In the Name of the Bling: A Fantasy Resource Management and Defense RP

@Fantasy: Accepted

@Tricksterson: I didn't realize they were magic, I thought they were conventional training since you had them listed as skills. Let's see... alright, just don't assume taking control of an animal works if you use it, wait for me to confirm, especially ones bigger than a dog since they'd have much more resistant minds. And I'm guessing the plant thing is like plant-telekinesis, and not like Poison Ivy shooting forty feet of grass from nowhere. So yeah, he's still good if that's the case.

• Name: Benjen the Crawler
• Race: Human
• Gender: Male
• Appearance: A bear of a man, standing about six-and-a-half feet tall, his well-tanned face covered in wooly black hair that hangs down to his shoulders. He's robed in a simple black tunic and cloth-pants, with a thick leather belt holding them together (and his gut from spilling outwards. Over that is a thick, dark wolf-skin coat. His face is lined with the signs irregular stress, but that's rarely the expression he shows others, preferring to appear in good spirits.
• Role: As one of the Druids that spot the world's wilder lands, Benjen's mystical services can be invaluable for pioneers and the like. It also provides Benjen an opportunity to keep an eye on the proceedings, ensuring that these folk don't bring unnecessary harm to the forests. As for the Kindom's longterm plans.....that may be another issue entirely.
• Equipment: Being a friend to nature, there's not all much for him to need to carry with him. His favored possession is his staff, which isn't all impressive; it's of equal height as him, with an unadorned deer-skull topping it. He'll keep a modest pouch of gold for the time he spends amongst civilization, and a leather water-sack otherwise.
• Powers/Abilities:

Summoning/Shape-changing: Unlike most druids, who turn their focus to the primal fury wolves and bears, or the strength and resilience of the oaks and the yews, Benjen has an affinity with the creatures that repulse and skitter. Pests, vermin, carrion beasts and night-crawlers, he deeply respects their role in natural order of things. While it's more common that Benjen makes due with the vermin at hand, he can draw from his own life-energy and coax fierce dire-creatures from a separate realm to serve him. His transformations take the most out of him, and can safely be managed only twice or so a day. Finally, the foul nature of these dire-beasts make them largely inedible.

• Rats: A dire rat, which often-grow to the size of small dogs, can chew tunnel through masonry and wood in minutes, establishing itself as the terror of quartermasters and chefs alike. Benjen can summons swarms of them to terrorize and maul vulnerable enemies, though the swarm will disperse if enough are killed at one time. Benjen can transform himself into one, if ever subtlety is needed.
• Arachnids: Dire spiders and dire scorpions, both of which have come to dwarf large boars in stature at the smallest, can hang the weight of multiple men in their webs. Their poison could just as well be described as an acid, given it's effect on living flesh. A small pack (3 or 4) can be summoned. Benjen can take the size of the largest specimens, which have been known to ignore humanoids for the likes of bears and moose. Frightened of fire.
• Crows: Similar to the dire-rats, dire-crows will pick and tear at Benjen's enemies, and possibly lift them into the air with enough bird-power, though they're better at pecking through armors than the raw consumption of flesh. They also make for good spies. Benjen will turn into massive buzzard-like creature, one that could well pluck a man off the ground single-handedly and fly off with him, or knock his skull in with few errant pecks. All of these birds have a particular taste for the undead. Vulnerable to electric currents. During the night-time he can summon/transform-into bats to preform effectively the same task.
• Hornets: A far cry from the beneficial honeybee, the dire-hornets' venom is a shot of fire though the veins, one that could induce anaphylaxis, partial paralysis, or even the breakdown of blood-vessels given enough stings. From the perspective of a person unfortunate enough to draw their ire, it might seem as if their numbers and bulk blot out the sun. Some have even been reported to be able to bog a persons movement down or even knock them down with sheer numbers. Vulnerable to fire. He can also summon locusts, but those aren't usually for combat situations so much as 'quit messing with the forest or you'll starve' situations.
• Snakes: The dire-snake is variable as it is deadly, applying to creatures of all degrees of length and size. Benjen could either summon three of the venomous dire-cobras, which measure at about twelve feet, or take the form of massive constrictor, which is around fifty feet long and capable of snapping bones like glass. Both allow him to swim gracefully through the water, but are quite vulnerable to extreme temperatures in either direction.
• Worms: Dire-worms destabilize the ground and structures beneath their prey, striking at them with chitinous spikes once they're subdued. Though they aren't as dangerous as the aforementioned creatures (at least to the modestly armored) the massive variant he can use to burrow through the ground is nothing to be reckoned with.
• Communing: While he can't make other sorts of creatures (animal or plant) automatically subservient to him, he can still communicate to their spirits and perhaps negotiate an agreement where an otherwise ferocious attack may have happened in its place. Vermin (and fungus) that he hasn't summoned will follow his commands automatically.
• Healing: While he's no cleric, Benjen has a small talent at magically healing mild wounds, and stabilizing more severe ones. He's also got a vast knowledge of medicinal herbs and salves. By the virtue of his magics, he's immune to diseases and extraordinarily resistant to poisons.
• Fungus: Whereas other druids pride themselves with the advanced manipulation of trees, bushes, or even flowers, Benjen is more skilled in the varied uses of fungi. Some of these uses include the manipulation/summoning of spores that bite into flesh (creating the sensation of burning all the while), putting less sharp minds into psychedelic fits, creating a concealing fog of spores to conceal his movements, illuminating dark paths with fluorescent lifeforms, and even shooting a jet of flammable spores. With mushrooms on hand, he can manipulate growth to the point of creating massive platforms, or even create a anthropomorphic minion.

