The Aether Sword - Crimson Flag OC tournament.

[Cirr]

Hello everyone!
Here's the project I was preparing!

A Crimson Flag Themed Original Character Tournament!

So first, what is a OC tournament?

A OC tournament is an art contest... and a roleplay game.

This kind of event can be found on DA and some of them are really famous like the "Endzone" tournament and the "Law of Talos" tournament.

Each player choose a OC and make him fight against other player, following a scenario planned by the creator of the event.
The basis scenario is pretty vague and it's up to the players to make it going on.

How the battle are made?

The tourney uses a round system. At each round,  players have to fight against a contender in 1vs1 fights.
Each player submits a artwork, depending of the rules of the tournament. Once everyone is done, the judges select the winners and the second round begins... and so on..

Judging critters.

The submission are judged on three point:

Skills: 15%  
Originality : 35%
Storyline suggested: 50%


The judges are impartial. They have to explain their choices everytime with good arguments.
So, even if you don't feel confident on your skills, try, you could possibly win.
The winner of the tournament will be the player that will make the best story out of the basis scenario.

Submissions and characters.

Submission have to be done and posted before the deadline. If not the player is considered as losing the battle.
Please keep the PG policy
Characters have to be fitting the CF universe.
Each player need to post a reference sheet before starting the tournament.

Simple rules that have to be followed :

-No godmoding
-No deaths
-Have fun.

Judges for this tournament are Virmir, Tvorsk and me.

Now, to the basis scenario.

-The Aether sword-
http://img833.imageshack.us/f/aethersword.png/

Cirr, wind spirit, appeared to the well know mage, Virmir, with bad news.
He felt disturbances in the world's equilibrium... darkness are rising... and something terrible is going to happen soon...
He asked Virmir to hire heroes from all the 4 Reyns, to try to find the legendary Aether Sword, a powerful but long lost weapon.
According to the legend, the sword appears only to the bravest hero who will be able to wield it and save the world from all threat that may appears.
Time is running out... the tournament for the Aether sword begins...
Who will be the Aether wielder?
Who will be the new hero of a world?

About Cirr.
http://img138.imageshack.us/img138/9526/cirri.png
Cirr is a wind spirit who takes the appearance of a bunny. He may follow some players but won't interfer on battles.

The playground.
All the 4 Reyns

How do I fight?

You have to do something, a drawing, writing, anything that describe your battle against your opponent.
Of course in a case of a comic or a writing, for example, you have to show your character as the winner... but only in a clever way.
The story line that your submission sugest is the main judging critter.
The only limit is your imagination.


Battle places will be given regarding the characters who are fighting by the judges.

What you can do if you loose.

If you loose a match, you have the choice of retiring completly of the tournament, or you can stay but as a "spectator". You can still devellop side stories following the main plot.
Of course you can't pretend anymore to the finals or prizes, and if you're staying as a spectator, you can't interfere in the matches of the remaining players.
However you can interact with other spectators.
Here again, the only limit is your imagination.
Make something great and have fun!

Submission media.
Everything is accepted. It just needs to be finished. (Comic,drawing,writing, painting...etc)

Prize for the winner:
 The winner of the tournament will receive a full colored request from me.

Well, that's all... I hope you'll have fun as I had when creating the tourney.
If you have any questions, ask, I'll try to answer the best I can.

[Virmir]

Hey folks, 

I figured I should clarify a few things.

First, this is Cirr's project.  He's the main contact for this so if I screw up something below, take his word over mine. I've only grasped the vague concept so far.

This isn't an art contest.  You can submit art.  You may do better with a comic though.  Or maybe a short story/descriptive scene.  Or heck, poetry or music or something weird.  I can't speak for the other two judges, but my main factor in judging pieces is going to be how amused/interesting it is over skill level.

I'm not 100% on what entries are going to look like.  I've seen a few on Deviant Art, but I think I'm going to let Cirrulean explain things a bit more on that regard. 

Cirrulean, perhaps you and I can have a "practice battle" as an example?

World Info

Okay, this is an area I can actually provide some detail for.   This is a *very* loosely Crimson Flag-themed setting.  There is a lot more to the setting that has not been presented in comics yet and I don't really intend to give spoilers as to what hasn't been shown yet. While I will be more pleased with entries that hold to the comic, it's okay if you stretch things a bit.

