Avatar: Chronicles of the Sea Dragon Gang

About the appereance, can I draw the character instead of a description?

Yes, so long as you include copious detail, and so long as it looks publishable.

edited 14th Oct '14 9:37:26 PM by JumpinJackFlash

Thinking this better, I don't feel yet ready about joining an RP like this (maybe one day). Have fun everyone!

edited 14th Oct '14 10:03:43 PM by RPGLegend

Struggling with an idea. When do you plan to start?

Well, I avoided doing an airbender character because I thought someone else might want to, but no one's done it yet, so...

Hm. Good idea... might have some good character opportunities...

Name Mala

Age 13

Nation Earth (Mother was a Fire nation deserter after Air Nomad father was killed. She died when he was 6, after raising him in Ba Sing Se)

Appearance Mala is short for his age— about 5'0"— and thin. He is very tan, and has shaved his head since he was a child, but the fuzz that grows in is black. He has big blue eyes. He wears a too-big Earth nation tunic, worn open like a jacket, and brown pants rolled to his knees. Mala also wears peasant sandals. His forearms have pale burn scars.

Element Fire

• Fire breath— Mala has the ability to exhale flames from his mouth and nose.
  • This is Mala's initial ability, as he can exhale flames in a wide burst, or in a focused jet. The burns on his arms have affected, mentally, his ability to firebend from his hands

Skills

• hand-to-hand combat— Mala is a skilled martial artist, picking up this skill from his time in the street gangs of Ba Sing Se.
• cooking— Before picking up with the gangs, Mala worked as nearly-unpaid labor in kitchens of the great houses of inner Ba Sing Se. He later put these skills to use in feeding his friends. He became quite known in the underbelly of the city for this talent.

Equipment Mala's greatest treasure is an Air Nomad pendant that belonged to his father. His second greatest treasure is the set of masterwork cooking knives that he stole from his final employer; he keeps these in a case that he always wears strapped to the small of his back, beneath his tunic. Mala also has a journal and charcoal, that he uses to record the events of his life, and write down recipes. He keeps these in a pocket sewn into his shirt.

Backstory Mala's mother brought him to the Earth Kingdom as an infant, and she raised him in the kitchens of the wealthy, where she became quite the notable chef. She taught him to cook and to read here— he has his father's pendant, but from his mother he has cooking. After she died in a fire— accidentally started by Mala who was just discovering his bending. The burns he received on his arms, and the death of his mother, have severely impacted how he bends. He tried to keep working in kitchens afterward, but after stealing a set of knives from a particularly unpleasant household, he took to the streets at the age of 8. He was quickly taken in by one of the many gangs that plague the lower ring, and it was in these gangs that he learned to harness his breath talent, and became a fighter. After several more years, and several more gangs, Mala became the head of a gang of his own with his best friend, an older earthbender named Kazza. A particularly violent turf war then boiled over, and in the process a soldier was killed. Kazza and Mala fled the city, toward the coast, but the pair was split up in a jungle, and Mala barely made it out with his life. Shortly thereafter, he met Mizuki, and fell in with the crew of the Sea Dragon.

Personality Mala was a boisterous child, but the death of his mother forced him into a long period of solitude. When Mala met Kazza, who was his protector for several years, he began to come out of his shell. In his role as gang-cook, Mala often adopted a mothering persona, taking care of younger and older members alike. After Kazza and he were separated in the jungle, the trauma of the past several weeks caught up to him, and Mala once again retreated into a shell. Upon falling in with the Sea Dragon Gang, though, Mala is once again beginning to feel at home. When cooking, Mala lets his guard down, and through it he shows his affection for those around him; Mala is fundamentally a kind and loving boy who has been put into many unfortunate circumstances. Mala also enjoys a good fight, as it was always through fighting that he proved himself on the streets; he is very intelligent, but doesn't often have the occasion to demonstrate this.

edited 16th Oct '14 3:23:26 PM by silverpunk

This post was thumped by the Eldritch Flyswatter of Horror

I'm confused, we are into Azulons Reign, timeline wise nigh 50 years since the start of the war, so the Air Temples would have already been burned. And we saw during ATLA that it was pretty much deserted since then?

@Silverpunk: Mala is good to go. It's good to have such a young character as him aboard to add complexity to the cast.

