[D&D-5e] Spelljammer: Light of Xaryxis

[Ysolde]

Name: Artiya Waterborn
Race: Tiefling
Class: Warlock Fathomless pact of the Talisman
Background: Waterlost (Feylost except to the plane of water)
Appearance: An exotic beauty with long blonde hair, depthless purple eyes, furred ears, golden horns with sharp claws and serrated teeth.
Description: Artiya doesn't quite understand the world around her. She speaks as one who belonged to a society that most can not begin to fathom. She can be gentle and polite one moment and violent the next for slights that few comprehend.

Backstory: Artiya's parents threw her into the sea, during a tempest, the tempest was caused by a convergence with the elemental plane of water and Artiya was sent there. She was rescued by a great creature of the waves and lived in the elemental plane of water. She came from the waves and has been in Silverpoint since. Perhaps the creature knew what was to come or perhaps its reasons for sending her are beyond most mortal ken.

RP Sample: She sits alone near, but not too near, the blacksmith as he speaks. Again she has purchased the strange substance that is deemed 'food' in this place. This item is called lamb, she is unsure why, and when she crunches into the bone people look towards her and then away. The blacksmith speaks of divine punishment and explains that this punishment is for bad pies and steep prices. Artiya says, "Oh, yes I suppose that if they are bad and the prices are high then perhaps this divine may indeed be upset? Has anyone spoken to them about this matter it is poor form to punish someone without an annulet of circumspection. Perhaps it has not been found?"

Any answer she may have received is ruined by the shaking of the ground. She looks up and ventures out, "Perhaps this is.." the sound she makes should never be rendered by human vocal cords a high pitched whistle with odd clicks and a deep moan. "I have much to report to them about what I have seen of this place." She moves on expecting to see the great creature that is her patron and who was at her side most of her life.

[Grouchy]

I was immediately drawn towards a Giff PC, for some reason. Have an idea for a Giff Ranger, a bored noble turned safari hunter (think of a good version of General Zaroff). I see they have a Firearms Mastery ability - will firearms be available? If not, I might rethink things but still like the idea of a Giff.

[AlphaZ]

complete; available for backfill Name: Winslow Brock Race: Giff Class: Fighter (unarmed style, rune knight) Background: mix of outlander and marineSpace Marine Appearance: People often think all Giff generally look alike, but those with a discerning eye would see that Winslow is of exceptionally strong and lean stock for his kind. Description: Winslow is like the sun: slow to rise but steady and determined until the work is done. He approaches problems head-on, sometimes to a fault. He also gets a bit rowdy when he drinks. Having spent time as a marine he's no stranger to a fight. He's an accomplished rifleman but even more skilled at hand-to-hand combat. Plus he's built like a boulder, heavy and unyielding. He's never been knocked down in a fight. At least the way he tells it. Even when he's not fighting he can still be just as scary, an imposing figure with a stern gaze that can squeeze the truth from anyone. He's remarkably athletic despite his years and has sharper wits than most give him credit for, making him an excellent asset in grueling survival situations. But he's retired so those things don't come up as much as they used to. Backstory: Giff stereotypically love order and structure, and it's a stereotype for a reason. While many Giff try to earn their stripes through government or military service, only a brave few ship out to the uncharted stars. Winslow was young when he set out, strong and proud with something to prove. But through years of travel and experience he traded in brashness for wisdom and bravado for valor, earning his rank and title and becoming a respected veteran. Though he shares stories of old glory with many former comrades, his exploring days are now years behind him. He's come up to his middle years, and sailing the stars is a young man's game. He was dismissed with honors and went ashore where any old sailor would feel at home: a harbor town called Silverpoint. He has a small smithing shop here, but most of the local coin he makes goes back to the community by way of the tavern. Nobody is a stranger over an ale or two--not even a Giff. RP Sample: "Must be divine punishment for the bad pies and steep prices," He joked dismissively to those gathered 'round. Of course he knew it was more than that, and he was a bad liar. He'd seen a lot of things out there amongst the stars, but this... It gave him that feeling deep in his gut that something terrible loomed just over the horizon. And indeed it did, the ground erupting before anyone could speak another word. Together they all rushed forward to see the spectacle, impressive and imposing, blindly destroying some portion of the town. "Gods, that's bigger than the last." Winslow curses to himself and ponders getting out of town before the ground around them begins to move and soon gives way to more of the infernal things. "Too late."