Races

You can pick one of the four primary races shown in the comic thus far. These are only loose guidelines about character races, and characters don't have to stick to these stereotypes.

Red Reyn: The most versatile, varied, and adaptable of all Reyn.  Reds tend to be well-rounded, and pursue a large variety of trades.

Gray Reyn: Typically a bit smaller than the Reds. Grays that pursue magical fields tend to be a bit stronger with magic than reds on average, being more "innate" with the craft as opposed to learning it in a structured manner.  However, they tend to be more focused on a specific element.  Non-magic users can also be quite capable melee fighters.  Grays tend to stay away from complex machinery and the like, and prefer natural settings.

Snow Reyn:  Snows tend to be mechanics, engineers, inventors, and the like.  They are generally a reclusive bunch, although some have realized the potential profits in trading their inventions with other Reyn and have taken up merchanthood.

Fen:  A desert faring race, Fen are tiny compared to other Reyn.  Little is known about their culture beyond the few that have given up their tough lifestyles to settle in the lusher regions of Vandaria (where Caerryen, the Auberwood, etc. reside).  These Fen tend to be meek and subservient.

[Dragyn]

Okay, I have to say this sounds interesting to me, but I don't really understand what it entails.

I'm probably not gonna' take part, this one.  Mind if I just observe?

[Pontos]

Okay, I have to say this sounds interesting to me, but I don't really understand what it entails.

I'm probably not gonna' take part, this one.  Mind if I just observe?

You should ask Cirru for more details then, instead of simply letting this pass because you didn't understand it fully with the available information :/

[Dragyn]

Ah.  Sorry for the confusion.  Allow me to clarify. 

I'm just going to observe this one, in order to gain a better understanding of what it entails, since I won't be taking part anyway, because I've got too much to do, already.

Again, sorry 'bout the misunderstanding.

[Virmir]

Update

So with Cirr's permission, I am going to be offering a second place prize as a doodle myself.  It will be a standard fare, colored single character drawing.

Also, please note that Cirrulean has set the cutoff date for signing up as Wednesday, April 6th!

Cirr and I will be working on an introduction soon to help people understand what's going on here and to provide an example to look at.

[Zavier]

Alright, I might as well get the first character up.

Banelure is a red reyn that grew up with a working-class family in Caerreyn. When he was only a teenager, he and his parents were attacked. His parents died, but Banelure survived despite getting slashed in the back. Not long afterwards he left Caerreyn and became a vigilante, travelling throughout Vandaria and doing what he can to prevent what happened to him from happening to others. Recently during his travels, he heard that a mage is looking for heroes to fight in a tournament for the Aether Sword. He has been told the Aether Sword only exists in legends and tales, but despite his skepticism, he has decided to enter the tournament as well. He knows that, with the power of the Aether Sword, he could likely stop all crime in Vandaria.

Banelure wears dark red leather armor on his torso and legs (which also hides the scar he has on his back), along with brown boots on his footpaws. Banelure himself rarely speaks to anyone, which tends to get on a lot of people's bad sides. During a fight, he keeps focused and serious. He's learned that silliness or cockiness will get you killed. His weapon of choice is a double-bladed halberd, with which he makes heavy slashes and jabs. His strengths are close-range combat and heavy strikes. His weaknesses are long-range combat and pursuit, which is one of the reasons he doesn't like an opponent that runs.

Alright, that should be it. If there's any more info you need, just tell me.

Edit: Donnie drew this picture of Banelure, in case anyone needs a visual reference.

[Digital Vulpine]

A well-off alchemist living in Caerreyn, Johannes Kemm (that's Doctor Johannes Kemm) is a Snow Reyn who moved to Caerreyn to perform experiments and sell his potions (he prefers the term "prescribe tonics").  His little shop not far from the gates is a family business, with his wife usually bottling the "tonics" and everybody helping with customers.  His son has quite a bit of experience in the shop, and has already begun studying as his apprentice.  He uses the proceeds from his shop, after providing for his family of course,  to fund his "research", looking for predictability in the universe, what he calls "natural laws".  In practice, this often means creative though somewhat reckless experiments.  The academy considers the idea ludicrous of course, as everyone knows that the world runs on magic, but they tolerate him so long as he doesn't cause too much fuss and his research into applied magic pays off.  

