor first degree at a touch and intensify to a second-degree burn if the individual is exposed to it for the duration of the minute cooling cycle. While most of the tar can be scraped off with solid effort, it is difficult to get it all off without the use of water and soap or similar emulsifiers.

When Snottrap secretes it from his scales, he has control over whether or not it sticks to another surface and can switch as needed. In this way, he may stick himself to a position on the floor but then reposition himself as needed. If a thin layer of tar is used, then Snottrap has greater precision when moving but is more easily pried off of the thing to which he is sticking. A strong human can pull him off at this point with some effort. If a thick layer is used, Snottrap is twice as hard to remove but jostles around in his fixed position. As the tar cools over the course of a minute into stone, it loses its stickiness property. Furthermore, Snottrap loses any control over it once it's stone, including the ability to suck back into this scales. That ability still eludes him.

From his mouth or nose, Snottrap can launch globs of tar. From his mouth, he can launch almost a quart of the stuff up to a distance of fifteen feet in an arc. From his nose, it is barely a couple of tablespoons but can reach thirty feet.

The tar is also flammable, and while it burns slowly it is still highly inconvenient for the kobold.

Tarshaped

Snottrap has developed some special properties due to his foray into tarshaping. First is his high heat resistance, which makes him immune to the dangers of the tar he secretes. The second is that he is able to consume and digest metals and rocks without issue. This is to replenish his stores of tar, though the process takes days to do so.

The Brave and the Kobold

In terms of martial prowess, Snottrap has training equivalent to an exceptional soldier albeit with a severe lack of personal preservation. He prefers a wild and confusing fighting style to take his opponents by surprise.

AQ DF MQ  Post #: 8
6/27/2022 19:21:21   
  Starflame13
Moderator


 A good start to week one! More bios and our first approvals, whooo! Keep them coming!

@shuurp - Good to see you giving the ECs a try once more! Nellone as a concept is overall balanced, but she needs some clarification and further details before approval.

First, the racial features. Many of these can be pieced together from your strong "Appearance" section, but I still request that you provide near-human comparisons for a harpy's physical attributes (strength, speed, endurance, etc.). Anything not specified will be assumed to match that of an average human. If there are any other major significances of the avian heritage (improved hearing, or a "hopping" rather than a "walking" gait), please specify them here as well.

Now, let's look at the wings. Flight in itself is a tricky ability to balance, and the limitations you have implemented upon Nellone are well done. I will note that while I generally encourage character development and facing fears in the Championships, this is one trait that must remained unchanged in order to avoid going into unrestricted flight. If you wish to leave that avenue option for exploration, we can implement a more physical factor (weakened wings or too-thin feathers, for example) to accomplish the same end effect.

Speaking of the feathers: since nearly the entirety of the kit requires the use of the feathers, I will not limit you by asking for a rough estimate of their total. That said, I need a bit more detail as to how they are actually used, and in particular how they interact with Nellone's wind. A few of my questions are based on assumptions of that interaction, but you are free to go down a different path in describing the interaction if you choose! Now let's get started: in the event of a "tanked" attack on defense, are the feathers enhanced with wind to give them the strength they need to block, or is this accomplished in some other method? Additionally, roughly how many times can she block an average hit directly before she does not have enough feathers left to fly? (This can be a rough estimate, we're not going to make you keep a tally during battle!) On the offensive end, does imbuing them with wind to use as blades result in lost feathers as well? I.e., does she wield the wings as swords themselves, or does she pluck feathers to use them as blades? Either option (or even both!) is acceptable, but knowing which is important in the context of the rest of her abilities. Lastly, how far a range does her spiky attack have? If it's a close-range attack, this can get away with being an oft-repeated ability of few feathers, but if you intend it to be a mid- or long-range attack, then it needs a more exact limitation on how many times it can be used given the lethality.

I will reach out to you directly to discuss the spoiler-tagged ability. On the whole, this is a strong character and a strong contender! Having the more exact details hammered out in advance will just make things much more workable later on.


@Dragonknight315 - Revisions and re-formatting are both appreciated! I will note I'm mildly amused at the slip into D&D terminology by stating Sonder cannot re-summon her companion for the remainder of the round. While I understand this is phrased as such to meet an OOC rule, be sure to find an actual way to address it in-character if it comes up in your posts (shadows need time to mend too!). Approved!


@Chewy905 - Thank you for the additional details for the Reflection and memory-related abilities! A slightly different solution than proposed, but a well thought out one nonetheless. Approved!


@Apocalypse - Well, that bio made me about fall out of my chair snorting. We clarified via PM that the entirety of Snottrap's tar-related abilities come from the same store. I also request that you ask me before attempting to eat any of the arenas, they might give him indigestion. Approved!
AQ DF MQ AQW  Post #: 9
6/29/2022 16:41:20   
  San Robin
Modzerella


 Name / Title: Vu’ur
Element: fire
Age Range: 290
Race: Vampyre. Human-like
Appearance: Yellow/orange skin, fiery hair, female, eyes black as coals.
Equipment: 2 magically reinforced daggers, 1 made of steel the other of flint. Can be used to stab enemies but also to start fires. Lightweight fireproof cloth and gauntlets made of a light but sturdy metal. (magical)

Skills, Spells, & Special Abilities:
Armor: Vu’urs cloth is designed to be able to move quickly in, it is fireproof to withstand her own spells and sturdy enough to not tear at as easily as regular cloth. Her gauntlets can be used to block strong blows and slashes, these gauntlets can be destroyed but only by a large enough magical force.

Heat: Vu’ur being part of the proud vampyre species can absorb and expend heat to fuel her skills. Too much heat hurts her while too little makes her weak. Using spells costs her an amount of heat that differs per spell while syphoning heat from prey makes her stronger. Vu’ur thrives in hot environments and daytime whereas cold environments and night time weakens her.

Heat syphon: By touching her prey she can syphon heat/life force off of them, warmer the pretty naturally is the more she can syphon without it being lethal to the prey. However because of her weakened state she can’t take too much without damaging herself. Vu’ur’s preferred way of heat syphoning is by using a barrage of fast punches and stabs. Note: Other sources of heat such as campfires can be syphoned but do not sustain her as much as lifeforce heat does. Magical heat from enemies is not something she can eat.

Super Natural agility and stamina: Vu’ur can move at speeds that are far above the human capabilities and can stab or punch an unaware prey multiple times before they have time to react.

Above human strength: Her strength level is about that of a human athlete, no crushing skulls with her bare hands.

Recovery: Quite like their counterparts on Lore, Vampyres have a stunning regeneration ability. This can heal minor wounds and scrapes in the blink of an eye but larger wounds will take up a LOT of heat. And generally isn’t very sustainable in battle.

Fireball: The Vampyre species loves to cook their food for extra heat energy. Fireball sometimes overdoes this by burning their prey to a crisp. This spell comes in Rare, Medium and well-done. (Small fire ball, small amount of heat cost, Medium fire ball, medium amount of heat cost, large fireball, large amount of heat cost)
Firefist: Engulfing her fists in a blazing fire for that extra oomph, depending on how often she hits the enemy an amount of heat spend will be returned.

Heat vision: Vu’ur can activate an infrared-like vision to see which prey has the most available heat in the area, this can also be used to spot prey through (thin enough) walls if they are hiding.

Elbow jet: By shooting a stream of fire from her elbow she can add extra strength to a punch, this generally expands more heat than she gets in return but it is possible for her to smash through walls with this.

Wildfire: As a last resort Vu’ur can turn into a being of pure fire, the amount of time depends on how much heat she has left to use. nothing physical will be able to touch her during this time, during this time she won’t be able to syphon other’s heat. When her heat runs out she will be small and powerless until she manages to collect enough heat from other sources.

Personality / Backstory:
Vu’ur is originally from the Fireplane. Over there the mighty Vampyre race were viewed as nobles. The power of the plane was enough to fuel their hunger, making them near immortal. They were in their wildfire shapes most of the time as they ruled. Hunting prey at their homeplane was more of a sport than it was for survival.

And it all changed when the fire nation attacked

It all changed when Wargoth led his armies to attack other planes, the vampyres, while against such foolish endeavours were forcibly taken out of their comfortable plane into the cold chaotic world of Lore. But what did it matter? Soon enough Wargoth would take over that silly plane as he did to others and the vampyres could return to their cozy home plane.
Or so they thought… Lore showed more resistance than they had ever expected and eventually Wargoth fell to a small band of heroes. Sealing their way home, leaving them stranded ever since.

