World On Fire: Shadow Ops [OPEN] (OOC/Fantasy WW2)

[Agritum]

I'm now active again, so I can respond to apps.

I'm not really against the concept of having defector characters per se, even though I'd rather enjoy if we had more minor Allies (Canada, ANZAC,South Africa, Belgium, The Nordics, countries of Southern America, British and French colonies, etc). My main issue with Dietrich is that he's pretty old, even at 61. Being a mundane, that wouldn't bode well for the requirements of an unit such as the Shadow Ops teams. ALso, given his skillset, he'd be more likely to be in the backseats of the operations rather than on the ground.

That said if you want to have him as an NPC, maybe as a radioable HQ advisor, it would be pretty interesting. I hope you see my concern. Since I don't want to thrash your app completely, would you rather like playing a soldier or otherwise member of troop that defected with Dietrich, or would you veer towards something else?

Well, I was kind of more planning to use his rank, knowledge and appearance to infiltrate Axis installations or just generally be a help when encountering checkpoints, patrols etc.

Well, that's pretty situational knowledge and I'd like it if you had a character that you could use more feasibly in all types of encounters. Just to keep you with lots of stuff to do.

[Remnants of Exilvania]

Well, I was kind of more planning to use his rank, knowledge and appearance to infiltrate Axis installations or just generally be a help when encountering checkpoints, patrols etc.

Well, that's pretty situational knowledge and I'd like it if you had a character that you could use more feasibly in all types of encounters. Just to keep you with lots of stuff to do.

Apart from being a massive old man the size of Captain Beecher? I didn't write it in the app but I was going to go with a height 190-195 cm.
Besides, 61 ain't that old yet. If you kept yourself in good shape and exercising, you can still pull off some stuff. He could probably still crush a skull in his hands and stuff.

[Agritum]

Well, that's pretty situational knowledge and I'd like it if you had a character that you could use more feasibly in all types of encounters. Just to keep you with lots of stuff to do.

Apart from being a massive old man the size of Captain Beecher? I didn't write it in the app but I was going to go with a height 190-195 cm.
Besides, 61 ain't that old yet. If you kept yourself in good shape and exercising, you can still pull off some stuff. He could probably still crush a skull in his hands and stuff.

Fair point.

[Remnants of Exilvania]

Apart from being a massive old man the size of Captain Beecher? I didn't write it in the app but I was going to go with a height 190-195 cm.
Besides, 61 ain't that old yet. If you kept yourself in good shape and exercising, you can still pull off some stuff. He could probably still crush a skull in his hands and stuff.

Fair point.

Might also make a Bulgarian but not sure about that yet.

[Agritum]

Fair point.

Might also make a Bulgarian but not sure about that yet.

Now that's pretty interesting! Pre-Commie Bulgaria is often ignored, even if it was quite the regional power in the Balkans.

[Remnants of Exilvania]

Might also make a Bulgarian but not sure about that yet.

Now that's pretty interesting! Pre-Commie Bulgaria is often ignored, even if it was quite the regional power in the Balkans.

Second Balkan War ftw

[The Knockout Gun Gals]

Player Character App (Shadow Ops Operative)

Name: Li Wengxiang
Gender: Male
Age: 29
D.O.B.: Shanghai, 17th January, 1912.
Physical Description and/or Picture:

(Image)

Species : Human/Mage
Nationality: Republic of China
Ethnicity: Chinese
Religion (if any): Buddhism
Powers/Magical Specializations (Only if Mage, Witch or Esper): Ki-Based Martial Arts
Bio:

Born in Shanghai, Li was raised in an orphanage whose at that time was controlled by the Republic of China's government. However, due to the budget constraints the orphanage was closed and the children inside were distributed to various factions and/or nations. Li was fortunate enough to be sent to the Shaolin monks.

There, he was raised as in the way of Shaolin teachings, before long mastered the Shaolin martial arts when he was 19, although still the basic non Ki-based and the basic Ki-based. At the same year, the Communist insurgency had gained popularity and strength in the following period to asserted their power and ruling as a Communist government in China. Shaolin decided to be more vigilant, and proved the vigilance by giving training of using modern-day firearms as part of their training regimen, rifles, handguns. While it is not perfectly on the line with the traditions, it may be last-resort weapons when needed.

Psychological Profile: One of many Shaolin-based monk, dutiful, disciplined, and loyal. What makes his liability is the fact that he is not the kind of person who is going to disobey orders and command easily, not easily swayed by things that could make people swayed.

Why do you fight?: Set to defend his homeland from both Japanese occupation forces and the Communists. And to preserved the Shaolin traditional culture.
Defining Quote: "Shaolin for the Chinese!"
RP Sample:
viewtopic.php?p=32286304#p32286304
viewtopic.php?p=32304680#p32304680

Reposted my app. Wolfenium accepted it, but I am reposted this.

[Agritum]

Player Character App (Shadow Ops Operative)

Name: Li Wengxiang
Gender: Male
Age: 29
D.O.B.: Shanghai, 17th January, 1912.
Physical Description and/or Picture:

(Image)

Species : Human/Mage
Nationality: Republic of China
Ethnicity: Chinese
Religion (if any): Buddhism
Powers/Magical Specializations (Only if Mage, Witch or Esper): Ki-Based Martial Arts
Bio:

Born in Shanghai, Li was raised in an orphanage whose at that time was controlled by the Republic of China's government. However, due to the budget constraints the orphanage was closed and the children inside were distributed to various factions and/or nations. Li was fortunate enough to be sent to the Shaolin monks.

There, he was raised as in the way of Shaolin teachings, before long mastered the Shaolin martial arts when he was 19, although still the basic non Ki-based and the basic Ki-based. At the same year, the Communist insurgency had gained popularity and strength in the following period to asserted their power and ruling as a Communist government in China. Shaolin decided to be more vigilant, and proved the vigilance by giving training of using modern-day firearms as part of their training regimen, rifles, handguns. While it is not perfectly on the line with the traditions, it may be last-resort weapons when needed.

Psychological Profile: One of many Shaolin-based monk, dutiful, disciplined, and loyal. What makes his liability is the fact that he is not the kind of person who is going to disobey orders and command easily, not easily swayed by things that could make people swayed.

Why do you fight?: Set to defend his homeland from both Japanese occupation forces and the Communists. And to preserved the Shaolin traditional culture.
Defining Quote: "Shaolin for the Chinese!"
RP Sample:
viewtopic.php?p=32286304#p32286304
viewtopic.php?p=32304680#p32304680

Reposted my app. Wolfenium accepted it, but I am reposted this.

Accepted.

[Remnants of Exilvania]

Apart from being a massive old man the size of Captain Beecher? I didn't write it in the app but I was going to go with a height 190-195 cm.
Besides, 61 ain't that old yet. If you kept yourself in good shape and exercising, you can still pull off some stuff. He could probably still crush a skull in his hands and stuff.

Fair point.

You never said he was accepted as he is at 61 years.

[Agritum]

Fair point.

You never said he was accepted as he is at 61 years.

Oh, Accepted it is!

[Remnants of Exilvania]

You never said he was accepted as he is at 61 years.

Oh, Accepted it is!

Thank you very much.

I'll start work on the second app rightaway.

