The Spectacular Exhibition (S3G2) [Round 2: Space - Abridged]

Originally posted on MSPA by cyber95.

---

The Counsellor was delighted when she was approached by The Fool.  She had, of course, been watching the battles for a while.  Taking notes, and observing the changes in the contestants.
Eximo Pulvis.  Started out the Grand Battle with certain inferiority issues, which, by the end had been completely resolved.
Whit O'Donal.  Throughout the battle had developed a greater confidence with himself and his abilities.
Maxwell Deakin has grown much more mentally unstable since the beginning, but his elimination seems to be coming up soon.

It was certainly an interesting idea for an experiment.  The other Grandmasters ran their battles based merely on the idea of entertainment.  True, there is something... appealing about a battle of this caliber, but why not a practical application of the battles?  With only a few exceptions, it appeared that being thrust into such a strange and dangerous situation is not detrimental to the average psyche.  If anything, it can produce the opposite effect, helping one overcome certain mental issues.  Those that couldn't simply weren't fit for survival.

Okay so the idea may have been flawed in some way, and it probably couldn't be fully explored well enough unless it were some kind of spinoff of sorts, but with the standard format, she would do what she could.

She supposed she would need a name or something.  Hm... she could think of it while scouting for potential subjects.  Whatever the results of this, it was sure to be a Spectacular Exhibition.

...oh hey!

Oh snapsicles is it that time already? Yes, happy birthday to me, but my present today is one to be shared!  This is the Spectacular Exhibition!
If you don't know what a Grand Battle is then you've been living under a rock or just don't really frequent this part of the forum.  It's okay, I understand.

The story is that once upon a time I took a game with a dumb name and altered the rules and now there are 17 of them and now 18 and then there will be 6 more and then more seasons and it spiralled out of control and long story short there are a lot of options to read up on it.  The gist of it is that there are 8 contestants and 7 rounds, and each round somebody will be eliminated based on who has the worst writing.

Now here is the patient chart.  Please fill it out legibly.  Only people with MDs can scribble it.

Subject name: What's your character's name?
Gender: Yep.
Race: What species is your character?  Robot, werewolf, eldritch entity, we've had it all!
Colour: Whatever color you'll be posting in.  (I appeal to both demographics with both spellings!) Whatever color Counsellor uses is right out.
Weapons/Abilities: What does your character fight with? Do they have any special powers or just great skills?
Description:  Personality and looks.  If "sword" is mentioned in weapons, and "beard" is used in here, consider something else.
Mental diagnosis:  The Counsellor has a plan!  Perhaps this battle can help your character overcome some sort of mental deficiency.  The question is, what is it?
Biography: Tell me your character's life story.

And that would be it!  So yeah.  The one caveat for this is that your character can not be 100% mentally stable.  Which shouldn't be a problem because when was the last time you saw a mentally stable character in a Grand Battle?

Signups are done for! Here's the lineup.

1. Crepitans Bloodbark - #8B6D47 - SleepingOrange
2. Norman Randall Pollet - #E07040 - wheeeeeeatthins
3. Tria - "Navy" - Mirdini
4. Brooklyn Taylor - 3E275F - Schazer
5. Red - "Red" - Pick Yer Poison
6. Nemaeus - #225C54 - whoosh
7. Blazaard - #876543 - Akumu
8. Gepetto Morti - "Olive" - pandaExtremist BURNT AND BURIED

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Originally posted on MSPA by Wheeeeeeatthins.

---

SpoilerShow

[spoiler]Subject name: Norman Randall Pollet
Gender: Male
Race: Human
Colour: #E07040
Weapons/Abilities: His main ability is his voice.  As the archbishop of the Church of the Second Radicle, and the one responsible for its growth and prominence in Port Merleau, he has an almost supernatural amount of charisma, charm and sway. 
Also, as the archbishop, he is entrusted with a Core Staff--a staff supposedly crafted from a tree which grew from one of the seeds of the Tree of Knowledge.  This staff supposedly enables him to divine certain intangible powers by affecting prevailing animist forces--for example, he can affect luck, make a thunderstorm more likely to happen, etc.  However, this power "only works if God and his Forces have been curried in their favor" [Doctrine of the Word of the Church of the Second Radicle, art.3 sect.12.35].  In actuality, these staffs are not carved from saplings of the Tree of Knowledge.  They are produced in the nearby Halfrus Lumberyard, and are really only good for swinging at people or using as a cane.  He can, however, convince people that his spellcasting is real with his eloquence.
Lastly, he has that Pollet libido.  This can lead to some... happenings... when coupled with his charm.

Description:

Physical: A stodgy man of average height and a well-combed and well-kempt head of brown hair.  Has started to get a bit of a belly after failing to exercise.  When not in ceremonial robes, he is always well-dressed, wearing suits or shirts of silk--for Godliness is next to Cleanliness.  You'd best believe his shoes are shined. 
He has the symbol of his church carved into his hand, which is a tree blooming from the stem of an apple, crucifix inside the apple.  He claims that he was struck by a bolt of divine presence one night, and thus His Word was imprinted onto Norman forevermore. 

Personality: For Norman, Pragmatism comes before Idealism:  He's always been about being a businessman first.  When he was growing up, he saw that the clergy held the lion's share of Port Merleau's wealth.  So he knew that, to get out of the indignifying poverty trap that was his family, he would have to play off that. 
Norman is self-centered and untrusting.  He has always thought that his days of youth were where he fended for himself; he only prevailed because he was individually strong (forgetting all of the contributions of his family).  He rides on convenience and opportunity as his real prevailing gods.  If someone offers him something, he will not only leap at the offer, but try to find a way to make it better for both parties--business is best done through long-term, mutually-beneficial relationships.
Of course, he wouldn't be in his line of business if it didn't do some good for people.  He feels pride in the fact that the religion he helped make gives people confidence and meaning to their actions.  He often makes a great deal about shows of philanthropy, and is known to appear at the right times in the community for the sake of strengthening his public image.  He is not the type for boasting out loud, but rather radiate pride in a back room.

Once he heard news of his brother's death, he began to feel uneasiness and unsureness at what he was doing.  Soon after, he began to see hallucinations of his brother, telling him that there was a good reason for him to feel bad: he has not done one concretely good thing in his life.
And so, now Norman has begun to feel split down the middle--half of him wants to prove his way is right by using his powers as much as he can, while the other half wants to destroy the other half for being a cruel fraud.


Mental diagnosis: Monomaniacal hallucinations and paranoia centering on his brother's death.  Claims to be "haunted" due to his poor treatment of younger brother during youth and on--and it is a trick his bastard conscious is trying to play on him.

Biography: Norman Pollet is the third to be born of the nine children born to Ethan and Nara Pollet.  (From first-born to last, the nine Pollet children were Vena, Clancy, Norman, Sarah, Trenton, Burwell, Aaron, Eloise, and James.)  Norman was closest to Clancy for the first few years of his life--something that changed when Clancy suddenly died of Typhoid when Norman was three.  This trauma is what led him to be so untrusting--the experience left on his malleable mind the fact that who he was closest to him could be taken away from him at any time.  He became uneasy with the prospect of getting too close to anyone--it could have the same result.  His brothers Aaron and Burwell died when he was eight and ten, respectively; his father died when he was eleven in a boating accident.
A month after the boating accident, a storm blew through the town of Port Marleau.  It was said to be caused "The Dread Spirit," the specter of a sunken ship that had been attacking and marauding the town.  Whatever the source, the high winds of change lead to a social upheaval:  though surface damage took about 50 lives, the ensuing several days rioting and civil war in the streets lead to a third of the population dead, another quarter wounded, and nearly sixty percent of the town entirely in disrepair.  It was said that the catastrophe left a specter of bad luck on all of the survivors--perhaps God had damned them all, or perhaps it was God that should have been damned for turning his back.  Either way, the town, which had recently been ruled over by the clergy of the Vercorpolic Church, stood to have something new take its place.

For ten years, the town was left in fear of having any type of religious organization be allowed near power as rebuilding happen.  And rebuilding took place. Meanwhile, Norman was building a worldview of his own:  if he were to escape this pit of poverty and death that was his family, he would have to grab his share in the rebuilding.  It seemed almost obvious where he would make his money: where had the greatest hole been left when the clergy was decried?  In belief.  The town showed both potential for the future and a paranoia of the past beneath the surface, so he would have to make people believe again.

Luckily, when he was 16, he was able to find an Animist prophet who was wandering from town to town and convince him to stay in Port Merleau to try to found a church.  The newfound religion stayed small, at first.  Then, Norman decided that it would be most attractive to the populace if the religion he was leading contained some familiar element to it instead of being pure Animism, so he mixed Animism with Vercorpolism.  The idea struck him like a lightning bolt in a dream.  It spread like a prairie fire across the town.

