Of Steam and Steel: OOC (Steampunk RP, Mature) {Open}

[AmberCross]

Well... then... I guess I fourth it. And then I somehow go back in time and insert my assertion that Keaton's profile be awesome ahead of all of y'alls! Yay... time powers >.>

[Inumo]

... I'm tempted to try and top Keaton's now, except that I don't build characters as well as I build worlds... To plotting! Just 'cuz.

[SquirrelWizard]

Folks, I would rather have you make a dynamic character who has a somewhat short bio, than make a stale character with his own autobiography.

[Inumo]

Squirrel, that can be useful if you want to be able to explain away your accidental self-insertion moments, but really a deep backstory is there to explain certain reactions, thoughts, mannerisms, etc. A character can still be dynamic even with a history; the history just sets the starting point.

[SquirrelWizard]

what I was getting at is that the creation of an interesting character should take precedence over padding your word count.

[techmaster-glitch]

Well, I would say that Keaton is a very interesting character, squirrel

[Sunblink]

FFFFFF oh my god, guys thank you. It's so good to be writing a character bio again. I missed RPing here.

Uh but I am sorry if I genuinely made anyone feel discouraged. I banged out a three thousand-word monstrosity. I overdid it because I'm kind of a perfectionist and beat myself up about things.

SquirrelWizard speaks the truth.

Methinks Paige is gonna be trolling Seth AND Keaton  

Oh shit, son, it's ON.

[Inumo]

Uh but I am sorry if I genuinely made anyone feel discouraged. I banged out a three thousand-word monstrosity. I overdid it because I'm kind of a perfectionist and beat myself up about things.

I wouldn't worry about it. I do the same whenever I'm writing sci-fi or fantasy stories. It's fun to overdo things sometimes.

[Gabi]

Your posts are not monstrosities, Keaton. Only some of the things in them, sometimes.

I was a bit confused by Seth's "loud whisper", but I'm assuming Ana heard it.

[Tapewolf]

I was a bit confused by Seth's "loud whisper", but I'm assuming Ana heard it.

It's where you speak loudly but don't engage your vocal cords.  He's trying to ask people about the sound without his voice masking it too much.  And yeah, it's intended for everyone to hear.

[Tipod]

My only regret is that Bart probably won't be close enough to witness the terrible things Keaton will undoubtedly inflict upon the world at large

[AmberCross]

Okay, got this in... you'll be seeing my character soon and I'm PRETTY sure I can post this now...

Name: Chris Tellurian

Race: Were

Age: Mid-twenties

Country of Origin/Current Residence: Voethfel/Sevastia'Nyad

Physical Description: An ermine/long-tail weasel crossmix, he looks mostly like an ermine with a tail that can actually reach the ground from standing. With blond hair, his fur will always fall somewhere between white and black on the grayscale, any color would have to be dyed in. In summertime his hair and fur tends to be darker in shade, almost brown and black and conversely in winter it tends towards white. He has slate colored eyes, but for some reason they look different colors based on a few factors. They range through various shades of blue and even sometimes into green.
     A little on the short side, he looks for the most part like a being. Due to a hatred of not being able to carry things, he wears cargo pants for the numerous pockets, but his real secret is the numerous silvery looking chains running from point to point on his person. This tendency makes him seem a bit gothy, especially when his fur is lighter in color as he likes wearing for contrast... wearing darker colored clothes over light fur and lighter colored clothes over dark fur.

Equipment: For the most part, Chris uses a chain-like inventory system. Which is to say on the various chains he has placed charms which each contain a different item. Perhaps the most important of these to him is the staff which hangs as a pendant around his neck. Given to him by his parents, it's a family heirloom he could never bring himself to get rid of despite the bitterness between them. Aside from this, he wears two bracelets around his wrists which contain a variety of weapons which Chris will periodically use. Most of them are pretty crappy and are just for kicks, but one sword on each wrist is actually of decent quality. Enchanted for high durability and strength, this set is one of his favorite weapons to use, especially since they were made with the purpose of being good magic conduits. Similarly his staff is easily made into a quarterstaff or glaive. Chris likes his multifunctional weapons.
    Two other things of note are the glasses he wears to fix his vision (and also to look at magic) and that several of his charms are actually charms for stuff like low-level warding, defenses, etc. Not good enough for battle, but good enough to ward off a surprise attack long enough for there to be a battle. As these are cumbersome and can get in the way during fighting or other similar activities, Chris can pull them into his fur where they become silvery markings, something he constantly does with his glasses anyway cause he's worried they might fall off. These charms are self contained and do not exhibit magic with the exceptions of the ones that are actually charms.

