Assassination Academy: Red Queen Effect (OOC/OPEN)

[Atlannia]

Update on the map situation

So photobucket is literally holding people's embedded images hostage, which is cool. It also turns out I do not have those maps backed up like I thought I did which is just super freaking cool. I suspect the original passed on when one of my laptops died suddenly, I wasn't worried about losing it then because it was backed up on phootobucket and I hadn't thought to redownload it until now.

One of the maps seems to have survived their little purge, because it was too large to embed in the first place. This is extremely fortunate because it happens to be the most important one, the political map with all the nations. The other map was merely continents which is less critical and which I more or less remember anyway. The third map was the academy grounds and was fairly simple, I should be able to recreate it from memory by the time we start the IC.

To be clear, you can now see that map, the hyperlink is where the embedded maps were supposed to be originally.

Tag.

Are you accepting the creation of player-made races? I want to bring in something I've not rped for years.

We are, there will be a bit of working together to ensure that any player made races are balanced, fit the tone of the rp and can be integrated into the lore. But that's all a fairly painless exercise with minimal fatalities and I'm always happy to have people contributing to the world.

Uh, yeah. Please do. Trying to find those pictures got me a virus my computer labeled as 'Severe' (My fault for not exercising enough caution though).

Also, while this is not actually my first first post, I'm still relatively new so apologies if I seem a little inexperienced. (Assuming I actually get into this at all, which, being a bit of a lazy person, I may not.)

Uwaaa! I'm sorry to hear that.

I am commited to my Demi were, but i had a thought for an interesting character. A human or AI with a nanite riddled body, who is unable to die. The nanites will heal him on the molecular level but the healing is not ibstant, and it takes time.

Though it may seem op it could be balanced, the character would go by the name Lazurus.

Yeah a character that can't die would be difficult to make work for various reasons. Even if their pseudo death did trigger the academy system and therefore transferred AP upon a successful assassination it would remove a lot of the intended tension for jobs, were the fact that people actually can die is a big difference from normal academy life.

If I'm not mistaken, Byzenians are the equivalent of real-world Slavic peoples, right?

Also, I'm assuming that the Whites are the original imperial people while the Reds are the Laksanan peoples. Correct me if I'm wrong.

My new character idea is a highly idealistic Byzenian who wishes to tear apart the White faction with her magic sword and dagger that can hyperextend, bend, and fly about to strike enemies at impossible ranges and angles. She's basically Scaramouche from Samurai Jack in terms of fighting style (minus the scatting).

App will be completed tomorrow. I really can't keep these time promises...

While the factions skew in the way you're assuming it's not completely clear cut, the two populations have been intermarrying for a couple of centuries now and who is Laksanan and who is Imperial is not entirely certain. Even outside of genetics, there are people from either background who identified more with the other side's ideals.

The character sounds cool.

I believe I am finished. Feedback?

Sorry, I was in the middle of reviewing your app yesterday when I had to drop what I was doing and leave. I do have a few questions and stuff, overall it's promising.

1. The stats look a bit wonky to me, for someone who has martial arts training and wears armor her power and endurance are very low. Part of the issue is this passive "Graceful Duelist" ability, that's not really a special move, your skill with your chosen weapon would be taken into account in your other stats. Power is not just physical strength but your overall capability to deal damage, a 5 is bordering on a complete inability to hurt anyone at all. I would remove the Graceful duelist ability and transfer however many points you think it's worth into power and endurance.

2. I'd also note that with an endurance of 15, that armor is either doing very little to protect her, or its so tiring to wear that any defensive capabilities are more than counteracted by how tiring it is to wear. Just like how power is actually quite broad so is endurance, it also takes into account things like defensive skill. It sounds like Eva is a defensive fighter so unless she's relying exclusively on her agility to dodge incoming attacks then her endurance should be at least above average to reflect that.

3. I'm curious about the horn, is it intended that something substantial apart from the noise will happen if its blown?

I dunno how the hell I missed this but I'm here now.

Glad to hear it

I was asking about the sensory abilities, as my guy will be a Bear Demi, and a WereBear, normal bears have a sense of smell 7 times greater than that of a bloodhound, or roughly 2,100 times better than the average humans sense of smell.

A bear’s sense of smell is so acute that they can detect animal carcases upwind and from a distance of 20 miles away. You should just assume that they can smell the food in your food bag too.

Additionally, a bears hearing is more than twice as sensitive as a humans and over a rather large frequency range.

one could assume that it would be jsut as great still, if not greater for a Bear demi or a Werebear in Bear from.

So, and this might sound weird but hear me out, I would think that you would reflect a good sense of smell within your intelligence stat.

"Thusly Intelligence can refer to many different sorts of cognitive abilities but the common theme is that they are of use on the battlefield."

