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[ application: original characters ]
IMPORTANT! We are officially in endgame until August 31, 2020. Applications are on a rolling basis. There is a small "block" period from the 1st through the 4th of every month to allow a bulk of apps to be submitted, and then applications can be submitted at any time during the month. Notices will be sent out all at once after the first "block" period, and then between 24 hours to the end of the weekend depending on how many and our schedule. Applications are guaranteed to be processed during the weekends.
IMPORTANT: Only the following types of original characters are allowed to be applied for—
The following would not be allowed:
Before applying, please be sure to read the following:
We have compiled sample applications from our players to show what the mod team and the application moderators are looking for in terms of writing quality and depth. We hope you find these samples useful!
⌈ PLAYER SECTION ⌉
Player:
Contact: Journal/Plurk/AIM — anything to help identify since someone might share your name handle.
Age: You must be at least 13 years old to apply.
Current Characters: If a new player, just put "N/A"
⌈ CHARACTER SECTION ⌉
Character:
Age:
OC Type: Indicate whether this OC is a Pure, MMO, or Blank Protagonist type of OC. If it is a Blank Protagonist, indicate the canon here.
Point Taken: A sense of time when the character is taken. More applicable to MMO and Blank Protagonist OCs.
World Building:This is separate from the character's personal history. This section is to provide us with information about the character's “canon” in general. We will have no idea what kind of world that the character is coming from, and this is the only place we can learn about it. We don't want an encyclopedia, but we will need to know important details about it so that we can understand the culture the character is coming from and how that will affect how they think and behave. What countries are important? What kind of geography or political climate? Are there any social conflicts that would impact the character or would influence how they view others? For MMO and Blank Protagonist OCs, linking us to wikis will suffice, but feel free to add more to it.
Backstory: While we don't need a play-by-play, what we would like to see includes how the character lived, what choices they've made and why, what events occurred that developed them, and other important facts that will help us understand the character. For MMO OCs: Most MMORPGs will have a set storyline that the player character has the opportunity to play through. Keep in mind that rather there being a singular "Great Hero," all MMO OCs are to be seen as a part of a large group of heroes if you choose to follow the main storyline. Also keep in mind that all MMO OCs will have to follow their game’s canon lore. For example: A character could not save the NPC that canonly died, nor could a mission fail if it is set to succeed. However, your character could have died and or had difficulty fulfilling the mission. It is also possible that your character had no part in the overall game's story and had their own adventures in the world instead. Finally, there can be no romantic or familial relationships with named NPCs.
Personality: We're looking for how they think, why they act the way they do, their strengths, their weaknesses, their thought processes, their opinions, their conflicts, what makes them feel the way they do, their significant traits. When writing your character, be careful! We want to avoid characters that are the super invincible almighty hero that can do no wrong. The one who can charm anyone with a smile, can easily trick and deceive, has the power to bend wills with ease. All characters have flaws—no one is perfect. But more importantly, such infallible characters are not interesting to play and interact with. In short, the character should be realistic, balanced, and well thought out. If we feel that your character does not meet this standard, then we may ask for a revision or reject if it cannot be changed.
Abilities: If there are any particular abilities the character has supernatural or otherwise, list them here. Referencing to a wiki list is acceptable if applicable. However, if there are any particular abilities that need to be weakened or removed, note them here.
Alignment: Please refer to the Alignment entry to choose which alignment your character would most likely fall under. Include a brief (a couple of sentences max) just to help explain why you think your choice is the best fit.
Other: Anything else you'd like to mention.
⌈ SAMPLE SECTION ⌉
Sample: We have two sample requirements.
General Sample: We should see examples of the character's dialogue as well as some introspection or additional narrative to further show how you intend to write the character. This is the most important part of the sample and where most of the weight will be.