 

[Touketsu]

Originally Posted by Grouchy

I was immediately drawn towards a Giff PC, for some reason. Have an idea for a Giff Ranger, a bored noble turned safari hunter (think of a good version of General Zaroff). I see they have a Firearms Mastery ability - will firearms be available? If not, I might rethink things but still like the idea of a Giff.

Firearms will absolutely be available. Giff away!

[Ballingray]

Ashlee Basic Character Information Name: Ashlee Race: Human Class: Rogue (Swashbuckler) Background: Urchin Personality Trait 1: I like to drink hard as much as I like to fight hard Personality Trait 2: The only thing you can expect from me is that I’m going to do something unexpected Ideal: I do what I want to do and no one will tell me otherwise Bond: There is nothing I won’t do to find the place I belong that was denied me in my childhood Flaw: My own insecurities drive me to take unnecessary risks I wouldn’t normally take in order to prove myself Appearance Fiery red hair frames youthful, almost innocent features across tanned skin that has certainly seen the sun. Yet there is certainly nothing naive or innocent about the chaotic trickster known as Ashlee. With her glimmering hazel eyes and enigmatic smile that, when she deigns to give it, seems to offer a doorway opening up to a different world, there are many layers that pervade outward from this strange and unpredictable woman. And yes, the one thing that can be said about her is that the image she allows you to see is precisely the one that she wishes you to see. The trickster, the drunk, the sympathetic shoulder of support, the antagonist, the friend, each image is carefully selected and is but one part of a playbook that has numerous different chapters and pages, with only one missing. That being the true Ashlee, the woman behind the lies and the mischief. Personality When I first set sail out on the ocean, there was something that I wanted. Something that I needed more than anything else in the whole world. Only, you see, I didn’t understand what that thing truly was — and perhaps in some ways I still don’t. Perhaps one day I will understand that the thing I desire above all else is to finally go home. If Ashlee looks like she lives life on the edge, her actions certainly back that image. She is a wild thrillseeker who looks to live life to its fullest. In doing so, Ashlee doesn't give a damn who she annoys. All those stuffy, fuddy-daddy boring muppets stand in the way of her and her fun. Rafting down a waterfall on a boat split down the middle? Check. Playing chicken with a hill giant? Check. Sparring with dragons? She’s got it covered. Ashlee lives life solely for the moment. She tends to not get bogged down in inconsequential matters like possible long-term consequences of her actions. Life is for living and damned if she is not going to enjoy every goddamned moment that she possibly can. And if she goes down, fine, but damned if she isn't going to take everyone else down with her and still come out of the other side unscathed. Ashlee is a woman of many admirable traits, but she is also a woman of many vices, an unfortunate gambling addiction being but one of them. She carries around a set of loaded dice with her at all times, and she simply cannot help but challenge any random passers-by to games of chance. Games that are without a shadow of doubt loaded in her favour. Being a thrillseeker, Ashlee is not beyond letting the dice decide her next actions for her, introducing a level of randomness and chaos that, simply put, is her calling card. Yet, her over the top and larger than life persona mask her true need and wants — to be loved and accepted on her own merits. Ashlee is an outcast illegitimate child, unwanted and unneeded. She has spent most of her life without a home or a family. Her journey is one to learn to trust, and be both trusted and accepted by her companions, and it is these deep-rooted insecurities that drive her onward with a ferocity that she would never admit to. Backstory Inasmuch as Ashlee tries to forget her past and her origins they are always there — a black spot indelibly burned to her subconscious that will remain as long as she lives. Unfortunately, she was not born under a storm wracked night, forever marked as a child of destiny. Nay, Ashlee’s mother was a courtesan working in a brothel, having gotten pregnant from one of her many suitors. And so she was born, as ignominious as she was unwanted. Ashlee never knew who her father was, and she didn’t really care to know. Her father was nothing to her, as she was nothing to her father, who likely never even knew that he had a daughter to the nameless and faceless prostitute he had spent the night with. In addition to that unceremonious and undignified fact, in truth, passed from one of the brothel ladies to the next to look after from night to night, she couldn’t really say which of them was her mother either. When she did finally leave, it was as barely more than a young child, and nobody was sorry to see her go. Most probably didn’t even notice she was missing. Those early years passed in a blur, one hard day of survival after the next, one indistinguishable from another. Over time, Ashlee came to prefer life on the sea to life on land. There, on the sea, was a freedom she had never experienced before, right from the time she bluffed her way onto her first voyage to now. There, on the sea, no one cared about the fact that she didn’t have a last name or a family. Where her life before the sea was nothing, out there was a sort of peace that was borne from the constant war against nature. It was here that Ashlee found the closest thing to happiness she had ever known. In addition to that the sea was a convenient place to hide from the almost never-ending mob of angry people who came looking for her after she had