For years now, Vu’ur has been wandering the lands, hunting prey and longing for her home plane while avoiding any of the so-called “heroes”. After years she hear of a peculiar tournament, one that grants boons to those who had the strength to win. Perhaps it was a way to go home?
AQ DF MQ AQW  Post #: 10
6/30/2022 10:02:02   
shuurp
Member

Changes have been bolded.
--------------------------------

Name / Title : Nellone (like anemone)

Element : Wind

Age Range : 26 years equivalent (122 years chronologically)

Race : Harpy

Appearance : Being a harpy, Nellone is covered in feathers save her face and her talons; standing at around 5’2, her strong talons are one of the only things that has kept her safe thus far. Her feathers range in color from a grey to a dark blue, with occasional flecks of white and a set of tail feathers that reach from the back of her waist down to half the length of her legs. Her arms double as a set of wings, and a more dexterous set of claws lie in place of her hands. She has white chest fluff, a pale face, and the feathers on her head are longer and almost resemble some sort of chin length messy hair. Her eyes have black sclera and large white irises, and her teeth give away her omnivorous state.

Clothing wise, she wears loose, plain clothing commonly worn by harpies from her home that resembles something of a dress. Aside from her light yellow colored clothing, she has a small brown bag from her sister that holds all of her items. She weighs less than a 5’5 human woman should due to her hollow bones, but she can still throw that weight around when she needs to.

Compared to a human, Nellone has similar stats to strength, health, and perception, but due to her wings and wind she has elevated speed and evasion. She can either walk or hop, both of which are slightly faster walking than a typical person, but her bones are slightly more fragile than a person’s.

Equipment : She has no need for extra weapons as she has her wings, feathers, and talons, and due to her hollow bones armor is almost impossible to wear. Luckily, her wings and feathers can substitute for the lack of armor and weapons, so her bag holds a plethora of consumables such as food, drink, and some healing salve.

Skills, Spells, & Special Abilities : Nell has a variety of skills that make use of her wings, talons, and abilities without requiring her to get more than 5 feet off the ground:

Wings: Nell has a finite number of feathers that she is able to use for a few different uses. In terms of defense, her wings are quite apt at assisting her in both avoiding attacks and tanking them. However, as she loses feathers, both her agility and her defense falls. Using her wings for agility is her primary advantage, and using her wings for defense is a back-up and costly move. With the wind strengthening her makeshift armor/shield, she can tank 10 average hits before all of her feathers have been lost or damaged.

In terms of offense, Nell can do a few things with her feathers. She can pluck and use her wing and tail feathers as longer swords, but is unable to make an aoe attack with them. Alternatively, her body feathers can be sprayed out in a spiky attack that can go up to 10 feet around her. Her spiky attack, however, can only be used about ~3 times before all of her semi-plume feathers are spent. If she plucks a semi-plume feather, she can also utilize this as a dagger to throw (~10 feet). All of her feathers, when imbued with the power of wind, are quite sharp, and it’s best to think of them equivalent to long swords and daggers respectively.

All of her feathers are stronger against wind and water, as she is well adapted to these elements, but she is quite weak against fire and earth.

Although she has wings, Nell is incredibly scared of heights, and if she gets more than 5 feet off the ground or if she stays in the air for more than a few seconds, she will feel incredibly sick. In other words, she is able to use her wings for increased agility and evasion, but she cannot do more than consistently hover just above the ground. Even if she were to conquer a bit of this fear, due to an injury in her childhood, her actual flight abilities are slim different to what she’s able to do now (not that she knows or has been able to test this).

Over time, her feathers can regenerate; depending on how injured she is, the regeneration goes faster or slower. Time varies, but for estimation purposes, she can regenerate about 1/3 of her feathers in ~24 hours.

Talons: Nell’s talons are sharp and strong. She is able to grab people, tear into them, and even attempt to use her body weight and strength to throw them around or disarm them. These attacks, however, leave her mildly vulnerable as she is unable to dodge when using them.

Daughter of Wind: Nell can conjure long-range slices of wind using her talons and wings. By utilizing a slashing motion, an arc of bitter air travels through the air, pushing or cutting opponents. The arcs can knock up or pick up debris as well, and has a maximum range of about 30 feet and a minimum range of about 10 feet.

Special Move -
spoiler:

Windstorm: Nell can create a gust of wind by channeling the power of wind and whistling. This ability can create gusts of various devastations, usually depending on the amount of feathers Nell has to back up the gust. The more feathers she has, the worse of a whirlwind she is able to conjure. This wind storm, with it’s varying ferocities, can sometimes take light bodies off their feet and sometimes knock down entirely armored foes. At most, the windstorm has a diameter of 15 feet and for a maximum of 15 seconds.


Personality / Backstory : The earliest thing Nellone remembers is watching her sister grow smaller and small as talons dug into her wings and dragged her up towards the sun. Amily grew to nothing but a speck, the river of their canyon whisker thin, and right when the sun began to warm up her cheeks and back, the enemy harpy released her grasp. The sight down was a blur, as was the landing, and although her wings have done what they can to heal, Nellone’s mind still races at the thought of two feet off the ground. The only reason she survived the fall was the wind, and now it’s still the only thing keeping her alive. Amily, also grown, continues to berate her for her dependency, and until now it’s all fallen on deaf ears. As Amily befell a sickness so great that only a fruit found at the very top of the clouds can cure it, Nellone is desperate for an opportunity to save her sister.
Post #: 11
6/30/2022 18:04:25   
  Starflame13
Moderator


 Thank you for everyone's patience as I work my way through bios! As a reminder, the poll to select your favorite Arena Theme is running for another few days (and is currently tied), so get over there and vote!


@San Robin - CHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEESE! Hey there! Very excited about seeing Vu'ur come to life, puns and all, but a few key details are missing in spots, so let's get those started.

First, the race. I'm assuming that by stating Vu'ur is "human-like", that all other characteristics not mentioned as abilities later in the bio match a humans. This includes their ability to feel pain and their ability to be injured and killed. If that is an incorrect assumption, please specify the differences. For the racial features you specify, Vu'ur has a lot in her favor with super-human agility, stamina, and strength. I would pick two of these to focus on. For example, if you want to maintain her speed and strength at her blows, make it something that can only happen in short bursts rather than something she can sustain.

Second, for the appearance, please include a height / build. You can use generics (taller than average, slim, etc.) rather than specific numbers if you prefer. Additionally, it looks like Vu'ur is immortal from the backstory - at what age does she appear physically / what age of a human are her physical traits being compared to?

Now, looking at the abilities! Starting with those that are heat-related, I love the concept of needing to put herself close to danger in order to gain enough heat to be dangerous. That said, what's the rate of her syphon ability? Or, to phrase it differently, how long can she remain in contact with an average human before either they become in serious danger from the cold, or until she becomes in serious danger from overheating?

For Fireball, this is missing a few extra details to differentiate the small, medium, and large fire balls. Please provide a rough size/splash zone, as well as a range of the attack in general. I assume she throws this similar to a person throwing a baseball, but if they travel significantly slower/faster, please let me know!

Lastly, Wildfire needs a maximum duration were Vu'ur to use this ability at full strength. Since it results in a significant disadvantage upon its completion, I'm ok with this being on the longer side (15-20 seconds), with the understanding that it'll scale down the less heat she has to use.


@shuurp - All the changes look good! I love how you've taken the different feathers in a bird's plumage and characterized them for the types of attacks they could use. Nellone is approved!

As a quick heads-up, I will be moving across the country starting this coming Saturday and going through likely close to a week. I will still be available for questions on Discord, and I will still be watching the thread for bios to balance, but I might be a bit slower to respond to both!