Emotion Sample: This is our "game setting" requirement. Essentially we want to ensure that you have a basic grasp of the game's premise, especially with the use of emotions. It can be a small scene, even incidental to the main sample. A reminder that apathetic characters will also create effects, such as loss of color, surface distortion, holes forming. This section doesn't have to be lengthy, but the effect must be clear for us to see.
The emotion sample can be part of the general character sample. If so, please link directly or directly quote that portion so that it's easier for us to quickly find it.
The samples can be "written" in three different ways and you can choose which one will work best for you:
Format wise, you can use either [ brackets ] OR narrative prose. We do require that the writing at least be coherent, have proper sentence structure, and is mostly grammatically correct (we realize that writing styles can be loose/creative in [ bracket ] form so we're giving a bit more leeway). One last suggestion we have is try to have the character interacting with the environment and try thinking of the sample less of a narrative piece but more like a post or thread prompt you might make in the game. That will help the sample show not only how you will write the character, but also how you will play them in practice.
Questions: If you have any questions, ask them here.
Clean copy and paste form here:
IMPORTANT: Only the following types of original characters are allowed to be applied for—
- Pure OC. These are the typical kind of OC that everyone is familiar with. They are characters that are the player's own creation with their own world that is also of the player's design. There is zero relation to any pre-existing canon.
- MMO OC. MMOs, or Massively Multiplayer Online games, particularly those with a lot of roleplay and character build-up, have existing world building and lore that they have to follow. These characters are created by the player and can have their own story, but they have to follow the rules of the game lore. We consider "main hero" characters as those who are one of many in a great group that influenced the storyline, rather than the singular Great Hero character. This is to help multiple MMO OCs from the same game to have stories that mesh well together. In the sake of fairness to current FFXIV OC players and consistency with previous mod teams' decisions, we do not currently allow FFXIV Warriors of Light.
- Blank Slate Canon Protagonists. For our criteria, these types of characters are those which you control throughout the game and essentially make the player the main character. They may have a name and a couple of personality traits, but everything else is up to the player to interpret. Examples of these are most of the main characters from Dragon Age, Skyrim, Pokémon, etc. Important: Please note that this category ONLY pertains to the protagonists of canons. This does not allow side characters or other support NPCs as they have set stories and personalities. This section has nothing to do with how much headcanon is used and is only about the purpose and design of the protagonist character.
The following would not be allowed:
- Fanon/AU OCs. Characters that are based off pre-existing canons or an alternate version of the canon. We would not allow these OCs not because we are against them on principle, but it could cause unwanted confusion and complications with current existing casts. This type of OC would have needed to be allowed from the very beginning so players would know what they were getting into.
- Game Native OCs. Currently the game is not ready for such a type of character, as it would introduce other complications and worldbuilding that the interested player would have to be aware of. In addition, it would require more close connection with us the mods than we are currently ready for.
Before applying, please be sure to read the following:
- Read the Rules and the Game Information.
- RETURNING PLAYERS! You only need to submit any old application. Does not matter how long ago, as long as it was accepted and you have good standing (ie, not banned), it will be valid.
- Suggestion: Find some character sheets that have questions directly related to character building. These will help flesh out your application and give some guidelines as to how to write about your character.
- Feel free to use the most recent test drive both for practice as well as to use for samples. IMPORTANT! If you submit threads as samples, you must submit the application with that character journal. This is the only way we can ensure that the samples are from you and not someone else.
- Linked samples must have been made within the past year.
- You may apply for up to two characters per cycle.
- Do not plagiarize. If we find that the information provided was directly taken by either another player or some other source material, the application will be rejected immediately. If we find this after processing the application, we will revoke the application and have you removed from the game with potential ban.
- Reusing your own applications from other games is allowed. We only ask any original written samples to conform to our game. That is, we don't want to read samples that are set specifically for another game's premise. Note: this does not apply to threads linked from other games used as samples.
- If you are rejected, you cannot reapply for the same character for two weeks. However, you can apply for a different character in that same period.
