Spiros and the Mananauts: Concept and OOC : The Elder Scrolls Series Discussion

» Fri Jun 21, 2013 10:34 pm

From one of the minds behind Of Princes Of Power and Valton: The New Hold:

The Shattered Empire Series: Adventures:
Spiros and the Mananauts

AVAST!

It is the year 4E 10, and fabled privateer and amateur poet Count Lysander Porphyry Spiros IV is about to set sail from the smouldering wreck of the Imperial City, and embark on a daring voyage down the Niben with his crew (old faces and new) of eccentric and/or brilliant sailors and voidstriders. His destination? The Summerset Isle! As the Empire of Man has collapsed around itself, there has been no word from the land of the Altmer since the outbreak of bloody civil war, but Captain Spiros has received a unique plea for help from a very (very) noble woman in dire need of rescue.

For this, perhaps Captain Spiros' most daring mission yet, he has assembled a crack crew of specialists, some familiar crewmen from some of his previous (and infamous) exploits, along with some new recruits. Their vessel will be Spiros' beloved ship, The Saint Alessia, recently reacquired from the Waterfront District's impound. The unique St Alessia is not your average corvette; rumours say the ship is both enchanted and cursed, and has the ability to pierce through the outer membrane of reality and sail "short-cuts" across the dreaded Waters of Oblivion itself. But those are just stories, of course.

This is an adventure RP on the high seas. The setting is the St Alessia, a very special sailing ship on a rescue mission that will take it across the many seas of Tamriel. I'll be GMing this one, and playing the ship's Captain and owner, Count Lysander Porphyry Spiros IV.

All players will be crewmembers on Captain Spiros' ship. Some will already know the Count, and his (not inconsiderable) reputation as a privateer, others will have recently passed an interview. All will either have some particular experience either in sailing or the thaumaturical arts (or have some excuse why on earth Lysander hired them in the first place). A thrist for adventure (or gold) is required.

Before I take other applications, I'd like to fill up as many of the main officer positions as possible. If you wish to be a character that has sailed with Spiros before (an option I highly recommend!), it would be best to make some contact with me, preferably over Skype or Steam, so we can work out what their past relationship was like, etc. Taking the role of a major officer requires a certain degree of commitment, if you cannot keep to this and need to leave, understand your character will very likely be killed off and replaced. Expect _a lot_ to go wrong as this story develops

Right now, people can claim jobs on the ship if they like, or fill out the CS provided. Everyone will need a filled out CS approved before they can join. - A note, the positions are not so much "first come first served" as "Most interesting, first served"; I retain the right to reject any CS for any reason. There are certain generic rules I will write up soon, but the RP will not be starting immediately, allowing for a small period for everyone to go off and scheme up their own characters/get excited (hopefully!) about the concept on this thread. :smile:

Anyway, here is a list of positions on Spiros' ship. I would like the major roles to be filled up first, but if you are less confident/experienced, feel free to play a regular sailor, be he or she a rigger, swabber, or whatever. There will also be generic NPCs filling these roles and any others I can't get filled. The two battlemages take the place of gunners in a Earth sailing ship of the age. Depending on how many people we get, the jobs of the Carpenter and Healer (aka surgeon) may be the same perosn, but as we live in a world of restoration magic, that is not necessarily the case!

SHIPS CAPTAIN: Count Lysander Porphyry Spiros IV played by Vincent McCool

Spoiler

Name: Count Lysander Porphyry Spiros IV

Race: Nibenese

six: Male

Age: 36

Position: Ship's Captain

Appearance: 6'1, a mane of charcoal hair, aristocratic Nibenese features with an artful dressing of stubble, a quizzical, slightly dazzled look permanently engraved on his face. A slim build with long, lanky limbs, tanned, adventure-weathered skin and more scars than he'd like to admit.

Skills: A natural leader of men, and a middling wordsmith. From a lifetime on the seas, he has knows first hand how to perform most of the functions on a sailing ship to a basic standard, and is an accomplished fencer. His skills with the fairer six are less impressive.

Possessions: The ship The Saint Alessia, an assortment of ancestor-moth-eaten but once rather dashing uniforms befitting of a captain (all frilly shirts and velvet coats), a set of duelling sabres (akavri), a snuff box (no snuff), a skooma pipe (no skooma) and a [REDACTED].

