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Nero

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  1. ((Short and thoughtless little thing to serve as a final sendoff to what could have been.)) -- A Proper Outfit "How exactly is someone supposed to put on that many belts?" The young Midlander girl peered at the clothing stand, brushing away a coal-black streak of hair that contrasted heavily with the blazing crimson it stemmed from. She scrutinized the absurd outfit with an gray-blue eye filled with equal parts confusion and curiosity. The outfit in question seemed more akin to some kind of garishly coloured body trap intended to capture the wearer and hold them in submission, yet somehow also managed to be immodest and reduce the amount of fabric covering the skin to a hypothetical amount. "Don't ask questions you don't want to know the answer to. By the way, the answer is 'carefully'," a ruefully sardonic comment grumbled from behind her. "And you're not going to put me in that." The girl merely rolled her eyes. "We already agreed to terms. You are the one who made that bet." "I know." "And you lost." "I know." "Six times!" The girl turned around and flailed her arms in the air as if to illustrate her frustration in some kind of avant-garde interpretive dance. "Well....I let you win." The man merely shrugged, trying to play it off with a smirk less authentic than a piece of gil made with chocolate and wood. "S'what we call being magnanimous, around these parts." The girl scoffed. "Firstly, you trying to burn this city down multiple times doesn't give you the authority to determine what is called what in 'these parts'. Secondly, the least you could do is be graceful and admit you lost fair and square. What's one of those stupid proverbs you keep spouting off? 'The badger knows the winner by the blood of the third north star's gasp' or some nonsense." The man responded by glancing at her sharply with a raised eyebrow. "Excuse me, young lady, my proverbs are not stupid. And if you want to call them stupid, they're not even mine. They're your...well, not your grandfather's exactly but your...step...grandfather...twice removed?" He stopped briefly in his tirade to contemplate the implications before shaking his head to clear the mental cobwebs. "Anyway, what was I saying? Right. The stupid ones aren't mine. But the not stupid ones are. Also, those couldn't possibly be my proverbs anyway because they're not depressingly self-introspective and needlessly cynical enough." Another pause. "Have I mentioned how good your hair looks today?" An exasperated groan wheezed from the girl's lips. "Mother is the only one with whom your obtuse compliments still work on, and speaking of which, how she gets flustered by them still is beyond me." She turned away to look at a different outfit, this one a remarkable silk sarouel and blouse set that shimmered in the light and embraced the featureless clothing stand that made the latter look remarkably handsome. The seams were trimmed with gold and silver embroidery, and if colours could become noise then the volume of the various gems embedded into the hem of the blouse would likely blast out any unfortunate glassware within a ten malm radius. Her eyes lit up and a hand trembled with the temptation to touch the immaculate material. "Something like this!" she gasped. "I'm not wearing that. It doesn't say 'I hate myself and everyone around me for being less sarcastic' enough to be something I would wear," the man reproached, gazing at the outfit balefully. The Midlander girl's eyes rolled such that they threatened to come right out of their sockets. "That's the point. You lost. Six times." "Five times. That one with the goobbue and that pot of glue doesn't count." "Seven times, now that I think about it carefully," the girl glared at the man. "You cheated as soon as you tried to tell the Yellowjackets that the kobolds figured out how to fly." The man threw up his hands. "Can you blame a man for trying to play the game creatively?" The girl pouted and jabbed a finger forcefully at the blouse. "You're wearing this." The man glanced at the door. "Ah, but I'm also paying for it. Therefore, it stands to reason that--" "You're wearing this! Seven times!" She nearly shouted with indignation, though the girl hushed quietly as soon as the Roegadyn in the tailcoat shot an irritated glance at her. The man sulked his way over to the clothing stand. His gaze traced the outfit from the top down and the expression on his face morphed into one of abject horror as soon as it counted the number of zeros on the wooden placard at the clothing stand's base. "Did you even look at how expensive this is? Your mother would kill me! Or stab me! Or raise a sharp eyebrow at me and express quiet disapproval while covering her mouth to hide how amused she is because somehow she thinks nobody can see when she does that but everyone can but is too polite to say anything!" The girl tilted her head, the black-streaked bangs of her hair falling around her slender face, before her mouth split into a crooked, mischievous smirk. "Redolent Rose owes me a favour. I think I can take care of it," she said demurely, batting her eyelashes at the man. He sighed and rubbed the back of his neck, peering at the young girl with a scrutinizing gaze from beneath faded orange bangs. "I might be arrested for public indecency," he protested. "Mother could get you out. Again. Probably." "She probably wouldn't want to." "But she probably will anyway." "Why don't you wear it? You'd look good in it." "It brings out your figure better," she said dryly. The man smacked his palm against his forehead. He glanced at her out of the corner of his eyes and attempted to smile weakly. "So....you say it was seven losses, was it?" "It'll become eight if you keep trying to weasel out of paying your due," she responded fiercely. He winced at the thought, and stared at the girl with a mix of curiosity and fear. "How did you ever become such a terror, anyway?" he asked to nobody in particular, though if pressed for an answer he might have said that he was asking the Twelve. The girl said nothing and merely smirked.