- Those accepted must fill out all of the required entries within a week to be considered part of the game. Otherwise, we will consider it a revocation of the application.
- Fill out the form and comment to this entry! All applications must be posted directly to this entry; no linked-in applications allowed.
We have compiled sample applications from our players to show what the mod team and the application moderators are looking for in terms of writing quality and depth. We hope you find these samples useful!
- Sun Wukong (RWBY)
- Luke Skywalker (Star Wars)
- Goro Akechi (Persona 5)
Player:
Contact: Journal/Plurk/AIM — anything to help identify since someone might share your name handle.
Age: You must be at least 13 years old to apply.
Current Characters: If a new player, just put "N/A"
Character:
Age:
OC Type: Indicate whether this OC is a Pure, MMO, or Blank Protagonist type of OC. If it is a Blank Protagonist, indicate the canon here.
Point Taken: A sense of time when the character is taken. More applicable to MMO and Blank Protagonist OCs.
World Building:This is separate from the character's personal history. This section is to provide us with information about the character's “canon” in general. We will have no idea what kind of world that the character is coming from, and this is the only place we can learn about it. We don't want an encyclopedia, but we will need to know important details about it so that we can understand the culture the character is coming from and how that will affect how they think and behave. What countries are important? What kind of geography or political climate? Are there any social conflicts that would impact the character or would influence how they view others? For MMO and Blank Protagonist OCs, linking us to wikis will suffice, but feel free to add more to it.
Backstory: While we don't need a play-by-play, what we would like to see includes how the character lived, what choices they've made and why, what events occurred that developed them, and other important facts that will help us understand the character. For MMO OCs: Most MMORPGs will have a set storyline that the player character has the opportunity to play through. Keep in mind that rather there being a singular "Great Hero," all MMO OCs are to be seen as a part of a large group of heroes if you choose to follow the main storyline. Also keep in mind that all MMO OCs will have to follow their game’s canon lore. For example: A character could not save the NPC that canonly died, nor could a mission fail if it is set to succeed. However, your character could have died and or had difficulty fulfilling the mission. It is also possible that your character had no part in the overall game's story and had their own adventures in the world instead. Finally, there can be no romantic or familial relationships with named NPCs.
Personality: We're looking for how they think, why they act the way they do, their strengths, their weaknesses, their thought processes, their opinions, their conflicts, what makes them feel the way they do, their significant traits. When writing your character, be careful! We want to avoid characters that are the super invincible almighty hero that can do no wrong. The one who can charm anyone with a smile, can easily trick and deceive, has the power to bend wills with ease. All characters have flaws—no one is perfect. But more importantly, such infallible characters are not interesting to play and interact with. In short, the character should be realistic, balanced, and well thought out. If we feel that your character does not meet this standard, then we may ask for a revision or reject if it cannot be changed.
Abilities: If there are any particular abilities the character has supernatural or otherwise, list them here. Referencing to a wiki list is acceptable if applicable. However, if there are any particular abilities that need to be weakened or removed, note them here.
Alignment: Please refer to the Alignment entry to choose which alignment your character would most likely fall under. Include a brief (a couple of sentences max) just to help explain why you think your choice is the best fit.
Other: Anything else you'd like to mention.
Sample: We have two sample requirements.
General Sample: We should see examples of the character's dialogue as well as some introspection or additional narrative to further show how you intend to write the character. This is the most important part of the sample and where most of the weight will be.
Emotion Sample: This is our "game setting" requirement. Essentially we want to ensure that you have a basic grasp of the game's premise, especially with the use of emotions. It can be a small scene, even incidental to the main sample. A reminder that apathetic characters will also create effects, such as loss of color, surface distortion, holes forming. This section doesn't have to be lengthy, but the effect must be clear for us to see.
The emotion sample can be part of the general character sample. If so, please link directly or directly quote that portion so that it's easier for us to quickly find it.