Personality: Spiros (as he is known to most all his acquaintances) is a free spirit, a misty-eyed romantic with insatiable wanderlust and an unquenchable thirst for adventure. At least he was, ten or fifteen years ago. As brightly optimistic and naturally charismatic as Spiros remains, he has seen far too many things for a man so young, and has returned back to the Imperial City one too many times, only to find as dangerous and inadvisable as the high-seas are for him, the city is even worse. As much as many paint him as a flamboyant wastrel with an addiction first and foremost to unstable women, all Spiros truly desires is to settle down somewhere nice and start a family. Unfortunately, an itch for skooma and numerous debtors on his back have just never allowed Spiros this luxury.

Strengths: Somehow, despite all he has done, Spiros is still alive, and has yet to fail any contractor in his role as a privateer. Whatever his faults, Spiros is a man who is able to inspire a crew, and finish a job.

Major flaw(s): Where to begin? Lying, lechery, infidelity, thievery, skooma addiction, and a refusal to ever let back down from danger, are just some of this man's innumerable flaws. It is somewhat amazing this man has lived to thirty six at all, due to his incredible penchant for misadventure.

History: Spiros was born to a family of minor nobles, raised in his father's luxurious manor in the Elven Gardens district of the Imperial city. The titular "County" which the patriarch of the Spiros family has held since the first era does not in fact still exist; it was dragged into the daedric realm of Coldhabour during the 2nd Era, though as a show of amnesty, the Spiros family has been allowed to keep a hold of the title.

An only child, Spiros showed a huge interest in any activity that took him -outside- of the musky, damp mansion house, and quickly developed a desire for adventure on the high seas. He ran away from home at the age of thirteen to become a cabin boy on a merchant vessel, and has never looked back since.

Spiros' many (many) exploits as a privateer are too numerous to mention here. At the age of twenty one he inherited his father's wealth and spent the sum of it on a small ship he called Dibella's Teat, which he named himself captain. The ship was scuttled on the coast of Ionith five years later. However, Spiros' work with the Temple Zero and the Arcane University had earned him a considerable reputation, and he was granted an experimental Hackle-lo Clipper produced by the East Empire Company to serve as Captain on, under contract with the Guild of Mages. When this organisation was dissolved, Spiros took ownership of his remarkable ship, and has continued to run dangerous and extraordinary contracts on it ever since. Spiros' particular speciality has been jobs that involve the supernatural, many legendary tails of his exploits have dubbed Spiros and his crew as "mananauts".

Recent Occupation: Out of luck and out of money, the St Alessia impounded by the Imperial Waterfront Authority and half of his last crew dead Spiros has been languishing in his damp mansion house in the Elven Garden District, publishing a series of Odes to Dibella in local literary magazines to mixed reviews. The longer he stays in the wet, noisy and overcrowded Imperial City, the worse the skooma tightens its grip on Spiros, and the more empty and desolate his days become. One day, this all changes...

FIRST MATE: OPEN

QUARTERMASTER: OPEN

NAVIGATOR: "Navigator" Anelia - Played by Person from Anticlere

Spoiler

Name: Navigator Anelia

Race: Nibenese

six: Female

Age: The Navigator (capitalization obligatory) is in her early thirties - at least, as far as appearances would allow the beholder to conjecture. Such a trivial and mundane pursuit as keeping track of her own age has, naturally, slipped her mind long ago.

Position: Navigator. Obviously; are you thick or something?

Appearance: ‘Scrawny’ is the best way to sum Anelia up, thin and short (barely even reaching up to five foot six) as she is. Some might say she even looks undernourished; the Navigator herself will have no such dreadfully mundane explanations in her life, insisting instead that it has to do with the need for a smaller physical anchor to facilitate easier travel between the planes. Whatever the case, she is hardly the model of athleticism; however she is surprisingly durable for all that, being able to pull her weight in protracted journeys on foot in less than favourable conditions, heat in particular appearing to do little to bother her. That, of course, might be due to being accustomed to such climates, what with growing up in the Nibenay and having that slightly darker, tanned skin of a Nibenese to show for it – along with that far more obvious indication of her ethnicity, the fact that her entire upper body is covered in tattoos clearly Heartlander in design.

