Post them here! Any special stat based combat ideas can be pmed to me.

Horseman's Backstory:
The King, the Horseman, and the Advisor. This trio ran the faction of Hagnaught. Hagnaught was unique for it's notoriously poor army. It was a minor faction which only survived because of it's mountanous terrain and utter lack of strategic value.

The Horseman's posistion is in fact, hereditary. The current Horseman is formally Horseman XVI, hereditary head of the Army. Hagnaught had the further weakness that he, the King, and the Advisor would normally struggle for power.

This changed when Horseman XVI ascended the throne. He decided to renounce, in both theory and practice, the seeking of power, and unconditionally back the King against the Advisor. The ultimate result of this was the formation of the Golden Trio, of King Henry (who broke tradition by having a name other then "King"), Horseman XVI, and Strategos (who did formally change his name, but was always called Strategos) the Advisor.

Strategos's grand plan was to ally with Matram against Xen, a nominal Imperial loyalist who was in reality a loose and unreliable ally. They would then move through Matram's terrortory and defeat Xen, then Matram. If this was sucessful, they would be in plains where cavalry had unique opportunities.

Horseman's role was to reform the army for such warfare, based around the outflankment. The state of Yama was aided in war in order to improve discipline before the great envedour. Horseman abolished the supply system in favor of stealing from the locals- though he kept supplies on horses for travel when this was not practical. He took a gamble on horsemen still being useful despite the invention of the musket.

The plan suceeded, and the descisive victory at Hoodrush led to the death of Xen and Horseman's crowning glory. Xen's new capital (Xen City, which actually kept it's name) was taken, and Matram was attacked and defeated.

But the state of New Hagnaught was in a poor posistion. The heir to the throne of Matram was dead by Horseman's hand, and the King of Matram was insistent upon revenge despite the offer of Hagnaught's old lands.

Hagnaught was in a pincer, as the Empire to the north desired the destruction of Hagnaught for daring to invade a nominal Imperial vassal without their permission. They had taken a diplomatic gamble, and failed. Nobody dared oppose the Empire.

Under normal circumstances, they would have pretended to accept the subsequent Imperial offer of a tournament to end the wars, but planned in secret to build up strength and gain at the expense of those foolish enough to take the contest seriously. Despite the drought, Horseman's forces (who had suffered less then most, but this would have been the case despite) still wanted a fight. But under the circumstances they felt they had no choice. The Treaty of Xen City was signed.

The terms were that they would attend the contest and submit to it's decision in exchange for the Imperial army forcing Matram to submit to the contest and the new status quo. Also, Hagnaught would become an Imperial vassal like Xen before it.

Reluctant, Horseman decided to attend the contest. He hoped the other factions were not actually planning to keep their word...

Æthermancer
Whakiomama the Æthermancer. That's what he was. Hailing from the steamy recesses of the Vassagonian Swamps far to the south, his Halian sect had pulled the strings of the puppet King !Xobile of Vassagonia and ensured the swamp kingdom's prominence in the affairs of the southern continent.

The Halians practice the unseemly sorcery of nothing at all, for that was what æther was. Long hours of study in dank mausolea make their skins pale, their figures, skeletal. In spite of their peculiar looks and ways, none doubted the nightmarish power of the Halians - least of all the King !Xobile, the very man whom the Halians grasped by the nethers.

Thus when the imperial messengers came, King !Xobile saw a chance to extend his personal power by requesting the Halians represent him at the imperial tournament. For he knew there would be no neutrality in this tournament.

The Halians were unable to say no, puppet-masters as they were as they knew only they could win the tournament for Vassagonia. The sect travelled to the Imperial City - as a mana bank for Whakiomama, Precentor Primus of the Åzanam. He was chosen by the elders to go into the arena.

Many shadows twirl across the grounds of the arena, blade glinting in the afternoon sun. It dances to and fro, cutting the midmorning air into ribbons of shimmering light. He watches each stroke with care and he remembers...