So what I think of this to mean is that If you have very good sensory abilities, especially the hearing you talked about, you would have to determine your characters ability to utilize the information that they would receive through that hearing. If they can hear people coming from miles away, but don't have a good enough sense of direction, knowledge of distance, and things like that, then in a heat of the battle situation their hearing won't really be that useful. If your character, however, is able to make very good use of the information they receive, then you would put a higher value into intelligence.

Did I convey that well enough?

Right Drakmah is correct. Sensory abilities should be represented in your intelligence stat, but much less then if you had the full ability to make use of that information to plan. Your intel can still be below average or lowish, but not extremely low.

Atlannia, edited. I added that Minamoto-style is a swordmanship style that emphasizes on the flurry use of fast strikes, thrusts, and slices, agility, and speed.

Now the app is pending review.
viewtopic.php?p=32079531#p32079531

Looks good, accepted, I'll update the roster at some point.

If chanign forms is a Special move, and assuming what Drak had said before is correct, that changing forms will warrant a change in stats, what would happen if the Special move stat was lessened while in his Were form?

I believe it was said that the special stat in human form determines the level of control over the were-form, but I don't have a quote for that.
Drak said earlier:

So just something to think about when you go through the combat statistics and point distribution process is that I believe you will be limited to the same 50 points whether your character is in wolf form, or if she is in her normal form. Now, I'm want to make sure I'm correct on that, however I'm fairly certain that in the previous iteration, the way in which characters who transformed were told to allocate their points was that they would have a set of stats that were related to their character in their normal form, and an entirely different set of stats for them related to when they were in their transformed state. If you don't plan on having your character doing any fighting while in her normal form, then you are free to put your points into the special move stat, which would indicate that you plan on having her handle fights by using her special move, which is to transform. You would then put points into a whole different set of stats that would reflect the strengths and weaknesses of, in your case, the wolf, and keep the special moves stat low whilst putting your points in the other categories. So in the end you would have one stat set for your character while in normal form, and one separate stat set for your character when they were in wolf form.

This makes it sound like the special stat is effectively useless once transformed, though I could be wrong.

What I had wanted to convey was that the special move in the base form would be way of conferring that your transformation was your main way of fighting. A perfectly acceptable kind of transformation would be, say that of a mouse. You would normally fight in your main form, but also had the option to turn into a mouse should you say, want to get away or something like that. You would then put your points into Power, Endurance, and such while having your special move stat stay low because your transformation would have no effect on the fight really.

Now, in terms of the usage of the special move set after having transformed, you could indeed have a transformation that relying on special moves while in that transformation in order to win fights. This would mean that the special move stat in both forms would be high, as you would go from your normal form into your transformed form in order to end fights, and then you would use a special move within your transformed state in order to fight.

TL:DR There is a lot you can do with this, and as long as you have a good enough explanation for what you do and where your stats go it is totally fine to do whatever you want.

Exactly this.

I might also add that your special move stat while transformed speaks to tour ability to transform back into a human, quickly and without drawbacks. So if your intention is to fight solely while transformed then you would be safe with a very low special move stat but if you plan on fluidly switching between the two states to suit different situations then you would need at least a reasonable special moves stat for your transformed state.

[Penguinia-Tempor]

One more question: How long ago was the Red and White War exactly? It shapes a fairly large portion of my character's bio, so I'd really love to hear that it was in the last 20 years RP wise. If not, I can rewrite it.

[Atlannia]

One more question: How long ago was the Red and White War exactly? It shapes a fairly large portion of my character's bio, so I'd really love to hear that it was in the last 20 years RP wise. If not, I can rewrite it.

It's been longer than twenty years since the official peace treaty, I was thinking around forty. But there are holdout cells on both sides and occasional flare ups from time to time. So there's scope for your character to have combat experience stemming from the war but they would have to be on the older side to have fought in the main conflict.

[Penguinia-Tempor]

One more question: How long ago was the Red and White War exactly? It shapes a fairly large portion of my character's bio, so I'd really love to hear that it was in the last 20 years RP wise. If not, I can rewrite it.

It's been longer than twenty years since the official peace treaty, I was thinking around forty. But there are holdout cells on both sides and occasional flare ups from time to time. So there's scope for your character to have combat experience stemming from the war but they would have to be on the older side to have fought in the main conflict.

Alright then. Better to have her Red supporting parents tossed in a jail cell to rot as political prisoners for most of her life than for her to actually have fought then.

Thanks!

[Talchyon]

Tag. This looks interesting, but really really involved. You've gone to great lengths to create a workable backstory and universe. Plus having different ability levels I think will help create combat differences.

But I'm not familiar with how such RPs work. (Like, character A has a power level of 52, and an endurance level of 25, but character B has the opposite...) So I may have to just watch for a bit and learn. And think up some characters.

-Talc

[Blitzkeig]

Tell me if this is too OP, I admit it really might be and I'm happy to change it.

The Vakali are an ancient race, and nobody knows their origin. Some believe that they were the first of the sentient races to arrive on nexus, others believe that they arise from a calmer world, one more at peace with itself...what everybody knows though, is very little.

