Character Submissions (Post your new character)

MadMann, we shall be getting to your submission on Wednesday. I'll just go ahead and edit this post to make it reflect that reply when it's ready, but in the meantime we're just letting you know that you're not being ignored. Rock on, folks! Keep 'em comin'! We're ready and, more importantly, active again, whee! I'm pretty sure wensday has come and gone, about 20 times. I just found that funny and had to point it out. madmann's charachter reminds me of my own... in a anti-social kinda way.

Yes.... We should remind them! Besides all other considerations, I have a character that I wish them to critique... well, I almost have her finished... Edit: Ok, white was a bad idea

Name: Natalia (Talia) Kyabri Age: 17 Gender: female Race: Human Country: Solum Job: Student… Rank: Apprentice Familiar: Note that, as she is an apprentice, she does not yet have a familiar. However, her familiar will be a coyote named Anlia (aka Anli). Her familiar would look something like this. Element: Air – Wind Mage. School: Rusticus Description: Natalia has straight brown hair, which she wears long all year round. In the warmer months, her hair looks more red than brown, from all the time she spends in the sun. Her eyes are a pale green that looks gray from time to time. (Here's a picture for you) Natalia stands about 5’7, but leaves everyone she encounters with the impression that she is quite a bit taller. She gives off an overwhelming air of intimidating something, at first, but after a little while that vanishes (for the most part) and she becomes a friendly, intelligent, polite and helpful young mage. However, Natalia is very opinionated, stubborn, and outspoken, at least about things she doesn’t agree with. The war is her original pet peeve, and she is quite willing to explain what is wrong with war in all shapes and sizes calmly and rationally, if you are too, but she is just as likely to rant for hours about anything else she deems wrong or unfair. When she was younger, she wanted to be a famous artist, due to a rather unusual belief that, since art can be peaceful, a good enough artist could end wars. When she discovered that very rarely do artists have the power to create peace between warring countries, she decided she’d rather be a teacher, at least until she discovered who could. She now plans to become a teacher of enchantments, since enchanting things is the thing she is best at. She is notoriously bad at any and all offensive and defensive magics, as her favorite way of dealing with fights is to a) separate the fighters with strong winds and strand them in the tallest trees around, or b) to trap a would-be assaulter in one of her wind-sculptures. Perhaps a little short-sighted about some things, Natalia insists that even if she was (for whatever reason) faced with a fight against a Storm Mage Master, her technique would require only a little tweak; blowing herself far, far away before any battling could actually take place. Past: As the daughter of a General and a Storm Mage, and granddaughter of a Baron, everybody expected Natalia to go to Oron. She did too… until her father was killed in a major battle with Sei. Then four, ‘Talia had little knowledge of war. All she knew was that it killed Daddies, and if it killed Daddies it could do the same to Mommies, Uncles, Aunts, cousins, siblings, and friends. Everyone she knew either told stories about battles or maneuvers they had taken part in, or what they would someday do, or what was happening in Solum because of the constant warfare. Previously, Natalia had paid little attention to grown-up conversations; they did not fit in her world, but now she listened carefully. She asked her cousins, home on vacations, all about schools and magic, and eventually discovered the detail most important to her; that there was a school that could teach her magic that not require her to fight later on. Instantly, with the characteristic determination of her family, she set out to convince her grandparents and Mommy to let her go to Rusticus, despite generations of tradition. At first, her family found it amusing; most of her family thought it would pass, that she didn’t understand what she was saying. But her mother recognized her daughter’s willpower as what had gotten her husband to the rank of general, and knew that nothing could change her daughter’s mind. On Natalia’s sixth birthday, she was enrolled at the school of her choice, despite the lasting misgivings of most of her relatives. At first, Natalia found it hard to make friends at her new school, since she was the daughter of war heroes, besides being a noble. She had even more trouble with the other new students, because she at home she was the youngest, except for a baby or two, and had had no one her age to talk to. She would follow older students around and chatter at them, until she was forced away by a teacher. Eventually, she decided that there must be something wrong with her, since even some of the teachers would look at her strangely. (For entirely different reasons of course- mostly they were astonished about how much she already knew) About three months after her arrival