swindled then out of their hard-earned gold through unfair and rigged games of chance. It was an untimely and unpleasant incident that led to her being stranded at Silverpoint, looking for a way out of the "deadbeat harbour" as she called it. An unfortunate mishap which involved a misfired burning hands spell scroll, a chamberpot, and a wig led to her expulsion from the crew she was part of. Doubly unfortunate was the fact that Silverpoint Harbour itself had several high ranking individuals that bore a grudge against Ashlee for swindling them. Individuals who would not bat an eyelid at whatever means was necessary to extract the money they felt Ashlee owed them. Yes, it was certainly time to find a way out of the place, however she could. RP Sample She started out the morning in the confines of the tavern known as the Bloodthirsty Pelican, precisely at the moment that it opened up in fact. The Bloodthirsty Pelican certainly lived up to its name -- it was the roughest and rowdiest tavern in the neighbourhood. The entire tavern was drenched from top to bottom seemingly in spilt ale, or perhaps it was blood stained into the rotten, creaking wooden floorboards that threatened to collapse under the weight of so many patrons at one time. This seedy, dimly light cesspool of debauchery was notable for its illegal underground gambling den and the opium den that was situated next to it. It was a place that the morally decadent and the corrupt could while away their ill-gotten gains. At this moment in time, the air was thick with the smell of tobacco smoke, and it was pierced with the sound of a scream as a thick, heavyset man stubbed out his cigar on the palm of a small, weedy fellow that had annoyed him. In here were the seedy, the fallen, the pirates and the ne'er do-wells within the harbour. And Ashlee. Right at that precise moment in fact, the red-haired demon of chaos was steaming drunk, having spent most of her morning drinking herself into insensibility with the cheap, disgusting pig-swill that the bartender said passed for ale in this hellhole. Standing next to her, one of the other grounded sailors ordered a bottle of house red. Ashlee, leaning over the bar, laughed outrageously. Holding her hand in the air, she clapped the sailor hard on the back as she draped her arm drunkenly over the man's shoulders. "A bottle of the house finest? You obviously haven't tasted the pig-**** that passes for wine in this place. Finest my ass, hahahahahahahhaha, ughhhhh *hic*" Ashlee staggered, swaying drunkenly as she placed her hand on the bar, steadying herself on it before she regained her balance. Waving a mug of ale around with her other hand, she took her hand off the bar to wipe her mouth as she groaned, "I don't think that last one went down too well, uggggghhhhhhhh *hic*." The door opened and a gust of cool air came in to cool down the hot, sweaty atmosphere in the place. Ashlee looked around to see a wizened looking, older halfling lady with gray hair and a wrinkled face standing next to her. In her hand she clutched a note, holding it out to Ashlee, who shook her head in turn. "Well, hello there.....ugghhh what's that you got *hic*?" Swaying to both sides, she took the note and opened it. Ashlee’s eyes squinted as she started to read the finely-written, beautiful flowing script. Then she sighed, screwing the note up in a ball as she shrugged, tossing it over her shoulder. "I can't read," she sad finally, knowing full well that it would have been a threat of some description coming from one of the nobles she had already swindled the past week. Then an idea came to her. Her eyes brightened as she held her finger up in the air, proclaiming, "AH-HAH!" She reached into her tunic pocket, withdrawing a pair of six-sided dice as she looked back to the woman. "Do you play dice by any chance?" ~Two Hours Later~ "Must be divine punishment for the bad pies and steep prices," said the blacksmith with a nervous chuckle. At a nearby table Ashlee was prodding her fork rather forlornly at the mound of grey slop that had been splattered on the wooden dish in front of her. As she did so she winced slightly. Her head hurt, a lot. The sensation was positively nauseous, almost vomit-inducing in fact. In fact, at this precise moment, a posse of dwarves were circling round the top of her head. Every couple of seconds they would stop, and as one, they brought their hammers crashing down on her poor squishy head. ”****,” Ashlee cursed. “****ing bastard dwarves get away from my ****ing head,” she cursed again. Rather uncharitably, she looked at the blacksmith and shook her head, ”Divine punishment doesn’t even begin to cover the shite that they bake in there.” Her eyes slid back to the unappetising grey slop on her plate, and she sighed again before burying her head in her hands. ”Feckin’ nine hells of feckin’ Baator,” she had left the Bloody Pelican about an hour earlier. Although the circumstances of her departure were somewhat hazy and nebulous, she did vaguely remember something about the dice and a bunch of angry sailors, most of whom had wanted to put their fists through her face. “How did I end up down here? Was I being overly loud and drunk again? Did I threaten to kill, stab or maim anyone? Set fire to the tavern?” she mused quietly to herself, genuinely befuddled. And then the ground began to shake. Ashlee groaned to herself as the swaying offended her delicate sensibilities. ”Well this is all that I need….” she grimaced, holding her head up in her hands. And then the screaming began. With a long sigh Ashlee reached into her pockets, drawing the dice that she carried. “Well, dice of mine, shall I stick or twist,” she mused as everyone else started to head for the outside. She rolled the dice. Double 1’s. “Gods damn it.” Rising unsteadily, she unsheathed her sword and headed to the outside…..