At the age of 21, the most significant event in the Church's history occurred:  Norman Pollet was introduced into the Society of Merleau Elites.  For the ten years previous, people had been wary of letting anyone in a religious position anywhere near a position of power.  This, however, was different:  the Vercorpolic Church was a big, evil organization, while the Second Church of Radicle was a hometown effort--it still had a soul to it.  Besides, most of the other Merleau elites were already a part of the Church.
At the age of 19, he had married his first wife.  With his induction into the Society, he divorced his first wife and married his second.  Like how he had turned aside his first wife for not fitting the mold of the Elites, Norman had, by now, turned aside his family.

Norman's success in the church caused even more resentment between him and Trenton--he had always treated Trenton like less than a brother, knocking him down to get his own rewards (when he was a teenager, he stole the fishing rod their father had left Trenton and pawned it for several pints of beer), while squabbling with him to no reward regarding their vastly conflicting ideologies.  Trenton, a bacchanalian cynic who saw things fatalistically, would grow red in the face screaming "Wrong!" at the walls of straight-laced, pragmatic eloquence Norman built in front of him.  Once the Church became proof that Norman was right, things came to a head.  Eventually, Eloise, Trenton's closest confidant and their sister, confronted Norman on Trenton's behalf, which resulted in Norman rebuking his brother and sister by name public sermon.  This caused Trenton to leave Port Merleau and wander the world, hoping to find his way somewhere.

The next thing Norman heard about Trenton was that he had died.  Also, that Trenton had explicitly gone out of his way in his will to mention that Eloise was the only sibling of his remaining.  For some reason, that, over anything else that had happened in his life, gave him a feeling of guilt.  From then on, it felt like there was some kind of demon weighing him down.

And then the hauntings began.
To spite his dead brother, he became more aggressive in his sermons.  At times, he would say things only Trenton would understand, or things directed straight at the dead man, and he would then stop to stare straight at him--only to realize that there was no one there he was talking to.  Later, he'd curse his brother for making him look like a fool in front of his congregation.

Of course, his brother would be there to tell him, "that's because you are one."  And so Norman would set out to prove his dead brother wrong even more and more, until one day he tore a chunk of his hair out of his head.  With his scalp still bleeding from the skin he had torn, he passed out on the floor of his rectory and woke up in the realm of The Spectacular Exhibition, knowing his purpose:  to prove that he was right, and that he was being guided by something more than a fake ghost.

I made a second one, because at first I couldn't decide.  I guess read this if you want more backstory on the Pollets.

Subject name: Eloise Pollet

SpoilerShow

Subject name: Eloise Pollet
Gender: Female
Race: Human
Colour: #E08050


Weapons/Abilities:  Barring her most recent job, Eloise Pollet has never held a job long enough to be considered "skilled" in anything.  The longest that she's held a job in her filth-stricken hometown of Port Marleau is eight months--she was a lumber-miller at Halfrus Lumberyard, a logging camp outside town.  She had to dress as a male to get the job, due to the strict no-female policy of the lumberyard, and was thrown back onto the streets after her gambit was discovered.  Has experience with sawing wood, though does not currently have a saw.
She also has experience in being a:

• barmaid (fired for spilling drink on town elite)
  
• housecleaner (fired for spilling drink on carpet of town elite)
  
• journalist (enitre office was shut down after spilling secret of town elite)
  
• cartographer (fired for seemingly no reason)
  
• three-card monty host (quit due to it being unprofitable with her luck)
  
• inn porter (fired for not being able to perform job after guest's luggage landed on arm)
  
• mother (stopped being one after daughter died and husband left)
  
• beggar (stopped being one after being put in jail for vagrancy)
  
• thief (only three experiences, never caught but still guilt-stricken.  Decided to take up shoecobbling job.)
  
• shoecobbler (fired for failing to give right-of-way to social elite after job)
  
• cook (fired for failing to submit to employer's desires)
  
• fishgutter (current job, has had for past 2.5 years.  Has fillet knife on her at all times so that she can skin the fish of a passer-by at a moment's notice for a few bits of currency.
  

In addition to her knife, she has with her 68 boxes of unpublished manuscripts about teenage wizards coming to terms with things.  She originally had seventy, but she has sent two of them in to a publisher.


Description: 
Physical: The first thing one will notice with Eloise is that she's missing one eye, something she refers to as "her constant reminder."  The hole is covered by a bandage.  She's short, with short, disheveled greyish-brown hair.  She wears modest clothing typical of the lower-class in Port Marleau, with one exception: she wears a cut-and-sewn set of stockings made from a fishing net on her legs.  This is so that when she goes wading out to shallow water outside of town to fish for herself (the fish she cleans are for sale to restaurants only), the stockings collect seaweed which she then uses in her home cooking.

Personality: due to her lowly status, she has been conditioned to be quiet, reserved and subservient.  Used to want to travel the world in a sailboat of her own and discover a nation for herself.  Her dreams have faded away over time, like the lines of color in her hair.  Harbors deep resentment towards social elites, and has been waiting her entire life to "get her turn," but doesn't wish harm against anyone else.
More likely to take something in stride than to lash out--has run into too much misfortune to know better.
Clever and knowledgable about certain crafts, but not intelligent due to only having basic schooling.  Though she's of a low status, is literate. 


Mental diagnosis: Monomaniacal hallucinations centering on her brother's death.  Often found "talking to him," though no one has ever reported anything there.  Claims to be "haunted."  In a fit, used fillet knife to take out own eye to try to get rid of the visions.  Possibly stemming from lack of closure surrounding loved one's death.


Biography: Eloise Pollet is the second-last to be born of the nine children born to Ethan and Nara Pollet.  (From first-born to last, the nine Pollet children were Vena, Clancy, Norman, Sarah, Trenton, Burwell, Aaron, Eloise, and James.)  She never knew Clancy, as he had died four years before she was born to typhoid, and Aaron died when she was only one to diphtheria, so she didn't remember him.  She barely remembered Burwell, who died of consumption when she was three.  The sibling she was closest to was Trenton--her closest older brother who looked out for her almost zealously, due to him having watched the two other siblings between them die.
When she was four, her father died in a boating accident.  A month later, a storm blew through the town of Port Marleau.  It was said to be caused "The Dread Spirit," the specter of a sunken ship that had been attacking and marauding the town.  Whatever the source, the high winds of change lead to a social upheaval:  though surface damage took about 50 lives, the ensuing several days rioting and civil war in the streets lead to a third of the population dead, another quarter wounded, and nearly sixty percent of the town entirely in disrepair.  It was said that the catastrophe left a specter of bad luck on all of the survivors--perhaps God had damned them all, or perhaps it was God that should have been damned for turning his back.  Either way, the town, which had recently been ruled over by the clergy of the Vercorpolic Church, stood to have something new take its place.

For ten years, the town was left in fear of having any type of religious organization be allowed near power as rebuilding happen.  And rebuilding took place. Eloise grew into being a product of that society: one fearful of large organizations, one who could charm the boys at school dances, one who could mend a pair of socks or boil a stew if her mother was out and her siblings needed it.  Despite Sarah and James both dying in those years, she had a rather normal upbring for a lower-class child in Port Merleau. And all the while, Port Marleau was giving itself a second fledgling status: after its near-annihilation, it now showed both potential for the future and a toxic paranoia against the past running beneath the surface.
Eventually, old habits arose. With the Vercorpolic Church having been all but banned from the town, new sects had been created while different blends of animistic and totemistic mysticism rose in their practice.  Her brother Norman became an archbishop in the Church of the Second Radicle, a sect of Christianity that mixed Old and New Testament teachings with dark Animistic rituals and interpretations.  He became one of the new social elites, working very seriously for spreading the CotSE's message across town and its success--going so far as to forget about his destitute family and turn them aside.
Norman's success in the church caused even more resentment between him and Trenton--Norman had always treated Trenton cruelly, knocking him down to get his own rewards (when he was a teenager, he stole the fishing rod their father had left Trenton and pawned it for several pints of beer).  When Trenton couldn't take it anymore, Eloise confronted Norman, which resulted in him rebuking her in a public sermon.  This caused Trenton to leave Port Merleau and wander the world, hoping to find his way somewhere.

