Allow me to set the scene.

[redford]

This will be a series of scenes that I'm kind of banking, kind of toying with putting in threads, but have no idea where they'd fit. The reason for posting them is that they stick in my mind to be exemplary displays of the character of the player.

I also encourage you all to post things like that here. Though, I'd like some brevity in posts since they're more 'snapshots' than anything.

let's go!

[redford]

John bit the cigar between his teeth a little harder as the elf condescended to him, waving his smoke away in a hazy darkened tavern. The remainder of the bar's patrons had turned to the elf, who had raised his voice.

"No, Mr. Cromwell, I will not tell you where Jamie is until you decide to cooperate with us," he said, laying his hand on the back of his chair as he stood, wrapping his hand around the wooden bar.

John's armor snaked up his body lightning-quick and he stood as well, wrapping his hand around the elf's, squeezing a little. The elf looked at him defiantly and opened his mouth to speak. Before he could get a word out, the giant's other hand gripped his neck. The elf's eyes flashed from defiance, to fear, and back again as he tried to strike at John through his liquid metal armor. John felt nothing but a slow-burning anger at the elf and his compatriots. the giant opened his mouth, speaking slowly, softly to the elf.

"There are 28 bones in an elf's hand, you know," The elf had time to register confusion before John squeezed more with his hand over the elf's until he heard a crack.

The elf opened up his mouth for the second time this encounter, this time to yell in pain. John cut it short with a squeeze at his throat.

"29."

[redford]

(This one isn't mine properly, but it's still neat)

John was sleeping in the bottom bunk of the tower barracks, but the speaking roused him. He did not open his eyes, nor did he stir. Two voices, likely guards, were playing at dice, speaking in hushed tones. They three were the only ones in the room.

“-you pledge yourself to a god and he grants power?” The first voice said

“Not exactly, it’s like gaining power from death, and they’re not exactly gods, but they are powerful. I hear the monks of Ai’Bron call ‘em ‘the ones that play games’.”

A pause, and dice clattered across the stone floor.

“So, what, you go out on a raid, kill some rabid wolves, and get stronger?”

“Stronger, faster, tougher, everything. And it happens, FAST, man. You could stay a guard, keep training every day for a couple decades and maybe get that cleaving swing kick thing Captain Taren knows. Or you could give yourself to one of the Players, go out on a raid one night and come back covered in blood and able to beat Captain Taren to death with one hand.”

“What?”

“Hey, that’s just what I hear from people, I haven’t ever seen anybody like that.”

Another pause and dice clicking on stone.

“....So why don’t you take the offer? It sounds tough, but there’s so many monsters and cruelty out there that you could really make a difference.”

“....my sister.”

“What do you mean, ‘my sister’, I mean you could protect her even better, right?”

“Of course, but the Chosen, the Played, every single one I hear of, their past is in ruins. Hometowns burned by monsters, family tortured and killed, entire landscapes razed to the ground.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

“... So you could have been a hero…. Ancient magic, fights with demon kings, saving the world, slaying forgotten ones, but you decided to stay here?”

“Aye,”

“Straw mattress, armor with one strap that keeps breaking, and morning training?”

“Yes. And yeah, maybe the town gets wrecked and my sister gets taken and I don’t have the strength to save her; but nobody knows what happens to people who say no.”

“Oh,”

“Yeah,”

“So…. what are you going to do about it?”

“Morning training. Every day until I learn that cleave.”

“....Need a sparring partner?”

“Aye.”

A longer moment of silence, and their voices returned, even more hushed, barely audible.

“Do you think….”

“Nah, he’s just half-giant.”

“I mean, he hasn’t told us anything about his past.”

“I know, but he got here two days ago for thaynes sakes. Give him time.”

[Gum]

i really like them both. the second one is cool in the way it hints at the fourth wall. i love anything unusual like that, different is always good for me. if you do turn either into a fully fledged thread hit me up, i would love to include gum if you have space for me that is. no pressure ^_~

i don't really have anything similar, but i suppose i could add a cut and paste from a post that i feel really is like a core part of what gum is.