[Grouchy]

Originally Posted by Touketsu

Firearms will absolutely be available. Giff away!

Excellent! Using this pic as a placeholder, I will likely end up drawing my own.

Character Concept Name: The Honourable Reginauld Weatherby Race: Giff Class: Ranger 5 (Hunter) Background: Same as Noble background, just extra focus on being pampered and spoiled Pampered Noble Appearance: Reginauld Weatherby is head and shoulders above the average man, with a massively thick torso and round belly and thick gray skin over heavy limbs. His head is an enormous muzzle with round protruding black eyes and a small snout, with a large mouth full of flat teeth. He wears a glass monocle over his right eye and on his head he is fond of a deerstalker cap with his family crest embroidered on the front of it. He wears a suit of mail with interlocking scales, the metal dulled with brown, with a dark green cloak thrown over his shoulders to better camouflage himself during his hunts. When not in his armor, he prefers to wear highly starched and pressed beige safari clothes with comfortable brown boots. In his massive hands he holds a well maintained and oiled hunting musket, and on a thick leather belt at his waist are a pair of oversized hunting knives. Reginauld stands with the poise and grace of one who was properly raised, and his deep booming voice is highly cultured and polished. Description: Reginauld grew up with a silver spoon in his mouth (actually - many of them, as he was quite the eater, but you get the point) and before he began running the spelljamming circuits he had never worked an honest day in his life before. As soon as he could walk his father thrust a musket into his hands, and Reginauld began joining the Baron Weatherby on his hunts. Reginauld proved to be a natural, and soon he spent every chance he could on the family land hunting game. He even had a tendency to skip some of his lessons and sneak off into the woods, much to the chagrin of his tutors. His parents spoiled him immensely so Reginauld was never dissuaded from his hunts, and soon the entire southern wing of their manor was dedicated to his hunting trophies. As Reginauld grew older, he bored of the more mundane hunts and began to hunt predators - more exciting and dangerous, thus more fun! Soon too he began to outclass these beasts, and grew immensely bored. He almost thought of giving up his beloved hunting and joining his father in the appropriate social circles. As luck would have it, his father was searching for armed guards for one of his trading caravans and, seeing an opportunity, Reginauld volunteered. Although the Baron Weatherby tried to talk him out of it, he eventually relented (after all, they never said no to him much before in his life) and Reginauld joined the caravan. As luck would have it, they got into a bit of a scrap with a group of bandits. The caravan easily came out on top, but Reginauld's thirst was stoked in ways it had never been before. This is the true test of a hunter - comparing his might and mettle against the most dangerous opponents one can find. The joy of hunting was back in full swing for Reginauld, and he has since earned many a fair coin of his own hiring himself out as a mercenary. Of course, he still makes plenty of time for hunting too - wherever he travels to, he always tries to find what kind of dangerous beasts like in the area, and Reginauld then hunts them down and earns another trophy for the southern wing. He hopes through his exploits he can bring honor to the Weatherby name. Backstory: A hodag was troubling some of the small villages and homesteads outside of Silverpoint, and a bounty was placed on it and word put out to those passing by. Reginauld has claimed the bounty and is in town waiting for the local taxidermist to finish treating and mounting the hodag's head so he can send it home to Weatherby Manor. RP Sample: Folding his arms over his quite prominent belly as he leans back in his chair, Reginauld takes a deep drag of his cigar and looks with a gleam in his eye at his captive audience. Smiling as only a giff can, he leans back in and in his polished tone he continues the story, his voice dripping with dramatic menace. "I could hear him in the bushes, you know. The clacking of his spiked tail. Claws raking along the dirt. The heavy breathing through sharp, deadly teeth. But with the darkness all around me, I couldn't pinpoint where... exactly... he was. All I could hear, was this..." The well dressed giff begins to scratch his fingers along the table, bringing them closer and closer to the slightly tipsy human with the bad teeth, who grinned and shivered in appreciation for the tale. "But do you think that would stop me?" he continues, grinning ear to ear. "Ho-ho-ho, not a chance, my good chaps! I thumbed the hammer on my trusty musket, and slowly drew a bead on the encroaching noise. Slowly, I squeezed the trigger. Slowly... slowly... and then BAM!" he shouts, slapping on the table for good effect, before hurriedly continuing into the tale. "A hit! But just a glancing blow! Gentlemen, I thought my goose was cooked at this moment. Hurriedly dumping in another ball and powder as the nightmarish beast rushed me, its roar so loud I can still hear it now and get shivers in my nethers, I thought this was the end. But as luck would have it, the hammer was back and the musket was up in a flash, and with another report of my trusty musket, the beast was down!" He bows in slight appreciation for the scattering of light applause, then keeps going, now in a conspiratorial tone. "Even in its death throes it was still a monstrous thing to behold. I waited until long after it was dead to even touch it, and longer still until I strapped it up and hauled it back to Silverpoint for the bounty. The bounty, of course, being paid in more drinks for one of the loveliest audiences I have had in a time!" The men cheered and clapped the giff on the shoulder as Reginauld smoothly hands off a handful of gold to the bartender and, with a gesture towards the men by him, gets them another round of drinks. Puffing on his cigar, he mulls briefly and then announces "You know, still not as treacherous as last summer. Now there was a beast of some renown...!"

