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“This is the Floating Castle! You all knew that once inside, there were only two ways to leave. Reach the top! Or... die.”

Nobody is entirely certain why the Floating Castle exists, or where it came from, but it has been drawing adventurers towards it for decades. The Castle is rumoured to hold great riches, or secrets, or perhaps even magic, at the pinnacle of its one-hundredth floor, and many an aspiring hero has travelled there, to try their luck against the Castle's many challenges, all of them knowing that once they entered, there are only two ways to leave. For some, perhaps, this was the true appeal of the Castle: a new life in a world separated from any which had come before.

But it seems the Castle lay abandoned for decades before newcomers began to arrive within its walls, drawn by the promise of riches, or adventure, or simply the chance to start a new life, and who knows what mysteries will dog them during their advances toward the one-hundredth floor. Welcome to a world of adventure and terror, where the odds are high that every single floor is going to hide at least one thing wanting to kill you. Welcome to the Floating Castle Roleplay.

Oddly, the title 'castle' seems only fitting from the outside. Each floor is comprised of a large area of land with varied features and challenges, many of them unique to that particular floor. Each new floor is reachable via a strange elevator in the centre of town, and the journey grows increasingly more perilous the higher its players ascend. Each floor may hide rivers, caves, forests, mountains, ravines, abandoned buildings, temples, lakes— and that's not counting the many indigenous inhabitants who have been hanging around the Castle since time immemorial: everything from Goblins to Rock Golems. Perhaps they have a higher claim to the Castle than any of these newcomers? Each Floor Boss hides a gate to the next floor, and all the mysteries hidden there.

The goal of all players is to ascend to the one-hundredth floor, by dealing with the challenges each floor has to offer, be that a puzzle to solve, a conflict to end or, naturally, a monster to be defeated. The mysteries the Castle promises have attracted a diverse range of people from every possible walk of life, each with their own skills, weaknesses and troubled backstories; many of them are driven forward to the Castle by the events of their past.

The Floating Castle Roleplay originated on the Watch the Footage forums, formerly home to the TV Tropes The Wall Will Fall Alternate Reality Game. It was originally put together by former player Pixelmage, with later support from eli_gone_crazy, Qara Xuan Zenith, and numerous members of the forum. The roleplay operates by pairing up various players and their characters for individual missions at random, making every post a Collaborative Project by the players. Players are also encouraged to create side stories, form their own alliances and rivalries, and explore their own plotlines outside of the main storyline.

The roleplay is currently accepting new players here.

Not to be confused with the trope Ominous Floating Castle


Floating Castle provides examples of:

