Kingdom of Akararn: The Awakening of the Talru Sign Ups

I don't think that's really any more legit than it was, Nick. I mean, he can still dish out tons of damage up close, and if you try to retreat, then you get blasted at long range by dragon lasers (which you also note to be pretty powerful, probably even more than his sword swings). Sure his sword is slow, but that's not gonna matter unless you outclass him hilariously in the speed department, in which case you'd probably already be lolstomping him regardless.

As it is, you can't compete with him up close, and you can't retreat to play a ranged game. Your only chance here is to land a sneak attack. When your character's only vulnerability involves intentional bouts of laziness or a poor attention span, you have a few problems to sort out.

edited 20th Dec '12 12:26:42 AM by KSPAM

...I enjoyed KSPAM saying "Dragon Lasers" more than I should have.

His weakness is his lack of speed, and a rigid sense of honor. If you're retreating, he won't Dragon Beam you. Because, really, blasting a retreating foe? Is that in any manly honor code?

Let's assume he's being emotional and isn't thinking about honor at the moment. Would he still not want to blast a retreating foe? A foe who just killed a puppy?

Think of the puppies, man.

edited 20th Dec '12 12:52:24 AM by nman

I forgot to mention that the crystals are actually as brittle as porcelain, but they are razor sharp; easily capable of piercing flesh but break apart against anything as hard as solid copper. And copper's pretty damn soft as far as metal goes.

Oh and the insect swarms are very short lived, like a in a minute or so; they break apart into dust And predictably, share the same toughness as the rest of the crystal.

You're missing the point. You can't take CIS or PIS into consideration when you're designing stuff like this. Sure, the character may be loath to use an ability to its fullest, broken potential, but the player sure as hell may not be. Exploitable is still exploitable. As long as the possibility of it being used that way exists, it'll still be broken, and it'll still make people nervous.

edited 20th Dec '12 8:53:29 AM by KSPAM

My turn.

Name: Leonard "Sad Lenny" Roarke

Age: 26

Gender: Male

Appearance/Description: Sad Lenny stands at 6 feet and possesses a body made strong and hard from life as a bare-knuckled brawler, teamster and nothing to do in prison other than work out, learn a trade or sample the wonders of mystery meat. His once tanned skin is now pale from lack of sunlight and his blue eyes are turned low in the corners and his mouth is set firm, giving him a grim and melancholic appearance. His dark red hair is cut short and messy, with the beginnings of an ill-kept beard.

He wears a ragged version of his prison uniform, with his chest bare and the remnants of prison manacles around his iron wrists. Some days, Sad Lenny is even able to find a tatty old cloak when the weather turns ill.

Personality: He acts like he couldn't care less, given what had been taken away from him. He'll fight if something looks at him wrong and if it involves humiliating a noble. Sad Lenny takes payment in the form off cash, food or a place to sleep.

But deep down, Lenny wishes to do right by people and does whatever he can to help out. Provided no one sees his face and it hurts the nobles (the "haves") in some annoying little way.

Goals/Motive: A desire to wake up one morning to find he lives in a world were the have-nots live decently without being preyed upon by the haves. Where decent folk and their families aren't treated like another resource and are able to get along with their lives as quietly as they want.

Bio/History: Sad Lenny, as he's known among the inmates of the infamous Kyberos Ward, wasn't always a melancholic-looking individual. After a stint on the county fairs as a bareknuckled champion, he had put his savings to work and bought himself a quiet cottage in the country. He had found a sweetheart with eyes the color of cornflowers and even set up a little business carting goods all over the country. Life was good. He was to be married.

Then Lenny made The Mistake. A bad storm hit the country and ravaged a few villages. Lenny put a halt to everything to give what he could to those stricken. But then came along a noble who simply had to have some vegetables, clothes and sundry items delivered post-haste. Lenny said no, the people had to come first and if he couldn't get it, he could take his patronage elsewhere.

Sad Lenny paid for that. First his business went bad from bandits and bad talk. He soldiered on, but then his lovely sweetheart with her cornflower blue eyes... Just up and vanished.

Then they found contraband in his house. They simply couldn't have that. Faster than two shakes of a horse's tail, Sad Lenny was hauled off to Kyberos Ward with comedically-trumped up charges and his hopes dashed away like some child's sand castle.

But his story don't end there... See, that's where the Talru comes in...

