The 25th: The Guards are Crazy!: Fantasy Light-Hearted (Mis)Adventures

Discussion Thread

IC/Roleplay

Throughout history, myths, legends and stories arise, speaking of exceptional individuals from a time long passed. Men and women, capable of amazing feats far beyond human belief of what is possible. War god incarnates, ripping through battlefields. Scholars that unlocked secrets of the world no other mortal could comprehend. Thief kings and queens that terrorized entire continents. People, paragons of their craft, destined for greatness in whatever path they followed...

You are not one of these people.

You are one of the newest members of the Tresian Empire’s 25th Imperial Guardsmen Regiment, infamous for its irregularity and incompetence, and famous for the death wish levels of bravery its members show. The 25th Regiment is where those who only have the bare minimum of skill and ability, but unfit for duty in the regular Regiments, are sent. They’re the laughing stock of the other Regiments, called on to do anything and everything, from the most menial tasks to missions practically impossible to accomplish. The Tresian Empire barely devotes any resources to the group, only token efforts to at least keep them nearly functional. Of course, with the low entry requirements, almost anyone and everyone can get in and have a job. And, when everyone else is gone or busy...you will have to do. Who knows? You may just perform feats of greatness one day...

But today, you’re walking down Main Street, in the capital of Rosemouth in the country of Tresia, on the continent of Irix. You’re on your way to the gate heading outside, to the Tresian Military Headquarters, ready to be accepted into the 25th Imperial Guardsmen Regiment after your skills were judged since you signed up a few days ago. The messenger this morning gave you a letter, even saying the instructions clearly in case you couldn’t read. You are to report to the HQ, a large and imposing group of structures located just outside the city’s walls, and to report to Building 30. When you finally get there, things are...underwhelming, compared to the exquisite or spartan buildings for the other Regiments. It’s a building the size of a small house, with numerous tents sloppily constructed around it to make it larger to be on par with the others and the overwhelming numbers that the 25th has over the others. As you step inside, you’re greeted by a few chairs, some of them broken, a table near a door at the back and a few posters on the wall, informational resources for those who were lacking. While you wait for your turn, you decide to take a look at them. And in case you couldn’t read, you ask another person nearby to read it for you.

After a long wait, you’re called and ushered through the door behind the desk. This room is more brightly lit, and not quite as sparse as the reception area. There’s a few paintings on the wall, a small rug in the middle of the room and a table with two chairs. A man with black hair and wearing a white suit greets you from his place behind the desk, motioning for you to take a seat opposite him. He gives you a bored, forced smile. You can already tell, things aren’t going to be very, very far from usual or easy...

Hello everyone, and welcome to “25th: The Guards Are Crazy!”, a fantasy RP in the misadventures of the stereotypically incompetent guards and soldiers stationed at the capital of the Tresian Empire! YOU play as the losers! YOU lose to the bandits! MAYBE get the job done halfway. IF you’re lucky and don’t mess up more than the usual. As you can imagine, this is very light-hearted RP in tone, and of course, the characters are not going to be very skilled. Quite the opposite in fact. They’re the most clumsy, unskilled and grossly inappropriate people you could choose for the job. After all, there’s a reason the 25th Regiment is a laughing stock, so keep that in mind. Now, without further ado, on to the sign-up!

“Now, we just need to confirm some things for the paperwork, and then you’re in. We won't judge you if you do it in the third-person. You're far from the strangest, most likely.”

• Name: (You’re just a nameless nobody to most people, but we still need your name or whatever you go by for the paperwork.)

• Gender: (We accept people of any and every gender equally, they’re all capable of being incompetent enough to end up here.)

• Race: (We don't care if our recruits are human or not. The humans are barely able to stick the pointy end of a sword into something, so we take people of all races here.)

• Age: (Please. We may have next to no requirements for entry, but we still have some standards. No under 18s.)

• Role: (What role do you see yourself working as and being the least horrible at? If you have a sub-role, please give a short description.)