• Skills: With an aptitude for natural magics have come an aptitude in forestry and survivalism. Besides the aforementioned knowledge of remedies, Benjen's learned through trial-and-error how to track, forage, hunt, mimic animals, and even predict the oncoming weather. He also took fancy to the art of beekeeping, which he prefers to do with the minimal assistance of powers. 'For the novelty', he says.
• Personality: As one might expect, Benjen's a man to appreciate the very smallest things in life, taking joy how the most innocuous of things contribute to the 'big picture'. That being said, there are no weak or strong people in his mind, but those who are wise enough to value cooperation and reciprocity, and those who are too vain and egoistic to realize that their success is not purely their own. Given his lot in life, he does end up spending much of his time without the company of other people, though he thinks this is a path only fit for a few. Others should take joy in the people they're with, even putting them beyond themselves is the situation calls. He makes a point to apply this ethic to himself; that is, when he's not fighting to defend the forests.
• Other: Benjen was born to a carpenter and his wife in a logging village, well within the forest. While, like his neighbors and relatives, he had a healthy respect for the forests denizens, only he took an active interest in creatures like rats and spiders. Sometimes, he would catch one these pests from the forest and keep them as a pet, often to the chagrin of his parents and the revulsion of the village children. As a result, he could never count the people outside his family that were close to him, at least not on more than one hand. It was often that young Benjen would tell them that he could sometimes command the vermin into obedience, but his father put a stop to that every time. It wasn't so much out of spite, but out of fear that the other villagers would persecute him unjustly After a particularly brutal case of bullying, he ran into the woods, stopping only to encounter one of his few friends being unconsciously dragged away by two of the men who visited the village from time to time. He would later find out that they intended to sell her as a slave. These men worked closely with Benjen's father; as such, they didn't believe they could simply let him go. Quickly overpowering the boy, they beat him savagely, burying him under the impression that he'd died. He woke up four feet underground. H Is movements restricted to wiggling, and with dirt waiting for him to open his mouth, Benjen panicked and struggled for half a minute before coming to accept his fate. It was shortly after this that sympathy and love he'd shown for the creeping wild had been shown reciprocity. On the verge of unconsciousness, Benjen began to feel a familiar crawling all over his beaten and bruised body, hearing a cacophony of whirring an clicking, all accompanied with the sensation of rising. The last of these would be punctuated with a sharp pain in his eyes, just as soon as they came to see the light of day. His breath and senses returning to him in minutes, he looked pack towards where he'd been buried, only to find a quivering pool of nearly every insect and verminous creature he'd known to inhabit the area. For the first time, he felt the presence of of their minds cohabitation his own in an odd sense of what might be considered brotherhood. He could have spent all day exploring those minds, but the sharp caws and shrieks of crows diverted his attention. They fell silent the moment he gave them his attention, and began caw-ing again whenever he turned his head away. It didn't take long for Benjen to get the picture; the carrion birds where loyal to him as well, and wanted him to follow them somewhere. His memories of what had happened returning to him returning, he relished where that might have been. The stories differs from there about what the new Benjen the Crawler had done from their, all sharing only that he never returned to his village.

edited 26th Aug '13 12:12:40 PM by goodisgood

To the law and for the good of man. All I need to live by.

Try adding asterixes before each category to format that a bit better.

"You're an enemy of art and I pity your ignorance" - Domingo Montoya Help save the rainforest for free simply by going to Ecosia.org.

Yeah, I noticed those didn't carry over from the last time I put them in. Tidy'd that right up.

To the law and for the good of man. All I need to live by.

@Goodisgood: Whoa man, that's a lot of stuff and an incredibly broad range of might. You'll need to tone that down quite a bit. Also you made up some sort of powers/abilities category, instead of using the ones provided, so there's no mention of his own skills anywhere.

And something I thought of: Any sort of animal conjuring skill is going to need some handwave explanation (like a time limit or being made out of ghosts or being from a different dimension) that explains why no one can eat it. Otherwise you'd wonder why they even bother bringing supplies if someone can conjure up a cow.

