Talamah: The New World (Open)

[MagicalPen]

The squawk of seagulls woke him.

The taste of salt was heavy in his mouth and stomach. He swallowed and regretted it instantly, his stomach churning before he threw up. It was mostly saltwater, burning the back of his throat, but it instantly made him feel better. His hands clenched into fists, squeezing the sand out between them. Sand.

Sand!

Slowly, he opened his eyes. He was staring down at sand. Slowly, he lifted his head, the feeling returning to his body, letting him know that despite what he thought, this was not heaven. Every muscle and bone in his body ached, like he had been run through the Gauntlet five times over. He groaned but pushed himself to his knees, sitting up right. The sun beat down on his back as he took stock of his situation.

He was on a beach which rose slowly to a treeline. Waves calmly rolled in towards the beach from behind him, littered with the wreckage of what had once been The Swallow. A few bodies floated in the bay as well, the hulk of the ship still sitting above water level from where the storm had thrown it up against a rocky shore. It appeared he had been lucky, a narrow channel between the rocky entrance to the bay perhaps saving his life. He shook his head in disbelief.

The Western Lands. They had found the Western Lands! Well, he had at least, turning his head to scan the beach to see if anyone else had survived. The fabled Western Lands existed and he had found them. Now, how was he supposed to get home?

[Two Months Earlier...]

Konrad Roht clenched his jaw.

He was retired, damnit! Retired from the Legion and working as a Mercenary, captain of the Golden Spears. Of course, he mostly sat around in the Guilds headquarters and took on contracts before dealing them out to the various squads that made up the Golden Spears. A little monster hunting there, a protection detail here, a minor skirmish over there...nothing too serious. No major conflicts and he tried to keep them out of politics. If the pay was good they'd take the contract. And he only hired those worthy of it - he had a reputation to uphold and didn't want to become some degenerate outfit. Like the Iron Fist, who were more like a group of Bandits and Criminals now than the reputable Mercenary Company they had used to be.

Konrad stared down the Master-at-Arms that stood before him. The man had handed him a scroll with an order direct from the King - curse his soul! - requiring Captain Konrad Roht back into service, to undertake the leadership role of leading an Expedition to the Western Lands...along with a whole lot of flattery in regards to his exemplary service and yada yada yada. It didn't matter that he had served his time, retired, and followed the coin. Nor did it matter that he thought the King was crazy (which he was) or that he didn't believe in these great Western Lands that were supposed to bring Ribenheim into a Golden Age of Discovery and Wealth. No one, and he meant no one, had ever gone West and come back. It was a death sentence - something the Heir to the Crown had ignored before heading off seeking fame. It had broken the King when he had not returned and in the four years since, many expeditions had been mounted to bring the Prince back. None had returned.

And now the King was commissioning a large flotilla to try and do what no one else had been able to do. And he wanted Captain Konrad Roht of the 13th Legion, the victor of over a hundred battles, a Hero of the Empire, to lead an expedition to the Western Lands. "Gods damn it!" Konrad slammed his mailed fist onto his table, leaving a dent in its wooden surface from its force. "What choice do I have? You can tell your Royal Highness that he's got his man. But I want double the pay!"

Konrad hated ships. He despised them. They rendered him useless in most situations and he liked being in control. Yes, he loved being in control and being confined to a ship removed that from him! After this, well, he was going to leave the Empire, leave the Gods damned Insane King and his minions and go explore. Maybe he'd take his Company to the Duchies and get involved in some of their wars. Of course, that would only happen if, by some miracle, they made it back from this cursed adventure!



Seeking dynamic characters for a little fantasy-adventure in a wild, new, unexplored landscape.

What does that mean? Dynamic, multi-faceted characters that - for one reason or another - have decided to roll their fate with an expedition doomed for failure. Its a death sentence heading West on a ship, yet here they are doing just that.

I am looking to keep this to a small, dedicated group of players! Quality over Quantity in post length!



This is a fantasy-setting - lower levels of magic, and all acceptable races are only Human. Medieval technology levels of course - same with weapons and armor.

Nothing is known about the Western Lands, or if they even exist. People who sail to the West, looking for them, often don't return. Obviously no one knows why, since no one ever returns! So going on an expedition to find the Western Lands...well, people think it just means you sail off the edge of the Earth. No one knows if the Western Lands even exist.

It is RUMORED that the Western Lands hold unimaginable wealth and resources for whomever finds them and lays claim to them first.

[MagicalPen]

CHARACTER INFORMATION ETC

Please use the following format to submit a character.

Do not post character sheets in this thread unless APPROVED.

All character sheets must be sent via PM to me!

