Freeform Wuxia RP

HIIYAH!

In the mythical land of Jianghu, martial arts is the lay of the land. Nobles, thieves, beggars, priests, healers, merchants and craftsmen, masters and monsters inhabit this land, something of a mish mash of many Asian elements to create a fantastic, magical, and sometimes steampunk land.

Ghosts are the souls of the dead who have been tied to the world of the living for some reason, be it because their rage kept them there or they had unfinished business. Most new ghosts looks like their human selves, but the older ones, having been tied to the Earth for so long, take on monstrous appearances to show the inner pain they feel. Many of them look like strange animalistic beasts.

Several people, from all walks of life have witness attacks by these ghosts, something the government is trying to keep a secret. And so, those characters, brought together by the shadows of the demons and the government, have been trained and unified by the martial arts. Together...they fight monsters.

Ki is the life energy by which magic is used. Some people have more ki stored in them than others, some none at all. You can store more the older you get, but then as you become elderly, you can store less. The actual amount you have can be increased or decreased in many ways from training, meditation, and rituals. Ki allows you to have interesting abilities and attacks. These magical attacks can manifest in releasing energy in the form of the elements, which are Wood (Plants), Fire, Earth, Metal, and Water.

• Name: (Must be Asian, but doesn't have to be Chinese)
• Nickname: (Must be an animal from the Eastern Zodiac. Make sure you check which ones are taken. The Nickname has to be a type of the animal you chose. Ex. You chose Snake, so your nickname could be Viper or Anaconda)
• Age:
• Sex:
• Appearance:
• Outfit:
• Fighting Style: (If it is a fighting style you came up with, be it your character's invention or what have you, describe it.)
• Weapon(s):
• Abilities: (Skills your character has as well as Ki Abilities. You don't have to have Ki abilities.)
• Personality:
• Background:

• Name: Meilin Huiqing
• Nickname: Horse
• Age: 18
• Sex: Female
• Appearance: Long, shaggy black hair, a wide toothy grin and green eyes. She has the appearance of a cheerful demon, but still girlish and pretty. She isn't very tall.
• Outfit: This.
• Fighting Style: Ancient Crazy Horse Technique. A style passed down from generations of female fighters. It is a form of Drunken Master fighting, designed to be in tune with the female form, as well as having more elegant movements. It specializes in confusing and incapacitating the opponent, using actual fighting as a last resort.
• Weapon(s): None.
• Abilities: An excellent dancer. She is very flexible. The only Ki ability she has is outputting energy to intentionally throw off her balance, because her fighting style is improved when her balance is off. The drinking helps.
• Personality: Meilin is cheerful and sociable, and very popular. She's earthy and understands a lot of the little things that doesn't really matter in the grand scheme. She is very talkative, and likes to sing and dance. She drinks, constantly. She is hardly ever sober. She almost always has a cup of Jiu in hand. She can be fickle and childish at times.
• Background: Grew up in a major Fire city that valued the opinions and abilities of women. She learned the Crazy Horse Technique from her Aunt, and wants to travel the world to find the girl that she will apprentice and pass it on to. She is also travelling to find the best drinks. She was brought in to be trained when she witnessed a monsterous squid ghost terrorizing campers.

edited 12th Aug '11 8:11:58 PM by Saturn

• Name: An Xhu
• Nickname: Python
• Age: 50
• Sex: M
• Appearance: An is a very short, compact, and muscular old man. He is clean-shaven with lined, scarred features that have seen many battles.
• Outfit:He wears a simple green robe with long, flowing sleeves that hide his body's shape. When out of combat, he uses a walking stick, though largely just for appearances.
• Fighting Style: Judo: Python fights in an exclusively defensive style; he is a master of redirection, grapples, and evasion.
• Weapon(s): None
• Abilities: An actually has stunted Chi; he cannot generate Ki Attacks of his own, but he can absorb and redirect them. He cannot store Chi in him, either.
• Personality: An is very pensive and passive; he has technically never engaged someone in a fight as the aggressor, but openly taunts people into combat. He hates bullies and other people who pick on the weak. He's also incredibly smug in his martial superiority as an allegedly untouchable defender.
• Background: An was raised in a small, little-known fiefdom as a bodyguard to the lord there. From a young age, he was trained to defend others, and grew into a powerful martial artist, despite his stunted Chi. However, after he turned about thirty An failed to defend his home, the castle destroyed by a hail of arrows. He narrowly escaped and fled to a distant mountain to further practice his technique, taking on the name of Python. For fifteen years now he had trained atop the mountain, descending only occasionally for supplies. Now he has decided to Walk the Earth, defending those he previously could not.