  2. I enjoy Dark Knight tanking greatly. It's hard to describe, but if I had to say it sort of feels like I'm "dueling" every encounter. There are just so many tools for a Dark Knight to use to adapt to a situation that it feels like a dance. Lots of auto-attacks? Dark Arts + Dark Passage > Dark Dance with Dark Arts if mana is available (wow that's a lot of dark). Blind the enemy, then throw on that sweet parry/dodge bonus. Magic damage? Dark Mind. Do I feel pretty confident that I'll hold hate? Turn off Grit, throw up Shadow Skin, and hit Blood Weapon for some extra deeps and MP regen. Of course, once the DRK's cooldowns are up then they're rather flimsy. They don't have the blocking or extra armor of the Paladin and don't have the bonus health and healing of Warrior. One thing that would help is making Reprisal refresh its cooldown on parry instead of activating on parry so we actually have control over our damage reduction debuff instead of being given to the dogs of RNG. Also, the animation for Carve and Spit is amazing.
  3. Because Qestir seems like it would be a pain to RP. You misspelled awesome. Who wouldn't want to be some kind of fantasy draconic Charlie Chaplin? Well, okay, a lot of people. But still. Charlie Chaplin.
  4. Locking this thread now, for it's clearly gone off the rails, crashed through several altruistic orphanages and impacted with a fireworks factory. Please, think of the fireworks. I mean children. If you are a player who is interested in seeking LGBT connections, please refer to the first few pages of this thread.
  5. I think it was my fault for not clarifying what I meant. I'm clear on the "whys". Loads of Xaela have lots of motivation to leave Othard. The question is "how". Othard is several thousand malms of ocean away from Aldenard. Barring things like the Garlean navy or sea monsters or what have you, that's not exactly a journey one can make easily, and the means to do so would, I imagine, be limited among the Xaela. Further more, desperation may be highly motivating but it doesn't conjure willing sea captains or oceanworthy vessels out of thin air. I suppose in the end it's a completely inconsequential and needless facet to mull over, but the inability to provide an adequate answer to such a simple question has bothered me quite a bit. Was it Lominsans? Do Lominsan ships have cause to travel thousands of malms to Othard waters, when they know that Othard is under Garlean control? Pirates, maybe? Garlean conscription?
  6. By boat, probably, I know. Still. So here's a question to which I've been combing my brain for an answer. There's no justification for it in-game, so how did the Xaela get to Eorzea? With the Raen, it's a fairly straightforward affair of having arrived with the Domans, or having arrived in Eorzea before the razing of Doma. But with the Xaela, it's a little more complicated. How exactly would a Xaela from a landlocked tribe (like, say, the Mierqid, who dwell in the desert) have been able to make the same trek? Othard is ostensibly conquered by the Garleans which gives many Xaela cause to seek refuge, but a tribe that's lived its entire life inland would have no reason to know how to sail. In addition, many Xaela tribes are competitive with one another, sometimes violently so. Meanwhile, there's no real concrete evidence besides perhaps the description of the Malaguld tribe--Xaela tribes accepting Raen is apparently considered quite an uncommon occurrence--but it seems that the Xaela and the Raen don't particularly get along and therefore it seems a tad bit unlikely that a Xaela would be allowed to tag along with one of the Doman's ships. Not impossible, but unlikely. Of course, the coastal tribes would have knowledge of seafaring. Whether or not they'd know how to construct and crew ships capable of crossing oceans is a question that's up in the air, but let's assume that they do. I mean, it's not as if that aforementioned Mierqid Xaela could just go up to the Haragin and barter their way for passage, right? Or could they? Would the Haragin even do that? That option doesn't seem too terribly plausible to me either, not unless the Haragin are opening a ferry service. The only other tribes that are mentioned to reside along the eastern coast are the Jhungid and the Kharlu who are in a state of constant war, and ownership of those coastal lands are in flux so they don't exactly seem inclined to provide ferry services either. This is a weird sort of hole that's in the Au Ra lore that's been bugging me since the Xaela were announced. It's like the writers of Square Enix wrote themselves into a corner in this regard and just hand waved it away. "Uh, they just did! It just kind of happened." Or the Xaela just jump off of Othard and land in Eorzea, I guess. So, Xaela roleplayers, what'd your Xaela do to get here?