@Stratofarius: 3of 4 is right. If I'm going to accept your character, you'll have to make him consistent with the roleplay's chronology. My advice is to add some more stuff to the backstory from between Choden's escape to when he joins the crew. This would make him a middle-aged man when he eventually joins them - and therefore more worldly - otherwise his character would be similar. Again, this is my advice and you can do a different character if you want. If you still want to play a young Airbender, they can be the offspring of an Air Nomad who avoided the genocide.

Anyway, with six other players accepted and one player pending, I figured it's time for a discussion thread.

edited 17th Oct '14 3:43:17 AM by JumpinJackFlash

Oh man, had a brain fart and completely missed the time date. I'll fix it and change it to him being an offspring of someone who escaped.

edited 17th Oct '14 7:37:31 AM by Stratofarius

Here's a fixed sheet:

• Name: Choden Samdup
• Age: 18
• Nation: Air Nomad
• Appearance: A common eighteen year old (approximately 5'8), Choden sports a lithe and well maintained body, a result of his training. Underneath his clothes, Choden's body was prepared for the ritual that would give him his tattoos- as such, he is also bald. When seen in the dark, Choden's young features actually look older, a result of the shadows allowing him to loosen up and reveal more of the anguish-ridden man his usual smile hides.
• Element: Air
  • Air Swipe: The usual move for airbenders. By swiping their staff, the airbenders produce a wave of air that can knock down objects and people on their way. Used for defensive moves.
  • Air Ball: Another usual move. The airbenders create a ball of air which they can use for transportation or for defense.
• Skills:
  • Poet: An avid reader of the old philosophers, Choden may not have a knack for what they teach, but he certainly has a love for the way they use their words. He has harbored a love for poets and poems, and that love sometimes spreads into conversations, transforming what should have been normal phrases into haikus.
  • Musician:' Poetry combined with a love for music has given Choden a musical sense that other people his age do not have. He is quite an expert with the liuqin◊, an instrument he found on one of his many trips to the innards of his home.
• Equipment: Apart from the traditional Air Nation monk clothes combined with clothes he got from an assailant, Choden also has an Airbender's staff (one that can turn into a glider), a backpack containing a few blank parchments, a feather, a bottle full of ink, his liuqin and a pouch where he keeps his 'life savings'.
• Backstory:
  • Choden is the son of two Air Nation escapees who barely made away with their lives from the genocide from the Fire Nation. Scared out of their minds, Monk Kunchen and Amala initially adopted a policy of completely abandoning their Air Nation personas in order to survive. This worked for many, many years... however, after finding out Amala was pregnant, and after seeing a series of terrible visions in his meditation... Kunchen decided that if anyone was going to continue the proud tradition of the Air Nation, it was going to be them. Born in a house on the hills on the far south of the Earth Kingdom, Choden lived a life exactly the same as Kunchen- and other kids- did, up until he was six. At the age when most kids were discovering what they liked and what they didn't like, Choden knew that what he liked wasn't in that house. He always wandered off the boundaries established by his his parents, going into places he wasn't allowed to. His parents initially thought it was just childish curiosity, but when this blatant disregard of the rules continued well into his eleventh year, it was clear something needed to be done. Not only was Choden actively going against the rules put upon him, he was putting their secrecy in danger, especially when he sneaked out of the house to go to a nearby city.
  • Kunchen became his private teacher and the two began an isolated training schedule, so for a long time Choden didn't get to see his mother, just his father. Instead of giving good results, this only enhanced Choden's wish to be free- he had been born with an insatiable desire to explore, to see the world, to meet the people around it with open hands, instead of living his life cooped up in a house like the isolationists that the Air Nomads were. His dreams evolved into words of rebellion against Kunchen, who was trying to apply Choden's desires to do some good. Unbeknownst to Amala and to Choden himself, Kunchen subtly encouraged the young boy to do the opposite of what he was told to do. He hid gifts in certain areas of the house that he knew Choden would visit. That was when he found his Liuqin, and that was when the young boy began to experiment with music. Kunchen could feel that Choden was, in his words, 'a soul meant to do so much more than the body it found itself in'. He wanted to encourage Choden to find his true calling, so that he could contribute to the Air Nation in his unique way.