Accepted.

Why do you keep making RPs that interest me?

• Name: Sun Dishi
• Nickname: Boar
• Age: 24
• Sex: M
• Appearance: Dishi is about average height and weight with very short, almost peachfuzz-like hair on his head and very dark, green eyes. His chin sports a small goatee. His skin is tanned from spending a lot of his time outside.
• Outfit: He wears a dark shirt and breeches covered by very light armor that covers his chest, forearms, and shins.
• Fighting Style: Eskrima. He most commonly uses his rattan sticks when fighting, but he is more than capable of utilizing throws, unarmed strikes, and bladed weapons.
• Weapon(s): A pair of Rattan sticks that he named, "Ai" and "Hui" The irony in their names (which mean "Love" and "Kindness," respectively) is intentional.
• Abilities: By focusing his Chi in his arms, Dishi can swing his rattan so quickly that it seems like he has more than two. Using this ability for too long causes his arms to wear out, so he doesn't do it too often. He has keen senses otherwise and always seems to be aware of where his opponent is.
• Personality: Dishi, simply put, is a jerk. He's loud, rude, insulting, and overconfident. It could explain why even his own men don't stay with him for very long. He doesn't like authority and the feeling is mutual. Although, he does have a soft spot for women and children, and doesn't like to see people being bullied. No, he doesn't get the irony.
• Background: He would like people to believe that he was raised in the woods by Nanman, but that's simply not the case. He was actually the son of a wealthy lord and he had it pretty easy growing up. In a word, he was a spoiled brat. A spoiled brat who was skilled at using rattan sticks... His father became wise to Dishi's (many) indescretions and sent him on a pilgrimage to "find himself." Dishi thought it would be easier to just become a highwayman and fight people and take their money, so that's what he did. He makes a pretty good living at it, but there's still a part of him that wishes he could go back home and do his father proud... Having heard of these "ghost-demon-things" he figured he'd take a crack at fighting a few of them and really test his skills.

edited 13th Aug '11 2:24:24 PM by KarlKadaver

• Name: Cheng Jia (or Jia Cheng, westernized)
• Nickname: Akita
• Age: 28
• Sex: Male
• Appearance: An unassuming young man with fairly kept short black hair and dark brown eyes. His body is lean and fit, but otherwise non-threatening.
• Outfit: The traditional orange robes of a Buddhist, with thick long sleeves and leggings to allow for ease of movement. Wears a simple conical hat one might argue is at odds with his appearance.
• Fighting Style: None. Well, okay, not really, but in a fight he'll spend most of the time just trying to avoid taking a hit, preferring to try and talk a person down rather than engaging in combat. If he has no choice but to fight though (such as an animalized ghost), he'll tend to use Improvised Weaponry from whatever's nearby.
• Weapon(s): Nope.
• Abilities: Adept at using his surroundings to avoid harm to himself, and capable of letting a non-monster ghost move onto the afterlife... if he can help them resolve their unresolved issues. Can change the flow of ki in his body to help deflect oncoming attacks.
• Personality: A charismatic and outgoing guy, Jia is all about trying to make friends with everyone he meets. A bit of a ditz and airhead, but ultimately he means well. Can be pacifistic to a fault.
• Background: Raised in an isolated monastic order that no one's ever heard of, Jia left in order to amass funds to allow the order to continue their existence. Somehow (cough) he ended up in the red light district of the town he was visiting, and witnessed a ghost woman slaughter a group of men. Despite the risks, he managed to talk the ghost down until she allowed herself to move onto the afterlife... which was good because soaked in men's blood and enthralled by her own rage, she would've soon turned into a beast.