Talru

Name: Makoma. It's an ancient term meaning 'Hammerhand'. It is also the name of a hero from the old creation myths of Karahal.

Creation: Rumoured to be one of the first Talru Emperor Hikari created, it was the product of a pair of his attendants having a bad day as they attempted to create a particular type of Armor that could be used in conjunction with a Weapon known only as The Sanction. However, no other mention of a Talru named Sanction exists in any record of the wondrous weapons and Makoma was subsequently left unattended and subsequently passed around down the line of history.

There are other tales, rumours and hearsay among scholars concerning the creation of Makoma and its states during those long years. Some say that the attendants poured a little too much of themselves during the forging rites, conferring a limited sentience on to the Talru. Others say that the attendants utilized an ancient rite that involved the sacrifice of a life. Whatever the reason, once the Talru has been grafted onto the wielder's body, they are now sharing their consciousness with the mental equivalent of a lunatic friend with the poorest impulse control who rewards you with drugs and leftover Solstice candy whenever you do what he says, which usually some variation of "hit the other guy as hard as you possibly can".

And you don't know why, but you really want those drugs and candy.

Type: Armor Talru

Required Compatibility: As befits a comparatively simple Talru, one has to feel an all-consuming need to act against helplessness and frustration.

That, and one needs to have had his arms at the shoulders and everything below the knees, 'caps and all, surgically removed.

See? Simple as that.

Appearance: Unadorned and unembossed simulacra of arms and knees made of a strange type of red-striated black iron. The red striations upon the Talru often glow at odd intervals, simulating throbbing nerves. The knuckles and the backs of the fingers are exaggerated.

Given enough time after being attached to the host form, Makoma begins to embed itself upon its wielder's body, metal 'veins' extruding from the Talru until the nervous system becomes partly black iron. When Makoma awakens, the 'veins' become more prominent through the skin.

Main Ability: When activated by doing what Makoma's limited sentience tells one to do, the Talru grants a massive increase in strength and endurance. By acting more and more on what Makoma demands, the power granted only increases by horrifying increments. The more power is fed, the less control the wielder has, essentially becoming Makoma's unthinking (and nigh-unstoppable) meat puppet. It is only by dint of long association with its wielder will the Talru's goal coincide with the standards of right and... Not too right.

The veins snaking from the iron parts to the nervous and circulatory systems are also able to slow down the wielder's heartbeat, thus shaving his reaction time and changing the perception of passing seconds, minutes and even hours.

Depending on how much energy had been given, the wielder will often regain control only to find himself terribly exhausted and hungrier than a horde of locusts.

Hidden Ability: Makoma doesn't seem to possess any other hidden ability, other than its limited sentience. Whatever other potential it might have had was lost when Emperor Hikari died, taking the plans of the mysterious Sanction with him to the grave.

Though something can be said about Sad Lenny's new constitution... And the fact that there are journals out there that deem this Talru incomplete.

How did your character obtain their Talru?: Not willingly. The warden of Kyberos Ward owed a senior officer of the Zerstörers a favor and a guinea pig. "It'll be fun," the man in black armor said. "Let's see if this dumb old Talru still works. Pick a prisoner. Anyone will do. Who'd miss their like anyway?"

And so it was, one night Sad Lenny was dreaming of the smell of spring grass when he was roughly pulled awake, tied to a gurney and wheeled into a dank room with little light, stinking of old blood while a surgeon with hooded eyes waited for him. What happened next didn't need an inquisitive to piece together.

The next few months were a hell of more solitary confinement and "games", "Leonard, can you move this boulder? Leonard, can you reach that flag? Leonard, how long can you hold these weights?" His usually hardy body sick from the anti-rejection treatments, fed on prison gruel and locked in a windowless and dank solitary confinement cell, it was a fresh new hell.

Then the Talru began to talk. Sad Lenny thought he was going mad at first. One word questions, at first. Then a name. Makoma.

The pair began to think, began to plan. Small deviations in the routine. Experiments of their own. Makoma told Lenny its stories and Lenny told it his. Two lonely souls tossed about by fate and ill fortune, planning their strike against an unjust world.

Then one glorious day, Sad Lenny and his new best friend broke out of prison. The first time he ran as far as his legs could take him, the first jump he made when he wanted to jump.

The first time he punched a prison guard and felt that stupid bastard's face break under his new unyielding fists. It was the first time he hit a guard and for once, this guard, this avatar of the system could not retaliate. One mindless climb up the walls and he was free once again, running under a blue sky towards where ever his new iron feet could take him.