  • Absurdly-Spacious Sewer: The Underground (that there even exists an underground in a floating castle suggests the entire place is of a magical origin).
    • The city sewers themselves are this, as they have plenty of room for adventurers to run through.
  • Adventure Guild: Severed Claw and Storm and Drive are primarily this.
  • Amplifier Artifact: Asha's Talismans are this to an extent as they were created with reference to previous rage influencing spells and items.
    • Luca's Sword, Ba'al also fits this category.
    • Trope continues with Tamar, whose weapon is actually the only way in which he can access his latent magical ability. Even then it only works with his own sword.
  • Anachronism Stew: The RP is primarily set in a fantasy medieval setting, however bits and pieces sneak through from other eras, including Dynamite, Magnets, and the Heimlich manoeuvre.
  • Armour-Piercing Question:
    “All of Hector’s words, all of Olivia’s, they never meant anything. You see it now, don’t you? How naive it all was?”
    • Context: Luca to Tamar, after pressing his Berserk Button for the first time.
    “So everything you told your brother— that was a lie?
    • Context: Ben considers herself a disgrace for being so thoroughly defeated by Kravos and daring to show her fear, as well as her inability to protect Nova. Kevin calls her out for holding herself up to an impossibly high standard by asking her the above question: As after her brother had a similar experience, Ben told him that one defeat did not make him a failure.
  • Bar Brawl: One breaks out repeatedly during Anji and Julius's "Groundhog Day" Loop, whether or not they were there to begin it.
  • Battle in the Center of the Mind: Ben faces one of these, being forced to confront twisted versions of her friends and brother back home while lost in the Underground.
  • Bears Are Bad News: There has been at least one mission involving wild bears so far. It wasn't fun for the characters involved.
  • Bequeathed Power: Turns out, magic users can do this. Asha transfers some of her power to Tamar and Eliziya upon her death, although the latter may have been unintentional on her part and appears to be having some nasty side effects.
  • Berserk Button: Many of the characters have one of these.
    • You destroyed the forest? Too bad. Pan will hurt you now.
    • Seire dislikes cowards who allow others to die while they escape. Leads to the death of one of his opponents fairly early on in the series.
    • Do not threaten the lives of his friends in front of Tamar, especially not Eliziya: it will lead to having an ice boomerang embedded in your chest.
    • Nova's Berserk Button appears to be her supressed memories of being Anjali.
  • Big "NO!": The Vermin Lord after Tamar destroys his altar.
  • Bilingual Bonus: More of a cultural reference than a linguistic one, but Asha giving Eliziya a jade hairpin has a double meaning. In Chinese culture, giving a girl of Eliziya's age a Hairpin is a Rite of Passage signifying she is ready for marriage (although it is unlikely Asha is aware of this). Given that Eliziya is this world's equivalent of Chinese, and is written by a player from Singapore, this is undoubtedly deliberate.
  • Bizarrchitecture The building Salvantas and Tamar face Comedy and Tragedy in is based off M. C. Escher's House of Stairs.
  • Blind Obedience: The one truly powerful effect of the Talisman's Asha created was that they encouraged obedience towards those who acted against the Guilds but again, it's impossible to be sure how much of this was magically induced and how much was an excuse
    • Tamar had a bit of this regarding his adherence to Hector's "Don't kill humans" police. He seems to have developed his own, similar stance though, since Luca called him out on it.
  • Brainwashing for the Greater Good: Arguably why Mr Blank lobotomized a murderer he found hiding out in the underground although it's questionable as to whether this was a justified action at the time.
  • Call-Back: In his first mission Seire tricks the guards of the warehouse into believing that he and Giselle had set off a number of remote pyromancy charges all over the building: pyromancy charges being something which doesn't actually exist. The idea must have gotten around though, because later on when Ben tells Tamar the truth about Hector, we get the following line:
    Well, it seemed like today was just going to keep right on dropping magical pyromancy charges on him, wasn’t it?
    • Happens again in Salvantas' Underground Mission wherein we meet Elisa, the Succubus from whom the Vermin lord "borrowed" his altar which was then destroyed by an earlier expedition.
    • Curtiss seems incapable of making any less than three references to prior adventures per mission- according to his author, it would be five if it weren't for the time limits. In particular, his second venture in the underground levels seems to draw heavily from his experiences during his first, and the crystal spike he looted from his fight with a golem also makes an appearance.
  • The Church: There is at least one major organized religion in the Floating Castle, and the church also serves as a medical base during major incidents. However there are signs that certain aspects of the church may not be as saintly as they seem.
