Arena
"Death comes to those who accept it. Only those that deny it live."
-God Emperor Opulentus Praepotens
In a medieval fantasy world, a gigantic empire has risen to rule all. It's ruler, God Emperor Opulentus Praepotens, led the empire's great armies to victory against one nation after the other and defeated all. He ordered all royalties to be publicly executed and all nobles to be driven into slavery. Fear of the God Emperor's divine punishment replaced all other feelings in the common peasant's soul. However, two brothers, twins linked by blood and friendship, rebelled one day. Together they brought a gigantic civil war upon the supossedly almighty empire. Fear was replaced by anger. It was a long and bloody war, fought between loyalist and rebels. Then, as the rebel army stood before the capital's gates, Opulentus Praepotens himself joined the fray, wielding his two handed mace, the symbol of his power as he had so many times before.
His sheer presence on the battlefield reinforced the will of his loyal soldiers and weakened the resolve of the rebels. He raced his own men to the enemy and was the first to draw blood in the whole battle. Throughout the ensuing battle he fought as a one-man-army, a killing machine that knew no mercy. Seeing that their men were being beaten back whereever the towering figure of the God Emperor appeared, the twins decided that it was time to take down the cause of all this misery. When the battle was the most ferocious, the two brothers engaged the God Emperor in a lengthy duel, wielding their weapons with experience that had com with the battles they had already gone through. With steel resolve they twisted and turned out of the mace's path, dodging each deadly strike. Then they struck simultaneously, in perfect synchronisation.
Opulentus Praepotens' roar of pain was heard over the whole battlefield and all fighting ceased as loyalists and rebels alike heard what was supposedly the God Emperor's death. But they were wrong. As the twins savoured their false victory gauntleted hands flew out to either side of the giant warrior, getting a hold of the necks of his two enemies. Casually choking them into unconsciousness, the God Emperor proved once more that he was more than any other man. He was something greater, something beyond a human's limited understanding. The fighting ceased completely as the rebels lost all of their courage and surrendered. They were forced to build a gigantic structure of stone. Many died and only the most hardened survived to become part of the horrors that were about to consume them.
All people that lived in the capital or close to it, were called to the newly built Arena. There on the sand that covered the fighting ground, the rebels were forced to fight eachother to the death. The last duel was the most dramatic of them all: the twins were turned against eachother. It was a long and touching confrontation, touching even the coldest of heart but when one brother's sword cut head from shoulders all the God Emperor did was smile cruelly. A long silence followed as the audience gazed upon the man that now dropped on his knees beside the headless corpse to beg forgiveness of his brother. Then Opulentus Praepotentus grasped his mace and leapt down into the Arena itself, crushing the victor beneath his feet. The first gladiatorial contest had come to an end but many would follow...
After many years the Arena has become more than just a piece of ground covered with sand and surrounded by seats. The sand has given way to miniature battlefields, generated by ancient magic. Now the conditions under which the gladiators are forced to fight may range from a small island surrounded by lava to a lake filled with stepping stones. It is in this time that a new way of fighting is introduced by the God Emperor: team battles! You are in one of those teams, trying to ascend to the very top along with your fellow gladiators.
So much for the plot. In the OOC things like possible weapons etc will be announced if things progress that far. About the post length I expect two paragraphs with five sentences each minimum, hopefully more. If you know that you don't usually write that amount, don't put yourself through lots of trouble just to get the pos length, join RPs without minimum post limits and work on lengthening your posts there. It will get fairly explicit in things of violence, blood and body parts flying through the air are totally awesome for me, however I don't want to really know about any internal organs being torn from the enemy's body (Or do I? I'll have to think about it...) Relationships with other gladiators are allowed. Don't expect that you'll be killing the God Emperor or anything in that direction, you're a gladiator, that's all. As you may have noticed already this RP focuses more on action packed battles than on relationships but of course one thing doesn't exclude the other.
The Way Things Will Happen:
After generating a character (max 3 per player) using the CS I'm working on currently, everyone will start off in a cart carrying the team to their first battle. There will be about two pages of char development at the least if everything goes as planned. Then the group goes to sleep to rest for the upcoming confrontation. Once everybody has made their last post, saying that their char is going to sleep, I'll bring up a post of the group discussing strategy etc only minutes before the actual battle. After that is done I will once more make an intro post, detailing the entry into the arena, the atmosphere, the behaviour of the enemy etc. Everyone then has a chance to add some of their own details before I again make a post to open the battle. That will stay the same for about 3 battles. Then I may change the system.
About posting and waiting for others:
In char development you can speed post to your heart's content but as soon as tactical discussion start, everyone has to wait until the others have posted before posting another post. That is to keep two chars from deciding something or even ending the battle on their own because the others aren't online at the time. If I say that someone or everybody should stop posting, they do so.
Characters:
Players can only play gladiators. I'll take over any NPCs. At the beginning of the RP the chars will be clothed in pices of cloth and wield bronze weaponry but as they win battles and earn money, they slowly become elite warriors. There won't be any XP or anything in that direction but there will still be char advancement. If someone uses moves that they can't execute I will tell them and announce that their post is to be ignored.
I know all of those rules seem a bit much but if everybody goes by them it will make the RP just that much more enjoyable. It may not be that much but I can't come up with much more right now. Anybody interested?
Members (5 would be ideal but if Ush thinks we need more we do):
Bladewind
Phoenix3068
Etna
jalek moye