  7. To address the original topic, it depends--as most things do--on the context. I personally have never mixed OOC perceptions with IC information, in both positive and negative lights. What I mean by that is that if I'm roleplaying some story with Johnson for a while and his character and my character have interacted fairly regularly, perhaps done some basic RP combat against NPCs and such, and Johnson's character is written as a powerful black mage who can use Enochian, but in-game he's only level 21. In that case, I go with the IC interpretation that his character is a powerful black mage regardless of his in-game level. On the other hand, let's say I'm out roleplaying in the open world and roleplayer Wilson comes up to me and starts talking about how powerful of a magic user he is ICly. Even if he's levelled every single Disciple of Magic to level 95, his OOC game levels will not make me automatically acknowledge him ICly as a powerful and skilled magic user. In both cases, OOC characteristics and achievements are completely irrelevant as to how I acknowledge Johnson's character and Wilson's character.
  8. You'll have to clarify. There's already a glamour system that allows people to overwrite the appearance of their armor, but I do believe that it's limited by class, job, and level (i.e. a level 25 pugilist can't glamour their armor to look like they're a level 50 Monk).
  9. By all means, I think it's a fine and plausible idea and you should go ahead with it. I haven't seen the idea yet so I fully encourage it; even so, if you wanted to be detailed with it, you'll have to make a lot of assumptions about Doma's system. We do know it's based on Japan, yes, but on which period of Japan? Anywhere from Heian period at the earliest and Edo period at the latest, which is a huge range with the potential to have notably different social structures. Is Doma a feudal society? Was there an emperor, shogun, or daimyo that ruled Doma to answer to? Was there more than one daimyo? Were wealthy merchant classes considered as nobility, or did only hereditary families hold court influence? Was there a court at all? Did the nobles own land? If so, where? In the Kamakura period of Japan, Kuge where divided into six groups. Does Doma follow the same system? Which group did the family fall under? Was there tension between the samurai class and the nobility? I'll fully admit that none of these details matter (Really, all you have to say is " is descended from Doman aristocracy" and any issues resolve themselves) in any significant capacity so you really can just ignore them, but detail is always nice to have.
  10. It'd be a bit of a stretch simply because we have zero idea of how Doman society actually works beyond very small tidbits. The names are based on 16th to 18th century Japan but there's no indication if their society is based on the same period. The closest equivalent to an aristocracy would be a kuge but again, there's no way of telling if the Domans actually have such a class within their society.
  11. If I had to guess, they probably function similarly to the tusk of a narwhal. A narwhal's tusk is a sensory organ packed with nerve endings that can detect subtle details about a narwhal's surroundings like temperature, pressure, salinity, and other aspects. An Au Ra's horns likely have similar capabilities albeit on a very, very reduced scale. The horns provide enhanced hearing and perhaps that is the only thing they do, but--and this is pure speculation, mind--if we follow the same principle as above, an Au Ra's horns may also let them subconsciously sense tiny details about their surrounding environment like fluctuations in the air caused by motion or changes in temperature from body heat. Again, this is all pure speculation as I doubt Square Enix will ever elaborate on the actual mechanism, but it's interesting to think about.
  12. Here's something you may find useful. Minor spoilers.
  13. Whoops, I just realised that the link I submitted was redundant. It's the exact same article as one already posted before, I just wasn't paying attention because the formatting of the website and the URL are different.
