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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.
no subject
Caelia, however, was an anomaly - she is unable to cast the same magic as her bretheren, and instead wields the very magic that sought to destroy them so many centuries ago. Funny story on how all that went down!
When Caelia was 4 years old, some of her older friends kept teasing her that her magic wasn't as strong as theirs, as kids are wont to do. As she insisted more and more that it was so, stop teasing me, it finally came to a head when they finally dared her to take out her grandmother's book of forbidden and ancient magic and cast something from it. Caelia being a stubborn girl, agreed to do so, took her grandmother's book, and began her search for the most complex spell she could comprehend and actually say the words in the incantation. However, being so young, she didn't realize that it wasn't just the ability to say all of the big words correctly to cast, and the needed amount of aether was also a component of the spell, and because of that, her aether - and the spell - went wildly out of control. With her friends panicking and yelling for help, Caelia's parents rushed in to find their daughter a veritable ticking aether bomb and in the same panic as the children in the room, pooled their own magic together to save their child... at the cost of their lives. Her grandmother rushed in not long after to find her unconscious grandchild and aetherically weak son and dead daughter-in-law. Hearing what had happened as her son finally returned to the lifestream, she used her knowledge of the old ways to seal Caelia's memories, as well as the children in the room. She didn't wish for her son's only child to carry the burden and the guilt it would likely wrack her with to know she was the cause of her parent's deaths.
As the children grew, they ventured a little too close to Sharlayan, and they were found by the scholars there. Intrigued that people that they had all but thought integrated into modern society were still holding pureblooded lines, they invited the children, now in their teenage years, to talk with them and give them some information. While their hamlet elders were wary, they did tell them what was and was not all right to speak on to those in Sharlayan who were ever curious. It was during one of these excursions that, upon looking at their great library full of books and study, did a Soulstone call out to Caelia - one that she swiped for herself. It wasn't until she returned to her home and the safety of her room that she found it was a Black Mage Soulstone. Why it called to her, she didn't know, but she had heard enough from the scholars that Soulstones chose their masters (for the most part.) While she did eventually tell her grandmother, and then the rest of her friends and those she considered close, she kept it a secret as long as she could, not wanting to scare anyone that she had interest in learning the same magic that wiped out their ancient city. Once the cat was out of the bag, it was found more to be a boon than a curse, and the years leading up to the Sharlayans leaving their settlement in the Hinterlands behind gave her access to books and knowledge on the art of Black Magic - it was also in this time that she found she had a love for studying and learning of the different types of magic, and her frustration of her inability to use the magic of her people also began.
During these 12 or so years, she had built up friends with the children of the hamlet, though most were a couple years older than her, she still found a close companion who later became her lover in one Locke Grayleaf. He had always been her protector, never wanted to see her cry or get hurt, and fussed over her the most. Soon those feelings turned to love, and somewhere around her 17th year they were known to be dating. Nothing really notable happened in the time between the Sharlayans leaving and the Calamity in her 25th year beyond Garlean scouting ships crashing into the forests and Caelia making the merciless (or perhaps in very veiled mercy) decision to end the near-fatally wounded pilot's life before the ship was scrapped for their own purposes. All of the children (and the adults) knew that if they were found by the Garleans, life wouldn't be so pretty, and a worry that turned to an almost hatred was formed in Caelia - a few of her other friends had been going back and forth on how to deal with the soldier, but it was ultimately Caelia who said she would kill him as he was too far gone to mend with their magicks. When word spread of Nael van Darnus' plans and ideals, they saw more and more frequent Garlean visitors overhead going into Eorzea proper to fight the adventurers who rose against them. The night of the Calamity was seen from their homes, and when they awoke from everything after... well, they knew it was a spell most forbidden but couldn't remember much regarding it. It wasn't long after that things started changing.
There were plenty of other hamlets and small settlements around the fringes of the Wilds, where traveling merchants made their way through the paths to sell wares... but their visits dwindled to nothing over the coming months. Curious on what had happened, others ventured out to either not return, or return almost on their deathbed. All reports were the same: Bahamut had changed the ambient aether as the Seventh Umbral Calamity had been ushered in, and things would only grow worse for them. While the Hinterlands were largely unchanged, the sudden freezing of Coerthas and many trade routes that relied on what had been snowed over in Abalathia's Spine stopped, and soon hunger and sickness came. When the widespread sickness also came from parts of the land being poisoned by the aether changes, the hamlet called it what they thought it to be: a Curse of the Elementals. Seeing as how they had angered the Elementals so many centuries prior with their war with Nym and Mhach, they could only see it as the Elementals punishing them, though they didn't have next couple of years, a then-untreatable sickness ravaged the hamlet, taking many lives out as it spread. One of the lives taken was Locke's, and on his deathbed was Caelia allowed to see him - she had been much too upset and her grandmother dared not tempt the Elementals to poison her granddaughter if she were allowed unlimited access to his sickroom - and it was before he drew his last breaths that he handed her a ring and expressed how he was upset that the Twelve wouldn't allow him to marry her as he had planned to do.
Caelia had to be forcefully dragged out of the room as he passed on with a smile on his face.