A fallen trunk blocked his way. He surged forward anyway. Gum flung himself at the obstacle. A clear stride and he was immediately springboarding skyward off the trunk. Tearing through the air, Gum's body transformed from man to beast in a fraction of a second. Inside, bones twisted and cracked, taking on a new form. Skin split open to accommodate the growth of a plush coat of fur. Hands and feet lost their length to gain girth and claws. Gum's face at the point of mutation was incredible. Dull brown eyes glowed into vibrant yellow. Side-mounted ears, fleshy and oval, pushed forward and morphed into triangles on the top of his head. Flat and frowning, his mouth bulged into a stout muzzle. Human teeth, utterly impotent, dropped from his mouth. In their place grew a predator's arsenal of skull piercing canines and marrow munching grinders. When Gum hit the ground, he hit it with the vigour of the eternal jaguar. The creature he became was an alien invader to Althanas, but the forests of any time or place were his.

i honestly think of it as kinda poorly written and super cliche and lame... but the idea of a character that turns into a jaguar does it for me lol. idk why.

[redford]

Clinking glasses accented hushed speech in a darkened bar in Knife's edge. John sat on two stools next to his comrade, Ser Casimir, slowly getting more drunk; and as his grip on reality loosened, so did his tongue.

"Ser John, I believe you are a good man, and a friend."

John upturned his bottle, draining what was left within. A pause, long and filled with indecision, filled the space between them like so much liquor. John's mind was awash with booze and shame and inward anger as he spoke, slowly and softly.

"People say being angry, being enraged, it's like....like being in a fog. You hear that, and you think it's true until you know that rage."

Another bottle appeared in his hand and he took a swig, the whiskey getting smoother with each gulp.

"It's not like that. If you would know me truly, listen," John muttered, more to himself than anything, the ever-present guilt of his actions forcing the verdict from his own lips again as if he were judge, jury, and executor of his own sentence.

"I killed 85 innocent people. There were women, a few children, even," John's right eye misted as he told himself and Casimir his tale. "There was one girl, she was barely fourteen. I still remember the blood spraying from her neck on her mother's corpse."

If Casimir reacted, he did not notice. John Cromwell was reliving the past, and he was trapped until it finished.

"Rage is no blind fury," he said with a kind of finality. "I knew exactly what I was doing, I remember every face and name. And sometimes....sometimes I think I'd do it all over again."

He staggered back, barely maintaining his balance. The half-giant upturned his bottle, nearly falling over as he drained it. He pointed at Ser Casimir.

"Now let's see if you call me friend," he finished, shattering the bottle against the floor as he walked out.

[redford]

"I have been thinking, Logan."

"Oh really? What of?"

John sighed, dragging from his cigar again. The words stung as he spoke them, but they needed to be said.

"I've been wondering. Flint Band killed my wife....my daughter, in some ways he even killed a part of me."

The half-giant paused, eyeing the scars on his hands.

"Would I do it all over again? Maybe, I don't know. Maybe I am just that kind of man."

A pause while John collected himself.

"But...what I left behind is different. How many sons grew up without fathers because of my anger? How many people's families have I deprived of sons and daughters, husbands and wives. Will the hatred stop with them? Or will a son grow to be ruled by it. How long before their rage spreads, as mine did?"

"Listen, John, I know how you feel, but you are not responsible for their actions."

John tapped his cigar, staring at it in his hand as he spoke. "Even if I cause them?"

[Gum]

i got one for you bro ;D



Gum pushed off the warped planks of the boardwalk railing and pulled a lifetime of salt-sloshed seaside into his tight old lungs. Contentedness came at the end of a long journey, six thousand miles were sun-baked into his tired soles. Dawn's relaxing breeze flushed his tannin-stained eyes; the colour and years of the rivers of his homeland were living inside him. Those waterways had brought him to the end of his journey. Each windswept line down his leather hide face was like a tributary of the great Xangu itself. He pressed his cracked old fingers against his cheek and felt his rough complexion. "I made it," the whisper was so quiet, it would have been dreadful to wake himself from the living dream. The crow feet corners of his eyes intensified while he winced to witness the sun's rebirth on the very limit of reality, the distant horizon. Sunrise cooled out, from a fiery core to a carefree coral and into the chilled cerulean of a whisper clouded sky.