  14. I haven't had an issue with threat or mitigation as DRK at the moment. I don't feel squishier than a warrior. The only thing is that the non-specific mitigation abilities-Shadow Skin and Shadow Wall--seem to have a bit high of a cooldown, but otherwise I've had no issue with it. The issue I see with DRK at the moment is that when tanking a dungeon or some such, there's really no reliable ways to generate MP in a pinch if Blood Price is on cooldown. Syphon Strike is frustrating to try to weave into a rotation when you're also trying to keep enmity because DRK has no TP-using AoE threat abilities, and its basically only treading water to keep Darkside up. Blood Price is absurdly useful but won't be up for every mob group, and it also depends on you taking damage. So if you hit blood price and your WHM casts Holy and stuns the mobs? You aren't getting any MP until those stuns wear off. If the mobs attack really slowly? You're not getting much MP because it matters more of how fast they attack than how hard they hit. I've taken to using Blood Weapon into my rotation be activating Shadow Skin, deactivating Grit, then activating Blood Weapon to regenerate MP, but this is a pretty awkward sequence to go through because Shadow Skin and Blood Weapon aren't on the GCD while Grit is, for some arbitrary reason. Living Dead is pretty lackluster though. It has the effect of Holmgang but with the cooldown of Hallowed Ground without the benefits of either, and no mitigation. Tanking bosses though I've had no issues with so far.
  15. Well, here's the cool thing. Your character doesn't need to be a villain to do any of those things. He doesn't need to be a bloodthirsty pirate, or an Ascian, or a Dravanian in disguise, He certainly can be those things, but what affiliation he has or what profession he works as is pretty much totally arbitrary. I mean, did you see how you just described him to me in your last post? You described your character to me by telling me what kind of person he is. You told me that he liked to sort of push people around, he's completely independent with no respect for authority or order, but he can occasionally be persuaded with coin. Morality is a burden to him because morality doesn't make him any money. Go further with that! His profession or his affiliations, do that later because he doesn't really need those. Think about why he does things, and craft a history based around why he acts the way he does. Ask yourself "why". Why does he like money? It could just be simple greed and a desire for luxury after having lived in terrible conditions. Why is he independent with no consideration for authority? Once you have the basics of the "Why" down, then you can start filling in details like his ambitions, what he does, and who he associates with. And like I said, don't pour him into a "bad guy" mold, so to speak. Let him grow into it. Let him become a villain or an antagonist by interacting with other player characters in a way that's consistent with the personality you've established. Don't think "I need to do this for him to be the bad guy", just think "What would he do in this situation?" Hell, he may even be a protagonist or an ally, which is not the worst thing that could happen.
  16. I wouldn't worry about a "villain" direction unless you plan on running a sort of campaign where they're the big bad evil guy. What is your goal with roleplaying a villain? Are you actually looking to be a villain--someone who is morally deplorable who impedes in the progress of other player character--or to be an antagonist? Where do you want this character to go, and why is it important to you that he be part of a "villainous group" like zealots, Ascians, etc.?
  17. The summaries are too sparse for me to form a solid opinion on the characters, but the basic concept seems plausible for both of them. Ascian servant isn't too terribly implausible, but the Ascians generally only meddle in major affairs, so if he were a servant of an Ascian he'd need to be involved in something significant for it to be believable. From what I can tell, you have qualms about the pirate concept because the druid concept feels more "alive". In other words, you view your druid concept as more of a person--as someone you might encounter naturally-and you view your pirate concept as more of a character--someone who is artificial or feels deliberately written . Based off the summaries, you have Lukong's personality more sorted out with deeper detail, whereas the summary for the pirate gave me no idea as to what kind of person Katsumi was other than "ambitious". I think part of this is it seems like you wrote Lukong in terms of thinking what he is like as a person, but you wrote Katsumi as a concept--as an evil character or villain. The key to writing a compelling antagonistic character--or really, any compelling character--in RP is to let them become an antagonist on their own. What I mean by that is you should write their personality, history, and so on completely independent of any sense of morality. Essentially, stop thinking in terms of "good guy" and "bad guy", and start thinking "person". Don't write that Katsumi wants to be a pirate captain with "because he's a bad guy" in mind. Write that Katsumi wants to be a fleet admiral of pirates because that is what the character would want for reasons x, y, and z. Add more detail. Write justifications. Constantly ask yourself "why". Why does the character act this way? Why do they like certain things? Why do they dislike certain things? Why does he want this? Write them as people, not characters.