It wasn't long after this that the government grabbed him and made him join their ghost hunting group, much to Jia's complete and utter confusion. But hey, it was the government. They'd pay for his help at the end of it, right? ...right?

• Additional Notes: The clash of his hat and hair to his monk garb, coupled with the fact that he doesn't seem to know the first thing about Buddhism, makes other people question whether the order he's a part of even exists at all. (His answer, BTW, is yes: he's just a terrible pupil.)

edited 13th Aug '11 12:51:31 AM by Starbound2

We're a pretty obscure order of monks, you've probably never heard of us, we're real indie.

Everyone's accepted. Karl, change the nickname from Wild Boar to just Boar though, please.

No problem.

Just imagine if I went with Razorback (I didn't because it sounded too Western).

edited 13th Aug '11 2:06:00 PM by KarlKadaver

• Name: Fan Sung
• Nickname: Taiga
• Age: 18
• Sex: Female
• Appearance: Fan has black hair barely reaching her shoulders, clear green eyes and a youthful pretty face ruined by having a severe expression on at almost all times. Fan's body is limber and a little small than norm.
• Outfit: Thick loose clothing that is not so loose as to trip on it but loose enough to allow flowing movements of the body. The practical garments of a martial artist in cream and green tones.
• Fighting Style: Tiger Style Kung Fu. Fan's style of fighting is extremely straightforward, dealing with overpowering the enemy in a straight up fight. She knows very little throws and grapples so she mostly focuses in physical attacks, given power by her chi and landed due to her speed and skill.
• Weapon(s): Bare fisted most of the time, though she sometimes uses either tonfas or a staff.
• Abilities: Fan uses her Ki in order to compensate for her size in giving her strikes overwhelming power. She might also employ some to power her jumping and running.
• Personality: Earnest and honest, Fan is a serious girl who dedicates her whole efforts into perfecting her skills in battle. She has a lot of pride as a warrior and a deep rooted honor which makes her deal with any problem in the most straightforward manner possible.
• Background: An orphaned street urchin who lived by stealing vegetables from the market, her whole life changed one night when she almost got eaten by a monster in the form of human sized rat. After some running she was saved by a martial artist who took her in and taught her a path filled with the dignity she lacked in her former life. Admiring her gallant savior above everything else, she set herself on the road to chase her ideal of a honorable warrior.

edited 13th Aug '11 2:26:40 PM by daltar

Accepted.

• Name: Hwan Song
• Nickname: Bull
• Age: 17
• Sex: Male
• Appearance: A well trained young man with shoulder long black hair. Hard gray eyes. A little tall.
• Outfit: A torn green-brown shirt without sleeves and brown pants
• Fighting Style: Hwan's core style is Taekwondo but he has studied several other martial arts in order to form his own style and thus it has traces from several other martial arts such as Judo. His main focus is still on kicks tough.
• Weapon(s): Mainly barehanded but is proficient in swordsmanship and spears
• Abilities: He can focus chi in his limbs to make them stronger and more resistant to exterior damage. He also uses chi to generate fire.
• Personality: Hwan is rather brash and aggressive but also sees himself as something as a womaniser and believes that a woman he has set his sight on belongs to him and will fuck up those who try to harm her (or at least he will try to). He also follows his own code of honour (Never fight children, always eat up, defend pretty women/girls (in the case of the previous paragraph, it's personal and he will avenge her while in this one it's mostly just to defend), never turn down an entertaining challenge). Needless to say, he has a large ego and will do a lot in order to keep it inflated.
• Background: Born to a soldier and his wife in Korea, Hwan lived his first year like a regular soldier family and got basic training by his father. That is until his father got sent out to war, and well.. Got killed by a spear impaling his head. However his father's ghost could not leave and instead haunted his wife and got filled with despair that his family managed to go on without him he slowly turned into a monster over the course of several years until he finally had enough when his widow was going to remarry, so he killed both the groom and his widow. Hwan had been out with some friends and came home just as his mothers sunder torn body fell to the floor and he saw the monster that once where the ghost of his father stand over her. He fled and begun to train inorder to become strong enough to fight these monsters. He eventually found himself in China and it's civil war. Deciding that he needed some money he started to work as a mercenary.

edited 5th Sep '11 8:37:26 AM by Clawthewolf

Accepted.

