This thread is for various IC stuffs, including discussion of said IC stuffs, the OOC thread is elsewhere. I just want to get this down for some closure.
History: While most of it is factual, some of the details may seem revisionist, which is why I'm sticking to the general gist of what happened. It's very brief and probably misses a lot of detail, but it's concise and to the point.
Silence Sei and I thought up our two characters together. He pulled a few names out of Saga Frontier, a favorite game of his, and combined them in various forms, like the character Kylin with the character Rouge. They were just names though, nothing from those two characters were copied. Kylin's appearance was based off my avatar I was going to use (some Seed avatar from Suikoden II. Thoracis also had a Seed avatar but they looked completely different.) His clothing was based off Raziel from Soul Reaver, or rather his shawl was, and then he jused had normal shirt and pants. Kylin actually had a bandana, hazel eyes, and brown hair before I found that avatar. This is really boring and trivial though, the point is that I thought it woudl be cool to make a character using Shadow Magic, something that is usually attributed to evil and shiftiness, but make the character a True Good character. I think he may have been one of the only pacifists of Althanas that was forced to fight all the time.
Kylin's signature weapons were his wraith-blade, materialized from shadow magics and stronger than most swords, and his beam of pure, searing shadow from the tip of his finger called Shadow Gun.
--Beginning--
Kylin Rouge grew up in Minas Drantrak, a small town at the base of a mountain hidden from the world by Shadow Magic. He grew up with Silence Sei Orlouge, who was his childhood friend, but at a very young age the Orlouges were driven out of Minas Drantrak, where they sought refuge in the town of Light Magic, Chateau Drantrak. Presumably, they were accepted there due to their mutual hate of the Shadow Caste. The Orlouges refusal to partake in the Trial of Shadow probably caused their exulsion.
Minas Drantrak and Chateau Drantrak used to be friendly to each other, but a war erupted over a misunderstanding that ended in a stalemate. There used to be a third city, which housed Sei's Tomb, for whom 'Silence' Sei Orlouge was named after, but it was destroyed in the war, unearthing the tomb. The Trial of Shadow and The Trial of Light are tests in which the lineage of the town defenders are expected to pass. They are trained their entire lives and at age 18 are expected to enter the trial and overcome it, like some sort of mandatory military draft. The difference between these magics and normal magic is that the very essence of the magic combines with the user. He BECOMES Shadow or Light Magic, and it changes their lives. They can materialize it to become weapons, armor, projectiles. The odd thing is, Shadow and Light are toxic to each other. This probably didn't help inter-city relations back when they were friendly.
Anyway, Kylin was finally 18 and ready to take the test. His elder brother Terry (age 26) had taken it and now it was his turn. Terry was very famous in the town for completing the trial in a record time, so people thought Kylin would get through it no problem. The trouble was: Once Terry had completed it, Kylin's father was very lenient with his training. He was not as prepared as he should've been, and he really didn't want to do it in the first place. It usually takes a few hours to do the test, but Kylin took an entire day, and barely came out of it alive. His father's pride was tarnished, and denying the guilt he suffered for not training Kylin properly, he thought the trial itself was broken. It was forbidden to enter the trial a second time, but one night, he went in anyway. Later that night, Kylin awoke to his father coming into the house, his body mutated into something alien, and materializing weapons at his mother. Terry was living with his wife, so Kylin was forced to stab his father just in time to stop him from hurting his mother. Kylin's grasp on Shadow Magic was lacking, and he overdid it, tearing up his father's insides. Horrified at what he had done, Kylin ran away from home. His father returned to sanity in Kylin's mother's arms, and he had a look of relief on his face. He told her that it wasn't Kylin's fault right before he died. Nonetheless, that is what Kylin believed. He vowed never to return, for the cost of murder was execution.
The reason for this chaos wasn't explained for many OOC years. Hell, I didn't even have a reason for it for many years.
