Man on a Mission
Index
The Rules
General Rules
- The Golden Rule here, and the one that takes precedence over all of them is the next: Story is king. There are lots of intricacies and other rules that spring out of it, but the most immediate aspect about it, the one that you must always account for, is: You should always strive to write interesting characters BEFORE worrying about giving them lots cool abilities and powers. If I see you're putting way more effort into giving the characters an extensive lists of skills instead of creating a fleshed-out and well thought person, you'll be denied until you fix that. I don't have an use for a character that has more powers than Silver Age Superman, while also having the personality and complexity of a stale loaf of bread.
- The second tier most important rule rule is: You're NOT your characters, so don't take it personal when I (or any other person) say something negative about them. This is kind of a weird and, some would say, painfully obvious thing to say, but after certain sour experiences I've gone through in the past, I think it's very important to exalt this aspect. In previous projects, I've seen players/writers that get a little too attached to their characters, seeing them as sons, daughters or (even worse) as a living extension of themselves, and that take critique directed towards said characters a personal attack.
If you're that kind of person, it would be better for you to abstain from even showing up, because you'll only find pain and misery here. Infusing a character with aspects of your own personality and life is perfectly fine; it makes them more believable and multi-dimensional, because you're giving them something very real, something you're intimately familiar with. BUT, when you start pouring too much of yourself on a character, to the point you start to believe you're that character, that's when things turn really messy. So, I politely ask you, please don't be that kind of person, always put a significant degree of separation between your characters and yourself.
It is ABSOLUTELY necessary, because I'll be merciless when it comes to characters that I deem “non-appropriate”, so it would be extremely painful for both of us when I say: “Your character fucking sucks!” only to find out that said character was a carbon copy of your own personality and/or life. I reiterate: The most different your characters are from your own self, the better; and don't ever take critique as a personal attack. Just because you wrote an awfully trite and despicable character, that doesn't make you a bad person... Unless you happen to be a carbon copy of that character, in which case, you have my condolences d00d. - The next second tier rule is: Trying to be edgy for mere shock-value sake, or to compensate for your lack of creativity, is not allowed. If your character's backstory reads anything like this: “(...) All her life she has been physically, mentally and sexually abused by the mobster to whom her live was sold so long ago, leaving her an empty shell of a human being who would gladly welcome death's sweet embrace before having to satisfy the perverse desires of yet another abusive client... And her parents are DEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAD!”; then I won't give you a second chance, and you'll be banned forever from this and any future projects on the spot.
I genuinely despise creators that like to include crude, grotesque, violent and cruel things in everything they do just because “ITZ SO KEEEEEEEEWL, DUUUUUDE!!” or “It's, like, I'm so artistic because I say things the way they are, man! If you're offended by my art, then you're a fucking sissy”. That kind of attitude is utterly despicable to me, as it undermines the work of those that use hard-hitting themes in a meaningful and thoughtful manner. Going “grim-dark-super-edgy just because” is NOT cool, it only puts you in evidence as lousy and lazy creator. - The last second tier rule is: Munchkin shenanigans won't be tolerated. Creating a character whose backstory and set of skills don't make sense except for the purpose of being as powerful as possible will be frowned upon too. I'm talking, for example, of Ordinary High School Students that just happen to be experts in hand to hand combat, firearms and hacking because “they are into that kind of stuff, somehow”. Of course, that's a rather exaggerated "hypothetical" (OK, more like "anecdotal") case, but more subtle variations won't be accepted either; I can tell Min-Maxing when I see it, because I use it all the gosh-darned time, (mostly on videogames, mind you, but still...) so don't try to fool me, because it won't end well, kid.
While I believe all important characters must have a certain degree of competence, as an underpowered character can be even more annoying than an overpowered one, doing things for the mere sake of “optimizing” your chances of “winning” won't help you at all on this story, and might as well paint a big, bright target upon your character's head. - Besides those rules, there's a very distinctive and personal rule of mine, one that is oddly specific, but that I intend to enforce no matter what: Rape as Backstory and Rape as Drama won't be allowed. EVER. (For that matter, any of tropes on the Sexual Harassment And Rape list won't be tolerated either, unless you make an EXTREMELY compelling case for one of them) I HATE those two tropes, so much... 95% of the time, they are used as a cheap way to add drama and shock-value to a story. So, I don't use them in any of my stories, and as long as you write along with me, I expect for you to don't use them either.
Specific Rules
Note: Highly incomplete list right now, it will be updated as we move along.
- Anyone Can Die will be at full force here; it IS Puella Magi story, after all. That doesn't mean I'll be killing characters left and right for my own amusement, that's not the way I roll. HOWEVER, I'll kill the characters which I deem the least interesting and compelling, so keep that in mind. It will also be a tool to dispose of “abandoned” characters, too, so they don't interfere with the stories of those still writing.
- As an addendum to the above rule, keep this in mind: A compelling character doesn't have to be a “nice” character, nor vice-versa. Even if your character is unredeemably evil and twisted, they will still have a high “life span” as long as you make them a complex individual with an interesting story unfolding around them. And, on the opposite side of the coin, even if your character is the nicest person on the whole group, them WILL die if also happens to be Flat Character with no defining characteristics beyond “he/she is REALLY nice”.
- Another addendum: However, if you believe that your character's death might make for an interesting story on its own, you can always request it to me so we can plan how to pull it off... In private, of course, so we avoid spoiling it for the other writers.
- If your character dies, you can create a new one as a “replacement” as many times as you'd like.
- Up to four Puella Magi written by other players will be allowed most of the time; I'm still not sure about the number of Candidates. I don't want to spread myself too thin by writing for a dozen of other writers... Quality over quantity is also a key principle for me. Besides, I want to avoid (for the most part) those infamous MMORPG style “boss fights” where multiple characters gang up on a single target, as they don't make for a compelling read.
- Outright plagiarized characters won't be allowed. I'm cool with the idea of creating characters based upon your favorite ones, but outright taking a character that doesn't belong to you, and just copying and pasting everything about themselves without any significant change of your own is not.
Character Creation Rules
- One Puella Magi or Candidate per writer... For now. I need to see you “in action” before allowing you to write for more than one character. In the past, I've seen people trying to cover too much ground while lacking to ability to properly flesh-out even one character, and since character development will be the crux of this particular story, I can't allow for that to happen on this particular instance.
- It's encouraged for your character's name to fit along their given nationality, while also trying to avoid Awesome McCoolname, but I won't be too strict about those points either way... Just, don't be too blatant as to call your character Phoenix Dark or Ebony Dark'ness Ravenway.
- For that matter, I'd like to assemble a Multinational Team of Puella Magi, so choosing a nationality not taken already by another writer is also highly encouraged. While having two or even three characters hailing from the same country at the same time won't be outright “punished”, anything more than that will be kinda excessive.
- I won't be enforcing any strict parameter related to Age... So yeah, you don't have to go for an extremely young character if you don't want to.
- Personality and Backstory are rather self-explanatory, but are also the most important part to me, so don't slack either of those aspects. Be creative, follow the General Rules, all you'll be fine.