Trenton's departure marked the start of her work life (as detailed in the abilities section).  She married once and had one child; these ended in a divorce and consumption death, respectively.  Her life was one of isolation:  the only thing that would break this was a letter from Trenton every week or month or so.  He traveled from town to town, writing when he could, while picking up work or joining groups--but never joining anything permanently.  He would always see that things had gotten warped or corrupted somehow, that they had become too much like the Church of the Second Radicle.  Eventually, he settled into some guild life--which was a mistake, as it was a blood-out guild--meaning that until one died, membership was compulsory.  The inevitable happened, one way or another, and letters stopped coming in.
Her fears mounted as she waited for her one connection to the outside world.  She began talking to herself.
Four months later, she received a delivery of 70 boxes of unpublished manuscripts and word that her one remaining brother was dead.  (Norman was still alive, but he was dead to the family.)  She never found out the exact terms of his death (the guild was a secret guild, after all, with a mail censor and all), so in addition to her grief, she had to live without any sort of explanation or resolution as to why he had been taken from her.
Two days of grieving passed.  Then, she saw her first vision of Trenton.  His face was trapped inside the eye of a fish she was gutting.  He didn't say much, except things like, "Hi Eloise, I'm dead," and, "What's the weather like over there?  It's freezing here being dead."  She stabbed the fish through the eye, ending the conversation right there.
Over the next six months, the visions increased in frequency and intensity.  After a while, she learned not to fight it--a lesson learned very abruptly as she dug her own eye out of its socket with a knife. Obviously, fighting it only seemed to make things worse for her.  Besides, it didn't seem like he meant her any harm--he never said anything rude or foreboding.  He just held idle chit-chat with her. Sometimes, he would count the gills on fish, or play guessing games of who in town was cheating on their significant other.  Still, it was pretty disquieting, and has left her on edge as to when he will appear next.
She looked for information as to what happened with her brother's death, but she could find no trace of evidence.  Meanwhile, she kept on working as a fishgutter.

And then she was warped to The Spectacular Exhibition, for whatever reason.  She guesses that someone here's was going to have to catch fish and cook them for everyone else.

Originally posted on MSPA by Ed.

---

I'm reserving a spot

Originally posted on MSPA by Schazer.

---

Oh, what the hell. The potential lineups are starting to look pretty impeccable already. Here's hoping I get in.

Thought I’d call up an old friend for this. Some of yeh’s might remember her.

Subject name: Brooklyn Taylor

Gender: Female

Race: Human ghost, chainsaw body

Colour: This’ere nice mystical purply one. (#3e275f)

Weapons/Abilities: Brooklyn (or Brookie, to the two people she still talks with on a regular basis) is a ghost, accidentally but not unhappily bound to a rocket-propelled (scum-hunting) chainsaw she made herself. It’s a pretty stock-standard chainsaw that her poltergeisty levitation powers can lift about three feet off the ground (as well as provide enough co-ordination to facilitate carving messages into walls), but to give it a bit of extra pep there’s a honking great jet engine in the back which can get the whole contraption moving at a neat clip of up to 70km/h. It’s also got four smaller jets, arranged in a crosshair formation round the chainsaw’s chassis, which help with reorienting/stabilising it. I mentioned this under weapons, because sticking your hand near them while operating really isn’t recommended.
Although she’s stuck in the chainsaw, Brooklyn had/has an affinity for machines, and can possess additional machines or bits of metal in general. There’s also a spot welder attached to the chainsaw’s undercarriage, for repairs on the go. Both the engines and the welder run on what Brooklyn jokingly refers to as “ghost juice.” Nobody’s quite sure what this is, exactly, but she still won’t say no to a decent mouthful of petrol/lighter fluid/other flammable substance.
Being dead also granted Brooklyn a whole bunch of new senses she didn’t have while alive, which I’ll collectively and vaguely refer to as “ghost vision”. Objects and architecture visually “taste” different, if that even makes sense, depending on the memories associated with them. Living things, especially sentient ones, can’t hide from her – she’s convinced she’s got the powers to read their intentions, too, but her proficiency in that skill is debatable.

Description: Well, Brookie’s a home-made, clanking, smoky, roaring chainsaw. With rockets on the blunt end. A gruff exterior notwithstanding, she’s a rather amicable individual for someone who got brutally murdered three years ago. Being an atheist with strong agnostic-pagan tendencies in life and not being too hung up about life after death one way or another, becoming a ghost was an understandable surprise but not one she regrets all that much. She’s having too much fun these days. Death might’ve pushed the already rather eccentric Brooklyn round the bend or over the edge (they seem to lead to the same place, anyway) – though considering her strong mad scientist tendencies in life, chances were she’d have invented teleportation to get her there safely anyway. Brooklyn’s not above vigilantism, or, for that matter, property damage just for the hell of it. She’s nothing if not practical, but skips between pragmatism and rather ludicrous flights of fancy. Losing opposable thumbs did (luckily or unluckily, depending how you look at it) curb her appetite for making experimental and probably illegal inventions.

Mental diagnosis: Mildly paranoid-delusional; frequent mood swings; irresponsibility and inability to understand consequences; violent/psychopathic tendencies. Erratic personality may be symptomatic of unresolved issues surrounding untimely death, and her role in the deaths of others.

Biography: Brooklyn was, when it comes down to it, the victim of her own inability to tell when people are lying. She’ll always hotly maintain it was that little bastard Christopher’s fault, but she forgives him because she got him good with that fireball curse. Kinda. She wouldn’t mind catching up with him again now that she built that chainsaw she was always joking about. But anyway. Emeritus Professor of Engineering Brooklyn Taylor was one of the eighteen victims of the Schmaltz Mansion fire, whose remains were never found. That’s according to the police reports, which Brookie knows are a load of bollocks - the ones truly responsible for the death of the 18 got away pretty much scot-free. Long story short, there was a party and a murder and a lynch mob and some rather poor decisions on Brooklyn’s part, but the net result was her old friend Abe Schmaltz’ manor razed to the ground (that was technically Brookie’s doing), Abe himself (or his ghost, anyway) taking up residence in a microwave oven (also Brookie’s doing), and Brooklyn’s also-ghost stuck inside a chainsaw with rockets she’d cobbled together herself the night before she was killed, in a (successful) attempt to exact a bit of justice upon the murderers (you guessed it).
Like I mentioned earlier, the perps got away, but not without really nasty injuries they could never tell the truth about. That done, Brooklyn got a bit despondent for a while considering, y’know, that she was dead. At sixty-eight it was a little bit early to be thinking about shuffling off the mortal coil, especially for a healthy lady like herself.
Then the cops showed up. Not too enamoured with the fact they hadn’t dragged the representatives of the Sanguine company back for her bloodstained entertainment, Brooklyn put on a great show, scared off the investigators, and made sure the rumours of Schmaltz Manor being haunted got around. She didn’t like indulging idiots, though, so whenever some paranormal investigator or another drove up to the estate she’d head off on a smoke-belching joyride across the misty moors surrounding Kettlesgate. Her excursions became well-documented amongst the townsfolk, who enjoyed a bit of fame for it. Appreciating the fact she was something of a tourist attraction, they avoided mentioning that Schmaltz Estate was her roost, and generally gave her much-appreciated privacy.
Brooklyn spent about three years in this fashion before she was kidnapped; her sole conversants were Abe Schmaltz’ ghost and a twelve-year old girl called Jessie who’d visit the estate about once a month, bringing news from the wider world and a chance for the rocket-propelled chainsaw to practice her writing (which was still pretty untidy in words less than a foot tall carved onto a vertical surface. Brooklyn can’t talk, she’s a chainsaw).
Then she was teleported to a battle to the death. I suspect she’s going to be annoyed, but more in a grouchy nearly-septuagenarian sense than because she’s got any moral quandaries with it.

SpoilerShow

this is/was my character in Sruixan’s Mafia game – Murder on the Schmaltz Estate. Post-game shenanigans stuck her ghost in a chainsaw, and I’ve been waiting for a Battle to stick her in ever since. [img]images/smilies/pckitty.gif[/img]

Originally posted on MSPA by Riou.

