![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
[ 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.
Samata Mahto | "Class Warfare"
Player: Eric
Contact:
Age: 33
Current Characters: None, but I used to play Marisa ages ago
Character: Samata Mahto
Age: 26
OC Type: Pure OC
Point Taken: After all the listed events in her backstory
World Building: Millennia ago, a swarm of nature spirits created the world together. They didn't have a reason to do it, or need one. A water spirit doesn't need a reason to create water. That's just what it does. They filled the world with oceans and mountains, then with forests and animals, and finally with people. Humans, elves, orcs, and others. It would be an exaggeration to say that everyone lived together in harmony, but life was simple, at least. Some people gave thanks to the spirits for creating the world, but they didn't expect anything in return.
And then one day organized religion fucked everything up.
The god Istavan, master of law and order and magic, found this young and untamed world, and found no other gods here, so he moved in. He inspired prophets to spread his message, and gained an ever increasing following on this world. It wasn't enough for him, though. Unsatisfied with the rate of new converts joining, Istavan inspired the Great Crusade. His followers took up arms and spread his message by force. This wasn't very popular, and the various tribes and nations of the world banded against the Istavanites. He was in danger of losing his foothold here.
So Istavan intervened directly. He gave the commanders of his armies the gift of sorcery, turning them and all their descendents into powerful magic users. When that also wasn't enough, Istavan grew desparate and unleashed armies of monsters upon the world. Backed by swarms of skeletons and dragons and shit, and armed with deadly arcane magic, the Istavanites crushed all opposition.
Firmly in control, Istavan remade the world the way he liked it. He separated all the races. The orcs lived over HERE on the plains. The elves lived over THERE in the forest. Everyone lived in their place. Separate, but equal. Between each nation, hordes of monsters roamed, patrolling the borders and making the mixing of cultures essentially impossible. Occasionally, a small band or lone individual might slip through, but they were not encouraged to stay.
Skip ahead a few hundred years. Everyone knows the story of how the scared and jealous spirits tried to stop the noble Istavan by unleashing monsters upon the world. Everyone knows how Istavan banished them to the badlands, saving them all. A few people still follow the old ways, but they keep it strictly to themselves for fear of reprisal and discrimination. The sorcerers, descendents of the commanders Istavan blessed with arcane power, form the ruling class of any nation they are in, for Istavan himself picked them out and placed them above normal people with their amazing powers.
This is the world that Samata was born into. A world of unchanging social structure, with the sorcerers and priests of Istavan ruling society and everyone else doing what they said.
Backstory: Samata is the daughter of a pair of rich wine merchants. They weren't sorcerers, but for commoners they were very well off. Her parents did their best to be supportive, so when Samata showed an interest in being a scholar, they sent her off to the capital, which had the best university in the land. Money, supportive parents, and a good education, aside from her lack of magic she had every advantage she could have in life.
Her life at the university was like any young student's. She learned a lot, made friends, went to parties, made stupid mistakes, bounced back from them all too quickly, found a boyfriend, and generally had a good time. Her degree was in natural philosophy (physics, basically) and her thesis was on the difference between magic and the animate force of life itself, which previously had been considered to just be the same thing. She called this new force Odic Force.
It all went wrong at her graduation party. Samata and some friends were at a tavern popular among students, laughing, drinking, and generally having a good time. One table over was another student. Walter Eberhart, a sorcerer, and the son of the University's headmaster. His magic manifested as blades of magical force that he could shoot out as projectiles, and in the hands of someone more courageous this would have made him a mighty warrior. Walter was a spoiled brat. He used his amazing gifts to show off at parties.
In this case, he was drunk, and trying to show off to his friends by slicing the top off of a bottle of wine with his mind. It took him three tries, because of the drunk, but he did it. Unfortunately, the other three shots went out further than he expected. Besides the bottle, Walter also cut down the front wall of the building, dropping debris on people walking by, blinded one of Samata's friends, and chopped Samata's left arm off at the shoulder. She got medical attention quickly, but there was no known way to reattach the arm. Walter used his connections with the aristocracy to get out of trouble for grievously maiming two fellow students and got out of it all with a slap on the wrist. They were just commoners, after all.
