Mini-Grand 5102 [Round 3: Rome, 2020]

Originally posted on MSPA by Pinary.

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Loading Mini-Grand Framework... Done.

Generating Administration Personality... Done.

Hoo-ee! This's gonna be a mighty fine do!

Generating Characters... Done.

Four beings suddenly found themselves nowhere, able to see one another but nothing else. A synthesized voice came out of the nothing surrounding them.

"Awwright, here we go now! You four are in for one heck of a treat!

"First off, some introductions. Let's start off with little old Janet here- she had one heck of a life, and rather recently moved on t' the next one. Gonna be tough, dealing with her.

"Next up, we got a thing called Rome- not that that means much to it. This weird buck-lookin' thing's made of 'the dust of fallen empires,' whatever that malarkey means.

"Now, Miecz here's got style. He's a thing called a swordmonster, and he can pull blades from places you don't even want to know about. Just take it from me, he's a sneaky, dangerous bugger.

"Finally, we got Mollie Ralston. She can scrape up little dudes to help her out with whatever she's got goin' on, but I somehow expect she'll be in a little over her head in all this."

Generating Setting... Done.

The four generated characters suddenly found themselves moved, scattered in various locations around one of the marvels of modern society- a superstore.

"Welcome to Sprawl-Mart, folks! Here, you can get anything you need, from air freshener to zucchini bread! Now, it ain't as good as what you'd get from an ol' mom and pop place, but dann if it ain't the cheapest stuff in town! (Shoot, probably ran the mom and pop places clear out of business, now I think of it.)

"Oh, and one more thing. Almost forgot to mention- y'all've been brought here for a bit of a competition, a fight to the death. Now, soon as one of you carks it, you'll wind up in a different place entirely. This keeps going until just one of you's left alive. Got that? Good. Y'all have fun, now!"

(Characters:)

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SpoilerPick Yer Poison: Janet (#8888FF)
XX: Rome (#933E19)
Pharmacy: Miecz (#FF5D24)
cyber95: Mollie Ralston (#DA70D6)

Name: Janet
Gender: Female
Font color: #8888FF
Race: Poltergeist

Weapons/Abilities: Intangibility and invisibility are common to all ghosts, but as a poltergeist Janet is also able to possess inanimate objects and mess around with them. The extent of her poltergeist-specific powers is limited by the emotional atmosphere in the immediate area. Fear, anger, hate, envy, and other similar emotions provide the biggest boosts, but a high concentration of any emotion can increase her power. When inside an object and granted access to a volatile emotional atmosphere, Janet can cause it to do anything from gain teeth to tap dance, but without the emotional atmosphere she can really only make it move around a bit. Very slowly.

Description: Janet takes the form of a pale blue woman wearing a long, flowing dress. The dress covers where her feet would normally be, and if one looks under it (NAUGHTY NAUGHTY), it becomes apparent that the entire surface of her body is hollow, as if a sheet were draped over some invisible solid object. It ends at about waist height, but the dress covers up the fact that she has no legs. She wears her hair long, and aside from the general ghostliness, is really quite pretty.

Ghosts in Janet's world are much different than ghosts in ours, the biggest difference being that they actually exist. When someone dies, they become a ghost only if they feel they have unfinished business left in the world of the living, and they are granted a ghostly form that will help them finish it. Therefore, the form a person assumes after death tends to be inversely related to the quality of the life they led.

The worst usually comes in the form of Razers, walking suits of armor forged from pure hatred - when you're a ghost, hatred can actually be solid. Razers don't come along often and are the result of someone whose life was a living hell, and whose only desire is revenge in the form of mindless slaughter. They are exceedingly difficult to destroy and more dangerous than a flaming tornado, so it's a good thing they only show once every thousand years or so. It's entirely possible for a ghost's form to degrade and get closer to that of a Razer if they are mistreated, so ghosts tend to garner a good deal of respect from the living, and often enjoy a decent amount of help from authority figures. After all, helping the dead fulfill their final wishes not only lets them rest easy, but it also gives your political image a significant boost.

Janet is a poltergeist, which covers a wide range of ghosts that led crummy but not terribly hellish lives. Poltergeists tend to feel that screwing with people is enough to cover their unfinished business on earth, and nearly all of them have mischievous personalites and, more often than not, a dangerous sense of humor.

