A Difference in RP Setups (M seeking F, Updated 1/8)

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Thanks for stopping in. My job has kept me busy for the past year, but as I've grown more accustomed to it and don't have to hold my brains in each night, I figure it's a good time to get back into the kick of things.  My O/Os link ( <--- ) shows my general interests, so no need to go over that again here. The important part is that I'm usually pretty open for most kinks should an RP go that way, and the more my own quirks are catered to (specifically, a preference for spectacularly built characters mine and otherwise), the more flexible I can be. Anyhow, ideas.

Format

Each idea has a couple of ratings with it, smut (S) and complexity (C), on a 1-5 ascending scale. The former is how weighted towards sexual RP the idea is, a 1 being pretty tame and a 5 being likely PWP (though these are not absolutes with the right idea). The complexity scale is based on a combination of two factors: how much back story I have planned for the idea, and how intricate I figure the character relationships will be. A less complex idea doesn't necessarily lack in character depth, however; I actually find that I like simple ideas for giving more room to use characterization development as the driver of the narrative force.

Edgeworld (Sci-Fi, S 3, C 4)

The theme of this setting is how very focused people have to adapt to harsh circumstances. Specifically, in a future where all the people in the society in question were engineered for a specific role in the system, they have been twice removed from their destined niche: the grind of a harsh interstellar war forced many people from lower castes to join the soldiers in battle, and at the conclusion of the war where these same conscripts and their escorts are abandoned for dead in a star system at the edges of their exploration. The survivors of this betrayal have to make their way on the barren edge world that is their harsh cradle.

A more in-depth write up, including some character concepts and a template for character design is available here.

Reign of the Horselord (Fantasy / Pulp Historical, S 4, C 3)

In time immemorial, the eastern steppes held nomadic tribes of warriors that were content to raid the settlements out in their rough lands and graze the ancient fields. One day, however, one of the tribes was given the ultimate blessing of their god, Zhenkan, the Lord of Horses and Victory: a son borne of a priestess, reared to fight. His legend grew with him as he proved himself first in small skirmishes, then larger raids as he ascended within the tribe, eventually receiving the mantle of chief while still young. His ambition was too large for such a simple title, and he eventually rallied them together. From there, the united Shou Zhen tribes spread out from the steppes, their raids turning to conquests. A thundercloud of hoof stamps echoed across the lands, the Horselord's diplomats offering any people in their way one of two options: subservience to the Shou Zhen as a vassal state, or execution.

Where your character comes in could be from any number of angles, but I have a 'main' story for the willing. Far from the steppes, a fruitful coastal land was ruled by a dynasty believed to be touched with the blood of the fertility goddess, and the king's family showed this with their flaxen hair and generous figures, lording over fields that were always the most bountiful of the petty kingdoms. Their lands were well-defended by hills and rivers, their capital an island barely connected to the shore. As such, the king laughed off the warnings of the Shou Zhen caravan. Being so far, it was many years before their folly was realized, but the memory of Chuzhen Marukal was deep, and so one summer morning their assault began in earnest. Despite the best efforts of the king's well-trained spearmen, they were not used to the foreigner's tactics, and were eventually overrun. As the horde neared the capital, the thin isthmus was torn apart by the king's remaining forces, leaving them cut off from their lands. With the Horselord intent upon building a new bridge to reach the island castle, the eldest princess decided she would try to offer herself to the invaders to spare their people.

However, by this point even a fair beauty was not sufficient to quell the warlord. However, when the rumors of her divine blessings become known, the issue changes... for while he had a harem of fallen damsels in his caravan, a woman of the proper stature and bearing to rear truly worthy heirs to a demigod was so far as elusive as the riches of Atlantis. As such, a negotiation could be reached - her hand for the surrender of the kingdom... if she was worthy.

I'm up for other plot ideas with this character, and as it's based on an amalgam of Hun and Mongol histories, it can easily be fit to various eras and regions as needed.

Tales of the Ivory Tetsubo (L5R / historical Japan, S 3, C 2)

Once upon a time, as a lark, I made a Tsuruchi archer whose social skills were surprisingly adroit, and he had a combination of attributes that made him a lover and a fighter. Tsuruchi Kenzo was not the typical samurai in Rokugan, an adherent to the somewhat radical philosophy of kyushido handed down by the family founder, eschewing the katana for his bow. His combination of talents with word and wood, as well as a bit of a reputation of dallying with the peasant women, he was a natural fit to join the Emerald Magistrates as a tracker and enforcer of the Emperor's law through the frontiers. Along his travels, he picked up a talent for telling stories, and so he began to chronicle his affairs and tribulations. A man of prodigious gifts, his carnal weapon began to garner a legend of its own, and so he began to speak of the ivory tetsubo and its conquests in duels across the lands.