[Lunas Legion]

Player Character App (Shadow Ops Operative)

Name: “My name is Zhao Min. People call me Zhao.”
Gender: “Male.”
Age: “42. Or 43, depending on my day of birth.”
D.O.B.: “By your Western calendar, 1900. I do not know the exact date.”
Physical Description and/or Picture: “People call me unassuming. I suppose that is the case. I am short by western standards, not particularly bulky or strong looking. My face is plain; I keep my black hair closely trimmed, along with my facial hair, and I do not have any scars to speak of.”
Species: “I am just a regular human, although I am trained in the revolutionary martial art you call ‘Gun Kata’.”
Nationality: “Chinese, of the People’s Republic.”
Ethnicity: “Han Chinese.”
Religion: “None. I believe it is called Atheism.”
Powers/Magical Specializations: “I suppose ‘Gun Kata’ may count, although I do not believe it to be a power.”
Bio: “I was born in Yunnan Province. Kunming, to be exact. I do not remember my mother. My father said either she left or died when I was young, I never got a clear story from him. Regardless, the cause does not matter. I grew up with my father, in a military barracks in Kunming. He was a soldier in Yunnan’s provincial army, and I suppose so was I from birth. I did not learn to farm, to read, to write. I learned how to strip and clean a rifle at the age of seven. I learned how to fire one at eight. At nine, I suppose I could be considered formally enlisted into the army as a runner, not that formal enlistment was really a thing. Discipline was non-existent, hence why a child was allowed to live in barracks.”

“I would not call it peaceful. There were bandits; but our commander had an arrangement with the bandits, and so we did not fight them. I served as the runner for our… I believe we were a battalion, in Western terms. Maybe a brigade. There was no standardisation in unit size. I became something of a mascot to the barracks; the commander used that as his justification. It was good for morale or something. I was trained, as best as one can be trained by undisciplined alcoholics of soldiers who have fought nothing but minor skirmishes against bandits.”

“Not much changed for us in Yunnan. The world outside moved on. The Qing fell, the Republic was declared. We were soldiers, not politicians. We did not understand politics. We followed orders. I was but fifteen when I first marched to war. I was a soldier, there, not a runner. I had a rifle, I had a uniform, I had what limited equipment was standard issue, I had trained. I thought I was ready. I was not.”

“I first fought at some nameless battle in Sichuan. Warfare in China was different to what you know. It was not the First World War, as neither artillery nor munitions were available. It was as if there were two tidal waves of men, each seeking to drown the other. I did not see tactics. I did not see strategy. I saw brute force and ignorance, men’s lives cast away like ash and dust in the wind for supposedly greater men. My father was one of them. I remained with the National Protection Army until the end of the National Protection War. I had an obligation to carry out, and so I served it. The one part of military discipline that my upbringing installed.”

“After the end of the National Protection War, I did not remain with the Yunnan Army. My father may had died in their service, but I did not wish to remain with such a force. Cai E was not worthy of my loyalty. Instead, I travelled north, with elements of the National Protection Army that had defected and lived further north. I do not remember much from the rest of 1916, by the Western Calendar. It, along with the early months of 1917, was mostly spent marching north to Beijing, with occasional stops to requisition more food.”

“That was the first time I personally was involved with the distasteful practice. With the National Protection Army other detachments had done so, but here myself and my squad did so personally. It was necessary for our survival, but I could not stand it regardless. A squad of soldiers, not all uniformed for by that point such things like that which resembled a military were rapidly decaying, would march into a village with a wagon or two, and we would demand their food. They would refuse, one of them would be shot as an example to the others, we would load up the wagon and return to the main body. We repeated this process countless times. I suppose that it was this that first awakened me to the state of the rural peasantry. The landlords, the government, the army, all they did was take at gunpoint.”

“We arrived in Beijing in early 1917, and we were billeted in Tianjin. Once again, I was subject to the whims of great men. Some general declared the restoration of the Qing; another general, whom I was now under the command of, opposed him. We besieged the capital, and then assaulted the capital. The battle was brief, thankfully, and our opposition surrendered. I remained in Beijing as part of the military garrison for some years afterwards, and it was during that time I first was introduced to communism. I, along with other elements of the Beijing Garrison, was ordered to suppress the May 4th Movement. I did so; I assisted the police in suppressing the protest, in arresting students, and in collecting evidence. There was little divide between the police and army at the time, one did much the same as the other. It reminded me of the food requisitions; I was not sure what I was supposed to be fighting for, but I was not supposed to be suppressing student protests.”

“A comrade of mine by the name of Ying Li first introduced me to communism in 1921. He was a member of the Beijing group of the Communist Party of China, and as a friend of his, he felt that I would understand the idea. I did not understand the ideas at first, but over time, they made sense. I had seen what our country was becoming first hand, and I did not like where I saw it heading. Ying introduced me to the rest of the group, and they were quite succinct in explaining what they stood for. I naturally found myself nodding along, and I became Member #96 of the Communist Party of China.”

“I fought with the Zhili Clique during the early 1920s. I fought against the Anhui Clique in 1920, Fengtian in 1922 and 1924. They were meaningless wars to me, but I needed to live, and the army was the only trade I had ever known or would ever know. I attended meetings of the Beijing Group of the Communist Party of China whenever I was in the city, and I did what little I could to spread the revolution within the ranks of the army.”

“I defected to the KMT in 1926 at the start of the Northern Expedition after the battle of Wuchang, where I was part of the surrendering forces, having been moved there in 1924. I would not fight comrades in alliance in support of the revolution, which the KMT were at the time, but only briefly. I deserted the National Republican Army in 1927, fearing for my life as members of the Communist Party of China were being purged by the KMT. I was enlisted into the Chinese Red Army upon its founding as part of the Second Red Army, more precisely in the Hubei-Henan-Anhui Soviet, and I fought through the Four Encirclement Campaigns. It was those four long campaigns when I truly became committed to the cause. We were outnumbered, outgunned, and yet we held on for four long years against all odds as the National Republican Army tried and failed to crush us under their iron jackboots. We did not have to requisition food, for the peasants gave what they could to us freely, and the NRA would take it anyways if we lost. I met comrades there, who would become friends, close friends, only to have them killed by the NRA.”

“We fought tooth and nail against the NRA, but revolutionary fervour cannot match sheer numbers and ignorance. Due to my experience in military matters, and my ideological conviction, I served as an instructor. I trained the men of the Soviet to fight the nationalists, I fought alongside them, the leader of their squad or company or whatever it was, but I was their leader. I suppose I came to consider the comrades I trained to be a family, almost, and they were a family I watched die.”

“Of the… It must have been hundreds, perhaps thousands, that I trained for the seven years I was with the Second Red Army, and then came 1934. The Long March. I am not ashamed to admit that I considered deserting during it. Anyone would. We left what had been our lands in November 1935, and we marched for Yan’an. I watched those that I had known as friends and those that I had trained die. Hypothemia, starvation, exhaustion, raids by bandits and warlords. I… I have never experienced such suffering in my life. Nothing before and nothing after can compare to the Long March. But the Long March hardened me. I pushed on. I would finish it, as not to do so would be a betrayal of all those I had fought beside.”

“I, along with the Second Red Army, arrived at Bao’an in Shaanxi on October 22nd 1935. We had marched for almost a year, but for those of us who were left, we were the vanguard. Those with the will and determination to overcome anything, even the greatest of obstacles. And I was proud to be there.”