Samata was furious. She sought justice, but every person she talked to told her to let it go, even professors who she considered her friend. She did research and found that she was hardly the first person who had a story like this, but that it was always just swept up under the rug. Sorcerers could get away with whatever they wanted, because they held all the power. Even if they weren't all abusing the system like this, they were all complicit because none of them stepped forwards to try and stop this kind of behavior. As the world conspired against her, she slid into depression. Until one day, a few weeks later, while half heartedly poking at her thesis paper. Samata got an idea for a new project. She called for the aid of a medical student who was a friend of hers and enrolled for post-graduate work. The two of them spent many long hours working together, and eventually came up with a new treatment. A way to harness the magical energy in the air to power a prosthetic limb that would respond to nerve impulses.
However, while working on this project, Samata realized something. Magic reacted to odic force in everyone, not just in sorcerers. With the right preparations, you could manipulate magic and get it to work for you without a drop of magical talent in your body. She'd been less social since the accident, but now she basically just vanished from the world, spending all her time at the library or in her room, reading esoteric books and writing strange diagrams. She was developing an entirely new form of magic.
She emerged from her self imposed exile months later, with a functional mechanical arm to replace the one she lost, and the title of "Wizard". It was a word she made up from an old word meaning "Learned Scholar", since wizards gained their power from research and practice, as opposed to sorcerers who gained it from intuition and genetics. Wizard magic wasn't very powerful, and it was awkward to use at best, but as she kept practicing and researching, she kept getting better at it and realizing that there weren't any limits to what this new kind of magic could do. Potentially, at least. For the moment, she was still fumbling around with the basics.
She went on to start teaching this to other people, because if everyone could do magic, sorcerers wouldn't be special anymore. When the church of Istavan realized what she was doing, they outlawed wizardry. Samata didn't stop. Instead she hired a bodyguard and doubled down, searching for students all the harder. And so began Samata's true adventure, with the unlikely allies of an elderly berserker working on his anger issues, an outcast sorcerer on a quest for revenge, an elf trying to get home and disguising herself as a human, and a sympathetic religious scholar on one side, and an entire civilization backed up by a zealous god on the other.
Poor Istavan didn't stand a chance.
Aesthetically, think 3 parts Dungeons & Dragons, 2 part Les Miserables, and 1 part Fullmetal Alchemist.
no subject
Somewhere in her head, however, is a little switch. If she starts getting excited about something, or feels like she's been wronged somehow, or she just generally starts feeling strongly about what she's doing, the switch flips and suddenly mild mannered grad student Samata turns into wild eyed creature full of passion and energy. Her heart is full of lurking emotional energy that is just looking for an excuse to burst forth and make a mess. Give her a cause and she will move mountains with personal drive.
She cares deeply about justice. On the large scale, once she started seeing the wildly unfair balance of power in her own society (Sorcerers can do whatever they want and get away with it because they have the political power, and they have the political power because they have the magical power) she couldn't ignore it anymore. She came from a rich family, and could have walked away from her struggles at any time, but chose not to because she would go crazy trying to pretend everything was okay when she could see it wasn't. On a SMALLER scale, Samata still believes strongly in being fair. Seeing other people cutting in line, grabbing the last piece of food when someone else hasn't had any yet, or committing other such small social slights will deeply irritate her, even if she isn't the one who's being inconvenienced. She WILL confront a total stranger in the middle of a crowded restaurant for not tipping their waiter, even if her friends are begging her to just let it go because the total stranger is twice her size and has a skull and crossbone tattooed on their tongue. It should take no stretch of the imagination to imagine her at a rally or protest, with a megaphone and a cardboard sign, angrily shouting slogans about social justice.
She also has a bone deep streak of pride that sometimes borders on hubris. It's not entirely unearned. She developed and built a fully functional mechanical arm single handedly (haha, "single handed". I'm funny.) and developed an entirely new system of magic, after all. Her accomplishments are not trivial, but she has kind of let it go to her head. While she is an extremely capable individual, she tends to overestimate what she can handle until she's already way in over her head. She does eventually drop back down to reality, but usually not until she's said something stupid or gotten in trouble in general. It takes either a feeling of deep embarrassment or a sense of imminent danger to pull her head out of the clouds.