He specializes in item usage, his coat, which will be covered later, allows him to carry a large number of items ranging from common rope, to tonics or strange gadgets.  He has very little in the way of innate magic, relying instead on magitech based on power crystals, similar to the ones found in airships. He doesn't have the strength to hold his own in hand-to-hand combat, but he is surprisingly agile.

As is typical for a Snow Reyn, his thick coat of white fur has no markings at all. He has a slender frame, though his fur puts his appearance closer to average, and stands just a little shorter than most Reyn.  For the most part he wears common clothes, not wishing to identify himself as a mage (and just as well, for the academy has no wish to associate with him) a simple brown shirt with gray pants held in place by a darker brown belt.  His most remarkable feature is a long white coat that he wears, with many pockets both inside and out.  The result of one of his more unusual magitech experiments, the L.A.B. coat's numerous pockets use a contained seven-dimensional spatial distortion to augment their storage capacity by several orders of magnitude while completely avoiding the weight of stored objects.    In mage's terms, each pocket is enchanted with a pocket dimension spell.  In layman's terms, it's a Coat of Holding.  He keeps the pockets roughly organized in categories, as due to the nature of the coat he cannot be entirely sure that he will find what he was looking for when he reaches in, but as long as he picks the right pocket it should be somewhat close.

Upon hearing about the Aether Sword, he decided to join the effort to search for it.  Such a powerful and long-lost artifact would be of great value!  To science of course!  Leaving his son/apprentice in charge of the shop, he packed his coat with devices, experiments, tonics, and supplies, and set off to find this Virmir fellow.

EDIT: Updated with a species change, since there aren't any Snow Reyn and this character fits them so well anyway.  Also, pictures!


Hi res

Disregard the file name, he went through both a name change and a species change during the creation process. :P   Also, since the character is mostly white and the background is transparent, the high resolution one may be a little hard to see if your browser's background color is the default white.  And yes, he has two arms, the other one is just hard to see with that coat going everywhere. I think compression may have erased that line in the low res one though... should have made it darker. XD  The coat has a total of 13 pockets, the inside pockets and lower outside pockets are symmetrical, and the chest pocket makes 13.

[Geary]

ZeZe: The Flying Fennec

   The desert, a harsh land where few survive water us scarce, and what resources one can find are under strict control. None of this bothered ZeZe; there was a strong wind, and he had a delivery to make to an academy professor in Caerryn. Perfect timing, too! a ship for the arctics was starting to take off. ZeZe was rather broke, however, so he had his own method of travel that let him avoid petty things like 'paying' and 'contributing in improving foreign affairs at the citizen level.' Bah.

   About a year prior, one of the arctic's ships got caught in a sandstorm and fell down. One of the goods they were carrying was an interesting device, a small sail that a person could mount and literally fly around on. He's not sure how it works, some kind of magical wind gem or something, but he found that a few drops of cactus juice makes it perform much better.

   ZeZe ran up to a tall sand dune and unfolded his contraption. It was patched up here and there, but it worked just as well as the day he got it. "Hmm... they're flying low and slow, so they're probably about to raise altitude." He mumbled to himself. "Now or never!" The fennec lept off the dune, falling rapidly. A moment before he hit the ground, he pressed a button on the sail, and flew swiftly to the shop, keeping his ears dwon to lessen wind resistance. He quickly gained on the ship, adjusting the sail to put his course parallel with the ship, mere inches from collision.

   "Now, for the hard part." The desert winds don't last long, and the foreset winds are abysmal. ZeZe would have to find a hole, or at least a loose board, on the airship to grip onto with a hook he kept on person, fastlen the hook to his belt, and fold up his sail before the ship started raising or the winds died down. Luckily, this ship was old, and there was a hole near his current location, allowing him to get fastened and fold up his sail well before the ship rose. From there, it was smooth sailing to the Caerryn. Kinda boring really, it seemed like nothing interesting would happen to him between now and his return home, unless it involved him risking his life on something he really shouldn't have gotten involved in in the first place. Sadly for him, the latter was correct.

[Donnie]

Greg: The Soul Searcher

-Warning, deliberate storytelling approaching, bear with me please!-

A dark warp unseen in westward nights and winds, mystery fulminate; the creature awakens. His name, so he believes, is Gregory. Mind torn, soul demolished by unseen and unthinkable horrors. He remembers a house of wood and... darkness everywhere. He remembers an infinite pain and the visions of his life ripped away from him. But he's here now, without pain of the physical but the trauma remains.