  • With a lack of tangible results and the time for the ritual where Choden would receive his tattoos fast approaching, Amala demanded to know what Kunchen was doing with Choden on one of the few times the two got together. He proceeded to give his wife a scathing review of the boy, in the hopes that Amala would be convinced that what her child needed was some more time. However, Choden, who had grown to like his teacher- in the way that teenagers often do- heard the whole speech from a hiding spot. Once Kunchen returned for one of their lessons, he was confronted with a crying, angry Choden, who accused his father of being a monster who would never understand him. When Choden threatened to leave their house in the silent of the night, Kunchen knew he had to step in, but he didn't know how. Frustrated, he made a move that he would regret for the rest of his life: he called his student foolish, and claimed that what he was doing was nothing but following the whims of rebellion, like every teenager does, and that he would be back to his parents five seconds after stepping into the world outside. He hoped that this would, somehow, make Choden see how much he cared for the young man, but his words were miscalculated, and the next morning, Choden was not in his room.
  • Knowing that he had to hide his identity, Choden went to the closest city with an image of a brand new world ready to welcome him with open arms. What he got was a faceful of mud when he went into the local tavern to ask for some clothes and money, becoming the laughing stock of that town. Taking shelter in that animal stable, he was surrounded by a small group of men who, drunk and bored, decided to have some fun with the young man. Choden, who up until then had only heard his teacher's pacifist ideals, tried his best to avoid conflict, to walk out without inflicting a single scratch on his assailants. But when one of them tried to snatch his staff, the one that Kunchen had personally given to him, then he faltered, delivering an air swipe that knocked two of the assailants into the stable, destroying them. As their friends ran away and the two laid on the ground, not responding to Choden's questions, he knew something had to be done. He took the two into the tavern, begging the owner to help them, and after the owner helped put the two to bed, Choden stood watch the whole night. That night, he was visited by a vision of Kunchen, repeating the words that made him leave his home. Was he really just following his teenage desires, or was this real? For a moment, the thought of returning to his parents flickered on his mind. But to demonstrate how this wasn't about them... that this was about him, his wish to be free, Choden stood up, took some of the clothes of the assailants and departed. That Choden was gone. This Choden was ready for the world.
  • Ever since then, he has been doing odd jobs here and there to gain some money, travelling the world. And as he avoids dangerous conflicts after dangerous conflict, he realizes that maybe it is time for him to adapt. The Air Nomads' ways were wrong and antiquated, that's what lead to the genocide. One could not survive merely on defense. That is why he has joined the Sea Dragon Gang- to explore the world, and to see what fighters act and think like, so he can develop new offensive airbending techniques and evolve with the world. Not be left behind by it.
• Personality: Choden likes to believe he's not naive or stupid, but he's actually a little bit of column A and a little bit of column B. Only now has he accepted that perhaps some situations require the offensive, and he's not as well-read in anything that's not the art of writing. As such, he may act though and strong, but he sees the good in everyone and everything, even that which doesn't deserve that kind of point of view. He enjoys the calm moments of life, times where he can pull out his liuqin and sing a song about the skies, because it's those moments that people never forget about. And it's also because those moments bring joy to others and not just himself, and in the end, that's what is fueling his wish to explore the world: an inner desire to see others share in the happiness of discovery. Wildly inexperienced, he is ready and willing to learn, but he sometimes may oppose your ideas, and you might never know if he's doing it just to rebel against you or because he believes you are wrong. That is the fine line Choden currently walks, the line of trying to see if what defines you is the society you live in or what you, as a human being, want to do with your life. Those who aim to push him to either side of this line for personal gain will find themselves in a though spot if he finds out about the truth. You do not want to be in the short list of people who Choden has no hope for, because that list does not yet exist. It is almost impossible to predict what will you happen once that list gets its first names...

@Stratofarius: This is an improvement. Chodon is accepted.

edited 17th Oct '14 1:59:56 PM by JumpinJackFlash

Edit: After considering it, I probably won't actually have enough time to devote to this. Please ignore.

edited 18th Oct '14 11:29:55 AM by randomtropeloser

I'm working on a sheet.

I've been wanting to do an ATLA rp for a while now.

@amporius rex: I look forward to reading your character sheet.

