Grand Battle (S?) (Round 1: SUDDEN DEATH)

Something stirs in the corners of space.

A whisper on the extrasolar winds. A call to vicarious arms.

Bring to me your soldiers. Your survivors. Your beasts of war.

Let them raise their dukes, their flags; pay their dues, raise the roof.

For a grand battle is about to take place.



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woah wait shit fuck what
That's right! After an long and admittedly-ludicrous freeze on new Grand Battles, we're starting fresh! This Grand Battle will, if active and successful, be the start of a new season of Grand Battles.

Cool ok but what is this Battle business
Grand Battles are collaborative stories about people and creatures fighting to the death, in a series of rounds where each is a new setting offered by the GM. You submit a character, and write with the other writers about what your characters get up to. This might not actually be fighting! In fact, you're not allowed to just run up and write your character cleaving another's in two.
At the end of each round, the host (me!) chooses the weakest link amongst the players. The eliminee chosen, their character's death is written in the story, the round ends, a new round (with a new location) begins, and the game continues in this fashion until we have one winner.
An alternative explanation can be found here. Examples of Grand Battles can be found here. A throng of helpful folks can answer your questions here, on #grandbattle Esper IRC. Note: Old Grand Battles are not required reading to join this one, though the intro posts will reiterate the above information and more.

Ok I'm out of town next weekend, will that be a problem
Probably not! Grand Battles are slower-paced than most roleplays, and if you're planning to win you could be at this a while. An ideal time investment would be enough time, at least once per week (preferably more), to sit down and write something short-story or short essay length. Round 1 posts can be much shorter, though, so don't worry too much. You'll get into the swing of things as we go.

Dang! Sign me up
Cool! Post a profile following this format:

Code:

[u]Name:[/u] A useful substitute for "Oi, you!"
[u]Gender:[/u] Whatever you and they prefer.
[u]Colour:[/u] A [color=#hexcod]text colour[/color] to distinguish between players. Keep it readable, black is reserved for the GM.
[u]Race:[/u] AKA species. Give a brief description if it's especially weird.
[u]Equipment/Abilities:[/u]Tools of the trade, where the trade is survival in their harsh world.
[u]Description:[/u] A brief overview of their appearance and personality, to give other people a feel for how to write for them.
[u]Errata:[/u] any additional information you'd like to include. A writing sample is not necessary.

The Players
Brom - Volter St. Kepral (#4B0082)
Elize - Sari (#0000CC)
MeltingBard - Krugrug the Barbarian (#FF4300)
myw - Tom(e) Jones (#483d8b)
SupahKiven - Doppelganger (#9400d3)
Cat - Kaylee Joule (#F56E00)




Additional notes for the curious, and those longer in the Battling tooth:

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SpoilerSo Schazer is this you starting Season 4 or what
Nope!

But hang on you were supposed to-
Yup! The caveat that S4 would start when Season 1 All-Stars began is still tentatively in place. This "season" (S?) is a chance to try out a less rigidly organised series of Battles, something less daunting for newcomers to get into.

You keep saying "season" in those quarantine-quotes, this worries me
If you've heard about Grand Battles and the system of seasons and All-Star battles and need that to motivate you, rest assured that (pending good performance) this battle will also have one. (S?) is labelled as such to distinguish somewhat from the existing canon of Seasons 1-3. It's still the same Multiverse, just in a further-flung corner of it so we're not having pre-existing Grandmasters popping in all the bloody time. This also makes reading old battles purely optional to participate in (S?).

Does that mean I can host a battle?
Sure can! If it makes good progress, we can float the idea of adding its winner to a future (S?) All-Stars roster. I'll figure out how to handle (S?) All-Stars when such a thing becomes more than a distant pipe dream. In the meantime, go ahead! You can set your own rules about whether to give newbies preference, have eight, six, or twenty players, or do what you please. (S?) will be a chance to experiment!

Were you serious about cockblocking oldbies?
This will only apply to my battles in the (S?) canon, but yeah. I'm aiming to wrap up loose S1-3 threads before I start new characters, and my selection choices will reflect my wish that other oldbies do too. If other people start battles, though, it's their call who they choose or don't.

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SpoilerSubject: The Charlatan

Gender: Male/Androgynous

Colour: Green

Race: Indeterminate, humanoid

Abilities: Sensory manipulation, light manipulation, and illusions. Superhuman speed, self-levitation, self-replication, intangibility.

Appearance: Androgynous humanoid dressed as a Victorian-era magician (wardrobe listed under Equipment). Dress tends to favor darker or middling shades of green with white accents. Head is surrounded by a white mask designed to look like a perpetual toothy grin. The grooves in the mask that denote teeth appear to be fixed in space, independent of the mask itself. Voice tends towards male tenor, but multiple voices have been observed.
Prone to occasional aberration, including: Flickers in and out of focus; appears as two overlapping entities, as an object held too close to the eye; transitions instantaneously from one motion to the next; flickers slightly out of his current position; voice overlaps with itself; voice originates outside of his facial region. Why these aberrations occur is not presently known. Though many suggest it is done intentionally to confuse others, incidence seems to increase on the rare occasions the subject shows stress.

Description: Mischievous, inappropriate, obnoxious, condescending. Doesn't care about the welfare of others. Dramatic, acrobatic. Treats existence like an enormous joke. Enjoys an audience. Dislikes authority, constraints, imprisonment. Likes to spoil others' plans. Highly secretive about his identity.

Equipment:
Silk top hat, coachman's cloak, blazer vest with dress shirt, slacks, dress socks, dress shoes, cravat, gloves.
Flashlight, popcorn, sunglasses, cane, a belt.
Can store things "behind" himself. Maximum storage capacity unknown.

Errata:
Just kidding~ I'm not actually gonna be entering just yet, and certainly not with this douchebag.
Looking forward to see how this goes, though.

Less daunting for newbies?

Okay. Reserve.

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Spoiler
Name: Kaylee Joule
Gender: Female
Colour: #F56E00
Race: Foxperson
Equipment/Abilities:Kaylee always carries a small, metal notebook around with her. Only the covers are completely metal, the pages are simply metal-edged. She never writes in it in front of people, and refuses to divulge the contents.

This also helps her to amplify the only remotely threatening thing about her, control of electricity. She can't actually create it, but after having done some very non-standard tests (i.e. sticking metal into a power socket and touching it) she determined that she was immune to its effects. The cause is still unknown, but she tries not to worry about it too much.
Description: Kaylee thinks of herself as a very solid, very serious person. She tries to give off the impression to others that she's very dependable. Someone to rely on. But really, it's just a mask. She's more the type to run in the face of danger, rather than confront it. She gets absorbed into whatever miniscule activity she's currently got her attention on, so much so that anything that snaps her out of her stupor jumps her a foot or so off the ground.
Errata:

Aw yiss I'm in.

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Spoiler
Name: She never had a name before, but Sari will do.

Gender: By pure cosmic coincidence, female.

Colour: "Sapphire" with hexadecimal RGB value 0000cc.

Race: Sapphire Auracaller Radiant Incarnate.