  18. There's no way that many people could have connected all at once. I call bullshit.
  19. Don't panic buddy, I got you! @Cessna I enjoy how clean and well-defined your lining is, it's just really pleasant to look at. Keep it up!
  20. [Mod Cannon Firing] To pre-emptively avoid cluttering the discussion forum, I'm converting this thread into a "Miscellaneous Heavensward Questions" thread. If you have a question of where to find something, how to complete a certain quest, or how to perform a certain task, ask and answer it here. Tag your spoilers or else your post will be destroyed from orbit. [Mod Cannon Disengage]
  21. This is way off. Yarijin would literally translate as "spear human", it's shoving the separate words "spear" and "human" together. It says to the reader that you're more a human spear than a spear using human. In this context Soujutsu is "art of the spear", soujutsuka is best translated as "spear man/woman". The final character 家 (ka) in this case is sort of like putting "ist" at the end of a word in english that might describe a person's skill set (like illusionist). Thus the "literal" translation of soujutsuka is "spearist". "Spearist" is really... wrong in English right? This is what you're doing in the other direction when you mash words together to create names like Yarijin, yes it has a meaning, but it's just off in ways that's going to make you stick out like a sore thumb among Raen NPCs. Lancer is "soukihei", "yarikihei" is again shoving two words together that individually have meaning but is really awkward when forced together this way. If you're fine with something that seems Japanese to a non-speaker, then it's fine to approach naming your Raen so haphazardly, but this topic is about assistance for following Au Ra Raen naming conventions, and that way is not the way to go about it. You're absolutely correct, but allow me to justify myself nonetheless. I never claimed that this extreme oversimplification followed proper naming convention, and my intention was only to create something Japanese-sounding for non-Japanese speakers with blunt force trauma levels of literal meaning, correctness or awkwardness be damned. Creating a name that adheres to Raen naming conventions requires an very in-depth and accurate comprehension of the Japanese language, which I thoroughly established that I don't have, and is knowledge I suspect that the majority of forumgoers lack as well. This slipshod attempt at oversimplifying the process down to a single constituent part--literal meaning--was because personally, I believe that the Raen naming conventions contain far too many nuances for English speakers to be able to accurately adhere to without simply reusing names from the past. Essentially, for English speakers there's no room for creativity or composition. Admittedly, my "method"--the word method being used generously in the same way that calling winning the jackpot lottery "a tad lucky" is generous--is hilariously incorrect, as using a period-accurate name generator or list and would be far more accurate, but as long as it sounds plausible to non-speakers and the meaning is relevant, I find it acceptable. In short, I don't particularly like it when people want to create meaning for their character but have to limit themselves to mashing name generators and hoping they get lucky. It's a silly and petty idea to propagate, I know, but still. Anyway, to avoid derailing this, here is a resource is a resource I found that gives extensive detail to the construction of Mongolian names, with examples.
  22. Regarding your first point: if you were to be strictly following naming convention, then technically Yasuhana and Kanehana are a little too modern to adhere to Raen naming convention. However, I really wouldn't worry about that though unless you're looking for extreme lore adherence that only Japanese players will really understand anyway, so if you want to use those then feel free to. The main part of Raen names is the meaning: every part of the name means something. Modern or not, as long as your name has a meaning then really any Japanese-sounding word will do. For "bird princess", Torihime is the more concise, "literal" translation of it. As for your second, you have a few options. The Japanese word for spear is "Yari", so you can build some literal names off of that. "Yarijin" means "Spear person", more specifically "Spearmanship person". "Yarikihei" is a lancer. "Soujutsu-ka" means "Person of the art of the spear", while Soujotsu is "Art of the spear". Look around or play with a dictionary for a bit and you'll probably find something you like.
  23. [pew pew mod lasers] Moving this thread to Making Connections for people who may be looking for plot ideas.
  24. WHY AM I IN MEATSPACE AGAIN, PUT ME BACK INTO THE MATRIX
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