Seagulls squawked overhead, Gum wrenched his stiff neck to look up at their airborne squabble. They had been spooked by something. Gum looked around, and there was the man. The approach of a living mountain made the avian rats fearful for their squalid existence. Though Gum too was at the giant's mercy, he smiled anyway and spoke, "John, I am so happy to see you here. The ocean is beautiful this morning, what do you say?" Gum could almost feel the giant's blood that flowed through Cromwell's veins. It made the old shaman feel big too, to call this beast of a man an ally was magnifying for the soul.



this thread is loads of fun

[Christoph]

This is but one potential future...

*

“Can you hear it?”

Black sky, fiery clouds. Clashing hordes shook the earth in a storm of blood and steel. Dragons roared above, swooping between bolts of green lightning. Eluriand, the shining city, burned. The apocalypse itself crept across the horizon and Elijah Belov, one of the world’s most powerful sorcerer, stepped forth to face it.

Atop a hill he climbed, unleashing his voice. The Faceless swarmed up the slope, their eyes and noses cut off and their mouths sewn shut, crude blades in place of hands and black metal fused to their skin. They burned alive in silence as Elijah's magic enveloped them. Strange, inside-out words spilled from his lips; orange flames erupted from his hands. Explosions blasted apart the Faceless ranks, killing the abominations by the score. Searing wind whipped his red cloak.

“Rally to me!” he cried. The defenders formed up behind him. Hundreds, elves and humans clad in green or blue and silver, formed a wall of spears and battered shields.

“Can you hear it?” asked the voice in his head.

A Coronian soldier with a plumed helm and a wild grin stepped to the front. “Good day for an apocalypse, Master Belov?”

“Not today, Captain.” The Faceless scrambled up the hill, crashing against the shield wall. “Hold!” He uttered another spell, unleashing a hundred invisible blades into the onrushing swarms. “We stop the tide of madness here! We--”

He gasped, his eyes drawn to a distant patch of scorched earth. It was her. The Prophet, the heart of this madness and destruction. An oily smudge upon reality itself. To look at her was to stare into the void.

“Can you hear the world falling to its knees?”

[redford]

Fire and brimstone rained from the sky, tinted orange by sulfur and ash. The very air smelled of doom, of hot sulfur and the iron of blood.

Again, John stabbed down at the dragon who had a moment earlier borne him into the skies above the largest battle Althanas had ever known. Even so far above, amidst the roar of the dying dragon and rushing wind, He still heard the roar of men and abominations, and the clash of iron. John raised his makeshift greatsword again, plunging it down into the dragon's back, screaming with frustration, both from trying to stab the blasted thing in the heart and holding on to the dragon with his other hand.

Come on, die already!

With this strike, he struck true, and the dragon loosed both roar and flame from its maw as they both began to plunge earthward. The half-giant quickly realized that he was going down as well. For a brief moment he panicked before remembering a ring he had nearly died acquiring many years ago.

Luckily he still remembered how to activate it.


(This is incomplete, will finish when I feel like it.)

[Revenant]

I could feel the savage, manic grin plastered across my face as I limped out of the portal. It was over, finally over. The God of Strength was dead and it had been my hand that delivered the killing blow.

"Your celebration seems to be a bit premature," a voice boomed out suddenly. It came from everywhere and nowhere all at once, a voice that struck me both physically and mentally. I could feel the words weighing on me like links of chain. Even the very mountains around Ghroth's Portal seemed to quake at the power inherent in that voice. But as savage as they were, the words faded quickly, leaving me standing there searching for the source. Then I noticed that even though the words had faded, the quaking of the mountains hadn't. And, as I watched, the manic grin slipped from my face, leaving nothing but astonished horror.

What I had taken to be mountains turned out to be some sort of massive, thick-skinned worm. No, massive wasn't the right word. Massive didn't even begin to describe the abomination which curled from its resting place and twisted overhead until the abominably huge head twisted in my direction.

"I should congratulate you for slaying my avatar," the cyclopean worm blasted the words at me again. I realized that my limbs has started shaking but, for the life of me, I couldn't seem to get them to stop.

"Seas have rose and fallen while I slept but your hubris has forced me to assume my true form in the waking world once more. In return for this favor, I believe I shall grant you a quick death."