- ...HOWEVER, remember what I said earlier: “Quality over quantity”. Even if your backstory is ten pages long, it might not be approved at all if it's also a trite or cliched tale. By the same token, if you can describe an interesting character in just one paragraph of text, more power to you! I'd like for the characters to be properly fleshed-out in the story proper, so having a relatively “concise” application form is OK.
- You can use reference images to help describe your character's Normal Appearance and Costumed Appearance... BUT, just linking to an image and saying “She looks just like that” or something along those lines is NOT allowed. For that matter, if your description just happens to be point by point summary of the auxiliary image, that will be “penalized” too, as I refuse to believe someone else just happened to draw precisely the same the character you had in mind.
- ...The exception to that rule, of course, is if you happen to be the person that drew that character on the first place.
- And speaking of Costumed Appearance, I highly encourage you to not be restricted by the original series' aesthetic and instead go for whatever you'd like. Want to go for a Lyrical Nanoha look? That's OK. Or a character with an outfit that would fit right into a Lady Gaga video? That's cool, too! What about one that wears a Powered Armor inspired by those from
◊ Bubblegum Crisis or Bioshock 2's Big Sisters◊? Hell, yeah! That would be friggin' awesome. As long as it makes sense according to their personality, backstory, and (to a lesser degree) wish, almost everything is allowed.
- You should describe the characteristics of your character's Soul Gem in the appropriate section, including its color and appearance, both in her Puella Magi form and her normal state.
- Besides all their inherent powers, like enhanced strength, speed and endurance, each Puella Magi only has access to one “Core” Power, with all the Required Secondary Powers necessary for it to make sense. Each power will be scrutinized in a case by case basis, as I'd like to avoid Story Breaker Powers as much as possible.
- And besides their unique power, each one can summon a personal weapon. Swiss Army Weapons are fair game... HOWEVER, the more functions a weapon has, the more difficult it is for a Puella Magi to summon several copies of it at the same time. Also, be aware that I'll call shenanigans if I see the weapon is just a little bit too versatile.
- Miscellaneous Info can be used to add any extra details about your character, including meta-fictional data or almost anything you deem appropriate. Leave it blank at your own risk, because if you don't have anything else to add about your character, maybe you still haven't fleshed-out her out enough, kid.
- You can also add a(n entirely optional) list of Tropes, as that's a concise yet highly effective way to describe the core aspects of a character... Hell! If your Tropes' list turns to be particularly interesting, that might boost the chances of your character being chosen.
edited 24th Sep '14 4:36:32 PM by VPhantom
"It's better to burn out... THAN TO FADE AWAY!"
Show an affirming flame
Madoka Magica doesn't go very deeply into the non-magical background of the world, but there's enough there that I'd like to make one request: if we can ignore the stipulation about Cityville being a utopia, we can tell more interesting stories. If the town's got its rough side and its grime as well as the glass and the steel, its own problems with poverty and crime as well as the affluence, it'd be a much richer setting, even if it's no longer a utopia.
Given that, I'm thinking of reviving Amity Asakura wholesale for this game: Canadian immigrant, new in town, et cetera.
She was born in Big Beaver by the borderline
She started playing hockey from the time she was nine
Her dad took the hose and froze the backyard
Amity dreamed she was Rocket Richard
She grew up big and she grew up tough
She saw herself scoring for the Wings or Canucks
But she wasn't that good with a puck.
Type: Mahou Shoujo, Type II (short-term combatant, a few weeks at most)
Name: Amity Asakura, age 15
Wish: "Kyubey, I want to be able to make those shots no matter what. Can you do that for me?" (Key focus: marksmanship.)
Appearance: Tall and graceful, very long dark blue hair with bangs.
Costume: Ice hockey outfit: hard body armor, dark blue paint scheme, complete with helmet and blades; stick (sharpened blade), and of course, unlimited tungsten-cored puck works. (Most magical girls go for skirts or dresses. My background isn't magical girls, so I tend to be a little more utilitarian in my character designs.) Somewhat unnerving smile under her mask, and she does carry a perfectly ordinary nonmagical sheathe knife of disturbing size, although that's usually hidden under the armor.
Personality: Assertive yet sweet, intelligent, athletic, all of that...it's no surprise that Amity was rather popular back in Vancouver. Whether or not that holds up when she's moved to Japan is going to be a question. And, of course, there's the matter of her rather unnerving smile on the hockey field, and which has been seen in a few other contexts—contexts that said witnesses would rather not talk about.
Backstory: Born in Vancouver to Japanese expat parents, Amity grew up effectively trilingual in English, French, and Japanese (or whatever country this is set in). She picked up hockey from an early age and was an enthusiastic player, but, well, despite being unnervingly good at winning fights with girls twice her size, Amity had a tendency to substitute enthusiasm for accuracy when scoring—or trying to score. She was relegated to the role of generally hitting people and causing chaos (goon), until a passing ferret offered her a chance. Of course, the world being what it is, her parents scored a sweet new job in Japan not long after she became the Simo Hayha of the playing field, and here she is in Japan, where ice hockey is sadly not much of a thing.
(Yes, Amity's base concept was taken from a certain Warren Zevon song. That, and another female character who mysteriously "moved to Canada" and could arguably be classified as "magical". No, don't worry, I have my own plans for her character development: starting with the fact that simply wishing for fame and recognition without working for it is a good way for victory to taste of ashes.)
edited 11th Sep '14 12:11:39 AM by SabresEdge
Charlie Stross's cheerful, optimistic predictions for 2017, part one of three.
Sandwich Summoner
Thinking on a support-type character who fits neither of these molds... someone who knows what Puella Magi are (perhaps he had a family member who become one in the past) and helps them. Doubt the 30-year veteran (as in fought for several DECADES) I used in last Rp would work.
edited 11th Sep '14 12:28:45 AM by AtomicNut
I'm potentially interested in joining, but I'm worried my character might be too simple to pass the basic entry bar... I want her to be a candidate rather than starting out as a puella magi right off, and background wise she'll be an ordinary student, with both her parents still living (and loving). So that kind of makes developing an interesting backstory to her somewhat limited already, but I'd rather she lived a normal life until now and it's the Puella Magi world that changes her from her base.
Characterization wise, she'd be an energetic schoolgirl who's very athletic but can't settle down on just one thing so she's not in any clubs, to the envy of many recruiters. She's headstrong and direct, preferring to brute force her way through problems rather than do anything complicated, but she gets kind of lazy and disheartened when it comes to tests and schoolwork, which hurts her learning. Despite her sporty nature, she loves fantasy books and RPGs because her boisterous temperament all stems from a desire to treat her life as an adventure.
-♌-
I really like your GMing philosophy and the ambition of what you're trying to do, and I'd hope I can help out with my character idea. One question which does affect my application and I'll edit it based on the answer, just how public is the existence of the Puella Magi? I'm so far operating under the assumption that most civilians aren't that aware.