“I did not object to the Second United Front. The enemy of our enemy is our friend, even if they have been and will be our enemy afterwards. I was a political officer, a captain in the 129th Division of the Eighth Route Army, in 1937, but I did not remain at that post for long. Comrade Mao put out the call for volunteers to create a new, revolutionary martial art, one that did not restrict itself and could be learned by anyone. I was Deputy of the Committee to Create a Martial Art for the Revolution, and I was one of the first to be trained in its use and then to train others in its use. I did so as part of the Red Fighters, as they are known in the West. I was not involved in combat action, however, as I was too valuable as an instructor for the new art, at least not until we had a sufficient force that I could be raised to the rank of Captain in the Red Fighters.”

“I would remain a captain until 1941. I personally led sabotage operations behind Japanese lines; their Ki experts and Onmyodo users were unprepared for such a new form of fighting. We were like a scream on the wind, carving fear into the imperialist army. No one was safe, no installation or bridge secure. And then, while resupplying, I had my command rescinded, and I was given another. I was named ‘Chief of the Red Fighters of the Shadow Operations Commandos’ and was given a horse and multiple pieces of paper which I could not read, but which I was informed of their contents by Comrade Mao in person.”

“I rode across the Mongolian steppes, escorted by a small group of cavalry from the Mongolian Army. They were quite friendly, even if we did not entirely understand one another. I was handed over to Soviets at the border, and from there we took the Trans-Siberian Railway to Moscow.”

“I arrived in Moscow just as the fascists were at the doorstep, and so I fought, attached to the 9th Esper Detachment. They were not entirely sure what to make of me at first; a Chinese man with a large number of weapons, and I suppose neither were our opposition. Werewolves, magi and witches do not expect a man, no matter how heavily armed, to be able to oppose them. I showed them the price of their hubris, their arrogance, for assuming me to be a man on a death mission.”
“I remained in Moscow until August 1942, after which I was released and allowed to continue my orders. I do not begrudge the Soviets for holding me back. The revolution, no matter where, must be defended at all costs. I left for Archangel, and from there returned on a convoy to Britain, where I arrived in Edinburgh in September 1942. I had lost my orders in English by then, and so unable to speak English or otherwise contact whomever I was supposed to contact, I elected to head to London, trekking southwards. I was captured by elements of the Home Guard during my trek, just south of Edinburgh; zealous, yes, but helpful. I was a Chinese man in a Soviet uniform with Chinese patches added on in the middle of Scotland.”

“I was taken to a PoW camp, where they had an interrogator interrogate me, first in what I think was Japanese, and then in Chinese. I communicated my orders and refused to say anything else bar my name and rank, and after several days, they confirmed that with the Shadow Operations Command. I explained my situation, and by the middle of October, I was released from the camp, given a new uniform which I transferred the patches of my old uniform over to, and then I was introduced to the Shadow Operations Command.”

Psychological Profile: “I am no psychologist. Regardless, I believe my experiences have desensitised me to many things. I have but a single goal, to achieve the revolution in China envisioned by Comrade Mao and that my friends have sacrificed themselves to bring closer.”
Why do you fight?: “I fight because war, war is all I have ever known. That, and I believe in the future envisioned by Comrade Mao at the end of it, although I shall likely never see it.”
Defining Quote: “Comrade Mao said political power comes out of the barrel of a gun. I have a lot of guns.”
RP Sample: See previous app.

Aaaand it's done. God that was surprisingly fun to write for such a long bio.

[Minroz]

Hooray for chapter two! Nice to see it's back and running. :3

[Agritum]

Player Character App (Shadow Ops Operative)

Name: “My name is Zhao Min. People call me Zhao.”
Gender: “Male.”
Age: “42. Or 43, depending on my day of birth.”
D.O.B.: “By your Western calendar, 1900. I do not know the exact date.”
Physical Description and/or Picture: “People call me unassuming. I suppose that is the case. I am short by western standards, not particularly bulky or strong looking. My face is plain; I keep my black hair closely trimmed, along with my facial hair, and I do not have any scars to speak of.”
Species: “I am just a regular human, although I am trained in the revolutionary martial art you call ‘Gun Kata’.”
Nationality: “Chinese, of the People’s Republic.”
Ethnicity: “Han Chinese.”
Religion: “None. I believe it is called Atheism.”
Powers/Magical Specializations: “I suppose ‘Gun Kata’ may count, although I do not believe it to be a power.”
Bio: “I was born in Yunnan Province. Kunming, to be exact. I do not remember my mother. My father said either she left or died when I was young, I never got a clear story from him. Regardless, the cause does not matter. I grew up with my father, in a military barracks in Kunming. He was a soldier in Yunnan’s provincial army, and I suppose so was I from birth. I did not learn to farm, to read, to write. I learned how to strip and clean a rifle at the age of seven. I learned how to fire one at eight. At nine, I suppose I could be considered formally enlisted into the army as a runner, not that formal enlistment was really a thing. Discipline was non-existent, hence why a child was allowed to live in barracks.”

“I would not call it peaceful. There were bandits; but our commander had an arrangement with the bandits, and so we did not fight them. I served as the runner for our… I believe we were a battalion, in Western terms. Maybe a brigade. There was no standardisation in unit size. I became something of a mascot to the barracks; the commander used that as his justification. It was good for morale or something. I was trained, as best as one can be trained by undisciplined alcoholics of soldiers who have fought nothing but minor skirmishes against bandits.”

“Not much changed for us in Yunnan. The world outside moved on. The Qing fell, the Republic was declared. We were soldiers, not politicians. We did not understand politics. We followed orders. I was but fifteen when I first marched to war. I was a soldier, there, not a runner. I had a rifle, I had a uniform, I had what limited equipment was standard issue, I had trained. I thought I was ready. I was not.”

“I first fought at some nameless battle in Sichuan. Warfare in China was different to what you know. It was not the First World War, as neither artillery nor munitions were available. It was as if there were two tidal waves of men, each seeking to drown the other. I did not see tactics. I did not see strategy. I saw brute force and ignorance, men’s lives cast away like ash and dust in the wind for supposedly greater men. My father was one of them. I remained with the National Protection Army until the end of the National Protection War. I had an obligation to carry out, and so I served it. The one part of military discipline that my upbringing installed.”

“After the end of the National Protection War, I did not remain with the Yunnan Army. My father may had died in their service, but I did not wish to remain with such a force. Cai E was not worthy of my loyalty. Instead, I travelled north, with elements of the National Protection Army that had defected and lived further north. I do not remember much from the rest of 1916, by the Western Calendar. It, along with the early months of 1917, was mostly spent marching north to Beijing, with occasional stops to requisition more food.”

“That was the first time I personally was involved with the distasteful practice. With the National Protection Army other detachments had done so, but here myself and my squad did so personally. It was necessary for our survival, but I could not stand it regardless. A squad of soldiers, not all uniformed for by that point such things like that which resembled a military were rapidly decaying, would march into a village with a wagon or two, and we would demand their food. They would refuse, one of them would be shot as an example to the others, we would load up the wagon and return to the main body. We repeated this process countless times. I suppose that it was this that first awakened me to the state of the rural peasantry. The landlords, the government, the army, all they did was take at gunpoint.”

