In the Name of the Bling: A Fantasy Resource Management and Defense RP

Shoot, I forgot to clarify that. But that's more or less the amount I had in mind, so that's all right then.

My lips are sealed But regarding racial knowledge, that's really up to you and other players to work out. You could PM me with ideas for general things an NPC might know if you want.

Truth be told, most NP Cs wouldn't know a great deal - like I said, the yaephath live really, really deep underground and are deeply secretive or hostile towards most.

The exception are their outcasts, who all find themselves waking up on the surface one day with many of their memories erased and just one or two items of use and some basic provisions.

Some might know about some of their slightly stranger quirks of biology - how they have no genitals and are all 'female', how they keep cool by effectively vomiting poisonous, smelly gunge, how they come in three main varieties that all possess distinctive traits, how they're unable to use magic and are apparently highly resistant to its influence.

I imagine that some of the very high ranking members of the government or some of their most intensive and secretive of scholars, cultists and historians might know the true history of what happened to their people, or where they come from.

Most would just be ignorant and fearful, though. I guess? I dunno, I trust your judgement.

I'd say a lot of them would know about her quirks after being crammed into a ship like sardines for days. But like I said, what player characters know about her race is ultimately up to their players, and the only characters in the crew that I have control over are just the workers and other miscellaneous NPCs, so I can't do much in that regard.

Oh... I forgot about that. XD

That certainly changes things up, hmm...

edited 24th Aug '13 4:31:04 PM by Eventua

My particular proposition

• Name: Lita Aemanto
• Sex: Female
• Age: 25
• Race: Desert Elf
• Appearance: What do you mean by “there is no pay to give"?
• Role: Security, scouting and hunting
• Personality: Rather jovial and not really all that serious as longs it isn’t necessary. Feeding to the mercenary stereotype she’s rather greedy but understands exactly how money can be used and just how far money can go, as so money isn’t the first question or solution in her mind at all times. Rather proud of her heritage and family, as unconventional as it is, and will spill blood if insulted on either account. Follows the faith of the Great Wandering One, a god of the desert people.
• Skills and Abilities: A great sword-fighter, and excellent scavenger from her times on the desert ruins, knows how to operate an elven desert drifter; a boat like vehicle designed to travel in the desert dunes, a , and while not an engineer she could certainly give pointers on how to build even a simple and provisional one. Her elven eyes and ears count with a larger range and precision than the average human. Has a surprisingly good sense of direction, as necessary for her home, the desert, and knows some basic medical skill, particularly herbal based medicine, has knowledge in preservation of food, and has skill playing her flute.
• Magic: Desert Wanderer magic as she calls it, air based spells designed to make the travel through the desert and all is phenomena easier, as well as moving the elven desert drifters. Air jets, blasts and streams can created or manipulated for offense or defense
• Equipment: Her bandit armor redone in better materials than the ones she's used to, various clothes, a long flute made out of a hollowed bone, a small pendant made from craved sandstone, and “Jackal Fang” her ceramic scimitar, its blade of a bone color and glossy, almost lacquered finish made sharp and durable by a ritual made in the Wandering One’s honor.
• Brief History: Born to the “Eyeless Snakes” a nomad clan of bandits, warriors and merchants, hailing from the southern deserts, composed of many races; primarily Desert elves, Half-elves and Humans and consisting of a group of around 11 families, and around 15 members per family, all under one banner. Lita herself was raised by her brothers and grandparents as her parents died on a job little after she was born. There she lived laughed, trained and worked for her early years before leaving the nest at the age of 21, and kept doing mercenary work until this opportunity came along… A promise of large amounts of gold and all the hidden treasure she can keep... heh, things what money can do to a greedy mind.

edited 25th Aug '13 12:02:21 PM by Sanojutsu

What's an "elven desert drifter"? Also "glossy bony tone"? Are the "better materials" steel? And being a sellsword is fine for a backstory, but they aren't exactly able to give you a paycheck over there, nor is there anything you can spend your money on. In terms of payment, most people (the NPCs at least, I can't speak for anyone else) are hoping to find treasures that will make them incredibly wealthy when they head back, as well as being rewarded some title and land back home after a mission well done. So do you want to make her role a guard or what? And for her magic, the way I read it is that she can shoot strong blasts or streams of air at people, which is okay, but you mentioned gales so if she's supposed to be able to do large-scale wind control, that's not okay.

And before someone asks what's stopping an unscrupulous mook from grabbing a backpack's worth of gold and running away: heading back on your own would involve somehow making your own voyage downriver for weeks - and then you would have to live in hiding out of fear of being caught because people are wondering what happened to everyone else, getting physically and magically tortured to find out the truth, and then being executed with a dull spoon as a traitor.

