MacThorstenson

The third announcement is tangential to the second: We've also added a system for progression, by participating in plots with 2-3 other characters you can get a minor merits every time an arc is completed. This ought to be RPed. No participating in an art contest and then becoming a swordsmen. Main plots and guild participation over the course of an era can result in normal/major merits being awarded to your character.

The second announcement is that we are trying to overhaul character creation to make it emphasize roleplaying and roleplaying in groups. To this end we have a new character sheet: Name: Appearance: Guild (or intended guild): Personality: Concept: Motivation (Short & long term goal): Merits: Flaws: NPCs (Eg. Family and Friends): Home Planet: Current Residence: Backstory: Loose ends (What is unfinished in their life?): Links (Eg. Theme song, a spotify playlist, a pinterest mood board): Important things to note are the Concepts area, for a general vibe of your character. It should be for a one or two sentence summary so people can understand what you are going for. Another section is motivations area, where you come up with goals and motivations, both short term and long term, for your character. Another is loose ends, this is for any unfinished business that your character may have if they were to die today. NPC doesn't refer to just NPC's, we have had a couple people in the past roleplay family of other PC's. This is for anyone who your character might know, who are they and potentially a short description detailing their relationship. Finally Residence should be thought of, and how they are living there needs to be considered. This can be neglected if they are part of a guild as a guild will pay them and sometimes provide housing. The astute among you have noticed that merits and flaws have replaced any investiture, equipment, and skills that your character may have. This is deliberate. We've done away with points, and are instead moving toward a more organic system where you get a certain number of merits and flaws. Merits are anything that might help your character (such as abilities, items, skills, or a position), flaws are anything that might hinder them. Here is the breakdown for what might constitute a major minor and normal strength. Minor: Some trivial assistance / time saving measure (Eg. pull a memory from a coppermind rather than grab a book) Normal: Bread and butter usefulness. Abilities that get you through your day to day (Eg. An experienced scholar or a practiced swordsman) Major: Exceptional ability, something that stands out from the crowd (Eg. A world-famous swordsman, an elite assassin, a Knight Radiant) In terms of how many of each boon each character gets, as of right now we are thinking 3 minor merits, 2 normal merits and 1 major merit. This currently up for debate however and as with all of this we want feedback. We are looking at around 2 flaws per character but again are open for community feedback. Merits have different tiers, and flaws are all one in the same. Ideally, at least one flaw would interact with your motivations, being a reason that your character hasn't achieved what they want. This gives you a built in character arc.

Hey y'all, its me again. Mac. I'm back. Thats me. The mod team has been working hard behind the scenes to come up with some ideas to improve the RP, and so we have a lot of announcements to make today, so I'm probably gonna keep about one announcement per post so that it will be easier to reference each individual announcement. The first and most important is that @ZincAboutIt is now a subforum mod. It's taken me longer to draft this announcement then it has any of the others, because Zinc is so fricking awesome and I'm trying to portray that in some capacity without being snarky. Genuinely she's one of the best writers I know, she's been a longstanding member of the community and has honestly carried things during this last bout of inactivity. Seriously happy to be working with her.

As the sounds of the city disappeared, the walls of the alleys stretched up toward the ever present void. Ives turned his attention away from the sweet smells of bakeries and blood, refocusing on his new friend. “So, for the first question, I am an assassin. That is something you can always use. But I am not only an assassin, but also a melee weapon expert. And also, I have some strengths that I will tell you, when you take me into the Guild. As to the second one, seems like it’s useful to kill some citizens.” The self proclaimed assassin said. "An assassin? Why would we need to kill people and let their beautiful spirits fade off into the beyond? No no no NO NO," he cried "we need their souls in spikes you two eyed imbecile!" He paused briefly, then spun around with narrow eyes, "But you can use a sword right?" Continuing slowly, he reasoned "A sword is like a spike, and spiking is good. Seems good to me." With that he resumed his fast pace, sparing only the barest of glances to ensure that his new friend knew which way to follow him. "As for being inside the guild, well, where do you think we are?" He glanced over his shoulder, gesturing down the infinite expanse of cinderblocks and downspouts that made up this particular alley. Their endless repetition broken up only by the occasional door or T-junction. He led the way to one of the few doors that lined the empty alley, and opened it, revealing a bloodied room with an operating table in the center. Stepping over a corpse, Ives grabbed an instructional book off of the wall. It seemed to be missing several pages, but there were enough of them that he was reasonably sure he could place the loyalty spikes in. "When you're ready, step inside and I'll give you the loyalty spikes, then I'll run you over to acquisitions where they can give you paperwork and alley travel trainings, unless you have more questions that is."