Huh, interesting idea. I've seen certain roleplay-ish threads like these but are less devoted to a story-telling experience and are more just an actual RPG in thread form. Doesn't make for a very engaging roleplay.

I hope there's a spot available for me to join in? I don't have a concrete idea as of yet, but...

There is a maximum of twelve players in this roleplay. So far there are eight confirmed players (including myself), and one pending player.

There's room for you and two others.

Ah, alright. Just making sure no one else was pending.

• Name: Sohan
• Age: 40
• Nation: Earth Kingdom
• Appearance: Roughly six feet tall, he's of average size of a person his age, but his body has not yet succumbed to the added weight that tend to accompany middle-aged people. His skin is lightly tanned from his excessive outdoorsy-ness, hair regularly shaved down to keep his head from getting too hot. He wears a simple cloth shirt and pants that he tucks up to his knee, along with a thing ribbon he uses as an impromptu belt, and a plain pair of shoes. All of which is obviously colored after ordinary Earth Kingdom garb. His eyes are a soft green and his teeth, despite his background, are kept quite clean, save for one missing canine on the bottom-right portion of his mouth.
• Element: Earth.
  • Rock Gauntlets: Sohan coats his forearms & hands in hard rock, forming a crude pair of gauntlets. These are obviously used for punching, or for a number of tasks in which better leverage is required.
  • Earth Jump: Sohan can cause a surrounding square to practically separate itself from the surrounding ground and push either up or diagonally, with enough force to launch him about ten feet in/through the air. He can also do this with other objects or people, but the effectiveness varies on the weight of the thing in question.
• Skills:
  • Good 'Ol Fisticuffs: Sohan was never one for the practicality of weapons, and as such has developed and honed his hand-to-hand combat. He is also quite well-skilled with his hands in general due to his practice.
  • Bargaining: Prices were quite the hassle for him back home, and as such he's been learning what he can about haggling down various prices of some goods. He isn't as great at it as most others, though it helps if he knows the seller personally.
• Equipment: A small pouch full of small cleaning supplies, along with some simple bandages.
• Backstory: Having been born during some of the harsher times in Ba Sing Se, more specifically during the 46th Earth King's rule and shortly after Chin's Rebellion, Sohan didn't have much parental help growing up. His father left to join the growing Uprising against the King's reign, and was killed during so. His mother could not handle the sole responsibility of him and thus left him to the care of an orphanage. The caretakers there were as kind as they could be while he was growing up, and while he appreciated everything they did, there was a point where he was tired of life in the orphanage, unwanted for his dislike of proper cleaning and the short tempered fights in the courtyard that left him battered and bloody. So, when he deemed himself old enough (say, 13), he left the orphanage by himself and went out into Ba Sing Se to try to form a living for himself. For the first decade or two he was relatively well off, being a server for a tea-shop and doing odd jobs for the local inn in return for a slightly reduced room. At some point he was fired from his job in favor of a more polite server, and the inn realized that they would be making more money if they charged more for the rooms, so Sohan was losing a place to stay as well. Angry at the outcome of his life he made way for a tavern/bar/whatever it's called and used up what money he had on a long night of drinking. Soon a fight broke out between him and some other heavy drinkers, but he easily came out on top. Since then he's been living in the alleyways of Ba Sing Se's richer district, funding his meals with the money he won during ambiguously legal fighting tourneys. At one point in his life he decided to start anew, shipping off to another part of the world and trying for a fresh life. Dockworkers refused to let him hitch a ride when they departed, so he had little options left. though, just as he was being discouraged, he overheard some talk of a criminal's ship docking soon. With no better alternative, he offered his services to the Sea Dragons in hope of finding a better life somewhere, not knowing just how much harder he made it for himself.
• Personality: Sohan is a generally nice guy. Having had a rough life himself he's an easy sympathizer to anyone else's problems and genuinely cares for the well-being of others. He can be quite talkative, mostly about useless things such as how much fish goes for nowadays, the increased rainfall, etc, but he will follow people's wishes if they ask of him to. Of course, his temper blows out extremely quick, and once he's angry he won't calm down until he's beaten something to a pulp, so it's best not to tick him off without reason.
• Other info: His favorite animal is the Turtleduck.