Ooohh! Wuxia!

Consider me in. Just give me a bit to think up a character...

EDIT: Actually, put that on hold. I've just realized that I might be a tad too busy...

Sorry, but it looks like I won't be joining after all, as much as I would like to.

edited 14th Aug '11 5:51:01 PM by troydenite

• Name: Tachibana Akihi.
• Nickname: Hokkaidô (Inu).
• Age: 30.
• Sex: Male.
• Appearance: A huge, muscular man, covered in irezumi. He's got a thick full beard. The top of Akihi's head is bald: The rest of his hair is cropped short except for a long ponytail on the back of his head. His voice is deep and booming.
• Outfit: A black, Ainu-style kimono, patterned in white geometric shapes, a kikko cuirass and a conical hat.
• Fighting Style: Kenjutsu and aikido.
• Weapon(s): An ôdachi and hand-to-hand.
• Personality: Akihi is calm and quiet. Witty and pensive, he often answers questions with other questions or puzzling koan. He's also extremely self-indulgent, stubborn and selfish. He doesn't give a damn about the vast majority of people, but he's loyal to the select few he cares about. Typically, he neither gives nor expects quarter: The only times he does it, it's for an ulterior motive.
• Abilities: Intensive meditation has led him to near-perfect awareness of his surroundings: He navigates the battlefield with ease. A skilled swordsman. Somewhat of a Warrior Poet.
• Background: Born in Hokkaidô to an Ainu family, poverty and discrimination forced him to become a bandit. He eventually joined a band of Ronin: Both his swordmanship and his knowledge of zen he owes to Tachibana Ichigo, the gang leader, who eventually adopted him. That lasted for a few years: Eventually, the warband was ambushed. Akihi (and another friend, Takeda) spent the whole event drunk as a daimyo in a local brothel. They took vengeance for their slain comrades: After that, Takeda committed seppuku. Akihi chose living. Now without a warband, he left Japan, hoping to serve as a mercenary somewhere else in Asia.

edited 23rd Aug '11 8:26:47 PM by SavageHeathen

I'm in love with this RP concept. Just wondering, but if I create an RP character, is she still my property to use for independent creative writing and such? I have a template half-finished for a judo-style character, but story opportunities for her seem quite promising. So, my main question is, would using her in this RP be helpful or harmful to the writing future of her?

EDIT: On second thought, I think I might stew over this character for a while and not participate in this RP. Sorry .

edited 24th Aug '11 12:00:11 AM by JTheGreat

Name: Do Chun Nickname: Ram

Age: 72

Sex: Male

Appearance: White hair tied back in a single chinese braid that reaches the small of his back. He has a muscular build and has aged gracefully. He usually has an absent smile on his face.

Outfit: White shirt and pants, well worn but clean.

Fighting Style: Wind Hammer Style. The style focuses on dodging attacks and then counterattacking, and aiming for weak spots such as joints.

Weapons: None.

Abilities: Can channel Chi into the air around him, causing a small vortex of wind that he can batter enemies with or use to repel projectiles.

Personality: Chun has a laidback seen-it-all-done-it-all attitude, and enjoys both teaching younger characters, and proving that he's still a match for them.

Background: Chun was born into a Wind Hammer monastery, where he stayed until he mastered the style in his thirties. He has since walked the world as the Ram, dispatching bandits and oppresive noblemen alike.

If Taco finds it acceptable, Chun may have had some previous contact with his character, due to similar goals.

edited 24th Aug '11 11:07:20 AM by ZealotVedas

Name: Cóng bèihòu

Nickname: Rat

Age: 25

Sex: Male

Appearance: Pale skin and short-cut, but messy and unkempt hair. Extremely lean, but well toned and sculpted. A nose that's slightly disfigured at the bridge from previous injuries. His eyes look twitchy enough to keep the flies on their toes.

