EmberportITP OOC

[Lord Raziere]

This roleplay is about a custom made magitech setting known as Emberport, which is the name of a single city in a wider magitech world inspired primarily by FF8 and other such worlds- we can probably include things like FF7, Xenoblade Chronicles to some extent, things like that to get a general idea fo the tech level: mostly modern but with high tech elements and magic spellcasting involved.

The Pitch:

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For thousands of years throughout history the world has periodically warred against a great evil: Bubon, Lord of Plagues and Spirit of Epidemics, Every few hundred years he would awaken and begin spreading disease across the world, a group of heroes would rise to defeat him but every time they would only be able to defeat him temporarily or imprison him until he rose again. However with the rise of magitech, 50 years ago came the Last Plague War, Bubon was not defeated by a lone band of heroes...but by industry and the power of magitech. With the flying fortress Terminus the nation of Renkardia cast an incredibly powerful new fire spell that no individual mage could achieve known as Pyros Ultima and in a single explosive flash of light, Bubon was burned away from the face of the planet, leaving only a city-sized crater behind. the mages checked: this time he was gone for good.

Since then Renkardia's rival superpower, Solvadelt made its own flying fortress capable of casting it as well, known as Helios. Seeing that if these superpowers were to fight it would be too destructive, these two nations as well as the rest of the world settled into an uneasy peace while the people cheered for the destruction of the ancient evil and see the fortresses as shining examples of what good magitech can do, even if no one knows the exact mechanics of how this was achieved. With this peace came unprecedented economic prosperity and the growth of mega-corporations across the world, the world filled with products and advertisements for them.
However despite this, there has been many close calls of the cold war between the Renkardia and Solvadelt before they managed to prevent it from becoming hot, many small wars between less fortunate nations have broken out across the world, urban violence seems to be on the rise, the various monsters that adventurers have always faced are becoming more aggressive, and violent sports have become popular these days, with many of them emulating the adventuring heroes of old such as arenas, dungeons or obstacle courses full of monsters all built for entertainment.

Amid all this, is the city of Emberport, widely regarded as the economic center of the world and thus the biggest most culturally diverse one, with every mega-corps having a hand there, every species having members living within it, it is massive urban cityscape like none other, built upon magitech and money, its mayor not being nearly as powerful as the corporations within it, despite this, Emberport belongs to neither Solvadelt or Renkardia and is apart of a smaller nation, with representatives of both superpowers vying for its economic power through more subtle methods. The city is also the one nearest to Bubonic Crater and thus attracts tourism for people wanting to see it. You are perhaps a new hero who have arisen in this new age, adventurers being replaced by mercenaries, celebrities and others once the map was filled in.

Disease has been wiped out and technology fills the world, where do you come in?

Spoiler: List of Characters

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To be filled in

Preliminary rules, stolen copied over from other focused RPs:

Spoiler: THE RULES

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Rule the first, no godmodding. A far better explanation of godmodding than I can give is here.

Rule the second, please remember that we plan to have a far more directed plot than Nexus. Please run any major spanners in the works past guys on this thread first.

Rule the third, don't ruin anyone else's fun. I can't stress this enough.

Rule the fourth, have fun! (Failure to abide by this rule is subject to immediate banishment. )

Spoiler: New and Improved (but Loose) Rules v.1.1!

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These "rules" are more loose guidelines that serve another FFRPG very well so we adopted them into this one, because they work.

1. Consider asking to join in fights before jumping in. Please respect that not all plots might be open. Alternatively, if you yourself want to keep a fight cordoned off from other participants, say so in the OOC, at the beginning of your post, or both.
2. Talk major fights over with your opponent! This is to keep arguments about who's the better fighter, who should win, blablablablabla, out of the OOC. Of course, talk these things over in PM, or some kind of IM service. While arguments might break out over said PM/IM ... it keeps it out of the OOC. Which is what we're trying to do here. (This part is currently under review.) On that note ...
3. Don't argue in the OOC! They make the atmosphere oppressive, they make things less fun, and generally unpleasant and maybe even make the arguments larger than they need be. So, if you have a problem with someone, try to talk it out in PM or IM before using the OOC. That said ...
4. COMMUNICATE! This is the most important rule. We have had issues in the past with people not communicating properly, leading to arguments and hurt feelings, and even several people leaving for good. So please communicate your plans, if they affect everyone else.

