SHAMBALA ♦ AN EAST ASIAN FANTASY The following roles are necessary for any subplot to begin its motion. They are also free reign, with the exception of villainous roles. These will be reviewed more strictly, and the rper must have been with the site for two or more weeks to play them. We will cycle them out and add to this list as they are filled. In addition, members can reply with plot-heavy roles they personally want added to the list. There are no limitations on this aspect of the canon list, as long as you fill out the coding correctly. Roles marked with a [N], standing for the word "necessary," tag are important roles. We encourage members to apply for them after two weeks here, but this is not required. Every good story begins with the triumph of evil over good, and ends in it destroyed by its own devices and forced to slink back into its shadows. With that in mind, SHAMBALA offers a list of villains who are already in play, as well as member-created antagonists that can be used to further plotlines. Like their title implies, these roles are intended to create conflict, cause havoc, and should be reasonably subtle. Again, you must be a member for over two weeks and your application for a villain's role will be reviewed by head staff only. Why be more stringent? Because we are looking for certain qualities in the player: - - a willingness to let the villain lose when the plot demands it
- - non-traditional approaches to evil, more political than slasher
- - full knowledge that their villain is in the moral wrong and that it will have eventual consequences
- - prior demonstration that they can plot very effectively with the rest of the forum
Dramatis Personae BAI-SHI COMMANDER The 21st Bai-shi Commander—a charismatic, handsome leader, peerless and bold, and an inspiration to his men—but he is young at heart, despite his years, and begins to doubt Heaven’s mandates, the orders and marks divined by astrologers for Bai-shi agents. The human frailty of his men jeopardizes the mission at every turn—even the best of Bai-shi must fight themselves to complete their objectives. This commander turns to dark books, the cold songs of spirits and demons, in search of the inhuman element that might build an armor to fortify the heart against any weakness while he selects candidates to wear this experimental armor from the ranks of his soldiers. |
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[li] will be added by player.[/li][/ul]
THE MAGISTRATE OF JUSTICE
Justice Shionoya—a magistrate of law and a son of the Shionoya clan, his lips are scarred from attempting to kiss the cursed daughter of his clan’s Old Prince and failing, and his heart is scarred from losing his birthright to rule the Shionoya to his rival, a lowborn, ‘honest’ nobleman, now named Clan Prince Minoru Shionoya. But no matter, his fated box granted him an otherworldly poison with no earthly cure, so he knows his rival's time will come. All in good time, all will come, and this justice remains confident that he will realize his goals for the Empire as a magistrate in Shangdi’s Ministry of Justice. He also guides a movement stirring in the golden houses of the Jade City: a rumor that the Jade Emperor is nothing more than a pale ghost, a powerless figurehead, and the clans could seize true power if they gave up this ancient and preposterous dream. If he cannot have what was owed to him by blood, he will take what is due to him by the universe.
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IVAN FRITZ
The owner of the gambling house and a Sidhe with a hidden agenda, he is the man in the suit; the snake in the grass, and he earned his reputation as one of the deadliest men in Shangdi. A natural crime lord, ravishing in ill-gotten yuan and extortion and the glory of gold, he organizes the ransoming of stolen information, the smuggling of illegal goods, the trade of Sidhe victims and orchestrated murder. Politics are his stage, his coveted play things.
However, in recent months the King has retreated from the spotlight of his throne, and has taken to the company of witches. Although this has always been true of him, internal strife that belongs to a long-lived rival earns its foothold and threatens to stir up a very personal war. As the gun cocks and the cards are sets, he strikes up a bargain with the Lady Cimmerian over a girl and a tiger . . .