The chamber... A mess of blood, death and destruction... The master mutters something, gasping for breath and clutching at the mortal wound at his side as the scores of rogues, mercenaries and bandits squabble over the spoils. Groaning I hear a table crash into the stone floor, overturned in a heated dispute. I attempt to rise but the pain brings me back to my knees. I look down and curse the spear pinning my chest straight into the wall. Blood cakes my black robes. I look up to find that master has died, his unfurled open hand lies still where it fell, one finger still pointing towards me. A smirk etched on the old mans lips. And then I see it. From all around the chamber little purple flames rise from my fallen brothers, twelve of them in all. No-one besides me seems to notice this madness. I close my eyes, I am dying and I have failed. There is no honor in this end. I open my eyes and to my shock the flames streak across the room circling me, tightening around me. The pain is excruciating. I writhe against the spear in agony, several of the foul defilers turn towards me in astonishment. And then it snaps. Something snaps inside of me, at the same time the spear snaps and I rise to my feet. Several men step back in horror. The purple flames have dispersed, but I no longer care about them, I no longer care about anything. I swing my katana with the speed of thirteen, it slices through the foe with the strength of thirteen. The night had not yet seen its fill of blood.

"Revenge can consume a man." A shadow suggests. "But wrath has a greater appetite." chuckles another. The Ronin, the one they call 'Thirteen' smiles. "No one man is worth a damn." he mutters. The shadows nod in agreement.

Barbarian has no backstory. Barbarian needs no backstory!

:joke:

Okay, I'll think of one and post it here later.

The Illusion was young. His life however, had been full of violence, betrayals, and death. Throughout the twenty years of his wanderings and adventures, he had perfected many things, including illusions. The illusions he made depended on his mood, when angry, they could be a skeletal figure with a huge sword that would frighten anyone else, or, when calm, a meditating monk that would shield him from harm. However, he could concentrate and make a virtual copy of himself if he wanted to, and he did in his past, as agents had tried to murder him time and time again. Each time, the Imperials had one dead agent that was in perfect health other than being dead. What had happened was unknown. But the Illusion was contacted by his nation, who wanted him to compete here. He knew that it would well be an oppurtunity to change history and defeat the Imperials (again). So he came, and hoped his team wouldn't get him killed.

Vampyre Backstory:
Vampyres, vampires. What's the difference, ask many mortals. To many mortals that answer is nothing. Yet there are many differences. For starters, vampyres have better skin. Why? They can go out into the sun. Unlike those bloody vampires. Another thing, vampyres have most of the physical features of vampires, but exaggerated. The have larger teeth, there eyes are completely red, and they enjoy wearing capes. For this reason, vampyres are much rarer than vampires, who are harder to distinguish. As for this one, he is, like most vampyres, very smart, and when he wins, he will use the prize money for vampyrekind. And also to wipe out those cursed vampires.

Shadow Stalker:
The Shadow Stalker was your standard agent, he would accept missions given to him via a well connected organization, preform them and then get payed. Unless personally contacted he would never see the client or know what they planned to do, this made in much easier if things got messy.

This all changed after one day. He received a standard mission, infiltrate a nobles mansion and acquire information on troop movements, economic info, etc. Nothing out of the ordinary accept that the client requested him to do it. This put him a little on edge but he went out on it for the sake of his reputation.

Once inside the gates closed behind him and soldiers came rushing out and surrounded him. After a few moments of intense fighting and techniques too complicated to explain he escaped. He was unsure whether the client or the organization set him up so to play it safe he checked with his own contact. Luckily the organization had no part in this set up so he reported it. This broke the confidentiality contract allowing the organization to reveal who was the client. It turned out to be a man known as the Risk-Breaker. The organization gave the Shadow Stalker a special assignment locate the Risk-Breaker and if possible bring him in or remove him.

After years of searching he got a lead that informed him that the Risk-Breaker was going to compete in a competition. Using it's connections with the government they were able to get the Shadow Stalker into it, though the government probably would of hired him out to do so anyways. It's time to get to the up of a search that began long ago.


(First official vendetta against Rogueknight:p)

Nobody knows exactly how many shapeshifters there are. In my time, I have had the privilege to meet fifteen of these strange entities, these spacetwisters. They are, of course, best known for the agitation of the subreals, those tiny specks of truth that make up Reality, and all subordinate realities; but that agitation was nothing compared to my own, when I found out that fourteen of these shifters were in fact the same being. Perhaps it could be seen as flattering, that he stuck around in my reality for the best part of a human lifetime, devoting his energies solely to messing up my research. Alternatively, it could be seen as very, very irritating.

But the fifteenth shifter I met... I am sure that she is a separate entity. For a start, she is voluntarily female. She also doesn't have that slight haddock smell that I had always assumed was a hallmark of shapeshifters. Oh, and she can't shift shape. Or manipulate subreality. This could, perhaps, be seen as a slight obstacle for a shapeshifter, but as anyone who has seen their best friend sleepwalk into a meat-grinder knows (I lost 10 gold on that bet... never thought he'd do it), obstacles mean nothing when you're unconscious.