“We arrived in Beijing in early 1917, and we were billeted in Tianjin. Once again, I was subject to the whims of great men. Some general declared the restoration of the Qing; another general, whom I was now under the command of, opposed him. We besieged the capital, and then assaulted the capital. The battle was brief, thankfully, and our opposition surrendered. I remained in Beijing as part of the military garrison for some years afterwards, and it was during that time I first was introduced to communism. I, along with other elements of the Beijing Garrison, was ordered to suppress the May 4th Movement. I did so; I assisted the police in suppressing the protest, in arresting students, and in collecting evidence. There was little divide between the police and army at the time, one did much the same as the other. It reminded me of the food requisitions; I was not sure what I was supposed to be fighting for, but I was not supposed to be suppressing student protests.”

“A comrade of mine by the name of Ying Li first introduced me to communism in 1921. He was a member of the Beijing group of the Communist Party of China, and as a friend of his, he felt that I would understand the idea. I did not understand the ideas at first, but over time, they made sense. I had seen what our country was becoming first hand, and I did not like where I saw it heading. Ying introduced me to the rest of the group, and they were quite succinct in explaining what they stood for. I naturally found myself nodding along, and I became Member #96 of the Communist Party of China.”

“I fought with the Zhili Clique during the early 1920s. I fought against the Anhui Clique in 1920, Fengtian in 1922 and 1924. They were meaningless wars to me, but I needed to live, and the army was the only trade I had ever known or would ever know. I attended meetings of the Beijing Group of the Communist Party of China whenever I was in the city, and I did what little I could to spread the revolution within the ranks of the army.”

“I defected to the KMT in 1926 at the start of the Northern Expedition after the battle of Wuchang, where I was part of the surrendering forces, having been moved there in 1924. I would not fight comrades in alliance in support of the revolution, which the KMT were at the time, but only briefly. I deserted the National Republican Army in 1927, fearing for my life as members of the Communist Party of China were being purged by the KMT. I was enlisted into the Chinese Red Army upon its founding as part of the Second Red Army, more precisely in the Hubei-Henan-Anhui Soviet, and I fought through the Four Encirclement Campaigns. It was those four long campaigns when I truly became committed to the cause. We were outnumbered, outgunned, and yet we held on for four long years against all odds as the National Republican Army tried and failed to crush us under their iron jackboots. We did not have to requisition food, for the peasants gave what they could to us freely, and the NRA would take it anyways if we lost. I met comrades there, who would become friends, close friends, only to have them killed by the NRA.”

“We fought tooth and nail against the NRA, but revolutionary fervour cannot match sheer numbers and ignorance. Due to my experience in military matters, and my ideological conviction, I served as an instructor. I trained the men of the Soviet to fight the nationalists, I fought alongside them, the leader of their squad or company or whatever it was, but I was their leader. I suppose I came to consider the comrades I trained to be a family, almost, and they were a family I watched die.”

“Of the… It must have been hundreds, perhaps thousands, that I trained for the seven years I was with the Second Red Army, and then came 1934. The Long March. I am not ashamed to admit that I considered deserting during it. Anyone would. We left what had been our lands in November 1935, and we marched for Yan’an. I watched those that I had known as friends and those that I had trained die. Hypothemia, starvation, exhaustion, raids by bandits and warlords. I… I have never experienced such suffering in my life. Nothing before and nothing after can compare to the Long March. But the Long March hardened me. I pushed on. I would finish it, as not to do so would be a betrayal of all those I had fought beside.”

“I, along with the Second Red Army, arrived at Bao’an in Shaanxi on October 22nd 1935. We had marched for almost a year, but for those of us who were left, we were the vanguard. Those with the will and determination to overcome anything, even the greatest of obstacles. And I was proud to be there.”

“I did not object to the Second United Front. The enemy of our enemy is our friend, even if they have been and will be our enemy afterwards. I was a political officer, a captain in the 129th Division of the Eighth Route Army, in 1937, but I did not remain at that post for long. Comrade Mao put out the call for volunteers to create a new, revolutionary martial art, one that did not restrict itself and could be learned by anyone. I was Deputy of the Committee to Create a Martial Art for the Revolution, and I was one of the first to be trained in its use and then to train others in its use. I did so as part of the Red Fighters, as they are known in the West. I was not involved in combat action, however, as I was too valuable as an instructor for the new art, at least not until we had a sufficient force that I could be raised to the rank of Captain in the Red Fighters.”

“I would remain a captain until 1941. I personally led sabotage operations behind Japanese lines; their Ki experts and Onmyodo users were unprepared for such a new form of fighting. We were like a scream on the wind, carving fear into the imperialist army. No one was safe, no installation or bridge secure. And then, while resupplying, I had my command rescinded, and I was given another. I was named ‘Chief of the Red Fighters of the Shadow Operations Commandos’ and was given a horse and multiple pieces of paper which I could not read, but which I was informed of their contents by Comrade Mao in person.”

“I rode across the Mongolian steppes, escorted by a small group of cavalry from the Mongolian Army. They were quite friendly, even if we did not entirely understand one another. I was handed over to Soviets at the border, and from there we took the Trans-Siberian Railway to Moscow.”

“I arrived in Moscow just as the fascists were at the doorstep, and so I fought, attached to the 9th Esper Detachment. They were not entirely sure what to make of me at first; a Chinese man with a large number of weapons, and I suppose neither were our opposition. Werewolves, magi and witches do not expect a man, no matter how heavily armed, to be able to oppose them. I showed them the price of their hubris, their arrogance, for assuming me to be a man on a death mission.”
“I remained in Moscow until August 1942, after which I was released and allowed to continue my orders. I do not begrudge the Soviets for holding me back. The revolution, no matter where, must be defended at all costs. I left for Archangel, and from there returned on a convoy to Britain, where I arrived in Edinburgh in September 1942. I had lost my orders in English by then, and so unable to speak English or otherwise contact whomever I was supposed to contact, I elected to head to London, trekking southwards. I was captured by elements of the Home Guard during my trek, just south of Edinburgh; zealous, yes, but helpful. I was a Chinese man in a Soviet uniform with Chinese patches added on in the middle of Scotland.”

“I was taken to a PoW camp, where they had an interrogator interrogate me, first in what I think was Japanese, and then in Chinese. I communicated my orders and refused to say anything else bar my name and rank, and after several days, they confirmed that with the Shadow Operations Command. I explained my situation, and by the middle of October, I was released from the camp, given a new uniform which I transferred the patches of my old uniform over to, and then I was introduced to the Shadow Operations Command.”

Psychological Profile: “I am no psychologist. Regardless, I believe my experiences have desensitised me to many things. I have but a single goal, to achieve the revolution in China envisioned by Comrade Mao and that my friends have sacrificed themselves to bring closer.”
Why do you fight?: “I fight because war, war is all I have ever known. That, and I believe in the future envisioned by Comrade Mao at the end of it, although I shall likely never see it.”
Defining Quote: “Comrade Mao said political power comes out of the barrel of a gun. I have a lot of guns.”
RP Sample: See previous app.

Aaaand it's done. God that was surprisingly fun to write for such a long bio.

Accepted!

[Agritum]

I've FINALLY updated the Dramatis Personae. Soni, Lunas, Knockout, you're all in.

Are you still around, Kassaran?

[Remnants of Exilvania]

I've FINALLY updated the Dramatis Personae. Soni, Lunas, Knockout, you're all in.

Are you still around, Kassaran?

Do newcomers also start in the bar or do we get to wait to be introduced in a mission briefing?

[Lunas Legion]

I've FINALLY updated the Dramatis Personae. Soni, Lunas, Knockout, you're all in.