„Yes, that was me. I want to join the Dark Alley. We will both benefit from it.“ "Heh" Ives muttered, the Dark Alleys would benefit from him joining? That was, in fact, a bold claim. "Well then, I suppose they would want me to do some form of job interview." Thinking back to his own hiring he remembered something about it not being outside and something or other with spikes? Ehh the specifics probably weren't important. "Come inside I suppose," He said over his shoulder as he made his way to the shadowy alley next to the bakery, as opposed to the front door. "Don't lag too far behind. Don't worry about where we are going. Don't make eye contact with things in here, and don't eat the cookies until we get you all spiked up. "And as an afterthought, he added "Also probably don't look up. Like eyes level with the horizon or down toward the ground." With that, he disappeared into the darkness, while shouting "So what makes you think you're qualified for this position? Also how did you hear about us I thought we were covert?" over his shoulder.

Ives was resting in a building deep in the alleys, paused from his daily hunt, when suddenly a door that wasn't quite there before rattled with several knocks. Mysteries, bysteries, lysteries, lysterine. Listerine, that would be nice. I could use some Listerine, he half mumbled half thought to himself. Carefully he moved to the new door, grabbing his serrated cleaver he had been using earlier, the only sound he made was a brief grunt as the spikes that lined the inside of his grinning metal mask slid into his face, securing it. Yeah, I could use some Listerine. Wait, no I couldn't. Listerine blistering. I'm allergic to it. No Listerine for me unless I stop listening to me. There were no windows or glass on his side of the building, and he had no way to know where this door went to. Eyes, no matter how many of them you had, routinely had difficulty seeing through doors. He stood behind the door and after a deep breath, he opened it a crack. On the other side there simply was a person, and the sun. Now that, that was odd. The sun wasn't usually in the alleys. They kept it in the physical realm for most things after all. Almost unaware of the person, he stepped out of the door, staring at the sky. Yeah, this definitely seems to be the Alleycity. But why would the door, ooh- knocks. He started half muttering half thinking a rhyming verse as he tried to process the fact that he wasn't in the alleys, and quite suddenly too, Knocks and blocks and blocks and knocks, with no more knocks we see the blocks, with all the blocks we need more knocks so when the knocking starts, the blocking stops. Ives turned back toward the person, and with the spoken words feeling almost foreign in his mouth he asked "Are you uh, the one who knocked on the door thingy there?" @Chaoslink

I think this is a great idea, I think putting a hard date on things will probably help things move quicker. That said, its an easy thing for me to say that things should wrap up quick because I don't have any scenes on going. Personally, I don't want to be insensitive toward those who both have busier lives then me and have been carrying the era on their backs, that said, an ending date would likely help I think?

I would lean toward the flat out impossible side of this one, physically being in contact with blood is important in general for hemalurgy, and then iirc theres a wob about how moving blood is important for hemalurgy.