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Spoiler: Empty Character template

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<Your Character's Name Here>

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Name: Self-explanatory.
Age: Exact number or rough estimation.
Gender: Male, female, etc.
Height: Centimeters and/or feet and inches.
Weight: Kilograms and/or pounds.
Species: What kind of creature your character is?
Station: Your character's current lot in life.

Description:

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What does your character look, feel, smell and sound like?

Personality:

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How does your character think? What drives him and what kind of a fellow is he?

History:

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What has happened to your character before the game and made them who they are?

Story So Far:

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You can summarize and update here what has happened to your character during the game.

Abilities:

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What is your character good or bad at? What special things can he do or knows?

These could include anything from magic to technology to skills or whatever

Other information:

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Anything you can't fit to the brackets above, such as equipment or property your character owns.

[igordragonian]

Looks intresting.
Though questions. So much of them!
As who do we play? Adventurers?
What do adventurers do? Are there monsters roaming around?
Is this an only human as playable race? It's fine, just would like to know

[Lord Raziere]

Thats what we're discussing.

Though I personally allow any/most races (so long as we acknowledge that some races are so powerful that they take up the entire powerset with their own biology). and am personally going to make my own race thats going to be important to the setting and also serve to flesh out its history and the other side of the magitech coin- namely a culture and species that got wrecked from its emergence, and thus lost most of its former culture and structure from trying to fight against it. I'm calling it the Ivoxovi, and their culture was basically being yin-yang + aztecs + reincarnation + shamanistic nature magic + everything being in balance and in a cycle. all to contrast the culture of a place like Emberport which is very modern, capitalist and so on its outlook, and make this fallen culture seem more alien to some extent. however modern Ivoxovi are just different from their old culture as they are from a human. the character I have in mind however is just as enhanced by magitech as anyone else- even the magic she wields is something that has a tech improvement over what her ancestors wielded.

but I'm open to trying other character ideas for myself.

as for monsters. yes. they are roaming around. as are thugs in the city. monsters are also in arenas for gladiatorial combat. and fake dungeons made for sport. and attacks dogs for said thugs. they maybe have some alteration or adaption that makes them different from the usual fantasy version of them so that they can survive in the magitech world. like....I dunno, whats a good example? might have to come up with that as we go along.

On Adventurers:
adventurers are technically kind of a thing, in that they have been apart of the worlds culture for so long that even if the age of magitech has kind of outgrown them (when you got standing militaries full of guns, robots, various big vehicles to rain down destruction on your enemies, WMDs, powerful magic and so on, what do lone adventurers have that powerful nations with militaries don't?) its still in the peoples cultural heritage and minds. like the people who were most likely to become adventurers are now probably either soldiers, mercenaries (fulfills need for fighting/fortune and less discipline than military), arena celebrities (if they are doing this for fame), doing something illegal, that kind of thing, like there might be still some old laws that never got repealed about adventuring technically still being a thing because the need for violent individuals going out into the wilderness to kill stuff never stopped being a thing, but its like calling yourself a knight while fighting in some war in some backwater third world country or taking down some mafia thugs, people are going to think your a little weird, but at the same time its still a big thing in entertainment and in stage personas for celebrities who fight in arenas, so might still refer to what you do as "adventurer" just as a old timey shorthand.

like I don't recall any point where in a magitech setting where people explicitly refer to people as adventurers, because Clouds former Soldier turned rebel, Squalls a SeeD member, they come from military backgrounds. now your character doesn't need to come from a military background, I'm just saying its a common background for the kinds of characters that would be adventurers to instead come from, because its a modern society and the map is filled in, so what adventure is be had, when you have the lay of the land, increasingly big militaries, mass media and so on. time period is important and when you have something like FF8 as inspiration, thats a pretty global modern world, where you simply can't have these explorers going out to fill in blank spots on the map anymore, its all done, unless space travels starts being a thing. now you can have some action archaeologist going into known ruins braving dangers no one else having faced before, because somehow no one ever did it before, you can have a mercenary that travels the world because they can be hired to do their jobs online, or a secret agent of somewhere, things like that, and it probably fits the adventurer mold.