- Name: Mariya Yakovlev
- Age: 16
- Nationality: Russian expat
- Normal Appearance: An already model tall (5'10") and model petite young girl, in short fairly flat curves but god-level legs and generally well apportioned slenderness. She has a mostly healthy and youthfully radiant complexion, a few typically teenage breakouts but nothing not easily remedied in a day or two. Her dusky brown hair is luscious, reaches past her shoulders, and appears very well taken care of. She usually pulls it clear of her face. Babyface, with button nose and fairly large, expressive eyes that are a soulfully dark brown and full of vitality, pupils extraordinarily quick to dilate the moment something interesting or exciting happens. She has a small voice naturally, wispy and nigh ethereal at times, but still cheerful and lively. She mostly trends towards cute and trendy prints in what she wears for tops, and short shorts or skirts and tights or long socks to show off her legs. This image is pretty close, the glasses are a fashion accessory and she has no vision issues.
- Personality: Mariya is, at first glance, a very stable and self-affirmed young woman. She has a strong spring to her step and her energy can reach levels almost infectious at times. She approaches life with no fear and has boldness and verve without being heavy-handed or offensive due to an easy-going nature and good manners. Though she's quite nonchalant about most things, she is the sort that can get things done when people ask. Very reliable and friendly. In theory.
It takes a keen eye to notice, but her friendliness is actually far more aloof and disconnected than it's vibrancy makes it seem. It's not a case of her not feeling emotion or anything cliche like that, rather her emotion seems to be a thing divorced from herself. It's like that person you may have known who never really seemed to be affected, sure they were in the moment with the rest of you, but they always rebounded from pain, always returned to a neutral expression after laughing; far too quickly to be anything but unnerving. Mariya's neutral expression is a polite smile, which may be why she gets away with her behavior without being too dissonant. In a way, it makes her strong, as she is simply not easily affected by things. When things go south she's usually the coolest head prevailing. But that in and of itself is a rather morbid trait to have.
And she tends to come off as morbid when one knows her long enough. She often talks to herself, even in the midst of talking with others. She never seems to be entirely there. She has a complete lack of self-awareness, an innocent naive self-construct that prevents her from understanding how strangely she comes off to others. She's not quiet, she's not rude, yet she's still somehow off-putting at times. In her own thoughts the world is a black and white place, simple, quiet. Her pains are innocent and petty, because on some level she simply isn't put together enough as a person to comprehend the darker things in this world. It makes her a good soldier... to an extent. One could almost compare her to a doll, but that would be too simple a comparison to make. She does have a soul, depth, it's just one that is strangely muted no matter the context. Going through the motions, one could say.
One interesting thing of note is that she shows an unusually strong sense of sentimentality for things that people she has known owned that fall into her possession. She keeps a collection of all manner of mundane, almost literally garbage items that various important figures in her backstory gave to her (ticket stubs, hair scrunchies, gag gifts, that sort of thing). Perhaps she's more there than it seems? It does sometimes seem like she's trying to genuinely reach out, beyond the eerie cheerfulness and superficiality of her facade.
- Backstory: Mariya had no father present when she was born (her last name is her mother's) and her mother died disowned by family and friendless, thus meaning that Mariya was destined for the orphanage from the get go. She was apparently a quiet child growing up, while she did cry as often as one would expect a girl in her situation to, she was noted for how unusually quickly she'd stop crying and go on as if nothing had happened. She was lucky in having been shipped off to a fairly good orphanage with a caring matron and a high foster family turnover rate, especially due to it being well known among foreign families wishing to adopt. She had a good relationship with the matron, whose closeness and wisdom helped the troubled young girl open up and learn to speak and play like any normal child her age should. An [INSERT NATIONALITY WHERE MAIN CITY IS] family decided to adopt her and the transfer of parental figures went smoothly and with little hitch. Mariya was already a strong little girl, and had circumstances been different she might have been wildly successful when she hit her teen years.
However her lack of English fluency made communication in school hard, and there was quite a bit of exclusion and passive bullying. Mariya mostly kept to herself in school, seemed to be having a good time to her parents due to her ability to put on a strong face. She struggled with English through her early grades levels, struggled to do her work and had all manner of special classes with only further isolated her. Over time the impressionable youth internalized and normalized her lack of friends, and while she was naturally very well mannered, she also had all manner of strange social faux pas, like speaking to herself. After all, nobody else ever really spoke to her. One or two distant friends, but she never even once visited another person's house. Her parents tried to be there for her, but Mariya was simply too good at wearing a content mask, was slowly becoming that mask.
Middle school continued for a time in the same way elementary school had, as the local schools were connected and thus she remained with the same crowd. Puberty didn't affect her so much, except in the almost tragically comical blossoming of herself into a naturally drop-dead gorgeous girl that finally caught the eye of her peers. Coupled with her final mastery of English she finally had some manner of social life, but she still remained to some extent the odd man out. She blithely turned down boys left and right (getting a reputation as a quote unquote gunslinger) and continued to talk to herself all the time and generally be socially inscrutable and odd. She was 'there' but she wasn't really. The internal mechanisms she'd set up to deal with her isolation as a child now dominated her, distracted her and ironically helped perpetuate the isolation past the point where it could have died. Her peers taught her fashion, trends, she drunk it all up and became only all the more pretty and 'in', yet she remained odd as ever.
When she was fifteen was when the offer to become a Puella Magi was discreetly passed around through the dark corners of her now high school. Nobody really expected anybody to do it and it quickly faded away into a footnote, an unusual tidbit for gossip... Only Mariya, unbeknownst to anybody, took the offer. And in the year that has followed, she has only become all the stranger, her social quirks taking a morbid turn, her friends only feeling ever more at unease with her. She is a veteran and it shows, yet it almost seems as if she is the last person who could possibly guide the newest generation of Puellla Magi to victory...
- Wish: "I wish to be able to communicate with the dead." Why is her wish what it is? She's seeking comfort from the dead now, maybe even unconsciously seeking her dead parents.
- Costumed Appearance: Her youthful beauty and radiance are corrupted, warped, in an instant. Her overall complexion changes from hearty to ghostly and pale and the natural girlish blush fades, her hair becomes stringy and ashen in shade, her eyes fade dramatically and become partially gray. Skull motifs abound. Her actual costume is an exceptionally simple (for a Puella Magi) black dress, no lace, just a good amount of ribbon that extends from the short sleeves and collar and wraps itself in intervals over her exposed skin, loosely forming chokers and cuffs and the like. Like this, but with no broom, more skulls, no lace, and more ribbon.
- Soul Gem: A pale crystal that could be some manner of diamond if it had any lustre or sheen, but to even a trained eye it appears dead. In most cases it's just gaudy enough to be worn as a hair inset, an typical teenage accessory inset by a clearly 'fake' gem. As she transforms it's shape mutates into that of a crude facsimile of a canopic jar placed directly over the bones of her bare neck.
- Weapon: Her weapon is a crystal ball than she needs both hands to hold due to volume and weight, about the size of her head. The sole power of the ball is as a medium for a more active application of her powers.