The Vakali live in the forested and wild places, in small, tight-knit groups; they use little technology and have an astute connection with the nature around them, able to bend it to their will. They are a flying race, though are able to attain great speed on their feet.

Almost from birth, the Vakali are limited shapeshifters, and their two shapes are highly different. Their smaller shape, the shape that they generally adopt when mixing with other races, is similar to that of a small, rather innocent-looking beautiful human or elven child, their true age undisernable in the perpetually youthful look. Amongst their own kind, however, or when they are required to, they change to their full form, which is around 7 feet tall, scaly and of a color that it is said by some reflects that of their soul. They are capable of flight, are generally kind and peaceable, and extremely loyal; they are also amongst the strongest and magically atuned races, their greatest weakness being their shunning of modern technology and their likelihood to take much of what is said to them at face value.

I will pad this out within the coming days.

[Hothnia]

Sorry, I was in the middle of reviewing your app yesterday when I had to drop what I was doing and leave. I do have a few questions and stuff, overall it's promising.

1. The stats look a bit wonky to me, for someone who has martial arts training and wears armor her power and endurance are very low. Part of the issue is this passive "Graceful Duelist" ability, that's not really a special move, your skill with your chosen weapon would be taken into account in your other stats. Power is not just physical strength but your overall capability to deal damage, a 5 is bordering on a complete inability to hurt anyone at all. I would remove the Graceful duelist ability and transfer however many points you think it's worth into power and endurance.

2. I'd also note that with an endurance of 15, that armor is either doing very little to protect her, or its so tiring to wear that any defensive capabilities are more than counteracted by how tiring it is to wear. Just like how power is actually quite broad so is endurance, it also takes into account things like defensive skill. It sounds like Eva is a defensive fighter so unless she's relying exclusively on her agility to dodge incoming attacks then her endurance should be at least above average to reflect that.

3. I'm curious about the horn, is it intended that something substantial apart from the noise will happen if its blown?

Thanks for all the helpful feedback! I love to make my app to its greatest potential!

1. I will add a bit more to power and possibly endurance. The point of her low power was that she wasn't physically strong but I see your point about little to no damage. Would 15 be fine?

2. The armor is mostly for show and Eva will not wear the armor in most cases. I will probably up the endurance just because she was a defensive fighter.

3. Nope. The horn just makes loud noises.

Edit: I believe I fixed the anomalies.

[Penguinia-Tempor]

App up. Asides from bio and appearance, everything else is done. I'm not exactly sure if I did the stats correctly too.

Bio's done. Appearance/height+weight done (7/15).

Personal Information

Name: Willow Lawniczak (law-ni-zak))
Appearance:

Willow is extremely tall compared to most of the other students, standing at 6 feet, 3 inches in her bare feet (190 cm) and weighs 155 pounds (70 kg). Her father used to joke that she got all of his genes and none of her mother's (which, judging by the way Willow's life is shaping up, proabably true). Has long limbs to match (useful in combat, not so great in everyday life).

Age: 27
Birthplace: Byzenia
Nationality: Byzenian
Personality: Willow approaches every obstacle with an unrelenting determination that many would call being far too stubborn for one's own good. Her upbringing during the Red and White War has led her to have an ingrained hatred of the White Byzenian "elite" and a mild distrust for the Reds that are less proactive in their attempt to gain power in her homeland. Despite that, she is extremely idealistic and steadfast in her cause, hoping that the Assassination Academy will give her the skills needed to tear apart the White faction piece by piece.

Ideology aside, Willow is a fairly charismatic soul who typically excels in social situations but tends not to let others pry into her own past so much. While it wouldn't necessarily make or break Willow for others to really get to know her, she prefers to keep her mouth shut and listen more than she talks.

Biography:
The youngest of 3 children, Willow and her brothers grew up admiring their father, who had fought in the final years of the Red and White War as a teenager and young man with the ancestral family weapon Furia and Irae. He told grand tales of his past, tales of camaraderie, tales of blood and fire, and tales of perseverance under the worst of the White assaults. At the end of every story, he promised that one day, one of his children would claim those weapons and take the fight to the government itself. These tales enraptured Willow, who dreamed of being the one to end the ceaseless struggle between the Reds and Whites. Her childhood was filled with training in firearms use and, in particular, sword and knife combat to continue her father's fight when she would become an adult.

As she and her brothers grew older, the latter two began to stray from their parent's Red philosophy. One joined the national military on a campaign to eliminate the remaining insurgent forces and the other left the household after a heated ideological argument with only a suitcase to his name. For a short while, Willow was her father's little girl, only for him to be arrested for high treason after years of hiding.