--Where Actual Posting Begins--
At this point, Kylin wandered through the rubble of the third city and saw smoke coming from Sei's Tomb, where the grown up Silence Sei himself lived. Something happened at this point, the two were supposed to explore Althanas together, but Silence Sei disappeared off the face of Althanas for over half a year, so I decided they never met in the first place. I forget if they ended up doing anything, probably not.
Kylin did various random things, trying to find his purpose in the world, but there were always problems. For one thing, he didn't want to hurt people, this excluded him from participating in 95% of the various events in Althanas, including battles. Although, his first Althanas battle he participated in was also (maybe) a first for another, Devon Starslayer. Wandering into a monastery in The Citadel in the pouring rain broke and hungry, Kylin and Devon were offered food and shelther for a battle. Kylin was against it, but Devon insisted it would be a spar and good practice, and his warmness was very hard to deny. Kylin was absolutely entranced by Devon, and he agreed to spar. Of course, the monks wanted weaponry, so Kylin materialized his wraith-blade and Devon used his signature sword. Devon was very good, and Kylin once again lost control of his power and sent a shadow bolt toward the spectators. Devon jumped in and took the blow, and a woman may have become enamoured to him for saving her. Devon knew it wasn't Kylin's fault and the two became really good friends.
I forget what happens next. Kylin may have been involved in some stuff, but I'm not sure. All the tournaments he joined except for LCC were a bad idea, since there's no reason for someone like Kylin to join events were people beat each other into unconsciousness/death. Kylin was very naive at first, he stuck to his morals and really was True Good alignment. He would time and time again put himself at risk for others, often people that were strangers to him. I really hope someone remembers anything that happens during this period.
--The Purifiers and Alerar--
Devon or someone else had invited Kylin to join one of the rising stars of Power Groups. He liked the idea of a group of people who could cleanse or "purify" the evils of this world. Kylin was naive and had not considered the implications of such an organisation, but he was willing to find and help people in need. He met a lot of people within these walls, such as leader Findelfin, friend Renneau Aequitas, and just about everyone else in the group was very open and friendly. He felt like he finally found a home. After undertaking various charities and finding himself some responsibility, he was given the opportunity for perhaps one of the greatest responsibilities of all: Alerar. Kylin knew the implications of this, that he had to hurt people in order to save others, but he was not as naive was he used to be, and the Purifiers had changed his outlook on life. He now though that Good had to be active, not just reactive.
Alerar was a very shifty region. It was hard to tell what went on in that region, but it was a scary place, as many political leaders who ventured in as diplomats or messengers never returned alive. People though it might be better to leave it alone, despite the suffering of the people there. The Purifiers were not going to stand for this suffering, and sent various agents into Alerar to hook up and help with the secret rebelling factions. Kylin was one of them, and made quite a grand entrance into the city of Ettermire. Once again my memory is fuzzy, but Kylin hooked up with the resistance (lead by NPCs by Redrick, who was the best DM ever) with other characters involved such as Edmund Lorisiac and (whoever Artificial Human 21 was supposed to be.) Edmund took a more comedic approach to gaining entrance into the city, and his humor would become a great foil to Kylin's seriousness. The Queen of Ettermire (Redrick) had hired (several player characters) to fight the rebellion as well. All in all, it was a pretty good story, the best Althanas had seen up to that point, as many many threads were spawned along the same storyline.
Around the time of the LCC, Redrick vanished. I forget what happened exactly, but all activity in Redrick's story had stopped. This is where a little revisionism comes into play to justify Kylin's participation in the LCC: The Queen had captured them and forced them into the tournament to get them away from Alerar. More on this in the next section.