• Element: (We need you to reconfirm the examiner’s jurisdiction on what your personal element is. Again, no effect on what magic you can cast as a Mage. Please follow standard format for a sub-type affinity, if you have a sub-type at all i.e Element (Sub-Type)

• Appearance: (We need either a picture of you or a physical description. I mean, I know I can see you and all, but still. Paperwork is paperwork.)

• Personality: (Please, describe in your own words about how you act. Please list any discipline and teamwork issues here as well. It’s basically par of the course for members to be insanely brave.)

• Skills: (If you’re here, you’re probably not very skilled, so what do you suck the least at? Especially list if you can read or not. )

• Equipment: (It’s bring-your-own-equipment here. Although, you’re unlikely to have much of use if you’re here. If you have nothing, you may request some nearly passable excuses of equipment befitting your role.)

• Magic/Spells: (If you’re a Mage, what spells can you cast...more or less occasionally correctly?)

• Backstory: (We take everyone from every walk of life here. We won’t judge if you were...or still are...a thief. Just...be discreet, will you? We don’t need to tarnish our non-existent good reputation even further. Also, why are you here? As in, why were you rejected for normal service and handed to the 25th Regiment.)

• Other: (Is there anything else of note that you feel the need to mention not covered in the above questions?)

edited 12th Mar '17 11:09:26 AM by UndyingPhoenix

Somewhat interested, and got a couple ideas. Quick question though: What about race? Can we only play humans?

Ah, yes! I was thinking about it, but completely forgot.

Yes, you may indeed play as non-humans.

Cool. And though not relevant to my current character idea, I just want to know for later: I'm assuming this is medieval fantasy, but how soft and how medieval? Are there any crude guns, or is it just crossbows?

EDIT: Oh yeah, and I just remembered; I'm probably only going to be able to post for the RP about once a day, and every now and then maybe not even that. Is that going to be alright?

edited 22nd Feb '17 6:59:43 AM by FirockFinion

You're playing as a group of incompetent guards/soldiers in their wacky attempts at doing their jobs with chaotic results in their pursuit. It's very distinctly very light and non-serious, though it will have a few serious moments.

This is before the invention of gunpowder, so no guns.

Yeah, I'm sure that posting rate will be fine.

I've got a couple ideas, but the most appealing is an archer with long bloodline in the same ("If you want to train an archer, start with his grandfather" and all) who is actually really damn good at archery - so long as it's some kind of insane trickshot or something. If he's in an actual battle situation or anything with any degree of even minor threat, his "I'm a total wuss" reflex kicks in and his hands become shaky as that threatening even a barn's broad side at five paces becomes a longshot.

However, I'm doing an interview for a new job tomorrow so I'm not likely to drop an actual SU until the evening GMT tomorrow.

I do have a couple of ideas:

• A Monk with a fighting style based on headbutts and head/face strikes. "Mr. Dumpling deflects the fists of his enemies... WITH HIS FACE!"

• A Ranged guy who specializes in tossing small wildlife and gnomes.

• An "always on" telepath that can't help but think aloud, especially since he's otherwise mute.

• A hair-based mage with powered moustache/beard/afro

So here is my signup; I had an idea of making it what would actually be written on the in-character application form first, then providing out-of-character explanations in parenthesis. I hope you don't mind or find it confusing.

• Name: Crusher; short for Half-Handle Bone-Crusher! (The direct translation from his native language reads more like, "One who wields short stick and chews on bones" but that was too long and lame for his tastes.)

• Gender: Man! (Is Male. Has Y chromosome.)

• Race: Kobold! (Short lizard person variety.)

• Age: 20! (Is actually 19; doesn't know his own birthday.)

• Role: Fighter, tank! (He is, as expected, vastly under-suited for this role.)

• Element: Earth, steel! Air, warm summer breeze. (The examiner correcting his application crossed out what he put, then underlined the actual element twice. Crusher likes to claim he is affiliated with the Earth element, but he simply isn't.)