Thoroughly pissed at the government, Willow left for a pocket of fighting in Byzenia, taking out her rage on the government by fighting alongside an anti-White militia to "liberate" a pocket of the countryside from the Whites. When she was in her mid-20s, she finally received word from her father after years of silence. Believing that his daughter had matured enough and could be trusted to carry on the Lawniczak legacy, his encrypted messages revealed the location where he had hidden Furia and Irae after the Red and White War's end. The only catch was that they were located in what was now a White military outpost.

So Willow traveled there and snuck into the outpost with only a pistol and a knife, evading detection to search through a forest for where her father had stashed the blades. Sure enough, they were exactly where he had said they were, along with a parrying dagger he never mentioned. Now the new bearer of her family's Fury and Rage, she spent a year performing random attacks and "assassinations" on Byzenian military outposts before coming to the realization that she needed to go even further to rip the White government apart. That place she went to is Princip Island, where she hopes the status of Assassin will allow her to avenge her beloved Reds and her father.

Meanwhile, in Byzenia, reports have only just now confirmed that the lost weapons Furia and Irae are back in action...

Theme Song: In Just A Moment's Time

Combat Information
Equipment:

"Fury"
Passed down through generations of the Lawniczak family, the enchanted Furia longsword was forged using then-unknown Miraveran magic during the 1st Great Invasion and was rumored to have been the weapon of choice for one of the ten assassins that confronted Nergal. Whether that is true or not is unknown, but Furia itself has a long history of bloodshed and has changed hands more than any of its wielders knows. Sometime in the last two centuries, Furia fell into the possession of the Lawniczaks and saw great action during the Red and White War by Willow's father. Before he was captured and given his life sentence, he hid the sword away until the time came for one of his children to claim the sword and continue the fury that named the weapon in the first place. That child was Willow.

Furia has received many upgrades and additional enchantments over the centuries befitting its wielder, ranging from simple durability and undulling enchantments to its primary ability for its blade to hyperextend, bend, and change shape and form at will. This allows for a wide degree of versatility on both the offense (striking enemies from impossible ranges and angles) and the defense (catching an enemy blade midstrike, turning into a workable shield, etc.). While its base form is that of a longsword, Furia is most capable of taking alternate forms of a rapier, side sword, or falchion. While Furia can "shift" into other, more specialized blade forms, they take longer to change and require more Aura use to do so.

Due to the sheer number and age of the assorted enchantments on Furia, most of them having been long deactivated by past users, their residual magic enhances Willow's own Aura, increasing her strength and endurance by a degree.

"Rage"
While not having as long as a history as Furia, the Irae daggers were forged and enchanted specifically for the Lawniczak family during the Red and White War with specifications to be a ranged weapon. As such, each of the 3 Irae daggers is capable of flight and are controlled through the user's voice, typically by humming or whistling. They can be accelerated to extreme velocities and are used to supplement Furia by acting as potentially lethal distractions to the opponent. If using Furia, Willow can only control one Ira at a time, but if she is without Furia, she can use all three to a limited extent and two effectively.

Arbitrium ("Determination")- Only enhanced with durability enchantments, this parrying dagger is typically used in Willow's left hand to parry incoming strikes when she is using Furia one-handed. Claimed by her father as a spoil of war from the Red and White War and was an unmentioned weapon hidden in the stash.

Body Armor: Lightweight body armor made with a combination of hard plates and slash and pierce resistant fabrics. Not particularly protective against ballistic and laser weaponry.

Fighting style:
Willow tends to use Furia and an Ira dagger in conjunction, using both to launch a relentless assault from all angles. She typically initiates fights from stealth and puts all of her force into breaking the enemy's defense to secure the kill. On the defense, she prefers to hold out with Furia's shapeshifting abilities and dodge as many attacks as possible while harassing the enemy and making openings with her Irae. When fighting another melee user, she uses Arbitrium and Furia one-handed, if not, she holds Furia with two hands.

Grappling and similar forms of rough hand-to-hand combat are also common during her fights, as she uses her size and unassuming strength to shove enemies to the ground, grab their weapons, and do whatever it takes to secure the kill.
Strengths:
- Great at surprise attacks
- Easy to overwhelm an opponent, especially slower ones
- Good defense at close range
- Excellent against lightly armored opponents
Weaknesses:
- Vulnerable to focused, quick attacks
- Doesn't take well to fighting off multiple enemies at once
- If disarmed, defenseless
- Poor options against firearm/ranged weapon users

Special moves:
Sword Shift: Furia changes its form or blade shape based on Willow's current circumstances. Drastic and quick changes, such as adding additional points or extreme size changes require more Aura use.
Skewer: Willow hyperextends Furia at an extremely high velocity, forming a point that can defeat most body armor and easily run an enemy through. Often used to keep an enemy at a distance or is paired with a lunge or running strike.
Backtrack: Furia extends outwards and curves around to stab or slash the enemy's back. Can also be done with Irae.
Furious Offensive: Willow's "trump card." Willow generates an extremely high amount of Aura by temporarily absorbing all of Furia's residual magic to massively boost her strength, speed, and endurance at the cost of intelligence and rational/tactical thought. Drains her energy significantly and leaves her in a semi-comatose state afterward.