  • Color-Coded for Your Convenience: The crystals in the underground change color depending on how much magic they detect in the surrounding area, with warmer colors signifying higher magic concentration. Zero magic means they're gray, slight traces turn them purple, and absolutely immeasurable amounts make them red.
  • Cooldown Hug: How Anji defeats her shadow self. Kind of depressing in that it's also indicative of her own intense self esteem problem.
  • Dances and Balls: Anji and Kevin host a ball to raise the City's morale.
  • Dark and Troubled Past: Almost all of the player characters have this to some extent or another. One fan theory is that this is what drew many of them to the Castle in the first place.
  • Darkest Hour: Storm and Drive become pretty much screwed during the Civil War, what with their leader turned to stone in a last ditch effort to keep her alive, their second in command going undercover while also wounded, their healer losing her mind and going AWOL and their youngest member being stabbed through the gut. Meanwhile everyone else is just as screwed over...
  • Death by Origin Story: It would be so much easier to list the exceptions to this trope.
    • To clarify, so far only Curtiss, Morionem, Fern, Mirae, Likovya, and technically Eliziya do not have any highly significant deaths present in their backstories in some way. Ben's situation also technically does not involve any deaths although it's pretty traumatic all the same.
  • Defeat Means Respect: One of the soldiers sent after Hector is surprised to find that the so called "Jade Devil" who ruined their careers has turned over a new leaf and is a genuinely likeable guy. This leads to them all defecting from the Anti Guild and one in particular, Kain ends up providing Hector with the information he needs to find Luca and Asha.
  • Depending on the Writer: Being an RP based on collab writing, it pops up from time to time. Perhaps one of the more notable examples would be the battle with the rakes during the mission to find the way to the third floor; one of the scouts ends up having the time of his life hacking away at the rakes, which are portrayed as mindlessly charging at him one at a time with little regard to strategy and planning, whereas the other, portrayed as having equal skill, ends up being overtaken and immobilized within seconds by a complex and well-coordinated attack by several other rakes.
  • Drinking Game: The player-designed drinking game seems designed to cause liver failure.
  • Elemental Powers: The primary forms of magic seen thus far are the most common fire based magic, Electricity, and ice. Magic does not appear to be limited to such elements, however most spells are derived or variations of them.
  • Emotion Bomb: Used by the Minotaur on the protagonists in the second boss battle, also used on the Kobolds by their mage during the first boss battle. Certain characters, specifically Luca and Asha, appear to have further designs on it.
  • Emotion Eater: The polymorph that appears in one of the quests does this, feeding on negative emotions.
  • Establishing Character Moment: Everyone gets one of these.
    • Seire deliberately avoids using stairs as a matter of principle. Then there's his response to Giselle during their meeting: Why would I leave anything that's tied down? I have scissors!
    • We first meet Ben and Hector when they get into a fight against a corrupted Lord. Hector then mistakes Ben for a male, and starts waxing lyrical about the love of his life.
    • Anjali is first introduced to us taking a nap in the city, and making a fast getaway when confronted by a thug.
    • Tamar surprises Eliziya and ends up getting slapped, moments before the Kobolds attack.
    • "Behold, I am Marcus! Slayer of Cows!"
  • Evil Counterpart: the Shadow Versions of the characters created by Asha in the Underground. Julius defeats his by killing it Anji defeats hers by accepting and hugging her... she doesn't have as much luck against Soren Kavros' shadow self, though.
  • Fantasy Kitchen Sink: The universe as it stands contains a variety of weapons and creatures from various cultures, including Chinese cultural tradition and references to Norse mythology, neither of which should exist in this Universe.
  • Fire-Forged Friends: Most of the characters meet in extremely difficult, often life or death situations. Pan and Marcus meet while taking on a Behemoth rampaging around the town, Ben and Kurt meet while she's fighting a monster inside of her own head, while Tamar and Eliziya meet when they are attacked by Kobolds.
  • Floating Continent: There's a really huge area of land inside the castle around the town, at least two days worth of walking distance in every direction.
  • Foreshadowing: There are many hints dropped, sometimes in side stories, as to the continuing plotlines of individual players, as well as the overall secret behind the castle itself and its prior inhabitants.
  • "Freaky Friday" Flip: Ben and Jenny undergo one of these.
  • Gender-Blender Name: At least three characters, Ben, Fern, and Tamar, have names generally associated with the opposite gender.
  • "Groundhog Day" Loop: The characters Anji and Julius are trapped in one of these as a result of interacting with an item previously belonging to the 99th level even though the current inhabitants had only ascended to level two at the time and were in no way prepared for level 99 magic.
  • Hall of Mirrors: Luca constructs one of these in the Underground. It's unclear whether this one is the same as the one Julius and Mirae find.