The Clocktower was admittedly a nice find. Not many people know about it simply because they fear missing it! Ives was safe from devious scientists trying to find him. And HR. Cant forget HR. Some how those insane folk are still kicking around being annoying and stupid and weird and stupid- Clocktower yes. His clocktower. He made it way to the base of it, his padded moccasins barely making a sound against the cobblestones of the plaza he found himself in. The splintered wood of the door didn't provide much protection, if any except for the disguise bit. The best security was disguise and all that. If his lab looked properly abandoned on the ground, and not many people were willing to risk glancing into the void just to find a feature on the skyline, well, he thought himself pretty protected. Pretty protected, pretty properly protected directed. Directed bibected. bibected pipetted prevented privated. Good words. They sounded similar, perhaps there was a connection? I should look at that. He paused, wait, no I need to see if the words are real first. Can't make that mistake again. Where was his dictio- ah yes upstairs, in his clocktower. The one he was at the base of. Gotta get up there, then I can check my words, then I can find my yarn and another cork board and start looking at connections between them. At Connections Between them? them could be dem, then it was the alphabet! Ives chuckled a bit, alphabet, alphabet alphabet. Shuffling over to his lift thingy, he pulled the lever and watched as the counterweights fell from above, lifting the rickety wooden platform high into the top of the clocktower. Yes his clocktower. Even when people found it, they didn't like it. Something about the scattered surgical tables with dissected abominations rubbed them the wrong way. Yes he could see that (Obviously he could see that). They couldn't see why he had them there so they thought them pointless, He understood that at least. If they didn't need to be there then they shouldn't be there. People lacked vision of course. Well, most of them did. And honestly Ives didn't blame them! He was good like that. Cant blame people for things they don't know. Especially if they only have a couple eyes. He made his way over to the back wall of his clocktower where his dictionary sat in a bookshelf. Gotta find his words. Cant forget the words. They were good words, infact, he realized, most of them are real! Bibected isn't which was rather unfortunate. That could have been the clue to everything, but it wasn't because it was fake. Gotta watch out for the fake words after all, they are annoying and stupid and stupid and a-- hmm this could be an issue. Pipetted works in the past tense, but privated doesn't really work, yet he was sure that he had seen something about private being a verb recently, and if you could do it then you could have did it. which meant it should be a word yet it wasn't. Hmm. Lets table this for now, I need to work on other things. besides, when one word is fake and another not officially recognized by Webster's Third New International Dictionary, I mean, he snorted, its obviously not prophetic.

Very happy and proud that it reached that point and continued to grow. Silence would probably not like it very much, she strikes me as the kind of person that wouldn't be able to enjoy watching all the films needed to appreciate it. I think Hoid would appreciate it a lot, he seems to be the kind of person that would appreciate stories of any kind, and he definitely has the time to watch the whole MCU. Freezing in a time loop is less permanent, I don't trust my judgement in deciding who should die and who should live and so giving them a way out when I change my mind in a week and don't hate them anymore is probably a good thing. If I answered this two and a bit year's a go, I would have said yes. Now I understand how people find that kind of behavior from americans weird, so I will say that my grandfather is icelandic, and leave it at that. I needed to think about them for a bit. Portmanteau of a nickname and a family name.

Ives Melancthon.