@What's keeping them from just leaving: Or in Ixen's case, a collar that can kill him with a magic command.

Speaking of which though, regarding who would and wouldn't know about Ixen actually being a criminal: I figure Abathur would have told Szena, since she's head of security, but would have left it up to her judgement whether or not to tell everyone else.

So up to Strat on that one I guess.

In that order:

• Elven Desert Drifter: a sort of boat made to course along the waves, Last Airbender-style like the ones the desert men used, I should have given a context and explanation.
• Glossy bone tone: ummm, my brain died on that one, basically a bone colored blade, with a glossy ceramic-like finish, sorry it was confusing
• Better materials: what I meant is that is the same style of armor she would usually but in better materials, IE; steel.
• Motives: Ok... to be fair I wasn't sure, but treasure hunting plays into her greedy aspect... maybe she was promised a ludicrous amount of gold when she came back... I'll alter the Bio
• Magic: Heh, sorry, I got creative and added gales for flavor... but no its only air streams and jets, will alter the Magic section

And I edited the Sign-up... that's all, right?

edited 25th Aug '13 12:17:11 AM by Sanojutsu

@Sanojutsu: Cool then, thanks for clearing that up, she's accepted.

thanks, my man/woman/thing/dog

I assume woman.

• Name: Francesco Silverhand
• Sex: Male
• Age: 40
• Race: Dwarf
• Appearance: Francesco is about four-and-a-half feet tall, and stout by just about any species standards. This is offset by a generally strong build, but is still something one couldn't miss. As a result of his frequent traveling, his skin is well-tanned in comparison to most dark-dwelling dwarves. His hair is a blackish-brown, falling in great quantities from his head and jaw towards his sternum, all bound at their ends by thick bands of silver. As for armor and attire (the two aren't mutually exclusive, least so for dwarves), he favors thick furs to anything else, settled over a silver-plated cuirass, cured-leather breeches, and steel-toed boots. A silver-framed pendant hangs from around his neck, holding a seamless, plum sized sapphire into place.
• Role: Francesco is one of the major bankrollers behind the exhibition, acting on the behalf of perhaps the most affluent merchant family in the Dwarven Kingdoms. In return for his patronage, property rights over the Elselands (it's mineral rights being the primary focus) are to be claimed and negotiated as time goes on. As such, Francesco brings ample man-power (dwarf-power?) to the table; mercenaries, scouts, scribes, miners, cooks, farmers, accountants, traders and more, all willing and able to contribute their talents towards making this journey a success.
• Personality: Francesco couldn't lie about it; riches are a priority in his life, and that tempts him towards more bad habits than he could count. But it's not so all-consuming an urge as one might expect of a wealthy dwarf. He's a firm believer of not shitting where you eat, to be blunt, and tries to make sure that whoever props him into his position in the world is well compensated. Even better than a basement of the finest possible wines is a person to share it with. Even better than the finest view of the city is a prosperous city, with comfortable people. The wealth comes and goes, but family and legacy stay. The merchant only wished that that he himself found those principles as immediately pleasing as the content's of his vault.

edited 24th Aug '13 11:12:02 PM by goodisgood

Six feet is kind of freakishly tall for a dwarf. Is there a story behind that? Is he half-human or something?

I'd sort of assumed the average dwarf would be somewhere between 3 1/2 - 4 1/2 feet tall, but that's going by a fairly standard fantasy measure. Not that it really matters or anything, but there's going to be a hell of a height difference between him and Jen.

Before you finish that, let me reiterate that any player can have one character, two tops - not anywhere close to what you've got listed.

• Name: Orghuz Trarr
• Age 27
• Race: Orc (although I can go Half-orc if you want)
• Appearance: 6'9''. green, leathery skin, tusks, yellow eyes, slender build for an orc though and a broader, more domed forehead.. Usually wears healers robes with a medallion proclaiming him a certified healer
• Personality: Orghuz is a man torn between his tribal upbringing and his experiences in civilization, therefore he can be gruff and angry then suddenly erudite. Sometimes he plays the "hick" deliberately to set up people for a surprise by showing knowledge people don't think he would have. If there are any natives around expect him to be their advcate
• Role: Camp doctor but also, to those of a...less polished background a spritual advisor.
• Skills and abilities: His skills come from his mixed background. From his shaman grandfather he learned herbalism, how to communicate with animals, plants and spirits. From college he learned anatomy, surgery, antiseptic procedure and what both he and others think of as alchemy but is more what we would think of as basic chemistry.
• Magic: As noted above he has the ability to commune and, to a limited extent, command plants, animals and nature spirits. He was also taught the rites of exorcism by his grandfather.
• Equipment: Surgical instruments, and a collection of herbs and powders as well as scientific (by a medieval defintion of scientific) gear.
• Backstory: Orghuz was born and raised in a mountain tribe on the fringes of civilzation. At least thgey were the fringes about ten years before he was born. By the time he was in his teens they were intruding more and more his grandfather, the tribes shaman decded to start sending the tribes best and brightest to learn so that the tribe could adapt. Money and trade goods were accumulated to by him an apprenticeship to a scholar in what they regarded as a big city but was actually just a large town. Where he met ridicule and prejudice but also impressed his master enough to be sent to a branch college to study medicine where the prjudice was subtler but just as pervasive. Nonetheless he managed to graduate in the upper half of his class and shortly thereafter took a job with this expedition.