If anything needs fixing/changing, obviously let me know. May have rushed a bit somewhere.

Yeah, Sohan is accepted.

• Name: Lanyin Jiang (姜 兰银 Jiang Lanyin, formerly Shuizhen Lee 麗 真水 Lee Shuizhen)
• Age: 27
• Nation: Fire Nation
• Appearance:
  • Lanyin is a slightly tanned woman of slightly below average height. Her hair is done up in a chaotic topknot, with the hair at her sides messily hanging down to her shoulders. The topknot is adorned with a simple rectangular wooden headpiece. A faded grey tattoo of a world tree dominates her back, and vine-like designs go down her arms. She is lithe and agile due to a life filled with conflict.
  • Lanyin is dressed in an amalgam of Earth Kingdom and Fire Nation clothing, albeit in a muted brownish shade. She has an open men’s Earth Kingdom-style robe over a Fire Nation-style tunic and pants. Around her neck is a small durable transparent vial of bright red liquid.
• Skills:
  • Archery - Lanyin is more than capable in the skill of Archery, and her skill could be described as echoing that of the Yuyan archers that would come into existence in a few decades.
  • Close Quarters Combat - With the aid of two Hachiwara, Lanyin can defend herself where her archery skills would not be useful. She can parry sword attacks, cut armor ties, or pry open armor plates.
  • Apothecary - Lanyin has knowledge of poisons and of their antidotes, and can craft these with the proper ingredients. She can also make a mean batch of fire flakes, and her personal Hot Sauce, Liquid Agni Kai, has the sheer heat of a fierce duel between Sozin and a dragon (so she says, anyway). She also has a knowledge of dyes.
• Equipment: Lanyin is equipped with a simple wooden bow, a quiver of steel-tipped arrows, and her twin Hachiwara. She has a pouch strapped to her side, filled with mislabeled tinctures (she knows exactly what they are, the mislabeling is to punish those who try to steal from her) of poisons, and the antidotes of common poisons. Her clothing is flame-retardant. The vial around her neck contains her Liquid Agni Kai.
• Backstory: Lanyin was born in the Fire Nation, to a high-class merchant family. Around the age of 10, however, her family was assassinated, and she was taken in by her family’s assassins to be nurtured into part of their group. The Grey Oak, the intercontinental assassination group she was inducted into, was comprised of one man, Shuiqing Lee. Using an early method of lantern hypnosis, he erased her memory to make Lanyin his heir; he was getting old, and Lanyin happened to catch his interest. He treated her like his daughter, while at the same time teaching her how to kill from afar and how to fight up close. After his death, Lanyin assumed his identity as the Grey Oak, continuing to assassinate for money. About 3 years ago, a particularly nasty blow to the head on a job in the Earth Kingdom caused her to remember her prior family. While she didn’t regret her actions over the past years, she no longer wanted to continue the path she was living on. Her status as an international criminal forced her into joining the Sea Dragon Gang under her former name in order to escape the law enforcement of the Earth Kingdom and Fire Nation.
• Personality: Lanyin is a friendly enough person. She isn't overly happy though, and just reminds sort of serious. Once she warms up to someone, she'll do her best to help them as much as she can. She bears no sort of patriotism to any nation, and considers herself a neutral party to the global conflict. She will quickly befriend anyone who enjoys her taste in food, and tends to mock those who can’t support the intense heat. She will quickly react with violence when surprised, but has enough self control to not (seriously) injure the innocent. When asked about her past, she will mention her backstory as a merchant’s daughter, leaving out her status as the Grey Pine.
• Other info: She has an abnormal resistance to spicy foods (even for someone from the Fire Nation), and hates sour foods. Her favorite food is lychee nuts covered in fire flakes. No matter how fast she walks or runs, she doesn’t make a sound; she has to make a conscious effort to walk like a normal person.

edited 22nd Oct '14 3:38:51 AM by amporiusrex

@amporiusrex: I approve of your character, and find that she is similar to Mizuki in some ways. I'll have fun interacting with our two characters.

Is that that they both have knowledge of poisons?

No, it goes further than that, although Mizuku uses other poisons instead of making his own. I refer more to aspects of their past, such as assassination, and their similar age and appearance.

But it's fine without edits, yes?