Are you still around, Kassaran?

Do newcomers also start in the bar or do we get to wait to be introduced in a mission briefing?

I was going to have Zhao be under orders to report to his unit's C.O, who is currently in the bar. Unfortunately, Zhao does not approve of alcohol and soldiers mixing.

[Agritum]

I've FINALLY updated the Dramatis Personae. Soni, Lunas, Knockout, you're all in.

Are you still around, Kassaran?

Do newcomers also start in the bar or do we get to wait to be introduced in a mission briefing?

Dietrich can start going around. He could keep it a surprise.

[Remnants of Exilvania]

Player Character App (Shadow Ops Operative)

Name: Antoniya Filipova Nankova
Gender: Female
Age: 16 years
D.O.B.: 22.11.1926
Physical Description and/or Picture:
Species: Human (Witch)
Nationality: Bulgarian
Ethnicity: Bulgarian
Religion (if any): Bulgarian Orthodox
Powers/Magical Specializations: Wind Manipulation: Well, what can you expect? She manipulates winds to change direction or increase or decrease their strength at her bidding. However, she is fairly young and thus her knowledge and profiency with spells in that area is not very high. But she does have one deadly spell which she does like to use rather frequently. She likes to call it "Razorwind" and it acts pretty much like razor sharp threads coming from her very fingers. It is this spell why she was conscripted in Bulgaria and helped in the defense of the Bulgarian Airspace, gaining a terrifying reputation for cutting apart allied bomber and fighter planes mid flight on their way to Ploesti or other cities in the Balkans.
Bio: Well, then. Let's see if I can pull a half decent bio for this.

Our little Antoniya was born straight into a Bulgarian Witch Coven. Yes, they have a separate one since the rise of nationalism and the wars fought over it didn't keep the witches of the area unaffected. Anyways, yes, born into a small secret coven in eastern Bulgaria, near Sofia. Problem was, Eastern Bulgaria and especcially the aea around Sofia was just teeming with refugees from Macedonia and other now Yugoslavian territories so the coven was forced to lay low and the witches were forced to keep their practices a secret. Well okay, they had to keep it a secret anyways due tothe masquerade but now, with so many people around, keeping this secret got so much more difficult, pretty much forcing them to just completely discard their practices over longer periods of time. The entire problem with the poor refugees got even worse when the financial crisis hit. Now many weren't just bad off, they were desperate and ready to do nearly anything.

It was in this environment that the small Antoniya grew up in. Misery everywhere. People blaming the Serbians and for their misery. Witches who didn't dare to practice their craft out of fear of getting discovered. Misery, Extremism and Paranoia shaped her early life. And still, despite all this, the people were nice to a little girl like her. For the most part. And it wasn't like she didn't get any training at all in her craft. It was merely more difficult to do so in secret and they often had to make holidays in some even more rural and generally more western area of the country to really practice important lessons such as flying on a bloody broom. Something they definitely couldn't have practiced around Sofia.

Well, then 1939, shortly before her thirteenth birthday, the Second World War started...and the Masquerade was brutally torn down by Germany which used its incredible arsenal of men, material and paranormal forces to crush Poland, Denmark, Norway, the Benelux Countries and France in a series of so called Blitzkriege. Of course the use of the paranormals within Germany's miltiary attracted the attention of nearly every other power. And soon, with the Masquerade already breached, paranormals started approaching the governments, which welcomed them with open arms. They often hoped to live out their craft more openly and the governments sought to utilize these previously unknown ressources among their people for the protection of their countries. Antoniya's coven also sought out the government of Tsar Boris III, they too wanted to have an easier time at practicing their craft.

Bulgaria had always had reputation for going absolutely insane when duty called for it. In the first World War, the tiny 4 million country mobilised 1 million soldiers for the war. Now the country had about 6 million people and among them the amount of supernatural elements willing to work with the Tsar wasn't that. Not just due to a general dislike of breaching the Masquerade but also due to the fact that a small country generally also had very few paranormals living within its borders. So even small Antoniya was pulled into the ranks of the Bulgarian Armed Forces and ended up in the tiny Air Force like most of the other witches. But they never had to fight the germans. No Tsar Boris III had a fairly good personal relationship with Adolf Hitler...and between dictatorships, good relations between the rulers was all that mattered. Bulgaria began to steer onto an Axis friendly path, one that bore first fruits in 1940, when the Treaty of Craiova saw the Southern Dobrudja returned into Bulgaria's loving hands.

In 1941 Hitler turned his attention to the Balkans due to the presence of the British Expeditionary Forces and the coup in Yugoslavia. Sensing Danger for the Romanian Oil, the Germans Forces, supported by Italian and Hungarian Forces, launched their Balkan Campaigns against Yugoslavia and Greece. Bulgaria did not participate and merely granted the Axis forces passage. But while Bulgaria was not very eager to fight for the Axis, it was all the more eager to claim and control its lost lands, brutally if necessary as evidenced by their brutal conduct against Yugoslavian Partisans and Greek Protesters. It was here that Antoniya, still only about 15 years old, tasted true battle for the first time. She and and the other witches of her coven were often used for patrol flights over the newly acquired territories and make out, report and engage any suspicious elements. She found a small Bulgarian patrol which had been ambushed by partisans and decided to help them out against the threat. With her support of her spells, the patrol managed to repel the attackers, who vanished into the depths of the Macedonian forests again.

Despite not showing it, these first kills she made had quite an impact on the young Antoniya. Only the witches from her coven, who were rather close to her, could sense what was going on within her. The regrets to have killed these poor people who were only fighting for their country and who probably had a family waiting for them...a family who had now lost them forever. They tried to comfort her but she didn't let anything get through. On the 13th December 1941, Bulgaria declared war on the Allies, more specifically the US and the UK. This was it. Bulgaria was finally properly in the war. And due to the allies being currently incapable of launching any land based operations against Bulgaria, they instead resorted to bombings. The witches of the country now had to be deployed in the air war over the Balkans, to protect both their homeland from the subsequent allied bombings as well as the route towards the Ploesti which was frequented by Allied Aircraft to try and hit the Romanian oil production. Antoniya too, despite of her bad mental condition, was deployed again. And she made this deployment worth it. Over the following months, she gained a terrifying reputation for slicing apart allied aircraft in mid air. However, her sisters from the coven also noticed a worrying shift in personality. Antoniya was getting more and more desensitized towards killing and death...no...she was actually starting to enjoy it. For instance, she took a liking to cutting parachutes, leaving bailed out pilots to fall to their deaths. She gained the nickname Rjasanoj Smert aka Cutting Death.

But an ace like her of course also got to hear news from other fronts. Such as the Eastern Front. Bulgaria had not declared war on the Soviet Union, a miracle that Tsar Boris III had somehow managed to pull off. Overall the Bulgarians were not exactly the best allies of Germany. So far they hadn't contributed to even just a single campaign, their entire use so far being restricted to garrison duties and aerial protection. They even dared to keep the jews of core Bulgaria from the grasp of the Nazis. Antoniya had heard already long before about the ravings of Hitler, about the Nazis' racial theories and the way they classified people. She knew that Slavs were considered subhumans in their eyes. However, she had not thought that the Nazis would actually act so brutally about it. She heard the tales of the brutality of the conquest in Russia, she heard aboutt he mass starvation of the Russian POWs. She heard about it all. And it created doubt within her. Would the Nazis really just stick to the enemy Slavs, especcially once they were finished with them? No, she could already see the country and all the people she was fighting for being exterminated by the Nazis once they had won and eliminated any and all threats to their iron rule.