Something that could work rather well here is matching him with a courtesan, perhaps a more worldly Crane or Scorpion woman who trades tales with him. As such, the RP could be multi-layered, vignettes of his dalliances interwoven into their interaction. If the courtesan has her own stories to tell, all the better. For those not initiated into the specifics of the Legends of the Five Rings RPG, the concept translates easily enough into a more historical context, especially since samurai were for much of their history in warring times archers first anyhow.

The World's a Stage (Modern, S 4, C 3)

In some ways, this setup is technically an alternate history. Once upon a time, when film was young, there were people doing all sorts of wild things. In our world, the Hays Code was put in place to silence those exploratory, exploitative, and exceptional. In the world of this story, however, this never came to pass. As such, the stigma of porn never quite stung the same, and the idea of erotic content in media wasn't nearly as outrageous. Playboy was even more respected as a journal of record, for example, and studios would have projects ranging from the family fare to the family making.

The main idea in this setting centers around a super-starlet of the industry, pulled from obscurity into the limelight through her sultry combination of wit, charm, and a body of extravagant femininity. She's made a ton of money for herself through her performances, and she used some of it to invest in her production company, now head of the premier film company in Hollywood. Even though she's aged graciously, she knows she'll need to retire from performing eventually. With that in mind, and also hoping to prove her business acumen is as good as her sensual talents, she crafts a plan; it's a simple plan, conceptually. Find those young people she figures she can mold and train into the next superstars. Get them under contract to her, and then after she retires from performing, her company remains on top of the industry. As a small group of superlatively endowed and gorgeous people assembles, the challenge becomes two-fold: training and refining these young performers into true virtuosos, and keeping the drama down as much as possible, lest a terrible rift make her lose too many of them or degrade their performance.

The studio allows for a lot of different interactions; the studio head likely has many friends and rivals, and the interaction between the new talent and old blood could create novels to themselves. Tack on the ability to have scenes take place in films, and there's a lot of space to create. Also of note, it's possible to tone down the erotica angle and focus more on the other parts of the loosened restrictions, enabling rougher stories about real troubles. It's a bit of a mood shift, but it's certainly doable.

The Education of Richard (Modern [Fantasy], S 4, C 1)

One of my oldest and favorite characters is Richard Harrington, something of a 'meta-character' who adapts to different situations. In his core, he's a young man who's been something of a social pariah in his youth for the unusual nature of his endowment; teased and mocked growing up, he's something of a loner despite looking otherwise normal to an onlooker out in public. His story is one of sexual exploration and personal growth, and he's well set to emerge from his shell with the right exposure. Characters for this would probably fit one of a few roles: a matronly mentor (either someone who dominates him, or someone that awakens the beast within), a fellow shy peer where they blossom together, or a more wild peer to contrast with him.

The fantasy angle stems from an idea for explaining his unusual physique. His father and mother were unknowingly the carriers of bloodlines going back to the gods of old, Poseidon and Aphrodite respectively. The latent magics brought them success, but the sparks surged when brought together in their first-born son. The torrent of energies of the ocean and lust echoed around him, subtly reshaping his body and calling out like a siren song to anyone aware of such mystical energies. Puberty super-charged the process, leaving him blatantly different from the norm by the age of majority. In addition to the above stuff, he works well in this setup with various supernatural beings: anyone that can feed or draw from his energy overflow can make great use of him, and his unnatural stamina and fortitude means he can serve as a comedic hero-wannabe (perhaps a role to grow into).

Super Heroics (Original Comic-Story World, S *, C *)

I've developed over the past few years a somewhat connected alternate superhero world that is based around trying to force more realistic measures over a world in which people with powers start emerging. It's definitely not a direct rip of DC or Marvel, though some character ideas of mine are partial pastiches of their characters; the Wildstorm universe pre-DC-merge or the Imageverse would be closer to it, for those that dabble in the side materials. I'll define more of the world if there's an outpouring of interest, but for now I'll stick to a few highlight characters / concepts I'd like to use.

Cold Iron - The Smartest Guy in the Room (S 1, C 5)

Born into a line of incredibly noteworthy scientists, and the grandson of The Architect, one of the main allied heroes of WWII, Paul Langford was a child prodigy who took to the sciences with incredible ease. Tragically, his close relationship with his father came to an end when he watched as Triad agents killed him in cold blood. The young man's path into the world of the vigilante was forged in vengeance, putting his youthful mind to building a deadly suit of power armor to hunt down and kill the members of the organization that had his father killed, up to the regional lord. With a profound sense of guilt over the lives he took in that protracted rage, he turned to instead trying to prevent anyone else from having to suffer as he did. He works diligently to maintain his family company, Langford Technologies, and to keep watch for crimes that only he can prevent or criminals only he can stop.

