Ruka

ALRIGHT FUCK IT LET'S REJIG THIS IDEA INTO A LANCER CAMPAIGN.

You wake up in a barren wasteland, a mass grave littered with the corpses of people and mechs alike. You have been exiled, left for dead, or something else that you were never expected to survive for long. Your old life has burned away in conflict and turmoil, the worst has already happened...and yet, here you are, still alive. You are metaphorical ghosts, walking dead, irreversibly branded by your sentencing - so you have nothing left to lose.

This world has taken everything from you. What will you take back in your defiance?


WHAT I NEED

Name/plurk name:
Character concept:
Sentimental item: A reminder of your character's past and the life they, willingly or forcibly, left behind. Something good? Something bad? You tell me.
Availability:
Anything else you want to tell me:

The gods have watched over this world since this world was born. As long as we can remember, generations stretching back, years without count.

They are wise, grand, glorious and just. They are creatures who sprang fully forged from the ether, given form by mortal minds, here to guide us through our lives.

Do not defy the gods. Do not question the gods. They hold our world in their hands.

(They are inscrutable and cryptic, capricious and merciless. To challenge them in combat, to topple them alone, would be suicide and folly.

But there is more than one way to kill a god.)

You are the cursed, the forsaken, already scorched by the power of the divine. There is nothing left for you.

So there's nowhere to go but up.

The setting:
Technology wise, your standard DnD fare! Character-wise, literally anything. Do you want to play something from the monster manual? Sure let's work it out. If it's got a statblock I can finagle into a reasonable PC sheet, we'll do it.

What I need from you:
Name/plurk name:
Character concept:
The nature of your curse: This is an all-original pantheon, so feel free to elaborate on which god exactly did this to you. You don't have to name them or anything, I can do that fine, but if you've got your heart set on a particular thematic then I will not deny you.
Magic item to start with: I expect you to break my puzzles over your knee so I'm giving you a head start. One item to start with of your choice. I reserve the right to veto anything that's a bit too multipurpose OP, be creative.
Availability:
Anything else you want to tell me:

Putting it down here so I don't forget it.

THE SETTING:

In the world of Shaman King, ghosts and spirits of all kinds are real. The job of a shaman - and the jobs of various stripes of spiritually aligned people the world across, like priests, exorcists, what have you - is to put these spirits to rest. But that's not all; they can also choose to create bonds with ghosts and channel their abilities.

Some move through life never fully committing to one spirit, but those who truly become great almost always have one - or a chosen few - that they will spend their life with. As the wielder's power grows, so too does the spirit or spirits chosen; they become more closely bound together, able to take their abilities to new heights.

THE PITCH:

A grand tournament takes place once every 500 years between those who can wield the power of ghosts, with the winner being crowned king - the one most qualified to commune with the spirit of the world itself. Whoever becomes king becomes a god, able to reshape the world to their desires. In short, whatever wish you have, it can grant; all you have to do is fight, and win.

But 500 years have passed, and the world's spirit has fallen deathly silent. Those who try to connect with the previous winner receive only three ominous words, received as through static:

"God is dead."

What is the meaning behind the words? What has happened to the most powerful spirit in the world, and the person who was bonded to it? And why are ghosts flocking to certain locations, gathering more than they ever have before, as if they're being pulled by a mysterious force?

Nobody knows.

Will you be the ones to unravel the mystery?

THE PARTY:

This is going to be a slightly unusual composition; player character party size is limited to 3 or maybe 4 at most. However, since every player character has their own ghost, I will be recruiting six to eight people depending on how we swing things and my own load at the time - three/four PCs and three/four ghosts, whose job will be pure roleplay with no dicerolling required.

No experience with Valor required, either! You will need a lot of patience though, I don't intend to run this until Shovel Knight Valor is done.

If you're interested, leave a message with character concepts. Don't worry about timezones and the like yet, I'll sort it out when it happens.

What the fuck is this

It's a tabletop campaign duh

Jokes aside, this is a campaign set in the world of Shovel Knight, a rambunctious age where knights of all stripes abound, shenanigans happen, and nobody is really that sure what the technology level is??

In another place and time, this might involve the story of a certain knight who turned to simpler ways after the death of his partner, and a certain tower that rose in infamy and covered the land in darkness.

This is not that place or time so let's just skip ahead a bit.

WHAT IS MY CHARACTER DOING TELL ME

You are a Something Knight on a journey to fight in a legendary tournament that will, if you are crowned winner, grant you your heart's desire.

However, you must have a certain charm to be entered as a legitimate participant.

Player characters can start with this charm - be sure to include how they got it in the first place.

They can also not start with a charm, and be looking for one. Mug someone for it you know you want to

Charms can be taken. Charms can be given. They can be stolen. Pried from someone's cold dead corpse, et cetera. Charms attract trouble (but thankfully the effect does not compound if multiple charms are within the same area), as if you're being tested for the right to enter.

It's much safer to travel in groups than a knight alone, despite the dangers and suspicion such a journey brings. But it begs the questions:

What will you do when the time comes for you to part?

How far are you willing to go to ensure you can obtain your heart's desire?

For if anyone knows anything about the tournament, it is this:

There can only be one winner.