AQ DF MQ AQW  Post #: 12
7/1/2022 8:47:34   
  San Robin
Modzerella


 Name / Title: Vu’ur
Element: Fire
Age Range: 290
Race: Vampyre. Human-like
Appearance: She could be mistaken for a human if it weren’t for her yellow/orange skin, fiery hair and eyes as black as coals. She’s about 5’10” and has an athletic build. Despite her (to humans) old age she looks to be in her late 20s to human standards.
Equipment: 2 magically reinforced daggers, 1 made of steel the other of flint. Can be used to stab enemies but also to start fires. Lightweight fireproof cloth and gauntlets made of a light but sturdy metal. (magical)

Skills, Spells, & Special Abilities:
Armor: Vu’urs cloth is designed to be able to move quickly in, it is fireproof to withstand her own spells and sturdy enough to not tear at as easily as regular cloth. Her gauntlets can be used to block strong blows and slashes, these gauntlets can be destroyed but only by a large enough magical force.

Heat: Vu’ur being part of the proud vampyre species can absorb and expend heat to fuel her skills. Too much heat hurts her while too little makes her weak. Using spells costs her an amount of heat that differs per spell while syphoning heat from prey makes her stronger. Vu’ur thrives in hot environments and daytime whereas cold environments and night time weakens her.

Heat syphon: By touching her prey she can syphon heat/life force off of them, warmer the pretty naturally is the more she can syphon without it being lethal to the prey. However because of her weakened state she can’t take too much without damaging herself. Vu’ur’s preferred way of heat syphoning is by using a barrage of fast punches and stabs. Note: Other sources of heat such as campfires can be syphoned but do not sustain her as much as lifeforce heat does. Magical heat from enemies is not something she can eat.

Supernatural agility: Vu’ur can move at speeds that are far above the human capabilities and can stab or punch an unaware prey multiple times before they have time to react. she can unleash a barage of fast punches for a small amount of time

Above human strength: Her strength level is about that of a human athlete, no crushing skulls with her bare hands.

Recovery: Quite like their counterparts on Lore, Vampyres have a stunning regeneration ability. This can heal minor wounds and scrapes in the blink of an eye but larger wounds will take up a LOT of heat. And generally isn’t very sustainable in battle.

Fireball: The Vampyre species loves to cook their food for extra heat energy. Fireball sometimes over-does this by burning their prey to a crisp. This spell comes in Rare, Medium and well-done. (Small fireball, small amount of heat cost, Medium fireball, medium amount of heat cost, large fireball, large amount of heat cost) and is launched at the same speed as a human would throw a baseball.
A small fireball can hit 1 target without splash damage, packing quite a punch and setting fire to flammable objects, a medium fireball can hit multiple targets in a circle of 3 feet. A large fireball hits targets in a range of 6 feet and can deal a lot of damage when it’s a direct hit.


Firefist: Engulfing her fists in a blazing fire for that extra oomph, depending on how often she hits the enemy an amount of heat spent will be returned.

Heat vision: Vu’ur can activate an infrared-like vision to see which prey has the most available heat in the area, this can also be used to spot prey through (thin enough) walls if they are hiding.

Elbow jet: By shooting a stream of fire from her elbow she can add extra speed and strength to a punch, this generally expands more heat than she gets in return but it is possible for her to smash through walls with this.

Wildfire: As a last resort Vu’ur can turn into a being of pure fire, the amount of time depends on how much heat she has left to use. At full heat this skill lasts 18 seconds and weakens the longer she uses it. Nothing physical will be able to touch her during this time, during this time she won’t be able to siphon other’s heat. When her heat runs out she will be small and powerless until she manages to collect enough heat from other sources.

Heat costs and siphoning: 2 punches are usually enough to siphon heat for 1 small fireball. 4 punches for a medium fireball and 8 for a large one. Vu’ur can punch about 4 times in a second but should not punch for more than 5 seconds because she risks overheating at that point.
The firefist punches cost the same as the fireballs so while a small firefist takes 1 heat away, it’ll cost 2 to use.

Personality / Backstory:
Vu’ur is originally from the Fireplane. Over there the mighty Vampyre race were viewed as nobles. The power of the plane was enough to fuel their hunger, making them near immortal. They were in their wildfire shapes most of the time as they ruled. Hunting prey at their homeplane was more of a sport than it was for survival.

And it all changed when the fire nation attacked

It all changed when Wargoth led his armies to attack other planes, the vampyres, while against such foolish endeavors were forcibly taken out of their comfortable plane into the cold chaotic world of Lore. But what did it matter? Soon enough Wargoth would take over that silly plane as he did to others and the vampyres could return to their cozy home plane.
Or so they thought… Lore showed more resistance than they had ever expected and eventually Wargoth fell to a small band of heroes. Sealing their way home, leaving them stranded ever since.

For years now, Vu’ur has been wandering the lands, hunting prey and longing for her home plane while avoiding any of the so-called “heroes”. After years she hear of a peculiar tournament, one that grants boons to those who had the strength to win. Perhaps it was a way to go home?
AQ DF MQ AQW  Post #: 13
7/1/2022 8:52:52   
  San Robin
Modzerella


 *Forgot to add this part:

Heat syphon: By touching her prey she can syphon heat/life force off of them, warmer the pretty naturally is the more she can syphon without it being lethal to the prey. However because of her weakened state she can’t take too much without damaging herself. Vu’ur’s preferred way of heat syphoning is by using a barrage of fast punches and stabs. Note: Other sources of heat such as campfires can be syphoned but do not sustain her as much as lifeforce heat does. Magical heat from enemies is not something she can eat. The maximum amount of heat Vu'ur can take does not immediately endanger her prey when they're healthy
AQ DF MQ AQW  Post #: 14
7/1/2022 16:00:40   
Sylphe
Member



Name / Title: Ribali, the Maiden of Marbles
Element: Earth
Age Range: A few thousands
of years.
Race: Demon
Appearance: At two and a half meters tall stands… She. Her skin appears almost transparent, letting one see the pinkish muscle underneath. Her chest, stomach and hands are protected with skin hardened into igneous rock. She has the correct amount of legs, heads, and fingers. She walks and stands the way humans do. And she almost gets it right. But two pairs of arms are heavy. A tail with an obsidian spike helps her balance, but she is constantly dragged down by two obsidian blades jutting out of her back, their patterns featherlike, as if carved by an expert sculptor. And so she shuffles as she walks, bent and never quite to her full height.
The Maiden has no eyes on her one head. Horns pointing forward and carved of deep black obsidian line her handsome face better than any eyes could. A dainty pair of flaring nostrils rests on her maw, which is full of shiny, glass needlelike teeth. She breathes in heavy huffs, as if tasting the surrounding air, and vitreous, blue anemone-like tendrils taste the air with her.

Equipment:

beloved creations:
Five marbles hang around the Maiden's neck on a string made of cosmic energy, forcing the marbles together without having to weave through them. The Maiden is able to take a marble off the string and throw it, causing it to detonate and be completely obliterated in the process.

Each marble's effect has a range of three meters, and the Maiden is not immune to their effects herself. The one exception in range is the Desert marble, described below.

The Cliff marble: A marble with gray, silver and blue within the glass. Once detonated, sharp shards of rock erupt out of the ground or wall that was struck.

The Jungle marble: This marble shines with pinks and greens. It explodes in a flurry of tangling roots and bright petals, as well as releasing a heavy, floral aroma.

The Crystal marble: A marble that shines with a subtle, pastel rainbow. Once detonated, it explodes in colourful shards of crystal.

The Desert marble: Spotty browns and orange paint its inside. Once broken, this marble releases a sandstorm. This marble has a larger area of effect (roughly five meters) worsening visibility and buffeting the affected with sand. The sandstorm lasts for about twenty seconds.

The Flute: Ribali carries an ages old glass flute enchanted with cosmic energies. This flute is roughly half a polearm in length. The enchantment makes it durable enough for no normal means to shatter the flute - though it may still crack and become useless under significant pressure. Though it used to be used for creating, the end of the flute is shattered into a sharp point, allowing it to be used as a weapon.

Skills, Spells, & Special Abilities:
demon: In spite of her gaunt appearance, Ribali possesses superhuman strength and durability. The blackened, volcanic rock covering her chest, stomach, and hands is especially durable, doubling as plate armor.

molten core: Ribali once used her heated breath to transform sand into glass. This inner heat seems to be no longer active, though its remains show in her blood being far hotter than that of a human - not quite the heat of molten earth, but able to scald.

Should she reclaim this ability, the cracks in her igneous rock armor are littered with thin rivers of lava and hot to touch.

beast: While Ribali has difficulties walking on two legs and doesn't match a human's speed, she can instead drop on all sixes, giving her the ability to run and leap with the strength and distance a leopard would.