edited 26th Aug '13 7:52:52 AM by tricksterson

Something's come up, it seems, and I unfortunately am going to have to back out.

Are you the flying scout?

edited 25th Aug '13 11:45:09 AM by God_of_Awesome

@Tricksterson: Accepted.

@Eventua: No worries, hope you're alright. If you ever want back in, shoot me a PM or post here and we'll figure it out.

@Eventua: Shame... Take care, though.

So I'm probably going to start the RP tomorrow, just to give a little more time to people who've mentioned they're making characters. For now, here's a discussion thread with info, in case you want to discuss things, or mark your territory, or stuff.

• Name: Bathsheba Severa
• Sex: Female
• Age: 23
• Race: Angel
• Appearance: A young woman with pale skin and tall frame. Her eyes are brown and at first glance her hair looks plainly white but a closer look gives the impression that someone lightly sprinkled multi-colored glitter on her head. A set of large white wings make her stand out in a crowd.
• Role: Scribe/Secretary. She's the one the boss calls for anything to trivial for him to do himself. Go get that. Write this down. Deliver this to him. Where's my coffee? She also keeps tabs on where everyone is and what they are doing.
• Personality: Serious and methodical. Bathsheba, or just Sheba, won't ever brag about being the fasted or the smartest but she does pride herself on being thorough. When in charge of something her authority comes from gentle firmness rather than being shouty and bossy. Not the most extroverted of people, she accepts her tasks without complaint.
• Skills and Abilities: Cooking, sewing, cleaning, reading, record keeping, money managing, animal care, and basic first aid. Her wings allow for gliding, higher jumping, and soft landings. Can also sing.
• Magic (Optional): None
• Equipment: A large bag, spare clothing, a personal journal, empty journals for record keeping, quills and ink, a small knife, a mirror, a hairbrush, and her most prized possesion, a lyre.
• Brief History: Sheba's parents left their old home before she was born, finding that their livelihood was in jeopardy after a natural disaster ravaged their own lands. Migrating to Rylaan, the couple had high hopes of making a decent living in the neighbor kingdom where people were constantly coming and going which gave those in the service sector a chance to carve out a living for themselves. They settled in a small city, where Sheba and her younger siblings were eventually born. Then bad things happened and a now fully grown Sheba has gotten work the Gold Cutlass thanks to the recommendation of a friend.

@Parable: Accepted.

• Name: George
• Sex: Male
• Age: 27
• Race: Humanoid Stegosaurus
• Appearance: A seven foot tall, green, humanoid Stegosaurus. He wears black pants that are ripped slightly and are way too small for him.
• Role: Woodcutter
• Personality: George is slow and silent but a kind soul who loves his hatchet and his woodcutting trade. He doesn't like confrontation. When confronted, he's a big coward. A Gentle Giant.
• Skills and Abilities: George is a herbivore and, as such, can identify most plants as edible or not. He also, obviously knows how to cut wood and how to care for bladed weapons, such as his axe. His skin is about as tough as a rhino and he has his plates on his back and tail that can defend him if need be.
• Equipment: His hatchet and his toothbrush. That's about it seeing as he can forage for food.
• Backstory: The Walking Stegosauruses (or Plant Eaters, as they like to call themselves,) had always been a solitary race, living a nomadic lifestyle, having litttle contact with other races, apart from the occasional barter. They are hard workers and have an intense community atmosphere. Each of the Walking Stegosaurses would die for each other. That's why George volunteered to go, as he can help support his tribe by scouting out the land and seeing if there's any deliscious plants for his kin to eat.

edited 26th Aug '13 4:27:39 AM by FantasyLiver

@N Man: Added his magical abilities under Magic. They were already mentioned under Skills and Abilities but wanted to be sure you hadn't missed them. Also added a bit of detail.