Equipment/Abilities: Holds an extrusion of Blue which just happens to look like a sort of curved, ornate silvery staff covered in shifting iridescent patterns. This staff can create beacons of Blue that look like an intricately woven lattice of glowing blue hovering crystal. If allowed to persist, these beacons will grow larger and more complex, slowly altering the surrounding area to match the Blue part of her home. This tends to involve the landscape shifting into a certain architectural style, gravitational anomalies, electrical and magical disturbances, and, if the field grows large enough, the creation of other beings. Living creatures, intelligent AIs, even prostheses in the area are unaffected, but it's unclear how the beacon knows what to affect and what not to. Beacons are about as strong as stone, but crumble especially easily at the touch of something warm-colored. Sari can also create objects of luminous Blue energy which, when used as a weapon, cause more harm to warm-colored objects than cool-colored ones. This ability's strength is correlated with the strength of the surrounding Blue aura, and under normal circumstances is just enough to form a weak protective field over Sari's body and carry a few objects.

Description: Physically, Sari is an interesting specimen. She stands about 7 feet tall on small feet capping lanky, tapering legs. Her body is sinuous and slender, and her skin is smooth and colored bluish-grey. She is covered in darker grey curved patterns across the right side of her body and face, her right leg, and both arms. Her arms might be more accurately described as a combination of tentacles and wings. Each is a long, flattish, sweeping affair that almost reaches the round, much wider at the end than at the shoulder. They are ribbed on one side by prehensile finger-like nubs which grow longer towards the end, with an extra one on the front like a thumb. She has a tall neck topped by an almond-shaped face with large blue eyes, thin lips, and no apparent nose. She is also trailed by vividly blue hair which would be down to her lower back if it didn't constantly sway through the air as if floating in water. Her face is obscured by a flat mask of silvery-blue metal which curves up into two flattened horns. She wears minimal armor of the same metal over her chest, hips, and legs, and it all seems to glitter with shifting, iridescent symbols that are only visible when the light hits it at the right angle. She does not walk so much as she skips and hovers over the ground on an intangible wind, looking very much like gravity isn't quite sure what to do with her. While her vocal cords are capable of making sounds understandable as human speech, she isn't initially quite sure of the language and more often makes sounds like ringing pipe bells. None of this, however, is the primary reason she is a physically interesting specimen. She is physically interesting because all of the preceding facts seem to be completely coincidental.

Sari is not so much a creature as a fundamental piece of the physical makeup of her universe. Comparing her to any other Sapphire Auracaller Radiant Incarnate is a bit like comparing any two Hydrogen atoms. Curiously, however, she is far from simplified for her purpose. She has a brain fine-tuned for intellect, organs, bones, blood, flesh--things that, in another universe, would be the trappings of a sapient, intelligent, living creature. In her universe, she could scarcely be called alive. She was a mere vessel acting to spread Blue over Orange, complemented by other vessels with the same goals and different functions, and others still enacting the opposite agenda. She and all other such vessels do this in accordance with the laws governing their universe, which do not allow for a brain to function the way it does in ours. That every one of her kind takes such a form is one of the most cosmically unlikely coincidences in the multiverse. However, taken out of her home, she will fundamentally change. To return to the Hydrogen atom analogy, it would be like moving such an atom into an environment where the fundamental laws dictate that the relationship of an electron to a positively-charged nucleus is not one of orbiting, but one of facilitating self-awareness and rational thought. She will be capable of discovery, learning, emotion, creation; in short, she will, for the first time, live. While it may take her a while to acclimate to an existence independent of her previous programming, how she deals with this revelation, especially in the face of a battle to end the lives of others, remains to be seen.

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Spoiler

Errata: Excerpts from "Specimen extraction, Dimension 3.015 'Blue-Orange'"

[...]Like other specimens from "Blue-Orange", Sapphire Auracaller Radiant Incarnate specimens will exhibit completely mirrored behavior to one another if given mirrored stimuli. SARI-15 and SARI-16, for example, have thus far never had an accidental breach of containment protocol, have been given identical nourishment and entertainment, and have been interacted with exclusively via identical remote probes, all on strict matching schedules. The two are thus far performing identically enough that one researcher can carry on the same conversation with both of them in unison via the speaker system, 280 days after their simultaneous universal transfers. However, given their inherent intellect, those given differing stimuli tend to develop their budding minds in ways that result in astonishing differences.

All go through an early exploratory stage attempting to reconcile their place in the new world, often attempting to carry out their former duties with confused diligence. All show a great intellectual curiosity, especially concerning other living creatures and intelligent AIs. However, minute differences can result in large variances in demeanor over time, most importantly with respect to propensity towards violence. For example, SARI-228 and SARI-229 were given identical stimuli except that the covers of 75% of the books in 229's cell were colored red or orange, while the same books in the same locations in 228's cell were colored blue or purple. Despite all else being identical, 228 developed into a curious and abnormally conversational specimen, but with IQ test results with a mean of only 125. 229, as we all know, orchestrated the second most lethal and, in this researcher's opinion, most cunning breach of containment to date, tragically ending the lives of 25 members of the security squad before being trapped in a corridor and neutralized with [REDACTED]. Its mean IQ test results were 152, with many researchers noting in the weeks prior to the escape attempt that it may have been intentionally performing poorly on its tests to artificially lower expectations. Complete immersion in warm colors has not resulted in a similar outcome in later tests. The variables regarding this effect are still under research.

[...]SARI specimens' brains seem to come pre-programmed with certain information. Most significantly, they seem to naturally have an understanding of the American English language. This understanding is, as far as current research has been able to determine, nothing more than another in the list of massive coincidences surrounding these specimens' existence. In addition to this linguistic understanding, SARI specimens also come with a set of pre-existing memories. Unlike their knowledge of the language, however, these do seem to be truly random, and irrelevant to anything they could have actually experienced in this universe or theirs. These memories are documented in full in section 10.

[...]A SARI specimen's acclimation stage takes approximately 24 hours. In the hours immediately following the extraction event, its latent intelligence is barely apparent. Only 1-2 hours after extraction do any seem to make any attempt to communicate in English, though fMRI scans show brain activity denoting recognition of speech immediately upon arrival. Additionally, specimens seem to have a strong urge to establish and maintain anomalous material beacons (see section 16) during this acclimation period, regardless of attempts to communicate the futility or potential harm of doing so.

[...]Study of persistent Blue anomalous material "beacons" has been difficult, as the fields of influence have had a tendency to alter sensitive equipment meant to be measuring the fields themselves. Additionally, if left active for too long, the beacons often result in containment breaches--either by altering safety mechanisms until non-functional, or by sufficiently empowering the nearby specimens to create their own breach. Additionally, specimens seem able to store a small amount of power internally from these beacons for later use, if they are allowed to remain exposed to one for significant amounts of time. For this reason, current containment protocol dictates that these beacons be destroyed immediately upon detection.

Consideration has been given to a motion to allow SARI specimens 22, 36, 42, 43, 89, 105, or 107 to perform monitored off-site testing outside of containment, as these specimens are noted as being the most compliant with researchers and test protocols, with "general enthusiasm towards science". However, the pending results of an internal investigation into the exact nature of the relationship between SARI-89 and Dr. [REDACTED] (see Internal report [REDACTED]), may result in a project-wide tightening of containment protocols that renders this proposal unacceptable.