• Appearance: Green, stoic, and unstoppable! (Something akin to this.◊)

• Personality: Shiv Chiverr Chivalrous, honorable, and friendly! (Crusher needed someone to help him properly spell chivalrous; while he is exaggerating himself somewhat, he is generally friendly to everyone he meets, tends to be oblivious to anyone making fun of him or patronizing him, and has this grand vision of himself as a heroic, noble knight and attempts to act as such. The only problem being that he doesn't actually know the ins and outs of how a knight is actually supposed to behave, and is just winging it based on children's' stories he's overheard. He acts like a Large Ham, though his squeaky voice that doesn't carry very far diminishes the effect; also, Crusher sometimes speaks in third person, typically whenever he makes grand statements..)

• Skills: Unstoppable fighting skills! (Crusher pictures himself as the same sort of unstoppable, mighty juggernaut like you'd expect from an ogre, minotaur, large orc, or skilled dwarf. The reality is more that he just knows how to swing weapons at stuff, but the axe and armor he favors are too heavy for him to be terribly effective with. He can read the common language to an extent, but complicated words will stump him. As a kobold, he has some degree of natural dark vision, and a resistance to toxins; he's also a bit stronger than a typical kobold from lugging around his axe and armor, but relatively speaking that's still not saying much. And he's fluent in Kobold of course, for whatever that's worth.)

• Equipment: Legendary, enchanted, ancient, mythical kobold gear! It's some kind of tough stone axe and armor, and it's not enchanted. (Once again, somebody had to step in and cross out what Crusher wrote and put in the correct thing themself. The only true part about Crusher wrote himself is that it's ancient. It's a double headed axe and armor originally made by dwarves out of a special kind of tough stone; to its credit, it's about as durable as solid iron and won't break easily, but it was abandoned long ago because it's much heavier and thus less practical than conventional metal armaments.)

• Magic/Spells: ______ (Crusher left it blank; he has no magical talent.)

• Backstory: Lost son of a noble house! I doubt that. He seems to be a nobody from one of the kobold tribes in the outlands. (And for a third time, somebody put in a correction, though didn't actually cross out what Crusher wrote because they couldn't prove for certain that he's lying. In reality Crusher is just one among many kobolds from a small tribe, orphaned when he was little, and probably would've ended up with the life of a minor servant or a bandit like other kobolds; except, when he was little he stumbled into a dwarven ruin while playing in some caves with other kobold kids. He became obsessed with what he found there, and even though it took all his strength just to drag the items out along the ground, he decided he would use these "amazing" artifacts to become a heroic knight worthy of legend. After training his strength for years, when he finally got the point where he could at least move around with the equipment on, he set out for the Tresian Empire to sign up for the Imperial Guard... And was of course immediately directed to the 25th.)

• Other: ____ (Crusher left it blank. Crusher is mostly oblivious to all forms of Fantastic Racism, especially towards himself, and is confused by the notion that anyone would treat anyone else differently just based on race.)

edited 24th Feb '17 6:09:14 AM by FirockFinion

I'll be keeping an eye on this, though you probably shouldn't expect a sign-up sheet anytime in the next few days; I'm gonna be really busy.

I am deeply interested! Hi, Firock!

All those ideas sound good, so long as they're sufficiently incompetent at what they do!

@Firock: "Hmm...a kobold...well, at least you can't get any lower than the 25th. Welcome aboard."

@KR_Vandal: Hm? ... Oh, you're Mantlemask; I didn't know you'd switched handles. Feels like a long time ago now; I don't remember much about you.

@Undying Phoenix: "Yes! Crusher will be the most famous knight of all history!"

Also I thought of one more bit to add to his personality that I think really brings it together.