Bright green in colour, the wavy shapes curl around her arms and up her neck, stopping short of covering her face; in places, they are abruptly interrupted by a second layer of tattoos – these being far less gracefully-shaped and considerably more ominous black Daedric letters, scattered seemingly randomly all over her body and including a small ‘N’ on her brow. It can be noted, by looking at her thin, straight eyebrows, that it isn’t straight in the centre, being slightly to the right of the middle, instead. Dark blue eyes sit beneath said eyebrows (which themselves are brash red in colour, just as her hair that is most often tied into a short tail), their colour slightly diluted, as most people find themselves describing it as to their surprise – from underuse, of all things. That does not make them any less capable of taking on an angry glint when they are in use, which, combined with her snub nose, pronounced cheekbones and thin lips - which are usually either smirking smugly, or pressed tightly together in obvious irritation, - sufficiently convey her short fuse.

Skills: Being as she is a mystic beyond compare, and a void-traveler to boot, Anelia has many, many skills. All of them arcane, of course; after all, she has no need of entirely useless baggage to clutter up her precious mind.

Possessions: When the Navigator deigns to leave her cabin, she is most often seen wearing a light blue robe, simple and plain enough - save, perhaps, for a spot of silver trimming along the collar. Chances are quite good that when Anelia does emerge, she will be wearing a simple white bandana over her eyes; invariably, no matter what the situation might be, she is also always with her seven amulets of varying shapes and sizes – two silver lockets (one slightly larger than the other and both hanging from slim chains of the same material), one large, bulky golden medallion on a plain iron chain, three gemstones – two slim green ones and one rounder, bright crimson one – hanging from simple pieces of (deceptively strong) cord, and, finally, a simple iron Daedric ‘O’ on a chain of silver. Rather more disturbingly, from each of her wrists hangs a black soul gem, tied to a silver chain. She cannot be bothered to hide the fact they are both filled, as their faint cold glow makes amply clear.

Apart from what which she wears on her person at all times, the mystic does not appear to have many other possessions - that others could safely lay eyes upon, at least. The experienced (surviving) crewmembers of the Alessia know better than to stick their nose in her personal quarters; no matter the amount of strange and unusual noises that escape through the thick doors.

Personality: None whatsoever; why would one even want such a horrid thing? Honestly, the things you mundanes come up with.

Strengths: An utter and utterly callous disregard for the well-being and continued survival of each and every mortal within the vicinity.

Major flaw(s): An utter and utterly callous disregard for the well-being and continued survival of each and every mortal within the vicinity.

History: The Navigator does not share much about her former life; the best that even the oldest members of the Alessia's crew could come up with are the obvious fact that she is Nibenay born and Nibenay bred, and the loose tidbit that she has (or had, anyway...) a sister. Other than that, the woman who has been charting the course that the ship takes for near a decade at this point is an utter enigma to all but, perhaps, the captain himself; and if Count Lysander Porphyry Spiros IV has any idea with regards to who Anelia was before that fateful day when she stepped aboard his wildly unusual ship and expressed an interest in attaching herself to its crew - or, rather, demanded this, - then he is not sharing.

Recent Occupation: Wait, has the Imperial City been occupied again? ...oh, you mean "job", don't you. Hah!

BOSUN: OPEN

CARPENTER: OPEN

COOK: [reserved - The Ascended Sleeper]

HEALER: OPEN

PORT BATTLEMAGE: OPEN

STARBOARD BATTLEMAGE: OPEN

CABIN BOY/GIRL: OPEN

ABLE BODIED SAILORS: SEVERAL SPACES OPEN

And finally, a generic CS form for all of you land lubbers. A note for now, please dismiss any concept of in-game skills attributes whilst filling this form out. This is an RP set in the TES Universe (specifically, the one as imagined in The first Pocket Guide to the Empire), not within a particular TES game. Mechanics are of no relevance here.

Spoiler

Name:

Race:

six:

Age:

Position:

Appearance:

Skills:

Possessions:

Personality:

Strengths:

Major flaw(s):

History:

Recent Occupation:

Our brave Captain's CS is soon to follow!

» Fri Jun 21, 2013 2:24 pm

This looks awesome! Can you mark me down for First Mate?

» Fri Jun 21, 2013 9:40 am

I am excited too. :smile: . Unfortunately, as First Mate is the single most important role on the ship bar Captain, I can't reserve that spot unless I have a really awesome character concept to fill it. I mentioned in the OP, but the major roles will take a certain amount of dedication, and most of all, interesting/well developed characters that everyone will have fun RPing with. I'm not reserving any position unless there is something awesome to fill it. PFA and Sleeper got in early while I was planning this thing and pitched two characters that are so cool I couldn't possibly say no, which is why they have two spots reserved :tongue: .