Mac walked his way through several alleys, his shredded soul giving him constant sight into the alleys and their horrors. Admittedly, being able to see all the alleys was nice when actively alley traveling, it was just that being able to turn it off was also very nice as well. Thats why he needed the monocle. While generally they helped restore stability, mental stability spikes were ineffective once a soul was too damaged. He had figured out however, that a single spike, hooked up to a monocle or set of glasses, at least stopped the hallucinations when he looked through them. Same thing with his aluminum lined bowler hats, they were all to enable him to focus on the real world when he couldn't indulge in the alleys. However, he had lost both of them, and so he needed to head to the place where they were made, his old hideaway. It had been stashed in an old gothic alley, buried under a street. The only way to enter was to stand in one specific spot, and look for an alley thats entrance was smaller then an axi. Once found, the alleymancer would need to shrink themselves down, and follow the path carefully to the end, which placed them in a repurposed jewelry box. This atom sized path was the only entrance, as well as the only exit. Which was also the reason that this sorry attempt at a hideaway lay abandoned. The place lay in ruins. Instead of a pristine front yard covered with beautiful murals of nature, it was more reminiscent of a cheap movie set. Plywood walls were spray painted with light blue, and the flood with a grass-ish green. In the corner, there was a slag heap, consisting of what appeared to be picture frames or paintings, and mirrors, all crudely melted together in a heap. The walls were scorched where a fire had raged years before. The front façade of the house was much the same. Each window was smashed and emptied, the glass littering the wooden "lawn". Any shards big enough to see a reflection in were also crushed to bits. Notably, the inside of the house was missing each and every reflective surface. Every metal door handle and brass finish was scratched, bent, or torn out so that there was no way to see any reflection. The mahogany walls were conspicuously lacking any décor, and their glossy finish was again scrubbed and scratched away. What little remained of the furniture looked like it had been through a hurricane. Tables were broken in too. Sofa's barricaded doors, or were in pieces across the room. The only sign of life was the basement door, which constant rattled, and a punching bag, that sat conspicuously in the living room as if it were the only thing that had been moved since all this destruction happened. Mac carefully made his way up to his bedroom. Like the rest of the house, it was in disarray. However, unlike the rest of the house, there was one nice spot. on the wall, there was a cabinet, in the cabinet a covered mirror. The only place for a reflection to be seen in the entire house. Beneath the cabinet, there was a chest containing bowler hats and monocles, as well as a small box of necessities, lint rollers, a razor, etc. Carefully, he opened the box and the cabinet, setting up all the items for personal hygiene needed, then he placed a revolver, easily within arms reach. Ready to shoot the mirror should anything unwanted come out. Then with a final swoop, he lowered the cover and began to prepare to return to the alleys.

His hands clenched, Mac eventually forced out the words in a bare whisper "What do you mean he forged the planet?" The denizen wanted more then anything to slink away into the alleys, except that the alleys were in chaos right now. They were swirling around them faster then wind in a tornado. He knew Mac wouldn't take the news well, but in he hadn't seen Mac this visibly angry in several decades. No one had. "Yessir, the whole p- planet sir." The words came out in a stuttering flood, maybe if he just told Mac one bit of information that he liked he would end up being spared when the man snapped. "Th-thats why it seemed so nice and uh er we seemed so weak. There is good news [BIG REDACTED SECTION HERE FOR POTENTIAL SPOILERS] A little, miniscule, appeared in the back of Mac's mind. [REDACTED] He zoned in on that thought, letting it grow and consume him, slowly pushing the anger away. He forced a small smile onto his face as he loosened his hands and consciously slowed the spinning of the alleys. Without the red haze consuming his every thought, he regained control of his body, and the alleys. "No dead friend, I wont kill you." With a small, however fake chuckle, he added, "Haven't shot a messenger in 20 years, I'm not about to start now." He turned to the denizen, "Thank you for letting me know, though I do suppose, given this information, the city, and the DA will need a little check up so to speak. And who better to preform one then the Gentleman Hemalurgist himself. You are dismissed, thank you." Without a second word, the denizen melted back into the alleys. As he melted away into the infinities of the Dark Alleys, he noticed that for a brief moment, all the illusionary monsters and beasts seemed to be gone, and as he had that very thought, they slowly started to melt back in, as if they had been scared away, and were gaining the confidence to return. And with the beasties there would be significant annoyance. It seemed like it might be time to get his old bowler hat and monocle back.

Mac sat carefully behind the threshold of the alley. To his right lay an open street, to his left the alleys. Usually he wouldn't be so cautious about physically staying in the alleys, but on a day like today, in a place like this, he wasn't taking any risks. He was meeting a spy, one from his private network, whom he had sent back to check on The City. Mac more or less trusted the man, but one never threw caution to the wind when dealing with the DA. He glanced to the right, where he had sprinkled some black sand on the sidewalk. No one there was leaking any investiture. Then he braced himself and reached out into the alleys, immediately being assailed by sounds and images extending from all the alleys that had been, were, and could be connected to this one. He grit his teeth, wished that he had his monocle and or hat with him, and focused on looking for moving alleys with people in them. Aha, there one is. He could see, in his minds eye, one fateful denizen, slowly and carefully sliding the alleys into place in order to make their way to the meeting point. Well, Nothing to do but wait then.