The samples can be "written" in three different ways and you can choose which one will work best for you:
- Test Drive. You can utilize our test drive to cover both requirements of the sample. So long as there is enough character portrayal and a scene with an emotional reaction, be it within the prompt or done during the thread, then it can be used for both.
- Link out + Written. You can link to threads/entries from other games, memes, or museboxes to show character portrayal, and then write an additional short scene for the emotion portion of the sample.
- Original Sample. You can write a complete sample that shows both character portrayal and a scene involving emotion use. This can be one sample or two separate samples. If you opt to write an original sample, you are welcome to use any prompts from any of our Test Drives, Intro Logs, Task Board, and even past events. You are also free to change things up and are not restricted to any of these prompts. They are just here to help offer ideas.
Format wise, you can use either [ brackets ] OR narrative prose. We do require that the writing at least be coherent, have proper sentence structure, and is mostly grammatically correct (we realize that writing styles can be loose/creative in [ bracket ] form so we're giving a bit more leeway). One last suggestion we have is try to have the character interacting with the environment and try thinking of the sample less of a narrative piece but more like a post or thread prompt you might make in the game. That will help the sample show not only how you will write the character, but also how you will play them in practice.
Questions: If you have any questions, ask them here.
Daniel Kanegem | OC | 1/2
Player: Zumi
Contact:
Age: 32
Current Characters: Scrooge McDuck
Character: Daniel Kanegem
Age: 20
OC Type: Pure
Point Taken: After finding a few family members and joining Bridge's band
World Building: Demons.EXE World Info
Backstory: Daniel Renoir began his life in the small mountain town of East Hollow, made up almost entirely of Sentinels, an ancient class of warriors made to fight the monsters of the world. He grew up a normal child, save for the whole "training to be a professional warrior" thing. He made friends, got in trouble at school, started using daggers and a particular set of bladed gauntlets, and so life continued as normal until he reached the age of 14.
Deep in his training, Daniel was stationed at one of the upper guard posts on the wall of the fortified town when the tragedy struck. Chaotics, THOUSANDS of them, came rushing out of the surrounding wilderness and poured onto East Hollow like a tide of burning oil. The monsters crashed into, over, and through the wall on Daniel's side, where the poor teenager had been struck dumb by the sheer sight of the attack. By the time he was able to make even some semblance of an alarm the Chaotics had broken in and other, adult guards, including the others in the same station as Daniel, had already alerted the population. It was too late, however. The tidal wave had broken over the city and, even though nearly everyone there was trained to fight Chaotics, East Hollow fell under sheer numbers. Daniel didn't even bother fighting; he sped his way through the streets, caring only about getting to his house. He arrived to find it half broken down and his parents facing off against a Chaotic easily two stories tall. As he watched in horror it overpowered them, dove down with fanged mouth agape, cries mingled with the chaos around him.......
The next thing Daniel remembers clearly is sitting in a hastily created shelter, with other shaken citizens of East Hollow around him, and a blanket around his shoulders. The attack was over, but the town would never be the same. Two-thirds of the population was dead, and not a single soul had come out of the event unscarred, either physically or mentally. Once Daniel got over the initial numbness of waking up drained and sore, he staggered home. Or, what was left of it. Though the Chaotic had vanished upon defeat (as they do) and the bodies of his parents had been removed, the home itself was a gaping, mostly-destroyed shadow of its former self. Nevertheless, he spent several nights here, in a corner of the portion still standing.
Several of the other citizens reached out to the poor boy but he drifted through a listless depression, his only real activity going through the items in the house, deciding what should be kept and what was gone beyond recognition. One of the items he found was a photo album owned by his parents, one he'd never seen before. This held pictures of themselves in their younger days with many faces he didn't recognize and in the back pocket, a few folded sheets of paper. These proved to be a revelation for him: he was adopted. His former name had been Robin Kanegem, and by these records his adoptive parents had taken him in when he was only a year or so old. Though he didn't, couldn't, resent them for never telling him, finding out this fact lit the fire of ambition in him and he knew what he had to do and where he had to go. He had to find his birth parents. He had to go to the city listed on the records, even as far away as it was. He had to know.