Golden eyes shine bright in the sun of the forest as he steps into the open and his neutral gray fur, neither fitting or clashing with the colors around him, flutters softly in the wind. A child. Gregory is a gray reyn kit. Donned only in the most modest of garments, he traveled aimlessly for what would be weeks. He never kept track of time save for the days of the weeks. Nor does he ever get hungry, granted he still enjoys the feeling of good filling food. He stops and wonders, "What am I doing...? What was I going to do?"

With a flicker of his mind and thoughts, he suddenly glows a bright red. His dirty garments replaced by a sheen crimson coat reinforced with an impervious chestplate and shoulder pads. In Greg's meager paws rests a bright red sword and lance, both dwarfing his own body in size yet he holds them as if they were children's toys.

"I remember now..." he spoke, "My... home.... home? Yes... home!" he suddenly dashed away, his red garments vanishing off of him and restoring his original dirty outfit. He jumped through trees, sprinted down hundred year old dirt roads, and climbed tall hills... except this hill coming up ended in a frightful drop to the ground. Greg blacked out upon hitting the bottom.

Voices? And light...? Greg slowly opens his eyes and sees... stone? Greg sits up and feels his head, noticing the bandages covering the entirety of his head.

"Quite a fall you had there sir!" said a nurse. She shared much of Greg's gray coloration, but with the addition of rusty orange. A Gray Reyn, "I was afraid you'd be lost to me. Your skull had a nasty fracture."

Not that it matters... Greg remembers how difficult it is for him to... "Oww...." or not... Memory fails him. He remembers extreme pain... then none at all. What would have killed him before only was a minor inconvenience. Or was it just a dream? He shakes his head and gets out of the bed, only to be pulled back into it.

"By Lord Julian you child! You just survived a fall that'd kill any normal reyn! Rest now!" Greg reluctantly concedes with a soft whine. It only took him but mere moments to fall asleep again.

Ride by airship wasn't what he'd expected. Granted, Greg figured it'd probably be the only reasonable way to... "I forgot...!" Greg ran up to the front of the airship past some gray Reyn and jumped off the airship. It took a full six seconds for the Death Evan's crew to register that a child just jumped off the edge. What followed was frightful screams of emergency, all quite humorous to Greg's ears. In a bright green light greg is donned in bright green outfit, marked by geometric shapes and decorations. He reached behind him and pulled a magic carpet from its harness, landing on it in midair and flying off to Caerryn.

Something in Caerryn drew his soul towards it. Something there harbors the key to what he seeks. Something to dull the pain inside? Or some kind of destiny he was sure that'd await him.

After all.... nothing came that easily for him.

_________________________________________________________________________

Gregory is a young Gray Fox (reyn) kit who's recent past is a complete mystery, un-intelligible to the mortal being. All that can be explained is an eternal relm of pain where he 'lost his souls'. Whatever happened to Gregory has infused him with powers through time and space, granting him supreme strength, sly agility, and a sharp perception for each of his forms. However his 'trauma' stripped him of something dear, and it is what he desperately searches for. And a way to return home.

At first glance, Greg's powers are frighteningly formidable along with his incredible endurance and pain threshold makes him a difficult to defeat fighter.... on paper. In truth, Greg is but a child. He's horribly inexperienced, uncertain of himself, prone to despair, and mentally weak. Timid as the most innocent of forest animals, he can't compose himself in battle. When he fights, he tries as hard as he can and prays he can succeed.

[TheTai]

Tijin The Very (very) Heavy Blade-Wielder

-Tijin is a Grey Reyn that usually wanders aimlessly across the planet.

-His attitude is somewhat sardonic. While he may not be necessarily evil, he is far from what would be considered a "Good Samaritan"  as he would sooner torment and harass a person rather than help them in any time of need. Due not having very "formal" swordsman ship training, Tijin's attack method is often under-handed (Throwing dirt, "Low-blows", taunts, ect.) and somewhat barbaric at times. Nevertheless, Tijin can be highly adaptable to almost any situation.
 