Are you interested? FILL OUT THIS FORM HELLO

Name and Plurk Handle:
General availability - what times and days would you consistently be able to make game?:
Character concepts: GIMME YOUR KNIGHTS. Go into as little or as much detail as you like. Do they have real names? Do they not? What is their deepest darkest 'i would absolutely shank a motherfucker' heart's desire?
Setting and Game Questions: Do you have any questions? I WILL DO MY BEST TO ANSWER.
One fact about the tournament in question:

monster hunter but with an added alchemy system/resource gathering element to allow characters to have a slightly higher level of tech (being able to synthesize, analyse and build more advanced structures and devices from monster parts and ingredients with traditional cauldron alchemy and copying/salvaging/repairing bits and pieces from unearthed ruins.

-character concepts would be able to pull from ancient civilisation technology, but they'd have to be very old and in some cases in need of repair, like robots)

synthesising itself can be handwaved but characters will at least need to log out grabbing what they need/traveling out/being accosted by weather or monsters or what have you. ingredients are rarely in places that can be easily gathered- characters need to bring along appropriate tools to harvest, climb trees, fight off monsters who are threatening to eat them, etc.

Alchemists are able to make new items to help with the hunt; think dust of life, steam bombs, etc. Portable powders, edibles, bombs, and such to help hunters' quality of life while they're out traveling. They can also help expand the town with their inventions and such, as well as make medicine.

Even making food with alchemy is possible (though you might have to fight the cooks for ingredients...)

characters would be braving wild seasonal weather (the setting concept so far is a tropical rainforest basin surrounded by mountains) and monsters to build and expand a frontier town in the wilderness

naturally, they'd be hunting and discovering new monsters (canon ones from the MH games will be present, but there will be a way to submit 'evidence' such as behaviour, tracks, things a monster has left behind, etc for new monsters that will be catalogued and eventually result in an encounter with a player-created monster)

-there would need to be a dedicated mod for NPCing monster encounters on player request and for events

they'd also be exploring and changing the terrain, making it easier for supplies to be sent back and forth or airships to dock rather than dropping characters via ladder as well as establishing contact with other people who might happen to be in this unexplored land (monster riders, other hunters, lynians, etc)

blueprints, ancient tech and other remains of ancient civilisation can be discovered

so basically low fantasy adventure and SoL exploration game

no network, since characters are all crammed in the same place together.

AC would be at least one finished 'major' log a month (whether it's hunting big game, exploring, treasure hunting, spelunking, gathering ingredients, etc.) and evidence (threads with a comment count?) that the character was also doing something else, like small monster hunters or basic gathering or like TALKING TO PEOPLE OR RESTING; small hunts can be handwaved

finished logs can be cashed in at AC time to build structures. each log = 1 quest, and each structure depending on complexity and size is worth a certain amount of quests and in some cases requires certain monsters to be logged in a hunt, so people can cooperate to build important structures quickly

-structures are logged under 'personal' or 'town': either characters can put their quests into something they personally want, or use it to contribute to building the town.

-other characters can use their AC points to help others!

area maps will indicate where ingredient types can be found for alchemy/building + what monsters are likely to be found there as well as monster behaviour for that month changing what's available

rarer ingredients = stronger monsters = characters travel farther to reach an area

characters can be shopkeepers! each ingredient type and rarity tier will have an estimate of income for selling; characters who want to sell weapons or armor have similar estimates

the guild pays out a similar estimate per fortnight/month?? of time spent in the frontier town and pays extra for quests completed, so characters have a vague estimate of money and players don't necessarily have to number crunch because down that way madness lies

can use their zenny to buy or request certain things from the caravan that comes fortnightly, like creature comforts, personal effects from home, etc. paying for shipping costs, essentially. they can also commission certain equipment or pay for assistants that will become player-hired NPCs that the player will 'control' to some degree (ie, a felyne sous chef for a character who is a cook, or a young wyverian assistant who's trained as a blacksmith for weapons manufacture).

travel times are important - characters may spend a whole month out of town and unreachable if they travel far enough, or they want to spend time out to make contact with new villages

new characters apping into the game, depending on backstory, can be introduced through other people's quests and not just through fortnightly/monthly caravan dump

monthly mod posts will include special missions from the guild or event hunts that involve more than the usual 4-man quest (such as an event log to drive off a giant monster threatening to crush the town)

"I would say, rate each monster with 1 - 5 stars worth of difficulty, and players need to have fought x many 1monsters to qualify for 2 and so on

Do one 1star to qualify for 2stars, and then maybe 2 more 1stars or one 2star to qualify for 3stars, and so on

But no repeat monsters allowed

So you do all that and then hit the high rank wall at 5 * or something"

monster urgents are grouped by people waiting to rank up - processed monthly

Characters need a hunting log/thread tracker that keeps track of what they've hunted so far/their rank

Areas are rated with a danger meter of 0 to however many stars, to signify the strength of the monsters in that area and the danger level of the area. Characters can sneak out without the appropriate star levels, but the monster mod will take care of NPCing encounters at that level.

A character's equipment and weapon has a value in [x weeks of income] and is rated by quality tier. Assumed upkeep unless stated otherwise.

Characters can issue their own quests on the notice board, description, title and all, or simply ask other characters to help them. They're allowed to pick from what monsters are currently known to be available if they want a target quest, but mostly picking areas and asking for help with items/small monster slaying/etc will work fine.

Ingredient Categories:
Plant
-Fruit
-Vegetables
Bone
Ore

Edible
Nutritious
Poisonous
Explosive