• Name: Rhavyn Nightshade
• Sex: Male
• Age: Fairies age differently than humans, so while he's been around for almost two hundred years, he only looks about 18.
• Race: A member of The Fair Folk
• Appearance: Has both a humanoid and an animalistic form, and can change between the two at will. In his humanoid form, he appears as a young man with pitch-black skin and long white hair. His eyes are gold, and they glow at night. Tends to wear clothes in dark brown or forest green colors. Tends to use this form only for interactions with other humanoids. In his animalistic form, he looks like a large black canine, tendrils of darkness branching off from his back (though these don't appear to do anything). Eyes are still gold, and glow equally bright in the darkness.
• Role: Employed mainly as a scout, but also has powerful magicks that could help in other ways.
• Personality: Has a very strong sense of justice, of treating people how you want to be treated. While he's usually pretty closed off, as he's not used to interacting with other humanoids, if someone is nice to him, he will repay their kindness to the best of his abilities. And vice versa, if someone is rude or unkind to him, he will retaliate with a vengeance and a fury. Thus, it is very easy for him to make friends, but probably even more easy to make enemies.
• Skills and Abilities: In his animalistic form, all his senses are enhanced: A strong sense of smell, acute sense of hearing, and incredible night vision (the latter of which also carries on to his humanoid form). In both forms, he also has a photographic memory and the ability to commune with animals and nature spirits. Almost never walks, as he prefers to hover a few inches above the ground.
• Magic: As a creature of darkness, he can manipulate shadows to an extent, using them as a cloak of sorts, to stay out of sight from humans (though it doesn't work on most magical creatures). Can also use basic elemental spells (fire, water, earth, air, ice, and lightning) as well as the innate ability to sour milk. As has been stated before, he can also shapeshift between his two forms at will.
• Equipment: The clothes on his back, and a small (non-iron) dagger just in case, for whatever reason, he somehow loses his magic.
• Brief History: Lived out most of his life in the magical wood known as Faerieland with the other Fair Folk, leaving only at night to play pranks on humans and otherwise give them a bad time. However, in his tribe at least, there was a certain practice that he was more than a little uncomfortable with. Every so often, the other Fae would steal innocent human children to draft into their army. This seemed illogical to Rhavyn, for the Fair Folk hadn't seen war in millenia and therefore didn't need armies, not to mention drafting human children was not only morally wrong, but also inconvenient as most children were far too young to send into battle. So, when he saw the chance, Rhavyn helped the children to escape from the wood, but when he was discovered, the tribe refused to see his reasoning, and exiled him for life; sending word to the other tribes to kill him on sight should they see him (though they didn't specify the reasons for his exile). Rhavyn left, stripped of his dignity, but knowing he had done the right thing. It was not long after that he entered the Kingdom of Rylaan, and heard of the large expedition to the Elselands. Deciding this might be as good a way as any to start a new life, he volunteered to join the expedition.

edited 27th Aug '13 3:51:38 PM by Brahian1

i think i mostly want to see what happens when this whole place breaks apart

The character seems alright, but I'm a bit iffy about the backstory and racial practices. Having another sovereign kingdom that keeps kidnapping children seems like a big problem in terms of why anyone would be willing to trust him on this mission designed to take down another kingdom, Enemy Mine aside. If the fairies were more like an assortment of tribes who live in the woods of the Kingdom (kinda like elves I guess), and maybe just his tribe was the one kidnapping people, and they didn't do it too often, that would work since it's less about the race as a whole, and more about just that particular group. Otherwise with a species-wide custom like that, if your character had somehow managed to get onto the mission, he would have been strangled in his sleep on the voyage. The thing about time flowing differently over there will have to go, too.

Also humans are just as likely to possess magic as any other race (except for any races where everyone is specifically supposed to have magic).

edited 26th Aug '13 4:32:30 PM by nman

A'ight, fixed it.

i think i mostly want to see what happens when this whole place breaks apart

@Brahian 1: Alright, cool, accepted. Oh, what would you say the dagger is made from if it's not iron? Bronze?

With that I think I'll start the RP in a few hours, if anyone has any last-minute things they need to say, now's a good time.

edited 26th Aug '13 4:55:49 PM by nman

@Fantasy Liver: Is that Stego? O_o

"What a century this week has been." - Seung Min Kim

I was thinking a fantasy metal that's naturally black because Black Swords Are Better. But bronze works too.

i think i mostly want to see what happens when this whole place breaks apart

@N Man: It's more a matter of communication and persuasion than control. For instance an animal or even a mobile plant will be non-hostile to him and at least listen to any requests he makes. Non-mobile plants will give him general info about the environment, water sources nearby, if and what kind of critters have been by recently etc. Now spirits are a bit diifferent because they're more intelligent but again will be at least receptive to any requests and of course that help can be more active. Plant telekinesis would only work if the nature spirit can be bargained with to help. He also has the knowledge but not the practice to dismiss hostile or possing spirits His granddad would be able to do more but Orghuz left when he was still a relative apprentice and traded what he would have learned for what he did learn in the college.

Trump delenda est

Game's here, see this post in the discussion for more. Signups are still open, though, so no one's locked out or anything.

Ah, cool then.

edited 26th Aug '13 10:06:53 PM by nman

Oh, forgot to mention: Rhavyn doesn't usually walk; rather he hovers a few inches off the ground.

i think i mostly want to see what happens when this whole place breaks apart

How?

Magic

i think i mostly want to see what happens when this whole place breaks apart

Good enough for me

XD

i think i mostly want to see what happens when this whole place breaks apart