Shame the Zerstörers are now after him, though. But now, Sad Lenny's got the means to pay back his oppressors a hundred times over. Things have now become infinitely more interesting.

And Makoma agrees.

Assets: A mental map of the trade routes and byways all over Karahal from his days hauling wares, a handful of coins in a hidden pouch and a ring made of dried grass, a token from the girl with cornflower eyes.

edited 26th Dec '12 5:46:21 PM by mantlemask

...

Fuck yes.

Joe and Lenny need to be the bestest of friends. Or at least Hobo Buddies.

So, let me get this straight, KSPAM, Dragon themed Sword Beam is broken now?

Nick, I think what you need to do is specify on what scale the sword beams are and what exactly large amount of damage means. Right now it is rather vauge

Edited it again. Is this any better?

Mantle Mask

Asur- er, Leonard, is accepted!

Nick The Swing

Alright, even with the edited changes, I'm still seeing the Talru as if it were more than one Talru in one... mainly because of "The Dragon's Cyclone", and I believe that's where most of the problems are coming from.

The sword dragon beams and the boost with the blood is fine... but adding on top of that with the above is a bit much, Nick.

I would remove the "The Dragon's Cyclone". With that change, he'll be accepted.

Biomechtraveler

Her Talru's main ability allows her to manipulate another player character's emotion, and to force them to do something that neither them or the Player may want; that is not okay. It is also against the general Forum R Ping Rules, and this RP's rules.

I'd change the ability to something else entirely; perhaps making it the ability for her to take the form of the target's loved one or something? You could then switch the hidden and main ability around. Also, her Talru would be a utility/support type Talru.

Strigon

Hm... while I'm still a bit uncomfortable with the ability, at this point, I'll have to see the whole character sign-up before coming to any final decisions.

Also!

Working on the opening post, expect it shortly!

Removed it.

Soooo hype

especially after reading Akame ga Kiru because I found the setting awesome and loved it (although I wonder how the RP is going to develop from this).

edited 20th Dec '12 3:18:04 PM by Rapier

Nick The Swing

With those edits, Daine is now accepted!

And we shall now find out~!

The RP has started!

We also have a discussion thread via here!

K, though not what I thought when thinking through the sign up I comply- now...uh.....right, this will take a while.

• Name: Yuka Akari
• Age: 14
• Gender: Female
• Apperance: [1]

• Goal/Motive: to see her parents again.

• Personality: Quiet, introverted and shy, Yuka isn't the one to say much to anyone; this means that any problems that she has are usually kept pent up inside which means anger, annoyance, despair and fear are all kept inside her like a water in a kettle. Despite all these things Yuka is not the one to rely on anyone for anything nor the one that needs looking after- she rather dislikes being babysitted but this was never really a problem due to her current predicament. If however someone befreinds her they will discover that she can be quite the chatter box and also an eternal optimist, unfortunately this has never happened.

• Bio/ History: Born into a prominent family of Western Marauders, Yuka enjoyed a rather pleasant early childhood though pleasant here is a relative term; this was all tipped upside down when their village was attacked by the Akaran military for a daring raid earlier that week. Thus Yuka along with those that did not get killed were carried off as plunder with herself getting sold into slavery; and there she has stayed since she was 6 years old. Right now she is Still a slave (Though that may change very very soon) and helps as an assistant due to her young age. The situation is being complicated by one of the boys in the household who has taken a liking to her and though this means she gets treated slightly better than most others it also entails constant harassment.

• Talru: Arashi

• Creation:

• Type: Manipulation

• Required compatibility: The person must have come from an arid environment, the person is easily swayed by someone else's philosophy and ideas, the person does not get angry easily.

• Appearance: A very cheap blue bracelet that she wears on her wrist- its a wonder no one's tried to take it off her but considering her place in the house....not many people want things from a slave.

• Main ability: Water manipulation, this means absolute control over water, However- just so this won't be OP: the water must come from a source within 5 metres of Yuka at the time of Talru activation- the water must be in liquid state, no steam or ice (which means she can't do weather control and if her water starts evaporating then she's in trouble), Yuka can only manage the manipulation for around 5 minutes (Which actually is a long time- around 3-4 posts).

• Hidden ability: Yuka can breath under water.

Hopefully this isn't OP.