I…see: She is blind. To an extent, she remedies this with her refined sense of touch granted by years of precise work, using her whole hands, feet and tail to feel around for patterns and especially vibrations her enemies might make. Her tendrils allow for a more precise feeling of temperature. The range of her tremor sense is roughly fifteen meters, though messy fights might make it harder for her to follow a target. She can sense even slight changes in temperature up to five.

obs i dian: The maiden’s claws, horns and tail spikes are made of obsidian. This makes them intensely sharp, but also brittle. While they cut through leather and skin with ease, metal will put a stop to them, possibly even shattering them.

glass… maker…:
The Maiden is strongly resistant against fire on her palms, which are able to handle molten glass and fire with minimal damage.

If sand is in the area, Ribali is able to play a harrowing tune on her flute and call a portion towards her, allowing her to craft an item out of blown glass. This ability has lay unused for a very long time, and as such she would need at least seven seconds to perform it, as well as enough clarity to focus. Her objects can be of maximum size of a jug, and are and behave like plain glass.

artist's rage: Destruction and damage of any of Ribali's creations will send her into a rage, causing her to act more emotional and reckless.
DF  Post #: 15
7/2/2022 21:11:28   
  Starflame13
Moderator


 Happy weekend, all! Let's get those bios out! The Arena OST poll has been extended for a further week due to a 3-way tie, and can be found here: https://forums2.battleon.com/f/tm.asp?m=22403453

The Arena Trials have also been revealed as the following: Cursed, Hunted, Impulse, Ruin, Savage, Sunken, & Veil.


@San Robin - Thank you for the added details! One last snag to iron out. I've noticed that for limiting the amount of heat used, you've gone for a specific numbering system. I usually lean away from this because it can make keeping track of heat levels a chore. If you think this will help you better manage resources, it's fine to keep. That said, the scale is slightly too strong. 4 punches in one second results in 20 punches in the five-second maximum you've given Vu'ur, which means she can pull off 2 large fireballs every five seconds. She should maybe be getting one large fireball off every ten seconds, and that's with all of her heat going towards that. 2 punches a second (so 10 in 5 seconds), would be more reasonable, with the caveat that constantly gaining/expending heat non-stop would exhaust her.

One more round, please!


@Sylphe - Welcome back! Very excited to see the journey you are going to take us on this year with Ribali, but the bio is a bit jumbled and needs some further clarification. Let's get started!

First, the racial features. Many of these can be pieced together from your different abilities, but I still request that you provide near-human comparisons for a demon's physical attributes (strength, speed, endurance, etc.) here. Anything not specified will be assumed to match that of an average human. If there are any other major significances of the Ribali's heritage heritage (how they age compared to humans, or if it takes specific methods to injure/damage/kill them), please specify them here as well.

Second, appearance. Since the tail spike can be used as a weapon, please give a tail length. If the blades can be weaponized, please provide length / orientation for those as well (i.e., along her spine like a crest, straight out as spikes, etc.). Additionally, I'm assuming by the fact that you mention Ribali going to "all sixes" later in the bio that she has four arms - but only two are mentioned here! Please clarify the details of the remaining two.

Third, her creations. I'll start by saying that you mention Maiden has five marbles, but only list four. Is one missing, or does one have a duplicate? That said, I personally advise against the approach of having five single-time-use attacks. You need to be able to adapt to the flow of combat around you, not lock yourself into "on post 3 I must use the Crystal marble". My recommendation would be to pick two of the more diverse marbles (perhaps a lower-range Crystal and Jungle), and give her a handful of each while keeping a single Desert marble for your big-single-attack.

In the end, this is your decision - but feel free to discuss options with me! Should you keep the current set-up, a few comments: For Cliff, rock erupting out of the ground/wall only works when the ground/walls are rock themselves. Many of the walls in the arenas are not. You can either keep the current description with that understanding, or re-work it. For Jungle, are the vines entangling (i.e., seek to wrap around others), or merely present? In the former case, the range should be decreased. For Desert, the range is too large for the current duration. Either decrease the range to match the others, or drop to a 10 second duration.

Lastly, her abilities. A couple of these (Molten Core and Glass Maker) verge on if not cross the line of multi-elemental abilities. I would advise reflavoring these to focus on molten metal for the former, and heat generically rather than fire specifically in the latter.

Looking forward to round 2!
AQ DF MQ AQW  Post #: 16
7/4/2022 9:28:49   
  San Robin
Modzerella


 Name / Title: Vu’ur
Element: Fire
Age Range: 290
Race: Vampyre. Human-like
Appearance: She could be mistaken for a human if it weren’t for her yellow/orange skin, fiery hair and eyes as black as coals. She’s about 5’10” and has an athletic build. Despite her (to humans) old age she looks to be in her late 20s to human standards.
Equipment: 2 magically reinforced daggers, 1 made of steel the other of flint. Can be used to stab enemies but also to start fires. Lightweight fireproof cloth and gauntlets made of a light but sturdy metal. (magical)

Skills, Spells, & Special Abilities:
Armor: Vu’urs cloth is designed to be able to move quickly in, it is fireproof to withstand her own spells and sturdy enough to not tear at as easily as regular cloth. Her gauntlets can be used to block strong blows and slashes, these gauntlets can be destroyed but only by a large enough magical force.

Heat: Vu’ur being part of the proud vampyre species can absorb and expend heat to fuel her skills. Too much heat hurts her while too little makes her weak. Using spells costs her an amount of heat that differs per spell while syphoning heat from prey makes her stronger. Vu’ur thrives in hot environments and daytime whereas cold environments and night time weakens her.

Heat syphon: By touching her prey she can syphon heat/life force off of them, warmer the pretty naturally is the more she can syphon without it being lethal to the prey. However because of her weakened state she can’t take too much without damaging herself. Vu’ur’s preferred way of heat syphoning is by using a barrage of fast punches and stabs. Note: Other sources of heat such as campfires can be syphoned but do not sustain her as much as lifeforce heat does. Magical heat from enemies is not something she can eat. The maximum amount of heat Vu'ur can take does not immediately endanger her prey when they're healthy

Supernatural agility: Vu’ur can move at speeds that are far above the human capabilities and can stab or punch an unaware prey multiple times before they have time to react. she can unleash a barage of fast punches for a small amount of time

Above human strength: Her strength level is about that of a human athlete, no crushing skulls with her bare hands.

Recovery: Quite like their counterparts on Lore, Vampyres have a stunning regeneration ability. This can heal minor wounds and scrapes in the blink of an eye but larger wounds will take up a LOT of heat. And generally isn’t very sustainable in battle.

Fireball: The Vampyre species loves to cook their food for extra heat energy. Fireball sometimes over-does this by burning their prey to a crisp. This spell comes in Rare, Medium and well-done. (Small fireball, small amount of heat cost, Medium fireball, medium amount of heat cost, large fireball, large amount of heat cost) and is launched at the same speed as a human would throw a baseball.
A small fireball can hit 1 target without splash damage, packing quite a punch and setting fire to flammable objects, a medium fireball can hit multiple targets in a circle of 3 feet. A large fireball hits targets in a range of 6 feet and can deal a lot of damage when it’s a direct hit. A fireball takes a bit to charge, a small one’s charge is neglectable while a large one can take a second. Using the large fireball drains Vu’ur’s stamina and she needs to take at least 10 seconds before she can launch another one


Firefist: Engulfing her fists in a blazing fire for that extra oomph, depending on how often she hits the enemy an amount of heat spent will be returned.

Heat vision: Vu’ur can activate an infrared-like vision to see which prey has the most available heat in the area, this can also be used to spot prey through (thin enough) walls if they are hiding.

Elbow jet: By shooting a stream of fire from her elbow she can add extra speed and strength to a punch, this generally expands more heat than she gets in return but it is possible for her to smash through walls with this.

Wildfire: As a last resort Vu’ur can turn into a being of pure fire, the amount of time depends on how much heat she has left to use. At full heat this skill lasts 18 seconds and weakens the longer she uses it. Nothing physical will be able to touch her during this time, during this time she won’t be able to siphon other’s heat. When her heat runs out she will be small and powerless until she manages to collect enough heat from other sources.