» Fri Jun 21, 2013 5:27 pm

Yes! A roleplay on the sea! My two favourite things combined into one! How could I say no? Anyway I would like to take the position of Healer, who has met the Captain before the roleplay begins. As you said above you want to discuss this, so just tell me when and I will try and get talking to you about it.

» Fri Jun 21, 2013 5:06 pm

This makes sense, I shall begin writing my sheet.

Would you mind if I PMed you?

» Fri Jun 21, 2013 11:15 am

PMs are totally the way to go. If you want to set up a character with some history with Spiros, then if you could PM me your Skype or Steam details, we can iron that stuff out as the RP unfolds. It just makes things so much easier when you can actually chat, and not just be stuck with PMs.

Just to confirm, this is not first come first served. This is an interest/concept thread where I will take applications and only confirm spots when someone cool appears. This is an RP I really want to succeed, so we are going to take the set up process slightly slower, in order to give everyone time to stew over their new characters and get everything properly set up so it'll last. :smile:

Just doing finishing touches on the Captain's CS now.

» Fri Jun 21, 2013 11:17 am

Quick Question:

Is the noble woman being held prisoner in Alinor? And if not, men are not allowed on the isles so we'd be making a daring invasion in Aldmeri Dominion territory. A suicide mission it sounds like but I've been through worse :nod:

» Fri Jun 21, 2013 2:04 pm

Oh, you don't know the half of it.

One note, this RP is (vaguely) set in the Shattered Empire Series, an alternate timeline in which the civil war following the events of TES IV: Oblivions leads to the ceding of every single province of the Empire. However, it is tentatively just set in 4E 10, so all that is happened so far is a HUGE civil war in the Summurset Isles that is still raging, and an even larger one in Cyrodiil that shows NO signs of ending. Also Morrowind is independent, but who cares? There is no Empire to unite the provinces anyway, so they are all independent by extension of that fact

» Fri Jun 21, 2013 11:40 am

This sounds interesting. I'm trying to think of an interesting character right now. I want to be original, so I think I'll avoid the suggested jobs.

My problem right now is that I don't know much about ships. Maybe I could incorporate that into my character.

I'll have a CS up soon.

» Fri Jun 21, 2013 9:54 am

Ohhh my god I read 4E 10 but it didn't even click that this was pre-Thalmor, pre-Third Dominion. Yeah that's my fault. I personally like these small-scaled, plot-driven RPs the best so I'd be happy to join up.

~~Mind if I take a Battle-Mage? I've recently discovered a love for Dunmer and their whole culture and I've been wanting to animate that for a while (if you don't mind, of course).~~

Scratch that, I don't know who I want yet

» Fri Jun 21, 2013 11:58 pm

Look for me in your PM inbox.

» Fri Jun 21, 2013 1:48 pm

Said Thalmor uprising is currently taking place, but they are fighting a group of revolutionaries/terrorists/performance artists/mages called The Beautiful. As of the RP, the war has not yet finished.

All of the events in Of Princes Of Power take place after this RP, by eighteen years. Don't let it confuse you.

Also, to both of you, don't feel any need to rush! The reason this is not first-come-first-served is so everyone has the time to think of something that really interests them, and the best positions aren't given out to whoever happened to be online at the right time.

» Fri Jun 21, 2013 2:32 pm

I feel sorry for Vincent right now. He is getting so many messages. Anyway just so you guys know, Vincent and I worked something out roughly and I'm starting work on my CS.

» Sat Jun 22, 2013 12:19 am

Here is my quick question, what exactly is a Bosun? I've searched on wikipedia and a quick google search but haven't been able to find a clear answer.

» Fri Jun 21, 2013 9:05 am

Hmm.. Not sure if i want to make a skilled Redguard sailor, or be an Orc carpenter..

» Fri Jun 21, 2013 3:11 pm

A bosun (or boatswain) looks after the ship. Quartermaster looks after the crew, the First Mate is basically the Captain's second in command and is just a mini-captain. If you don't watn to join as a major character you can also be a "Mate", and work as an apprentice or second for any of the main roles, or just be a regular able bodied sailor, maybe a rigger, or even a lowly swabber. .

Depending on how experienced/confident you are with your writing abilities, you should perhaps gauge what role you want to go for. There are many more roles than the ones in the list, feel free to do your own research, google is your friend.

» Fri Jun 21, 2013 11:28 am

And now, the spectacular bag of clichés, our brave captain's CS, for your enjoyment: