Hero's Arms, Hero's Heart Redux

Hey, folks! I've decided to try running this roleplay again after almost two years. I know the OP's long, but please bear with me, and keep reading if you're looking for a high-fantasy, structured roleplay with a high level of gear and playstyle customization.

You all know the story: A peaceful and idyllic land, full of happy and hardworking people and ruled by kind and just monarchs, is suddenly laid siege by the forces of Darkness, led by a cruel Dark Lord. Storm clouds overshadow the land as the armies of darkness march forth from the jagged mountains to the east, pillaging and laying waste to villages in their path. It appears no one can stop them... until a lone Hero rises from humble beginnings to face the onslaught.

Growing ever stronger, the Hero faces challenges that would break lesser warriors, and gains new arms and armor from each triumph. With the Gods' divine weapons - the sword, the spear, the bow, and the hammer - the Hero slays hideous monsters and creatures of darkness, resurrected from the myths of old by the Dark Lord's might. With their divine favors - the shield, the armor, the cape and the amulet - the Hero protects the weak and oppressed from those who would harm them. With every battle, their power grows as well, adding to the Hero's burgeoning legend.

As time passes, the Hero slows, then stems, then pushes back the tide of war. Finally penetrating the heart of darkness, fighting alone to the dark citadel itself, the Hero comes face to face with the Dark Lord himself... and falls, defeated in a single cowardly blow. With no one left to stop him, the Dark Lord redoubles his assault on the kingdom, and in a single short year, the capital falls. The war is over, and Darkness has won.

However... the story doesn't end here. In fact, here is where our story begins. A hundred years later, deep in the abandoned Citadel of Darkness, something strange and wondrous occurs. The Hero's armaments and divine weapons, steeped in a century's worth of powerful magic, are brought to life to carry on the dying will of their fallen owner. Given human forms, and armed with the items that house their souls, these eight - strangers to each other and the world - must work together as they did once before to undo the horrors of the Dark Lord's reign, avenge the Hero, and carve their own niches in the annals of legend.

Hero's Arms, Hero's Heart

Hey, folks! This will be a semi-structured, middling-high fantasy roleplay, with limited signups. Players will choose one of the eight pieces of the Hero's gear, listed above, and create their character based on their chosen item. Playing as these eight unique souls, you will work together to face monsters, overcome challenges, and eventually avenge the Hero by slaying the Dark Lord in the corrupted former capital of the Kingdom.

The Arms

As you may have noticed above, the eight pieces of the Hero's gear aren't elaborated on very much. This is to give you the most freedom possible in planning your characters. When creating your character, you will also create their weapon form, name and origin; these are legendary arms and artifacts, and they have all ties to elemental forces, powerful beasts, or even Gods. While exposure to the Hero's magic is what animated them, the dark magic of the Citadel has worn them down in power over the hundred years they've lain dormant, and at first you will be limited to pale shadows of your true powers and abilities; that said, every player may choose one magical ability that their innate power gives them access to at the start of the adventure.

I encourage you all to find an aesthetic and power that fits well with your preferred playstyle and your character concept, as well as with the nature of your chosen item. Convincing me that the Sword exudes a magical forcefield will take more effort than a sword beam, but the sky's the limit! Go wild and surprise me. If you're blanking on a concept and need a helping hand, I have a few stock names and powers you can use either wholesale or simply as inspiration.

The Heart

It's the Hero's dying will that animates the Arms, and as such all of them possess a desire for revenge against the Dark Lord; aside from that, though, your characters are blank slates. The appearance and legend of your chosen item should influence your character design, as the characters' souls are actually housed inside their item 'bodies' and will be required to wear or carry them at all times, or otherwise stay within a certain radius.

Your characters may 'awaken' at any location in or nearby the city of Lovak, the city built around and inside the Dark Lord's abandoned Citadel. The magic that animated the Arms allowed them to customize their own appearances, knowledge and skill sets - in other words, with the exception of the lack of a true backstory, they're essentially travelers who have come to Lovak, with basic working knowledge of society, money, et cetera, at least to an average degree. At the beginning of the game, your two objectives are to meet up with the other Arms and find the body of the Hero.

Signups

Signups will be limited to eight, as there are only eight Arms. Priority will play some part in deciding which of two signups for the same Arm I accept, but it's not a deciding factor unless I honestly can't choose short of flipping a coin. If you are accepted, you have a responsibility to your fellow players to stick with them - don't sign up unless you feel able to commit the time.

Accepted Characters
Sword:
Spear:
Hammer:
Bow:
Armor:
Shield:
Cape:
Amulet:
If you guys have any questions, comments, or suggestions, I'd love to hear them! Hope you all enjoy.

edited 5th May '15 11:01:40 PM by RedSavant

• Arm: Shield
• Name: Final Testament
• Appearance: A golden shield, quartered in white and red. The red sections have yellow diagonal stripes while the white sections bear the arms of two canines rampant surrounding a censer. The center of the shield is emblazoned with a golden cross surrounded by a sunburst. At the bottom of the shield rests a protrusion bearing a short stake facing downwards and a much longer yet thinner stake extending upwards.
• Power: The ability to create barriers of Holy energy, in its reduced form, these barriers are only the size of the shield itself and only a finger's width thick.

• Name: Lucava
• Sex: Female
• Race: Human
• Appearance: Ready to smite the Heretic! Just ignore the ears.
• Personality: Lucava, in keeping with her nature as a holy Arm, is a fanatical Knight Templar, violently smiting all those who would stand against her God in any way. She identifies with the Cult of Light, and will bring Holy Justice upon all evil, beginning of course with the embodiment of shadows himself, the Dark Lord.
• Bio: She sees herself as but a humble warrior sent to perform the God of Light's holy work, smiting evil and heresy, spreading the Cult of Light wherever she goes along with squashing down heretic faiths. A sort of mix between a missionary, an inquisitor, and a paladin.

edited 6th May '15 10:04:21 AM by Gladonost

Reserving the sword, I'll write everything as soon as I can

I'm not going to allow reservations, though who signed up first will be a factor in my considerations.

• Arm: Bow

• Name (Item): The Hunter's Sorrow

• Appearance: A long, slick black painted bow made out of sturdy wood. A decorative yellow marking runs across it, the string being a simple reversed-twisted cord of Linen.

• Power: Crystalline Arrow(s). In it's reduced form, any arrow put on this bow will get a layer of a tough, translucent crystal on it with a sharpened tip, although to the untrained eye it'll be nearly invisible. Once it's power has been regained a bit more, it'll be able to use various enchantments on the crystalline surface such as flames or something that'd freeze blood.

• Name (Alias): Sarah "Huntress" Damine

• Age: 25

• Sex: Female

• Race: Elven

• Appearance: I totally did not re-use this design, nope. Also the ears are hidden behind the hair.

• Personality: Huntress is a very calm, soft-spoken person. She doesn't intrude much on others' problems and seems to mind her own business. They like the feel of warm sun on their skin and would much rather lounge off in the grass for a little while, but they know what they need and really, are driven to do as well.

• Bio: At a young age she always had a fascination with the bows her dad used to make for the village, as it was one of many Hunters. She'd carefully look how he made them, always bothering him about how to learn it. Eventually she was allowed to, and after a few years of practise she made the bow that still is held today, a memento of those times. Now she wanders the land, looking to find others as curious to them as she is. Too bad it's going to turn out a lie, eh?

edited 6th May '15 10:05:32 AM by Nickpws

Can the armor just be an empty animated suit?

• Arm: Cape
• Name (Item): Umbra Contour
• Appearance: Umbra Contour◊ is more of a shawl than a cape, at its current level. It currently resembles a set of wings with muted natural coloration. As it gets stronger, it will take on the appearance of other notable parts of enemies, and will grow more varied in color. It’s lowest level appearance is that of a simple cape made of everyday materials, of muted earthen shades.
• Power: Umbra Contour possesses the shapes of the countless enemies and monsters the Hero defeated in their time, though currently their cape is only able to manifest that of the Roc, a massive bird. Umbra Contour can shift itself into wings, a partial transformation, or into the bird itself, a full transformation. As time goes on, and more enemies are defeated, Umbra Contour will regain the forms of other enemies, and perhaps new ones.

• Name (Alias): Lana, or Lana Tailor
• Age: 23
• Sex: Female
• Race: Human
• Appearance: Here, seen activating the Umbra Contour’s ability. With it inactive, she just wears Umbra Contour on her body.◊
• Personality: Lana is passive, but is also the sort to hide things from teammates and lie to people’s faces. She has good intentions, she will just lie whenever she thinks it’s appropriate, which just so happens to be often. The only thing she doesn’t lie about is her name, since technically it’s also a lie. The amount she lies to someone is directly proportional to how much she dislikes them. She’s also rather adaptable, and can bounce back from most but not all situations.
• Bio: Lana believes herself to be a wandering tailor, set out to make a life for herself with the magic cape that her estranged father left for her after his death. He died, of course, at the hands of the Dark Lord. She lived only with her mother and her maternal family and, according to her memories, set out 3 years ago to search for her father's remains or legacy. Her memory of those three years is hazy, but she at least remembers needing to lie to survive, and then incorporating lies into her daily life. She's had multiple personas, acted out the lives of others, and pretended to be people in positions of power.

edited 6th May '15 10:59:10 AM by amporiusrex

• Arm: Amulet
• Name (Item): The Crafty Healer
• Appearance: A golden amulet with a circle at the bottom carrying a white jewel.◊ As it grows stronger, the gold shines brighter and a strengthening glow of colour returns to the jewel, it shifting through each colour of the rainbow.
• Power: The amulet carries two separate powers from different sources. The first was a blessing from a spirit of healing waters, not only being able to remove wounds, disease and curses but extending to vaguer forms of healing, like restoring an old, rusted blade into its former sharp glory . The second was a prize after the hero bested a game-loving trickster, being able to create solid projections, with the toughness of the projections decided by their complexity, size and number of projections.
  With the taint of the darkness, only minor wounds and ailments can be healed quickly with more serious ones taking noticeable time to heal and only one projection can be summoned, with the sole projection being somewhat fragile.

• Name (Alias): Adam Kirkpatrick
• Age: 36
• Sex: Male
• Race: Human
• Appearance: Just standing here, eating my apple. Carry on!◊
• Personality: With his powers of different origins, Adam is a kind fellow, willing to help those in need and yet also a mischievous man, loving to trick fools. He especially loves it when he can help people through the use of cunning. Adam also has a fondness of games, trying to keep a deck of cards at all times.
• Bio: A humble craftsman who hails from a fishing village. While Adam is best making things from wood, he's good with anything with a focus on structures and can create as well as he can repair. A wanderer by nature, he looks around for both jons and new games to play. In fact, any haggler will have to play him in a game if they want him to lower the price (and if they lose, they might need to pay more)

edited 6th May '15 9:04:30 PM by JustaUsername

Edited by taking the sword whereas before I took the lance. Why did I do that? Anyway

Arm: Sword

Name (Item): Raikiri, the Sealed Sword

Appearance: A sword, big enough to have to be wielded with two hands. It's made of a really resistent, obsidian-like material, and has a blade made of diamond. On the handle, put in a pentagonal shape, there are five stones: a ruby, one of sapphire, one is a emerald, one a pearl and one is made of gold. They'd usually glow of their respective color, especially when the wielder is at maximum strenght, but they now do not.

Power: As of now, the only power the sword posseses is being able to create little energy blades which are sent at the enemies.

Name: Alexander Ruthal

Age: 21.

Sex: Male

Race: Human

Appearance: A tall, slim 21-years-old man, with short, black hair and blue eyes. Has a scar going from his left ear to his mouth, and hasn't a beard or mustaches. He always brings a sword with himself (it goes without saying said sword is Raikiri), put on his back

Personality: Alexander is usually a funny person, with Deadpan Snarker tendencies, and does not like to show his emotions to others, altough when he loses control, he has difficulty regaining it. He also doesn't like to talk about himself, as he, being an Arm, has not an actual "himself"

Bio: Born in a small town, his father was a mercenary as well, which means his childhood was basically him moving around places. When he was 17, his father died while fighting, and Alexander decided to, not having to follow his parents around anymore and having already learned how to wield and fight with a sword, to take up his father's job to hone his swordfighting skills and rack up some money in the meantime. He was given the sword- as he says- by his mother as a parting gift, though rumors have it he stole it from an opponent he beat.

edited 6th May '15 1:17:18 PM by DarknessAwaits

• Arm: Spear
• Name (Item): Mirage
• Appearance: A spear whose body is made of a strong, smooth material of a dark blue color, its butt ending on a blunt silvery metal piece. It's head has the general shape of a long thin tear, with a perfectly rounded back which curves into a deadly point, with the edges of it being also razor sharp. The length of the edge is carved in runes, though the center is made of a silvery metal so clear that it can be used perfectly as a mirror. While at full power the head of the spear starts to glow with an eerie silver light and air and light around it will start bending and shifting in otherworldly ways.
• Power: Mirage's initial ability manifests itself as a sort of short range teleportation, letting its user 'blink' from one location to another one up to ten meters away instantly.

• Name (Alias): Mia
• Age: 24
• Sex: Female
• Race: Elven
• Appearance: Mia is an elegant young woman, standing at 5'8" with a slim but athletic build of toned compact muscle in a flexible healthy body. Her dark brown hair reaches down to her waist, though it is cut in the front at the level of her forehead, letting the rest of it to frame her face. She tends to let it hang free and straight while out of combat, though in engagements she ties it up into a ponytail. Her skin is fair and unblemished given her recent creation, so she has had not time to accumulate scars. Mia has a face that is more pretty than it is beautiful or provocative, though her sharp blue colored eyes and intense stare give a bit of an edge to her elven features. As for her manner of dress, she feels more at ease using tunics and male trousers. Into battle, Elena wears those underneath her armor, a mixed garment made of hard leather with metal reinforcing the most critical areas. It doesn't fully enclose the body as the armor of a knight might, but still gives a decent amount of protection without hampering her speed and agility.
• Personality: Mia's creation was dedicated to some very fundamental values. Discipline, Honor, Duty. She is polite and well educated, trying to obtain delight outside of battle in the beauty of the world and the arts, while putting some of that grace into her ultimate purpose. Above everything, Mia is a proud and dutiful woman, unwilling to compromise on her ideals and far more willing to die than to betray them. She does realize, however, that she does her cause a better service by living to fight another day. While her very name and some of her nature exists in deception and the bending of reality, somehow she contradicts this use by her very nature being straightforward, distasteful of deception and cheap ploys, honest and following the straight, good path no matter how hard it may be.
• Bio: Mia's fabricated backstory is probably one of the flimsiest, as despite her amnesia her nature doesn't allow her to meander into things she, at her core, feels are not right. How does she maintain herself in such a state? By not thinking about it and carrying on by duty alone, not questioning herself. She knows she is a soldier... a warrior. She knows she failed someone... and that there is someone she hates beyond all reason. She's an elf, so she comes to the forest and there is an Oath... a path, a way of life she's following. That of old elven warriors of good and light... something forgotten and old, but good. She remembers a moonlit pond in the forest... and there being with someone, a sight that tugs at her heart as she remembers the words "It's just... beautiful". She knows a female face... her mother? It's all fuzzy but she doesn't question it. The images and past is not nearly as important as the emotions it evokes... and the mission she knows is hers. To find beauty. To fight evil. To upheld good... to bring light.

edited 6th May '15 9:25:28 PM by daltar

• Arm: Hammer
• Name: Forge Maxima
• Appearance: A simple hammer with a thick oaken shaft and a head forged from black steel. There are runic carvings hidden within the shaft and head, but all hidden by the weathering of time. As the Forge Maxima's power grows, these runes become more and more pronounced.
• Power: The Forge Maxima bears the concepts of making and unmaking. The Making allows the holder to create anything out of raw materials alone. To begin with, the Forge only grants the user to ability to create or repair simple tools and weapons. With more power, it can create grander and more wondrous things, the sort of arms a God may forge. The Unmaking is the opposite - every swing of the hammer with the intent to destroy creates a rippling shockwave. Initially it can shatter fragile objects like glass or break apart things held together by smaller pieces like hinges or nails. As its power grows, the Forge can sunder great walls or even magical constructs and contracts.