  • Hate Plague: Spread throughout the town courtesy of Asha's rage-infused magic talismans, although it's important to note they are to some extent drawing on the emotions that are already there.
  • Heroic BSoD: Characters seem to have these on a semi regular basis, although for some of them it's a part of their origin story, rather than an event in the RP.
    • Tamar did not find out about Anjali and Julius' "deaths" in the best possible manner. This followed by his almost killing Luca...
    • Ben's Heroic Blue screen leads to her offering up Severed Claw to Anjali. Said blue screen is completely justified given what was done to her.
    • The same thing appears to have turned Julius into a one man killing machine.
  • Hoist by His Own Petard: In the mission to secure the path to the third floor, it's implied that the only reason a group of rakes attacked the player characters was because the resident idiot hero's posturing caused a cave-in that buried a good deal of the pack. Later in that same mission, a rock golem wreaks havoc on the team by shooting crystal spikes and making walls of stalagmites; one of the scouts uses a salvaged spike from the former attack to drop massive sections of the latter onto the golem's head.
    • Again in the Underground mission, The Vermin Lord is killed by the insects and rats he once commanded after the altar allowing him to control them was broken.
  • Hub Level: At the core of the castle's lowest form lies a city, originally in ruins, now being restored to its former glory. All adventurers advance to the upper levels via an elevator in a centralised pillar. The city of course drops hints that people have been in the Floating castle previously.
  • Huge Guy, Tiny Girl: Marcus and Mirae
  • Humans Are the Real Monsters: Played with, but it's generally considered to be more complicated than that. Different characters all have their own moral opinions, and position of the sliding scale of good versus evil.
  • In Harm's Way: Many of the characters, but most obvious in the Sky Chasers.
    Why not? A traveling guild, out for fun and adventure, with a little hero work on the side?
  • King Incognito: Ben is actually the princess of Lamada and ended up in the Floating Castle because she's soon to be married and wanted one last adventure before she signed up for a life of politics. So far only Julius knows her true identity.
    • Lori used to be a famous sage, but for unknown reasons wishes to keep that a secret. Julius knows her true identity.
  • Lady Looks Like a Dude: Played with. Actually, while somewhat masculine in appearance, most characters figure out off the bat that Ben is actually female. Guild leader Hector, however, has yet to figure it out. Pan too has been mistaken for a small boy, on occasion.
  • Lotus-Eater Machine: The ninth floor was one of these before it was killed by Anji and Kurt. With the bloody aftermath still around weeks later, it looks like it might become a Corpse Land.
  • Magic Librarian: Lori and the other keepers of knowledge at the local town library.
  • Magnetic Plot Device: The residents of the castle are a combination of people who either a) sought out the Castle deliberately in search of adventure or b) somehow seemed to magically find themselves there and are not entirely sure how.
  • Meet Cute: Tamar and Eliziya meet when Tamar tries to save her from falling off a cliff in the dark, resulting in them both losing their balance, and Eliziya falling right on top of him. The predictable occurs.
    • Tamar seems to have a tendency toward quite literally running into people.
  • Monster-Shaped Mountain: The sixth floor currently has one in the form of a solidified kraken.
  • More than Mind Control: Asha's Talismans do have some effect on the minds of the city's inhabitants, but they're also to an extent feeding on feelings that were already present.
  • Murder, Inc..: The Assassin's guild
  • Naga: One of the many Monster/Human Hybrid creatures in the Floating Castle.
  • Names to Run Away from Really Fast: Hector was apparently once known as The Jade Devil, although in the Castle, he doesn't act particularly demonic, it's clear he has a dark history...
    • Some of the guilds have pretty questionable names too, ranging from Severed Claw to Phantom Thieves Anonymous.
    • Then there's Mister Blank, the darker personality of Salvantas.
  • Noodle Incident Whatever happened to Eliziya's Blue Vase? The world may never know.
  • NPC: A wide range of side characters including Legias, leader of the town guard, and Lori, head of the library.
  • Oblivious to Love: Hector has about as much romantic awareness as he does a desire for book-based learning methods, and if he makes a comment that sounds like an innuendo, the odds are he doesn't realise he's doing it. He is, however overly attached to his weaponry.
  • Ominous Floating Castle: Seriously a given.
  • Open Secret: Storm and Drive's abandoned-temple hideout is supposed to be a secret— and yet the leaders of at least two other guilds, several solo players, and the leader of the anti-guild faction have all found their ways there.
  • Patchwork Map: The Castle's recent rearrangement resulted in this, with the previously Single Biome Floors being laid out in one long row, so that a idyllic pasture lies right next to a desert, which stops abruptly at a Narnia-esque snowy wasteland.
  • Pet the Dog: Pretty much any of Asha's interactions with the somewhat crazy Eliziya qualify as this.