What followed next were two solid years of being on the road. Daniel (tucking "Renoir" away into a corner of his heart and taking "Kanegem" as a new last name, to try and bind the two selves together) left East Hollow among others departing for their own other family members and other places of the world, telling no one and using the activity to sneak out unhindered. One quick visit to his parents' graves and then he left for good. His goal was a city called Cedar Springs, several hundred miles away, and being a broke teenager deadset on a mission he decided to hoof it there. He faced many dangers- Chaotics, illness, weather, nightmares and flashbacks to the tragedy -but managed to keep himself going, wanting nothing to get in his way. He tended to avoid cities for cost and because, by his word, he always got sick there, but would occasionally stop to get money for his trip by selling little trinkets and things he made on the road (leather, cloth, and stone keychains and the like).
This eventually brought him through Birchpointe, New Jersey, where one of his rare trips into a city also saw him making several friends. Birchpointe was only a few hours from Cedar Springs and so he rested a couple of days here before moving on again. Ultimately, however, he was doomed to failure. The agency that handled the adoption was no longer around, and there was no record of his birth parents. Dejected but not defeated, he returned to Birthpointe and the friends he had made, and was able to stay with some of them, an older teenager named Aureole (or Aura) and her girlfriend Sable, who lived in an apartment of their own.
Ultimately that decision wound up turning his life around for the better. A latenight talk with Aura would eventually help Daniel see just how much he was destroying himself. In his determination to find his parents, he had missed the damage it was doing to his body. He was short and too thin, so much that the 16 year old looked 12, and his frequent illnesses and fatigue spells were the result of irregular sleep and malnourishment rather than a fact of how he "was." A different conversation with Sable also put a name to something else: Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. The nightmares, the irritability, the flashbacks, the depression; he had known it had come from the fall of East Hollow but had never known it was something with a name.
With the home given to him by the couple, the warm bed and regular meals, and the help dealing with his disorder, Daniel's body began to recover. His growth caught up with himself and in the span of a year or so he went from 5'3" to 5'11" and filled out to match (which was also helped by further training by an adult Sentinel in Birchpointe). He also learned that completely by chance he had stumbled into family: Aura and her younger sister Kylie, daughters of Daniel's aunt, though he would never learn that Aura had found that out before he had (by snooping through his things, oops). He also made several more friends, including Bridge, who he would later join a band with, learning the bass.
There was one more hurdle to be had, however. An attack by a werewolf demon left him with the curse, transforming by force every night of the full moon. This was an extreme difficulty at first, leaving him in a berserk stage that was as much a danger to himself as others. Help from friends and family (and most crucially, an older werewolf he'd met before) have helped him learn to control it, which he has........ mostly managed. Despite the difficulties, Daniel has accepted it as part of his life now, and does what he can to keep himself from hurting others whenever the moon comes around again. Bit by bit it's become as much a part of him as everything else, and with it and the people he's met, he's learning to find a life of normalcy again, reasons to be without being so doggedly searching for his parents to the exclusion of everything else.
2/2
Once you get to know him better however, or get the opportunity to observe him in a relaxed setting, you'll find him kind, friendly, and one who teases his friends well and often. He is, at heart, a gentle person who is dedicated to protecting others, a huge part of what makes him an excellent Sentinel. If you're someone who needs help (combattant or otherwise), Daniel will always be in your corner. He may not laugh much but he does smile easily, and seems to have a knack for attracting friends because of his warmer nature. He wants to prevent further tragedy in his world, but even without the background he's had, he'd still help anyone who needed it, it was how he was raised and how his heart is.