• Name / Alias: Cora
• Age: 21
• Sex: Female
• Race: Dwarf
• Appearance: Short and stocky, as dwarves are. Has long auburn hair tied in a braid behind her. Green eyes. Tends to wear simple, rough leathers, along with a thick leather apron.
• Personality: Stalwart and charitable. She watches out for her friends in need, to the point that it seems she's a busybody, never leaving people alone. She is also persistent, and likely to hold a grudge, petty or serious.
• Bio: Cora spent much of her young life apprenticed to a great blacksmith (she forgot his name and his face). However, her apprenticeship was unique in that he preferred to take her along on his travels rather than be cooped up in a forge. Instead, they would take on odd jobs from a variety of clients, from poor farmers needing new horseshoes to great kings desiring greater crowns. The strangest job that remains in Cora's memory was when a dwarven king accused the blacksmith of spying for a rival kingdom and had them imprisoned. However, the king relented, and posed a challenge: refitting an entire battalion's worth of armor and weapon within a week! Cora and the master toiled day and night and managed to repair and forge 400 suits of armor, 400 swords, and 400 shields. There was scant time for celebration before the enemy army attacked. They were swept up in the battle. It was far too close until Cora and the smith hatched a daring plan to tear down a wall and divert a lava flow towards the enemy's main encampment, turning the tides of war. Unfortunately, they grew separated during a bandit raid on their camp. Cora wandered alone until she came to the old city of Lovak, where a family took her in, fed her, clothed her. As it turned out, the home belonged to the blacksmith's widow and children, who were barely scraping by after the old smith was killed by some street crooks. In gratitude, Cora took on his old duties for the family in exchange for nothing but room and board. Although she wishes to find her master, she is unable to leave those that helped her, that need her work to survive.

edited 7th May '15 9:33:33 PM by HazzyHaz

• Arm: Amulet
• Name (Item): Asha's Blood; though it'd be quick to let you know it was variously known throughout history as the Dragon's Covenant, Witchstone, Consort of Wagadu, Dungeonhart and Skorgrim's Fang, amongst others. It said it wasn't always in the shape of an amulet, either, having once been the size of a keep's throne room.
• Appearance: A large red diamond the sizes of a man's fist, finely cut, embedded in a gold necklace and surrounded by small gemstones of various colors in the four cardinal directions, with each string of silvery-sheen tying cords inscribed with painstakingly crafted markings relating the necklace's full and future history in long lost language. Different to its peer, the core princeps of the artifact led that, instead of fading and dulling in the stead of corruption, the amulet glows and, for lacks of better words, fought to keep its prominence. It's effort was not successful - in lieu of majesty and power its wielder wore like a cloak, the centerpiece diamond only portrays faux-extravagance and gaudy snake oil salesman's products, the surrounding gemstones looks like mere baubles, and the cords like lute string haphazardly weaved. It would not be very happy with any person who pointed this out. As the power of Asha's Blood grows, it regains the ability to shape its appearance to matches the desire of all who laid eyes upon it.
• Power: Energy Storage, Amplification, Redirection and Dispersion; a highly versatile power, known generally to its wielder as the less cumbersome but also non-descriptive "magic of the 'whatever's-it-was-called-at-the-time'". While at its full power it was utilized in various ways, including at one time being a three-hued conduit device for world-scale causality manipulation, at its core it is the ability to take the energy of something and put it into something else - taking ambient heat, causing a drop in temperature in the surrounding and using it to throws around fireballs, for example.
  • Current Power: Utilizing the above principles, the amulet is capable of redirecting light to form image illusions or cloaks themselves as a transparent, shimmering haze. Alternately, dousing sources of light and exploding in a flash of bright light, blinding foes. As its power grows, even greater versatility and magic-like feats could be achieved.
• Name (Alias): Gassire Silvertongue
• Age: 29
• Sex: Male
• Race: Goblin; The first creature his senses noticed was a Goblin with its clothing positively festooned with wealth, thus he adopted their form.
• Appearance: A short, potbellied goblin with an overlarge noses, sharp eyes and a mouth quirked upwards, accustomed to laughter - though a hint more malicious than jovial. He is dressed in a golden-threaded, crimson oversized robe that trails on the ground. The Asha's Blood is hung prominently in the centre of his chest. A purple sash tightly tied about waist kept the ensemble from falling around him, though he possesses surprising dexterity despite this.
• Personality: Prideful and pompous, not helped by the least by his appearance. He maintains that he was the most prized of the late hero's artifacts, being kept (literally) closest to his heart. He often adopted a sotto voce when talking about the mortal races, and kept to his cover by the narrowest of margin, too proud of his own past grandeur as he is. He held out the hopes that this Hero businesses would be over once they found the current Chosen One or what-have-you, and would be rather skeptical of taking on the task by their own. Even as a perceptibly flesh-and-blood goblin, his ego obstinately remains high and unshakable.
• Bio: "A merchant-baron exiled through treachery from the Golden Undercity of Sillia, seeking stalwart adventurers to reclaim it's ivory-paved streets and crystalline castle, that he may relight the city's great torchfire and shares its riches to all." was the story he had the city's gossips disseminated in hopes of finding whoever the centuries' Chosen One is, though he freely changes the details as suited his need. He usually can't resist inserting references to itself in his story. That said, the level of ruse involved were thrice-fold - it was an amulet who believed themselves to be a con artist who deceived with questionable competence that he is an exiled merchant-baron.