And so she decided to defect. It was fairly easy. As a well known ace she could get nearly anywhere in Bulgaria. And once at the Turkish-Bulgarian border, nobody could've stopped her anyways. She crossed over into Turkey and surrendered herself to the British Embassy.
Psychological Profile: Despite her youth, she is a cold blooded professional with a knack for sadism. Also gets really annoyed when people do question her about her age and then start questioning her abilities and reason to be int he war because she is so young. People who do that tend to lose a couple fingers.
Why do you fight?: "I fight for my Tsar's Bulgaria. Why I am here then? Well, I realised that a nation that was so quick to classify Slavs as subhumans would probably very quickly turn on its slavic allies after it has emerged victorious from the World War and the insignificant military power of the allies has become unnecessary. And the only way to prevent this from happening is to ensure that said nation does never emerge victorious from this great struggle."
Defining Quote: "The act of killing is easy. The regrets haunting you later are the real hurdle. But I got over that already."
RP Sample: I'd write how she defected in Constantinople but I am sort of short on time lately.

[Riysa]

Here's that app. I'll post the Ruqaya Shar'iya description tomorrow.

Player Character App (Shadow Ops Operative)

Name: Haitham Sayyah
Gender: Male
Age: 23
D.O.B.: April 7, 1919
Physical Description and/or Picture: Pale skin, with an angular face turned tanned and tired from all of the combat in the sun, with brownish-black hair and olive green eyes.
Species (if Human, specify if Mundane, Mage, Witch, Minuteman or Esper): Human, mage (technically)
Nationality: Syrian
Ethnicity: Arab
Religion (if any): Islam
Powers/Magical Specializations (Only if Mage, Witch or Esper): Ruqaya Shar'iya.
Bio:

Haitham was born into a war-torn country filled with the hope for freedom, and grew up with its ruthless betrayal by the European powers, a sense only exacerbated by the brutality of 1925. Like most after that, hating their crimes and exploitation became as casual and easy as taking a breath of air, and like most, he hit back when he could. This led to him getting arrested by the colonial police a few times as a kid, generally involving throwing rocks and other forms of abuse, an act he took pride in.

As he grew into his teens, faced with more responsibilities, he changed a bit, even as the populace became more and more agitated. Spending most of his time - when not studying in the neighborhood's school - helping out his father run the family's perfume business, he learned to be smarter and less overt. Most of the day he was a relatively normal person, but at night and when nobody was looking, he and the other youth would help out the adults with their resistance, culminating in smuggling weapons across the border into mandatory Palestine to support resistance fighters there. At the same time, he started to dabble in politics, his conservative, traditional beliefs leading him to support the extremely popular National Front. Eventually, when he came of age, he went to study pharmacy at the local university.

It was clear though that the world was heading to another war, from the 1936 incident with the National Front delegates in Paris, to the rise of the new German nation. Many at home became supportive of them, as Nazi Germany had seemingly no imperialistic ambitions in the area, and they both had suffered at the hands of the great colonial powers. When the war did come, the Germans were more than happy to welcome "anti-imperialist" volunteers from the area, while downplaying their racial ideology. It was said that the head politicians of Germany were fascinated by the religion and the power of its ruqaya shar'iya healing and counter-magic, and that they wanted to recruit volunteers from Arabia to fight against the magic used by others. With the Germans seemingly headed to victory, and with the chance to strike back once and for all at those who had destroyed his country, he volunteered as well.

Thanks to his college educated, he was selected for officer training, and was commissioned as the commander of a volunteer "witch hunter" platoon - part of the program to harness the power of the Arab volunteers - attached to a Fallschirmjager division's reconnaissance unit. His motley group of Syrians and Iraqis were activated just in time to participate in the violent maelstrom of Crete, where against heavy fire from conventional and paranormal forces, they had mostly managed to survive. Their success there resulted in a quick promotion and a reassignment with the division to the Eastern Front. By the time they rotated out of there, the platoon had claimed dozens of "kills" on enemy paranormal forces from its inception, himself responsible for 10. He also became known for wearing the dark Fallschirmjager panzer-style jacket while at night, leading to the nickname of "Black Captain", and the unit even received a mention in dispatches for their actions in Crete.

However, he also developed serious doubts about the morality of his service, after witnessing the Nazi's brutality first-hand and their demonic Vril. It seemed as if they were slowly damning their souls staying associated with the Nazis; despite all of their promises of freedom and his hatred of the French and British colonialists, it just wasn't worth it helping out what turned out to be a potentially greater evil. Unfortunately though, there was nowhere to run on the Eastern Front, as the godless Soviets were not really better and were not very caring of enemy POWs. So, the fighting continued, and as the Front turned extra lethal, more men from the platoon died.

His breakthrough came with their reassignment to the Ramtke Brigade heading to North Africa, where their cultural background was just as valuable as their skills. There, he could escape to the British - who, despite being hated, were viewed slightly more favorably than the French - and hopefully find his way back home. On the night on October 20th, he gathered up the members of the platoon who agreed with him, strangled the couple of informants in their barracks, hijacked some empty trucks, and quickly sprinted for the nearest British-held town. This resulted in a harrowing chase across the desert, trying to escape aircraft patrols, coming under fire from both sides, having to abandon their damaged vehicles, and negotiating an unmarked minefield, before finally defecting to the British. Half the platoon had died in the attempt, but half survived - including him.

Quickly spirited away to the British Isles and relentlessly debriefed, he expected to face a POW camp. Instead, he was separated from his men, quickly patched up, and given new, obscure orders. Little did he know that his time in the military was to feature a whole new chapter.

Psychological Profile: Circumspect, stoic, and exhausted to the point of dourness, his age and the two years he's spent in combat has tempered the fire of his youth. He'll keep fighting though, if that is what it takes, through the pain and the nightmares at night.
Why do you fight?: "For the love of the land of my ancestors, for liberty, and for those that have passed."
Defining Quote: "Everything happens for a reason, whether we know it or not. If you do know the reason, though, you can make better use of it."
RP Sample: Here you go.

[Minroz]

Anybody wants to volunteer their charas as ones being bumped by drunk Terry? :3

[Lunas Legion]

Anybody wants to volunteer their charas as ones being bumped by drunk Terry? :3

Either Robert or Zhao would work since the former is currently brooding over a beer while the latter is trying to figure out who in this den of degeneracy he's meant to report to (and has extremely bad English).

[Agritum]

Player Character App (Shadow Ops Operative)

Name: Antoniya Filipova Nankova
Gender: Female
Age: 16 years
D.O.B.: 22.11.1926
Physical Description and/or Picture: (Image)
Species: Human (Witch)
Nationality: Bulgarian
Ethnicity: Bulgarian
Religion (if any): Bulgarian Orthodox
Powers/Magical Specializations: Wind Manipulation: Well, what can you expect? She manipulates winds to change direction or increase or decrease their strength at her bidding. However, she is fairly young and thus her knowledge and profiency with spells in that area is not very high. But she does have one deadly spell which she does like to use rather frequently. She likes to call it "Razorwind" and it acts pretty much like razor sharp threads coming from her very fingers. It is this spell why she was conscripted in Bulgaria and helped in the defense of the Bulgarian Airspace, gaining a terrifying reputation for cutting apart allied bomber and fighter planes mid flight on their way to Ploesti or other cities in the Balkans.
Bio: Well, then. Let's see if I can pull a half decent bio for this.