- Power: Without her weapon Mariya's power is solely the ability to speak with and hear the spirits of the dead no matter where she is. If one thought her whispering randomly was bad before, it's almost omnipresent now as she's always holding some morbid conversation with some random dead spirit or another. With the crystal ball Mariya's connection to the realm of the dead begins to leech into her surroundings. Others can communicate with the dead as she can through the ball (like a gypsy), and she can also use the ball as a portal to summon apparitions of the spirits she speaks to. Manifesting as white will-o-wisp like creatures, these fast moving projectiles can phase through obstacles and leave a biting, almost concussive cold snap in things they touch. Prolonged exposure can freeze things solid. The spirits also carry all manner of eerie whispers and dark ambiance with them. A battle field where Mariya is fighting at full power can very rapidly become a dark and morbid place in atmosphere, meaning she is almost capable of harming her team as much as the enemy if she is not careful. Not to mention the potential of collateral from the somewhat free-wheeling spirits. Mariya can summon large amounts of these creatures, reaching More Dakka levels of both firepower and possible friendly fire very quickly.
- Miscellaneous Info: With the way Mariya fights she probably gets a lot of flack from her team, because even though she tries to hold back any application of her powers at all aleady causes her friends discomfort. Might be outright hated depending on the character. And if the Magi get public opinion, the one on her is probably one of the worst, like The Dark Knight levels of bad. Her character arc as I've planned it so far can go several ways, a good amount of them very badly, so if we're in need of a burst of drama I can easily sacrifice Mariya to the plot gods. But at the same time, she also has the potential to be a long runner with a lot of growth.
- Tropes The most prominent tropes that went into her creation would be Creepy Child, Dissonant Serenity, Stepford Smiler (or maybe a subversion, the way I've set it up), and Hidden Depths. A bit of Zero-Approval Gambit which could potentially become a lot based on how her character arc goes.
edited 16th Sep '14 11:05:01 PM by Bassetete
♌
You tempt me to bring the Magical Girl character I used in the previous troper magica that I've developed a bit since that RP fell. My little Hacker with conflicting nature who shows herself a Realist but is actually an Idealist and her above average intelligence giving her arrogance and difficulty in social interaction.
And you don't seem to understand...
Yeees. I will be applying to this. Just need time to think up a character.
"Who am I, Elisha Otis?"
Show an affirming flame
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
Ia! The Eater of Souls!
If there happen to be any corpses lying around the battlefield, I'd fully expect some of the spirits to take up habitance in them, and then we'd have a magical girl commanding an army of zombies.
Charlie Stross's cheerful, optimistic predictions for 2017, part one of three.
-♌-
Eh, if she's in it wouldn't nearly be that interesting. I could see some potentially interesting interactions with her powers at GM discretion, but no zombies.
Show an affirming flame
Yes; that'd really only work if there were already a lot of corpses lying around anyway. No neural systems for the spirits to hijack = no zombie army.
Just a horde of angry, gibbering shades. I for one welcome our undead overlords.
Charlie Stross's cheerful, optimistic predictions for 2017, part one of three.
Man on a Mission
@Sabre's Edge:
Request denied. 
Why? Because establishing how this seemly “perfect” place starts to fall apart under the Witches' influence will be an important driving force in this story. Believe me, there will be PLENTY of messed up and disturbing stuff as we move forward. Also, it is only this one city which has reached an Utopia status, and there's plenty of poverty, crime and filth everywhere else in the world, (just like in the real world) so those kinds of aspects can be, and WILL be, part of the background of several of the characters involved in this story.
Besides, who says I don't intend to deconstruct the concept of Utopia? Or that there might be horrible secrets behind this seemly "little perfect world"? Don't underestimate me, grasshopper... Everything I do is always far more complex and deep than it seems at first glance... Sometimes to an absurd degree, as even my minor characters are so intricate, that they could work as a main character at any given time.
Now, regarding your character profile: I'm glad to see you'll be recycling your character concept from the previous attempt at this kind of story, as we didn't get to see anything substantial about her. And you're on the right track right now, BUT I think you could use some polish; the core of your concept is mostly fine, but it could use some extra details so I could make my mind.
Some corrections you need to do right now are:
- Use the Standardized Format I included in the first post. It's already ready for you to fill up without having to alter it any further.
- For that matter, don't forget to include something substantial in the Miscellaneous Info section.
- “The City” isn't located in Japan, and Kyubey doesn't exist on this universe... At least, not in the way it appears in the original story. I'll include a section with important World Building info soon enough which will include details like those.
- Carrying a knife along with her while transformed isn't really necessary, and it would also be rather superfluous. It's not like she needs backup offensive power; Homura absolutely needed it because her power wasn't damaging on its own right, and her unique “weapon” (her shield) wasn't an offensive tool either. So yeah, carrying a knife would be like bringing a flintlock pistol while you have a magitek gatling-gun with nigh unlimited ammo in order to fight nigh-invulnerable Space-Mecha-Dragons: Most of the time, it won't be of any use, and if your situation turns so bad that you have to use your Emergency Weapon, odds are you're pretty screwed anyway.
Now, carrying a knife while she's on her civilian guise, that's actually acceptable (if you give me a compelling reason behind it)... But beware: Law enforcement is rather strict on this city, and weapons are highly regulated. A civilian caught carrying a weapon in public might get in serious trouble... - This one isn't a correction, but: Your reference to your character being based on a certain song just gave me an idea for an optional entry in the character templates... I'll add it immediately.
@Atomic Nut:
As long as you don't go “too meta” or try to create a character whose sole role is being: “The one that knows everything and anything related to the Puella Magi, so they don't get screwed over by the Incubators”, then I can allow that, yes.
For that matter, that last point is really important because there's no way a character controlled by another writer knows everything about the intricacies of the Puella Magi on this particular setting, as there are quite a few things that don't work the same way as in the original story. The basics are mostly the same, like the way Soul Gems work and the ultimate destiny of the Puella Magi that “reach their limit”, but there are some things that are rather different. For example: There is more than one Incubator dealing with all the Puella Magi, and there's no Kyubey on this particular universe.
@Starbound 2:
Actually, you addressed an important issue I wanted to talk about: When it comes to Candidates, it's not necessary for your backstory to be extremely complex and/or dramatic. A character with a relatively normal life prior to their encounter with the Puella Magi world isn't only acceptable, but actually encouraged, as it's more believable that way. I'll be sure to add that point to the rules.
So yeah, you can go for it, as long as the character has a certain dimension and complexity to her. Even if her life has been rather normal, she surely has dreams, hopes, fears, insecurities, virtues, flaws and all kind of stuff that makes them three-dimensional and engaging. Being “normal” is NOT synonymous with “boring”.
@Bassetete:
Thanks for the vote of confidence, I hope to be able to deliver something worthwhile. I always take stories very SERIOUSLY, even this one that's mostly minor thing I'm doing to “vent some steam” and get my gears working before I start working in far more complex and transcendent things. When it comes to writing, I don't like to write “half-assed throwaway garbage”; I always try to do my best, even when it comes to the little things... And while I don't intend for everyone else to take things as seriously as I do, (because you'd have to be as deranged as I am) I want you to try be as good as you can, so we can craft an interesting story.