---

How are shapeshifters chosen? I'd love to tell you some mystical lore about duelling gods hand-picking warriors to do battle across the many bifurcations of Reality, but it's actually a pretty standard entrance exam. You might wonder, then, why shapeshifters are so few and far between. Well, the test is a spelling test. The problem comes when the new shapeshifters attempt to shift shape and find that they can't, usually dislocating some part of themselves in the process. The test itself is merely a clever way of disposing of the enormous collection of staples all shifters gradually accumulate for God-knows-what reason.

But for Meghghan Psquirrelstone (that's 'Meghghan' with a double-'gh' - say it as if you're choking on an otter) this was not a problem. Despite misspelling her own name on the test, she was by a wide margin the most successful shifter of her class of around four thousand, as she was the only one who could actually shift shape. She lived a fine life, hopping between realities, making the subreals dance for her - even spending some time in the Realm of Zeal, watching a new style of blood-sport which she dismissed as a silly fad that would never catch on. And it all would have gone on like this, as swimmingly as anything can be, if she had not got a little too lax with her abilities, and bitten off quite a lot more than she could chew.

Meghghan Psquirrelstone broke time.

We are, of course, already familiar with time's on-again-off-again relationship with Reality. In some realities, the two are all over each other; in others, Reality won't even give time the time of day (obviously). But there are some fundamental threads of time, even in those realities where it does not make its presence felt, and no shapeshifter must ever interfere with them - they are in the proverbial display case. And on the 14th day of the 3rd month of the 37th year of the reign of King Zühberbuhler of Grauundgrauundweiss, Meghghan Psquirellstone got her sticky lollipop-hands all over them.

Naturally, the shapeshifter examining body was pretty embarrassed about this, seeing as their failure to include pretty important information about how not to rip the fabric of time-space in their little spelling test could perhaps be blamed somewhat for this mishap, so they got to work fixing it. They toiled and toiled at it, but on the 14th day of the 3rd month of the 37th year of the reign of King Zühberbuhler of Grauundgrauundweiss, time was rebooted, to the immense relief of timeshare salesmen, whose customers were beginning to suspect that they were getting a raw deal. But time was already running out for Meghghan Psquirrelstone.

She fell. She fell hard. In fact, Psquirrelstone fell so spectacularly that the Americans named a season after it. Her shapeshifting powers were purged, and control over all subreals was wrenched from her - like a restraining order, but issued by human beings instead of lawyers. The revocation was so complete, she couldn't even make a mountain out of a molehill anymore.

Now, there are three main career paths for a fallen shapeshifter: after-dinner speaking (not an option, as due to her chronological oopsie, she and dinnertime were not exactly on speaking-terms), balloon modelling (she's scared of balloons), or becoming a dreamer. Anyone can shift shape in the Dream Realm, and in fact most people do: while dreams are technically Real, the subreals that compose them are notoriously gullible - some would say groggy - so even the ghastliest spellers can be shifters there. Trouble is, most people don't really notice their dreams, let alone control them. Fallen shifters, therefore, are ideal dreamers: they already know how to control every speck of truth and reality around them, and plus, they tend to be lazy beggars, so the extra sleep isn't a problem either.

Donning her purple-and-black hooded robe-cum-patchquilt, Meghghan Psquirrelstone made her way to the Dissensions tournament as the representative of Grauundgrauundweiss (they daren't send another toymaker, not after what happened to the last one). With her she carried her deadly tools of innate destruction: a vial of SandmanTM-quality sleep sand (eye gunk, technically); a ferocious goose-feather pillow; and a terrifying entity of all that is unholy, called Mister Fwuffums (a.k.a. the Teddy of Death).

The Dreamer is here... and she'll Rip you a new Van Winkle.

I am Hunger. I am Thirst. Where I Bite, I hold till I die, and even after death, they must cut out my mouthful and bury it with me. I can fast a hundred years and not die. I can lie a hundred nights on the ice and not freeze. I can drink a river of blood and not burst. Show me my ENEMIES!

--- I'll write a better story tomorrow...

*Reads Catharsis' backstory*

:rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl:

The Ronin unsheathes his katana, glances down at the blade and looks bored.

So uh... Where's the competition? I thought I was going to be fighting warriors not civilians with sleep disorders and petty tricksters. Bah...

The Ronin sheathes the blade in disgust.

The Ronin unsheathes his katana, glances down at the blade and looks bored.

So uh... Where's the competition? I thought I was going to be fighting warriors not civilians with sleep disorders and petty tricksters. Bah...