Outfit: Peasant clothing; long, billowy, custom made, and concealing. Perhaps more suited to a beggar, considering the especially worn and torn conditions. How he carries his money depends on how stupid the local rich are.

Fighting Style. Years of running/defending himself from well armed and extremely skilled bodygaurds, nobles, otherwise unsuspecting strangers with fat purses and knuckles of iron have taught Cong better than to rely on any silly style. That'd take too long. Sand-in-your-eyes jutsu! Sliced wrists manuever! Sneak attack! Two-toes exploded! Strategic withdrawl! Now thats how to fight!

Weapons: A strong gust of wind would just barely reveal the outline of 2 pairs of fighting knifes, 7 throwing knives, 8 small bombs, and a 3 wooden vials of poison (nothing strong, just strong enough to take the edge off, make you drowsy). All of the throwing knives are hollowed out to accomodate the formentioned poison. In a pinch, he can improvise.

Ablities: No ki abilities. Never found the time. Runs quickly though, and jumps pretty darn high. Not to proud to look like a beggar, or a raving madman, in a tough spot. Not that bad a sneak either. Not sure about a fancy sword, but give him a pair of knives and he's death on legs. Need a cutpurse, or a cutthroat, he's your man.

Personality: Cong is a rat, plain and simple. King of the rats, the most honorable of the rats, but still a rat. You'd be hardpressed to find anything short of outright malevolence that's below him, and that's not even a gaureteed. Your'e greatest mistake however, would be confusing him for a more impulsive man. Everything he does, he puts plenty of thought to. Anything less than the utmost cunning, pragmaticism, and humility was never made an option for him.

Background: Born ever so nobly of the union inbetween a woman of ill repute and a noble of equally ill repute, Cong started his life out as a miserable bastard. While the title bastard stuck for the rest of his life (note that most people assumed he knew his own father before you begin pitying), an early start in the world of disorganized crime would did suprisingly things to his general disposition. While the other poor children prayed nigthly for some semblance of a decent life, Cong couldnt ask for anything more than what he had. He had freedom, he stole all he needed, he stole more than he needed, and he killed when needed. A realistic aspiration, in his mind. As the years went by, he kept to his formula, getting better and better payoff for increasingly dangerous tasks, and skills honed sharper than any sword he'd seen. He'd seen a lot of swords. As of lately, it seemed that these swords belonged to dead men with increasing frequency. He'd given enough folks the runaround, it would seem.

edited 25th Aug '11 2:33:43 AM by goodisgood214

This is an utter sausagefest. Unless more female characters start appearing at the time of the RP starting, odds are I'll have to switch chars to balance the situation.

Name: Yue Feng

Age: 19

Sex: Female

Appearance: Yue has short black hair cut in a boyish style. She has green eyes, and is a bit on the short side. She's pretty, in a tomboyish way.

Outfit: Comfortable, loose fitting pants and a black and blue jacket with the character “Yue” on the back.

Fighting Style: Rabbit style. This style is centered on precise, powerful kicks. A practitioner will make use of their agility to avoid attacks, then deliver a deadly kick when he or she spots an opening.

Weapon(s): None.

Abilities: As a practitioner of Rabbit style, Yue is capable of powerful kicks. She only has one ki ability, but it's very useful; Yue can sense vibrations in the ground, alerting her to a foe's location. This makes her nearly impossible to sneak up on, and allows her to continue fighting even if her eyesight is compromised.

Personality: Yue is very tomboyish. She hates wearing dresses, has no problem with dirt, and never lets her hair grow long. She has very strong principles, the foremost being loyalty: she will not betray someone she considers a friend.