at school, ten-year-old twin weather mages found her behind their barn, crying. They didn’t know who she was, but she was obviously crying, and obviously , so they cheered her up with some silly little tricks with their magic. Those two became her first friends at school, and they explained to Natalia what was “wrong” with her. Once she realized that most people expected her to be snobby and generally to good to associate with commoners, she tried her best to be exactly the opposite. It worked, slowly. By the end of that firs year she had quite few friends, and was acquainted with almost everyone else. Some people still distrusted her, but she wasn’t concerned; getting everyone to like her would have been impossible. Because of her theory that an artist with enough skill could end the war, Natalia worked very hard on drawing … only to discover that she didn’t like it. She invariably got exasperated with whatever drawing medium she tried, and couldn’t figure out why. When she mentioned this to a teacher, the adept suggested she try sculpture. Thoughtful, ‘Talia got some clay and tried it out. She decided that sculpting was much more fun, and more useful(She counted pottery as ‘sculpting’) and she was pretty good at it. Not too long after that, she got the idea to try sculpting wind. This, of course, was very different as wind doesn’t just stay still and submit to being poked and prodded into shape. She slowly learned how to create fantastic, abstract sculptures of loops and circles and other interconnected shapes. However, these works of art had two major flaws; they would cease to exist when she ended her spells, and that they were invisible to everyone who was not a wind or storm mage. Even her best friends, the twin weather magi, could only sense that something odd was happening to the air there. Discouraged, she went back to creating artwork out of semi-solid, visible, substances. After she learned to enchant objects, she decided to try her wind art again, this time anchoring her creations to an enchanted object. This worked better than she had dared to hope, and she got to work trying to make her art visible for other people. Perhaps asking for help would have worked better, but eventually she sorted through hundreds of spells and enchantments used to improve sight, make things visible, emphasize movement, see underwater, etc… Nervous, she showed her newest creation to the twins… and they could see it! Ecstatic, she ran t show t to her other friends… but none of them could see more than a strange flicker in the air. Instead of doing something more drastic, like adding more vision spells, or enchanting something else to help people see her sculptures, Natalia gave up on them. She did only her schoolwork. Her friends were all very worried, since this dejection was very uncharacteristic of ‘Talia, and they began trying outrageous things to make the sculpture visible. Working off the twins’ description of the thing, it became a game, thinking up the most outlandish things to try to see the wind art. Finally, someone suggested blindfolding someone. To this day, no one is entirely certain why it worked, but her friends happily and immediately told Natalia that al you had to do was blindfold someone and they could see her art. That cheered her up (as soon as she had been convinced) but by that time she had learned that artists did not, in fact, outrank kings and queens, and had decided that teaching was a good second choice. After all, a teacher could teach peaceful uses of magic, and the horrors of war… and besides, teachers had access to libraries all the time! Her search for ways to make her art visible had convinced her that libraries could answer any questions. As for her family, by the end of her first few years at Rusticus, most of her family had gotten used to the fact that she would not change her mind, and had stopped bothering Natalia and her mother about it. She was getting wonderful grades, and all her teacher’s reports were positive, so even the relatives who were still annoyed or uncertain realized that they didn’t really have any say in the matter anyway. Natalia’s mother wished they had realized that in the beginning but she didn’t hold it against them. Natalia had two older brothers (21 and 23), who are both in the military as officers already, and an older sister(20), a healer, just finishing her training at the Capital. She also has a younger brother (13), born a few months after their father died (He was what saved their mother, keeping her home instead of with their father in that fateful battle) He is currently an apprentice at Oron. She has many, many cousins, and quite a few aunts and uncles, on both sides of her family. Her grandfather (maternal) is a baron, (her grandmother died the year before Natalia was born) She and her family got along well enough, when she sees them, and she loves her Grandpa and Mother, and her younger brother, because she taught him to talk when he was really little. Her brother is the only one she chooses to write to regularly, because she has to write regular ‘reports’ to her mother and grandfather, as part of their agreement to allow her to go to Rusticus.