Our little Antoniya was born straight into a Bulgarian Witch Coven. Yes, they have a separate one since the rise of nationalism and the wars fought over it didn't keep the witches of the area unaffected. Anyways, yes, born into a small secret coven in eastern Bulgaria, near Sofia. Problem was, Eastern Bulgaria and especcially the aea around Sofia was just teeming with refugees from Macedonia and other now Yugoslavian territories so the coven was forced to lay low and the witches were forced to keep their practices a secret. Well okay, they had to keep it a secret anyways due tothe masquerade but now, with so many people around, keeping this secret got so much more difficult, pretty much forcing them to just completely discard their practices over longer periods of time. The entire problem with the poor refugees got even worse when the financial crisis hit. Now many weren't just bad off, they were desperate and ready to do nearly anything.

It was in this environment that the small Antoniya grew up in. Misery everywhere. People blaming the Serbians and for their misery. Witches who didn't dare to practice their craft out of fear of getting discovered. Misery, Extremism and Paranoia shaped her early life. And still, despite all this, the people were nice to a little girl like her. For the most part. And it wasn't like she didn't get any training at all in her craft. It was merely more difficult to do so in secret and they often had to make holidays in some even more rural and generally more western area of the country to really practice important lessons such as flying on a bloody broom. Something they definitely couldn't have practiced around Sofia.

Well, then 1939, shortly before her thirteenth birthday, the Second World War started...and the Masquerade was brutally torn down by Germany which used its incredible arsenal of men, material and paranormal forces to crush Poland, Denmark, Norway, the Benelux Countries and France in a series of so called Blitzkriege. Of course the use of the paranormals within Germany's miltiary attracted the attention of nearly every other power. And soon, with the Masquerade already breached, paranormals started approaching the governments, which welcomed them with open arms. They often hoped to live out their craft more openly and the governments sought to utilize these previously unknown ressources among their people for the protection of their countries. Antoniya's coven also sought out the government of Tsar Boris III, they too wanted to have an easier time at practicing their craft.

Bulgaria had always had reputation for going absolutely insane when duty called for it. In the first World War, the tiny 4 million country mobilised 1 million soldiers for the war. Now the country had about 6 million people and among them the amount of supernatural elements willing to work with the Tsar wasn't that. Not just due to a general dislike of breaching the Masquerade but also due to the fact that a small country generally also had very few paranormals living within its borders. So even small Antoniya was pulled into the ranks of the Bulgarian Armed Forces and ended up in the tiny Air Force like most of the other witches. But they never had to fight the germans. No Tsar Boris III had a fairly good personal relationship with Adolf Hitler...and between dictatorships, good relations between the rulers was all that mattered. Bulgaria began to steer onto an Axis friendly path, one that bore first fruits in 1940, when the Treaty of Craiova saw the Southern Dobrudja returned into Bulgaria's loving hands.

In 1941 Hitler turned his attention to the Balkans due to the presence of the British Expeditionary Forces and the coup in Yugoslavia. Sensing Danger for the Romanian Oil, the Germans Forces, supported by Italian and Hungarian Forces, launched their Balkan Campaigns against Yugoslavia and Greece. Bulgaria did not participate and merely granted the Axis forces passage. But while Bulgaria was not very eager to fight for the Axis, it was all the more eager to claim and control its lost lands, brutally if necessary as evidenced by their brutal conduct against Yugoslavian Partisans and Greek Protesters. It was here that Antoniya, still only about 15 years old, tasted true battle for the first time. She and and the other witches of her coven were often used for patrol flights over the newly acquired territories and make out, report and engage any suspicious elements. She found a small Bulgarian patrol which had been ambushed by partisans and decided to help them out against the threat. With her support of her spells, the patrol managed to repel the attackers, who vanished into the depths of the Macedonian forests again.

Despite not showing it, these first kills she made had quite an impact on the young Antoniya. Only the witches from her coven, who were rather close to her, could sense what was going on within her. The regrets to have killed these poor people who were only fighting for their country and who probably had a family waiting for them...a family who had now lost them forever. They tried to comfort her but she didn't let anything get through. On the 13th December 1941, Bulgaria declared war on the Allies, more specifically the US and the UK. This was it. Bulgaria was finally properly in the war. And due to the allies being currently incapable of launching any land based operations against Bulgaria, they instead resorted to bombings. The witches of the country now had to be deployed in the air war over the Balkans, to protect both their homeland from the subsequent allied bombings as well as the route towards the Ploesti which was frequented by Allied Aircraft to try and hit the Romanian oil production. Antoniya too, despite of her bad mental condition, was deployed again. And she made this deployment worth it. Over the following months, she gained a terrifying reputation for slicing apart allied aircraft in mid air. However, her sisters from the coven also noticed a worrying shift in personality. Antoniya was getting more and more desensitized towards killing and death...no...she was actually starting to enjoy it. For instance, she took a liking to cutting parachutes, leaving bailed out pilots to fall to their deaths. She gained the nickname Rjasanoj Smert aka Cutting Death.

But an ace like her of course also got to hear news from other fronts. Such as the Eastern Front. Bulgaria had not declared war on the Soviet Union, a miracle that Tsar Boris III had somehow managed to pull off. Overall the Bulgarians were not exactly the best allies of Germany. So far they hadn't contributed to even just a single campaign, their entire use so far being restricted to garrison duties and aerial protection. They even dared to keep the jews of core Bulgaria from the grasp of the Nazis. Antoniya had heard already long before about the ravings of Hitler, about the Nazis' racial theories and the way they classified people. She knew that Slavs were considered subhumans in their eyes. However, she had not thought that the Nazis would actually act so brutally about it. She heard the tales of the brutality of the conquest in Russia, she heard aboutt he mass starvation of the Russian POWs. She heard about it all. And it created doubt within her. Would the Nazis really just stick to the enemy Slavs, especcially once they were finished with them? No, she could already see the country and all the people she was fighting for being exterminated by the Nazis once they had won and eliminated any and all threats to their iron rule.

And so she decided to defect. It was fairly easy. As a well known ace she could get nearly anywhere in Bulgaria. And once at the Turkish-Bulgarian border, nobody could've stopped her anyways. She crossed over into Turkey and surrendered herself to the British Embassy.
Psychological Profile: Despite her youth, she is a cold blooded professional with a knack for sadism. Also gets really annoyed when people do question her about her age and then start questioning her abilities and reason to be int he war because she is so young. People who do that tend to lose a couple fingers.
Why do you fight?: "I fight for my Tsar's Bulgaria. Why I am here then? Well, I realised that a nation that was so quick to classify Slavs as subhumans would probably very quickly turn on its slavic allies after it has emerged victorious from the World War and the insignificant military power of the allies has become unnecessary. And the only way to prevent this from happening is to ensure that said nation does never emerge victorious from this great struggle."
Defining Quote: "The act of killing is easy. The regrets haunting you later are the real hurdle. But I got over that already."
RP Sample: I'd write how she defected in Constantinople but I am sort of short on time lately.

Accepted.

Here's that app. I'll post the Ruqaya Shar'iya description tomorrow.