Biography: Janet was born in the crowded slums of an unnamed town to two parents who, to be honest, really weren't ready for a baby girl. Her father was an alcoholic and was in general just plain unreliable, and after a gazillion fights they just split apart. Janet's mother vanished from her life when she was seven, leaving her with a father who wasn't even sober most of the time. When she was twelve, Janet felt she had had enough to decide she was better off running away, and left to join the circus, quite literally - she hitched a ride on a carnival train, and was somehow able to convince the circus performers to take her with them.

At first the ringmaster insisted she be dropped off at the next station, as they had no room for dead weight, but when Janet offered to do all the odd jobs nobody else wanted in exchange for food and housing, he agreed. The circus performers quickly took her under their wing, and she spent the next few years of her life learning all sorts of oddball tricks from acrobatics to juggling. The circus was her new family, and while it may have been dysfunctional at best, she saw it as a vast improvement over the life she had led up to then.

She spent four years with the circus before a dwindling budget prompted the ringmaster to disband it. Most of the performers left in groups, but Janet struck off on her own, determined to make herself a life out of her own efforts. She traveled from town to town, finding work where she could, never staying in one place too long. After a close run-in with the local authorities for squatting, she made it her rule to never stay in one place more than a few months, and thus went the next two years of her life.

But then Janet got a bit stupid. She decided to throw herself a little eighteenth birthday bash, and she had a few glasses of wine, with "a few" meaning "at least fourteen." Next thing she knew she was rising out of her grave as a ghost. It's common knowledge that no ghost can remember how they died, nor can they remember a period of 24-48 hours before the event - it's a mental defensive mechanism to keep them from remembering the pain of death. But in her panic, Janet forgot this, and she flew around town in a frenzy, winding up possessing a car and causing it to crash through a storefront. Two police officers who happened to be patrolling the area came in with the standard cop routine, "put your hands behind your head" stuff, and were extremely surprised when an ethereally blue teenage girl threw herself at one of them, winding up passing through the officer and landing in a sobbing heap on the other side of him.

The police officers tried their best to comfort her and brought her back to the station, where the local ghost authority did his best to gently break the news to the frightened girl that she was dead, at which point she possessed his desklamp and started switching it on and off rapidly enough to give him a headache. Unable to coax her out, he called in an exorcist and lit out for the night. Fortunately (or unfortunately), Janet was abducted into this contest before the exorcist arrived on the scene, which led to a few angry phone calls regarding false alarms.

Username: XX
Name: Rome
Gender: None.
Race: Alchemical construct/ Dust Beast/ furry snuffling okapi thing
Colour: #933E19

Biography:

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SpoilerThe alchemist, a patient man, held his breath and poured the precious dust of empires into the glass vial he had carried with him for many years. It sank to the bottom, under the blood and the wine and the burning, burning fire, and began to boil, first a little and then more and more, until it flowed over the top. The vial cracked under the heat and the mixture poured out: the alchemist’s hands were burned but he didn’t let go even as he squeezed his hand into the broken glass and fresh blood flowed to mix with the old. Finally he could take it no more, and dropped the vial to the ground, where it poured its contents into the dusty earth. The liquids it had held swirled and smoked, and right before his eyes they sank straight down into the ground.

The alchemist sank to his knees and wept. All his work had gone into the earth and there was no way to get it back. He would never be able to raise the empires that had gone before him; he would never know their secrets and their sacred hidden things. He threw his hands down in anger on the soil and began to tear at it, throwing away clumps of it wastefully. He was searching for one last bit of hope, anything to let him know he had not wasted all his years of work.

Something warm and moving met his fingers, deep in the earth, and the alchemist cried aloud. There from in between his hands a red dust began to seep up out of the ground, faster and faster, like a flooding river. He backed away and the dust flew up as if stirred by a secret wind, following him. His legs would move no more, he was so struck by wonder and fear, and as the dust came closer he saw that it was beginning to take shape. The striped body of a tiger, the slender legs of a gazelle, the tail of a serpent: the alchemist could not believe his own eyes. The Beast that had come out of the dust placed its hooves (hard and sharp, not like one of our horses) on the earth that had birthed it and rested its head against his, tame and gentle as a young deer. It cried back to him, so beautifully the man began to weep; when he brought his hands up to clear his eyes the Beast spat a heavy iron key straight into his outstretched hand. Whether it had come from the ruins the Dust Beast was born from or was a gift from the Beast itself, we will never know; its strong hooves pushed away from the alchemist and carried it far away, leaving only the key behind. It is this same key that hangs in the front of our caravan, for all its years never having tarnished, still wholesome as the day it was given to us.