Hey, all. Sorry (AGAIN) about the second, shameful delay. I've been reading over what you all have posted lately, and am beginning to formulate a reply, but I have to wait for ADK to come back online before I can send anything off for sure. Ah, the realities of a team... Thanks for your patience though. Our credibility when it comes to deadlines is pretty much shot to hell, and yet, you stick around... Bless you, lovelies. Bless you.

Yes, I know this makes two before the first is done, but I do that. And then I store them away for later, or I give them away to those what wants/needs them. And this is only a very rough draft, so please, rampant criticism and corrections of inconsistency, as well as recommendations, are more than welcome. Name: Mael Azareel Age: 24 Race: Human Country: Solum Job: Noble/Warrior Rank: up for definition....Count, or son of a Count, is what I'm thinking, just because of the sound of the title, really, I don't know how high or low on the list that is..... Mage Rank: Journeyman Familiar:Kingfisher or Raven. decision pending Element: Water- Seeker School: Optimates Description: Mael Azareel was born noble. He knew this from the moment he could understand the idea, and was never allowed to forget it. He was more, he had more, and so he should be more, should achieve more, should be capable of oh, so much more. He strove for excellence in everything he did, both for his own sake, and because he really wasn't given much choice. But he had a keen mind, a quick wit, and a body somewhat more supple and agile than most. And when that did not suffice, he had a sharp, arrogant tongue with which to salvage his pride. As he aged beyond five, his body finally grew enough to allow a certain odd, indistinct birthmark on the front of his left shoulder, near the collarbone, to become more discernable. Now able to be seen as a magical sign, albeit a small one, his parents immediately signed him up for the Optimates academy before he became too old. His abilities as a Water Seeker were found to be very limited in scope, unable to extend much beyond his own reach, but they were there, and trainable. Having inherited, or perhaps had trained into him, a certain obsessive perfectionism, Mael sought to master his limited talent to the highest, most exacting degree possible, though he devoted as little of his precious time to this endeavor as he felt he could justify, feeling his talents elsewhere were greater, and thus deserved more. And rightly so. Mael proved talented in most -*test*-('")s of athleticism that involved agility, and swiftly became a skilled swordsman as well. He also proved quite able at music and history, and was often found lurking somewhere unexpected, somewhat hidden, and always nicely out of the way for privacy, playing haunting music on a flute or lyre, or quietly reading. Cliffs near bodies of water seem to be his favorite spots. He focuses on self-enchantment and that of his weapon, in order to make his body or even blade flow with lethal fluidity. He prizes skill above strength, and it shows...though one might wonder if he feels thus only because it is the direction in which his form showed the most potential. His musculature, though lithe and athletic, is by no stretch of the imagination built for strength. Between his magic, and his agility, both natural and trained, he can move in almost impossible ways, flowing out of the path of blows with heart-stopping grace and speed, and striking back in kind, with lethal precision. Against most foes, this is more than sufficient....however, despite being able to land blows accurately and swiftly, slipping past an opponent's defense with ease, he has no small difficulty against armored foes. While he can find chinks, and hit them well, and even make his blade flow into and past them, nevertheless it is difficult for him to make any truly telling blows. And getting into a magical con-*test*-('") against even a half-decent mage is largely beyond his ability if he cannot close with them. A cold, arrogant perfectionist, he disdains all he feels are below him, which is most, and treats them with, while not open insult, a kind of chilly, cultured civility.

Silvertip Character looks great, I just have one challenge for you. Solum is an extremely militant culture, and it's people are raised to accept that. I wouldn't say that's an unacceptable conflict of interest, after all part of the fun of making a character is that they don't have to be the de-facto average citizen (It seems silly to expect that when even in real life such people are essentially non-existent) but I want to point out that in such a unified, relatively collectivist society, radically different points of view such as rabid anti-war activism are generally not seen as just eccentricities. Being American makes it easy to forget that, which is one of the great things about our culture (despite all the bad shit Americans like to think about themselves, there is an element of freedom in this country that's hard to find in many other places). Consider Aristotle's trial and execution for proposing varying standards of philosophy and ethics during his life in Athens. His views and influence were rather more extreme than that of a young apprentice mage, but the point remains the same. Just keep in mind that if you want to play a radically different philosophy on war and conflict, your character had better be prepared to face social persecution and ostracism, and possibly even branding as a traitor or agent of Sei, unless she does a very good job of keeping her opinions to herself. If you're comfortable with playing that, or if not then if you can come up with a comfortable compromise, you've got a green light from me. :)

Hm....are the forums so dead nobody bothers with the critique anymore? I mean, I know it'll be forever, if not never, before I play anything, but c'mon, it's still fun to see what people think. And I'm gonna get around to taking all the feedback I got for Malach and fixing him up eventually, I promise! Will do likewise for Mael. Hell, if I dig up my private messages, I already have somewhat, and there's room for more. I just need to come around here more, then I'll remember. Post, people!

Well, Garuda was in charge with character evals, and since I have proven to be horrible at that, it falls to the creators to do so. And since they haven't returned from the moon yet, I can't do much.

Shard, your character looks good shard. I like the details put into it, and can already see him in my mind. You have a pretty lethal setup and I like the way you combined fluid athletics with water magic. I'd like to hear a little more about him though. Does he have anyone he is close to? He appears to like being alone, but is he lonely? Does he actually have any friends? Surely he's stepped on more than a few toes and made some enemies. Oh yeah, and dark blue text is very hard to read on the gray background. Next time please pick one that has more contrast to the field.

Azareel has great potential... but he needs more. I'll discuss the ranks with you later, after Lara and I have the time to go over it (perhaps we can all be online at once and discuss it with you over msn or aim, that might be even better.) However, there's only one paragraph worth of information on WHO he is, quite a bit concentrates on how he fights and what he can do. Remember, this is about personality more then everything else (will be even more once the new system is implemented, but we'll get to that later.) Also, he still needs a history. ;P

Can I make a character submission while you guys are working on the new RP system?

Yes, you may. The redux system will still require character description and background, there will just be an additional parts where you post the mechanics of your character. Both parts will have to pass (though one will be easier, as it will simply be point distribution and thus so long as you follow the rules, you should just be approved for it immediately) while the other is the personality etc of the character, which will be the same as what you post here. Thus, those who are approved before hand will NOT have to be approved again when the time comes. ;)

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