---

Subject name: Falahris Silverwind
Gender: Male
Race: Human
Color: Red
Weapons/Abilities: Dual Short Swords, Claymore, Longsword, Throwing Knives, control over fire
Description: He wears a long, black coat with a white undershirt, spiky black hair, and black pants, his left eye is green and his right eye is blue, although he normally hides them with a pair of shades, he tends to get a LOT ANGRY when they are broken or removed by someone, large X scar on his face
Mental diagnosis: Puppies
Biography: When he was a child, he was forcefully taken by soldiers from his hometown in order to serve his kingdom, there he quickly became attuned to many types of blades, he also became quite skilled in fighting and developed a sense of honor and justice, due to this, he became famous among his fellow soldiers and also somewhat of a hero to the newcomers. When he was sent on a mission to fight a powerful wizard, he performed a devastating spell on him, giving him his trade mark scar and eye color, but not only that, he had also absorbed some of the wizard's magic and learned how to control fire. After wards, he tied the wizard to a pole and slowly burnt him to death. He then returned to town, which was being assaulted by a horde of mutant puppies! They quickly swarmed him and almost killed him, until he remembered he had fire and blades, then he killed all the puppies, but not before it scarred him for life. He later became an even greater soldier, but left the kingdom to become an adventurer, making sure to savor his moments of freedom, he went back to him hometown. It had changed quite a lot, and his first order of business there? To see his parents. He went to his parents' house and saw that they had aged much while he was gone, he became teary eyed and hugs and kisses soon ensued. He felt a slight presence behind him, so he peered over his shoulder and saw two people, a boy and a girl, peering out from two rooms, his parents told him that they were his siblings, both parties hearing this, ran over to each other and more hugs and kisses ensued! He spent a few months there, teaching his younger brother and sister many things that he had learned whilst growing up and also spent most of his time bonding with the family that he had yearned for so many years. But alas, he needed to resume his career as an adventurer, so he bade them farewell and went across the globe, exploring, slaying monsters, and generally being quite helpful to those he had met.

And... then he got here.

So yeah, character uses an array of blades and fire attacks.

The short swords are for fast enemies.
The claymore is for large and tough enemies.
The longsword is for middle-tier.
The throwing knives... well... they're for throwing at them!
Fire is for burning things, he can also coat his weapons in flames, enhancing his attack power greatly.

Originally posted on MSPA by cyber95.

---

Riou, your character doesn't particularly seem suited to this sort of thing. It seems to me like the profile was written with combat and only combat in mind, but this is about character, and yours just doesn't seem like he'd be too interesting in this situation. I'm not sure if you know what this is about, but it's not so much actually about the fighting as it is about the characterization and interaction. You may want to take this into account and try tweaking it a bit.

Originally posted on MSPA by slipsicle.

---

Maybe reserve possibly.

Originally posted on MSPA by Mirdini.

---

SpoilerShow

Hopefully this is good enough as an application, I haven't done much creative writing in ages so forgive me if I'm slightly rusty.

Eprus Kijani sat in his new office on Yilia and sighed, his imposing frame bent over a desk strewn with various files and documents. The view of the capital, Metralis, through the wide windows was one of the most beautiful to be found on the industrial planet. It was still an eyesore compared to that of his preferred headquarters on Triga. Sadly his recent acquisition of Lireni Industries, an innovative weapons manufacturer and probably the only interesting company on this blighted rock, necessitated his presence here. The founder of the company (and renowned scientist), Soren Liren, had recently passed away under allegedly “mysterious circumstances” - well, as mysterious as a hasty cover up of a bullet through the head could get anyway. While his sources had been able to ascertain that much the actual motive for the killing was still unknown – though Eprus now had a suspicion and it surprisingly had very little to do with the cutthroat business practices of Yilia.


While Lireni Industries had plenty of competitors publicly, their real business was in cybernetic enhancements – particularly ones that skirted the line when it came to galactic law. Eprus was impressed at the secrecy of these operations – he himself had not known of them until he arrived on the planet a week ago and was informed of the program by an extremely nervous engineer.


To make things worse Liren had taken advantage of an incredibly weak legal system (Yilia had no government other than a loose coalition of companies and overarching galactic law, making it an extremely attractive corporate hub) in order to acquire test subjects for his brilliant, but often disastrous theories. Nothing as unethical as kidnapping citizens, no – if that had been the case Eprus would have shut down the entire operation immediately. But if someone happened to be missing this-or-that body part and somehow ended up being treated in one of Liren’s private hospitals without the means to pay for such treatment the man had apparently had no qualms disenfranchising and often killing them in order to further his research.


Eprus’ gaze passed over the large heap of files on his desk – each containing information about one “Apparatus” as Liren had identified them. Many were dead - either through mechanical failure, implant incompatibility or simple suicide. Of the apparent 50 Liren had deemed “satisfactory” only 12 were still under company control or supervision – 30 were dead and 8 missing. “Deficient” Apparatus were not mentioned as more than footnotes detailing how catastrophic the failure of each was and how their models were improved to a “satisfactory” state – these improvements often requiring multiple “subjects” to reach completion.


He had already met 10 of the survivors in order to ascertain whether they were a risk or an asset to his business – there was no doubt that some still served as potent marketing tools. Some of these supposedly innovative implants seemed more like the pet projects of a mad scientist than commercially viable ideas – and others were far too illegal for Eprus’ liking. Still other “satisfactory” Apparatus were obviously mentally unstable. He regretted his reasoning but he could see no alternative to eliminating most, if not all of the remaining Apparatus; let loose on the planet they would only wreak havoc or cause a scandal and it was a waste of resources to attempt to keep them under control.


Eprus flipped open the next file in the stack, realizing as he glanced at the header that this was one of the two remaining Apparatus that he had not yet contacted. The clinical tone of the document mirrored that of the other files – Liren had personally written up each one as he had not trusted any of his personnel with the full scope of the project. It had also been updated the day before Liren’s death, so the information within would hopefully still be reliable – some of the older Apparatus had apparently been neglected for years and their files were woefully out of date in regards to their mental states.


Subject name: Tria – designated Apparatus 27 or simply 27.

Gender: Female

Race: Human

((Colour: This Dark Blue.))

Weapons/Abilities:
Subject’s only outstanding feature is her right arm, which has been replaced with what seems to be a regular prosthetic. However her arm is markedly not a simple prosthetic – it conceals an exceptionally powerful (and minuscule) nuclear reactor. While most cybernetic additions of this nature tend to be used to conceal weapons systems, the reactor in her arm is attached to something far more innocuous – an electromagnet located within her lower arm (and the auxiliary cooling system). Due to the material used to create the magnet (Trillium, thus far only discovered in small amounts on Ritka V) it is far more powerful than any conventional electromagnet. Though safety restrictions limit the implants' maximum field strength to 100 Teslas (able to lift approximately 1.25 metric tonnes of material) the theoretical limits of the superconductivity of the material have never been fully explored. Trillium additionally absorbs the vast majority of radiation emitted by the reactor and converts it into energy, thus bypassing the need for waste disposal present in previous versions of the implant. During operation the reactor collects excess heat in a storage capacitor which is generally slowly dissipated over time but can be stored and vented with destructive force.

The unique construction of the prosthetic allows Subject to create and manipulate existing magnetic fields through her hand, though the strength of this ability decreases exponentially at distances farther than 25 meters away. She can only maintain control of one field at a time. Recent R&D developments suggest that this quantity could be improved with only superficial modifications to the current prosthetic design – though the act of controlling said modifications would greatly tax her already fragile mind in possibly undesirable ways. Subject’s control of magnetic fields is quite proficient, but hampered by her mental state – see diagnosis below.

Description:
Subject is 20 years of age. Her shoulder-length hair is naturally black, something extremely unusual on Yilia – which is presumably why she generally dyes it to the prevalent dark brown. Subject generally keeps hair tied into a “ponytail”. Her pale skin is essentially identical to the rest of this planet’s “native” inhabitants, who live under almost perpetual clouds or smog. Subject’s height and weight are average (approximately 1.7m and 64 kilos) – though she is in excellent health due to regular exercise. She additionally prefers attire colloquially designated as “sports clothes” – on date of acquisition subject was wearing a plain black “T-shirt” along with tight khaki knee-length “shorts”. Subject’s eyes are a dark shade of blue, very common among Yilia’s poorer demographics. Prosthetic arm/hand are smooth, white, fashioned to look much like a regular arm – obviously without wrinkles and hair follicles.

((Going by traditional Earth standards Tria would be quite pretty, with a build that is more athletic than stereotypically “beautiful”. In a sector filled with trillions of humans Tria is considered rather plain, especially following the advent of tailored genetics and accessible plastic surgery. The best visualization of the arm would be to think of a prosthetic made by Aperture Science (a la Portal turretbots) – smooth, shining plastic that opens to show mechanical parts when activated. In this case a circle opens in the palm and the arm expands to reveal the usually coiled electromagnet (complete with blue glow/at higher power settings electric phenomena).))