But, I digress... Anyway, regarding your question: Most of the civilian population are Muggles, yes, with them being blissfully unaware of either the Witches and the Puella Magi's existence. HOWEVER, this setting also features certain groups of non-super-powered people that know about them to a certain degree, and they keep their existence hidden from the general public. I can't tell more about that right now, as that's important info that will play a crucial role in the future.
Now, moving to your character application: As a matter of fact, I like it! It's dark, but it actually has meaning and complexity behind it, as well several layers of nuance and dimension. I like how her power is a double-edged sword with the potential to be both a great asset and a serious disadvantage.
The only considerations I'd apply to it are:
- You're not allowed to contact with or “summon” deceased Puella Magi. It doesn't take too much imagination to visualize how bringing dead Puella Magi could be easily exploited, and I want to avoid giving other writers control over Story Breaker Powers... At least, until I see they're “mature” enough for them to handle them.
Besides, I don't want for deceased characters from other writers to be able to haunt everyone else, specially if they died because they weren't compelling enough. - The “spirits” summoned this ability can't be the actual souls of the deceased, but more like “echoes” on the space & time fabric. Therefor, these entities don't have knowledge over the afterlife, (if there's even one on this setting...) nor they acquire knowledge or experience beyond what they had prior to their death.
Otherwise, I'm perfectly fine with the way her power works. (including her ability to "weaponize" those "specters")
In other news, I'll write a post with important info about this particular setting soon enough, including a compilation of questions asked and stuff. Also, I leave you with a very important question:
How should we call the city where this story will take place.
I'm genuinely terrible when it comes to names, so any help with that would be highly appreciated.
edited 11th Sep '14 12:28:22 PM by VPhantom
"It's better to burn out... THAN TO FADE AWAY!"
-♌-
The spirits summoned are all generic and faceless sunless you give me permission to do something more interesting. I largely defer to the GM in RP like this. And I'm fine with them being echoes and not actually sentient per say, if anything that adds yet another layer to her character since she's literally finding her comfort in echoes of the past that have no minds of their own. It's actually kind of getting depressing at this point, but that was the point. Anyways, the app is fine as it with those points taken into consideration, I think? It doesn't need to be changed with your answer to my question.
Republic City. But a reference that's thematic to the general series maybe. St. Walpurga maybe. It sounds like a city name because Saint makes anything sound like a city name.
edited 11th Sep '14 12:13:47 PM by Bassetete
♌
St. Jeanne. Actual saint and hey, she's a magical girl. Tots relevant! 
edited 11th Sep '14 12:12:32 PM by Starbound2
-♌-
And it sounds better too, I change my vote for that one.
♌
Man on a Mission
@Bassetete:
Besides the two points previously addressed, you can do almost anything you'd like with her unique power. So yes, be creative and go wild with it if you please. Just remember that far more complex "tricks" drain a Soul Gem's energy like crazy. Summoning a platoon of specters or a swarm of will-o-wisps during each battle isn't outright dangerous, but calling upon the friggin' Army Of The Dead might be fatal if not handled carefully.
I'll address those issues in a case by case basis, and you can always ask in the Discussion Thread if you want to know if a certain “maneuver” or “special technique” will consume a substantial amount of energy.
In any case, for all intends and purposes: Yes, with those considerations taken into account, your character has been approved!
The only thing I'd ask for you is to add some bullet-points prior before each entry in the template. It should look like this:
* '''Name''':instead of
'''Name''':And if you need to use multiple paragraphs, use a couple of “\\\\” in order to separate them. For example:
* This is a paragraph.\\\\
\\\\
This is another one\\\\
\\\\
...An another one!
Turns into:
- This is a paragraph.
This is another one
...An another one!
Sorry for being kinda obsessed when it comes to text-formatting, but it's just one of my multiple manias and obsessions that if left unattended, generate a lot of anxiety. Yeah, I'm a gosh-darned mess (that infamous Nicholas Cage's scene from Vampire's Kiss kinda reminds me of my own unstable psyche)... But never mind: You shouldn't care about my neuroses, you should care about writing a good story!
edited 11th Sep '14 1:08:38 PM by VPhantom
"It's better to burn out... THAN TO FADE AWAY!"
-♌-
Yep, if it's anything out of the ordinary I'll put it up for discussion. And reformatted, hope that's right.
♌
Show an affirming flame
Looks like there are a few points to hash out before I can go ahead with the character sheet, then.
If Kyubey doesn't exist, who offered the contract? That's a big enough backstory point that it can't simply be ignored.
Also, there's a strong point to be made about secondary, purely mundane weapons: they conserve magic. Calling up a salvo of magical gunfire takes magic, but simply pointing a gun or swinging a bowie knife does not. Over the course of a career, an individual PM is more likely to take out a lot more familiars than full witches; the utility in a weapon or a helper that can minimize magic use would be obvious—although, I suspect I can have Amity learn that after a few weeks' campaigning...
As for the city, generic first-world-country metropolis. I'd advocate for setting it in a specific country, actually, even if it is a fictional city. Autre pays, autres moeurs: everything from the side of the road they drive on to the language spoken to the general degree of trust or mistrust of the authorities would be affected.
Charlie Stross's cheerful, optimistic predictions for 2017, part one of three.
One Brunch Man
- Name: Hei Ryung Pyon
- Age: 15
- Nationality: Korean
- Normal Appearance: Hei Ryung is average height and build, to the point that it would be the kind of thing to feel insecure about if she didn’t have her sister as a template for how she would probably turn out. Her naturally pink hair drapes down to mid-back, and she usually binds it together in the middle in what she calls a “raccoon tail”.
- Personality: Hei Ryung reeeeeeeeeeeeeallly likes horror movies. She likes the blood, the guts, the fear, the tone, the build-up, the cool down, the jump scare, the aliens, maniacs, viruses, monsters, curses, tombs, closets, fangs, claws, and every iteration of zombie under the sun. She loves the driving, primal, eternally antagonistic force of fear and how humanity whipped and chained it and stuck up on the movie screen to entertain people. She understands fear, embraces fear, and since the only thing we have to fear is fear itself, she’s got nothing to worry about, right?
- At a glance none of this would be very apparent; Hei Ryung is a generally very cheery person and occasionally literally has a skip in her step. She’s a good listener and has a healthy respect for pulling pranks, and thus Hei Ryung is good at making friends but her macabre sensibilities ensure that she has a hard time keeping them. She can be incredibly awkward, since she knows that she can be overly enthusiastic about creepy stuff, but she doesn’t want to have to feel ashamed about it. “No amount of loneliness is worth compromising yourself.” She’d say to her collection of one-eyed dolls, staring vacantly back at her in the darkened space of her room.