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[b]Player Name:[/b]

[b]Character Name:[/b]
[b]Character Age:[/b]
[b]Character Sex:[/b]
[b]Orientation:[/b]

[b]Class:[/b]

[b]Personality:[/b]

[b]History:[/b]

[b]Reason for Joining the Expedition:[/b]

[b]Strengths:[/b]

[b]Weaknesses: [/b]

[b]Additional Information:[/b]

[hr]

[b]Hard Offs:[/b]

[b]Willingness to Start Solo:[/b]

Character Name Here

Player Name: Your name!

Character Name: Again, character name.
Character Age: Character Age
Character Sex: Male or Female?
Orientation: Straight, Bi, or Gay?

Class: What 'Class' best describes your characters skill-set?

Personality: What makes your character tick? What pisses them off? What are they like?

History: What made your character the person they are today?

Reason for Joining the Expedition: The Million Dollar question and the one that most people have the hardest time making believable. For what reason or under what circumstances, does your character find themselves with a one-way-ticket to death?

Strengths: Attributes and Skills your character is good at.

Weaknesses: The opposite of Strengths.

Additional Information: Anything else you'd care to share about your character that isn't covered in any of the other topics?



Hard Offs: Self explanatory.

Willingness to Start Solo: For plot...the idea is for a small group, but some may have washed up elsewhere on the shore.

[MagicalPen]

Shipwreck Survivors

Captain Konrad Roht, Expedition Leader

Konrad Roht

Player Name: MagicalPen, Penners, MP

Character Name: Captain, Konrad Roht, 13th Legion, The Golden Spears
Character Age: 34
Character Sex: Male
Orientation: Straight

Class: Soldier

Personality: Konrad Roht is a hard man. He has known the feel of iron and the smell of blood for more than half his life. There is little that shocks him these days as he has seen the best of people and the worst of people. He has seen many friends die many horrible deaths. He knows War for what it is and not for the Romance many seem to seek in it. He can come across as a gruff man, easily angered, happy to bury himself in his drinking cup. But he can also strike the friendly figure, the fatherly type despite no family of his own. Leadership did not come easily but became necessary and once in such a position he was unable to let it go.

The Legion and its Discipline have been burned onto his brain. Despite his retirement, it is still very much a part of him. He expects loyalty and obedience from those under him, no matter the situation or circumstances. He knows how to survive and can only hope no one else dies under him. But Konrad is not an emotional man. He keeps things bottled up inside of him and rarely speaks of his past.

History: "War. What is it good for? Turning a boy into a man!"

It was a saying that his father said all of the time while he was growing up. And now those words were bouncing around in his head as he slid his blade up below his fathers ribs, just like the man had showed him. A torrent of warm blood coated his hand to his wrist as he watched the life flew from his fathers eyes, the look of shock being replaced by one of calmness as his eyes glazed over. Konrad twisted the blade once more - just as his father had shown him - before pulling it from his fathers body. His father, always a big man, slumped heavily to the floor. The blade soon clattered to the ground as well as Konrad stumbled back in shock, at what he had done. But he had been left no choice.

His father had gone to war and came back a different man. He drank, heavily, and started to hit his mother. Konrad had been but a small boy when it had started but was soon the subject of the beatings himself. He was never big enough, never tough enough, never man enough for his father. Daily beatings did not help, but they did toughen Konrad up. He learned how to take it, how to bear the pain and not show it knowing what was happening to his mother was worse.

He kept to himself, not sure how to interact with the other children who seemed so happy all the time. When the bigger boys came, they wailed on him more and more, trying to make him cry. Not even a broken arm could bring the tears to his eyes, not until he was alone with his mother and was unable to control it anymore. The bigger boys soon learned to leave him alone, that that Roht kid was wrong in the head, that he wasn't worth the effort since he never reacted in the way they wanted.

Then, at a certain age, his father taught him how to start fighting back. His drinking buddies had made fun of his pussy of a son one too many times. The beatings clearly weren't working. So now he taught Konrad how to fight back. Fighting wasn't glorious or romantic. It wasn't clean either. He taught him how to fight dirty. When it came to life and death, your life was worth their death no matter the means. It gave Konrad a focus in his life and he started to grow bigger and stronger at the same time. The bigger boys took notice too and came after him again. This time they were the ones who left with broken noses, busted balls, and hurt egos. Konrad was turning into his Father.