Daniel also has quite the temper. It simmers below the surface, and occasionally boils over without lead-up or reason, leading to him snapping at whoever's around him before the anger slips back wherever it came from. While becoming a werewolf does make this a little worse while also giving him a way to vent, he tends to offload most of his temper into fighting or other exercise, sometimes to the point of sheer exhaustion. He can get caught in a self-destructive loop (arguably this is what happened to him during his years travelling) by getting stuck on something, and continuing on until either the issue drops or HE drops, whichever comes first. In most circumstances he can manage his temper, but it can take his snarkier streak and twist it into an outright jerkish attitude.
There are those times when his mood drags into the dirt. This is most often following sleepless, nightmare-filled nights (particularly as Daniel has irregular sleep patterns in the first place) or as fallout from a particularly bad flashback event. It'll also rise on its own, though it can be hard to tell since he's fairly kept to himself in the first place. He has a number of coping mechanisms he has to try and deal with it (such as aforementioned "wearing self out with exercise"), but will also simply ride it out just as often, accepting it as part of his life now.
Something needs to be mentioned of the influence of family and friends, though. While Daniel was always serious and quiet, even when young, there's no escaping the fact that his tragedy and the PTSD has affected him deeply. It could even be argued that it's all he is, particularly with the years he spent travelling, deadset on his mission to the exclusion of everything else, up to and including proper care and downtime; subsumed by a shadow that didn't even have a name. Finding out he was adopted didn't give him much of an identity crisis, but losing himself in the forests of the world did. He was nothing but what he was trying to accomplish, a statement by his own admission when talking about that time, and when he had to stop for a while, there was an adjustment period of trying to remember just who he was.
That's where the people he'd met come in. Through finding family and gaining friends, Daniel started to find himself again. He's a people person, but not in the usual sense; he thrives when having someone to bounce off of, and to give him somewhere to focus outside of his own mind. He's found fighters that he can spar with and learn from; joining Bridge's band has given him a comraderie and outlet he so desperately needed; even meeting and learning from another werewolf has helped him turn the terrifying, berserker curse into something controllable that's just another part of him now. Through all this and more, Daniel is learning how to be "someone who just happens to have PTSD" rather than "someone who exists without living."
It wasn't easy, it'ss been a very long, difficult road. He had to learn how to manage himself, to stop closing himself off or get locked so much in the self-destructive loops. He also had to learn to control himself as a wolf, and like there are still days where he falls under the weight of his disorder, so too are there moons when the beast can't be tamed. The difference is that now he knows how to deal with both, that it's okay to ask for help, and how to start working on making the next day better.
Abilities:
Daniel has gained some magical ability over time, mostly channeled through his gauntlets, which are enchanted. He has spotty control due to not being trained in any of it (though it should be noted he would have been), most of it activating when his emotional state is high.
Additionally:
Alignment: Daimonia. Daniel's biggest hurdle in his life has been grief: grieving over the loss of East Hollow, his adoptive parents, a side of his past he never knew, and the loss of the past he did know through the tragedy of what happened. Though he slips into frequent depression because of his PTSD, this is still fueled by grief, and that feeling has been the toughest thing for him to deal with and get past. Still, he's gaining light in his life through family and friends, and little by little the negativity swings to a genuine, if tarnished, happy existence.
Other: Daniel would be coming in with a 2-3 year old German shepherd named Baron. This is a normal dog.
General Sample: TDM
Emotion Sample: Top entry and first few comments have emotional effects
Questions: N/A
Accepted!
• Reply to this comment with the journal you will be joining with.
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• Join
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Optional:
• Review the Game Info, Emotions, Amulet, and Island information pages.
• Check the monthly mod post for some announcements and an idea of what's in store for the month.
• Make sure you understand how the Network works. Remember, Empatheias uses telepathy as communication!
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Please use the Character Introduction Log for your character intro. If you have any questions at any time, feel free to contact us! Have fun :D
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