After losing so many and trying to decide what they could do to survive, ranging from migrating out to the old and abandonded Sharlayan settlement, to settling one of the other abandoned settlements around them, or even just assimilating into one of the still thriving hamlets in the area. Ultimately, they found that too many were sick to make the move, and settled on the best sounding scenario: send out a few of those who were well enough to cover a long distance to be able to send back medicine, food, money, or whatever else would help them. Caelia was one of these, despite her protesting and anger at being chosen to leave. She and three others were packed up, given small gil reserves, and sent out to Eorzea, one of the last free of the Empire places left that was easy to get to. She chose to continue on to Ul'dah, taking on odd jobs for whatever she could feasibly do while living on her own and training in the Eorzean's Thaumaturgy art - she had to blend in somehow after already knowing what they were teaching her considering her ability as a Black Mage.
Eventually she ran into a job she couldn't do alone: while some other adventurers had cleared out Sastasha, there were still some pirates holed up in there that just wouldn't leave. So, Caelia begrudgingly sought out help from three others to escort her through. She had paid them off, sure, but it wasn't until after that the leader of the group, S'neha Qimi, gently let Caelia know she hadn't paid off her debt in full and she'd be a swabby for S'neha's Free Company, the Seaswarm Privateers, if it meant she'd pay off her debt, and if she ran? She would hunt Cae down and drag her back if she had to. So began her time with the Seaswarm, eventually moving up to be a go-between for the Swarm and an Ul'dahn Consortium of exotic and imported goods, with whom the Lalafellin owner covets a seat on the Syndicate... a bit of a dangerous thing. Caelia does that in her spare time between her odd jobs and the like, up to and including working as a free agent for Ishgard during the time of the Dragonsong War as a lookout. Couldn't have their soldiers possibly getting surprised by dragons, so why not outsiders?
In this time, Caelia met someone within the Free Company before he left: Terris Blackthorne. To date, he is the only one Caelia trusts with her life, and it's not only because they've been together for some time now. He had left the Seaswarm, but kept in contact with Caelia in some way. She stumbled on him after she had a run in with a rival Syndicate-trying Uldahn business's thugs gave her a beating... and she caught a few of them on fire, ultimately starting the underground rumour that there was a Thaumaturge that was able to cast spells without some sort of Foci which, wasn't entirely untrue either (what with jeweled ringbands and other Foci points on her that she adrenaline-rush casted when they attacked her.) When she found Terris, he took her in to make sure she wasn't found for a retaliation beating and/or death and to also make sure she was cared for as she healed up. He ultimately offered her a place to stay and told her "don't leave here 'til we know it's safe, I'll always protect you."
And Caelia being Caelia, decided to test out that last part by slipping out of Ul'dah and traveling to Costa del Sol. She figured if he really cared, he'd go looking for her, and look for her he did. He found her fairly quick and gave her a sound scolding about leaving, which only led Cae to ask how he found her so quickly. Turned out, he could sense aether but couldn't use it - and only one nation of people were unable to do that, the Garleans - and he had followed that trail, so to speak. He had no connections to his prior life of being in a shoot off of the Garlean's royal family as the Garleans are assholes when it comes to eating their own, though he didn't remember much of what had transpired. While it made Caelia wary, he eventually broke down many of the walls she had put up around her and she not only grew to trust him (and trust that he wasn't going to go back to being a crazy Imperial and haul her back to Garlemald to do whatever unspeakable things they'd do to a pureblood Amdapori) but they eventually got together. While she was gone, he gifted her a pet to keep her company, a red panda she named Kineta. She loves the red panda almost as much as she loves Terris, but she'd never admit that freely! He's been with her through thick and thin, up to and including extracting her out of the Dravanian Hinterlands when she had gone crazy with homesickness and fled home while working for Ishgard during the War. She was not lucky in coming back unscathed, as she'd been blighted with the Curse... but she had poor Terris worried sick after her regular letters stopped coming to him, so he found her on her own way home. Her grandmother had started pushing her in the direction of Astrology from Sharlayan since she couldn't use White Magic, and since then she's started undertaking other magical talents, though they aren't as refined as her Black Magic.
She can, with more knowledge, try to convert some magic to a way she can cast it. It takes some work, but that's what keeping your nose in books to study will do. She put this to use when she was contacted by someone she had met and talked about the old nations in the Fifth Astral Era - Inquisitive Mentor, a Roegadyn, had some old blight on him that ultimately Caelia helped remove with some help from one of his students - Anton Borneheld - and digging around the old Gubal Library. She got in contact with one of her close friends from her home who had been sent to look for Cae as her letters home had stopped (through her forgetting) and together they cast an old spell that they had converted over for Caelia to use. Any large casts wipes out a good chunk of her aether anymore, so she was out of comission for a while - but she's since bounced back; hopefully being far enough away from the source of her sickness will get her back in proper order. Until then, she's started sending things back home and hoping for the best.
Despite the Curse, she still gets up to trouble - much to Terris' unhappiness about it - and has expressed her interest in taking back Ala Mhigo from those disgusting Garleans. She has more good days than bad, but is still as stubborn as ever when it comes to helping those back home - and in her new home in Eorzea. In those few bad times she's had visits? Visions? Both? Of Locke who has given her guidance in her times of uncertainty, though those aren't something that happens often. Still, she continues on to work and get enough to help those she cares for in both homes. Time will tell how far she goes to those ends, however.