Combat Statistics
Power: 50/75*- Physically, Willow is deceptively strong despite her thin frame due to the effects of Furia's residual magic. Most of her power, however, comes from the versatility and omnidirectional presence of her weapons as well as her all-out fighting style.

Endurance: 30/37*- Willow has a decently high pain tolerance and stamina to sustain her assaults. Furia's shapeshifting and Arbitrium in general also aid in defense at close quarters.

Agility: 28/31*- Willow has faster than average reflexes, but only average speed. It's not much, but it helps a bit in a fight.

Intelligence: 19/5*- Willow is inflexible during fights and doesn't change her strategy very often, preferring an all-out offensive rather than reading and using her opponent's weaknesses to her advantage. As such, she fares poorly against those who have a direct advantage over her.

Special Moves: 48/9*- Furia's abilities and Willow's own aptitude for controlling them lend nicely to frequent and well-executed usage of her specials alongside normal attacks, with the exception of Furious Offensive*.

*Furious Offensive Stats: While absorbing all of Furia's residual magic for a short time greatly increases the force and speed of Willow's attacks as well as her overall endurance and speed by a lesser degree, she goes into a blind combat rage and attacks with little reason and no tactics whatsoever, with the only objective being victory. Absorbing all of that magic also greatly weakens Furia's shifting abilities, making her specials extremely harder to execute effectively and quickly- assuming she even has enough of her usual mind left to think of performing a special move in the first place. With practice, she could absorb only part of the residual magic and gain lesser/more specific buffs, but that hasn't happened yet.

Odds and Ends

RP example: I was in the original Assassination Academy IC, but I'll link to a post from it just in case. It's been about a year since I've last RPed...? I dunno.
I Read the rules and am a cool person who agrees to abide by them: Yessir.

#NUMBAT

[Shadowwell]

What stat would decide ones ability to hold there ground and be unmoved or little moved?

For example, if Sonis thing was to run at my proposed character what stat would prevent him fron getting speed blitzed too badly?


Additionally. How long ago was the second invasion and have you looked at my revised demon blurb?

Just this word alone conjures up all sorts of thoughts and images usually unpleasant ones. It is the same within many worlds, and Nexus is no different. What humans know about demons is true to an extent, they do indeed have a great capacity for cruelty and maliciousness, but mostly they stay within their realm. This does not apply to all demons however, as many demons unlike most beings that dwell within separate realms, can cross over to our world, by using any of several ways. The first of the most common options is that they must be extremely powerful, though demons this powerful tend to stay in their realm where they are strongest unless something really catches their eye, Option two is they can possess someone, though usually only extremely weak demons do this, most use the third option.

Option three is they can be summoned or make a contract with a human, and enter our realm using the humans life energy, though this only applies if the human doesnt possess magic. Unfortunately those that summon demons tend to bring and draw the worst of their kind. What is not well known is that demons have been in this world since long before the Great invasions, they were rare but they were still here, and demons were and sometimes still are responsible for many of those who become targets for assassination.

Demons are rather diverse in their abilities and appearances, while in their home realm they can change their appearances at will. Most demons possess the ability to manipulate hellfire, though this only applies to those that don’t represent an Element. Elemental demons are monstrously powerful though they have equal weaknesses in the form of their elemental counterpart, ie darkness and Shadow demons are weak to Light, fire demons to water, etc, They can pass through realms regardless of power, though if they arent strong enough they will be severely injured and their power weakened.

The Country/Nation of Nexus that knows the most about Demons, is probably the Council of Seven. This is mostly due to their usage of them during the most desperate times of War. Unknown to most, demons were partially involved in the downfall of the countries that originally existed before the Council was formed. The Council of Seven, was not the first country to summon or know of demons. Demons had entered Nexus long before the Byzenan Civil War, and most notably during the conflict with Yokotai. Several demons were accidentally summoned during a last ditch effort against the Yokotai forces.

However, it was only during the Byzenan Civil war, that the knowledge of how to summon demons was obtained. Prior to that, most demon summoning were accidental, demons still could force their way into Nexus, but Summoning was more beneficial for at least one side. A certain mage, whose name has since been forgotten, was attempting to summons something, when he summoned a demon instead. In his excitement, he lowered his guard and was possessed. This demon was different from others, caring little for warfare, direct warfare at least.

This demon was tricky and manipulative, and was responsible for the spreading of the knowledge on how to summon demons, properly. The rest as they say is history, The knowledge spread, and now demons are present in Nexus. They are still a rarity, but more common than the Fae. Most can be found in or around the region governed by the Council of Seven. This is one of the reasons that the Council is the most knowledgeable on the subject of Demons.