Mental diagnosis:
Subject is mentally unstable, suffering from Posttraumatic Stress Disorder, mild paranoid personality disorder and acute pyrophobia – all present upon acquisition. In addition she has acquired mild psychological dependence to certain analgesics generally provided post-implant – an executive decision was taken to maintain this addiction in order to foster dependency upon company resources and thereby decrease risk of desertion. Possible shock from withdrawal has recently been evaluated to be highly dangerous to her mental state, as Subject has never fully experienced the implant. This has also restrained her abilities more than the safety restrictions in the arm already do – her neural connection to the arm slowed and dulled by the aforementioned analgesics.

Biography:
Subject is from a lower-class family and presumably attended minimal company schooling until (according to her own testimony) her family was killed in a housing fire when she was 15. Orphaned, Subject joined roaming a criminal band rather than enter the treacherous corporate foster program. The band was focused upon theft and fencing of industry secrets – an unusually high-risk activity and one that resulted in many conflicts with other dubious organizations. This state of affairs persisted until date of acquisition (3 years ago), when band was finally caught and liquidated by corporate thugs. Subject was presumably knocked unconscious, bound and thrown onto the tracks of a local high-speed railway, then left to be run over by the train – perhaps a case of watching too many Earth westerns.

Unsurprisingly the goons’ sloppy work left her waking to the roar of a train heading towards her, her arm subsequently being crushed and eventually ripped off at the shoulder. Subject was luckily found barely alive and in a state of circulatory shock by a maintenance bot shortly thereafter and immediately brought to Liren hospitals (as per agreement with AutomatoCo) at which point I was notified of Subject’s potential to become Apparatus 27. With only minor modifications to the original magnetic implant plans she was given a new arm as well as neural tweaking to be able to properly employ its abilities (see “Weapons/Abilities” above).

Subject was much more cooperative post-op than most new Apparatus – she acquiesced to the debtor’s agreement without putting up much resistance, though this may have been influenced by shock and drugged state. Subject is currently still alive and healthy under corporate supervision – in addition I have recently begun weaning her off the drugs in order to fully test the abilities of the implant. As a consequence Subject has been mildly rebellious recently, but no more than is regular for an Apparatus – mostly protests concerning travel restrictions and minor escape incidents with security personnel.



Eprus set down the file, skin again crawling slightly at the dispassionate tone Liren so easily employed while describing other human beings – though he supposed that none of the Apparatus were entirely human any longer. He saw the point in keeping things professional, but these were mostly citizens whose lives Liren had technically saved. Still, despite her unenviable position even this girl was a security risk to be kept around – manipulation of magnetism was too dangerous, and the possible criminal applications of her cybernetic implant were a death sentence if she ever encountered galactic authorities. Her increasing autonomy mentioned the day before Liren’s death also felt fishy; while Eprus doubted she had done the deed herself she could certainly have been involved in a plot by the more rebellious Apparatus to murder what many of them had seen as their captor. It would not be pleasant to order her termination, but business was business and Eprus had seen far worse done to people far less threatening in his time. His chat with her that afternoon was a curt affair, she simply mentioned wanting to be “left alone to do what I want”. Eprus almost thought the better of his decision, but retreading his earlier rationale he sadly realized he could do nothing but get rid of her.


Specially equipped hit men burst into Tria’s “home” within the Lireni complex that night to find the young woman had disappeared. The luxurious prison was completely deserted, but nothing seemed amiss. The television was tuned to the local sports channel, currently showing some inane kickboxing tournament in which all the competitors donned masks and overly complex alter-egos; some form of sugar-loaded drink was spilled all over the couch and had barely begun to dry. Perplexed, they searched the premises for any signs of an escape attempt but turned up nothing. After they reviewed the security tapes Eprus was informed that she had “simply disappeared into thin air sir! Not even an invisibility cloak or conventional teleportation; it’s as if she just ceased to exist in this dimension!” Eprus grinned when he heard of this turn of events, leaving the nervous agent reporting her disappearance terrified of some form of retribution for his failure. Eprus merely slapped him on the back, instructed him to not worry about the girl any longer and dismissed him.


Being the head of the largest corporation in the galaxy Eprus had heard of a lot of strange things, but perhaps the most interesting rumor he had come across was that of an interdimensional organization that recruited individuals for various competitions – and the girl’s disappearance certainly resembled their rumored style of recruitment. In any case her sudden absence saved Eprus’ already pained conscience another weight – if his assumptions were true she would at least have a shot at survival. He sat down at his desk and sobered as he returned to the files, recognizing that her possible survival would be the only satisfying thing to come out of this sordid affair.

Originally posted on MSPA by MalkyTop.

---

Oh snap, mental diagnosis wooooaaaah I didn't foresee that in my profile prewritten thingies thing.


Username: MalkyTop
Name: Ywie Sorona
Gender: Female
Color: I hope the color of the sky isn't too bright.
Race: Sort of human? At least the skin is human. The innards are all healing energy spirit gunk.
Weapons: Nothing, really.
Abilities: Being essentially a sack of healing energy, Ywie can heal. There are a couple of ways she can release her healing energy, but the one that doesn't involve cutting apart her skin is punching. Or kicking or really anything that involves her hitting someone else with enough velocity. (Just touching them would probably work too but would be slower.) She also has some sort of partial possession powers. She can't see or hear or anything on her own, so she sort of hijacks other people's senses. And because she has no mouth either, she can talk through others. It can be a little weird. She can also sense minds, which is rather helpful when she wants to find someone's senses to hijack. (Sheesh, there needs to be a better word for this. She doesn't actually take away senses, it's more like she sits in the back seat of someone else's mind bluh bluh.)
Description: Ywie is a bit short and though most of her features are hidden, she looks to be in her young teens. Her long blonde hair is tied in a ponytail and her bangs flop over the band of fabric tied around the place where her eyes would be. Her mouth is not there at all and she sort of has a small bump where her nose would be. There are tight earmuffs over her ears. She wears a nice, white dress that goes down to her knees and has a belt that wraps around her waist (where else?). Her feet are bare and she wears thick gloves. She doesn't have a lot of organs. She has a lot of her skeleton and some muscles so that she isn't just a big balloon, which allows her to actually move about. But anything that wasn't necessary was taken out.
Ywie is a pretty nice girl, fairly innocent and unaware of a lot of things in the world. She likes helping out people and gets easily excited over small things that not many other people would get excited about. She gets very nervous if she feels she's alone. She is rather afraid of sharp things.
Mental Diagnosis: May have some unexpressed stress from having never finished her past life (seriously they used a teenage girl for their healing god rituals) and from being something that shouldn't be alive but is also not dead, due to the healing energy inside of her. Unclear whether she is still herself or her 'self' has been overwritten (if the latter, potentially has guilt of the fact that she is possessing a body that isn't hers). Has been sheltered and coddled and does not know how to deal with the outside world and indeed has not really seen the outside world until now. All of this may be subconscious and may not come up until later.
Biography: Ywie is the result of a cult ritual. She had been chosen as a sacrifice of sorts to welcome in the healing goddess' energy so that she could serve as, well, a healer. She doesn't really remember much about her life before being a healer, but it doesn't bother her too much as she had been treated practically like royalty with guards and more mature women tending to her needs. Though having no senses whatsoever, nor squishy organs, Ywie doesn't actually have many needs. Mostly what she did was use the people around her to be able to experience the world. She especially liked the taste of cookie dough. It also should be noted that considering the people around her have treated her so carefully, she is rather dependent and would likely overreact to stressful situations.

Originally posted on MSPA by MrGuy.

---

Subject name: Alexander Beck
Gender: Male.
Race: Human/Frogman
Colour: This one?
Weapons/Abilities: Equipped with an All-Purpose Ray Gun (known settings: Freeze, Shrink, Growth, Death, and Manta). Relatively athletic. Frogman form can lash his tongue about like a rather disturbingly sticky whip.
Description: Somewhat overweight, with terrible-looking mustache, in human form. Carefully groomed brown hair, eyes a disconcerting shade of red. Roughly five foot eight. Frogman form is about two-thirds his normal size, and green-skinned; fingers remain non-webbed. Wears a fedora and longcoat.

Personality-wise, is something of an idiot. Not particularly aware of his own limitations, constantly going after ladies, and not picking up on clues so much as holding random people at gunpoint for information until he gets the knowledge he needs. He has a tendency to misjudge danger, or ignore it altogether, and place certain things higher on his priority list than they ought to.

Mental diagnosis: Circadian Rhythym Sleep Disorder, Pathological gambling, Narcissism. Possible other, as-of-yet-undiagnosed, disorders.