- Backstory: Hei Ryung has had a fairly normal life. Her parents were loving and supportive, but didn’t really know how to talk to her. Her hobbies chased away a lot of people, but she was okay with that. She had her collections of strange items cultivated from dusty shops and shady online curators. She had the screenplays that she worked on with her sister, Sun Hi, five years Hei Ryung’s senior and drifting further and further away with each new questionable friend Sun Hi made. But those times in front of the laptop were something that no new boyfriend could ever take away, and Hei Ryung treasured it.
- But then her sister crashed into a guardrail one night, and that was that. Like flipping a switch, her life was infinitely emptier, and she found out that fear was very different from despair.
- It was then that the Incubator appeared. Hei Ryung decided almost immediately that it was too good to be true. She decided just as quickly that she didn’t care.
- The next morning, Hei Ryung’s sister was lying on their front porch, in a state indistinguishable from coming off of one of her benders. She remembered nothing about dying and was incredibly confused about everyone’s reaction.
- Becoming a Puella Magi was a strange transition, but Hei Ryung quickly got used to it. Fighting witches gives her great inspiration for her screenplay, and her sister didn’t even have to become a zombie or anything. It’s not like she was going to have to do this forever, right?
- Wish: “I want my big sis back. If she has to be a zombie, give me a cage I can keep her in.”
- Costumed Appearance: Her pink hair comes unbound and darkens to a blood-red, spreading out in a wild mane. Her legs are covered in blood-stained suit slacks with matching shoes. Her right arm is covered in bandages while her left arm is covered in the sleeve of a yellow hazmat suit, culminating in a fingerless gloves-esque tattering that has a biohazard symbol on the back of her hand. Her torso is covered with a medieval breast plate with ridged shoulders, bearing host to a tattered cape of variable length. It also has a hood attached that can hide the entirety of her hair with minimal effort. Her incisors turn into vampire fangs, her pupils narrow into slits, her skin becomes ghostly pale, and she becomes supernaturally good at spooky cackling.
- Soul Gem: Hei Ryung's soul gem takes on the shape of a burgundy cross gem, shaped as such solely because Hei Ryung thinks it looks cool. In her Puella Magi form it is affixed to her belly button, hidden under her chest plate. In her civilian clothes it hangs around her neck.
- Weapon: Hei Ryung’s weapon is a big honkin’ chainsaw. The body of the blade takes on the appearance of her sister’s grave, with the relevant name and date inscribed on it, while the blades have the appearance of Daffodil petals. She can only summon the one chainsaw, but it’s about two-thirds as big as she is. She can fire the petals off of the chainsaw as a projectile attack, and can detach the chain and animate it with her power to attack foes.
- Power: Motion to the Motionless: Hei Ryung has the ability to make inanimate objects move under their own power. Whether she actually controls them is debatable, but they tend to follow her mental commands nevertheless. She can make animated constructs out of just about anything non-living, with the exception of anything magical, like Witches, Familiars, or the equipment of other Puella Magi. When she does this in her civilian clothes, the objects don't visibly change, but when she uses it while transformed, the object is coated in a thin, purely aesthetic organic film.
- Miscellaneous Info:
- In addition to the screenplay stuff, Hei Ryung wants to be a special effects artist when she grows up. Practical effects may be on their way out, but that just means she’ll have a unique skillset, right?
- Her father was an architect, and taught her a game where he looks at buildings and structures and tries to imagine the thought processes and work that went into making that building or structure what it is today. Hei Ryung plays a similar game, particularly when she’s feeling down, in which she tracks down a real life “horror movie situation” and tries to imagine how to simulate one event or another with practical special effects. This inevitably draws her to some strange places, and while she realizes the danger, she reasons that it’s for the sake of her art.
- If Hei Ryung had to pick a favorite horror movie convention, it would be the use of nursery rhymes in a sinister context.
- Hei Ryung once had a friend who was really into the zombie survivalist thing. They spent an entire summer drawing up plans, drawing out hypothetical equipment, and she even pinpointed the closest optimal safe point. It stopped being fun once the boy somehow convinced his parents to move there. They still send each other letters every once in a while.
- When she was eleven, Hei Ryung subscribed to a science magazine because she had a dream that that year NASA was going to announce the discovery of aliens, and she thought it would be crazier to miss out on something like that than not.
- Hei Ryung really likes chemistry, particularly reactions that have a sustained glow. Her room is decorated with a few home-made lava lamps.
- Hei Ryung hung out with the unofficial occult research club for a little while, but found them too depressing for her tastes.
- Hei Ryung sometimes wonders about how she’d sell her parents on moving next to a graveyard.
- She was sure that she was going to be a mortician for the longest time until she realized that she found the act of actually cutting people open extremely unpleasant.
edited 16th Sep '14 7:58:24 PM by Uncandescent
If I had that kind of power, I'd have dropped a meteor on your house ages ago~
Man on a Mission
Another Incubator, of course. The identity of said being doesn't matter too much, because for all intents and purposes, the way they work is mostly similar to Kyubey's modus operandi... Hell! The little basterds even look like it, besides color scheme and some minor aesthetic differences. The existence of multiple Incubators isn't all too relevant for the backstories, but it will be important once the story proper starts to roll.
That's a bingo! That argument you made there will come into play (hopefully... If we make it that far) at some point in the story, with Puella Magi using human-made weapons as a highly effective support offensive measure. I reiterate pal: Don't underestimate my insight and ability to plan ahead.
However, that particular instance won't come into play at the early stages, because how regulated weapons are on this particular city. Oddly enough, only a Puella Magi like Homura, whose Space&Time manipulation included a variation of Hammerspace, could pull something like that without getting raided by the half of the police department.
With that said, I still think a knife would be kinda redundant on the particular case of your character. As you've stated, she can summon a bladed hockey stick, and since summoning one copy of their signature weapon doesn't have a noticeable impact on a Puella Magi's Energy supply, (no matter how complex their weapon might be... At least on this setting; kinda similar to how Spawn's chains don't consume a lot of his energy) having a weapon that does pretty much the same, but worse, would be REALLY redundant. (redundancy be damned)
HOWEVER, a support fire-arm would actually make a lot more sense, and there's a very “simple” way you could acquire one: If one of Amity's parents happens to be a cop/law-enforcer, and said person has knowledge about their daughter's mission. Not only solves that “problem”, but it also adds another layer of complexity, as well as an opportunity for some interesting sub-plots to be explored, like what happens when a Puella Magi starts getting non-powered people involved in her Witch slaying exploits.
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! R U mad, bro? I might be insane, but don't think I'm oblivious to such overt expressions of contempt. If your disdain for that particular aspect of the setting is so great, then I won't recommend you to stick around.
You seem like a folk who has a lot of good and useful ideas to offer, but if you're gonna be a metaphorical “thorn on my side”, I can prescind of you without feeling too bad about it. It's better to extirpate those troubles on the early stages, as the only drama I want to deal with is the IN-STORY DRAMA, thanks a lot.
Don't misinterpret me: It's not like I'm one of those blockheads who Can't Take Criticism. Hell! Criticism is actually really useful to me, as it helps me to improve the kind of stories I can craft by bringing to my attention a lot of things I might have not considered prior the said criticism. HOWEVER, if you're gonna be passive-aggressive and bitter about it, and start taking the things that happen in-story as personal, then I'd recommend you to leave the house.