• Name: Greg. (It's the name his raiser gave him.)
• Gender: *looks down* Uhmmm, a male? (Really doesn't have the equipment anymore but has the voice and mindset of a male.)
• Race: Skeleton. (Of the "back from the dead" type)
• Age: Well, I was raised like one week ago but I'm 30. (What it says.)
• Role: Scout, Assassin (Of course, as a Skeleton, you can hear his bones loudly creak and crackle with every moment, making him not hard to notice. Plus, he breaks apart when hit or at random times before magically reforming back together a hour or so later and his bones are bright white from the magic. Like, blinding to look at when bright light touches his bones. He also swings weakly. No muscles. Maybe he wouldn't be so loud, bright, and weak if his raiser wasn't a 15 year old kid who was having his emo years but hey, can't win them all.)
• Element: Dark. (Though that's more of his rebirth overwriting his element type. He's more of a Air personality wise.)
• Appearance: I'm a fucking bright white skeleton. I don't need to explain this part.
• Personality: Well, I would call myself relaxed. It's amazing how little of a fuck you give when you become a immortal undead creature. I'm pretty dark and creepy though. Boo. Don't worry, I can do anything a human can. Just don't expect me to like those stupid mages. Nothing wrong with the people but there choice of role makes me want to punch them, you get? (He is pretty laid back about everything and is lazy. He likes to think he's a creepy skeleton but he's basically the most nonthreatening undead creature ever. Tries his best to be like a human but fails. Tries drinking and all the liquid just hits the ground, tries to eat and the food falls through him. That kind of stuff. Doesn't make friendly with mages and other magic users because of the fact that one of them made him a living skeleton but won't go out of his way to attack them verbally or get in fights with them. Doesn't mind other races or roles. Can be pretty foul mouthed and likes dark humor. Call it his "Dark" nature.)
• Skills: Yeah, I can read. Still have most of my human skills. Reading, writing, making food, that kind of simple life stuff. As a skeleton, I can't really die from physical hits but I'm sure a skilled mage can undo my spell. Mindless undead creatures don't mind me. I'm a skilled assassin. Know how to sneak, stab, steal, poison, all of that good stuff. (Like I said, being a skeleton makes him a poor sneaker. Also, doesn't really know poisons. That is how he died after all. Drinking from his own poison bottle. He was a shit assassin in life and he's even worse now.)
• Equipment: As you can see, I'm ass naked right now. Part of being a skeleton. A simple brown cloth robe with a hood with two or three pockets and two daggers should be good. I don't need alot of armor because of my undead status but I need pockets to carry all of my future equipment. Poison bottles, money bag, bone polisher. General assassin and skeleton stuff.
• Magic/Spells: Why would I need that junk? (No magic.)
• Backstory: So, I was just a regular small time human assassin. Pay me and I will kill a dog that won't shut the fuck up or I'll kill your wife or whatever. Andddddddd then one day, a revenge seeking person must have slipped poison into my drink in my secret hideout! Boom. Dead. Then some teenager found my body and found it cool to try to bring back to life......when I was a skeleton. The dumb fuck did the spell but gave too much of his blood to return me. Must of have not know about more safe methods. Also, slicing both of his wrist seemed wasteful. Thus, I was alive and he was dead. Kind of hide there for a couple of days then came to the guards to join up.(The assassin part and the back to life stuff is true but the revenge is wrong. He just drank his own poison in his "secret hideout", which is really a run down house that the homeless sleep in.)
• Other: ___ (Greg didn't have anything to add.)

edited 26th Feb '17 10:36:45 AM by LightToAll

I'll probably put up a character sheet soon enough.

This does seem rather intriguing. I'll keep an eye on this one.

@Light To All: I can't help but feel that he's too competent, seeing as the only thing making him incompetent is the noise he makes that makes sneaking useless. Unless he's merely overestimating himself?

Yeah, I was thinking that too. I was thinking that I could extend his falling apart thing to a thing that just happens to him. Walking down the street and boom. He just becomes a pile of bones. That and I can make it so that he swings incredibly weakly.