[/fieldset]

[Hal Hammerhand]

If I know anything about DMing, I know that if the players have access to firearms then the npcs will too, so can monks deflect bullets the same as arrows?

[GleefulNihilism]

Originally Posted by Hal Hammerhand

If I know anything about DMing, I know that if the players have access to firearms then the npcs will too, so can monks deflect bullets the same as arrows?

Oooooo, great question.

I'm not the DM but I know that if you go RAW, yes they can. In Spelljammer specifically it helps that when we talk about guns we usually are talking about things like Muskets and not AKs.

If you want to argue that it's not realistic for a monk to catch bullets, keep in mind we're in a setting with space whales as serious modes of transportation and the monk probably has a teammate that can *literally* shoot lightning bolts out of their arse.

[Touketsu]

Yeah, honestly I’m not about to draw a line in the sand at musket balls and say that’s where I’m going to start enforcing common sense over the rule of cool. Hell, we could even say that monks in space focus small amounts of ki into their hands at the moment of impact to soften the blow or something. Deflecting bullets by hand is too badass to take away, ha ha.

[Still_Pond]

Wait. Wait! I can play an ooze!?

application Name: (a specific series of quivers and gas pocket evacuations) Gloopglorp for short. Race: Plasmoid (small) Class: Monk (way of shadow) Background: Anthropologist (custom) Appearance: Born crystal clear, plasmoids become more opaque as they mature. Their color is that of what is absorbed, for Gloopglorp that would be inky black with some trace lines of gold here and there. Description: A puddle in the shadows, a blob clogging a storm drain, a black onyx sculpture of an Adonis. Personality: A mimic, both physically (form) and emotionally. Gloopglorp absorbs more than surface dust, they absorb vibes. If the vibe is tense, Gloopglorp is tense; if the vibe is chill, Gloopglorp is chill. Sometimes the energies they tune into are not really the ones they should be mimicking in a given situation, but they try. Who is Gloopglorp when they are alone? They are pensive and curious, enjoying puzzles and thought experiments. They love humans, and are particularly inspired by behaviors that favor the group rather than the individual. They also work out, continually practicing their humanoid forms, working hard to achieve more and more fidelity. The fine details of the human form are extremally difficult to form, like fingers or genitalia, but that doesn't stop Gloopglorp from trying. Backstory: Gloopglorp arrived to this world in a diaspora cannister. Prior to arriving, there was only darkness and void. When the human child found and opened the cannister, there was suddenly light and color and food! Once enough organic matter from the child had been absorbed, consciousness was restored. Early communications with the indigenous lifeforms, specifically a series of screams and feral cries of a mother's anguish were not very productive nor informative. It proved much more advantageous to remain unseen, and observe from shadow. Years passed. An identity was forged. Friends were made. A name was given, Li'l Gloop. Said friends were the humans who ran the Shambling Mounds, a local brothel. Li'l Gloop observed. Li'l Gloop protected. Li'l Gloop occasionally assisted. It was during one such assistance that Gloopglorp was introduced to the monastic order of Stars and Shadows. After following the client to their brotherhood, Gloopglorp observed. Gloopglorp learned. Gloopglorp eventually joined. When it was discovered that the brothel was built upon an abandoned mine, their