    • She also chooses to heal Tamar's fatal stab wound, in spite of him being the apprentice of her enemy, Hector, partly out of obligation to Eliziya, but seemingly also for other reasons yet unexplained.
    • Adam's desire to protect the men under his care in his otherwise sarcastic letter when a quest team talks him into helping out on a mission to recapture the Transport Column. Character Development is in full play with this guy.
  • Powder Keg Crowd: These seem to gather fairly frequently, especially in Julius' general vicinity.
  • Ragtag Bunch of Misfits: Storm and Drive. Just... Storm and Drive.
  • Reasonable Authority Figure: Legias, leader of the town guard, while strict and suspicious by nature, is generally a benevolent leader who wants the best for the residents of the Castle.
  • Relationship Upgrade: Subverted with Anjali and Julius. It was all pointing that way until the events of the Civil War caused an unfortunate separation. Half the castle are still holding their breaths, though.
    • Then Played Straight with Eliziya and Tamar during the third boss battle. Yes, the first romantic relationship to occur between FC's player characters is a couple of teenagers.
    • Then there's Anji and Kevin, the first pairing between a player character and an effective NPC
    • Mirae and Marcus just upgraded too, in part due to players clamouring for it.
  • Relatively Flimsy Excuse: Anjali and Eliziya claim to be sisters even though Anji is an obviously caucasian redhead and Eliziya is this world's equivalent of Chinese. They ended up together after Anjali was blackmailed into kidnapping her, refused to kill her and ended up being saved by Eliziya herself, who then lost a lot of her memory and has been with Anjali ever since.
  • Sacred First Kiss: Eliziya seems to take her kissing Tamar this way.
  • Savvy Guy, Energetic Girl: Inverted with Giselle and Seire, with her being the more pragmatic of the two and Seire being... well, nuts.
  • Schizo Tech: Dynamite in a Medieval setting? SURE! It probably won't be the last time, either.
  • Shipper on Deck: Zi decides it is a good (and funny) idea to dump Anji and Julius in the same bed after she drugs them both to sleep.
  • Shout-Out
  • Shrouded in Myth: The Floating Caste itself is a mystery, as are the stories of a former king by the name of Arthur, who ascended the Castle years earlier. Of course this raises the question of why the castle was so deserted when the new adventurers arrived.
  • Sliding Scale of Gender Inequality: Floating Castle falls into the Almost Perfect Equality section (which is surprising given its era can be roughly traced to the Medieval period), but it sometimes depends where in the outside world the player characters came from.
    • In the first mission, Ben encounters an undoubtedly sexist "Lord" who immediately assumes he can best her in a fight and that "wenches such as her need to learn their place," whereas Tamar's home in the Veil doesn't care what gender you are so long as you're good at killing people.
  • Split Personality: Salvantas/Blank, possibly resulting from the trauma he experienced in childhood.
  • Spoiled Brat: The "Princeling" who enflamed the riots in the slum area due to his anger at having been dumped there by the Castle rather than into some magnificent quest. He appears to have been undergoing some Character Development, however...
  • Suspiciously Specific Denial: From Giselle.
    Giselle:''' Nothing's on the table. Or under it or near it, for that matter. Let's all just ignore the table, okay? I think that would be for the best.
  • Taken for Granite: Anjali is frozen into stone by Lori, revealed to be an Earth Sage, in order to save her from an otherwise fatal stab wound they don't currently have the power to heal.
  • Thieves' Guild: Seire's Phantom Thieves Anonymous.
  • Tranquil Fury: The way in which Julius eventually overcomes the minotaur's spell: by using the very rage it made him feel.
    • Invoked by Luca intentionally through tapping into the magic of his sword, Ba'al
  • Turtle Island: Floor 16 is home to one of these. It is... less than welcoming to attempts to build an outpost.
  • Underground Level: The Underground is incredibly dark and dangerous place, inhabited by particularly grotesque and disturbing creatures. In it has its own story thread for any players who wish to challenge it.
  • Violation of Common Sense: Giving explosives to the goblins? Check. Frequent visits to the insanely dangerous Underground? Check. Blowing up a lake to put out a forest fire? Check. People even joked that a quest reward should be: "Lost Discipline: Common Sense".
  • Wham Episode: Several of them.
  • Eliziya completely loses it and runs off n the middle of a skirmish, only to be found by Asha and Luca
  • Aaaand again here, with Soren Kravos's shadow almost killing Anjali, wounding Julius, and basically plunging Storm and Drive into chaos.
    • And then Anjali is miraculously healed of her injury, only to reveal she does not remember who Julius is.
  • Hey Tamar, welcome to the list of people being stabbed. It gets even stranger in the side story where you find out who saved him... Asha.
  • A rare side story example when Eliziya offers herself up as Asha's new body. Asha is not happy about it.
  • Shard kills Julius, and restructures the inside of the castle.

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