My whole idea of him is that he's a failure of a undead creation and that limits his ability's. So there's the sound thing, the breaking apart randomly and the fact that he is bright white. Like, he is fucking blinding to look at in bright lighting. I can make it so that he has no power to his hit's because of his undead curse. Basically he has swings of like a weak person. Oh, and don't get me wrong. He's was and still is a shit assassin. He wouldn't be hiding out in a place for homeless people if he did his job right. Like I said, he has no knowledge of poisons and would be caught all the time. You know. A bad assassin.

Righty then. Thanks for clearing that up.

Greg is accepted.

"A skeleton? Well...try not to cause even more unrest amongst the people. We don't want to make more chaos and fear."

edited 26th Feb '17 8:18:06 AM by UndyingPhoenix

Ok, I'll just add in the things I put. Thank you.

EDIT: Ok, I added in the breaking apart randomly part, the weak hitter part and the shit assassin part. Also, noted that the robe is brown and that it has a hood.

edited 26th Feb '17 10:38:20 AM by LightToAll

A kobold, and now a skeleton; is our starting squad going to be entirely good-aligned cliche Fantasy enemies?

And we don't even have a Mage or an Archer yet.

This is going to be quite the team.

• Name: Fritz Mabel^* real name Mabel Francis
• Gender: Female
• Race: Human
• Age: 19^* 15
• Role: Mage (I've been learning!)
• Element: Fire?
• Appearance: Right here!◊^* Here, too.◊
• Personality: I'm friendly, outgoing, and smart.^* She isn't very smart, really; she just says that because she dabbles in magic. She has a tendency to get into situations way in over her head, constantly relying on sheer luck on her end or stupidity on her opponent's to come out alive. She can surely talk her way out of a situation, though that's usually a last resort. While she's not wrong about being friendly or outgoing, don't expect much from being friends with her: it just means you won't be eating pavement if you happen to get in her way.
• Skills: I can do magic, run fast, and I can cook.^* No, she can't. Oh, and yes, she can read and write. Obviously.
• Equipment: Hat, clothes, and an amulet. It's magical, but that's not where my magic comes from. I got a bag with some other stuff, but there really isn't anything crazy in there. ^* In her bag, she has a chipped bowl, a pilfered steak knife, a small bag for money, and a pair of blankets sewn into a sleeping bag.
• Spells: I can make a little fireball that I don't throw, a regular fireball that I do throw, a big fireball I don't get the time to throw, and a cute little flame sphere! I also know how to make a little electric spark.
• Backstory: I had a job working for a farmer in the country, but he was a piece of shit and he didn't pay me shit. Came here because of the pay and because I thought it'd suit me better than the actual military.^* 
  There is far more to it than that. Despite not being anything special herself, she's the daughter of Marshall Francis, a renowned hero to Mabel's hometown and a man destined to take on a perilous quest within the depths of a labyrinthine Dungeon: he was fated to either succeed or die. In her early years, she was constantly compared to him and was expected to follow in her father's footsteps, especially after it was confirmed he perished during his quest. After many years of teasing and bullying for "failing" to live up to her father, when she was ten, she rashly decided to partake in her father's quest, and her village saw no sign of her for almost half a year.
  
  In the middle of a terrible rainstorm, a knock could be heard on the doors of the local cathedral. The doors were thrown open, and there on the steps stood Mabel, having miraculously survived the grueling quest. She stayed with and was cared for by the clergy—her other father had left the village shortly after she did—and she consistently wrote to two others whom she said helped her out of the Dungeon. In time, the priests discovered that something was wrong with Mabel; at night, she would become noticeably more irritable, and within a month's time of her coming to the cathedral, she turned: she was a wererat. After hours of chasing and wonton destruction of property, the clergy were finally able to pacify the girl in her bestial form, and they quickly set to work making an amulet to maintain her humanity when she turned and magic-imbued clothes to make her turnings less...awkward. Eventually, she decided to leave the cathedral and journey through the outside world to once and for all abandon her father's legacy, even going by a different name.
• Other: Not a fan of closed spaces. I need sunlight from time to time.^* Also, she's a wererat.

edited 27th Feb '17 7:20:14 PM by BlackMageAnolis

Name: Crazy James (He forgot his real name, so he goes by what people call him)

Gender: M

Race: Human (probably)

Age: Unknown (looks around 50)

Role: Burning things (Mage)

Element: Fire

Appearance: Gray, unkempt hair, ragged robes, and long beard.