Heat costs and siphoning: 2 punches are usually enough to siphon heat for a small fireball. 4 punches for a medium fireball and 8 for a large one. Vu’ur can punch about 2 times in a second but should not punch for more than 10 seconds because she risks overheating at that point.
The firefist punches cost the same as the fireballs so while a small firefist takes 1 heat away, it’ll cost 2 to use.

Personality / Backstory:
Vu’ur is originally from the Fireplane. Over there the mighty Vampyre race were viewed as nobles. The power of the plane was enough to fuel their hunger, making them near immortal. They were in their wildfire shapes most of the time as they ruled. Hunting prey at their homeplane was more of a sport than it was for survival.

And it all changed when the fire nation attacked

It all changed when Wargoth led his armies to attack other planes, the vampyres, while against such foolish endeavors were forcibly taken out of their comfortable plane into the cold chaotic world of Lore. But what did it matter? Soon enough Wargoth would take over that silly plane as he did to others and the vampyres could return to their cozy home plane.
Or so they thought… Lore showed more resistance than they had ever expected and eventually Wargoth fell to a small band of heroes. Sealing their way home, leaving them stranded ever since.

For years now, Vu’ur has been wandering the lands, hunting prey and longing for her home plane while avoiding any of the so-called “heroes”. After years she hear of a peculiar tournament, one that grants boons to those who had the strength to win. Perhaps it was a way to go home?
AQ DF MQ AQW  Post #: 17
7/5/2022 23:38:51   
  Starflame13
Moderator


 We're in to week two of bios, everyone! Let's keep them coming!

@San Robin - thank you for working with me to get the numbers finetuned! Let me know if it feels like tracking becomes unmanageable, but otherwise, I think we're good here. Approved!
AQ DF MQ AQW  Post #: 18
7/9/2022 7:54:22   
Selenianece
Member

Name / Title: Regina Sansa Rei, or just Regina
Element: Wind
Age Range: 30 years old
Race: Human

Appearance (Build, hair, skin, clothes, etc.):
She has pale skin and white eyes, and would look quite ghostly if not for the mob of teal hair she has. She puts on a Navigator's Hat that is white base with black trim and feathers, matching with her Navigator's long coat. She is thin and short, her height being 5 feet, and is underwight for her height. However, that is only because she has a skeletal arm, as she is actually pretty strong for her size, and is able to use both her arms skillfully. She also wears black gloves to hide the nature of her skeletal arm, to not distress other people, but wouldn't hesitate to do something with that arm that would hurt a lot if she had nerves just to laugh at the panicked looks of the people around her.

Equipment (Armor, Weapons, etc.):
Sea Chicken's Conquest: Given to Regina as a truce after a good amount of fighting Sea Chickens of all sizes, this weapon is the main conduit of her Wind magic and is also used as a crutch when she's tired or as stool when she's too short, as she plants it on the ground and climbs on the hilt to see better.

White Wind Dragon Plume: Tastefully put among the Navigator's hat's feather to put a streak of white into the black, this plume functions as more than a fashion statement by being a repository of mana when Regina's mana runs out.

Rotten Hardtack: Regina has genuinely forgotten when she was given this hardtack, but she refuses to throw it away now, stating that any food is good food. However, she knows full well that she should only use it as a last resort, since while it would heal her fully, it would also give her a respectable stomach ache.

Skills, Spells, & Special Abilities:
Wind Steps: Using the power of the Wind, she can act as if she is in zero gravity- she can jump high, stick on walls, and powerfully propel herself to increase the damage of her weapon. The downside, however, is that this skill actively consumes mana- if she stays stuck on the wall long enough she will end up falling like a dart that missed its target. She can only use it in bursts of 10 seconds at the time, usually even less.

Old Friends: Before she sailed the seas, Regina used to be a Necromancer. She gathered her Undead around her before she sailed, and told them that they are free to go wherever they liked, as she won't be able to summon their bodies so easily anymore. Most of them left, but a few of them decided that if she called them with the Wind, they would come to her aid, to either attack the enemy or, if that doesn't work, to stop them momentarily while Regina flees. They can only be summoned once in a fight, and Regina's sclera become back for the rest of the fight, a mark of her having used her move.

It Hecken Wimdy: Regina summons a miniature cyclone around her, strong enough to send most people or objects flying. The downside is that its mana cost is hefty, comparable to 100mp, and also leaves her vulnerable at the eye of the storm, so whatever can cross the cyclone can get to her.

[Spoiler] Special:
Rage: In general, Regina is easy going and doesn't aim for the kill, despite how much she enjoys fighting itself. However, her reservations fly out of the window when she gets angry, and she gets 1 Rage stack every time she gets angry. At 10 stacks, her damage is doubled, and at 20, her damage is tripled, and so on and so forth. Usually she can't do much with her Rage as her mana runs out, but if you piss her quickly enough, you get the full force of her attacks right at the beginning. [/spoiler]
Post #: 19
7/9/2022 17:56:46   
Necro-Knight
Member

Name / Title: The Doom Weaver

Element: Darkness

Age Range: 28

Race: Cursed Human

Appearance: Garbed in a ragged and worn Soul Weaver Apprentice tunic, any changes to the young man’s features since bonding with his Doom Weapon are veiled beneath a deep hood and scarlet glow to preserve his criminal identity. The remains of his apprentice tunic are intertwined with organic material spreading from his macabre gauntlet as its origin, forming a crude array of bone-plating across his chest, knees and the toes of his boots.

In place of an official Soul Weaver’s coat, the Doom Weaver wears a custom-made coat woven from threads of primordial darkness provided by his Doom Spirit. The black, unholy garment seems to absorb any light directed its way and its edges glow with a crimson light similar to the one radiating from the Doom Weaver’s gauntlet. Boots adorned with various bone fragments complete the twisted ensemble, their original color lost beneath countless layers of grave dirt and organic residue.

Equipment:

Eleftheria: The Doom Spirit inhabiting the SoulShredder gauntlet, her consciousness guides the Doom Weaver on his path to eldritch enlightenment, offering threads of herself as material for repairing his garb and experimenting with pushing the boundaries of weaving and necromantic magic. While she is aware of the Weaver’s surroundings, she is limited to only observing what her host also observes, as their souls share a space inside his form.

SoulShredder of Doom: The Weaver’s Doom Weapon itself was formed when a cursed dagger was combined with his student Loom, spreading its corruption into the learning tool to shape it into a proper vessel permanently grafted onto his right arm. The once pristine silver surface has been overtaken with a blood-red, crustacean-like shell and a gaping skull has formed where the Doom Dagger originally sat, blades eventually morphing into horns curving up and down the length of the Weaver’s gauntlet. As resilient as some of the strongest armors, each finger ends in a razor-sharp claw stained with the remains of many experiments past.

If forcibly removed, the gauntlet will take the Weaver's forearm with it and risks his essence “bleeding” from the broken limb, as well as robbing him of any weaving magic. Eleftheria is able to reattach the gauntlet only within three minutes of removal before a more extensive ritual is needed outside of battle.

Oblivion Coat: Woven from primal darkness and held together with a lining of soul threads from his Doom Spirit, the Doom Weaver’s coat is enchanted to soften physical assaults such as stabbing or slashing force but lacks the resistance to magical attacks that other Soul Weaver garments can have, suffering the most against light-based magic and risking being burned away at point of contact. If damaged, the coat can be repaired but it requires a focus unable to be obtained in combat.

The Wilted Rose: A Rose-forged dagger taken during he and his fellow inmates’ escape during The Black Winter, the Doom Weaver has since stained this dagger’s once-ornate color with blood and gore when used to cut bone and carve bodies. Despite Eleftheria’s best attempts though, she is unable to bestow the weapon with any magical properties, telling her host it is likely due to some misunderstood Rose metals within the weapon.

Skills, Spells, & Special Abilities:

Cursed Strength: Condensed purely into the Weaver’s right arm and at its peak in the grip of his gauntlet, Eleftheria’s host is able to reach the crushing power beyond that of a man his age, able to shatter stone bricks with a direct impact. The rest of his body, being used as sustenance for his Doom Spirit-ally, is lacking the strength to hit any harder or move quicker than a man of middling athletic build.