--The Do-Gooders and The LCC--
Before all that, the team of Edmund Lorisiac and Kylin Rouge had been forced into the LCC as simply Do-Gooders. All competitors were forced to stay in Lornius for the duration of the tournament, so they couldn't get out. The Queen of Ettermire probably thought it was easier to do this than continue to sacrifice hundreds of men. She also managed to capture (Artificial Human 21), who was a very important entity of the rebellion (I'm making this up completely, but Redrick disappeared while they were escorting AH21 and it would make sense that her capture allowed Alerar to mobilize its army as the rebellion lost its most prized possession). Kylin wanted to just forfeit and try to convince the guards to let him go, but Edmund had thought it would be fun to participate. While Kylin protested, Edmund went into the first round alone and won. He convinced Kylin to help, and Kylin obliged, not wanting to leave his friend out there alone. The second round was basically walking around in the dark and accidentally knocking over a pillar that crushed the other team that was walking around in the dark.
The third round, or at least I think it was the third round, I'm not sure if there was a forfeit somewhere by the other team, but it was against Thoracis and his buddy (Redrick). Other forces at work forced Edmund and Redrick to abstain, even though they eventually escaped and tried to get to the arena in time. LCC decided it would be a one on one, Thoracis vs Kylin, in a field of snow with some scattered pine trees. It was in this battle that Kylin learned to truly fear for his life, knowing the absurdity of dying in such a tournament. He was always prepared to die for others, but for himself? By himself? The thought filled him with terror. Although, he later found his courage and fought Thoracis, and found that they were quite evenly matched. Thoracis and his ice magic were deflected by Kylin's shadow magic, and vice versa. Before the fight would end, the match was concluded as Redrick managed to get to the arena. The LCC staff decided to declare Do-Gooders the winners to prevent the chance for Redrick's team to win.
It is unknown why the LCC staff orchestrated such a matchup, but Thoracis and (whoever Redrick was) proved very valuable to certain entities. It was no mystery that The Purifiers were later destroyed by Thoracis, and Redrick's (character) was probably very important to Alerar. Maybe they were trying to motivate Thoracis toward his eventual deed.
The final matchup was against Mist and Sorjax in an old-fashioned stadium. It was the championship match, and Kylin was constantly wondering why he had prevailed this far. Perhaps he was much stronger than he originally thought, maybe he had the power to do more with himself than help a few people every now and then. Kylin was truly ready to fight this time, to end this stupid tournament and get back to Alerar. They were fearsome opponents who used deadly attacks, and Kylin was barely able to survive his onslaught. He managed to fend him off, but he was on the verge of death afterwards. Edmund had fought Sorjax and mostly just pissed him off with tricks. Sorjax had no sense of humor obviously, but no matter what he did, Edmund wouldn't fall. When Sorjax saw Mist defeated, it further pushed him over the edge, but he still couldn't knock down Edmund, who was now enraged over Kylin's condition. Nobody had ever seen Edmund so angry, or hell, angry at all before then. Kylin fired one last shadow beam at Sorjax before passing out, and Edmund used everything he had, but Sorjax just barely and finally defeated them. Sorjax would forever know not to underestimate these two men, one of which who managed to defeat Mist, and the other who wouldn't go down no matter what he did.
--Interlude--
THIS NEXT PART PROBABLY RELATES TO THE ALTHANAS TIMELINE: When Kylin returned to Alerar, he found the rebellion had failed and there was nothing more he or The Purifiers could do. Receiving Devon's message, he returned to The Purifiers HQ but found that it had been mostly vacated. They had probably set out to defend Raiaera, and a new request had come in just as Kylin had come back. One of the people still remaining was Renneau.
The message contained another war and a cry to help from a rebelling faction. Kylin didn't want to fail again like he did with Alerar, and with his new confidence from the LCC, he and Renneau went to investigate.
Note: This would be the last anyone would see either of these two characters ICly, as for all intents and purposes, they vanished off the face of Althanas.