The Council has discovered that the region Demons come from is complex, to say the least. There is no single place taht demons call home, rather their domain is made of many realms. The hierarchy and the like changes per realm, but generally tehre is no set hiearchy that demons follow aside from the strong rule.

Here it is.

[The Burning Sun]

As a random question, does everyone get hammerspace or should I pen in a special ability if my character needs to tote around a bunch of guns?

[The Burning Sun]

Personal Information

Name: Octavia de Cadenza
Appearance:

Age: 22
Birthplace: Council of 7
Nationality: Kai Neni
Personality: Ordinarily, she's a pretty quiet person. However, calling her shy would be a mistake - when she does wish to speak, she will make herself heard. She presents a passive and uninterested demeanor, but can be quite impulsive when the call to action is sounded. She can also be a little obsessive - for example, she always has to know exactly how many people are in a room with her and their locations, and new acquiantances are scrutinized relentlessly until they can be placed into one of her three categories of people: enemies, possible enemies, or absolutely trustworthy allies.
Biography: In the aftermath of the First Invasion, the nation's that would become the Council of 7 lay in ruins. Countries from around the world were quick to join the reconstruction effort, but progress was slow, and the survivors settling back into their ruined homes were, for the initial phases of reconstruction, abandoned by the government. With no occupying forces, state police, or even weapons to defend themselves, the beleagured citizens turned to the one force left that could establish order in the chaos: crime syndicates. Previously small and surpressed, organized crime exploded in the years after the Invasion. They quickly amassed vast fortunes through a combination of protection racketeering and fraud, siphoning funds from the reconstruction effort. By the time the devastated nation's were in a position to care about the newly founded mafia, the criminals were far too deeply entrenched to be removed. Since then, the various mafia have pursued an uneasy coexistence within the Council of 7 and other strife-armor countries. They keep more chaotic crime in check, and in return the government turns a blind eye to their activities.

As the child of a lower class Council citizen and a Kai Neni immigrant, this is the situation Octavia de Cadenza was born into. The Council nations were just then experiencing an influx of immigration during a period of prosperity, both things they were relatively unused to on the heels of the Second Invasion. The mafia was flourishing, and Octavia found herself drawn to the aura of mystique surrounding her childhood protectors. Once she grew older and her aura powers began to manifest, the mafia eagerly welcomed her into their ranks of enforcers, and it is there that she has spent the last five years of her life. However, the period of dominance enjoyed by her organization during her youth soon ended, and with the noose tightening around the group's most deadly and ruthless member, Octavia decided to enroll in the Academy. Should she graduate, her future will be secure - no police officer would dare touch an Assassin, and she would be free to expand the syndicate like never before.
Theme Song: If I find one.

Combat Information
Equipment:

• Étude - an old, Red and White era submachine gun. It has a wooden stock and foregrip, while the main body is blackened steel filigreed with gold. It is extremely reliable and can accept a variety of straight, drum, and pistol magazines, and though there is little that is truly exceptional about it Octavia considers it one of her two most prized possessions.
• Coda - a two-shot, vertically-stacked pocket derringer chambered in a caliber normally only seen in sniper rifles. It has an ivory handle, with the rest of the gun plated with gold and filigreed with silver. Octavia's other most prized possession.
• Vaughn 14 Sawn-Off - a wood-gripped model of the ubiquitous shotgun with much of the barrel sawed off to increase pellet spread. Octavia exlusively uses it with extra high power pellet and slug rounds, but she'd like to try the special canister shot sometime.
• Wire garrote
• Switchblade or other knife
• Zip ties/handcuffs/some other restraint
• A crowbar
  

Fighting style: When engaged in a direct confrontation, her strategy is simple: hose it down until it stops moving, then shoot it a couple more times to make sure. However, she prefers to avoid direct combat. Many combat masters are laughably easy to kill when their guard is down, after all. Thus, her preferred method of elimination is the ambush, whether it be knocking someone out and dumping them into a lake, or waiting inside their bedroom with a loaded submachine gun pointed at the door.
Strengths: If you can't dodge bullets, you're going to have a bad time. If you don't keep your guard up, you're going to have a bad time. Finally, if you let her build up her aura focus, you're going to have a bad time.

Aside from direct combat, it's very difficult to ambush her or to win her trust by deception.
Weaknesses: Her very straightforward combat style is easy to counter if you can keep cool and resist the hail of bullets. Furthermore, her suspicious nature usually means she'll be working alone.