Numb Soul: Being on the verge of true undeath, the Weaver’s body is held together more purely by darkness threads and black magic, numbing his nerves to the point of most minor injuries being ignored. Should his body suffer a grievous wound however, the Weaver will suffer more in the area of dexterity, the wounded limb or area performing far less effectively and risking a “true death” should his body be too damaged to contain the remains of his shredded soul.

Doom-Spine Whip: Eleftheria projects her power from the SoulShredder gauntlet and weaves a second skull near the Weaver’s elbow, leading down to a chain-like link of eight spinal discs connected with her soul thread. Each disc’s edge is curved and sharp and is able to extend to a maximum of two feet between each section before the threads will snap, causing the weapon to unravel.

This spell is the Doom Weaver’s main form of attack, twisting the whip-like weapon around to either slice at his victims or coil the sharp links around a limb. If the whip is broken, reforming the weapon takes roughly a minute and only requires a small amount of mana and energy from the Doom Spirit.

Spinal Tap of Doom: While visually similar to the Spine Whip, the Spinal Tap blade locks each disc into a rigid, straight position with their curved spikes facing outward and can be wielded like a barbed sword extending 4 feet down the length of the Weaver’s elbow.

The Doom Weaver’s weapon can transition between these two forms without needing to reform the weapon entirely, albeit being locked to either form for roughly six seconds in between.

Soul-Snare: Forming a barbed shadow nail at the end of each finger, the Doom Weaver fires off each claw toward his target, with each connecting back to the gauntlet by a soul thread. Reaching a maximum distance of 25 feet, the barbs aim to catch on the body of their victim. If they catch, the Weaver can either attempt to grapple the caught target towards him by drawing in the threads or expend the darkness magic in each thread and channel a stinging shock down into the victim. This demands more mana from the caster and thus can only be cast roughly every four minutes in either way.

Woven Ward: Spewing crimson threads from the Soulshredder skull’s gaping maw, the Doom Weaver focuses Eleftheria’s power into a circular ward of physical, black-red darkness, reaching a diameter of five feet across. While sporting the same resistance against both physical and magical attacks that enchanted metals would, the shield is extremely vulnerable to light or holy magics, shattering nearly instantly as Eleftheria retreats to prevent her own destruction. This ward requires a moderate amount of mana and thread to maintain against focused attack and is not something that can be woven back until roughly three minutes or longer passes.

Shrieking Bolts of Doom: The most deadly spell in the Weaver’s knowledge and born of pure desperation and resentment during his affairs in The Black Winter, Eleftheria shifts a spectral skull to lay over the loom’s knuckles and spreads the jaws as if wishing to scream. The eight spinal columns trailing behind are then used as catalysts, being expended one at a time to shoot from the skull’s jaws with an ear-splitting shriek.

The spikes of shadow travel with the speed and distance equal to an iron crossbow bolt, though lack any area-of-effect on impact. Due to the extreme force required to launch each spike, there’s a roughly three second delay between each “shot” being fired. Once all eight spinal columns have been used, Eleftheria must recover, preventing the Weaver from using any spells for roughly five minutes.

DF MQ AQW  Post #: 20
7/10/2022 0:06:51   
  Starflame13
Moderator


 We are entering our FINAL WEEK of sign-ups for this years competition! All new bios must be submitted before 11:59pm ET (AE Server Time) on Saturday, July 16th!


@Selenianece - Welcome to this side of the forums, and welcome to the EC's! You have a very solid bio, and I can see a few times where you lean into DragonFable inspired mechanics/items. Keep in mind that not everyone in the RP forums is familiar with DragonFable, so be ready to provide extra description as necessary! Now, let's get balancing:

Starting with the Equipment, let's give a type of the sword for those not as familiar with DragonFable (longsword, cutlass, etc.). If there are any magical properties or key aesthetics of the blade that you intend to carry over, let us know here as well. Similar for her hat / plume if additional details are required; I would also like a maximum mana limit on the White Wind Dragon Plume. My initial suggestion is to restore up to half of her mana, but we'll see where the final abilities fall, balance-wise. Lastly, I would like confirmation that Rotten Hardtack is a one-time-only heal. I am usually hesitant at allowing full heals, but I think it works here if it's a single consumable.

Moving on to abilities! Looking at Wind Steps - when you say zero gravity, is it that she can hover? Or is it specifically just the attributes listed (higher / further jumps and wall walking). In the case of hovering or a more open-ended ability, we will need to put limits on how far she can go from the floor/walls, but we'll do that only if necessary.

Now, Old Friends. Summons are typically tricky to pull off and not break the "No Multiple Characters" rule. What I typically say on the subject is:
quote:

If the robot or summon can act fully independently from you character (i.e., they will act without your direct orders/influence), then it would be considered multiple characters and against the rules. Controlling a robot with no autonomous capabilities might work, but your character would not be able to act while it was controlling the robot. Even summons with limited intelligence/no autonomous abilities can be very hard to balance, so in general I would recommend against creating a character that relies on outside creatures or constructs.
Now, from the above, I think we can balance this one of two ways: either she can summon a single undead multiple times, or she can summon a few undead at the same time once (how it's currently stated). In either case, the undead will only be able to perform a single action before dissolving/fading away (attack, block, grab, etc). Once this action is completed, or after 5-10 seconds, the undead need to vanish in some way and not return. Additionally, please define which type of undead they are (skeletons, zombies, etc.) since your fellow writers will need to know that to determine their interactions with them!

Lastly, It Hecken Windy. On the whole this is good, just a few additional details. First, since you haven't listed a maximum mana pool for Regina (and I tend to advise staying away from hard numbers and doing math for the ECs), it'd be easier to describe the limit as how many times she can use this at full mana before she exhausts herself (2-4 times depending on the strength). Additionally, when you say "miniature", is that within arm-reach, or something further? In the latter case, please provide a maximum range - in either case, please provide a maximum duration. These can scale to balance the power: something in arms-reach can last upwards of 10 seconds, something that extends out to 10 feet should be closer to 5 seconds.

I see you intended to spoiler your last ability, Rage - I will send you my comments on that in a PM. Feel free to re-tag it in your new, revised post - which I look forward to seeing!


@Necro-Knight - DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM! *ahem* Welcome! Got a bit of work ahead of us with your Doom Weaver, so let's get started.

First, Eleftheria. You reached out to me prior to ensure the legality of having a second voice, or conscious, with your primary character. As a reminder, this is allowed ONLY while Eleftheria serves that role of an inner voice - she is not a second set of eyes, nor a second well of mana, nor someone that can interact with the arena and the other fighters in it. All that must fall to the Doom Weaver.

Now, the SoulShreader. I spoke with you a bit in PM for clarifying the description, so feel free to adjust that and run that by me/others as needed. (I picture it as the grafted blade almost turning into a spiked spinal column with the maw of the skull at the Weaver's shoulder, but we can workshop it). Additionally, in its natural state of grafted to the arm, what are it's physical properties - bone? Steel? Ephemeral? In the former cases, can it be broken without being fully removed - and will the Weaver experience pain if so?

Moving on to abilities. I'm assuming that beyond Cursed Strength and Numb Soul are the only key differences for a Cursed Human's physiology, but please mention any others that exist in the "Race" section.

Now, your Doom-Spine Whip / Spinal Tap of Doom combo. To start with, 8 disks of 2 feet gives you a maximum 16 foot range of what amounts to razer sharp frisbees. That's a bit far (and also a bit much for the Shrieking Bolts ability further down), so let's drop this to 5 disks. I also need physical properties of the disk part of both weapons (bone? Steel?) and of the soul threads in the whip, as people should have the ability to cut themselves free if needed. I will assume that as disks are lost, the equivalent blade is shortened. Lastly, the time here is off. Remember, a minute is a LONG TIME in an arena - and several of your abilities suffer from this. I reference Dungeons and Dragons a lot as a good time basis, which uses 6 seconds for rounds, or 6 seconds for a major action and 1-2 minor ones. With a full minute restoration period, you're likely to only restore it once if it's automatic, and never if it requires concentration. I'd suggest dropping this down to 10 seconds if it requires full concentration, upwards of 20 if it's an automatic mana consumption process.