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[li] arrange extortion and espionage
[/li][li] organize underground fights
[/li][li] threaten family members
[/li][li] put other characters in debt
[/li][li] form bargains
[/li][li] create devious plots[/li][/ul]
MAO, THE DEMON COMMANDER
A general and a demon who fought gloriously in the name of his Lord, he has remained a wandering soul who scoured the Otherwordly Gate for the past two hundred years—cursed into the bottom of a clay demon jar, sealed away in a forgotten wasteland untouched by time and men. As the pottery rotted and wore away, he clung to his freedom and slipped through into the realm of the living. Yet his mind became tortured by shadows, and the resentment of his Lord, who still lies far under the bay; like all demons who enter the human world, he can only possess another, and finds that he is under the control of the Demon Lord. A part of the greater dead, a soldier who wanders and can never escape his service.
Now, he seeks out the shattered memories of the Liu-ha exorcist family to unlock the Cup of Ruin and free himself from his Lord—but it is a line long ago disgraced, cursed, and left with few heirs. He killed the last grown son of the Liu-ha, and possessed the body of one of the heirs to their bloodline, but lacks the knowledge of the location of the Cup piece in his current body. For that, he goes hunting the makeshift exorcist Nori—to take his, until the boy offers him an unusual bargain.
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THE LADY CIMMERIAN
A witch, veiled and blindfolded, who dresses richly and smokes deeply with illusions laid in every twist of smoke from the cigarette pinched into her jade holder. Her powerful magic can steal the very years from a young boy and make an old man new again. And she does so enjoy troubling men, particularly if they are handsome.
Lady Cimmerian loves games of chance and trickery, but she is capricious. If met over a dark and foggy bridge, her illusions can dismantle destiny or merely inconvenience her victim, leaving them wearing an unwelcome shape for a few hours. But if a brave heart seeks her out, she can be bargained with for hard-won information—if that brave heart can best her. But games with the Lady are long and hard fought, and losing one battle is a fair trade to finish the war.
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[li] trouble men and bewitch them
[/li][li] change the physical appearance of objects and people
[/li][li] threaten to charm others
[/li][li] hire/arrange hits with the character Illiad
[/li][li] form bargains
[/li][li] interrupt lives through magick and hexes[/li][/ul]
THE AMBASSADOR OF NIBIRU
An oracle whose body devoured her young sister's soul. Long past, she designed a corrupt magick seal while she fought in the old wars between Djinn and man. Then, she meant to revive her dead sister; but plans fell to ruin and disaster. Now housing part of the other girl within her, she possess the all-seeing eye: strange powers of premonition that are said to belong to the goddess Scheherazade. Stories and delusions weave in and out of her mind, but she is powerfully intelligent and cunning.
Still furious and very old, she seeks the tower in Nibiru to destroy it and release the nation from the cycle of Kings. She believes that her country can only find freedom in destruction, in the revival of the Goddess who is locked within it, and has made secret plans to use Shambala as a means to that end.
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[li] will be added by player.[/li][/ul]
RAJA KHAJIT
TBA
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[li] trouble men and bewitch them
[/li][li] spy and perform espionage with her ability to change faces
[/li][li] threaten to charm others
[/li][li] brew potions with unusual effects
[/li][li] barter information
[/li][li] interrupt lives through magick and hexes[/li][/ul]
HEAD OF THE ASTROLOGER'S COLLEGE
An astrologer who studies the myths of old, infamous in her Astrologer’s tower and half-spirit, one of the most prestigious spirits throughout all Shambala. An old woman by many’s standards, she appears in her thirties and laments the death of her parents at the hands of Unblessed scum when she was young—as she so eloquently puts it behind closed doors. In control of the whole of the astrologer’s college, she is the greatest of the campaigners against the Unblessed and the lower castes, often leading to hostilities and extreme consequences enacted on those that engage in any crime or debauchery against what he calls the Decrees of the Twelve Spirits of Heaven.
When questioned in court about her actions, she is cornered by her own council and seeks out help elsewhere in government. Quickly, she becomes a close ally to the magistrate who is seeking out the Emperor; supposedly nothing more than a ghost in the Otherworldly Gate, long ago dead.
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[li] pass laws against the Unblessed.
[/li][li] delegate orders to fellow astrologers.
[/li][li] encourage extreme consequences or punishments, but within the boundaries of our explicit content rules
[/li][li] will be added by player.[/li][/ul]
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