And then it had happened. Konrad was in the yard, practicing his sword thrusts with a blade his father had given him. He could hear them arguing inside and then he could hear his mothers cries as his father started to beat her. Konrad tried to ignore it but the anger, the pain, the rage, boiled in his blood. And there was something different about her cries this time. Konrad's vision tunneled as he turned and strode back into the house. His father had his back to him, shoulders rising as he breathed heavily, hands balled into fists covered with blood hanging at his sides. On the bed, Konrads mother lay still, eyes wide opened and glazed over. One side of her face was a bloody mess, caved in from the beating she had taken.

Konrad broke the first rule of combat and made a noise - he wasn't sure if he had gasped, scuffed his foot, or breathed too heavily - but his father slowly turned to face him. Konrad stepped forward, into his thrust, angling the point of his blade up under his taller fathers ribs. He reacted with no time for thought. Moments later, his father was dead at his feet, his mother dead on her bed. Konrad silently packed a bag of his things and then set fire to his home. An hour later he came across a brook and finally washed the blood from his hands, heart racing.

At 13 years old, Konrad had killed his first man. He also knew that his fathers words were wrong. War didn't make a boy into a man. War made a man into a monster. By the time he was 14, Konrad had killed 5 more people. That was when he was picked up by the City Watch and instead of facing time in prison he had decided to take the other option, the option his father had always wanted...he joined the Legion. Konrad promised not to let it turn him into the Monster it had turned his father. But can all promises be kept?

At the age of 22 and still a private, Konrad had risen to fame. The Battle of Krogers Pass had gone poorly for the Legion. Konrad and his squad found themselves in a battle for their lives, their officers killed, and death and mayhem all around them. It would have been easy to give up, like so many others did, but instead Konrad rallied his friends. Their last stand and subsequent escape, along with the week long running-fight they had with their foes was stuff of legend and had won Konrad a battlefield promotion to Squad Leader once they had made it back to Outpost 12, to let the garrison their know what had happened and allow the 13th Legion to respond in kind.

Ten Glorious years later, Konrad was a changed man. He was burned out from the constant warfare, the constant death and destruction. He didn't mind the fact that his name got people to buy him drinks in the taverns, but he was tired. Tired of it all. So he took his commission and retired after 18 years of service to the Legion. He took a cushy job his name could get, signing on with a Mercenary Company he soon found himself running. It got him out of the frontlines and he didn't have to really make friends with those seeking the higher paying coin and glory that a Company brought with it. Konrad had lived a full life but there was always that one constant question nagging in the back of his brain, one question that he wasn't sure he knew the answer too or if it was even his place to answer.

Was he his fathers son? Was he a monster? Or was he something else?

Reason for Joining the Expedition: Forced out of retirement by the King, his infamy has caught back up with him. With a headliner name billed on the front of the Expedition, it was sure to get more adventurous people to join the expedition.

Strengths: Soldiering - Endurance and Strength were requirements of the Legion. To be able to march all day with a full pack, setup camp, and get a fight in before bedtime was the strength of the legion. Heavily armed and armored, they were able to mover faster and further than their enemies and not be winded afterwards.

Hero - Konrad is a Hero of the Empire, a household name on every pair of lips (or he was 10 years ago). People look to him for leadership and it turns out he is a pretty good leader when it comes down to it.

Berserker - Konrad falls into a trance in certain situations, where everything seems to slow down, everything but him. It happens, mostly, during combat and some say he has the blood of a Beserker - a famous type of Orc Warrior - in him.

Weaknesses: The Past - The events of his past haunt him to no end. Sleepless nights lead to heavy drinking and his hand shakes now - or is that just him hallucinating?

Bloodlust - Konrad, in recent years, has blacked out from time to time. He isn't sure how or why but has often found the remnants of things he has done - a group of thugs stumbling away from him worse for wear, a dead body in the gutter, blood on his hands and clothes, the sudden urge to vomit. What is happening to him?

Weariness - Konrad is burned out. He is tired all the time. Tired of everything. When will it all end?

Additional Information: Konrad is 6'2" and a coil of scarred muscle. Dark hair that is starting to turn gray despite his age. Deep lines etched on his face depict a man old beyond his age. In another life, and with out the scars, he might once have been called handsome or attractive. Now he is but the shell of a man.



Hard Offs: See link in Signature

Willingness to Start Solo: Bring. It. On!

Caerella of Tolmund, Healer

Caerella of Tolmund

Player Name: RedEve

Character Name: Caerella of Tolmund
Character Age: 28
Character Sex: Female
Orientation: Straight

Class: Mage

Personality: Somewhat selfish, greedy, reliable unless it goes against her self-interest, brave

History: Caerella of Tolmund was one of the three apprentices of Frances of Kasaii. A well-known sorceress within the Lodge, Frances had moved to Tolmund after the Lodge had cast her out following a power struggle with a rival sorceress, one which she lost. Now well into her 50s, she contented herself with identifying and training some magic adepts she found within the town of Tolmund. Caerella, the daughter of a weaver, was one of them.