That would be great, and you don't need to keep it visible at all times. Just let people rping in the thread know that its a possibility, and to let you know if it would be chill if it showed up. Also you could have it move around in the Alley city thread so long as the people are chill with it.

@EmulatonStromenkiin Sorry for the delay with the response, I just wanted to touch up on what our approval process was for OP characters with the other mods. For reference, the AV subforum mods are Sorana, who is occupied with irl stuff right now so don't tag her, I think I am here, who is pretty active, Voidus, who is a general mod as well, Aon Ene, who is also a sight wide mod, and me. Generally me and Voidus are the ones you should tag for character approvals, with Voidus being much better about epic powers. First off, I want to say that I love this character idea, it fits really well with the roots of the AV and can act as some good humor in a truely depressing city, that said, there are a couple issues with this specific pitch, mainly related to the idea of consent. OP characters are a bit different then normal characters, and we really want them to be tied to and have a role in the plot. Because they are the persons character, they have as much agency and choice as a normal character, and so don't necessarily need permission to show up in a space. Any PC can just go places, they don't need to ask if they want to show up in the hospital and be an antagonist for example. With OP characters this is difficult because they can access many more places, and they don't need to ask permission. Thats why we ask them to be tied to a location and give them an in character reason not to go sweeping across the city changing things. Their characters motivations and actions need to be really well defined so that other people can plan around them. With the Quark this is a bit problematic, as it can get anywhere and appear/escape without consequence, which could wreck havoc on the story telling in a scene without any say from the people in the scene. I would be worried about a touching scene between laurelai and lita being disrupted by the quark showing up in the background. In the past we have had issues of people showing up and doing things with their OP characters that wrecked settings and stories people wanted to tell. With that in mind, I would encourage you to change this to an NPC, with the general idea that you use it in scenes with people who are generally accepting that it can show up, either through pming or other consent. I understand that the spontaneity is part of the humor with this, but its very important to make sure that people who find this funny are the ones who it happens to. Another option is specifically binding this to a location, and not giving it free reign. People then can choose to enter that location where it acts as a set piece, and can interact with them. Then it would still be an OP character, and you could still preserve the spontaneity of Quark as it wouldn't be a guaranteed interaction, and could happen randomly. If you end up going with this option, you would need to figure out a thread or group of threads where it can appear, and detail when and where that would happen. Also the second step for an OP character approval is it goes for a community vote, so it would also need to pass that. For reference, the DA does a combination of these things with our absurdist worldbuilding. We keep it contained to the DA thread, and only have people who we know are chill with it interact with it in certain scenes. That way it doesn't impact larger story telling arcs and emotional moments. If you wanted to do this, and combine the two options with the Quarkbeast staying in a specific thread and only appearing to people who are generally ok with it, it wouldn't need to go to community approval.

In era one mistborn vin tried to burn sazed's metalmind and iirc she gets the normal effect, because she mentions another well of power that was inaccessible besides the normal one for the metal.

Daelith glanced the seon, at the center there was glowing version of the Aon Sao. "Well met Sao," He said with a little bow, "My name is Mr. Daelith, proprietor of this fine establishment," Turning back to Ari with a stack of papers in hand, "Well, being an investiture researcher I might suggest you check out the Scholars guild, they are the most reputable collection of scholars currently active. They can always use some help, but you showed up at a good time. The alleyverse has been going through an unprecedented era of peace these last several years, and so scholarship is progressing at a fascinating rate. With regards to our business, here is the lease. Its fairly standard, it offers a delayed payment for the first month, as well as a reduced rate until you can get on your feet, as well as information about renters insurance that you may need to know. If you would like I can wait here while you take a look at it and get it all filed right now, or you can take a while to read it. If/when you decide to sign, just leave it on this desk and your room will be ready by tonight."

perhaps

Ok not trying to be rude but I thought he was referring to sudiov, not the stranger.