As for the alchemist, he spent the rest of his days following the trail of the Dust Beast. Always he was just far enough behind it to catch only a glimpse, and never did he lay a hand on his Beast again. Some say he is following it still, for he gave us the key and left, and no word has ever reached us of his fate.

-Excerpt, The Iron Key and the Alchemist (Sibhorrohak Folk Tale)

Description: Rome (the name given to it by its creator, though it will not respond to it any more than it would a simple “hey, you”) is an alchemical construct, apparently made from equal parts blood, wine, fire, and the “dust of empires”. This last is assumed to have been collected from the ruins of ancient civilizations, though it’s more than likely outside arcane forces were brought into play. Several hundred years old at the time of its collection, Rome is the size of a large horse and resembles an oddly dragonish gazelle, covered in black and red stripes. It has six legs, each bearing a multi-toed hoof that can deliver a considerably powerful kick at ideal angles. Its ankles and neck are decked with heavy iron rings that seem to serve some purpose in stabilizing its form, as well as providing a telltale clanking sound whenever the beast is near.

Despite being of no true organic origin, Rome displays signs of intelligence, though no true analysis of its mental capacity has ever been performed. It has the power of speech, albeit in limited phrases that sometimes do not seem to relate to the current situation, and can recognize individual humans over long periods of time. Its behavior is somewhat erratic, but seems to indicate a high level of curiosity and an animalistic affection for those few people lucky- or unlucky- enough to come into contact with it.

Abilities: Rome constantly trails a unique red dust that sticks to nearly everything it comes into contact with. This dust has the unfortunate tendency to carry the destruction of the empires it was made from with it: buildings covered in the substance will deteriorate at extraordinary rates, windows will shatter, stones will crack, and metal will tarnish. Its effects on living beings is negligible, though they may come into danger if, for example, a roof collapses on their heads because Rome has passed through the area recently.

Rome also retains the ability to return to this same dust whenever startled or frightened, or even when trapped in an area it feels is too constricting. It can rematerialize from nearly any nearby hidden place assuming it has not sustained enough damage to prevent such an action.

Username: Pharmacy
Name: Miecz
Gender: Dude
Race: Swordmonster
Colour: Color #FF5D24
Biography:

Miecz is a swordmonster, a species of monsters (duh) that resides in a vague fantasy world with a name. Like the rest of his kind, he was taught by his parents to train in swordsmanship and when he grew old, he got kicked out of his group. He eventually hung out in another group and like everyone else, participated in "honor duels." Although more to be considered an "honor war" than a "honor duel," he fought with his allies and captured groups of others. He was a good swordsman held in high prestige of others (as "rank," if such a thing existed in his society, is measured in merit and skill). All was well in his realm. He did not lead a group, but he had power and respect. He had everything.

That is why everyone was surprised when he killed his boss.

This action made shockwaves in his community, as they heard the news of his apparent treachery. What was more appalling to them was he did not commit suicide with his leader. This was dishonorable to a high degree. As a result, many of his kind, all skilled swordsmen, attempted to bring honor to him. By "honor," they meant "disembowelment and torture." Unfortunately, Miecz was equally as clever as the rest, perhaps more. He managed to hide from the "honor hunt" and descended from the mountains that he called home. He eventually hired himself out to mercenary groups because he was in civilization and he needed to survive somehow. On one of his jobs, he just suddenly disappeared.

Description:

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Spoiler

Shitty placeholder pic :mspa:

Miecz is your typical swordmonster: traditionalistic, honorable, and eager to pick fights with opponents they deemed worthy. Like his brethren, he enjoys socializing and meeting with his own members. Unlike his brethren, he enjoys socializing and meeting with outsiders. Despite his general gregariousness, he can be a little overwhelming and clueless of exotic customs (like humans). So, he tends to greet others the Swordmonster way: licking, nuzzling, and hugging. He likes strong scents, perfumes, colognes, and such. He tends to buy those tiny bottles and smear it all over himself. If you can smell a horrifying cocktail of flowers and spices nearby, that is probably Miecz fooling around with those cosmetics. Otherwise, he is completely scentless on his job hours. As he relies on ambush and surprise, it is very important not to smell like anything when near your enemy.