Biography: Alexander, in his youth, wasted roughly 90% of his time watching explosion-filled movies. His grades were poor, and he never had a particularly large amount of motivation, to the degree where he failed to hold down even a job as a janitor or cashier at a fast food restaurant. By about 25, he was flat-broke and out of options; whenever he could find the motivation, i.e. rarely, he found that he had built up such a terrible reputation that it was impossible to be hired. He briefly turned to a life of crime, only to find himself utterly incompetent at that as well.
Then, on an irritatingly hot day in August, Alexander found the job of his dreams: lab assistant. The ad claimed it was one hour a day minimum, two hundred dollars an hour, with no qualifications required. To a less desperate or more intelligent individual, this would have seemed odd, particularly as the advertisement had evidently found its way into Alexander’s pocket and absolutely nowhere in any newspaper. Nonetheless, he headed off to his first day of work in his new office, a creepy basement in a secluded manor. Despite fairly quickly finding out that his “lab assistant” job primarily consisted of consuming untested chemicals and pressing buttons while his twitchy, somewhat paranoid boss stood as far away as possible with a handgun at the ready, Alexander pressed on, knowing he would never find a job that cushy again.
Eventually, the mad scientist who employed him passed away, leaving Alexander—by now horrifically mutated such that a kiss would turn him into a frogman for about twelve hours, in a set of circumstances even he found considerably improbable—a fair amount of money, as well as an evidently half-completed weapon of some sort. After briefly considering returning to a life of crime, Alexander remembered the explosion-filled movies of his past, and decided that he would become a vigilante instead.

Originally posted on MSPA by Akumu.

---

Username: Akumu

Name: Blazaard

Gender: Male

Race: Aardvark

Color: #876543

Weapons/Abilities: Blazaard can store and re-emit light. Depending on the amount of light released this can have effects ranging from illumination, to blinding, to melting or disintegrating his surroundings.

Description: A slightly larger than average aardvark, two meters from snout to tail. Large patches of his fur have fallen out, revealing a milky crystalline material where the underlying skin and flesh should be. Sunken and fused into his back is the remains of a weapons-grade laser system, no longer functional.

Mental Diagnosis: Anthropophobia, claustrophobia, crystals growing into brain

Biography:

Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to the thrilling ultimate battle of Animal Warz V! The bleachers around the newly repaired main battle pit are full to capacity and buzzing with excitement as the finalists trundle out into their places.

In this corner, the cephalopod slugger, the Pacific punisher, coming all the way from Siberia to bring eight times the hurt straight to you: Suuuuuuckerrrrrr Puuuuunch! And against all odds, pulling through from his explosive victory against the Dalai Llama, we have in this corner the subsaharan cyborg supernova, the scrappiest die-haardvark since Arthur, Blaaaaaaaaaaaazaaaaaaaard!

He pawed pitifully at the dirt he had been thrust out into, and slowly shook his head side to side. Everything hurt. All he wanted were some termites and to be left alone. And though he didn't realize it, couldn't realize it yet, this was a new thought. A new kind of thought, even. Not just reacting, but imagining.

Advancing toward him was something floppy and wet. Everything that came toward him brought pain. He tried to back away, dimming as new instincts charged up his best defense, but part of the oncoming mass whipped out impossibly fast-

Oooh, that was a nasty one, folks. It looks like Sucker Punch has gained the upper hand, or should I say tentacle, early! Blazaard was flung into the wall by the force of the blow and now Sucker Punch is moving in to keep the pain train rolling!

Hard. Rock hard. His vision dissolved into white as this new pain washed over him. Within, crystal ground against flesh and infiltrating tendrils advanced ever slightly further. Still blinded, he felt something fall upon him, around him, squeezing, and he reacted.

Woah now, that is bright! Late to his own fight, but Blazaard is finally getting some of his own licks in. Sucker Punch thought he had a good grip on the 'vark but now all he's got is two less tentacles and a whole lot of ash!

Like always, it felt right. Something wanted him dead, and he was stopping that from happening. He pressed in to the floppy thing, claws digging through dense muscle. It felt right, but more than that, it felt good. Emotion, new and hot as the beating sun, flooded through him, and with righteous fury his attacks redoubled, clawing and pulsing with singing bursts as blows rained down upon him from all sides.

Finally, he rose up and sunk a forelimb into the enemy's eye, as he began gathering in the sunlight. It reared back, pulling him over and smashing him down into the ground, but his forelimb remained firmly planted, and he let go of the brightness. It blazed out from within the enemy, a cleansing fire, and when it went out the fight was done.

And that does it! What a stunning display of tenaciousness and ferocity! Sucker Punch is down for the count and standing over him is our new Viceroy of Beasts, Blazaard! Let him hear your love, folks! And don't forget to pick up your commemorative plates, mugs, and t-shirts at the official Animal Warz merchandise kiosk!

He collapsed, chest heaving. A giant roar assaulted him, from everywhere. It was the same roar as when the scaly thing had clamped and tore and cut him and then suddenly was two scaly things that weren't doing anything. It was the same roar as when he cut the fuzzy thing and then everything went green and the new pain began. He hated the roar. It came after pain and it was pain and he just wanted it to stop.

He went black.

Head lolling wildly, he looked up into the roar, and saw them. They leaned out towards him, making their roar and he remembered them. They took him from the warmth and the termites and they put a cold thing on him and threw him to the scaly thing. They made their roar and they made him sleep and when he woke up he burned from the inside and he could cut things and the fuzzy thing was there with more pain. Suddenly he knew, he could see the structure, they were the real enemy. The enemy of him and the scaly thing and the fuzzy thing and the floppy thing.

Okay everyone, it's time to go. Please leave the arena in an orderly fashion, get in your cars and drive directly away. Kurt, where the hell are this thing's handlers? It's still charging up! If we don't get it under control it could incinerate the whole – shit, is this mic still –

Under the midday sun, he was still black. The roar became sharper and they weren't leaning towards him anymore. That was good, but he had to make sure they never came for him again. For the first time, he had a plan. He could feel the power building to levels it never had before, enough to keep them away forever. And if any of them did make it back to him, tried to cage him, he knew what to do. He took one last look at his prison – and he let go.

Originally posted on MSPA by Godbot.

---

Gonna reserve.

Edit: Redacted.

Originally posted on MSPA by XX.

---

Oh dear, reserving.

Edit: Apparently not.

Originally posted on MSPA by Dragon Fogel.

---

Not entering, but I want a post in this thread so I can more easily keep an eye on the proceedings.

Originally posted on MSPA by whoosh!.

---

I lost the ability to write around the point of starting this. A good omen!

Subject name: Nemaeus

Gender: Male

Race: Human

Colour: This one here.

Weapons/Abilities: Most obvious is the huge wolf skin draped over his rather smart suit like a cape. This is the skin of the Kyprian Wolf, which can only be marred by the sharpness of its own claws. The skin cannot be pierced, burned, cut or destroyed in any other manner, but the manner in which it is worn doesn't offer an awful lot of protection. When Nemaeus killed the Wolf he kept one of these claws, which was converted into a knife although, being sharp enough to cut even the Kyprian Wolf's fur, is not easily carried. A sheath of the fur works well enough as long as pressure isn't applied.

Less obvious is the silver tongue of the man. Indeed, to call Nemaeus a charmer is a dire understatement. Not that people like him: rather, once Nemaeus has locked eyes with you and turned on the magic at the very least you'll be mildly infatuated. The effects are more prominent on less complex creatures. When working his magic upon an animal, the man is usually able to take them over to such a degree that they can be used as puppets. If he's lucky he can convince a person through sheer charm and good reasoning to do perhaps one thing his way. On humans, his power is more useful for simply dazing them and stopping them in their tracks for a short period of time. Factors such as disposition towards him prior to use of his magic and the general trusting nature of the person affect the potency of his grip on them as well.

Description: If it wasn't for the massive piece of dead wolf draped across his shoulders, you probably wouldn't look at Nemaeus twice if you passed him in the street. Average height, average weight, and severely average looks, barring the pale skin and dark hair. The suit he was wearing upon hanging himself is smart pinstripe, with a sea-green tie, of which some would note compliments his pale skin and shirt well. In contrast to this neatness a stubble has harboured on his chin.

His eyes are the only truly extraordinary thing about him. Huge and steel-grey, his they're what he uses to hook the victims of his magic. Once you stare into the eyes of Nemaeus, you're as good as gone.

Mental diagnosis: Nemaeus is an Overt Schizoid. In broad terms he is unsociable and self dependent, but beneath it he feels as if he has been relegated as merely an observer of the world, not a participant. He steeps himself in fantasy and yet, in spite of all this, has an uncrushable desire to belong.

Biography: Nemeaus had a fairly normal life for a long time, growing up in a huge block of apartments in a city. It was no palace, but his family were loving and large. It was only when he was a young adult, around the age of 18, that his powers first appeared.