Looking at Soul-Snare. The combo ability here strikes me as a bit odd to have the same attack down so many different paths, especially since so much of the kit focuses on the Whip / Spinal Tap combo, I don't see both of these getting shown off properly. I'd suggest picking one of these to work with - either a continue grapple with a 15 foot range, or the draining shock at 20-25 feet. In the former case, are the barbs clustered, or single target, and what is the property of the soul threads? In the latter case, would the barbed claws dissolve, or need to be pulled free to stop the pain radiation? In either case, a 4 minute recharge means you're never going to use this twice. Rather than setting a timed cooldown, balance this by narrowing it and then focusing on the mana drainage as a limiting factor.

I will note here that the last two abilities are likely also one-time uses given their 3 and 5 minute cool downs, respectively. This is good for the Shrieking Bolts as it power fits with the mold of a one-time-use attack, but I would consider making Woven Ward's limiting factor mana drainage as well. That way you can be more flexible between using it an Soul-Snare as the battle progresses. Significant drainage for Woven Ward, decent drainage for Soul-Snare, and minimal drainage for repairing the Doom-Spine/Spine Whip lets you focus on the style you want to fight with, rather than literally counting seconds tick by.

A final note on Shrieking Bolts: This definitely needs to be at a 5 maximum, even if you approach me with a different suggestion for the Doom-Spine Whip. I also assume that if the whip is missing disks at the time Shrieking Bolts is used, that'll be one less bolt in the Weaver's arsenal.

On the whole, some very fun concepts - just so many that you will never use them all well. Figure out what style of fighting you want the Doom Weaver to have, and retain those abilities first. See you for round 2!


And with a last minute tie-breaker…. Arena Theme 7 is the winner! Teaser is below:
quote:

With a reverberating boom.. the floor shifted. A cube of shimmering bronze rose from its center, growing taller with each click.. Walls encroached upon it, panels clanking and shifting.. The motions all jolted to a stop, sending shuddering waves of recoiled vibration rippling..
AQ DF MQ AQW  Post #: 21
7/10/2022 12:21:47   
Selenianece
Member