Magical Abilities: Like with his inventory system, one of Chris' favorite tricks is weaving enchantments into otherwise ordinary objects. The net effect of this is that if he throws an apple at you, it's a safe bet to duck on the off chance it might explode. Aside from that, Chris is familiar with most elemental type spells, but prefers wind primarily and ice secondarily. Spells that don't have elemental properties such as shields, lifting objects, etc tend to work on a more runic system for him. Which is to say runes tend to appear when he does these spells, not that these spells only occur after he uses the runes. Finally, Chris' primary use for 'offensive' magic is physical enhancements to himself so that he can move faster and be stronger and more agile as a means to keep up with other more physically endowed creature races.

History: Chris was born in Voethfel which his parents moved to for the better education system. However like most weres, they were secretive and didn't tell anyone what they were, opting instead for the cover story that they were part angel and just didn't have the wings to show for it. This didn't really help Chris weather the school system any better as he was often on the short end of the social stick due to looking so much like a being. Of course like most children, if Chris knew the truth he would have blabbed it in short order to protest that he was NOT a being, so his parents naturally did not ever tell him and even went so far as to put bindings on him to prevent him from accidentally shifting form which would lead to awkward questions.
     This led to much grief for him, but eventually he managed to become the better for it and learned how to use his magic to put him on par with the other demon and angel children. He developed this skill to the point where it was as natural to him as holding in headwings is for cubi. This didn't really help much with the teasing, and mostly led to him getting into more scraps during which he held his own enough to gain a certain grudging respect. As many of the other children also had wings, a psychological side effect of his enhancement spells was a manifested pair of 'angel' wings when he fights or is otherwise in a heightened state of adrenaline. They aren't quite actually there, and are really only as real as Chris thinks they are. Aka, the more he pays attention to them, the more real they act. This ranges to being able to support him in flight to accidentally phasing through a wall when he's not paying attention to the wall.
     Details aside, his social situation caused Chris to adopt the mindset that the 'superior to you' attitude of most creatures is cruel and unfair. This gives him more sympathy for Beings than would otherwise be the case, and he actually ended up friends with a few when he moved away later. However he was not able to completely escape gaining that mindset himself and has trouble respecting those who cannot defend themselves through some way or another. He's a bit self conscious of it because of his own experiences, but that doesn't stop him from having a bit of an ego when it comes to this sort of thing. This means he does think he's better than your average Being (though he doesn't quite believe it gives him the right to kill them and stuff), and on the other side of the coin, he gets titchy when people assume he's lower than them because he looks and seems so like a Being himself. Not quite as bad as Edward Elric's shortness syndrome, but definitely in that direction.
     So childhood passes, he becomes a really good spell-caster, scars for life, all that good stuff. When he reaches the age of 18, his parents finally tell him about his heritage and he spends the next three years learning about the alternative parts of his life via private tutoring while he continues going to school and getting his education. Learning that his parents knew what he would be in for as a child and that they decided the gain would be worth the cost left him bitter towards his parents and indeed most of the nearby area. He stuck around to finish learning about himself so as to take advantage of it (power is nothing to be scoffed at after all), but after that decided to leave. With no exceptionally good friends, there was nothing to stop him from cutting ties and moving to Sevastia where he continued to study magic on his own time.

Trivia:

    * Maybe it's because he's short,maybe it's because he's an ermine, maybe it's cause his voice is a bit high pitched, or something else entirely, but Chris suffers from cuteness syndrome. This is alleviated slightly when he's fighting, but in all other cases this tends to undermine attempts to be taken seriously.
    * Chris' eyes tend to glow in color relation to whatever elemental spell he's casting. Also his non-elemental spells tend towards blue or green.
    * In primal form, elemental manifestations tend to occur near him when casting particularly powerful spells. This can include floating ice crystals, eddies of wind, smouldering fur, arcs of static, etc.
    * The runes that appear on his shields are not any language in particular, but they usually look like they could definitely mean something.
    * Being short can be awkward sometimes, so he has a tendency to float when it bothers him more than usual... especially when in primal form.