With them, he entranced and convinced a woman to kill herself.

Nemeaus as good as confessed, and fled immediately afterwards. He lived in poverty for years, fleeing to the next new place as soon as he was able. His newfound power made things easier, but his firmly placed position as a perpetual outsider still had its effect on him.

Around this time, he sought out the Kyprian Wolf in its home in the wilderness. No one was quite sure how the Wolf had come to be. All that was known was its general whereabouts, that it was apparently invincible and extremely, almost rabidly, vicious. What Nemaeus expected to find in the cave of the Kyprian Wolf he wasn't quite sure, but it was obvious that he never found it. Within half an hour of meeting the creature it was dead, having clawed out its own stomach on the charmer's demand. And within a few days, Nemaeus had returned to the city where he was raised, wearing the fur of the Wolf and killing on the orders of a mysterious stranger.

The stranger sought him out himself, purely with the intent of manipulating the man with the powers to influence people as he wished. As far manipulation went, it was a flying success. Nemaeus wanted only compnaionship. The stranger gave that to him, and together they were unstoppable. Each death was carefully planned to benefit the stranger. There was no doubt that he succeeded in that aspect as well. However, sooner or later, something had to break.

As it turns out it was Nemaeus who did. The cold hearted use of his ability became all too clear to him, and he threatened to break the agreement. The stranger had prepared for this eventuality, brandishing his own threats of blackmail.

So Nemaeus hung himself. Fortunately for him, he was snatched out of his world and into a battle to the death before the rope could even go taut.

Originally posted on MSPA by Wojjan.

---

Dear me I have the best character for this kind of thing.

Originally posted on MSPA by gloomyMoron.

---

I... I'm unsure if this is a reserve for a character or a bookmark so I know to read this mess. Indecisiveness, ho!

Originally posted on MSPA by Not The Author.

---

Possible reserve, but probably just a lurk.

Originally posted on MSPA by Pick Yer Poison.

---

OK you know what I'm going to reserve after all, one of my characters fits this perfectly.

Sorry, Anomaly! [img]images/smilies/aghast.gif[/img]

Originally posted on MSPA by Lord Paradise.

---

Name: the Broderburgs (Tom Broderburg, Clarice Broderburg, Alison Broderburg, Ethan Broderburg, and Baby Emma)

Gender: Male female female male female

Race: Human human human human baby

Color: I fully plan on using background=#FFFFCC and then #FF6666 for Tom, #3399FF for Clarice, #CC66FF for Alison, #CC9900 for Ethan, and #00CC33 for Baby Emma at least when handling internal conversations between the Broderburgs, but rather than subjecting my fellows to that, background=#FFFFCC color=#00CC33 will suffice for the family as a whole.


Weapons: RV, overpacked with a couple weeks camping supplies and food. Tom, a middle-management cubicle farmer for a yo-yo company in a past life, carries a hunting rifle and has the powers of vague awareness of Earth wilderness survival strategies, while also being the heart of the family. Clarice, reporter for a local newspaper, has a disposable camera and a notebook/pen combo she carries around with her at all times; she is cleverer than one might give her credit for, and carries a commanding presence. Alison, thirteen, has a cameraphone (with a charger), is generally good with technology, and prone to spew out random helpful factoids connected to the myriad subjects she's studying in middle school. Ethan, eight, elects to carry around a Game Boy Color, an aluminum baseball bat, and a baseball cap (backwards); he is scrappy. Baby Emma has no possessions and no powers, yet.

Description: The RV is white and beige and somewhat banged up. Tom is tall and beefy, having gotten a headstart on his mid-life by beginning to work out obsessively in his early 30s. He sweats a lot and wears t-shirts that are not quite red. Clarice has long blond hair in scrunchies and has perpetually wide eyes that betray both stressed-out exasperation and constant awareness of her surroundings. She packed a lot of jeans and flannel shirts for the road trip. Alison, in her first of many acts of rebellion, has betrayed all the genes of her parents by having straight black hair, blue eyes, and a round face, but her personality is more reminiscent of her mother’s than she would admit. If she had yet learned how to dress sluttily, she would, but in her current adolescent period settles for a variety of black-and-red ostentatious thrift store numbers. Ethan has his mother’s hair, his father’s eyes, and his own denim jacket with a decal of his favorite cartoon heroes, the Archetypes, on the back. He is “scrappy;” Tom and Clarice easily could have gotten him on ADD meds but weren’t really comfortable with the idea, and he does well enough in school, if not as well as Alison. Baby Emma is a baby.

Mental diagnosis: Midlife crisis, mild dissociation from reality, adolescent rebellion, scrappiness, and sane, respectively. Most notably, extreme difficulty connecting as a family.

Biography: Um. Tom and Clarice met at state college, married at 25 and 23 respectively, and had Alison a year later. Alison and Ethan were planned but Emma was an accident. Not being the youngest anymore, Ethan began acting out, so shortly after Emma’s first birthday Tom and Clarice agreed to fulfill one of the kid’s long-time wishes and take the whole family camping. This of course made Alison start to act out; it was a stressful and eventful few days as they drove the rusty old RV down to the campsite, and it only got worse once they were teleported across the multiverse to participate in a battle to the death with seven absurdly powerful and dangerous individuals.

Originally posted on MSPA by Voracious Slaskerpillar.

---

This'll probably be sub-par, but I might as well give it a go...

Subject name: Xylem Hekarti
Gender: Male
Race: Human (at least physically...)
Colour: This... grey-like shade (Oh god the irony of the number)
Weapons/Abilities: Having the physical body of a malnourished teenager, Xylem is no physical bruiser, but when cornered will flail his arms at enemies ineffectually.. His real strength, however, comes from his psychic abilities. Xylem is constantly floating, and is very clumsy on the ground when not levitating, and is capable of moderate telekinesis, able to move or crush items up to twice his body weight. His very presence exudes an aura of fear, and lesser-willed people cannot even look upon him or even flee his presence. Using this to his advantage, Xylem can use his fear aura to reach into the mind of his foe and create a sensation that is perfectly attuned to their fears, causing flinching in even the bravest. When desperate, however, he has one final attack- a potent "scream" that releases a powerful shockwave of pure psychic energy, but every use renders Xylem unconscious for over an hour.
Description: The tag "human" isn't exactly the first thing that springs to mind where Xylem is concerned. He is sallow-skinned and physically frail, his eyes sunk deep into their sockets with permanent socket scarring. He is short, but has limbs one and a half times the size of a regular human, and so appears a lot taller than he is. Xylem has weak musculature and his brittle bones can be easily seen through his skin. He is mute, but communicates through mental images. He is normally clad in a loose-fitting medical robe made of black cloth that extends past even his abnormally large legs.
Mental diagnosis: Mentally unstable, collects clocks, hates bright light, fear of fire and laser weaponry, insect empath, can't/won't eat, feeds on emotions
Biography: Born to two psychics, their unstable genes together caused Xylem, even at birth, to be disfigured and mutated, and his mother died in childbirth due to his irregular psyche causing severe internal damage to her. Trained to harness his power by his father, Xylem began to learn how to control the world around him with his latent telekinesis, and was just about to reach eleven when his father was killed in a natural disaster near their rural country home. The moment he returned home to find half the house destroyed by an earthquake and a wooden beam sticking through his father's chest was the moment his fragile mind broke, as well as his voice. Found rocking back and forth in the blaze of his ruined house, he was taken to a mental asylum and pronounced insane immediately. At first a low-profile patient, his latent psychic ability leached off of the dreams, hopes and fears of all those around him, and ever so slowly, he became terrifying to even be around. At the age of thirteen, he had become powerful enough that he could levitate in his own right, nobody dared stray within ten feet of him, and had become terribly malnourished, food having no effect on him. He was immediately placed under high-security lockdown, kept asleep with sedatives and located far away from all other patients who might worsen at his presence. Some time after being locked away be it a day or month, Xylem woke up to find himself in a small, metal room, halfway across the galaxy, about to engage in a battle against seven other highly-powered combatants.

... How was it?

Originally posted on MSPA by Schazer.

---

My reserve, sirs. It's been filled.

Originally posted on MSPA by Godbot.

---

Shit, that was gonna be my diagnosis.

Originally posted on MSPA by SleepingOrange.

---

Subject name: Crepitans Bloodbark

Gender: Male (while he has both male and female flowers and is capable of autofertilization, he identifies as male and has a masculine morphology)

Race: Treant. Or Ent. Or treefolk or forestkith or barkskins. They call themselves the dorukardia, but other races' names seem to stick more readily.