I echo this, as someone who genuinely loved the absurdist power fantasy that started this thing, I'm really happy to see the direction its taken in the last couple of years. In the same way that eating a carton of icecream is delicious, writing the absurd power fantasy was fun, but both left me feeling kinda dull afterwards. Taking the time to try and write a character that goes through progression is much more rewarding, interesting, and engaging. It makes you feel like you accomplished something, and told a story worth telling. It's more difficult then simply saying your character gained another worldbreaking power, but when I was able to briefly pull it off I could look back and be proud of my work. Occasionally I'll be up late and wonder if things should have stayed absurdly weird, but when it comes down to it the only reason I would check the shard in the early days was because of the friends I made, not because of any compelling RP. Now I check the shard because my friends are still here, but also because the RP is actually good. It tells stories with stakes and tension, and it pushes me to be a better writer and storyeteller.

Johnson stood with a look of defeat on his face, as he stared down the seemingly endless hallway covered with tinsel and decaying Koloss head. He had been in charge of cleaning out Jeffery's desk after the poor man had lost it and tried to decontaminate a black hole. In the midst of cleaning out the various papers and calendars, he found an old to do list. On top of which lay the task of pulling down the holiday decorations from years gone by. He grimaced. It was forgotten hallways like this that made decontamination in charge of decorations. He carried is bucket of bleach, aluminum powder, and garbage bags to the left side and started the cleaning.

After winding his way through a dining area, he entered an a non-descript office. There were filing cabinets on either side and a large wooden desk in the middle. He motioned for his guest to take a seat, "While I gather all the paperwork, why don't you tell me about yourself. Whats your name, where are you from, why you made your way over to the Alleycity, that sort of stuff."

"Hmm," He started, eyeing up his visitor, "A lack of funds shouldn't be an issue, we offer discounted rates until people are able to find employment or get on their feet again. But in terms of what you could do to get there, I might not be as much help. We can always use help around here, our cleaning staff in particular is one man down. Besides that, I know the major guilds are always hiring. TUBA, the Ghostbloods, the Liebrary, the scholars guild, and the Canton of Combat come to mind. Those are probably the best options. Besides that, I suppose working the streets and following after help wanted signs is probably your next best bet." He paused, then gestured through a set of double doors at the back of the room, "If you'll follow me back to my office, we can sort out room and board." He started making his way toward the back of the room.

Hmmm. Personally what helps me develop weaknesses is fleshing out my characters backstory. Just like you as a normal person aren't willing to do everything and anything, you character will have similar kinds of reservations. What stuff are they unwilling to do, why? One weakness I liked on your previous list was the one about truthfulness. It reminded me of fey, where they can't tell falsehoods, but try to dance around the truth anyway they can. I would explore that and try to figure out why the character would be like that, and how that mindset would spread out to other things. Basically, what kind of fears and weaknesses/character flaws would result from a person who went through your characters life. For example, my character Ronald is an accountant/white collar worker. Yet he has very little respect for the law and the powers that be. These two things lead him to be a very conniving person, yet still a coward. He doesn't like to get his hands dirty, and doesn't like confrontation. In addition to being a coward, he tends to think others are beneath him, and is generally a pretty snooty, abrasive person. For Balance, it seems that they blame themselves for their family's death, and so they stay distant, and try to forget them. You could play around with a lot of them needing to distance yourselves from people. One note I have is that epic weaknesses are tied to fear, so perhaps their epic weakness could be tied to a fear of losing what they have, and how this fear leads them to push people and other things away. This one base fear could lead out to a number of different behaviors that act as weaknesses/character flaws. EDIT: One note is that the more you describe the affects certain weaknesses have on characters, the easier they are to grade. So keep that in mind as you come up with weaknesses.