edited 6th May '15 12:04:33 PM by pblades

Whoa, thanks for the interest, folks! Let's see here.

@Stygian: In its 'activated' form, no. Arms have two forms: with their humanoid bodies present, or with their bodies 'withdrawn' into their Arm. Withdrawing into the armor would leave it empty, but at the power level you will be starting at, it would be immobile - perhaps able to hold itself upright and not collapse, but even like that it wouldn't be able to stop a reasonably determined adult trying to get past it.

@Most others: When your Arms awaken in Lovak, they will be convinced that their fake backstories are true - it's not a matter of creating or believing them. Call your Arms' personalities the souls of their weapons - they may not be truly human, but neither are they created out of nothing. Your Arms are amnesiac heroes who simply don't remember that just yet.

@pblades: All that quote-marking is gonna get old fast.

edited 6th May '15 9:43:53 AM by RedSavant

Fair. Does his background work, though? I thought of him as identifying himself as a Mc Gruffin Artifact of Ultimate Power™ adopting a humanoid form only reluctantly.

Bio edited to match

Didn't edit the bio much, just hid that last part in a spoiler.

Edited the bio. When will we know if our characters are accepted?

Also edited

I'm moving out of my apartment for the summer, so I'll be busy most of today. Expect the first round of reviews tonight, most likely.

@pblades: Works for me in broad concept, but he wouldn't be conscious of the fact that he is the jewel in his necklace - that is, he would legitimately believe that he was an exiled merchant-prince. He might very well still be looking for this century's version of a Hero to help him reclaim what he thinks is his, or be using the story as a con, but he doesn't know that he's the Amulet.

Double posting to clear something up.

Don't get too fixated on the idea that the backstories are fabricated, folks. Most of your R Ping is going to take place in humanoid form and in humanoid contexts, so please go with the backstory, personality and identity that feels right to you and that will allow you to roleplay as you like. False memories though they may be, they will still shape and inform your characters as much as real memories might.

Ideally, your backstories will reflect where your Arm first came from, or circumstances surrounding their making. For instance, Nickpws' Bow thinks herself the daughter of a bow craftsman from a forest village. Perhaps the Bow remembers the craftsman who first made her and his young daughter, who was always in and out as the craftsman created a bow for the young adventurer who was passing through town. That little girl would be elderly, if not dead, by now, but part of those early memories stuck with the Bow as she was created, as she traveled with the Hero, and as she lay dormant in the Dark Citadel.

That's the kind of thing I'm looking for.

edited 6th May '15 10:55:58 AM by RedSavant

Uh... So... ...Do I need to change my backstory to suit this orrrr...?

No, not at all. That was as a good example. =)

Your backstory doesn't need to change at all; just think of it as based on events that actually happened around the Bow when it was first being constructed, that sort of thing. So there actually was a girl who was the daughter of a bow craftsman, who eagerly wanted to learn bowmaking from her father - but that was a real human girl many years ago. The fact that the Bow thinks she is that girl is because she dimly remembers being created in that workshop. Make sense?

Uh, yeah, It does.

Woo for getting it right on the first try!

So you're saying in human form, we wield the Arms or no?

Is mine ok?