Always a curious child, she might not have ever developed her innate talents for magic were it not that her powers were apparent to Frances even from a distance. It was the fact that the girl could move the magical aether in the air even whilst she still did not quite know what it was or even understand its existence. It was Frances’ mind guiding Caerella’s abilities that first allowed her to manifest true feats of magic. The girl, around nine years old at the time, became obsessed with the feeling that ran through her veins when the older woman had used her as a conduit to direct magic with. After that, there was no stopping her. She was drawn to Frances like a fly to honey. It was the right time for Frances to take on another pupil, as the second of the three girls she would end up training in Tolmund had just left her tutelage.

Whilst her parents first balked at her avoiding her work at home to go off and spend time with the strange lady who lived in a cabin on the edge of the forest, her abilities soon were a marvel even to her parents. Caerella, a mage with a natural affinity for healing spells soon earned something of a reputation in the small town. The afflicted came to her instead of to one of the healers of apothecaries, which made her less than popular. Indeed, the pains and aches that would usually need weeks of treatment with this ointment or that oil were alleviated by a mere touch by the young girl in the afflicted area. Better still, she even had some luck dispelling with sickness that had afflicted the cattle of some farmers in town. But Caerella’s ambition went far beyond using her abilities just to serve the needs of simple peasants.

Eventually, Caerella did what the two prior apprentices of Frances’ had done: she left Tolmund in search of adventure shortly after her 17th birthday. Her parents had protested heavily, having always hoped to keep their powerful and talented daughter nearby, perhaps seeing her marry one of the wealthier merchants in town and thus further adding to the weaver family’s already heightened status. But Caerella’s could not be swayed in her desire to see the world and find some real adventure. Healing was not the only magic Frances had taught the girl. Caerella also had mastery over several illusion spells, one of which essentially made her invisible for short periods of time. Others could produce visions in people nearby of horrible monsters. She also had some minor control over the minds of animals, though this power worked better with domesticated animals than with the ones she encountered in the wild.

Soon earning a reputation as a good healer, she earned good money working for several mercenary bands. For a time she ran with the banner of the Hat and Claw, a well-known band of mercenaries who often times could charge obscene amounts thanks to their excellent reputation. Unfortunately, three days after Caerella’s 25th birthday they were cut down nearly to a man in an ambush near the Vremner pass. Only Caerella’s invisibility spell allowed her to escape the carnage and then only just, since the band of mercenaries who had set the ambush also had several mages among them who might have seen through her subterfuge on another day. In spite of that setback, she might have kept up this life for a good long while, were it not that an edict sent out by the Clerics of the House of Ramaan had outlawed any practitioner of magic who had not learned his or her skills in one of the three recognized schools of magic: the Lodge of Sorcerers, the Tower of Mages and the Elven Tabulary. Though Frances of Kasaii had been trained in the Lodge, her three apprentices had not been, making them de facto outlaws and heretics in the eyes of the Clerics. This in turn meant that Caerella’s life turned from one of adventure to one of running, ever staying ahead of the Clerics’ agents. Until she was tired of running and turned to a crazy alternative in the form of the expedition to the Western Lands. Perhaps it was a crazy, reckless choice, but such was her weariness after years of living ever a single step ahead of her pursuers that even the very dangerous undertaking seemed preferable to the status quo.

Reason for Joining the Expedition: As a chased heretic, Caerella’s options to stay out of the hands of the Clerics’ agents are dwindling. This seems like her best option at this time.

Strengths: Magic wielder with strong healing skills and a handful of potent illusion skills. Brave. Can work well in a team. Mostly trusthworthy.

Weaknesses: In the end, when it comes down to it, Caerella will always choose to protect herself. Though she has great magical abilities, none of them are truly combat magic, making her vulnerable in the frontlines of a battle. Like most magic users, there is a limit to how much spells she can perform in quick succession without wearing herself out. Too much magic use might make her lose consciousness.

Additional Information: None that I can think of right now.



Hard Offs: See my O/o’s

Willingness to Start Solo: I’m okay with starting solo if it’s in the benefit of the game.

[Envious]

I hope it's okay to post. Color me interested! I'm interested in participating.

[MagicalPen]

I do and I encourage people to start brainstorming ideas via PM with me!

I am working on my main right now myself.

[MagicalPen]

Added my character and first accepted character.

[MagicalPen]

Added a little more world info to clear some questions up.