--The Miasma--
Renneau and Kylin made their way to this location, which was at the center of a huge crater. Along the way, they saved a woman from bandits, who had a pendant with a strange purple shard in it. Kylin felt very uneasy whenever this pendant was around. They made their way to the wreck of a huge, gigantic castle that was mostly in ruins at the center of the crater. There they met strange people that lived in the underground caverns of the castle. They were guarding The Miasma, a large crystal that has been said to have brought destruction to the large city-state that existed before the crater. A warlord had learned of its destructive power, and wanted it for himself. Kylin thought for sure that this had something to do with the Alerar/Raiaeran conflict, and agreed to help. Renneau also agreed to help. Basically, there was a huge battle throughout the castle, and Renneau/Kylin dispatched hundreds of soldiers. They were finally pushed back into the final room, The Crystal Room, due to the sheer numbers of the enemy. Kylin was physically and emotionally spent, he hated killing so many people, it was driving him insane. The crystal fed off of Kylin's emotions and gave him a huge burst of power, with which Kylin unleased an attack that decimated most of the army. The crystal then began going crazy and sucked Kylin into a dimensional rift.
500 years into the past, a tall woman in her late 20s with long, dark hair was conducting experiments with the same crystal. Kylin was dumped through a temporal portal unconscious, and she took him in with her. Kylin had no idea what was going on, but the woman know that Kylin was a Shadow Warrior, the same as her. She was also a refugee from Minas Drantrak, but not for murder. Kylin found the city-state entirely intact and spend time recovering there, under the woman's loving care. It was the first time Kylin had feelings for anyone. He learned that he was in the past and that the crystal was going to be unveiled to the public as a new energy source after thorough investigation of its properties, but Kylin thought this would end in disaster. In fact, he knew exactly that it would.
(Everything after this is made up. Aequitas had a seperate thread for part 3 in which he and the villagers were captured and he tried to escape. Although as some of you know, Aequitas vanished off the face of the internet, so let's assume Renneau actually died in the attack and the rest of the villagers were slaughtered.)
One day far away from the city, he told her the truth.
Of course, she knew already, but didn't care. She was actually a mad scientist who had been outcast from Minas Drantrak for experimenting with forbidden techniques of Shadow Magic. She thought that she could control the crystal with her research, and use it to take over the city-state and then the rest of the continent with its power. She had betrayed Kylin and they fought in a field of white flowers under a clear blue sky. Her advanced use of shadow magic made it very hard for Kylin to even get close to her. She could remotely create spikes of darkness anywhere within 50 yards of herself and throw them at Kylin at insane speeds. He did everything he could, but he was subdued by her. She decided to spare him, although it is unknown why. Maybe she had feelings for him too.
When Kylin awoke, he saw the crater in the distance. It was too late, and she was gone. He went to the center of the crater and saw the familiar structure, the castle that had somehow weathered the blast. There was a crystal there, and try as he might, it only absorbed his shadowy blasts. Getting close to it, a temporal portal opened, there to take him back to the present he presumed. He wondered why he came here in the first place, as he was once again unable to prevent the tragedy that transpired. In essence, he had a crisis of faith.
He walked away from the crystal and chose to train for 10 years to perfect his magic and most importantly, to research this Miasma that reacted so strongly to his Shadow Magic.
--The Present--
Kylin returned to the present, older and with long hair down past his shoulders. He had completed mastered Shadow Magic and found out the nature of Miasma. His power was equivalent of a Level 30 character. His feelings seemed to be gone, nothing but a crude husk of power shadowy power remained. The old Kylin was gone. He killed the warlord and the entire army without remorse and retrieved the piece of Miasma, which no longer affected him.
Travelling the world, he retrieved all the pieces with his new sense of detecting them, and made his way to the final place of the final shard: his hometown. There he met everyone again, who were shocked to see him so much older. Regardless, they were ready to forgive him but Kylin didn't care. He made his way to the Trial and the townspeople were quick to defend their laws. They said that Kylin would be put to death if he wanted to go in there again. Kylin took one step inside and all of the Shadow Warriors in the village, including the regretful Terry Rouge, engaged him. Kylin managed to kill all of them, once again remorseless, and went inside. He got to the end and his suspicions were confirmed: It was a shard of the Miasma. It released the dormant powers of the bloodlines of the townspeople. He knew that Chateau Drantrak didn't have a shard, because the Trial of Light was a different method of attaining Light magic that using a shard of the Miasma. Kylin left the trial, and using his power, destroyed all traces of his clan, including his mother and all his childhood friends, and the buried the entrance to the trial under a mountain of rubble.