[Lisky]

Updated character index today, along with a post last night. 

save for the first section, every title is song lyrics... i got a little bored last night after studying <.<
>.>

[Azlan]

Updated character index today, along with a post last night. 

save for the first section, every title is song lyrics... i got a little bored last night after studying <.<
>.>

You aren't stealing my silly little shtick are you?   

[Lisky]

oh no... i tend to do movie quotes... or skew pop culture... however, i was inspired while listening to music and typing posts

[Inumo]

Unless some sudden objection arises, I have apparently joined the ranks of OSaS players.

Name: Kathostral Dyxmara

Race: Demon

Age: 627

Country of origin: Mar'Nexeus (country taken over by Ankh'Ator)

Current residence: Officially Nhylamar, but travels constantly

Physical Description: Kathostral's body, clearly displaying his bull-heritage, is covered largely by scars and he makes for an imposing figure with his highly developed muscles, standing at seven feet, four inches (224cm) and weighing three hundred and twenty-seven pounds (148kg). Wherever the scars don't cover, his fur is a dark, gleaming red. Broken crescent-moon shapes are scattered on his thighs and biceps in a dark brown, and lines of the same color run across his brow, then down the bridge of his nose and around his eyes, the only feature of his fur he hasn't partially mangled with scars. A dark splotch also spans his back and stretches a few feet into his wings.
   His strong face, crowned by hair obviously cut by a knife to slightly higher than eyebrow length, adequately represents his lifestyle. Bright green eyes look out from under bushy eyebrows, a wiry black goatee sprouting from the end of his snout. A pair of foot-long horns rise from his temples, faintly stained with the blood of his enemies. When in combat, a wicked grin spreads across his face, filled with a mixture of bloodlust and ecstasy, and his eyes gleam in their sockets.
   His daily attire consists of a bone earring carved in the shape of a crossed hammer and lightning bolt, approximately two inches across, in addition to a ragged shirt and pair of pants, which occasionally show the scars underneath. One would rarely find him without his fifteen-foot spear strapped across his back, as well as his metal round shield six feet in diameter. Often, he will also have a fifteen-inch knife belted around his waist, and a rough canvas rucksack slung over his shoulder containing a variety of supplies.

Equipment: Enchanted leather breastplate and helmet, metal round shield 6 feet in diameter, 15-foot long pike, fifteen-inch knife, rucksack containing a pair of whet stones, a waterskin, a tent, a piece of flint, and a week's worth of dried rations.

Magical Abilities: Kathostral utilizes a variety of offensive and enhancement magic, as well as some minor healing magic, learned by observing his betters and talking with what shamans he met. This education only fills his repertoire with spells on the simpler end of the spectrum, such as the generic fireball, a shaking of the earth, a speed enhancement, and something to close his wounds, if not actually heal them. Of his wide-ranging, if basic, spell list, he favors ice and forceful spells.

History: When Kathostral was born, his mother went to the community shaman and pleaded with him to grant him a blessing that would make him the fiercest warrior possible, whatever the risks. In a spit of anger, planning on seeing his blessing turn into a curse and have the child accidentally kill or starve himself because of it, he reversed the babe's pleasure and pain signals.
   Fortunately for Kathostral, his mother was a stubborn woman, and force-fed him enough to keep him alive, and kept his father's weaponry out of his way. Once he was more capable of rational thought, he trained himself the endurance to deal with the average daily pleasures-turned-pains, as well as the restraint to not suicidally go for the ultimate pains-turned-pleasures, contenting himself with cuts on his arms and legs as he became a warrior.
   When Kathostral was two hundred and three, the Insectis annexed Mar'Nexeus, though he managed to escape. With a rucksack on his back carrying all that he had obtained during his career as a warrior, he sneaked through Aelisium by following the border. After safely escaping both anti-Creature countries, he headed to Nhylamar, working to replenish his depleted supplies along the way. When he finally arrived at Nhylamar, he realized that he didn't really want to leave the traveling lifestyle, as there were fewer pains, so he struck out once more, planning to follow a mercenary lifestyle.
   Thanks to his willingness to take close on to any job, he was successful in this venture, often hired to work as a bodyguard or to help fight with another mercenary group. To commemorate his fiftieth job, supplementing a small nation's military in a raid against a neighboring country, he cut out the pelvis of one of his kills and carved it into the bone earring he wears, in the tradition of the Mar'Nexian elite.
   Since he was a child, he had been led to believe that there was no way for him to be happy like normal people. He maintained this belief through his years, despite his apparent ability to maintain relationships, though opposing interests and travel often broke them soon after. Now, though, he has started to look back on his life as he grows older considering his profession, and is trying to look farther into what makes him happy than he had before.