I just don't see adventuring being an actual acknowledged job anymore, because again its calling yourself a knight when all the knightly orders died long ago and anyone who is knighted nowadays is done as this honorary meaningless title, you can probably get someone to legally call you an adventurer, but its like having a certificate of knighthood, it doesn't MEAN anything, in-universe, because adventurers fulfill all the same functions a mercenary does, the mercenary just has established means of payment and getting in touch and sounds more professional when you say it out loud to your client.

TLDR: say your an adventurer and people will assume your an eccentric mercenary. because that is in fact, what you are. to my point of view.

as for what you do.....I don't know, we might have to figure out that together, to get an idea where we start.

[Arron Oberon]

This whole thing sounds very interesting. If it ever comes to fruition (or you want help) Let me know I'd be very happy to help :)

[Lord Raziere]

I thought this was dead, to be honest, the person who I originally made this for never replied tot his thread and igor focused on other roleplays we already have going. so I haven't really been developing anything since there didn't seem to be any interest after my second post in the thread. I will be more interested in doing more on this the more others are interested in playing.

but I do have a plot planned. a rough one. whether I tell you depends on whether you want to know ahead of time or whether you want to find it out as you go along.

here is the thing I pretty much will accept anything within reason for the setting I described. like its modern magitech final fantasy ish, so keep it humanoid, be reasonable about your magical powers so that its awesome but not anything stupid and be sure to keep in mind how this person interacts with this modern magitech world.

here is the only race I ever made:

Spoiler: The Ivoxovi

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“iVoXoVi”- Meaning: Death to Life, Life to Death

The Ivoxovi
Nicknames: Ivox, Stripefolk (derogatory), White Tigers
Description: They have white skin with black stripes, same with their two tails and hair and cat ears. Their eyes often yellow, brown or green, aside from that they are human-like in appearance. These are their default forms when not using their magic.
Name Scheme: Ivoxovi typically have palindromes for names for the sake of symmetry and balance. Those Ivox who don't are being rebellious and thus being intentionally asymmetrical, or were raised by non-Ivox.

Culture:
The Ivoxovi are people that got the short end of the stick with the rise of technology. They once had a strange alien culture that is to this day seen in many different lights, with some seeing it as beautiful and in tune with nature, some seeing it as sophisticated and civilized in its own way for its time, while others see it as barbaric, monstrous and backwards and glad its gone. Modern Ivoxovi only practice remnants of it after magitech wielding cultures came in and basically wiped out much of what they once were, seeing them as some form of monster that adventurers fought many times before.

What is known of the Ivoxovi of old is that they believed in balance. Balance in everything, with everything, much like the concept of yin and yang- that everything is just different aspects of the same force of existence, that all is one and that if you unbalance one aspect of existence, you negatively affect the rest of it. Thus in all their architecture and surviving works and stories, there is a strong theme of symmetry, cycles, pendulums, circles, and so on. A lot of their stories have the climax in the middle rather than the end, and many of their words and phrases are symmetrical and speak of a transition from one state to another then back to the first state, and all their symmetrical words have a positive meaning to it.
However, there was a darker aspect to their beliefs. They believed that there was many spirits of the world that tend to it that one should respect, but they also believed in a demon. A great demon referred to either as The Devourer or the Asymmetry, that this demon was incredibly powerful and would devour all things if not held back, and that the only way to hold the demon back was with sacrifices of sapient life, often sacrificing their worst criminals, war prisoners, captured foreigners and other outcasts and undesirables to make sure The Devourer was kept at bay then burying the corpses in farm fields to enrich the soil with nutrients of the dead. At first people thought they referred to Bubon, but the Ivoxovi denied this, seeing Lord Bubon only as something vital to the balance and something to be endured, not defeated.
The Ivoxovi even intentionally started wars seemingly for no reason other than to cause massive slaughters then suddenly stop and accept peace demands and whatever punishment the other culture wanted, then hold mass funerals for those they killed hoping that the departed will reincarnate into better lives. While they felt loss, they didn't see their actions as wrong, only apart of a greater cycle of death, reincarnation and life. Yet their normal every day society was as respectful, orderly, civilized, valued education and hygiene, and many of them lived in cities of stone ziggurats and aztec-style pyramids. They had celebrations on the summer and winter equinoxes, meals with balanced diets of meat and vegetables.