William gripped the hilt of his ax so tightly that he could feel the iron-hard wood creaking under the strain. Fighting and killing was his art, the very essence of who he was. But this was something else. This was entirely too much. For the first time in a long time, William had no idea what to do.

And then the reawakened God of Strength lunged.

[redford]

It will have been previously set up before this scene that John's late wife died quite violently, and he blames himself for it. Jamie is, shall we say, a close friend to John.

Jamie giggled, her excellently genuine laugh putting John's mind at ease, at least for a little while. Her attention was focused on his oversized hands, devoid of the armored coating, at least for the moment. She held up one of his hands in both of hers and stared at one of several rings on his fingers. She touched a simple golden band, accented by runic markings.

"And this one?"

"This one," he said, smiling, "Is for emergencies. If Logan ever gets into trouble, he can summon me for help."

"Oh come on, I don't get one?" She pouted a little, but there was a playful glint in her eyes.

"Heh, you can summon me just by shouting across the house."

A moment of pleasant silence followed before Jamie touched his middle finger, and the brass band that circled it.

"Ah, now this one I know, what with the cigars and all," Her eyes drifted to another ring, a dull golden band, any possible engraving worn smooth by time.

"What's this one? You keep your hands covered all the time so I don't know."

Jamie read the subtle tells in John's face, a loss of focus in the normally sharp blue eyes, a relaxing of the muscles of his jaw, a slight droop in his shoulders. Jamie saw the tells one by one, and a look of concern overtook her mirth, she shifted her gaze from his rings to his eyes.

John spoke softly. His gaze drifted from the ring, to Jamie, and across the empty room, following a specter of his fractured memory as he twisted the ring absently on his finger.

"My wedding band."

(maybe finish this later too)

[FennWenn]

(Thought I'd post a little thing of my own.)

Fenn yawned and strolled casually through the small town he was passing through during his travels. It was a rather dull place, with saggy brown houses and cracked stones for a road beneath one’s feet. Peasants strolled past, gossiping amongst themselves. Nothing was worth seeing here, it seemed.

Yet, there seemed to be something worth hearing. There was a faint strain of sound in the air, a beautiful voice heard from afar. He slowed to a stop for a moment, listening. It seemed worth checking out. Adventure ho! Fenn soundlessly chuckled and took off down the streets, his bag flapping and rattling behind him.

He quickly found the source of the music. Sitting at by a flower shop was a rather busty bard who belted out a snappy, rustic tune. Her curly hair bounced with every strum of her lute. The song was one Fenn had heard sung in pubs from time to time. There were variations of it, but he knew the melody well enough. If only he could sing along!

“The land of my heart is a field of green,
Wild, untamed, and young it did seem,
Until a-walked a girl, whom I do surmise,
Bluer that my heart's skies were her eyes!
She danced across the land of my heart to and fro,
Sowing seed of love, hoping they would grow…”

Fenn found himself tapping his feet to the rhythm of the song. Da da, dadada, dada da da da… As the lyrics flowed past, Fenn swayed a little. He smiled. Not but a minute later, he was twirling as spinning about. The bard interrupted the song with a quick chuckle and sang the rest, watching him dance about in glee.

“A loving forest slowly flourished inside of me,
One fertilized by the sweetest memories.
My girl was by my side and she showed me bliss.
She took me by the lips with a tender kiss!
Like those of legends and ancient lore,
May our forest of love grow evermore.”

When the song finished, Fenn stopped dancing with a silly pirouette. To his surprise, a few passerby clapped, and he gave them a cocky grin in return. The bard bowed at him and tipped her plumed hat. She waited expectantly. It took Fenn a few seconds to realize that she was asking for a tip for the song.
Reluctantly, Fenn reached into the pockets of his bag and pulled out a gold coin. He considered it sadly, tracing the round edges and raised print. It frosted over under his touch. Letting go of money for immaterial goods seemed like such a shame, but the song had been rather nice. And, there were a few people staring at them now. Best to tip the nice lady.

The bard gave him a wide grin as he dropped the coin into her hat. He smiled back. “Much obliged, little dude,” she drawled cordially, placing her hat back on her head. “Much obliged.”