-The sword he carries with him is a keepsake from his mentor. Although it is completely blunt ( and therefor *almost* completely void of any killing potential) the sword is infused with a spell that causes the blade to increase in weight by 40x for every 3ft away from its owner. (max 200x)

[Virmir]

I've read all these and they all look cool.  Great stuff, guys.

[Draykin]

Commonly mistaken for a thief in the Auberwood, Inuri is a traveling almost druidic mage. He has no actual home, however if you ask him he will claim it to be the Auberwood. This may be due to how exactly he came to be a wanderer.

When he was nothing more than a young Reyn, not even five, his parents were returning to the Relran Tree after a business trip. Halfway to their destination, the entire family was jumped by bandits, and Inuri's mother was killed outright. Insticts of survival took over, and Inuri fled into the vast Auberwood, unsure of his father's fate. It was there he developed an innate feel for the power of nature, and the protection of the Auberwood.

While surrounded by the Auberwood's towering trees, Inuri began his training. He based his magic along the elements that surrounded him, on his goal to protect his new home, on the greatest force the world had to offer. Although he still combined that with some fire-based magic his father taught him for self defense, while not powerful, they could trick.

To this day, Inuri is a frequent visitor to the Relran Tree, and is partially considered a part of Gray Reyn society, Although Julian has no power over him. (Unless the right price is given, of course.) Inuri always shows up with a pocket full of money, although no one knows where he gets it. He might make profit selling herbal medicine, and his services as a mercenary, but he's so hard to find, most prefer not to hire him.

Inuri's most used weapon is one he bought off a merchant inventor many years ago. It may look a normal staff from a distance, but it actually has a hidden piece of metal in it, allowing it to change to a scythe, and then a polearm. A recent modification even allows for blade removal to be used as a shortsword. The scythe look tends to frighten people when he wears his tattered and hooded cloak.

Inuri himself is not much of a social person, but will get mixed in a conversation if he find it interesting. His lifestyle has made him very remote to the rest of the world, meaning he rarely knows what's going on in the world. He is not quick to judge, and will resolve things peacefully if he can, although don't expect him to be that way for long, as he is quite the trickster. Once in a fight, he will take every chance he can get to take a swing at you, as unexperienced as those swings may be, with a scythe blade, they can hurt.

Inuri considers himself lucky to have even heard about the Aether sword, almost not missing the telling of it as he was leaving the Relran tree. He nows seeks the mage who is calling out for heroes, if not for just the sword and a possible challenge....

[yarrick]

well here is my entry for the tournament.

---

Name: Osric
Species: Grey fox.
Primary weapon: short sword.
Secondary weapon: knife.
Armour: buckler shield, leather armour on his torso with mismatched patches of chain mail sewn on, steel vambraces, leather gloves with metal studs on the knuckles.
Appearance: has a lean and sinewy frame, missing the tip of his left ear
Personality: cautious, but a little hot-blooded and stubborn. His time as a soldier taught him discipline, but there are few things he loves more than a good fight.
Fighting style: His preferred style is fast and brutal, close quarters combat.
Strength: melee combat.
Weakness: long range fighting, however he knows some basic magic which he uses to try and get in close to his opponent.
Misc: Osric prefers to travel light in order to keep up his speed and flexibility.
Back story: Osric was born and raised in a small village in a remote region of the Auberwood. He started learning how to fight at an early age, youngsters often fought to pass time and entertain themselves. Knowing how to fight was necessity of life, the village was the target of several raids by Muriden while Osric was growing up. From the day he was old enough to use a sword, he was trained in it’s usage so that he could participate in the defence of his home. At the age of twenty, he became an enlisted soldier and spent the next three years defending the Auberwood. After those three years as a soldier, he began a brief career as a caravan guard, during which he heard rumours of a tournament being held by a mage known as Virmir. Tired of the tedious work guarding caravans, he decided to look into the possibility of joining the tournament, eager for a challenge.

[Alias]

This creature, which refers to itself as Red, claims to be a normal Red Reyn deformed by exposure to an unpleasant form of raw magic. It is determined to acquire the sword, but its background and motives are unknown and probably far from pure.

It fights with what it calls sleight of hand, a sort of non-magical trickery that uses incredible dexterity and precision to perform actions that only seem magical, and it is believed to have a strange magic of its own (temporal in nature) which it only uses in dire straits.  Its presence appears to have an unusual warping effect on magic in its general vicinity which becomes more pronounced as the magic used grows stronger.