Patience grasshopper, I'm working on it. It will be a little “guidebook”/“mini-bible”, if you will, with important info about this particular setting, mechanics and other relevant stuff.
I didn't want to pull ALL that info upfront from the get go, because it would be extremely overwhelming for everyone involved. (including myself, mind you) I want to tackle that beast one issue at a time, with more info being revealed as other writers start requesting it.
edited 11th Sep '14 3:07:39 PM by VPhantom
"It's better to burn out... THAN TO FADE AWAY!"
I did come up with an idea for a different magical girl not based on the previous rp. Namely she was a Magical Girl from the middle ages who wishes to abstain her wish. After fighting for a few years and defending her country, the world grows quiet so she finally used her wish to wait for the future for when she is truly needed again.
Sandwich Summoner
- Name: Julia Crow
- Age:29 (OOOOOOLLLD!)
- Appearance:Of average build and visiblely toned, Julia is a woman that resembles the ideal of amazonian beauty. Curves, but also muscles are present throughout her figure. She has a dash of latin ancestry in her features, with dark brown eyes, and deep black hair she keeps in a bob cut mimicking the wings of a raven. She doesn't wear makeup. Semi-permanently dressed in khaki tracksuits, but she is known to look good in a dress. She is rumoured to cruise the city in a black biker attire, atop an equally black hog, but it has not been confirmed yet.
- Personality: Some people say Julia is more than one person at once. Outgoing, perky and borderline maniac in her job, taking each small task at heart as if it were the end of the world, cracking jokes along the way...while being some sort of reptilian slob who crawls only to go the gym and kick a mat to polish her martial arts, digest pizza, and snore audibly on her bed while the world seems to keep going around her. For that very reason she is very touchy about her age and lack of love life. There is something that can get her out of this kind of stupor. Magical girls and the myths surrounding it. She has always been interested on the whole subject from a long time ago. She can't get that out of her mind, and it torments her. Showing for what she really is, an embittered, cynical survivor who was spared the fate of becoming a Puella Magi. And yet, for that same reason, she must gather all information she can... and help those who have become Puella Magi.
- Backstory: Julia was a Puella Magi, or rather -almost- became one. Back at school, Julia wasn't the most popular, just a fat, pimple-riddled girl with brackets. Surrounded by beauty everywhere, but with magic potential for the Incubators to scout her. It was her golden chance to be cool, and beautiful. One simple wish for becoming a magical footsoldier. Newfound friends. It seemed too good to be true.
But then God intervened, or rather Goethe intervened. Amidst the cavilation of whether becoming a Puella Magi or not, the lecture of Faust raised all alarms on Julia's head, and she kept refusing making a contract. Until one day, the coaxing stopped. Her weight and pimples fixed themselves, and the brackets were gone. And all of the magical girls she had known had disappeared from the world without a trace. She had suceeded in saving her soul, but the price had been, perhaps, too steep. Heartbroken, she joined the Army and became a medic and Muay Thai expert. To fight like she should have done back then. Create a better world. But that was not the same. It would never be the same again.
It was then when she started to seek answers, firmly but slowly unraveling the scarce pieces of information about Puella Magi. She found much to her dismay, that such a thing was still happening. And she made a decision. To help Puella Magi. She took a teacher's job as soon as she was done with the army, in order to keep an observant eye on the city's youngsters, and be always a reachable presence.
But that wasn't enough. Indeed, she could not cover the whole city from a single school. And thus she began to travel around in secret outings wearing a black helmet and riding a black motorbike. - Miscellaneous Info: Julia is versed in the use of firearms (of course getting them is another entire matter), and she is an excellent medic on her own. Also she is also a master of Muay Thai.
- Tropes: Amazonian Beauty, The Heart, The Medic, Team Mom, Minored In Ass Kicking, Knight in Sour Armor.
edited 11th Sep '14 4:18:47 PM by AtomicNut
Show an affirming flame
So: the incubator won't be called Kyubey, but will functionally be identical as far as we know, with the added possibility of future plot twists. Am I reading it right?
I assure you, you're reading passive-aggressiveness when it's not there, and it puzzles me somewhat. "Generic first-world-country metropolis" is an acceptable setting descriptor, given what you've described; more details will be necessary as the game gets rolling, and the sooner we start figuring those out the better. The descriptor is there to note that the adventure will look very different if it's in a city where everyday life is calm and peaceful—Mitakihara in the original series, for instance—versus if we set it in, say, modern-day Caracas/divided Berlin/wartime London. At the same time, players don't write in a vacuum; we do need enough information about the background and the set dressing to post.
The question of how things will be affected when we drag the non-magically-involved into things is potentially a huge one (which I don't doubt you've thought of as well). Naturally, most humans can't see witches until after they've been dragged into a barrier—which, if Epi 10 is any indication, doesn't happen until after the witch tries and fails to kiss them; meaning that for someone to be aware of their existence, they would have to have held out against a witch's kiss, then be dragged into a barrier, then survive the experience, probably with the help of a meguca, before the witch can kill them. Not too bad; there's got to be a very small population of people like that. Without a meguca to tell them about the underground war, they'd probably be dismissed as mad if they tried to tell others about it. Assuming the meguca doesn't explain the mechanics of magical girls, witches, and the like to any Tom, Dick, or Harry they happen to rescue from a barrier, they'd probably keep the experience to themselves. That appears to be the show's status quo.
The question now is, what prevents the megucas from spreading the knowledge around? It seems like the answer is 'short combat lifespan'. Megucas don't live long; the majority would be like Sayaka and die off in a few weeks. Even the longer-term survivors rarely live to see adulthood. And for those rare survivors, Walpurgisnacht events will kill them off, directly or indirectly. Not a bad racket the ferret's running, and I'd honestly recommend keeping it that way, or at the most keeping nonmagical involvement to an absolute minimum.
The biggest can of worms, if you decide to bring in the non-magical world, is that sooner or later word will spread, and eventually the state will get involved (as a function of keeping law and order). States are notoriously terrible at keeping secrets. When that happens, you've got a whole new dynamic, and while it'd be fun to explore, it'd be much closer to a game of political intrigue than it would be to baseline PMMM (given the amount of resources a modern nation-state can muster, especially when it comes to applying and directing violence—something the nation-state is very good at.) For that reason, I'd recommend against bringing in the outside world, unless you want to deal with those kinds of consequences.
(Also for that reason Asakura isn't stealing a pistol from her parents. There'd be background problems if we make them cops—doesn't fit with "immigrated from Canada"—and alienation and loneliness is a big enough theme of the show that I think it'd be worth exploring.)
Charlie Stross's cheerful, optimistic predictions for 2017, part one of three.
Man on a Mission
@Uncandescent:
Hmmmmm... Yes, it could work, yes... Actually, I like how un-Magical-Girl-like, yet rather creative her transformed state is... A twisted tribute to Horror films tropes... Yeah, it's actually cool, while also having a good reason behind it, so I'm OK with it.