At first distant glance, Miecz looks like an unassuming human swordsman in a patterned trenchcoat - a head full of hair, two arms, two legs, and a sword, pretty boring actually. However, as the idiom "do not judge a book by its cover" wisely explains, things are always not what they seem. Miecz is not a human being, but a swordmonster. The swordmonster’s natural mimicry of a human being is poor indeed. They have blunt claws, forked tongues, and pawpads on their palms and soles. Although they can walk on two feet, they prefer to walk on fours. Their eyeless faces have tear-like streaks that lead to their maw. In their mouth, lays two rows of teeth. One row is white and small, like human teeth. The second row is colored, sharp and jagged like a lions. What is more interesting than the unusual teeth is the trenchcoat. The trenchcoat in question is actually their skincoat. Their coats are usually decorated with motif patterns not unlike fabric or geometric patterns. Miecz is no different.

There are reasons why they are called "swordmonsters" (besides the fact that swordmanmonster is kind of clunky). The most obvious reason is they are technically monsters with swords. A vicious blade is built into each of their limbs. When they prepare to pick a fight, they unhook their blades like a blade of a butterfly knife. If the blades somehow break, they can always regrow another one. Unfortunately, the swordmonsters usually do not use these built-in blades as their main weapona. Instead, they use a long sword that is independent of their body, which wield in the same manner as a humanoid swordsman. They cherish this sword and consider it shameful if they lose it. To keep track of this blade, they tuck it away into rigid tails, which is essentially a sword sheath. All blades are usually oddly colored (red, in Miecz’s case) and are made of a peculiar organic metal not unlike tempered steel of swords from the Japanese medieval era.

Items/Abilities:
There is another less obvious reason why they are called "swordmonsters:" they are not just beasts with swords. They are excellent swordsman. Tempered with natural instinct and training (traditionally, parents train their children), their prestigious blade mastery has left many beings in awe - or dead. It is quite difficult to explain their tactics as each family has their own unique style to better each other in combat. However, a couple of traits encompass them all, they usually involve both hands, all of their blades, the tailsword is their main, and most of all, they fight dirty. In their "honor" duels, sneaking, backstabbing, and assault of the more tender parts are considered fair game. This might explain despite their general lack of supernatural abilities (psionics, arcane, occult, etc.) and augments (robotics, weaponry, drugs), they somehow manage to be prove a challenge to enemies with those advantages. Although they are not metaphysically or artificially empowered, swordmonsters also are not picky about augments for themselves provided they are only on their blades. Poisons, magics, and other fun things are common improvements to their otherwise mundane blades.

Like all of these swordmonsters, Miecz is a master swordsman, but a sneaky bastard.

Username: cyber95

Name: Mollie Ralston

Gender: Female

Race: Human

Colour: orchid

Biography: Olimar crash landed her spaceship to a strange distant planet, where she quickly discovered a plant-based spec- wait no, hold on lemme get out my mad libs kit.
Mollie magically was transported to a strange realm, where she quickly discovered a magic-based species of creature that she could lead upon summoning them out of an unknown plane.

Mollie was 18 years old when she volunteered for a scientific experiment because she really wanted some extra cash, it paid big, and success was 100% with animals tested using this particular version of the device. She read the contract and everything. In the low chance of her getting harmed, they would foot the medical bills, it was backed by the government and several highly respected medical and scientific companies, and most important of all, there was no "you must not tell anyone" bullshit that tends to be the first warning sign of a shady deal. Teleportation was a big scientific breakthrough, and they needed to do some testing on people before they could legally start using it for the public. The whole reason behind public testing was simply marketing, to let the average person see it firsthand and perhaps brag to their friends and blog about it and get interviewed for the news. Everybody was certain nothing would go wrong. It would be a million to one chance.

Naturally, Mollie beat the odds.

In some ways, the test was successful. She entered the portal in one direction, and was transported without any harm to her. The problem was, of course, that she was transported to the wrong place. Surrounding her was unfamiliar plantlife, a ground made of dirt that just didn't feel quite right, and an immediate sense of unease, along with a weird feeling inside her she just couldn't shake.