world was suddenly under threat. The Shambling Mounds was to be cleared, the site excavated by the nobility, all claims of ownership by the Lady of the House ignored. Li'l Gloop oozed into the Lord's keep. Gloopglorp observed. Gloopglorp learned...juicy shameful details which the monks of Light and Shadow would help exploit. All efforts to excavate the ruin were mysteriously dropped, the rights of ownership honored. The Shambling Mounds could shamble on. Gloopglorp continued to explore the mine, alone able to traverse tight confines and cave-ins, until finally reaching a buried shipwreck. The recovered wealth from that ancient vessel helped secure the the future of the Shambling Mounds. Working collaboratively among humans from different backgrounds toward a goal of prosperity; utilizing martial training and stealth to acquire things humans found valuable; this is what brought Li'l Gloop joy. RP sample "Again." A black and gold robed monk stands in the sandy yard behind the local bakery. The monk is posed with a quarterstaff behind him and he gestures for his opponent to advance. His opponent is a small blob of reluctant black undulating slime. From behind the monk, a disembodied voice speaks, the voice sounds exactly like the monk's. "You are too quick. If this were real, I'd hide in that rain gutter and wait for you to loose interest." The monk relaxes, and leans on the quarterstaff. He rubs his eyebrows. "But what if you couldn't. Sometimes force must be met with force. What if I held an innocent life? What if your inaction allowed me to harm others? Hesitation is a weakness, little ooze." Then, with sudden quickens, the monk draws two shirken from somewhere inside their robes and throws them at the roughly goat sized lump of jelly. They strike, the jiggly surface caving in around each impact. One shirken pierces in, but the other is expelled as a psudo-pod ejects it back toward the offending monk! The monk moves only his hand, catching the returned shirken inches from his nose. Then the ooze leaps into the air, forming a torpedo like shape as they hurl themselves at the monk. The first impact sends the monk sprawling to the ground. Then three more lumps of jelly-flesh form and lash out in rapid succession, but the monk is too quick and rolls away. The ooze slides between the monk's feet and rises up behind him. The monk spins and somehow manages to strike the ooze in such a way that an electric like jolt stuns their structure. Unable to move, the ooze is helpless. "Good, but you have neglected your exercises. Your...flesh...is still weak, even on this day; the last day before your Star journey begins. You must focus, for we will not be there to help you in the coming months." The monk moves away, drawing their quarterstaff while the stun wears off. "Again!" ~~~~the next morning~~~~~ Living inside the walls of a brothel made one accustomed to shaking and pounding walls. The rhythmic pounding felt good on Li'l Gloop's battered and punctured mesoglea. This vibration felt different, however, deeper. Gloopglorp forces themselves to coalesce out through a vent and into the alley behind the brothel. From the shadows of the ally, the ooze watches a panicked populace point into the sky at a tall and twisted shapes. The shapes were almost vine-like, but crystalline and alien. It was a fitting start to their Star journey, a time when a Shadow monk reached the fifth orbit and could no longer study with the order until they felt ready for the Falling Star Return. It was time to travel, to observe, and to collaborate. Gloopglorp's first challenge of this phase of his existance had, quite literally, erupted from the ground in front of them.