She can be kind of thoughtless. Coming from money, she was about as privileged as it was possible to be in her society without having any magical talent. Her life before the Incident left her wanting for very little, and she had never really faced much in the way of hardships. As such, she doesn't always fully appreciate what it's like to have to live without comforts. One is invited to consider the phrase "Let them eat cake". Samata isn't THAT out of touch, but she does tend to be bad at things like budgeting, and will often just not worry about money, whether she's spending her own or someone else's.
She does feel awful afterwards, because for all her flaws, she is fiercely loyal to her friends. Even if she stumbles on the way, due to hardship or her own short sightedness, she will always do her best to come through for them in the end. She will lend someone money, or let them crash on her couch, or be their wingman, or even fight someone on their behalf if she needs to, and when she realizes she's screwed something up (which takes a while sometimes) she always makes a bona fide effort to fix whatever is broken.
Abilities: Prosthetic arm - Samata's left arm is a mechanical prosthetic she built herself. She can take it off if she wants (and usually does at night), but it still responds to nerve impulses and has limited sensory inputs on it. The one she has now is the Mk 2 version. The Mk 1 was the initial prototype and proof of concept. She currently has half finished plans for the Mk 3. The Mk 2 is still kind of heavy and awkward, but with access to a workshop and the help of a trained surgeon, she can upgrade it to be more lightweight and responsive in time.
Wizardry - Samata is the first wizard there ever was in her world. She can't do magic intuitively like a sorcerer can, but she can trick the ambient magic in the world around her into reacting in ways she wants it to through elaborate rituals. Each spell takes anywhere from five minutes to an hour to cast, depending on the complexity, but it's also possible to finish 99% of the work, then leave it hanging and just do the last 1% real quick when you need it to finish the spell.
Spell Research - While her spell list is rather limited at the moment, she can research new spells that do more or less whatever she wants. The more complex the spell or the more powerful the effect, the more expensive and time consuming the research is. Simple spells take a week or two to figure out. More powerful spells can take months, if she can figure it out at all. Once it's finished being researched, it goes in the spell book and she can reuse it as needed or teach it to others.
Alignment: Sosyne: To sum up her personality in one sentence, Samata is normally fairly calm but keeps having spikes of extreme passion and anger where she gets carried away by things. Calm and Anger. Ideal Sosyne material.
Other: Naturally, I'll use common sense on making sure none of the spells she researches ever reach game breaking levels. If you want to set any hard limits on what kind of effects her spells can have, just lemme know and I'll abide by it.
General Sample: At the TDM
Emotion Sample: "The little motes of red and orange light blinking in and out around her suggested that she felt VERY passionate about this", "Her grumpy mood is starting to manifest on the world around her as a sort of gray fog spreading out from her body and clinging to the ground."
Questions: nah
Accepted!
Please follow these next few steps to officially be considered part of the game. Remember that you have one week to do all this, otherwise we will consider it a revocation of the application.
➟ Reply to this comment with the journal you will be joining with, then join the following communities:
![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
empatheias
![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
crystalnet
![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
empatheias_ooc
➟ Please comment to the appropriate Taken Characters list: Canons A-M | Canons N-Z.➟ You are required to keep some kind of information post in your character journal for easy player reference, as well as your application. You are also free to use one of our Info Post Templates.
➟ When your journal is added by the mod journal, comment to the Player Contact list.
➟ Introduce yourself in our Player Intro post and start playing!
➟ Use the Character Introduction Log for your character intro!
Some optional things:
➟ 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!
➟ Feel free to make an Inbox post for any private messages that could be sent via messenger bird. This is essential if you wish to receive mystery gifts!
➟ Check this month's plotting post.
➟ Follow the mod plurk (
➟ Join the game's Discord chat. You can join it by following the link here.
If you have any questions at any time, feel free to contact us! Once again, we welcome you to Empatheias, and we hope you enjoy the game!
no subject
Re: Accepted!
Re: Accepted!