The Ronin sheathes the blade in disgust.

"What's the point, anyway? I don't think any of us have leaders stupid enough to actually take this contest seriously. Except mine perhaps."

The Forsaken didn't understand. This was not out of the ordinary; he wasn't the sharpest bulb in the drawer, but this was an important thing he didn't understand. He thought everything was going well. He served his master, his master rewarded him.

Ever since he was a small being in the Realm of Twilight he knew he was destined for greatness. The prophets foretold he would be a great realm-jumper. What they didn't mention was that he wouldn't jump on his won; instead, he was travelling down the street one day when the ground abruptly ate him. When he came to, it was the brightest he'd ever seen it- there was some kind of huge lamp in the sky- and a man in odd robes was chanting and dancing around a circle made of dried blood.

While he and the man didn't seem to speak the same language- no matter how many times the Forsaken asked where he was with a polite spray of chlorine, the man always just flapped his teeth- they got along all right. The Forsaken was treated well, fed incredibly rare delicacies that apparently weren't rare (did you know apples actually grew on TREES, instead of having to be mined deep underground?), and in return all he had to do was scare a few unsuspecting people out of their skins. A couple times, literally. And he only hurt his master a few times, although his master seemed to complain a lot for something as small as stepping on his lower abdomen.

Until the last mission his master had sent him on. Evidently this one was quite important, for his master accompanied him. He did his usual thing, flashing teeth and claws at people to scare them, and if they didn't run he ripped them in half. His master hurled fire and shadow bolts over his shoulders, adding to the carnage. They descended into a cave, and came to a cavernous room where his master placed a glowing gem on a platform and began chanting around it. He felt himself being pulled, as he had so long ago in Twilight.

Before he knew what was happening, his world shifted and changed. The walls became multifaceted and red, with glowing light coming through them. He floated in space, feeling nothing, hearing nothing, and all around him was beautiful ruby. He realized he was inside the gem his master had placed on the pedestal.

He roared his rage at this change, and one facet became a window to the outside from which he could see his master exit the room and close the only pathway out with a rockslide. He was trapped, utterly alone, and he didn't understand what he had done wrong.

Time passed. The Forsaken had no idea how long, as his surroundings changed very slowly and imperceptibly. Eventually, moss grew on the walls. Vines grew on the ground outside his crystal, and the rock of the chamber began to crack with age. The Forsaken managed, from time to time, to contact the realm of Twilight through deep meditation. By doing so, he maintained his sanity, and in time began to be revered as a demigod in Twilight, appearing in a ruby portal out of nothing and dispensing sage advise to any who asked.

But one day, something happened outside his crystal. There was a boom that could be felt inside his prison, and the rockslide placed there so long ago dissolved. After the dust cleared, a party of men in shining armor and surcoats emblazoned with a golden spear and sickle on a white field marched into the cavern. Reverently, they knelt before the crystal, delicately picked it up, and wrapped it in fine silk cloth.

When he was unwrapped, the Forsaken saw that he was outside a large arena with banners of all kinds around it. His crystal prison hummed with increasing volume, until finally and blessedly it shattered. In a flash of light, he enlarged five times to be his natural size and reveled in stretching his limbs. Eventually, it was conveyed to him through signs and writing (his master taught him some writing, though this language seemed to be a very childlike version of what he had learned) that in return for his freedom, he must go into this arena in behalf of the nation of Benghadi and compete by rules with the other combatants. The rules surprised him, as in the past his master did not bother with any rules or conditions. Dead was dead. Still, anything was better than that crystal prison of his. With an emphatic spray of hydrochloric acid and arsenic, he agreed and the people fled from him.

The Forsaken smiled and turned to the arena.

The Barbarian was at his usual spot, on top of a mountain, looking down at the village below.

The village was called Khatignajjjakhrta (Don't bother trying to pronounce it), and it was his birthplace. It was a small place, located a few miles from Wirjha, the capital city of the nation of Jikutichurmi. And it was the site of a battle a few weeks previously.

Jikutichurmians have a reputation throughout the area for being war-like and barbabaric. That reputation certainly has something to make it believable. All his life, the barbarian had known little but war. Whether it be the never-ending battle for surviving the evil known as public school (The Barbarian shudders as he thinks of this, the Uber-Wediges still hurt to think about), or the actual wars fought among the factions, he had seen a lot of combat, made a lot of enemies, and made sure that anyone he ran into that he didn't like ended up with a battle-axe embedded in their throats. This was something held in common among most of the people of his faction. And wars they sure fought a lot of- they were small, had a large military and needed resources- Uh, yeah. But the Barbarian thinks his nation's reputation is a bit exaggerated.

Okay, so maybe they did rape, pillage, murder, and play baseball with the heads of babies. Sometimes. Only when their enemies really pissed them off (such as when the leader of Kuthra gave the finger to their leader). That doesn't make them barbaric, right?

Or perhaps it was the battles that made people think they were barbaric. The barbarian thinks back to the battle at this location a few weeks ago, the carnage that was. Ah, how much fun it is to impale people's heads on spears, swing battle axes madly and hope to hit something, and yell maniacally.

He supposed that his immense strength with weapons was what got him chosen to get in to this tournament. Or maybe it was that everyone else the High Council was considering "mysteriously" died two days ago.

In any case, the Barbarian thought that he had better get on his way. The sooner he got there, the more heads he would get to chop off.

The Ronin watches as the forsaken emerge from his crystallite prison scattering the so called 'brave' men whom dress in tin-foil and manipulate others to fight on their behalves. He shakes his head in disgust at the knights from Benghadi. If it wasn't this poor Forsaken beast who was exploited with such palpable dishonor then the best such a disgrace of a nation would have to offer would be no more than a band of unwilling peasants armed with pitchforks. At least such a beast looked capable of honing the art of his blade further.

Crouching in the shadows of the gate he also witnesses the Barbarian arrive. Spitting on the ground he grasps for the handle of his blade. Another hapless fool such as the defilers who murdered his master. How he would taste the sting of cold steel in the arena... The Ronin would show him the fate of all who earn the name 'barbarian'. To be pulled back screaming into the shadows from whence they were spawned. Oh yes... This fool would remember the name Thirteen... He would die with it upon his cracked heathen lips.

And whats wrong with unwilling peasants armed with pitchforks, huh? :p

And whats wrong with unwilling peasants armed with pitchforks, huh? :p

The Ronin does not approve of the accompanying stench ;).

Oh.

Hey, guys, let's go take a bath and see what he thinks of us now!!!

Oh.

Hey, guys, let's go take a bath and see what he thinks of us now!!!

Now you make good killing practice ;).

OOC: I hope you're not offended choxorn. I was in character the whole time. I like to spice things up with a bit of anti-heroism :).

Grrrrr. Vampyres have no need of baths! We are naturally good-smelling! Speaking of, I'm thirsty. Ronin! Look! Behind you! There's something there, just keep your neck still and I'll be able to get your bloo- I mean you'll see a very rare bird.

The Ronin waves his blade in the light reflecting it into the Vampyres face.

Didn't you read my backstory? Vampires are weak against light. Not vampyres!

The Forsaken sees some movement on top of a hill nearby. He stops his methodical pacing to the Arena to examine what it is.

The sound of speaking reaches his ears. While he has never othered to decipher spoken language, it was clear these people were not friends. He remembered the rules he had agreed to and, assuming the others were bound by them as well, decided to break up the dispute.

Taking up a position on a nearby rock, he took aim and shot a stream of corrosive acid at the sounds of fighting. Satisfied with his effort, he continued on.

Ha- lycanthropes do not take baths. lycanthropes are too manly for baths. there is nothing anyone can do to make them take baths.

*The vampyre's ears pick up the sound of the lycanthrope*. Grrrr. I will have him killed myself. It is one of the very few things vampires and vampyres agree on- lycanthropes, especially werewolves, must all die.

The Void Walker

The Void Walker. Ah, such an image of noble beauty. It really does come to mind, right? A young, blond man, resplendent in shining, freshly forged armor, no helmet (so his tresses can sail gracefully behind him as the wind caresses his face), lance in one hand, beautiful rune sword (always with a fancy name) sheathed at his left side, on his horse, a stomping mare of great beauty (on some occasions, a thumping male beast of a horse can be substituted), riding forth gallantly to save his kingdom, country, province, city/town, neighbors, family, and that fair maiden. No, wait, that sounds like me. Let me try again.

The Void Walker. On second thought, what is a Void Walker? I certainly didn't know. All I did was stroll around one fateful afternoon. The first tournament (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=240763) ended rather arbitrarily.

"That's it," they said, "you're done."

Well, done indeed! I had already saved every maiden around these parts, even the ugly ones that they never tell you about in those tales, and some even more than once. I wasn't about to go through all that trouble again. I sat down under a tree, wondering just what to do with my life. I had a doctorate in Melee Attack with a focus on Lances and Swords, but those skills just weren't applicable anymore. Due to the curse of structural unemployment, I was done.

So I sat down under the Black Tree of Gallia and thought. Suddenly, a gaping maw in the fabric of the universe opened up in front of me. I quickly appraised the situation; the hole was two feet in front of me, and my sword was two inches from my hand. It would work. I grabbed my sword, did a nifty sort of roll along the side haphazardly, and did a sort of alert crouch I'd seen some sneaky thieves do before. It made my knees hurt.

"Speak!" I said, ignoring the general rule that when you wish to parley with someone, it's best not to point a weapon at him.

"Hello there," he said. What a jovial chap.

"I was just walking along in the Void--"

"Whoa, whoa. What's that?" I asked, sort of dumbly, as if I were making an exposition for any unacquainted readers of our conversation.

"The Void? Well, it is what it isn't. It is the gap between worlds, if you would."

"I won't have any of that."

"And you're right, you can't. You are not of the Stuff that the Void is made of. You are of Things." As he said this, he slid forward. It's hard to describe what he looked like. He looked pretty humanoid, except when I tried to look at him, it was like looking at something from the corner of your eye. Hard to pin down. But he was black, all black, the sort of jet black that seems to suck light in and leave the surrounding areas dimmer, the sort of black that leads me to make paradoxical explanations like the above.

"Then, how'd you manage to step here?" I asked.

"Well, to go from There to Here is quite easy. You just need these magical bracelets," he said, patting the black bracelets around what I presumed were his wrists. There were two total, one for each arm. Black bracelets on a black body. By this point he had stepped fully into our world and closed the maw with a snap of his fingers that pierced through my ears with the sound of screeching nails on chalkboard.

"These tie me to this world."

"So you're here because..."

"I was just walking along in the Void. That's my job, you know. I heard there was going to be some grand tournament."

"You're too late, they've already held one. I was in it."

"No, there's a second one," he said. "I guess I'll see you."

And with that, he shuffled off. It couldn't have been walking, because he looked like he was just shuffling his feet and popping from place to place without crossing any of the places in between, but it looked quite like he was just a guy lumbering along.

As he crossed the crest of the hill, he turned back and waved to me.

That's when I realized the half-grin he had on the whole time hadn't gone away. It had, almost imperceptibly, gotten bigger, until it was almost a three-quarters-grin.

As told by Alphaeus Silanus.

Didn't you read my backstory? Vampires are weak against light. Not vampyres!

OOC: That was just to annoy you, not to harm you. I'm saving that for the arena ;).

The Ronin flips, avoiding the stream of corrosive acid stumbles upon landing and falls on his face. Scurrying off with more than a few curses he flits after the Forsaken beast. Keeping to the shadows.

The Were-Beast

I am Hunger. I am Thirst. Where I Bite, I hold till I die, and even after death, they must cut out my mouthful and bury it with me. I can fast a hundred years and not die. I can lie a hundred nights on the ice and not freeze. I can drink a river of blood and not burst. Show me my ENEMIES!- Moon

http://www.walden.com/walden/_images/custom_images/caspian/WereWolf.jpg
-Transformed WereBeast

History:

The first Were-beast was a Baron, Moon, a fearsome warlord during the Last Age. He hosted lavish banquets after his victories, where he and his generals feasted on the bodies of the captured opponents. His generals' ambition grew to match his own and they turned on him in a bloody civil war. Moon won the war but lost his empire; in the end, he sat alone, feasting on his generals' bodies.
Like all mortals, even the horrific Moon passed away, but he would not be allowed to sleep forever. In time of dire need, desperate mages performed rites to bring back the greatest, most feared general of history. But it was not without price: the gods knew of Moon’s character, and would not suffer him to be raised back to life without an appropriate form.
In his new and powerful form, he burst his bonds, and set about recreating his empire, assisted by the fact that any mortal he bites becomes afflicted with his curse. Thousands have fallen, and rumors speak of a City of were-beasts at the center of the Hidden Forest.

Lycanthropy:

Though popular myth and culture have dubbed them Were-wolves, the afflicted do not transform into wolves. In transformation, they retain a humanoid appearance and gait. However, their body becomes covered in Fur, They grow a tail, claws, and a wolf like head. Their instincts are faster then the average human’s, and their strength is phenomenal. It would be safer to say that they add wolfish and ursine attributes to their normal capacities.
While newly converted Were beast does need the moon to change, and lose all control while transformed, older Were beasts can change at will, drawing on their wolfish instincts, while maintaining a level head.
There is no “cure” for the bite of a were beast, and should one be bitten, one should remove one’s self from the presence of humans for the first few transformations, as it would be dangerous for any non-lycanthrope.
One should, however, note that lycanthropy does not mean evil. A lycanthrope, when not newly transformed, is prey to the same emotions and foibles as a normal human.

What more is there to say about the juggernaut? Not much is known about him, except that he is a primal killing machine. Those who get in his path pay for it dearly; and often those who don't suffer as well. The juggernaut has no emotion. He is cold, calculating, and ready to strike at any moment. He has no apparent weakness: powerful, crafty, quick, and savvy. He has no friends. He has no story. He is simply known as The Juggernaut.

(OOC: There's a small reference in here to something Tolis said in his intro post in the game thread.)

She is a small woman, just on the cusp of her middle years, and ordinary in appearance. She is not armed. No one looks twice at her as she makes her way through the crowds of spectators come for the tournament; certainly no one would believe her to be one of the fighters. She stops at a food stall for some fried bread and some fruit. The vendor and his son make small talk with her over the popping, bubbling oil. They like her immediately, as most people do. She is not pretty, but her smile conveys a certain warmth, and a lively spark in her bright black eyes suggests a wry sense of humor. There is no deception in the way she presents herself; still, her instinctive friendliness is among the most dangerous of her lies.

There is a Before and an After in her life. The end of the Before:

Her husband was dead almost before she herself was awake, though she’d moved anyway, leapt from the bed without consciousness to protect herself and the baby. She had nowhere to run. Three men, their features indistinguishable in the dim light, backed her into a corner. She could see her husband’s blood on their knives, could smell it in the air. She crouched and turned, clutching her daughter’s warm body to her for the last time. She must have been struck deaf with her fear; she remembered tears on her collar, but never heard her daughter’s cries. She never saw the blow that struck her down.

The beginning of the After:

On the bed, two bodies, one large and one small. She’d cleaned them as best as she could while the sun came up, and the morning breeze helped carry away the smell of blood. They didn’t look right, lying there alone with no life in them. She joined their hands, hoping they could help each other in their voyage into the Eternal Lands.

She herself was damned. Her religion was uncompromising on that score.

In the ravine behind the house were three more bodies. One was charred to a mere husk of a human being. One had had its flesh stripped away; clean bones left nothing to attract even the birds. The third – well, the third was indescribable. The birds wouldn’t touch that one, either.

She had no idea how she’d been able to do what she did to them. But she knew she could do it again.

It turned out there was a market for her particular talents. Many markets, even; the possibilities were limited only by her scruples. Of those, she had few left. She was a killer, and destined for Hell; there was little point in niceties. One day, she found herself at the palace gates of a petty fiefdom not far from her homeland. The princeling in residence was holding a grand tournament; on a whim, she put her name down. When she stepped out into the arena, she found herself facing a very large man with a very large sword. The crowd laughed at her presumption. She laughed, too, for a very different reason. Five minutes later the sword was in a slag heap on the ground, and the very large man was groveling for mercy. She was still laughing, but no one else was.

That day, the start of her fighting career, led directly to this one. Except today, she is told that she is not fighting for blood or money; today, she is fighting for her homeland against the vastness of the Imperium.

Ah, the homeland. She crosses the plaza toward the gates of the coliseum. The vendor she had talked to earlier was from the very city of her birth. They had talked of streets and shops that they both knew, and he had given her a small banner with their city’s name on it, to wave in support of their country’s team. In the middle of the plaza, unwatched by anyone in particular, she drops the banner into the dirt. So much for the homeland. Home is from Before; nothing from then can touch her now, After.

Except that someone has set up a podium by the gate and is speaking, his voice lost in the noise of the crowd. She doesn’t notice him until suddenly purple writing appears above his head, reading, “SHUT UP OR I WILL KILL YOUR FIRST BORN CHILD”.

“Too late,” whispers the Planeswalker. She ducks her head, and walks by him into the arena.

The Sacred Fist

http://www.wizards.com/dnd/images/iw_pious_templar.jpg

He, although he rarely identifies himself as male or female, is the protector of all that is holy in our world. From a very young age, something out in nature seemed to call to him, beckoning him to accept these duties. Soon he came to identify that voice as the mythical voice of nature, that of the divine.

The divine is everywhere according to him. It calls out with its strange yet beautiful voice from every tree and insect, from the clouds above us to the core below us. Nothing fails to get touched by its majesty, and all is consumed by it. The only thing it ever needed was a guardian in the physical world, a task taken up by him.

Of course, some would consider him to be little more than a deranged loony, and indeed they may be right. Nobody else could hear the voices that he claimed to, and he became quick to anger when anybody denied their existence. The one attempt to commit him to a sanitarium failed, despite considerable manpower, when three nurses were killed attempting to subdue him.

So now he is on the run, picking fights with anybody who dares to challenge him or his worship of the divine. He is not at all tolerant of other worshipers, considering many to be no better than blasphemers. When he runs into one, they are generally worse off for the encounter.

Thus the idea of a tournament was very attractive to our religious zealot. He secretly loves violence in the name of preserving holiness, and the contest gives him a chance to break lots of skulls. Although considered by many a nut, he did receive martial arts training as a boy when he was though to not be dangerous. As a result, his powers are immense physically, and somehow he seems to contain an awesome power within. The skeptics don’t like to acknowledge its existence, but every punch contains both his expertice with the martial arts, and something more. Something even more powerful.

So let us conclude:

Holy or nutcase?

You decide.

Wrong picture, Pinman. The one you wanted was
http://www.wizards.com/dnd/images/cd_gallery/81355.jpg

;)

EDIT: Fixed Name

Wrong picture, Kol. The one you wanted was
http://www.wizards.com/dnd/images/cd_gallery/81355.jpg

;)

Kol hasnt posted in this thread :p

It was a small, isolated village, in a grove high in the mountains. But it was a prosperous one, that had never bowed to the rule of outsiders, nor to the demands of bandits. This could be credited to an ancient practice in the village, which had been continued for countless centuries.

For many years, the Mentor had acted as the leader and protector of this village. For the last fifteen years, he had been training a Student to replace him. The Mentor had seen his Student grow from a child, to a teenager, to a strong, healthy adult, and he worked to teach his Student everything he knew about battle.

With a certain degree of training, a man can singlehandedly fight a much more numerous force. As the protector of the village, the Mentor had been its only warrior, fighting bandits and soldiers, and bringing the village's criminals to justice. The village was isolated enough from the outside world that he had never been faced with a force too large to defeat - he had fought for many years, undefeated.

Yet on a certain day, a matter of weeks ago, the Mentor sincerely hoped to be defeated. His Student claimed that he had learned everything he could learn from the Mentor, and demanded the right to fight against the Mentor, to take the title for himself. The Mentor disagreed, but the challenge could not be refused. Mentor and Student fought, and it was a spectacular battle, between two legendary warriors. Yet in the end, it seemed that the Mentor had only taught his Student how to die.

As he stood over the corpse of his Student, the Mentor despaired. This was not a new story. Six times now, the Mentor had chosen the most promising child of his village and trained him to the best of his ability, and six times, he had stood like this, over his Student's body, in a way victorious, but in another, utterly defeated. The Mentor's large medallion, which he wore about his neck, granted immortality of a sort - if not for his unnaturally pale hair, the Mentor might be able to pass for a man in his 30's. He had stood guard over his village for almost a hundred years, and had been a Student himself before then. It almost seemed like yesterday that he had killed his own Mentor, taking the medallion from the corpse's neck.

All six of the Mentor's students had been mightier than the Mentor's own Mentor. He took some pride in that. And the Mentor had been his own Mentor's third Student. It was an ancient system, stretching back for centuries, and the Mentor had always kept his village safe. But now the Mentor grew tired of his task, and he feared that he would be cursed forever by this task that he refused to set aside.

When he was called to represent his tiny domain, the Mentor at first intended not to participate. Even if the other countries of the Algean Scar all gathered together under one banner and tried to attack his village, the Mentor knew that he could split them up in the mountain passes and bleed them dry until they decided it was too expensive to continue the assault.

Yet another possibility occured to him - a way to honorably free himself from his task. The mightiest warriors in the land would gather to fight in the tournament, and the village's leader did not have to be one born in the village. Surely there would be a worthy fighter in the tournament, one who was mightier than the Mentor, and who could act as the village's Mentor after him. Yes, the Mentor had not come to the tournament to win, but to lose, and in so doing, fulfill his life's obligation.

And so the Mentor stood among the competetors, looking at each of them in turn, wondering what mysteries they hid. He would have to pick his foe wisely. One who could defeat him, but would also accept the Mentor's task... And if it turned out that none of these competetors were worthy, then the Mentor would defeat them all, for the sake of his village. He would be victorious, one way or another.