EDITED

edited 23rd Dec '12 12:21:42 PM by biomechtraveler

What's to stop her from just, like, exploding people?

If she can't see it she can't use it.

Damn should have said this earlier.

edited 20th Dec '12 6:17:11 PM by biomechtraveler

Mustn't worry, Biochem. We'll catch you.

...

...

thanks?

@KSPAM - If you're scrapping your previously submitted characters, I guess I might rework Lucia into a Talru user after all. If you might use Carmilla after all at some point, I can come up with a guy to partner with her. Sorry for my misstep.

And here's my idea for a second character.

• Name: Maverick
• Age: 4
• Gender: Male
• Appearance/Description: Here's all 3400 pounds of him.◊ However, the Talru makes him look like a cow-themed Schwarzenegger.◊ In his human form, he's not perfectly human, what with him being eight feet tall with minor horns on his skull.
• Personality: Inquisitive, persistent, seeks fun, and lacks quite a bit of common sense and tends to not get too many complex jokes.
• Goals/Motive: To figure out this whole "humanity" thing, discover the meaning of life, and to have fun.
• Bio/History: The biggest stud at the Lonton Cattle Farm, Maverick's life was destined to be a long one dedicated to nothing but sex and food until his owners would eventually decide he was too old for that sort of thing and turn him into hamburger meat. However, during one of his sessions, a lantern spooked him and he crashed through a few walls and wound up smashing his way into the churning area of the Lonton Dairy Farm, where upon touching a certain butter churn, he was turned into a man. Without much of of a clue about what the hell was going on, he just ran away, and kept running. After a few weeks of traveling across the country by himself, doing not much more than running (with breaks for grass and water) until he eventually found some quirky merchants who gave the weird giant naked guy they found grazing on grass by the road a pair of pants and a ride to the nearest city. Now he eats all sorts of plants around the city as he runs around.
• Talru:
  • Name: Project Plowshare
  • Creation: Built in an attempt to try harnessing animals as soldiers, it was a bit of a dud in that it could only work on one animal instead of a whole army. Considering how powerful a single Talru was supposed to be, it was no surprise that making a single tall guy instead of an army of super soldiers wasn't the most desirable outcome. Over time, it must have been forgotten and sold by a hapless worker, as it somehow wound up being used by the milkmaids at the Lonton Dairy Farm.
  • Type: Armor
  • Required Compatibility: Must have the heart of a beast. When used on Maverick, it turned him into a 3400-pound beast of a man, though he can still move like a normal person despite it, which makes him incredibly strong and tough.
  • Appearance: A wooden plunger-type butter churn.◊
  • Main Ability: Be Strong Like Ox... - When the Talru is truly used, it turns the wielder into the form of a more-human looking humanoid, shrinking him from eight feet to five and a half. Because it makes things more human, if used on a human, instead they would have increased aspects of their humanity, like photographic memory, throwing things well, doing math, and the ability to run without tiring.
  • Hidden Ability: ...And Smart Like Man - The Talru boosts the animal's intelligence up to human levels. It lets the user comprehend, speak, and read any language*
    It uses whatever language was around long ago during the time of the churn's creation, so he does not instantly know what, say, a "computer" is if someone says that word.
    , as well as knowing how to count and understanding simple concepts of math.
  • How did your character obtain their Talru?: Accident involving quite a few spooked milkmaids and sizable damage to the Lonton Dairy Farm.
  • Assets: A pair of pants. Sweat pants, specifically.