Personality: Crazy James' personality is hard to pin down, but a few things of note are his frequent mood swings, his tendency to scream at anyone who looks him in the eye, his word-salad vocabulary, and his absolute obsession with all things fire. When faced with a problem, his first instinct is to set something on fire. Cat stuck in a tree? Set the tree on fire. Grandpa locked in his room again? Set the door on fire. Mugger harassing an old lady? Set the mugger on fire.

Skills: Burning things

Equipment: Liquor flask, bag of sand, staff, blood pact with a fire demon.

Magic/Spells:

Burning hands: Actually pretty good at this one. Used to set things on fire

Fireball: Always ends up too small or too big

Flamethrower: Usually misses and causes big collateral damage.

Backstory: Believe it or not, it seems Crazy James was once a brilliant (but very arrogant) student of the arcane. He was set to end up graduating at the top of the class...Until he dabbled in fire cultism. Guess what the cult worshipped. Anyway, the cult's influence convinced him to make a deal with a demon, who promised him overwhelming power for...a few things. Being the hubris-filled jerk he was, he accepted the deal. Too bad he didn't read the contract and traded his memories and his sanity.

Recruitment Officer's Notes: Crazy James never officially registered to the 25th, he just followed the group around and seemingly tried to assist them.

He's been doing this long enough that we registered him anyway. He didn't seem to object.

edited 27th Feb '17 5:55:55 PM by ctrl_alt_deliiiight

• Name: Maexis Eóin
• Gender: F
• Race: Vuado ^note Formerly tribal bird-people, now somewhat assimilated into civilised society.
• Age: 24
• Role: Archer.
• Element: As with most Vuado, associated heavily with air and winds.
• Appearance: (detailed drawing attached. It took quite some time.)◊ Artistic license has been taken with the armor.
• Personality: I'd rather not talk about it. I've been in the Guard before, ask them. ^note Dutiful, dedicated to her people and utterly cowardly with every bone in her body, Maexis is everything a member of the 25th shouldn't be. She has had noted troubles with unit cohesion in the past, owing mostly to her cowardice - which is also what got her drummed out of other guard regiments in the first place. For the most part though, she is laid back and somewhat flighty, having a habit of disappearing to explore and coming back just as quickly with her metaphorical tail between her legs.
• Skills: I am absolutely exemplary as an archer. As you might expect of a hollow-boned bird person I'm also pretty agile, if... fragile. ^note she actually is an incredible archer...so long as she's shooting at something that isn't going to shoot back or charge her for a fight or present a threat in any way. Then, hitting even the broadside of a royal nest is a risky proposition. However, in terms of putting arrows in non-threatening bullseyes, she can pull some pretty impressive feats, including multishots. She is illiterate in common languages, but not in her native tribal languages. She does speak common language however.
• Equipment: Bow, one. Arrows, several. Armor, none.
• Backstory: The Vuado are playing politics in trying to get our kin into the guard. Apparently when I got drummed out of the main guard regiments, they felt it was less embarassing for them to quietly reassign me here. No really, that's more or less it. I've already failed enough, so I guess I'm not really going to do any more damage.

edited 27th Feb '17 8:05:52 PM by Plumbum

So, we have/can have a crazy Kobold, a lazy badly put together skeleton man, one ditzy fire mage, a insane fire magic, and coward archer bird.....This team is going to be great. XD