A few hours of wandering and an expert display of denial left her to eventually realize that this probably wasn't part of the test. At least, she realized it when a monster attacked her. This is when that weird feeling finally manifested itself into a strange and useful power, as a small creature made of rock appeared out of nowhere between her and the creature. Going with a gut instinct, she thought of summoning another one, and lo and behold another appeared. Eventually she had at least a dozen of them. After a little bit of marvelling, she was reminded of her predicament by the creature trying to attack her, at which point she tried yelling at her small army to attack the creature. They complied and managed to defeat it with not too much trouble. Without too much thought about it, Mollie realized that she could use these guys to help her explore this strange land, and hopefully find a way to escape.

During her exploration, she discovered a few things. For one, there were six different types of the little guys, which she called Sprites because she couldn't come up with much else. Another thing was that she was seemingly able to collect energy from the world itself, and could use that energy to create the Sprites, with a different elemental affiliation based on where the energy she used came from. She could also use her own energy, which besides making her tired, seemed pretty good for summoning any type of Sprite, and was an infinite supply, although using it too often would drain her. Finally, and what she found to be most important, she found a journal of somebody else who was trapped within the realm, containing a list of items necessary to escape.
With the help of the Sprites and the journal, Mollie had spent a whole month collecting various devices and magical artifacts to put together a portal back to where she had come from. Puzzles were solved. Tears were shed at killed Sprites. Large monsters were slain.

Getting back to her own world, she was surprised to learn that she retained her power. She was also surprised to hear that the scientists HAD managed to pinpoint her and were about a day away from opening a portal to the world she was trapped in, which both relieved her, knowing she would be safe anyways, but also kind of annoyed her that she did all that work for nothing. And yes, she wanted some goddamn bonus cash for going through that bullshit that was clearly not in the contract.

Before this whole battle malarkey, she was supposedly set to go on a second expedition of the other world, but this time with a companion. Some guy named Lou. Probably unimportant.

Description:
Mollie has determination, but is a little bit of a coward. She probably wouldn't have signed up for the experiment in the first place if it looked remotely shady. She got a little bit better while in the other world, but still likes to stay away from the action. That's what the Sprites are for after all! She's definitely grown a certain fondness for the Sprites. She has a theory that when they die they just get 'recycled' and end up coming back again at some point in a later summon, but that doesn't stop her from cringing a little when they do manage to get themselves annihalated. Mass slaughter of them is particularly hard to watch.

Items/Abilities: Mollie has but a single silver whistle with her. She uses it to grab the attention of the Sprites when there are huge groups of them at once. Definitely useful.
As for abilities, she can summon six different types of Sprites. Each Sprite type has different strengths, and a different personality. What type of sprites she can summon depends on the type of location she's gathered energy from, but she can summon any type using her own energy, but since that tires her out, she tends to not do that except when she really needs to. She tends to get huge headaches when there are a lot of Sprites out at once, but a lot is somewhere in between one and two hundred. The types of Sprites are as follows:

Earth Sprite: Earth Sprite is real heavy and a hard hitter. If you need something with weight to it, or to bash something apart, this is your man. Earth Sprite knows that this is srs bznz and does not appreciate silliness. If you're going to be silly, at least let Earth Sprite do its job.

Water Sprite: Water Sprite can throw water around like nobody's business. As well as creating water from seemingly nowhere, it can also manipulate water a bit. Water Sprite is a curious guy! Mollie's lost plenty of them simply from them seeing somebody interesting and just following them around, and they're likely to be the first to check out something weird, even if they aren't told to.

Fire Sprite: Fire Sprite can toss around embers and is great to bring along for camping trips! Along with a fiery power, of course, comes a fiery personality! If you get him riled up, it's hard to stop Fire Sprite from stopping his assault! Perhaps Water Sprite can help you with that.

Electric Sprite: Bzzap! Watch out, because it might sting a little when you come in contact with Electric Sprite! He can throw sparks of electricity, or alter an existing current! He's a bit hyper, so pay attention, because Electric Sprite is liable to just go and do his own thing if he's bored.

Light Sprite: Not very powerful, but Light Sprite is good for keeping those dark places well lit! Each Light Sprite emits a glow that helps you navigate when it's hard to see! Light Sprite is very nice and mostly a pacifist. D'aww, I think she likes you!

Dark Sprite: The power of darkness is great indeed, but can you handle it? When Dark Sprite attacks, you had better watch out! Sure, he can turn the lights out, but something in him also lets him destroy his enemies! Dark Sprite is a bit of a jerk though, and is honestly pretty likely to ignore what Mollie tells him to do. Nobody tells Dark Sprite what to do!