The Ivoxovi today are still around in sustainable numbers, but many of them have discarded the old practices that others see as barbaric, focus on the balance aspect of their religion for their personal lives and engage with technology and global culture out of necessity and because its all they've ever known. The priests who still maintain it guard their secrets and sacred places with vigilance to keep from tourists and the curious from ruining them. Environmentalism is strong in their culture however and many of the modern Ivoxovi champion efforts to recycle, clean up pollution and save animals in response to industry, yet at the same time most of them see no problem in taking jobs to kill people and make great snipers, warriors, soldiers, assassins and so on, and its not an uncommon sight to see an Ivoxovi criminal kill people without batting an eye then donate to an environmentalist charity or pick up a piece of litter on the same day. Yet will kill fast-producing animals common around the globe without hesitation. In intellectual pursuits, many of them focus on developing space travel, making weapons, and figuring out how to best conserve the environment with the most efficiency.

Weapons of the Ivoxovi:
Ivoxovi often design weapons for dual-wielding in mind, they are often colored in white and black so as to embody principles of duality and balance in battle.

Akeseka:
A double-sword of the Ivoxovi, modern versions enhanced with magitech allows one to use Ivoxovi magic to blast blade beams with slashes of the blade or press a button to make a magic shield that lasts until they attack.

Kalinilak:
Dual shield-pistols that are modern Ivoxovi work, this weapon is meant to be wielded in pairs so that one can use a shield with one hand while firing with the other.

Modern Ivoxovi Magic:
The magic of the Ivox is strange and unlike human magic, in the old days Ivox summoned animal spirits and bound them to their form to enhance it with increased combat ability and gain magical powers from it, such as elemental powers based on what the animal has affinity with. For example, if you bind a tiger spirit, you become a tiger humanoid like a therianthrope. However the old magic only allowed you to bind one animal spirit to you. These days, Ivox use a Multi-Binder to bind more than one spirit to them to shapeshift into one than one hybrid form. Multi-Binders can be worn on the wrist, belt or implanted in the belly button.

However they can't choose what they shapeshift into, the forms are set up so that they are apart of an elemental cycle, and you can only shapeshift clockwise along said cycle. You cannot skip forms, you can only shift from one then to the other and cycle through until you get to the one you want.
For example:
Fire to Earth to Water to Air back to Fire. One can shift from Fire to Earth but not Fire to Water or Air.

The animal has to fit the element in question, and certain animals simply can't fit certain elements. This is through common sense and often depends on the animal in question relative to the other animals they have. The elemental cycle in specifics is dependent on the individual Ivox using for what makes for them, and different Ivox can have completely different elemental cycle logic.

All animal forms have increased strength, speed and defense, with an elemental affinity that empowers their attacks further and grants them unique properties depending on the element and animal.

Examples:
Fire:
Gain charismatic awe and fire attacks

Air:
Gain flight and electric attacks

Water:
gain water-breathing and ice attacks

Earth:
gain earth melding and poison attacks

Shadow:
gain shadow meld and dark attacks

Plant:
gain plant attacks and healing over time

mostly in preparation for my own character in this. well, one of my own. I tend to make a lot.