Background: Yue grew up in a mid-sized town in western Shenzen. When she was only eight years old, her parents died in a flood, and she went to live with her uncle Jin. Jin, a skilled martial artist, raised her as if she were his own daughter. He instilled in her a strong sense of justice and loyalty, and trained her in Rabbit style. She ended up joining the town militia at age fifteen to protect her home against bandits, and became something of a town hero after defeating the leader of a notorious bandit gang. When she heard that the Empress of Shenzen was choosing a champion, she bid farewell to her uncle and left for the capital immediately.

edited 5th Sep '11 11:58:07 AM by Shadowbell

Interest! Hold a spot while I type

Edit: There. Though it's dead :(

It's ALIVE!!!

• Name: Huá Yì Fei
• Nickname: "Long" (pronounced “lóng”) or “Dragon”
• Age: Twenties
• Sex: Female
• Appearance: Dark hair just below her shoulder blades, brown eyes, paler skin over prominent cheek-bones, obsessively blunt, clean nails and long fingers. Average height and weight for her age.
• Outfit: Mandarin collar tunic of red and gold silk scale designs with white fur-lined edges and dark felt pants, as is the traditional dress of the chilly Northern Jianghu. Leather, spiked arm-pads and occasionally a scarf.
• Fighting Style: Evasion is a key asset, as is with Crane, but Dragon Style puts an emphasis on following the movements of the opponent, and on upper body attack (hands- fists, palms, claws, and characteristically the forearms, though an emphasis is placed on generating energy from the feet through the spine into the hands) and lower body defence (mainly dodging, in the unpredictable, characteristic zigzag motion mimicking the motion of a dragon). Attack mainly targets the joints with ‘gripping, claw-like’ movements, and powerful palm and forearm strikes to shock or cripple if necessary; but the way Huá uses it essentially focuses on more to tire the opponent out and dodging attacks than to defeat them with brute force; until she gets pissed, that is ^u^
• Weapon(s): N/A. She does use spikes and using her ki control as a complement. Physically, she is fast and agile enough to dodge conventional attacks; well, good enough to have attracted the government, obviously ^u^ Also, seeing as she is Manchu, a horse would not go astray either, though she's too poor to afford one, and hasn't stolen one...yet :D
• Personality: Cloud Cuckoo Lander. She’s just not there half of the time, and has this weird vacant smiling expression on her face. She’s not insane; she just enjoys listening to the voices in her brain a little too much. Cheerful and friendly, if a little airheaded, but if you press her enough and completely wake her up from her semi-unconscious state, she becomes irritable and unpredictably moody. She’s not very responsible, even though she is essentially aware of what’s going on.
• Background: Lived in the capital of the state in Northern, snowy Jianghu with her elderly merchant father and older step-brother; they were ordinary citizens; made an average amount of money, held an average social position. The brother, Huá Li Zhao, went into training, planning to become a member of the Imperial Guard (corporation thing…not a corporation :D), and encouraged his sister to go into commercial studies (or whatever they have in Jianghu :D), telling her to aim to expand his father’s merchant trade into a business, which her father didn’t really mind one way or another. The siblings were close, and shared the knowledge between them till they almost knew as much about the other’s profession as the other sibling knew.

When she was 10, and he was 17, their father died and left them a reasonable inheritance and a thriving, though not especially prominent, business, but Yi Fei was too young to take over her father’s business, so she and her brother essentially switched career paths, and it worked out pretty well. The business expanded and they became reasonably wealthy.

Then there was something about her brother falling in love and Fei immersing herself entirely into perfecting her technique. The new wife didn’t treat her badly and Zhao didn’t ignore her, but she grew more withdrawn and quieter and slightly obsessed with martial arts, hurling herself into practice, as cliché as it sounds, from dawn till dusk. She rose quickly among the ranks of the Academy. Eventually, when she graduated from the Academy, she moved out from her brother’s home, travelling around the northern Jianghu doing random deeds for money.

So when she heard that Queen Shenzen was seeking a champion, she went. I mean, why not?

edited 18th Nov '11 3:54:38 PM by Aralyn

Saturn's lost interest in the RP.

So it's dead?

Yes.

Bummer.

We could always find a new GM. I can't do it, busy in Evil Mastermind RPG, but maybe someone else could?