For him, I have a lot of plot elements in mind. One of my favorites is the idea of Paul kicking off a love affair with a powerful Hong Kong business woman while Cold Iron contends with a criminal-assassinating mystic warrior. The big plot twist is that she is the daughter of the lord Paul killed, and she's been trying to find the hunter-killer suit that was used to track her father's killer; the struggle of how they'd cope with the tragic back-and-forth of family killings makes for a compelling revelation. Along with her, I have concepts for a team of super heroes he brings together, both locals who had nanite fragments of an alien spacecraft merge with them. The Wall is virtually indestructible, and as a former high school football star who also happens to be a huge fan of some of the big name supers, he acts as a foil in many ways to Paul's personality, but they can form a solid bond of brotherhood. Meanwhile, the older sibling of a former friend (killed as a bystander in gang violence) gained the power to detect and manipulate all forms of energy, but the power is constrained by the host's ability to process directives for the nanites; The Enforcer turns to Cold Iron to hone those powers and keep out of trouble, as this world does not suffer overly dangerous powers well.

Bay City PD - "Supercops" (S 2, C 4)

Based in the same area as the aforementioned characters, the rise in supercrime strained the police agencies of the Silicon Valley area, and so a search was made to find people that could handle the unusual nature of the crimes that were thus far vexing the agencies. An initial team of four was brought together.

Marcus Cooper - Former Special Forces, he received an updated version of the Superiority Serum developed over the decades after early US an German attempts at super-soldier development. He's a bit cocky, but has been hardened by a lot of missions that would have easily broken lesser men.
Barbara Swanson - Also a former special forces member, she was a crack sniper whose general proficiency with firearms was top-notch. Her father a police chief elsewhere in the state. She's a fairly no-nonsense person, but she can warm up to those she's close with. She also has an extremely deep sense of duty from her upbringing.
Viviana Monteferro - Half Italian, half Mexican criminal investigator and profiler. She knows nearly a dozen languages and has a graduate degree in psychology along with her police training. She's very empathic, and has latent psychic abilities that begin to awaken from her time on the field.
Gyaneshwar Singh - Blossoming mentally at a young age, he earned several degrees before his eighteenth birthday, but he had always had a wild streak in him that stood out from his more staid nerd-prodigy friends. Unlike the others, his addition to the team was not a career move, but rather a way to avoid jail time for an egregious cyber-crime and notorious car chase. He maintains that wild streak as he joins the team, which contrasts with the rest of the team. However, his skills and contacts prove immensely useful, and the exposure to the team can have a emolliating effect on his criminal ways.

I also have an idea for a possible long-term story arc twist. For those that would care to avoid it, don't open the spoiler below.

Spoiler: Click to Show/Hide

The four members were chosen not just for their talents at large, but specifically because each is a child of the member of an elite team of augmented soldiers from the Vietnam War era. Marcus wasn't given the normal serum but a suppressant that would push down the augmentations he carried to more closely replicate the serum. Barbara's super-accuracy and hyperactive reflexes were also somewhat suppressed, and Viviana's psychic potential was locked away specifically tough because the laws against powerful psychics are particularly harsh. Only G-Swizzle really lived with his potential mostly unlocked, but for a super-intellect, knowing what you are is its own sort of unlock; also, a point of logic I have is that super-intellects have a natural resistance against psychics, so that gives Viviana a point of contrast with him vs others.

Dark Power - The Hero of Harlem (S 3, C 4)

The idea behind this character is based fairly heavily on blaxploitation movies and the attempt in Luke Cage to capitalize on them in comics. In this story, Dark Power emerges from the streets of New York's ghettos after he returns from the war, unknowingly experimented on near the end of his term of service. Granted greatly increased strength, stamina, and toughness, he decides to use his new-found gifts to clean up the gangs and racial violence in his city. The story for him can either be set in the 1970's-80's era where he's still a newer hero, fighting the system from the streets, or in the modern era as he's begun to age and tone back on his more brutish means of crime fighting. I figure the smut rating is what it is since Dark Power's one big bad motha-


Character illustration ideas for all stories are available upon request (still working on options for Edgeworld).

Coming soon: Band on the Run, Parisian Nights, and The Troupe. Thanks for reading!