[Arron Oberon]

I like the idea of Latin based magic (OFC this will mostly be styling)
I have a super rough idea for the system if you don't have one already

Spoiler: Spell System Rough Write Up

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Simple spells would have a type and a target
so fire targeting ground would be
Ignis Terram

and as you want more powerful spells you add words like Fire Ball targeting a person would be
Ignis Sphera Directum

I would want to know Major overarching plot themes, I think, but I'm going to leave the main plot up to you :)

I also think that most races would just be cosmetic and a little bonus and a little minus (Like wolfish characters being more flammable than humans but also being faster)
Although Races that are clearly better than the rest would be interesting and races that are worse than the rest could be cool too.

[Lord Raziere]

Sure, sounds logical. normal FF magic is basically the four elements and white magic anyways, and latin magic is basically what human magic probably is sometimes to mostly.

overarching themes? lets see.....
-Civilizations Greed and Ambition Versus Nature's brutality
-The Alluring Siren-like Nature of War

those are the only two I got so far, honestly. I'll have to develop it a bit more, work out some lower level antagonists to start with and all that. draw inspiration from real life since magitech settings are like, perfect fantasy lenses to view our own society through y'know? but y'know, without saying anything outright.

yeah, most races are pretty much cosmetic, the magic systems are probably divorced from race even though some races probably favor or invented one over the other. any ability differences advantage-wise can be like made as cybernetics or something instead, because you can just have anyone get magitech wings and thus being an "angel" or whatever is probably more something you become than something your born as, just as an example, and race is more about culture and background and how it informs your thinking and whatnot, because magitech can probably alter you this way or that regardless of where your from.

[Arron Oberon]

Alright so real quick to flesh out a little bit of lore
Are All diseases wiped out or just Major ones and things like Lycanthropy still exist?

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Magic Items are a thing correct, like Sword of Flames

Spoiler: Latanic

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Advocabit Ignis Telum Sui Manibus
Basically Summon flaming sword in hand

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Different factions would obviously be a thing Might I recommend a way to create factions or maybe like a team or clan or something of the sort.

[Lord Raziere]

its a metaphor for how science wiped out things like smallpox and the bubonic plague by curing things and such.

just y'know. with a nuke on the lord of all plagues instead because fantasy.

so yeah there is still some diseases, they are just weaker now and are much more in control than they used to be during previous ages.

sure magic items are a thing, why not?

as for factions hm....yeah sure you can make them, I just don't attach any real rules to them and haven't come up with a way for to make them as a sheet, haven't come up with how to flesh out the two superpowers, what mega-corps there are, and such and so on. this thread is kind of here to get us start thinking about what kind of things we want and such and the questions your asking are helpful.

like there is probably going to be at least one greedy all powerful mega-corp involved, some Ivox terrorist group involved, the two superpowers have their militaries and such, lot to think about,

also thinking of technologies: Scrynet, Scryphone, gunblades, cars are a thing, steel airships are a thing, robots probably experimental, things like that.

probably should establish some good groups as well (y'know, charities, volunteer groups, researcher groups for good causes, things like that), some neutral groups (mercenary companies and mercenary job stuff? things that just make money without being greedy)

lots to think about.

[Arron Oberon]

Oh sweet I think Werewolfs should be super formal and Vampires should be savage feral animals (just to mess with stereotypes)

Spoiler: Ideas!

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Like a werewolf doesn't transform into a huge beast more like into a stronger hairier base form, and mostly hunt small animals like Rabbits and occasionally Deer


And Vampires are almost extinct because of hunting so they resort to extreme violence

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I have an idea for a (rather small) Neutral group

Spoiler: Mythos

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Essentially they just keep the history of the world in check (This could be an abstracted thing) Like most players never meet them but anytime history is added to an official post it could be signed by a member

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[Arron Oberon]

Ignore this!

Just a place for me to flesh out stuff I think relevant to Emberport

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Spoiler: Magitech

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removed

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[Lord Raziere]

Okay ah no: "commoners" do not exist in this world. citizens exist. as in, modern day society. nobility and commoners are not a thing. wealth and mega-corps and people being screwed by them sure but no one calls people commoners.

and eh, your airship can be blimps I guess, but I'm not limiting them to that.