Player Character App (Shadow Ops Operative)

Name: Haitham Sayyah
Gender: Male
Age: 23
D.O.B.: April 7, 1919
Physical Description and/or Picture: Pale skin, with an angular face turned tanned and tired from all of the combat in the sun, with brownish-black hair and olive green eyes.
Species (if Human, specify if Mundane, Mage, Witch, Minuteman or Esper): Human, mage (technically)
Nationality: Syrian
Ethnicity: Arab
Religion (if any): Islam
Powers/Magical Specializations (Only if Mage, Witch or Esper): Ruqaya Shar'iya.
Bio:

Haitham was born into a war-torn country filled with the hope for freedom, and grew up with its ruthless betrayal by the European powers, a sense only exacerbated by the brutality of 1925. Like most after that, hating their crimes and exploitation became as casual and easy as taking a breath of air, and like most, he hit back when he could. This led to him getting arrested by the colonial police a few times as a kid, generally involving throwing rocks and other forms of abuse, an act he took pride in.

As he grew into his teens, faced with more responsibilities, he changed a bit, even as the populace became more and more agitated. Spending most of his time - when not studying in the neighborhood's school - helping out his father run the family's perfume business, he learned to be smarter and less overt. Most of the day he was a relatively normal person, but at night and when nobody was looking, he and the other youth would help out the adults with their resistance, culminating in smuggling weapons across the border into mandatory Palestine to support resistance fighters there. At the same time, he started to dabble in politics, his conservative, traditional beliefs leading him to support the extremely popular National Front. Eventually, when he came of age, he went to study pharmacy at the local university.

It was clear though that the world was heading to another war, from the 1936 incident with the National Front delegates in Paris, to the rise of the new German nation. Many at home became supportive of them, as Nazi Germany had seemingly no imperialistic ambitions in the area, and they both had suffered at the hands of the great colonial powers. When the war did come, the Germans were more than happy to welcome "anti-imperialist" volunteers from the area, while downplaying their racial ideology. It was said that the head politicians of Germany were fascinated by the religion and the power of its ruqaya shar'iya healing and counter-magic, and that they wanted to recruit volunteers from Arabia to fight against the magic used by others. With the Germans seemingly headed to victory, and with the chance to strike back once and for all at those who had destroyed his country, he volunteered as well.

Thanks to his college educated, he was selected for officer training, and was commissioned as the commander of a volunteer "witch hunter" platoon - part of the program to harness the power of the Arab volunteers - attached to a Fallschirmjager division's reconnaissance unit. His motley group of Syrians and Iraqis were activated just in time to participate in the violent maelstrom of Crete, where against heavy fire from conventional and paranormal forces, they had mostly managed to survive. Their success there resulted in a quick promotion and a reassignment with the division to the Eastern Front. By the time they rotated out of there, the platoon had claimed dozens of "kills" on enemy paranormal forces from its inception, himself responsible for 10. He also became known for wearing the dark Fallschirmjager panzer-style jacket while at night, leading to the nickname of "Black Captain", and the unit even received a mention in dispatches for their actions in Crete.

However, he also developed serious doubts about the morality of his service, after witnessing the Nazi's brutality first-hand and their demonic Vril. It seemed as if they were slowly damning their souls staying associated with the Nazis; despite all of their promises of freedom and his hatred of the French and British colonialists, it just wasn't worth it helping out what turned out to be a potentially greater evil. Unfortunately though, there was nowhere to run on the Eastern Front, as the godless Soviets were not really better and were not very caring of enemy POWs. So, the fighting continued, and as the Front turned extra lethal, more men from the platoon died.

His breakthrough came with their reassignment to the Ramtke Brigade heading to North Africa, where their cultural background was just as valuable as their skills. There, he could escape to the British - who, despite being hated, were viewed slightly more favorably than the French - and hopefully find his way back home. On the night on October 20th, he gathered up the members of the platoon who agreed with him, strangled the couple of informants in their barracks, hijacked some empty trucks, and quickly sprinted for the nearest British-held town. This resulted in a harrowing chase across the desert, trying to escape aircraft patrols, coming under fire from both sides, having to abandon their damaged vehicles, and negotiating an unmarked minefield, before finally defecting to the British. Half the platoon had died in the attempt, but half survived - including him.

Quickly spirited away to the British Isles and relentlessly debriefed, he expected to face a POW camp. Instead, he was separated from his men, quickly patched up, and given new, obscure orders. Little did he know that his time in the military was to feature a whole new chapter.

Psychological Profile: Circumspect, stoic, and exhausted to the point of dourness, his age and the two years he's spent in combat has tempered the fire of his youth. He'll keep fighting though, if that is what it takes, through the pain and the nightmares at night.
Why do you fight?: "For the love of the land of my ancestors, for liberty, and for those that have passed."
Defining Quote: "Everything happens for a reason, whether we know it or not. If you do know the reason, though, you can make better use of it."
RP Sample: Here you go.

Accepted.

[Riysa]

Here's the Ruqaya Shar'iya overview:

Ruqaya Shar'iya

The Ruqaya Shar'iya (roughly "Holy Incantations") is Islam's often-forgotten system of power, uniquely known as "counter-magic", born from the rise of the religion in the Arabian peninsula. In pre-Islamic times, soothsayers, summoners, and other magicians were commonplace, and viewed with a mixture of fear and reverence. However, with the advent of Islam, these traditions which often involved curses were viewed as evil and incompatible with faith in the One True God, and so were ruthlessly purged. In its place came the Ruqaya Shar'iya, a system utilizing the purity of faith instead.

At its core, the ruqaya is used for two deceptively simple purposes, spiritual healing and the defense against magic (sihir) with its associated supernatural beings. It takes the form of a variety of spoken Qur'anic verses and prayers to God, with certain ones - typically calling on the power of God and referring to the evil and futility of magic - preferred for use. Water which has been blessed by the reading of Qur'anic verses over it is also generally used, as well as fire to burn traces of an evil spell. When facing against supernatural beings or magicians, physical attacks leveraging these methods are also added to the mix. It should be noted that the same prayers which protect one from, say, possession, also work extremely well when trying to prevent someone from summoning a supernatural being, so the adage "offense is the best defense" heavily applies.

Much like a warrior's sword, though, its strength is tied to the one who's using it. Someone of weak faith will struggle to combat even moderately powerful magic or beings, while someone with very strong faith, like a religious scholar or dedicated exorcist, can easily take on the top in power. Most practitioners fall somewhere in-between, though casual users fall more towards the former than the latter. When healing a person, its generally preferred for the injured person him/herself to perform the ruqaya; if not possible, then someone else can do it. One can also listen to a pre-recorded or remotely performed ruqaya, while placing his or her hand on the afflicted part, but that is typically the least effective method of the three.

Though previously overlooked, the ruqaya shar'iya has started to see some use on the battlefield of the Second World War. The first nation to exploit it is Nazi Germany, whose military and political leadership, fascinated by the mysteries and legends of the East and acknowledging the threat posted by enemy mages, formed dedicated Hexenjäger ("witch hunter") units from Arab nationalist and Balkan Muslim volunteers. These units have generally punched above their weight, but have also a higher rate of desertion, probably due to the use of Vril by the Nazi side clashing with the beliefs of the typically more religious soldiers in these units. Britain has also started forming their own counter-magic units, but have had limited success so far due to the lack of practitioners willing to support their colonizer.

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