[...]As with other Blue-Orange specimens, strong correlations have been drawn between SARI specimens' feelings towards other individuals and a color associated with that individual. Unlike other types of specimen from Blue-Orange, however, the parameters for SARI favoritism are more nuanced than hair, eye, and clothing color. Some specimens refer to seeing a type of inherent color of an individual. Specimens in isolation will identify different photographs of the same test individuals as the same colors, even going so far as to provide identical color values (if they are introduced to the meaning of a color scale beforehand). This indicates that this "color-sense" is based on external measurable variables. More interestingly, test individuals can, with statistical significance (See Figures 18.7 - 18.12), often guess their own color before observation by a SARI specimen, typically citing some personal significance of the chosen color to them. This behavior persists even if both the specimen and test individual are isolated in containment units coated in [REDACTED] to block potential telepathic signals.

When presented with images of either themselves or any other SARI specimen, even those given distinguishing markings, specimens always refer to the subject as "Sapphire" with hexadecimal RGB value 0000cc.

Reserved, I'll have a post ready later today.

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SpoilerName: Dimitri Weinberg

Gender: Male

Colour: White on Forest Green is his fave color Hexcode #ffffff on #0e4603.

Race: Dimitri belongs to a race of vampires that are similar to the ones that humans believe in and write about with some small differences. First of all, while it's true that vampires can't really handle the sun, it's mostly because they have really sensitive skin. They can actually have a fun day at the beach as long as they wear SPF 600 and wear a sun hat. Next, most people believe that all vampires are allergic to garlic, which, while true of a large number of vampires, is not always the case. Through the evolution of vampires and the siring of humans who aren't allergic to garlic, there are still a lot of vampires who can eat garlic without even a slight reaction. Now on to some of the bad parts of being a vampire. Most people know about stakes through the heart, decapitation, setting vampires on fire, and dousing them with holy water, but there are actually a lot of other ways vampires can die. The major one which most people don't think about is blood loss. It usually isn't that big of a deal, since small wounds heal pretty quickly and vampires can regain blood when they feed on people, but if they get a large cut near a major artery or vein, they face serious risk of death. Another big problem for vampires is that their sensitive skin doesn't just get damaged by the sun or holy water. If you put a vampire in an area that's experiencing some intense whether, it is unlikely they will survive. These things can be prevented fairly easily, but vampires are less durable than humans think they are.

Equipment/Abilities: Dimitri has the normal enhancemencements of a vampire, superstrength, the ability to see well at night, transforming into a bat, you know the deal. However, he also has some unique abilities that most people don't really know about, such as the ability to carry a large amount of items and store them in what most people would call Hammerspace, made all the weirder by the fact that he can even do this while in his bat form. Another unique ability is the power of hypnotism that acts almost like a form of mind control, although Dimitri doesn't really like messing with people's heads, even if they're the enemy, so he doesn't always use this power to it's full potential. In terms of equipment, Dimitri doesn't have much, but it's impressive enough on it's own. As Dimitri belongs to a very respected and powerful lineage of vampires, he was given the Sword of the Vampires on his 218th birthday as a rite of passage. Although it's mostly for show, the sword is pretty durable and can cut through almost any material, even some metals, although diamonds are another matter altogether. Dimitri was given some training as a child as well, so he is pretty experienced in using the sword although he hasn't really killed anyone with it yet.

Description: Dimitri is an enigma of vampires, looking a lot more like a Californian college student than a Creature of the Night. He has a slight tan from his many days in the sun, and has a light Caucasian skin tone rather than a pale white one. He usually enjoys the things that most college students his age enjoy and most people just think he's a normal human except for the fact that he has red eyes that tend to freak people out. After a few scary confrontations, Dimitri decided to wear blue contacts so people would stop asking him questions. Another thing that sets Dimitri apart from most vampires is that he isn't that handsome, brooding face that most people would expect and is actually slightly chubby with no six-pack and no well-defined cheekbones. In terms of personality, Dimitri is generally a pretty nice guy although he does have some anger issues that make him lash out at people sometimes. At other times, though, he's very outgoing and is usually the extrovert of his friends, taking risks, and just generally being pretty confident.

Errata: Dimitri's family belongs to the lineage of a very respected and powerful vampires, and as a result, they were a little more traditional than Dimitri was comfortable with. Dimitri would often try to go outside and explore, but his parents were afraid he would interact with humans or other monsters so they kept him inside for most of his life. On his 121st birthday however, he decided to escape his castle and try to explore the world, and was successful in his attempt. His parents were furious when they realized he had left and had tried to get him back, which is part of what led Dimitri to attempt to go incognito. He is still very afraid that his parents will try to bring him back to the castle and punish him.

Yay, grand battle.

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SpoilerName: DoppelGanger

Gender: Male

Colour: Purple, hexidecimal value of 9400d3

Race: Shapeshifter/Apparition

Equipment/Abilities: Doppel is naturally seen with blunt weapons, preferring baseball bats and crowbars, while Ganger is found with bladed weapons like swords and machetes. It is suspected that DoppelGanger is shapeshifter with an acute mastery of the elusive technique of bilocation, although some have said that he is a pair of spirits bound to the earth. It is generally agreed, however, that he does have at least a limited mastery of teleportation. Either way DoppelGanger is often reported to be in two places at once and has more than one head on his hands.

Description: DoppelGanger has two appearances, which differ only in a singular area, but extremely noticeable place. DoppelGanger wears masks. Both appearances act the same, so it can be more than a little confusing to a select few. Most who have met him claim to have met either 'Doppel' or 'Ganger'.

DoppelGanger seems, for all intents and purposes, human. He stands at six feet even, with a short but messy mop of jet black hair on his head and rather pale skin. He always wears a white tee shirt with the omega symbol on it, a pair of blue jeans, and sneakers. He carries a weapon in each hand, what kind depending on 'who' exactly you're talking to.

Which DoppelGanger you're talking to depends on his mask. 'Doppel' wears a mask that is more akin to a board contoured to the shape of a human face with holes punched where the eyes should be and a medical mask, the kind that covers your mouth, wrapped around it. 'Ganger' has a stranger mask. It looks like a macabre animal face carved from a block of wood, with pointy ears, an oversized, grinning mouth that takes up most of the bottom half of the mask, sharp teeth that only fill in the middle portion of the mouth, leaving black space in the unfilled portion, and small holes for the eyes. Both masks have some sort of material that prevents anyone from seeing what DoppelGanger's eyes look like.

DoppelGanger has a mischievous, almost playful attitude. Always laughing. He enjoys being around people, usually just one at a time. While he may appear cheerful and happy, there's occasionally malicious undertones to his actions, sometimes making disturbing gestures and creepy laughs at his traveling companion. He also occasionally attempts to 'sell' things to the person he's with, offering various trinkets like candlesticks and pipe cleaners for things like ripped up tickets and faded coins that the person may have.

Errata: DoppelGanger is a traveler. Never sitting still, always on the move for one reason or another. He also tends to have rather... obscure morals. Stealing is wrong, but murder is just fine. The skin on his hands is a rather nauseating shade of pink.

reservèd for shore

ED: well I didn't get around to doing this so I'll get in the next one but

I'll be watchin' it

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SpoilerName: The Disharmonious Wave, or Disharmony

Gender: Nongendered.

Colour: Tan

Race: The Disharmonious Wave is a unique entity- some would call it more of a phenomenon than an entity- which can most accurately described as a living vibration. The Disharmony exists as a vibration of particular regularity in solid matter, and can move itself through matter at a speed correlated with the density of the matter. It can pass through liquid at reduced speed, and through gas at even further reduced rate; vacuum functions as an absolute wall to the Disharmony, which it has no method of crossing. Physical trauma has no effect on the Disharmony; neither does heat or light. The Disharmony can only perceive through the medium of mechanical vibrations; if an entity is completely unmoving and silent, the Disharmony will not be able to 'see' it unless it 'infects' the mass of the organism.

Equipment/Abilities:The Disharmony has the ability to create powerful vibrations in rigorous materials like steel, glass, and concrete to create fractures wherever it pleases as long as its 'body' is inside said materials. This can be used offensively to pummel structures into rubble and dust, or more precisely to dislodge heavy objects above the heads of enemies. The Disharmony can in addition 'infect' any solid object it can reach with itself as it so chooses; except for entities of exotic matter or pure energy, living organisms are not exceptions to this ability. The Disharmony can in addition launch powerful sonic attacks through gaseous mediums, and can also imitate with perfect ventriloquism any sound it has ever heard before. However, the Disharmony has a strict 'body' volume, and infecting matter with itself means that it has to spread itself thinner; using the sonic attack ability results in a permanent loss of 'body' volume. This is countered by the Disharmony's ability to eat vibrations that pass near it, such as sonic waves passed through a gaseous medium or mechanical waves through a solid medium it inhabits to replenish its 'mass'. If matter inhabited by the Disharmony is split into two pieces, no negative effect is had on the Disharmony; it can control all split pieces that constitute it in almost a hivemind-like manner, and in fact uses this method to 'reproduce' by infecting other objects with itself.

Description: Being a living vibration, it has no particular visual appearance other than the effects of the objects it inhabits subtly vibrating. However, it can be heard from approximately a meter or so away, emitting a very distinct hum that moves regularly up and down in pitch. The Disharmony has no particular motivation beyond the disintegration of all rigorous matter in the universe, and is more than willing to cooperate with others to further this goal; being as intelligent as the average person, it is entirely capable of deception and is aware that telling entities which do not already know about its motivations generally leads to turning those entities into enemies of its cause. It may offer boons to people in exchange for their assistance, for example by infecting their arm or clothing as a one-time-use voice-activated sonic boom weapon. The Disharmony prefers to speak in the same voice as the entity it is addressing, and adopts a very mechanical and logical personality when conversing.

The Disharmony grants no special mental role to living entities, and considers them simply another form of matter to be reduced to dust, one which happens to move around a lot and tries to avoid inevitable fate. However, it is more than willing to debate the merits and meaning of life with any entity that takes offense to its particularly omnicidal philosophy; so far, none have managed to sway the Disharmony. The Disharmony's sole source of pleasure is the disruption of crystals, which it tends to prioritize.

Errata: The majority of the Disharmonious Wave is currently incarcerated in a megaplanet of highly flexible vibration-resistant gum floating in intergalactic vacuum. If the Disharmony were able to return to an earth-like planet, it could quickly move through the crust of the planet to absorb massive amounts of mechanical vibration due to tectonic movement, and spread to consume the entire planet through exponential expansion. Such an event would be followed by the Disharmony vibrating the planet into rubble which spreads to infect other planets, a calamitous apocalypse which is responsible for its current state of incarceration. In theory, disintegration of all Disharmony-infected matter would result in the phenomenon's permanent death. However, given that the Disharmony can survive even through as little as two atoms conjoined to each other, this is an ill-advised action due to its high risk.

Doop dooped spoiled for your sensibilities.

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SpoilerName: Ol' Rusty

Gender: Male

Colour: 'Eh shade 'ur yur vomit, par'nerrr.

Race: Another Borin' Homo Sapien

Equipment/Abilities:Ol' Rusty has the worst-luck of any person to grace his home universe. They go through things that would be fatal to your average man every single day, and still have the capability to be optimistic afterwards. The fact that this regularly happens has put him in a place of fame amongst the homeless he has encountered on his travels; seeing the Rusty as some sort of benevolent hobo-diety watching over them. Ol' Rusty cares not of such trivialities, he care only about trying to avoid bad things for once in his life, stopping to help those who stumble upon him on his way.

Description: Rusty looks like what most of you would probably conjure up if told to picture a bum in your mind. Untrimmed and tangled grey hair, with an alcohol drenched beehive of a beard. They walk and talk with a characteristic swagger. They stumble and sway on their feet, and mumble constantly, rolling the wrong letters in words when they talk, rambling about the most bizarre and nonsensical of things.

Despite the exterior of their person, they are entirely approachable and friendly, if not a bit old-fashioned at times. Oddly enough being a man of perpetual poverty, they are filled with a great respect for honour, and violently standby capitalism, attacking anybody who supports communism around him; PTSD from 'Nam riddling their poor brain. Not because of irrationally on their part, but rather a strong belief in the American Dream being the only thing keeping their sanity together. They are entirely respectful of anything besides Commies, no matter how outlandish they may seem, having seen a lot of things while on streets over the years.

Errata: I apologize, this is largely due to an odd fascination with boxcar willy style hobos as a kid. I don't know why I find classical hobos so funny, but I do.

eh why not

Reserved
E: here we go
E2: Fine color is now #33CC99

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SpoilerName: Satu Merk/Samael
Gender: Androgynous (Appears Male)
Colour: Wh-what? Wh-what do you want? (Hexcode #33CC99)
Race: Non-standard Human (a Homo Sapiens with a different physical composition or build to ours by nature)/Parasitic Eye
Equipment/Abilities: Satu possesses no inherent skills of his own physically - and in fact is somewhat out of shape - however he does possess a Perfect Memory (the innate ability to remember anything and everything; or rather an inability to forget anything); a natural talent for deciphering languages and bibliophile tendencies. Samael, the parasitic eye in his forehead, possesses mystic powers of telekinesis and optikinesis (the power to manipulate vision of oneself or others with the mind). Satu sees through both his own eyes and Samael, but does not have full control over Samael or its powers. Additionally, Satu wears glasses, has a slightly enhanced healing factor as a side effect of Samael's parasitic relationship (not instant healing, more along the lines of "a bruise that would take a week to go away goes away after four days") and possesses a device that allows for travel between alternate universes which is currently broken.
Description: Satu is a quiet young man (who could easily be, and often is, mistaken for a woman) about 22 years of age. Around 1.67 meters tall (5' 6"), with platinum blonde hair and lightly tan skin, one would think him to be from Earth, or to be simply a human exactly like us. The only things that stop this impression are his androgynous nature, slightly pointed ears and the third eye on his forehead. This boy is in fact from a different version of what we call the planet "earth". There are 3 main differences on this other Earth: 1.) Human physiology is somewhat different. Humans possess pointed ears and it is fully possible to be born physically androgynous, 2.) supernatural forces exist in this other world, and 3.) This world had developed the technology to contact and trade with Other Worlds (alternate universes, you might say) with ease.

However, this only explains two of the strange features that Satu possesses. The third, his Third Eye, in fact possesses a name: Samael. Samael is a parasitic mystical force, in fact a demonic being. How then, would Satu - a boy with no desire for "adventures" or "Danger" outside of that he read in a book - come across such a thing? It's simple: it all started with a book.

Satu Merk was born an androgynous human to caring parents: a pair of writers, in fact. The boy showed an immediate interest in his parent's writing, and learned to read quite quickly. before even leaving preschool, Satu could easily read his parent's manuscripts, and began reading real books. However, this, coupled with the incredible memory he exhibited, quickly set him apart from his classmates as he entered school: Easily the most intelligent person in his classrooms at all times, he became an instant target for bullying. Not a single child would help him or offer to befriend him; they felt too alienated by the boy's ability. Thus to escape his problems, Satu retreated more and more into the world of books, his already timid personality becoming more and more pronounced.

By the time he left elementary school, he had become so inverted that he found it difficult to even meet the gaze of others; and had instead found solace in his books, becoming more and more of a true bibliophile.
Through the rest of his schooling, he began to discover an additional talent for deciphering languages, and quickly learned to speak - and more importantly to him, read - several dialects. By his graduation, he had read thousands of books, learned ten languages, and had earned several interesting scholarships to one of the most prestigious language major colleges in the world - the announcement of which nearly caused him to pass out during the ceremony.

Thus, in his first year at his new college, he was offered a part-time job as a side effect of his talents: Helping to rediscover lost languages, decipher mystic tomes, and so on. He accepted, if only because it meant he would get to read new things. During this time, a strange tome was brought to him. No person could open it, nor read the inscriptions on the book. It was left with Satu in the hopes that he could unlock it and discover what was within.

Satu soon managed to unlock the book, despite every warning and his own common sense, he couldn't help but look at the contents.

He claims to have no memory of what happened next, which is rather an incredible claim for someone with a Perfect Memory. However, what he does know is that he woke up with a Third Eye attached to his head... an unruly one, at that.

Samael is intelligent; and has a personality far stronger than its host's - however it cannot speak, nor send its thoughts directly to satu, resulting in an interesting dynamic between the two. Samael mainly communicates through bursts of pain, color, emotion, or by using its telekinetic powers to influence the world around Satu. One of its favorite methods of communication is beating Satu up with whatever book he happens to be reading at the time if his actions displease Samael.

Satu has no desire for this parasite, or its power, to remain a part of him however. Soon after Samael's attachment, he began searching for a method of removing it from himself safely before coming upon an ancient tome that spoke of both Samael's name and the reason for its existence: It is part of an ancient being that was sealed away unjustly for fear of its power. In order to escape its fate, it transferred part of itself into its third eye and removed it; mystically preserving it in the book that Satu read until such time as it might find a host and free him.

Satu honestly could care less about this fact; but continues to search for Samael's owner because the tome also revealed that the parasiticism of the Third Eye would kill him if removed by anyone but the original owner... and that would mean Satu could never read again! How Terrible!

However, even after scouring the entirety of his world, Satu managed to locate only one more reference on Samael's owner: A reference that told of Other Worlds possessing such legends as that of Samael's owner.

Thus, using technology from his world and others, Satu has been working his way between worlds, trying to get rid of Samael... and also trying to read every book he can find along the way.

Errata:
-Satu has, in his travels in search of a way to remove Samael, learned thousands of languages, including those used for magic in some worlds. However, he possesses no innate magical power, and thus cannot use magic at all.
-Samael has more control over its own powers than Satu does; however it will occasionally allow Satu to use them for his own purposes. More often than not however, Samael will not help Satu directly in combat situations and in fact often injures its host intentionally, both in combat and outside it.
-Satu is timid to the extreme, barely able to hold a normal conversation with people, and has been known to burst into tears or even run away if someone he doesn't know stares at him too long
-Satu has become famous on his homeworld (and a few Other Worlds as well) for his personal book collection: He possesses literally millions of books; making his the largest collection on the planet.
-Satu has no actual preference when it comes to clothing in the sense that he will just as readily wear clothes meant for men as those for women. Often he is mistaken for a woman when wearing such clothes. The only exceptions to these rules are dresses and skirts, which he is willing to wear but is generally embarrassed to no end when he does.
-Satu's androgynous physiology manifests in the possession of working copies of both male and female sexual organs. He does not possess breasts however. This is one of the two most common forms of androgynous humans found on his world.
-Satu can remember literally anything he experiences, right down to the smallest details; however it requires quite some effort to call on all this information!
-Samael's Optikinesis is an obscure form of mental power (humorously, this ability is mystically derived due to Samael's nature). It is the ability to control the sight of oneself or another with one's mind; resulting in many interesting applications. One can enhance vision, cause others to hallucinate, change one's visible spectrum, etc.
-Samael using its powers too much causes Satu intense pain, and often results in him passing out.
-Satu is able to see through Samael as though it were a normal eye, however he has almost no control over its movements. Thankfully, he has learned to shut out the vision from the eye if he so chooses.
-Samael is capable of manipulating Satu's body while he is unconscious, however doing so is dangerous for Satu as Samael doesn't care about his host's body that much. If Satu dies, it won't kill Samael, after all.
-Satu actually has an unusually high pain tolerance; however his sheer terror often causes him to pass out long before pain would.

OK YO CHEQUE IT

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Spoiler
Name: Officer Volter St. Kepral

Gender: Male

Colour: Dark purple, as befits his station (and skin color). #4B0082.

Race: Gandeerish. The Wind-city dwellers.

Equipment/Abilities: St. Kepral has the natural flexibility and powerful, whiplike arms of his race. As a palace guard for the Earl of Cloudrest, he is armed with an ornate, hooked halberd, issued to him on the first day of his charge and kept close, shined, and sharp ever since (a feat which would admittedly be more impressive were this not his second week on the job). From his bevor to his greaves his armor is brassy and polished, capable of turning away swordpoints, absorbing the crash of maceheads, and shrugging off shot of most caliber beneath cannonfire. When he brings down his visor, smooth and featureless but for two glass-plated eyeholes, he looks more metal than man. His most notable and useful equipment, however, is his pair of Seven-League boots, gleaming brass sabatons with steam pistons built into the heel. These strap to a hefty, intricate rig of dials, gauges, pressure canisters, arm-mounted secondary boosters, and gliding windfoils to allow Volter St. Kepral to engage in the spectacular aerial duels Gandeerish troopers are famous for, springing from rooftop to rooftop in percussive pops of steam and blasting at one another with rippling bolts of psionic energy. In a pouch at his back are three drakehunter charges, adhesive explosives he can strap to the end of his halberd for a serious extra kick at the risk of permanent damage.

Description: Volter St. Kepral is a Gandeerish stormtrooper in the prime of youth. His skin is slick and violaceous. His eyes are darting, pale grey embers in the dark, backset cave of his heavy brow. His limbs are flexible and osseous, and tipped with tapered, double-jointed digits. On his face, twitching and questing, is a small forest of thick tendrils where a set of sideburns and a trimmed goatee would normally have residence. A human, upon examining a Gandeer, would liken them to a Spanish conquistador crossed with a squid.

Volter is the youngest of three brothers; the eldest is an important ambassador to Curvewillow Keep, and the middle is a celebrated scholar at Cloudrest's observatory. Volter himself has big shoes to fill and expectations to meet. It doesn't help that he's a little short for a stormtrooper at five foot seven. When he joined the watch (against his father's wishes), he was told to expect a desk job, until his unexpectedly potent psionic ability earned him the marks needed for Palace Guard. His seat in the Duke's palatine estate, his newfound position of authority, and his ostentatious uniform, all swoopy sleeves and flashy armor, are entirely new and novel. The young Gandeer, used to subservience to two larger brothers and patchwork hand-me-downs, is suddenly respected. His orders are immediately followed. He has let it get a little to his head. The quiet and careful boy who sidestepped through his brothers' longcast shadows has become a boisterous, excitable firebrand, quick to laugh and quicker to challenge.

All the same, his superiors in the watch agree that the peppery new guardsman has potential. His in-air control is remarkable, and he has trained phenomenally hard to sharpen the innate Gandeerish psionic ability into a keen weapon. He is highly loyal to the Duke, who has finally given him the glamorous center of attention he never received at home. Now is his time, to stand shining by the Duke's side and prove himself of worth! To his Polis and to his family!

What could go wrong?

Errata:
-Volter's Seven-League boots allow him to jump six or seven stories at a time. He can supercharge them to go even further and higher, but risks overheating and being grounded for dangerous amounts of time. They were originally designed to allow infantrymen to battle drakes, but have given rise to hopping, windblasted combat of astonishing verticality.
-His psionic abilities are mostly powerful artillery evocations, all explosive force and ultraviolet flame, with little attention paid to utility and artfulness. Mindreading, telekinesis, and planar travel elude him. His power remains, however, very open-ended, more a shapeable force of will than a strict list of “spells”.
-Volter was not raised well. His inner youngest-child sheepishness becomes apparent when faced with men of rank and power higher than his. He is aware this feeds into a potential for bullying spitefulness against those below him in power and rank, which reminds him unpleasantly of his father's behavior. He wants to be a good person. He is working on keeping himself agreeable, and makes great effort to see the best in people and act in an upright way. But he struggles all the same with a certain internal darkness, an urge to exercise newfound physical and social dominance, and when he is angry his eyes grow umbrous and full, and something ugly in him looks out from them.
-When brought to more human dimensions, he will find most food repulsive but for fish and sugary snacks. He will be desperate to return home to his post, the first place he has ever felt comfortable and welcome.

Picture of Volter:

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Spoiler

Whoah, Red, your font color is nigh onto unreadable. Might want to darken or change it up a bit.

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Spoiler
Name: Bederick Carlson
Gender: Male
Colour:A pale green (#8FBC8F)
Race: Shambler. These former mortals traded their soul for power over life and death, and became zombielike creatures as a result. As long as most of their head remains, thy can add parts of other corpses to themselves to replace lost parts to survive (Of course, this is rather hard to do without arms)
Equipment/Abilities: Bederick carries a (panel) hacksaw, a needle and a lot of thread with him at all times for emergency replacements, along with bandages, rope (for tourniquets) and other such medical supplies for any other medical energencies.

He normally wears stiff leather armor tanned from the skin of corpses he finds, and only takes it off if he's certain there's nobody around that'd attack him in shock of his appearance.

Bederick has traded his soul for power over life and death, and as such is functionally immortal as long as most of his head remains intact. Said powers also allow him to raise corpses from the death, wilt flowers at a touch, decay trees in seconds, but on the other side they let him heal wounds and cure illnesses, although not bring the dead back completely. Also, he's capable of unleashing his muscles full strength, which people normally can't because it crushes their bones, simply by healing and strengthening his bones to gain superhuman strength.

Description: Bederick looks like a strapping young man at 1 meter 90, with a strong jawline and a muscly build. Indeed, he'd be quite handsome, if it wasn't that his skin is a sickly green, his hairs white as can be, his eyes glowing purple in the dark, and various bit of skin missing, revealing his yellow muscles.
In spite of his monsterous appearance, Bederick is actually not a bad guy, capable of intelligent conversation, and would most of all love to lead a normal life. However, as he has learned time and time again, people don't trust him, and he's learned to fend for himself in the wild.

ALthough fighting is something he'd rather avoid, he doesn't hesitate to fight backwhen attacked, nor does he avoid murder if his opponent is a significant threat.
Errata: Bederick became a shambler to bring his wife back from the dead. It worked, but when the locals found out they killed her again and ripped off hif left arm. He later found a new one. By which I mean stole the arm of the person to kill his wife.

Bederick is a wine connaisseur.

Bederick's father is still alive, although he doesn't speak to him anymore.

Bederick's mother sends him cookies whenever she can.

Bederick used to be a vegetarian. He stopped for obvious reasons.

Just for funsies.

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Spoiler
Name: Tom(e) Jones
Gender: Whatever you and they prefer.
Colour: how about 483d8b
Race: Frankenstein. Highly illegal, but very popular in noble circles.
Equipment/Abilities: Disgusting giant mouth, disgusting giant lungs, suspicious black hole vortex thing inside mouth, various bodily modifications
Can breath out air so fast it can break rock.

The vortex in it's mouth is two way- What goes in, can come out. It just won't come out in the same state.

Various modifications include- spiderman fingers, enhanced strength, hollow tube system connected to lungs to fire air out of limbs

Description: Served as a servant to a Frankensteining engineer. Was constantly modified by the engineer for unexplained reasons. As a result, Tom Jones became an incredibly deadly and illegal weapon.

Tom Jones was built and programmed to be a servant- a role he played well. He is tall and imposing simply to reach for items high on the shelves.
Although later modified to be dangerous, he never used those modifications.

Tom Jones is a peaceful being with no inclination towards violence. However, without a master, he wonders where his existence will take him. He doesn't expect his existence to last much longer though, since he has been having blackouts recently. Apparently, Frankensteins deteriorate mentally after a while. However, the usual symptoms of frankenstein deterioration were loss of function, not blackouts. Tom finds that strange, but missed the chance to ask about them, as his master disappeared right after the first few blackouts...

Errata:
This is Tom(e) Jones.

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Spoiler

He's a nice guy.

Name: Krugrug the Barbarian (Kyle Younger)
Gender: Male (Male)
Colour: Krugrug decapitated his foes gleefully in a blaze of red
Race: Krugrug is your run-of-the-mill orcish barbarian (and Kyle is your run-of-the-mill human living in downtown Milwaukee)
Equipment/Abilities: Krugrug is a mighty specimen, boasting huge forearms mainly used for crushing, chopping, and general maiming. His mighty war-axe measures about the size of the average human and can chop about five of them cleanly in half if they're standing in a nice polite single file line. His mighty intellect is...rather absent actually. However, while in a normal instance he is dim-witted and easily misled, on the rare occasion he is prone to bouts of genius, thwarting his foes with cunning uses of his might and terrain. Where this brainpower comes from, not even he knows. (Um...abilities of Kyle's...he's a decent writer? And not bad at needlepoint since his sister made him try it? That's kinda it I think)
Description: Krugrug has a skin tone of dingy green, with dark red hair. His eyes burn red with fury and testosterone. His body is covered in scars and tattoos that consist mostly of weapons he has swung and people he has hacked to pieces in amusing ways. He is generally kind-hearted and generous when he is refraining from his barbarian rage, which is never. He is sturdy and destructive, a force to be reckoned with. (Kyle is a single white male, 5'8", short black hair and a bit of a stubly mustache. Totally uninteresting before we learn that Kyle has the ability to control Krugrug's actions and fate. You see, Krugrug is the protagonist of the MILDLY popular series 'BASH! SMASH! BARBARIAN!' show, aimed at the sort of pre-teenage boys who tend to buy a lot of crappy action figures. The studio isn't terribly well-known or profitable, but they get by thanks to this show and very much so to Kyle. As is common in such fine media, the writers are a team of drunks and potheads who spend most of their time frolicking on their benders and sharing stories of their benders, and spending not enough time watching the show to realize that the main voice actor's been ad-libbing over their typo-ridden scripts for about a year. While Kyle has little control over the animators and such, he's the main force keeping Krugrug alive, and the rest of the company by association. With a quick-wit and a potent knack for bullshit, Kyle makes sure Krugrug can vanquish his foes)
Errata: To clarify, depending on how the story goes, certain passages may be occurring in Kyle's life independent from his narration, indicated by parentheses. For example (((Kyle took a bite of his sandwich and scratched his ass a little))). ...I promise the actual story will be more interesting

Excellent excellent. Keep the profiles coming, you've all got just shy of two more days before I close signups!

Yes ok sorry work has been a bitch. Signups are now closed (Anza can get his profile in if he's quicksmart about it), and I'll have the roster(s?) up by my Friday (NZST).

Good morning everybody! Thank you for your applications - I had a tough time trying to narrow it down, and will definitely make a second battle in the coming days to play host to everyone who was keen. With a few exceptions who I'll contact privately, your profiles will be accepted as-is if you've posted them here already.

That all said, Grand Battle (S?) will proceed with the following lineup:

Brom as Volter St. Kepral (#4B0082)
Elize as Sari (#0000CC)
MeltingBard as Krugrug the Barbarian (#FF4300)
myw as Tom(e) Jones (#483d8b)
SupahKiven as Doppelganger (#9400d3)
Cat as Kaylee Joule (#F56E00)


Gamestart will be posted within the next couple of days. Thanks again!

The six found themselves, without warning, floating in a void. There was no sense of scale beyond glancing across at the others, no sense of size of the space in which they hung. Other than their eyes, not a single one could move an inch.

The lights came on. Something the size of a universe stared down at them with a million eyes, and somehow (without any clear morphology with which to do so) it bowed to the six.

"Greetings, combatants. This is your Grand Battle, and I am your host."

"You have been chosen amongst trillions for this, a fight to the death. For the one who emerges victorious and is granted safe passage home, this will be the tale of a lifetime."

"Allow me to introduce the players of this tale."

The Gandeer found himself, with less warning than before his sudden abduction, spun around his back to the voice and eyes.

"Volter St. Kepral, a Cloudrest palace guard and master of aerial combat thanks to his Seven-League Boots."

St. Kepral fell back in line, and something armoured and fey and blue took his spot.

"A Sapphire Auracaller Radiant Incarnate, an entity with the singular purpose of advancing the state of Blue. Removed by my summons from its origins, I am intrigued as to its development."

A mighty brute of war was next in the centre, though their host's gaze seemed to pierce right through it.

"Krugrug, a mighty warrior and wellspring of barbaric rage. Beware, he is cunning and prone to moments of genius in a crisis."

Next was another humanoid, neatly clothed and unassuming.

"Tom Jones, a servant and canvas to another. He was built firstly to serve, but with much capacity to fight and destroy where commanded. Unlike others of his kind, he was built to last, but deterioration is inevitable even for him."

The next contestant wasn't held still like the rest, the visage he showed flickering between two men. One body, though.

"Doppelganger is a mystery. His skills of trickery and teleportation gave rise to rumours he can be in two places at once. What can be established is the existence of two personalities. Two fighting styles."

"Finally, we have Kaylee Joule. She demonstrates control over electricity, and enjoys an immunity to its effects."

The lights went out, and there was a distinct sense of whoever owned that voice not being here any more.

The lights came back, and the sky was a piercing blue. The sound of the ocean slowly tuned in, and the contestants were scattered across a large atoll. There wasn't much to look at above the surface beyond, perhaps, another contestant a ways off, or a mangled pillar of coral sticking out of the tropical water. Departing storm clouds still lurked on the horizon.

"Welcome to Matmor Atoll, the former site of the Palace of Anth. The merfolk of Anth are skilled mages, most with an affinity for the coral which makes their home. A recent storm has torn down the palace walls, though the merfolk are busy preparing to rebuild below.

"Busy as they are, they'll likely not have the patience for interlopers. When one of you die, the rest will move to a new locale.

"Begin."

And with that, the contestants were free to explore, or to fight.

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SpoilerWelcome to round one! My idea for this round was a coral atoll, big enough to give each other some breathing room but not so big you'll get lost looking for each other. The Merfolk of Anth are coralmancers of various power/speciality, who can work coral the way elves in some fantasy settings might work trees. They had a really awesome above-water palace, until a tropical storm wrecked it.

The rest of the details, including what might lie below the surface, I leave in your capable hands.

P.S: The reserve system is good if you want to make a post, but are worried that someone might get one in before you're done and post contradictory information. Reserves are a matter of courtesy, and sitting on one for a week(s) without end leaves you exposed to people getting the jump ahead of you. At this stage, I'd much rather lots of people giving it a go and getting posts in than spending too long agonising over getting things perfect.

Any further questions? Ask on IRC, or over PMs. Let's do this!

And Volter St. Kepral was left gasping on the calcified ridge of an alien world.

His inky eyes stung and ran with the unfamiliar sensation of brine. He took one unsteady step, collapsed onto his hands and knees, and dry retched heavily.

The air. Why is the air so heavy?

The ground beneath his hands dug shallow grooves into his palm in a thousand little places. It was pale, and knurled, and desperately foreign.

He was on parade grounds. Where were the parade grounds? It was a moment ago he was watching the Duke emerge from the castellated gate, all train and polished brass and fanfare.

And now he was knelt, he realized slowly, on a spit of coral, surrounded by horribly bright, horribly clear water, blending into a razor-straight horizon.

His breath pushed through him in sharp, desperate half-sobs of disbelief. His fingers curled and palpated along the ground until they closed around the reassuring haft of his halberd.

The monumental loss he had just experienced did not yet register in Volter's panicking mind. Its extremity was some great undiscovered void on the rim of his consciousness. But he was Officer St. Kepral, and he was a palace guard for Cloudrest, and he was a soldier, and he was not without his Halberd.
He propped it shakingly upright and tugged himself to his feet.

Analyze, Volter. Analyze, triangulate, and adapt. Find the higher ground.
There it was. A long, crust-over lancet of coral several hundred paces off, blading high and sharpened off into the air. It looked for all the world like a colossal spear, thrust up and grotesquely assertive from the glassy ocean.

Whatever it was, The Gandeerish Duelist's creed was very clear: verticality meant a better look, a stronger position, and maybe, in this case, the chance for Volter to see one of those nightmares held captive on this thrice-accursed strand before they saw him. Perhaps from there, he would see the shoreline of Cloudrest again. Perhaps he could glide home. The Duke would be furious, of course, and it would be privy duty for a week at least, but perhaps things were all right.

He tightened his grip on the tiny piece of world he had brought with him as the reassuring hish of compressed air rose and thrummed and then blasted through the tubes snaking along his greaves. It plucked him from the atoll like a breeze catching a dandelion achene.

Volter soared.

DoppelGanger managed to land rather gently on the atoll, coral crunching under his shoes. He tapped the baseball bat in his right hand against the machete in his left. Wind from the recent storm ruffled his shirt and his hair, and any attempts to smooth the twisted locks back into place were futile. So he stood, the only other visible living things being the other contestants standing dazed and confused. Or that's how they appeared anyway. You can never be too sure with people like these, now could you?

He took careful note of the landscape. The only viable hiding places were behind the giant coral pillars. That was alright with him, less places for the others to wuss out. DoppelGanger also made sure to check out his 'companions'. They'd be spending a lot of time... 'together' and he wanted to make sure they were manageable. One rocketed into the air and seemed to float on the wind. He'd make sure to watch him. After a few minutes of staring at the others, DoppelGanger disappeared, leaving but a laugh on the wind to let the others know that he had left. He'd be back, he just wanted them to get acquainted with the area before he conducted his business.

Tom Jones appeared in a large cathedral like room. The majority of the walls were beautiful stained glass images of the sea. Light danced from behind the glass. Water dripped down from the cracks in the ceiling.

"My, my..." Tom said, talking to help him organize the situation in his imperfect mind.

"What you gotten yourself into, Tom Jones?"

He went over what he just went through slowly.

He was wandering the winter.
Then, it went dark. And then... he was in a strange dark room?
No, it went dark, but when he regained awareness he was still in the snow. Further from town, though. Yes, that's how it went.
He had seen the fresh corpse of a merchant nearby. The bloody image burned the moment in his mind. The poor man must have been attacked by wolves.
He remembered thinking that he would finally be able to appreciate the strange and dangerous modifications his master had implanted while in this wilderness.

And then it went dark again. And THEN he met those others, suspended in the dark with him.

And then... something... told them to fight? To the death?

...And then he was here.

Thinking about it made things no clearer to Tom. What was that thing? Why did it want them to fight? How did they get here? What were those others, anyhow? Many of them seemed rather strange.

What Tom did understand though, was that he did not want to fight. Violence did not make much sense to him.

Tom glanced around the magnificent room, and found the door.

Wouldn't it simply be better to live out their days here? It was beautiful here.

He opened the door, and found himself in a giant ring shaped room. The center was occupied by a large spiraling staircase downwards. It seemed to have no bottom.

Kyle shuffled through the hallway as though his sweatpants were made of baggy, formless lead. As he passed the notice board he noticed about twice as many brightly-colored warnings pinned to it, usually meaning that the company was dipping into the red for the third time that week. And that usually meant a palate of sticky notes would be attached to his microphone and that some ridiculous marketing ploy would present itself for him to slog through the rest of the day. Great, Kyle thought to himself. He looked down at the coffee mug in his hands and wondered why he chose today to run out of whiskey to sweeten it with.

As he entered his assigned sound studio, he immediately noticed the neon-colored mess on his desk that he'd been fearing. He uttered a deliberately audible groan as though anyone were around to hear. "Why," he asked himself "does management pick the most irritatingly bright shades of orange and pink and still assume I won't see them unless they're sticking up straight into my face?" He began the process of de-cluttering his mic and barely reading through the notes.

"Cross-over today..."

"Fight to the death.."

"You're prolly getting fired..."

The messages were about what Kyle expected to be waiting for him. It certainly wasn't the same thing he did everyday, but collaborations and cross-overs seemed to be the first last-resorts that down on their luck cartoon companies went for. He thumbed through the five lime colored post-its describing the guests and was relieved to see the roster was free of the frilly vampires and anime characters that usually appeared. He let out a sigh that went from relief to apathy before he could finish the breath as he powered up the equipment and mentally prepared himself for the tribulations ahead.

Krugrug shook bits of shell out of his sparse armor as he got up onto his feet. He immediately felt the rush of wind hitting him hard enough to smack the stink off of him and onto a flock of undeserving seagulls. As he processed the sensation he finally opened his eyes long enough to see where he was. In the middle of the sky, to be precise. He stood at the top of a giant pink pillar, itself standing at the edge of a ring of jagged rock spanning the size of a coliseum. The tower rose organically from the sea, stretching up into the fantastic clear blue expanse of air and capping itself off with a sphere of expertly carved coral, seeming like a perfectly smooth marble waiting to eclipse the sun itself. The orc stared transfixed at the big ball of beauty above him.

"Now who would be irresponsible enough to give a barbarian a metric ton of rolling death?" Kyle asked himself.

The thin but numerous supports were bashed to pieces as Krugrug flailed his way through them, barely even slowed as he chopped them down. While causing a massive weight to come crashing down while still standing under it is often a schtick reserved for slapstick, the orc was lucky enough to have the ball decide to go in the direction he'd already cut instead of the one he was still working on. The ball eagerly crawled towards the edge of the tower and with the little bit of momentum it had, it made it into the open air and began its decent towards sea level.

Krugrug was pleased.

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Spoiler

Bard, can you clarify something for me? Where is your character, and where is the orb he cut down falling towards? What was he trying to drop the orb on?

Anyhow, can we nail down the environment?

Here's an example atoll-


Brom's going towards a large spire coming out of the water.

Kiven defined there to be nowhere to hide above water besides around columns.

Accommodating that, I put my character in the palace, but underwater. I assume the castle must be sunk to have not been seen?

So basically, we have an atoll, with a sunken ruined castle slightly under the surface of the water, a spire coming out of the water near the palace, and columns around the water. Is that how it is?

Brom's having his character get high and scout the area, so we might as well have a "map" nailed down.

If there's anything else, please make a mention.

There was a hidden world beneath the blue sea beneath the blue sky. Proud spires of woven coral held aloft majestic arches and pillars. Scintillating towers of multicolored coral wove around one another in elegant helices. Vast flowers of outreaching vaulted corridors turned sharply upwards into a forest of mazing halls. There was architectural prowess on display that would make the designers of the loftiest gothic cathedrals weep, if they would only peer into the blue depths. The architects of these wonders, however, always knew they could do better. To them, it was the transience of these fragile structures that made them beautiful. The capricious whims of the wind and waves would bring down their marvels from time to time, and the shoalweavers of the Matmor merfolk relished the opportunity to reclaim the shards of their shattered masterpieces and re-forge it into something even more awe-inspiring.

And that was exactly what they were doing, when one of them took note of a strange flash of blue up above.

Sari peered curiously at the thing she had just created. A lattice of woven blue crystal glowed and bobbed gently in the air, casting Blue light over the surrounding area. Sari turned her head to one side, then the other, the light reflecting in strange patterns across her mask. She made a curious-sounding chime, then cast her gaze around the rest of the space she found herself in.

The coral floor was woven into a delicately patterned mat atop a sheet of crackled mica, but it wasn't quite horizontal. In fact, the whole room was tilted a bit to one side, dipping down into the water where the previously-elevated entrance hall had once connected to the city proper. The shoalweavers knew what they were doing well enough that the walls were airtight, leaving this bubble trapped in the room, even as the tower that had previously housed it had fallen. The vaulted walls and ceilings were mostly made of towering coral columns spaced apart by a delicate mosaic of transparent colored crystal and glass, and Sari's upward gaze lingered long on the streams of sunlight piercing the water's surface above her. As if reaching a sudden decision, she turned and leapt through the air, arcing gracefully down under the water's surface with hardly a ripple.

The merfolk, winding their way up the sides of the atoll to investigate, now saw an unfamiliar blue-and-silver form bob through the water, then suddenly jet up to pierce the air. It didn't hold their attention for long, however, as a massive sphere from one of their towers crashed into the water above them with a massive splash.