Editions done! Current version of bio:

~~~~

Name / Title: Regina Sansa Rei, or just Regina
Element: Wind
Age Range: 30 years old
Race: Human

Appearance (Build, hair, skin, clothes, etc.):
She has pale skin and white eyes, and would look quite ghostly if not for the mob of teal hair she has. She puts on a Navigator's Hat that is white base with black trim and feathers, matching with her Navigator's long coat. She is thin and short, her height being 5 feet, and is underweight for her height. However, that is only because she has a skeletal arm, as she is actually pretty strong for her size, and is able to use both her arms skillfully. She also wears black gloves to hide the nature of her skeletal arm, to not distress other people, but wouldn't hesitate to do something with that arm that would hurt a lot if she had nerves just to laugh at the panicked looks of the people around her.

Equipment (Armor, Weapons, etc.):
Sea Chicken's Conquest: Given to Regina as a truce after a good amount of fighting Sea Chickens of all sizes, this weapon is the main conduit of her Wind magic and is also used as a crutch when she's tired or as a stool when she's too short, as she plants it on the ground and climbs on the hilt to see better. Because it was made by Sea Chickens, who only had a vague idea of human sword types, the result is that this weapon has a big broad cutlass blade with a two-handed hilt, the total sword length being almost as tall as Regina, although she can wield it normally with one hand. The sword's guard looks like the head of a Sea Chicken, and although it blinks from time to time, it is not truly sentient.

White Wind Dragon Plume: Tastefully put among the Navigator's hat's feathers to put a streak of white into the black, this plume functions as more than a fashion statement by being a repository of mana when Regina's mana runs out, restoring half of her mana. She can only use it two times before she has to leave it at a ship's sail so it can be recharged by the wind.

Rotten Hardtack: Regina has genuinely forgotten when she was given this hardtack, but she refuses to throw it away now, stating that any food is good food. However, she knows full well that she should only use it as a last resort, since while it would heal her fully, it would also give her a respectable stomach ache.

Skills, Spells, & Special Abilities:
Wind Steps: Using the power of the Wind, she can act as if she is in zero gravity- she can jump high, stick on walls, and powerfully propel herself to increase the damage of her weapon. The downside, however, is that this skill actively consumes mana- if she stays stuck on the wall long enough she will end up falling like a dart that missed its target. She can only use it in bursts of 10 seconds at the time, usually even less. Hovering for her is much more trouble than it's worth, sadly, and she would only do it if she was forced to walk on water- ease of hovering is something she didn't maintain from her Necromancer days, and she misses it a lot.

Old Friends: Before she sailed the seas, Regina used to be a Necromancer. She gathered her Undead around her before she sailed, and told them that they are free to go wherever they liked, as she won't be able to summon their bodies so easily anymore. Most of them left, but a few of them decided that if she called them with the Wind, they would come to her aid, to either attack the enemy or, if that doesn't work, to stop them momentarily while Regina flees. They appear as three ghost skeletons, and they can only be summoned once in a fight. They disappear immediately after attacking, or after 10 from holding off an enemy, and Regina's sclera becomes black for the rest of the fight, a mark of her having used this move.

It Hecken Wimdy: Regina summons a miniature cyclone around her, strong enough to send most people or objects flying in a maximum range of 6 feet (her arm length + blade length) for about 8 seconds. The downside is that its mana cost is hefty, a third of her mana, and also leaves her vulnerable at the eye of the storm, so whatever can cross the cyclone can get to her.

spoiler:


Special:
Rage: In general, Regina is easy going and doesn't aim for the kill, despite how much she enjoys fighting itself. However, her reservations fly out of the window when she gets angry, and she gets 1 Rage stack every time she gets angry, increasing her strength. At 10 stacks, her damage is tripled. Usually she can't do much with her Rage as her mana runs out, but if you piss her quickly enough, you get the full force of her attacks right at the beginning.

Post #: 22
7/10/2022 21:48:41   
Oddball
Member

Name: Eirin
Alias: “The One who Drifts through Blizzards”
Element: Ice
Race: “Human” (Snow Spirit)
Age: Said to have settled in her village many millennia ago, and was wandering for far longer than that.

“Do you not see it, Child? The Mist beckons. . Pray, for its Chosen has descended…”

Appearance: Eirin stands at a height of 5’9” with Pale, almost Blue skin, with long, white hair that is dyed a crystal blue at the very tips. Her hair falls down to the base of her spine, and seems to radiate a light frost at all times. Curiously, her eyes tend to change colour as they please, and are currently fixed at a Crimson Red.
From a quick glance, she may seem frail, and prone to snapping like a twig at a stiff breeze. But a trained eye could quickly pick up on the surprising amount of strength hidden behind her thin frame.

Outside of combat, she wears a long, white dress that trails behind her as she walks, almost akin to a wedding dress. This dress changes how it looks depending on Eirin’s mood, and can range from a pristine white, to one that is tattered, dirty, and unpleasant to look at.
In combat, the top half of the dress melts into a fine mist, and is replaced by a Silver breastplate, the center of which houses a large sigil in the shape of a snowflake. This armour is sturdy, and is more than capable of taking multiple blows from the most seasoned of warriors. But the plate does have its limits, and if it is dealt enough damage, it shatters, reverting back into a full dress once again. Once this has taken place, it takes Eirin a total of 15 seconds before she is able to re-materialize the armour, a process which takes a full 3 seconds of concentration.

Equipment: The sole piece of equipment Eirin carries with her is a sword with no blade, which is gripped tightly at all times. This weapon has, essentially, fused with its wielder’s hand, locked in her icy grip and is incapable of being removed.

Blade of The Mist: A very unique weapon, as far as swords go. The handle appears to be inspired by designs from the far-east, and has a small charm shaped like an icicle dangling from the bottom of it. As stated, this weapon has no visible blade, and passes through any object harmlessly.
However, this weapon is tied to the Mist that is permanently surrounding Eirin, and while it is held within this mist the blade finally reveals itself. The blade is roughly 3 and a half feet in length, and its design is quite close to that of a traditional Katana.
While revealed, the Blade is incredibly sturdy, able to withstand an almost impossible amount of punishment before showing any signs of damage

Skills:

Living as long as she has, Eirin has fought enough with the Blade of the Mist to consider it just an extension of herself, and shows the confidence of a Warrior of her years. She relies on swift, precise strikes while she is clashing blades with another, while attempting to keep herself as balanced as possible… As she knows that one wrong step could mean the end of her.

The Mist:

The strange, translucent mist that accompanies Eirin is linked both to her Blade, and her will. It is capable of extending out to a maximum range of 10 feet, but can only cover roughly 3 feet of that space. Alternatively, The Mist can be used as a sort-of resource for enhancing her cryomancy abilities. Each time she uses the Mist like this, its maximum range is lowered by 2 feet until the spell ends.

Cryomancy:

As a Snow Spirit, Eirin is a natural cryomancer, able to create and manipulate ice with relative ease. While she can simply throw Ice at her targets, Eirin vastly prefers to limit her cryomancy to a few select abilities while facing a worthy opponent.

‘Flake Shield: On her free arm, Eirin is capable of creating a large, snowflake shaped shield that is capable of blocking 3 strikes before it is destroyed, and returns to The Mist. Eirin can use this as an offensive weapon, but the shield shatters after the impact.
While enhanced, the number of strikes the shield can block increases to 5, and it can survive a single shield bash before breaking.

Frostbreaker: A hammer made of pure ice, Eirin typically smashes this weapon into the ground, which leaves a 2 foot by 2 foot layer of ice over the ground afterwards. This layer lasts for 10 seconds, and acts like you’d expect it to. (Very slippy, would not recommend)
While enhanced, the layer of ice left behind is increased to 3 foot by 3 foot, and lasts for 15 seconds.

Icicle Spear: Eirin creates 3 sharp rods of ice with sharpened ends, each one being roughly 1 foot long. Eirin can fire these spears out to a range of 35 feet. Regardless of if they hit or not, the spear disappears immediately after.
While enhanced, the range increases to 45 feet, and the colour of the spears changes to the same crimson red as her eyes. This colour change is purely cosmetic, and serves no other purpose.

Snow Nails: Eirin creates a small, jagged blade of ice between each finger on her free hand. These can be used for sudden melee strikes, or as short-ranged projectiles. These small knives of ice can be thrown up to 10 feet. Whether used in melee, or ranged, these shatter after one use
These cannot be enhanced, and Eirin can only make 12 of these before having to wait 15 seconds to create more.
AQ DF AQW Epic  Post #: 23
7/11/2022 0:44:54   
  Starflame13
Moderator


 6 days remain!

@Selenianece - I love the flavor that you've added in completing the necessary edits. Welcome to the Elemental Championships. Approved!


@Oddball - Good to see you hear again! Eirin's well balanced on the whole, I just have some confusion with her Mist to clear up before she's approved.

You state that the mist is capable of a maximum range of 10 feet, but can only cover 3 feet of space. Is this a density scale (i.e., 3 feet of zero visibility due to the frost, or 10 feet with just the faintest of ice crystals in the air), or is it a measure of something else? In either case, does the blade need to be fully enveloped to be revealed and tangible, or is just covered by a thin coating enough to do so? Lastly, can external factors impact this Mist (either via ambient warmer temperatures, natural or magical winds, etc.)

The other abilities should all be fine as-is, although I may request extra balancing depending on how powerful the Mist becomes once clarified. (For example, does an enhanced shield returning to the Mist restore the removed range? This can go either way, depending on how strong the Mist is by itself).

Feel free to discuss with me in PM to make sure we're both on the same page! Otherwise, Elrin looks great so looking forward to round 2!
AQ DF MQ AQW  Post #: 24
7/12/2022 2:02:11   
Anastira
Member

Name / Title
Wister

Element
Ice

Age Range
16 years

Race
Human

Appearance (Build, hair, skin, clothes, etc.)
Wister is androgynous, and continually flows between identifying themself as a “he” and as a “her.” (Address them with either one; you’ll be right half of the time, and Wister doesn’t take offense easily!) Wister has an almost Peter Pan air to them, with dark red hair cut medium length (for a boy) and roughly tousled, with glaring streaks of white strewn throughout. Their eyes are a deep brown speckled with flashing gold - looking into their eyes is like staring into the dying embers of a fire. There is a laughing curve to their mouth, an amused glint to their eye, and a youthful plumpness to their cheeks. Their teeth almost look sharp to the eye, and their skin is a deep sun-tanned brown that almost seems to glow with warmth.

They wear well-worn leathers, unassuming, dirty, and stained. They also wear soft boots and a belt around their waist. Some might say Wister chooses this outfit for dramatic effect - to not upstage the brightness of their hair or the fire in their eyes - and others would say Wister simply hates spending money. They’d both be right. However, if you stare too long, you will notice the clothes have an almost kaleidoscopic quality, mirroring the surroundings at random angles and in random repeating patterns.


Equipment (Armor, Weapons, etc.)
Fairest
An opaque hand-held shield made entirely of very strong, very cold ice. In fact, it is so cold that the surface steams against the air (an interesting visual effect, but with no practical purpose).

Absolute Zero
A collection of throwing stars shaped like snowflakes. There are a few different possible effects, each of which cannot coexist on the same snowflake with another: they can explode by very quickly melting (and releasing energy fast enough to cause a small explosion); they can cause frostbite, which feels like an intense spot of cold that doesn’t fade; or they can simply be very sharp and very lethal. Wister creates them themselves in their free time, but they take a lot of time and effort to make, so Wister only carries twenty on themself today: five frostbites, five frostbombs, and ten frostblades. They cannot be reused even if they are recovered intact.

Celsius
A polearm with shards of ice extending along the blade in intervals. Wister has certain… opinions… on the Fahrenheit system, needless to say. Celsius can cause frostbite through prolonged contact, but it must contact for about a second minimum to create any frostbite effect and it must have enough contact to propagate (for example, a nick to the arm would not do it; a hand wrapped around its blade or jab straight through the chest would).


Skills, Spells, & Special Abilities
Saltwater
Just as saltwater freezes at a lower temperature than freshwater, Wister does not freeze as easily as normal men. Wister creates a sphere of ten-foot diameter of blistering cold centered around themselves; Wister themself can’t feel the cold, although they know they are activating the ability. In fact, if anything, when the sphere is deployed Wister’s red hair shines more brightly, and their eyes seem to come alive, like true fire.

Mirror, Mirror
Fairest becomes a mirror, the fairest of them all. Those directly facing the mirror will feel a love and appreciation for themselves that grows the longer they stare at the mirror, becoming harder and harder to look away with time. Ultimately (after about two seconds for a mere mortal, thirty seconds for stronger folk, but varying widely on the person’s mental strength), Fairest invokes narcissism, sending out tendrils of frigid cold that smoke and twine around the victim, seeking to entomb them as a statue encased in very thick, very cold, very hard-to-break (for normal men) ice.

Kaleidoscope
Wister is catapulted a foot into the air and superhero-plunges onto the ground. When they land, their clothes send out a sphere of illusions ten feet in diameter. Anyone within the sphere will experience disconcerting visual effects - random things, possibly including: memories, current surroundings, visual representations of emotions or other intangible entities, places far away, other realms - mirrored around them in a constantly shifting kaleidoscope.

Titanic
An iceberg materializes under Wister’s feet in a five foot diameter, rising up several feet into the air to form a tall pillar. Wister can control the iceberg by breaking pieces of it off.


Personality / Backstory (Optional)
Cold cannot exist inside me. I am heat, I am fire, and the world pays the price to maintain the balance.
AQW  Post #: 25
Page:   [1] 2 3   next >   >>
All Forums >> [Gaming Community] >> [Role Playing] >> The Championships >> =Elemental Championships 2022= OOC & Tournament Signups
Page 1 of 3123>
Jump to:






Icon Legend
New Messages No New Messages
Hot Topic w/ New Messages Hot Topic w/o New Messages
Locked w/ New Messages Locked w/o New Messages
 Post New Thread
 Reply to Message
 Post New Poll
 Submit Vote
 Delete My Own Post
 Delete My Own Thread
 Rate Posts




Forum Content Copyright © 2018 Artix Entertainment, LLC.

"AdventureQuest", "DragonFable", "MechQuest", "EpicDuel", "BattleOn.com", "AdventureQuest Worlds", "Artix Entertainment"
and all game character names are either trademarks or registered trademarks of Artix Entertainment, LLC. All rights are reserved.
PRIVACY POLICY


Forum Software © ASPPlayground.NET Advanced Edition