Special moves:

• The Great Equalizer:
  Bullets fired from her guns are enchanted with a small amount of aura. Rather than attack the enemy directly,
  however, this enchantment focuses on disrupting her opponent's aura based defenses. Essentially, they carve paths through defensive barriers to allow her bullets to get through. This effect is highly dependent on the target's aura and does nothing against physical armor,
  but it ensures that her bullets are generally able to deal as much damage to her target as they would a normal person.
• No Kill Like Overkill: As Octavia engages in combat with a single target, she begins to subconsciously focus her aura and attune it to that of her target. Her speed,
  agility, and reaction times increase like that of a martial arts user, and she gains the ability to track her target by his/her aura. Although the short duration of this effect once combat has ceased makes it useless for proper tracking, it enables her to fire faster and with greater accuracy at the target, as well as chase down fleeing enemies. Its main drawback is her inability to activate it at will - her mediocre endurance does not lend itself to prolonged fights.
• Hammerspace - Ever since she walked into a candy shop and decided that she just had to have three pounds worth of assorted sweets, Octavia has had the ability to store a simply ludicrous amount of material in various hidden aura pockets around her body. Nowadays,
  she uses it to stash undetectable weapons and the vast amounts of ammunition she uses in every battle.

Combat Statistics

Power: 35 - She is, after all, using largely unmodified firearms. The extra power rating is partly due to her skill with a gun and some specialty ammunition, but mostly due to her special skills.

Endurance: 20 - With no defensive abilities whatsoever, Octavia can survive exactly as much damage as a normal human. However, her frame and stamina are both more frail than the average, which is somewhat offset by her impressive pain tolerance.

Agility: 40 - A light frame, natural swiftness, and martial arts enhancement render Octavia significantly more agile than the average human.

Intelligence: 25 - What's there to say? Nobody should be ashamed of being average. Note: her intelligence score is mostly based on intuition, not book learning.

Special Moves: 50 - Octavia was born with an impressive aura reserve. Unfortunately, she never received the training to properly use it. That doesn't mean she doesn't benefit, however, since her non-aura-based combat aptitude and natural ability enables her to utilise it subconsciously anyway, and it is demonstrably no less potent.

Odds and Ends

RP example: Hey, o'll buddy, friend, pal - you know me!

I Read the rules and am a cool person who agrees to abide by them: What am I supposed to put here? The bolded sentenced is an affirmative.

#NUMBAT

[Shadowwell]

Nothing to see ehre

[Atlannia]

Tag. This looks interesting, but really really involved. You've gone to great lengths to create a workable backstory and universe. Plus having different ability levels I think will help create combat differences.

But I'm not familiar with how such RPs work. (Like, character A has a power level of 52, and an endurance level of 25, but character B has the opposite...) So I may have to just watch for a bit and learn. And think up some characters.

-Talc

So I like to think of stats as the starting point for a friendly chat. So you look at the situation and you say, well character Y has been taken by surprise, so their defensive capabilities would be less of a factor, person B has high power but they're really just feeling their opponent out, they haven't fully committed to the attack. The whole thing should feel a bit like a "who would win out of superman or batman" kind of discussion, stats form the basis of that so that people aren't just arbitrarily deciding how strong they are.

Tell me if this is too OP, I admit it really might be and I'm happy to change it.

The Vakali are an ancient race, and nobody knows their origin. Some believe that they were the first of the sentient races to arrive on nexus, others believe that they arise from a calmer world, one more at peace with itself...what everybody knows though, is very little.

The Vakali live in the forested and wild places, in small, tight-knit groups; they use little technology and have an astute connection with the nature around them, able to bend it to their will. They are a flying race, though are able to attain great speed on their feet.

Almost from birth, the Vakali are limited shapeshifters, and their two shapes are highly different. Their smaller shape, the shape that they generally adopt when mixing with other races, is similar to that of a small, rather innocent-looking beautiful human or elven child, their true age undisernable in the perpetually youthful look. Amongst their own kind, however, or when they are required to, they change to their full form, which is around 7 feet tall, scaly and of a color that it is said by some reflects that of their soul. They are capable of flight, are generally kind and peaceable, and extremely loyal; they are also amongst the strongest and magically atuned races, their greatest weakness being their shunning of modern technology and their likelihood to take much of what is said to them at face value.

I will pad this out within the coming days.

They seem interesting certainly, I am a bit concerned that they incorporate elements that might be very special to other characters. Um so the Vakali can shapeshift, which is neat, but for wereanimals, which some players are quite interested in, there whole thing is shapeshifting in a fairly limited way, whereas the Vakali can do that but they also have lots of other advantages.

The other thing to keep in mind that these abilities would definitely need to be accounted for with stats. SO flight for example, that's something that would fall under agility, you'd need to allocate a reasonable amount of your points to agility just to cover the flight ability without even taking into account how nimble or flexible they are in other areas. My concern is that you would need to "set aside" so many of your points to pay for these inherent abilities that the points left over to actually cover their skillset would leave them with very little in the way of actual skills.

Look we have races like half fae and half demons whereas full blooded fae and demons aren't playable, because even a fairly weak demon would be a bit too much for where these characters are starting. Maybe that's an option here? have Vakali be more of a lore thing and have half Vakali, who can have access to some of these abilities or more limited versions of them be the actually playable race.

Thanks for all the helpful feedback! I love to make my app to its greatest potential!