By the way, Incubators in this story (and in the original one, oddly enough) are really Benevolent Genies when it comes to granting their wishes, (it's when it comes to everything else that they're kind of douchebags) so don't worry about Hei Ryung's sister coming back as a zombie.
However, I'd like to know more about the reactions of other common people to this particular wish, and other aspects related to her sister's death. Each time a wish backfired in the series, it wasn't because the Incubators actively sabotaged it, but because the one that formulated the wish didn't thought of (or just didn't expect) the consequences.
Also, you're allowed to upgrade Hei Ryung's power. Since most of the fights will happen inside the Witches' Labyrinths, objects built with moving parts might be extremely sparse on some of those locations. So, you're allowed to upgrade her power so she can create animated constructs even out of statues, rocks, metal... Pretty much everything non-living, with the obvious limitation of materials directly connected to Familiars and Witches being immune to said control. (Example: if one of them would attack Hei Ryung with a hail of thorns, she would be able to nullify their offensive, but she wouldn't be able to stop the movement of appendixes directly connected to the creature... Nor anything immaterial, like an energy shot)
For the most part, you're on the right track... But yeah, I'd like for you to upgrade Hei Ryung's power and to address the issue I mentioned. My verdict right now is: Tentatively approved!
@Stephan Reiken:
Hmmmm... I'd need for you to elaborate a little bit more. From what I can infer according to your description, that sounds needlessly complicated... The kind of situation that would force me to write a really complicated appendix in the “guidebook” in order to explain how to deal with time-travelers. (or otherwise time-displaced individuals)
So, yeah... I'm gonna need more info in order to get a clearer picture of what you intend to do.
@Atomic Nut:
Hmmmmm... Interesting... Very interesting. I like the core concept you're explaining there; the idea of a person whose life was deeply affected after almost becoming a Puella Magi has a lot of potential for some really interesting developments and stories. Yeah, I'm digging it... Approved!
And the best (or worst, according to your point of view) part is that she still has the potential to become a Puella Magi if you wish to do so in the future.
How adverse are to the idea of Julia starting the story being the “coach” of one of the newbies? Not everyone will start in the same school, and a they might not get to know each other until the second “episode”, but I think it would be interesting to see your character working along with a Puella Magi from the very start.
edited 11th Sep '14 9:03:15 PM by VPhantom
"It's better to burn out... THAN TO FADE AWAY!"
I'll have something up today, but not right this moment. But the whole series is centered around a time looping character so other time travelers would not be unwarranted.
I'm not sure what her core power is yet. Probably like Kyoko or Mami, it will be unrelated to the wish.
I'm still thinking out details to make her interesting as a character. Her main traits would be Honorable and self-sacrificing. She took the bargain for power to save her country in the midst of war. Her family dead, friends she made during those years picked off one after another. Other magical girls often contending for territory. She likes to fight but doesn't like all the tragedy. But once the war stopped she lost her purpose to gain magical power, and witches soon became infrequent. She grew restless so she enacted the wish she pushed off and essentially flung her into a future to a point where she would be needed.
Serious most of the time and preferring solitude. Though she wants friends she doesn't think things will turn out differently. At some point in her background she probably suffered from muggle hatred for her magic. She'll have a large amount of despair in her to start because of everything that has happened.
But her magical power will be something simple. Sword, Armor, and Shield. Now that I reflect on it more, her power might simple be 'Focus'.
Allows her to charge power in her sword and use it in a slash. Simple, easy to use, not a large drain of mana. Not at risk to witchify from magic overuse.
There is a barrier to these multiple nationalities. Namely the language barrier.
edited 11th Sep '14 6:33:17 PM by StephanReiken
Index
Introduction
Seeing how the last Puella Magi RP suffered an untimely, unexpected and unceremonious death, and since a decent amount of time has passed since it expired, I think it would be interesting to try once again... This time under a far more idiosyncratic approach, while still trying to remain loyal to the core themes and uniqueness of the original story. (I'm talking about the Anime, of course, not the deceased RP)
The rough synopsis would be like this:
"Somewhere in a world not so different to ours, in a time not so distant from our own, exists a certain city, a nigh utopian cosmopolitan metropolis, a modern world marvel where people from all over the world converge. However, in the past few years, this seemly ideal place has been threatened by highly destructive supernatural force, abominable beings which distort humans' intellect, emotion, and souls, feasting on them and thriving with each victim they consume.
In order to combat these monsters, exists a selected group of women who have been granted the powers required to vanquish them. In exchange a personal miracle, these protectors, known as Puella Magi, have made an oath that compels them to fight the aberrations known as Witches. It's a difficult mission, a path which inevitably conducts to despair and destruction, a painful sacrifice which is absolutely necessary in order to safeguard the future of something far greater than them...
And now, under the cold gaze of pristine monoliths of glass, steel and concrete, these warriors will face what could be the most important battle of their time, one where even human race's survival, and the very integrity of time-and-space continuum might be at stake."
So yeah, that's the general gist of it: Cool big city, Puella Magi from all over the world, lots of Witches, all Hell eventually breaks loose. HOWEVER, it's worth noting that, while I expect for grand battles to be a key component of this project, character development and interactions will be actually FAR more important. As someone that values compelling characters, rich in depth and brimming with nuance, I want for you to create good characters BEFORE thinking about how you will min-max your character's battle potential.
For that matter, this project won't be a bog-standard Pen & Paper styled RPG analog, but it will be closer to a collaborative story than anything else. That means no nice rolls, no adamant enforcement of “battle stats”, no weird “videogame-like” mechanics running on the background... Only narrative causality determining the outcome of the events. In other words: The more compelling your character(s) is/are, the more likely is them to “succeed”. But, I'm getting ahead of me... Hopefully, you'll understand better once things start getting in motion.
So, yeah... I'll be waiting for your applications and questions. Once again, be warned: If you expect for this to be a monster killing fest which runs on gratuitous action and violence, then you'll be sorely disappointed. But, if you're just like me, and are also aiming to write a compelling story, then I'll try my best in order to set the stage so we can accomplish exactly that!
Oh! And before I forget, I'll leave you with some Arc Words that are extremely relevant for the story, because they sum up the kind of tone/“feel” I'm aiming for
Puella Magi Template
* '''Name''':
* '''Age''':
* '''Nationality''':
* '''Normal Appearance''':
* '''Personality''':
* '''Backstory''':
* '''Wish''':
* '''Costumed Appearance''':
* '''Soul Gem''':
* '''Weapon''':
* '''Power''':
* '''Miscellaneous Info''':
* '''Tropes''' [Optional]:
Candidate Template
* '''Name''':
* '''Age''':
* '''Nationality''':
* '''Appearance''':
* '''Personality''':
* '''Backstory''':
* '''Miscellaneous Info''':
* '''Tropes''' [Optional]:
List of Approved Characters
Supporting Characters (aka. "NPCs")
edited 6th Oct '14 11:03:15 PM by VPhantom
"It's better to burn out... THAN TO FADE AWAY!"