Colour: This lovely shade of puke. #8B6D47

Weapons/Abilities: As intimated (or, rather, explicitly stated), Crepitans is a treant, a vaguely-humanoid entity that appears, and in fact is, to be a living, ambulatory tree. Treefolk all resemble some form of regular non-sapient tree, and derive their personalities and natural abilities from the tree they come from. Bristlecone pines tend to be circumspect, long-lived, and wise, becoming leaders among their kind; yews are pragmatic and cunning, with excellent tactical minds and a propensity for mediation; birches are beautiful and fecund, often becoming the Orchard Tenders that are responsible for seeding and raising new dorukardia. While the personalities and predilections of treefolk as a whole vary greatly, almost all can be described as "wise", "kind", and "nurturing". The shorter-lived races frequently call on them for advice or knowledge, which the friendly trees are only too happy to give, with little or no thought of reward or payment.

However, not every tree produces the "stereotypical" treefolk; while it's possible, if rare, to have an actively unpleasant or even truly evil individual come from standard stock like alders and oaks, there are certain kinds of trees that almost-uniformly produce twisted, hateful, or aggressive dorukardia. Live-oaks are rapacious and greedy, with no compunction towards destroying things or people in the pursuit of their goals; strangler figs are conniving usurpers, parasitic by nature and sadistic by choice; mesquites are liars and thieves, self-interested and sociopathic. Crepitans is a sandbox tree, a rare species among treefolk, known for brutality, self-interest, antisocial personalities, wanton sadism, and a tendency to superiority complexes.

Most of Crepitans's weapons and abilities come from his species: his bark is coated in tens of thousands of thorns that could be better described as spikes; as a treefolk, his strength and endurance, as well as simple stature, far outstrip those of any humanoid short of giant lords; his sap is a potent acid and toxin, and he frequently injures himself to ensure that he is oozing it at all times. A blow from Crepitans is like being hit by a twenty-foot morningstar swung by an industrial demolition robot; if the target survives (and is organic), they can look forward to inflammation, festering sores, and potential blindness. Hundreds of pumpkin-shaped, tangerine-sized seedpods fill his branches, each filled with wickedly-hooked seeds and each capable of exploding with an audible bang and propelling the seeds up to three-hundred feet in every direction. The seeds themselves are even more poisonous than his sap, causing nausea, cramps, blurred vision, and possible delirium, seizures, and death. He is, of course, preternaturally tough and durable, and even in the event an injury manages to pierce his iron-hard bark and wood more than an inch or two, he has no vital organs to attack.

Less noticeably, Crepitans has some mystical power. He trained and studied as what is called to their faces a shaman, and behind their backs derisively referred to as a "saptwister". Shamans specialize in mind- and body-control magic, complex and dark rituals, and occasionally trafficking with whatever spirits, demons, or other eldritch beings suit their needs. Most, including Crepitans, are also experts in potion-brewing and poison-making, and many of his brews can be seen hanging from his uppermost branches. Fortunately for those around him, he rarely calls on his shamanic powers, preferring the simple method of brutally mauling anything and everything he sees fit to.

Description: Crepitans is approximately sixty feet tall; forty feet of this height is the main trunk, which is the most humanoid part. It is roughly anthropoid, with two arms, two legs ending in rootlike feet, and a vaguely-cephalized region with a wide, zig-zaggy mouth, two large, uniformly-black eyes, and a roughly-triangular bump that suggests a nose. The rest of his height is made up of his canopy, which is approximately hemispherical and has a diameter of about thirty feet. It grows from his back rather than his head, forcing him into a slumped posture. The branches are twisted and curved, interlocking and weaving and growing chaotically, as is fairly typical for his variety, and are covered in light-green, spade-shaped leaves.

From his topmost branches hang dozens or hundreds of small vials, large flasks, hollow gourds, and other vessels for his draughts. Several books and scrolls, and even a small cabinet, can be seen lodged deep in the canopy and held in place with vines. More visible, however, is the carrion. An unnaturally large shrike (or butcherbird) has adopted Crepitans's canopy as its home; given its extremely unusual size and habit of living in the treant (very few will allow birds to nest in them, as it's seen as unhygienic and barbaric, and even fewer birds would choose to live in a moving tree), it's speculated that the bird is Crepitans's shamanic familiar. Regardless of why it lives in his crown, it makes its presence clearly known. Hundreds of small mammals are impaled and skinned on his branches and trunk, in various states of consumption and decay. A few are even clinging to life, leading to occasional distressed squeaks and cries from no clearly-apparent source. The corpses are so many that when Crepitans moves, he will frequently shed bones, with no apparent reduction in the number of bodies adorning his bark.

Personality-wise, Crepitans is fairly typical for a sandbox ent. He is intelligent, in a focused, pragmatic, disaffected way, but does not seek knowledge or experience for its own sake. He is sadistic to a fault, and sees no reason not to kill things that stand in his way; he's too practical to allow his lust for violence to become a hindrance, but given time and opportunity, he's very capable of finding some very inventive uses for his poisons, both natural and brewed. He is typically solitary and quiet, but can be persuaded towards cooperation if the need arises.

In his own world, Crepitans had taken over a small swamp and had used it as his home and base of operations; for decades he had been consumed with an urge to dominate, primarily directed at what he considered the lower races (humans, elves, dwarves, et-cetera). Since taking over his swamp, he had set about gaining personal power, as well as using puppets (both mentally-dominated and persuaded or paid) to exert his influence in the surrounding regions. He was preparing to instigate a minor war between two longtime-rival city-states to weaken both when he was taken by the Counsellor.

Mental diagnosis: Antisocial Personality Disorder (diagnostic criteria 1, 2, 4, 5, and 7 [failure to conform to social norms with respect to lawful behaviors as indicated by repeatedly performing actions that are grounds for arrest; deceitfulness, as indicated by repeated lying, use of aliases, or conning others for personal profit or pleasure; irritability and aggressiveness, as indicated by repeated physical fights or assaults; reckless disregard for the safety of self or others; lack of remorse, as indicated by being indifferent to or rationalizing having hurt, mistreated, or stolen from another); Schizoid Personality Disorder (diagnostic criteria 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7 [neither desires nor enjoys close relationships, including being part of a family; almost always chooses solitary activities; has little, if any, interest in having sexual experiences {here defined as desiring to instill trees with the potential to become treefolk, a desire typical to most treefolk} with another person; takes pleasure in few, if any, activities; lacks close friends or confidants other than first-degree relatives; appears indifferent to the praise or criticism of others; shows emotional coldness, detachment, or flattened affectivity); xenophobia; sociopathic behaviors; non-sexual sadism

Biography: Very little that hasn't been hinted at or stated in previous sections is particularly relevant, so this will just be a brief overview. The general opinion held by forestkith is that nature has a reason for creating all of its children, and it is not their place to judge what kind of treefolk deserve life or nonexistence. To that end, Orchard Tenders go out of their way to instill life and sentience in newly-sprouted trees of all kinds, regardless of how unpleasant or cruel they view that kind of tree to be. It is their goal to ensure that at least a few dorukardia of every extant species exists; it is because of this goal, rather than any love for sandbox trees in particular or an actual desire for such a person to exist, that Crepitans was born at all.

His youth was typical for a treant; he spent about two decades rooted in one spot while he developed from a normal sapling to an adult darukardia, being tended to, kept company, and tutored by Orchard Tenders. When he was fully grown, he spent a few more years in one of the Groves that make up his kind's society before setting out on his own. Several more decades passed, filled with mindless cruelty, wandering, and no real goals. It was at the end of this period of wanderlust that he met Pomana Acidtouch, a manchineel shaman who, for her own insrcutable reasons, took Crepitans under her tutelage.

Decades more passed before Pomana judged she had taught her young sandbox protege enough and sent him on his way, with focused goals, determination, and the skills to make his visions happen. The following period was the one that lead up to his current situation in the swamp, and was cut artificially short by the Counsellor's intervention.

Originally posted on MSPA by SleepingOrange.

---

Also, Slaskerpillar, the RGB color tags don't work. You have to use hex codes ({color=#123abc}{/color}); your color would be #483d8b, which I wouldn't rally call mauve. You can also just use {color="mauve"}{/color} if you want what the forum calls mauve.

E: The forum has some weird ideas about mauve too. That is clearly blue.

Originally posted on MSPA by Anomaly.

---

OK you know what I'm going to reserve after all, one of my characters fits this perfectly.

Sorry, Anomaly! [img]images/smilies/aghast.gif[/img]

It's Red, I'm guessing?