[Grouchy]

Originally Posted by Touketsu

Yeah, honestly I’m not about to draw a line in the sand at musket balls and say that’s where I’m going to start enforcing common sense over the rule of cool. Hell, we could even say that monks in space focus small amounts of ki into their hands at the moment of impact to soften the blow or something. Deflecting bullets by hand is too badass to take away, ha ha.

Or maybe even just a spiffy set of wrist guards. If Wonder Woman can do it, why can't a monk?

[Snicker]

Application Name: Toma Tumbelbum (formerly Sai Galanodel) Race: Elf (High) Class: Monk (Drunken Master) Background: Entertainer Appearance: An alabaster-skinned moon elf, her face decorated with pigments that are more garish than attractive. She is even more lithe than the average grey elf, and while she often walks with a cane, a careful eye may detect an unusual grace and fluidity to her movements. Her hair is tangled and all her clothes are frayed and distressed; the abuse to her stage clothes are deliberate and carefully maintained, while the damage to her personal clothes is natural. Description: Toma is an adherent of a fringe, secular monk order. Like many monks, this order teaches asceticism and discipline, but places a particular emphasis on humility. To them, it is not enough to be without pride, or even to live in poverty; instead, one must actively pursue derision and humiliation. For this reason, adherents are not cooped up in remote monasteries, but must be active in the world, so that they can continuously seek ignominy in the lowest levels of society. It also means their martial arts utilize erratic, unpredictable movements akin to drunkards or the disabled. Toma's chosen position of self-abasement is to serve as a slapstick performer in a dirty and destitute wandering caravan, the sort that gets blamed for every theft and ill that occurs when they're in town (and rightly so, most of the time). Her usual role is that of a clumsy and dull-witted oaf who either drives or complicates the plot due to their constant screw-ups. She is also the caravan's security and is hired out for undignified jobs whenever the caravan sees opportunity to make some extra coin, something she refuses to accept thanks for. Backstory: On the far end of Faerûn is a small, mostly human territory with a ruling class of grey elves - not because they are conquerors or despots, but because power is more easily gathered in a long life, and once collected, that power is rarely discarded even by decent souls. Most of the human populace is content to be led by the grey elves, trusting in the wisdom that comes from centuries of experience, but since they have no insight into the elves' day-to-day, that trust is reliant on the appearance of ageless wisdom. Sai was born to the Galanodel family, one of the ruling landowners of this territory. Her childhood was one of privilege, but also tightly controlled behavior and image. Far from the typical Faerûnian elves' love of freedom and self-expression, the Galanodels could only let themselves be seen as dignified and superior. Sai found this life stifling, then suffocating. She found herself questioning her own identity, unable to maintain this mask, and she fled her family and the territory before achieving adulthood (by elven standards). Sai bummed around Faerûn for a few years. With few practical skills, she struggled to survive, often finding employment only because people assumed she was more experienced than she was - something that reminded her of the false appearances she had fled. At one of her lowest points, she was living in the gutters of Waterdeep when a gang of thugs attempted to attack one of the local homeless beggars. She was amazed to see the beggar trounce them with incredible martial arts, wondering why he would live in squalor if he had such skills. He was her introduction to the monk order. RP Sample: "You see that, Lord Shlamozzle? It's the high priestess! She's here!" "Thank the gods! As you know, it's absolutely vital this banquet go off without a hitch. I need the high priestess's favour to save the Lliira's Grace Orphanage from destruction. And I must do that to earn Lady Belle's love!" "Worry not, my Lord! Every detail has been accounted for. I tasted the food and drink myself, you know! And most importantly, by now, Lady Buuzer has been - wait. What's that?" "'ello, 'ello, everyone!" Toma Tumbelbum lurches into view from stage right. Her voice is slurred and her clothes have the superficial appearance of high class, but have been rendered disheveled, filthy, and immodest due to her misadventures in a previous scene. "You won't believe the day I've had! But you know I'd never miss a party!" "Oh, no!" Toma grabs a bottle off of a nearby table, uncorks it, and puts it to her lips. Her tongue blocks the opening so that nothing actually enters her mouth, but her gives the appearance of drinking. Lowering the bottle, she stumbles forward towards Nettle - the human woman playing the high priestess - who looks at Toma with an aghast expression. "I don't believe we've met!" Toma says, swaying on her feet. "Always love to make new friends, though! Put her there, love!" Toma thrusts the bottle towards the Nettle's face. She stops short of hitting her, but the coloured water inside shoots out of the bottle. Unexpectedly, the stream just misses Nettle, splashing on the stage behind her, not a drop landing of Nettle. "Oi!" Toma rears back, eyes wide. "That was close, wasn't it? I ought to be more - oop! Woah!" Toma appears to fumble the bottle as it slips out of her hand. She attempts to catch it, but only succeeds in knocking it back into the air, and she moves to follow. She bounces the bottle from hand to hand for a few seconds, before stumbling into an actor playing a server, carrying plate full of sticky sweet pastries. Toma barely recovers, now keeping both the bottle and the pastries in the air as she backpedals. "The cake has arrived!" "No! Not now!" Two more actors dressed as servers enter from stage left and almost immediately collide with Toma. The cake is added to the aerial chaos, Toma now juggling both it, the pastries, and the bottle. She swerves left and right, and for a second, almost appears to regain control before she steps into the puddle of "wine" she'd spilled earlier. Her feet slip and slide on the stage before she pitches forward, thrusting all the cake and pastries onto Nettle with a splatter before falling flat on her face. The audience erupts in laughter, but the laughs suddenly due as the ground starts to quake beneath their feet. The screaming begins as an enormous, crystalline vine forces its way out of the ground and through the rear of the stage. Nettle stumbles and falls, landing beside Toma, too stunned to move or even scream. With a deafening crack, the roof of the stage gives way, and a thick wooden beam plunges downward towards her face. From her face-down position, Toma's hands press against the stage floor and her legs spin upward. The heel of one foot slams into the side of the beam, diverting its momentum and causing it to spear through the floor just to the right of Nettle's face. With her next movement, Toma grabs Nettle by her clerical costume and rolls them both off the stage, landing in the dirt of the market square where they'd been performing. The stage continues to come apart as the vine pushes upward, but all the actors are clear. Toma leaps upward, following the vine with her eyes, then turned to see more erupting all over the city. Wordlessly, she turns and runs for the carriage. Her cane is there, and she think she'll need it. When she enters, however, she sees someone else has reacted quickly to the chaos - a thief, having just opened the box with their earnings. As she enters, he turns to look at her. "Don't try to stop me if you know what's good for you," he says. "You can't take that!" Toma protests. "We need it for more pastries and pies!" The thief blinks, then shakes his head and draws two daggers. "Guess you're as smart as you look." He thrusts at her with the first dagger, but the cane was right by the door, and Toma already has it in hand. She catches the dagger under the crook and pulls it forward and downward, forcing the blade out of his grip. His other hand comes around, but Toma is already falling forward as if she'd tripped, slipping past his blade to drive her shoulder into his chest. He gasps as the air is forced out of his lungs and they both fall to the ground. He lands on his back. Toma is already turning as she falls and lands on her shoulder, somersaulting forward and coming up on her feet. Once she's upright again, however, she wavers, as if dizzy, and the thief thrusts his dagger at her calf. He doesn't expect her other, stumbling leg to intercept with his wrist at just the wrong moment, kicking it hard enough to snap it backward - only for a second, but that's how long it takes for Toma's feet to slip out from under her and for her to fall hard into a sitting position, directly on his face. The blow to the head is so hard he doesn't even make a sound. His arms immediately drop limp, the remaining dagger clattering on the carriage floor. Reaching up with her cane, Toma flips the money box's lid closed, then stands and sprints out the carriage door.

[delpinator]

I updated my app. I did a custom lineage for a harrengon but could I use the actual race?

[Touketsu]

Originally Posted by delpinator

I updated my app. I did a custom lineage for a harrengon but could I use the actual race?

Did I leave Monster of the Multiverse out of the allowed sources? My bad; I meant to include it!

You’re absolutely welcome to apply with a Harengon! And anybody else who had interest in playing a race from MotM, my apologies. Feel free to adjust your app and let me know; I’ll update the table accordingly!

[Lazer]

I really enjoyed writing my app, but now having time to reflect I think he may be a little lacking in depth. I'm going to withdraw, good luck to everyone, I hope you have a blast!