Trivia:
-Despite his barbarian upbringing, Kathostral's years outside of his culture have taught him manners and scholasticism to a small extent.
-Kathostral won't use utensils if the situation doesn't expressly call for it.
-The blessing/curse the shaman cast on Kathostral only affects physical pleasure and pain, not mental or emotional.
-Thanks to his periodic pain from life's small pleasures, Kathostral views anyone that appears to be content or happy regularly with some measure of distaste.
-Due to the bleeding Kathostral does from time to time out of pleasure, he has less endurance than an average demon.

[Lisky]

and with this. the open period for OSaS is finished for now... i shall inform you others who applied when it will open again, and give you first shot at the open slots...

For you new-comers... welcome to the game... hope you're not too attached to your characters

[Lisky]

Additional posts will be made in the very not distant future... just working on a few things with a few folks and other things in my own twisted mind... Get ready for the rollercoaster ride ladies and gentleman... the adventures have begun

[AmberCross]

Blah, internet at home is so much fail! Why is it the one time everyone else suddenly has free time... I can't get online? >.<

EDIT: Wait... nevermind. Seems I did not miss pages and pages of OSaS... I just spontaneously logged out between 'unread posts' and the RP thread... again. Anyway, if anyone was wondering where I've been all this time, twas internet and not just holidays that kept me away.

[Shachza]

"Kelendros?"  When did Skie show up?  Is Kitiara somewhere around as well?   

[Gabi]

and with this. the open period for OSaS is finished for now... i shall inform you others who applied when it will open again, and give you first shot at the open slots...

For you new-comers... welcome to the game... hope you're not too attached to your characters

Are we playing Paranoia now?

I'm only just getting to know my character.

[Tapewolf]

Okay, just to make sure, Seth, Ana, Nadia and co. are currently about a mile out of town, right?  I suddenly had a horrible feeling that I'd misread it and they were still in the street, looking at something about a mile away.

Also, is there any indication how far away the object is and how swiftly it is moving?

[Gabi]

I may have misread too, but I understood that they were about a mile away from the town, that the machine was inside the mine moving very slowly, and that there were people trapped in with it and screaming.

If any of that was wrong then my latest posts don't make much sense.

[Tapewolf]

I may have misread too, but I understood that they were about a mile away from the town, that the machine was inside the mine moving very slowly, and that there were people trapped in with it and screaming.

If any of that was wrong then my latest posts don't make much sense.

As far as I can tell from Bas' post, it's broken the surface and is IIRC now heading towards the town itself (though this last is only a guess).  Seth and so on are looking at it, but it's a long way off.  I'm assuming they have some sense of scale since it has been described as being larger than a city block.

[Lisky]

Right-o... to clarify

Seth, Ana, Nadia and Renard are about a mile outside of town, the monster-machine has broken the surface at the mine-entrance, and is quite massive... however, given it's size it's also very slow.

It's heading roughly in the direction towards town, again, -very- slowly

[Tapewolf]

It's heading roughly in the direction towards town, again, -very- slowly

[Imagines Ana, Nadia, Seth and Renard still bickering over what to do while the thing goes past them and demolishes the town]

[Gabi]

[Imagines Ana, Nadia, Seth and Renard still bickering over what to do while the thing goes past them and demolishes the town]

I shouldn't have laughed at this, but I did.

[Azlan]

Now if this was a adventure comedy show, or a webcomic, that would be a funny visual gag.

[Lisky]

now that things are settling down a bit on my end, i'm going to try and get back into regular updating about once a week or so... figured it'd be a good time to start this up now that i've gotten my schedule worked out

[techmaster-glitch]

WOOOOO!

The Black Jackal has FINALLY arived! Welcome, Keaton, it is wonderful to see you active again