Let start by explaining things in broad strokes:

Spoiler: Gaia World Overview

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The name of the world is Gaia. It is pretty much like Earth in many ways: the grass is green, waters a blue and so on. The societies of present day are all or almost all some form of capitalist republics. There are probably less fortunate small nations that are still dictatorships. Much of the tech is pretty much the same.

The difference is that people use airships rather than planes to get from one place to another, monsters roam the world and cities have walls and guards with assault rifles to shoot them, yet despite how much the military seems to gun them down there always seem to be more, with some monsters having adapted to the conditions of modern warfare in their own unique ways, and for some reason slimes are eternal like roaches. Classic necromancers who summon undead hordes no longer exist, replaced by corporate hired researchers to experiment on bodies legal or illegally for the corporations purposes.

orc and hobgoblin students in less well off countries go to universities to study science so they can go back to help their people, mega-corps sell everything from cybernetics to magic spells to summonable robotic familiars, cities are congested crowded places, each one with criminal elements and gangs amid them, money seemingly motivates most people, while social media on scrynet has become a social force in the last decade. People summon motorcycles and cars to drive themselves everywhere, then dismiss them instead of parking.

The most powerful mega-corporation is Aurum Corp, a globe-spanning conglomerate of various magical and scientific corporations in many fields, lead by one Maximillian Profectus, a genius billionaire famed for his philanthropic efforts, incredible knowledge of magitech and ability to manage finance on an unbelievable scale that has made him the richest man on earth and the leading the cutting edge in all magitech fields.

Renkardia and Solvadelt's differences and the reason they conflict against one another seems religious: Its a long story but basically they have vastly different interpretations of the same myth and as a result Solvadelt worships The Shining Light and Renkardia worships the Sacred Night and use magics based off these two beliefs as well as having differing philosophies based on these interpretations. But everyone knows these are just excuses to keep trying to grab at resources and fight each other in proxy wars. No one really regards either of the nations as better than the other in a general sense. There is no proof that either The Shining Light or The Sacred Night really exist.

Recently there has a been a terrorist group known as "SkavakS" but mostly just called "Skavaks" composed of Ivoxovi and other races and cultures that feel they've gotten crushed and hurt by emergence of the modern world and are doing everything from bombing to sudden attacks on civilians and public places trying to stir up war and conflict wherever they go, backing whatever rebellion or revolution they can. the authorities can never seem to catch them and no one knows who their leader is.

Mercenaries and volunteer protectors working for non-profit organizations are today's adventurers and heroes fighting against the monsters. they come from many backgrounds and they learn to work together despite their differences.

just explaining a lot of things in mostly broad strokes, getting a better picture of the world in my mind.

[Arron Oberon]

Alright FTFY

I meant noble more in a sense of Higher than normal citizen just couldn't think of the word

So far reading what you said I like it v much

[Sam.exe]

So this is probably going to sound stupid but I went inactive for personal reasons on my original account and wound up forgetting my login info (learned my lesson) i was the guy who suggested the final fantasy 8 comparison


if you don't believe me I guess I can't prove anything, but I wanted to get back into this.

[Lord Raziere]

Its not my place to determine that or to believe you either way.

what matters is that if you want to do this, make an actual character, outline what you want to play, and post on some consistent basis so that this roleplay doesn't fall off first page again. this only stays going as long as we keep it going, so you better be able to respond. if you don't, I can't do anything for it, as this is a two way street right now. I've already done work to build a world, you should at least do some to play a character in it.

[Sam.exe]

Its not my place to determine that or to believe you either way.

what matters is that if you want to do this, make an actual character, outline what you want to play, and post on some consistent basis so that this roleplay doesn't fall off first page again. this only stays going as long as we keep it going, so you better be able to respond. if you don't, I can't do anything for it, as this is a two way street right now. I've already done work to build a world, you should at least do some to play a character in it.

I fully intend to be as active as possible, I only went inactive in the first place due to circumstances out of my control. I'm sorry for any inconvenience that caused

I will be fairly active soon and i will reply as often as i am able