1. I will add a bit more to power and possibly endurance. The point of her low power was that she wasn't physically strong but I see your point about little to no damage. Would 15 be fine?

2. The armor is mostly for show and Eva will not wear the armor in most cases. I will probably up the endurance just because she was a defensive fighter.

3. Nope. The horn just makes loud noises.

Edit: I believe I fixed the anomalies.

Looks good, just remove the bit in brackets below combat statistics, you are effectively accepted though.

Name: Willow Lawniczak

Looks really good, you do have three points to spare. You don't have to spend them if you don't want to though.

What stat would decide ones ability to hold there ground and be unmoved or little moved?

Endurance for sure

Additionally. How long ago was the second invasion and have you looked at my revised demon blurb?

Umm, quite recent, 15 years or so. And yes I okayed the new demon lore. At least I think. I certainly meant to. I just haven't got around to adding it to the OP.

As a random question, does everyone get hammerspace or should I pen in a special ability if my character needs to tote around a bunch of guns?

I guess you should think of it like this, you really don'

Name: Octavia de Cadenza

t have to worry about your equipment load unless you're trying to do something silly like lug around a howitzer.

I really like the bio and stuff, my only issue is that the hammer space thing is too passive to really be a special move, if you want to count it anywhere it could technically be an agility thing, since she's not as encumbered as she would normally be.

is there a limitation on the Were form?
ie, is it bipedal, is it jsut a larger version of the normal animal counterpart, etc.

Whatever feels right to you, I don't think it's a stretch to say different people's transformations vary in how closely they mimic their original animals.

[Blitzkeig]

I'm happy to lose the flying thing.

[Shadowwell]

How do Demi's look, are they children as there age would dictte, ok teens but still, or would the experiments that made them given them a more suitable body, ie someone in their prime. Also could my character, who will be younger than other Demi's be literally older than his years, if that makes since, just the experiment and stuff have made him look and seem older, even if he is younger than most other Demi technically?

[Talchyon]

And I thought I read somewhere that this is a sort of comedy? If not, that's fine. Still interested.

[Penguinia-Tempor]

Made some edits to my app, most notably adding combat stats while Willow is in Furious Offensive, adding the 3 points I forgot to standard stats, and adding an additional, off-hand parrying weapon (Arbitrium). If I did the FO stats wrong, then I'll quickly change 'em.

[The Burning Sun]

I left Hammerspace as a special move because I honestly don't know where else to put it. I suppose I could change it, though.

[Arkandros]

Just wanted to say I updated my application. Still going to throw up a RP example, but I think the rest of it's pretty much done outside of a proofread and polish. (app link)

[Sonitusia]

Alright, my app is complete and spruced up with my finished concept drawing of Koro, just click her picture to get to the app:

"It doesn't matter how fast you run;
the past always manages to catch up.
The good thing is,
you're always moving towards the future."

[Shadowwell]

my app is nearly done, but i need more info/clarification to do so.

[Sonitusia]

my app is nearly done, but i need more info/clarification to do so.

Can I be of assistance?

[Shadowwell]

my app is nearly done, but i need more info/clarification to do so.

Can I be of assistance?

How do Demi's look, are they children as there age would dictte, ok teens but still, or would the experiments that made them given them a more suitable body, ie someone in their prime. Also could my character, who will be younger than other Demi's be literally older than his years, if that makes since, just the experiment and stuff have made him look and seem older, even if he is younger than most other Demi technically?

i jsut need an anser to this, then i can finish my app.

[Sonitusia]

Can I be of assistance?

How do Demi's look, are they children as there age would dictte, ok teens but still, or would the experiments that made them given them a more suitable body, ie someone in their prime. Also could my character, who will be younger than other Demi's be literally older than his years, if that makes since, just the experiment and stuff have made him look and seem older, even if he is younger than most other Demi technically?

i jsut need an anser to this, then i can finish my app.

From my perspective, Demis are simply humans with 'superhuman' DNA. That being said, they would still age, though upon getting injected would already have the body of an adult in their prime. My guess is that children didn't have a very high survival rate from experiments like this due to the amount of mutation that would occur upon their bodies. They'd have to be physically fit before going through the procedure.

[Shadowwell]

i jsut need an anser to this, then i can finish my app.

From my perspective, Demis are simply humans with 'superhuman' DNA. That being said, they would still age, though upon getting injected would already have the body of an adult in their prime. My guess is that children didn't have a very high survival rate from experiments like this due to the amount of mutation that would occur upon their bodies. They'd have to be physically fit before going through the procedure.

taht could work, i was jsut udner tha ssumption that they were genetically engineered rather than changed via a serum/supersoldier formula thing.

I will still wait for Atlannias final decision though I will work ona bio using what you have said.

Additionally, my character is a Demi-Were, so i was unsure about how things would have been, and i was wanting him to be or look to be in his 20's. I was also not sure whether Weres could only be made by procreation or whether lycanthropy was a thing as well.