Essentially, Kylin had taken the "Greater Good" notion a little too far. He had gone from an active do-gooder to a preemptive one, doing whatever was necessary to secure the future. The reason for all this madness would come next.
--The End--
(I'm borrowing a bit here, any if anyone has a problem with it they can express their concerns. I don't think this is too out of line.)
Long ago, perhaps during the time of The War of the Tap, there existed many powerful entities, and something known as The Eternal Tap. The Shadow and Light clans existed and were much more numerous in this time period, but it was also in this time period that most of them were destroyed and the surviving few were forced into hiding and concealed their existence from the world. With widespread research into various magics, Light and Shadow were among them. One man found a way to absorb the essense of both Light and Shadow, which were naturally toxic to each other, and in doing so went mad with power. He was responsible for much of the destruction during this time period, and the Shadow and Light clans brought it upon themselves to end this nightmare. They found him in a secret laboratory, working on a way to make himself a True God. He had nearly completed The Miasma, a crystal that fed off of Shadow and Light magics. The Warriors, under tutelage from very famous forces during that time period, possibly even The Forgotten Ones, destroyed The Miasma before it was completed, and the resultant energy caused tremendous damage. It killed everything in a huge area, including most of the Light and Shadow clan territories, leaving few left, but the man himself remained alive due to his own immense power. The temporal nature of the crystal flung him through time, and he hasn't been seen since.
Kylin researched the Miasma and found all this out, and he knew when he was going to appear. In fact, the way the Miasma shards have been reacting, including the transformation of his own father, meant that the man who started this all was about to return. Kylin had in the past decided to take initiative and defeat the man by summoning him out early (maybe only a few months before when he was actually going to return), and completing The Miasma and using it against him. In fact, he know completing the Miasma would instantly summon him early and directly to him. He went to an ancient altar and put all the pieces into it, and completed the process by which he restored the crystal, which despite the size of the shards (a lot of them were really big), the end product was a tiny sphere no larger than a marble. The man appeared (i'm never any good with names) and laughed about how easy this was about to be. He thought Kylin was just going to hand the crystal over to him. Instead, Kylin absorbed the crystal into himself.
The man thought this was also hilarious, as since the crystal had both properties of Light and Darkness, it was toxic to shadow-only users and light-only users. As such, the man was the only one who could use it anyway. Yet, in the past, Kylin had found a way to use it. The man was shocked upon this revelation, but Kylin was bluffing. He had only found out how to delay the toxic effects for a few minutes, but it was enough time for the final conflict. Kylin now had enough power to stop him, and stop him he did. An epic fight ensued with the entire world at stake. Taking him high into the atmosphere, time ran out and Kylin's body couldn't take the tremendous power anymore. For a few seconds all over the world, it turned to night in places where there was light, and there was light in places were there was night. Kylin knew that with him gone, there would be nobody left to inherit shadow powers, therefore nobody could become a Light/Shadow master as this man had become. He figured at least the Light users would be able to have positive connotations to his powers, providing Light to a world in darkness. In his last moments, he wished that none of this ever happened, that he existed in a world without The Miasma and did not have to become the cold, emotionless man that he was forced to become.
All that remained was a tiny light-blue shard that fell to the earth, a new crystal unlike The Miasma. The world would never know how close it came to the brink of destruction, nobody would be able to tell the tale of Kylin Rouge.
(note: I'm aware I don't explain how Kylin found out how to use the crystal and its history, but it's irrelevant information, details nobody cares about.
note2: also, there may have been events that happened ICly after LCC with Kylin and others but before The Miasma. I don't how how to explain this either. Kylin would've certainly been involved in the war if he wasn't drawn away by another force.)
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