edited 24th Dec '12 9:43:40 AM by nman

• Name: Harry Talisker
• Age: 24
• Gender: Male
• Appearance/Description: A pale, lanky man with shoulder-length platinum blonde hair and soulless green eyes. His face is very plain, clean-shaven and unassuming, meaning that should he obscure his long hair with a hood or hat; he could very easily blend into a crowd with little trouble.
• Personality: Can be best described as: "A Robot with a body of flesh and blood". To be fair, he has to be or else his Tarlu won't work the way he wants it to and that wasn't always like this; once he was a happy-go-lucky child 14 years ago, but that child has long since died in the Royal assassin's guild and the thing that the child's body turned into is now nothing more than an Empty Shell with nothing to look forward to, save for being useful to the Emperor. Seeing as how it's the only thing in his life that holds any meaning.
• Goals/Motive: To carry out the will of the current Emperor by any means, even at the cost of his own life.
• Bio/History: He initially started out as the only child of a professional soldier and a baker, but then his father died on the front; subsequently, his mother fell into debt with the nobility and was forced to sell her livelihood and eventually her child just to make ends meet. Unfortunately for Harry, his mother unwittingly sold him to the Royal assassin's guild, In where the training the young boy went through could be best described as: "Deliberately fatal". Yet the 10-year old child survived 8 years of hell and worse (Most of the other aspirants were nearly twice his age!), outlasting even hardened criminals who killed for a living and became the "person" he is today.
• Talru:
  • Name: Heart of the Swarm
  • Creation: Created from the body of the queen of a colony of insect-like Crisis fiends with bodies of crystal that turned a prosperous mining town and it's inhabitants into a massive hive of living, growing crystal. Fearing that the infestation might spread to other towns, the Kingdom sent an expedition of Tarlu users along with regular infantry to stop it. And stop it they did, albeit with extreme casualties. This Tarlu is also known as the "Cursed Tarlu", due to everyone who tried to use it dying directly because of it. So with no right-thinking person wanting to use this weapon (And the fact that it was fairly weak as far as Tarlu go), Hiraki decided that the Heart of the swarm be keep it in a vault; never to see the light of the sun again. But that was not meant to be, as thanks to bureaucracy and other underhanded tactics from the more corrupt elements of the aristocracy, the Tarlu became the property of the Kingdom's in-house guild of assassins and soon after, their calling card.
  • Type: Armor
  • Required Compatibility: The user must be completely closed off to all emotion and has to deliberately lack empathy, or else the Tarlu's crystals may start to grow in a manner and in places that the user will find extremely unhelpful.
  • Appearance: It's a medallion of sorts.◊
  • Main Ability: Predator's visage◊ (Picture is for visual reference only, as the crystal is aqua green and instead of turning out like that, he still retains his shape and proportions) - The Main ability of the Heart is to cover it's user with a second skin made of living crystal, granting him protection from knives, arrows and bare fists. But anything like a simple wooden club or better will shatter the armor with little difficulty, though it's relatively quick rate of growth ensures that those openings aren't permanent (Usually takes a couple of seconds to restore smallish breaks). It also has the ability to sprout razor-sharp growths from any part of his body that has crystal growing on it (Basically every square centimeter of his skin) that can be snapped off and be used as darts or daggers.
  • Hidden Ability: The Queen's guard - The secret ability of the heart is to create a short-lived swarm of crystal wasps that can chew apart anything up to pure granite in mere moments. Their one weakness is their relatively slow speed- any reasonably fit person can outrun the swarm long enough for them to lose coherency and disintegrate into dust.
  • How did your character obtain their Talru?: Given to him by the grandmaster of assassins because of his mindset and skill. And also because the previous owner died due to a vein of crystals growing into his brain and giving him a massive and fatal stroke.
  • Assets: A variety of lethal, fast-acting poisons, a web of informants spun across the kingdom (It's entirely up to Aevum if he gets to meet one or not during the course of the game), a pair of stiletto daggers, a make-up kit with special "eye lenses" that allows him to hide the color of his eyes to an extent and several changes of clothes in order to remain anonymous.

edited 22nd Dec '12 7:09:15 AM by Strigon

Biomechtraveler

Hm... It looks good, though I'll have to wait on the Hidden Ability before coming to any final conclusions. Also, you can remove the "needs to be thirsty" part, it's not really necessary.

Nman

Alright... I honestly love this guy to no ends, and I find him awesome for being a man...cow... Minotaur thing. I honestly cant find anything wrong with him besides him being a cow.... man... Minotaur... something...

Nonetheless... as long as everyone else is okay with a cowmantaur being a Talru User, I'm tempted to say he's accepted.

Although... I do have one question: how would his Talru's abilities work on a human, and not an animal's?

Strigon

Hm... Okay, the character is good, and the main ability is fine as well; it's his Hidden Ability is what brings concern to me... although, considering the type of Talrus we have, I think it would be unfair of me to not allow this guy in. Just be responsible!

He's accepted!

edited 23rd Dec '12 12:05:17 AM by Aevum

Well, I was thinking that since the churn turns the user into something more human, then if a human used it, they become humaner... err, more human... I mean, basically, they get a brain boost, like photographic memory, throwing things, doing math, and the ability to run without tiring.

And everyone's totally cool with it, riiiiiight?

Completely okay.