dramatispersonae | CARNELIAN

CARNELIAN

You sit on the other side of the stage now, in an auditorium full of cracked and dusty stone chairs. It's cold and uncomfortable, but the stage before you still commands your attention, with the curtains now drawn back and shadows flickering upon it.

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You are one half of a story to be played out today: either a hero or a monster. You must invent a backstory, motivation, set of powers, and anything else necessary for your monster or hero to defeat its opponent. Both consistency and creativity will be factored into scoring; for best results, tie their powers into their archetype as well as the backstory and motivation you give them.

"The Captain must guide his ship through treacherous waters where the Sea Serpent lurks, ready to take down anyone who passes by."

You will be designing The Sea Serpent. Amethyst will be designing The Captain.

These types of games are not my strong point...

...We just have to come up with a villain backstory, right? That's not too bad...

So we're keeping the serpent a villain then?

Oh, you don't think he is? He looks like a typical RPG villain to me.

I have no preference. I just think it might be easier to give him a backstory if he believed he was in the right. He can be completely misguided.

Being a villain doesn't mean he doesn't think he's right...but I agree with what you're saying.

Maybe he's blocking passage to a hidden society that people keep trying to take advantage of or something, so he sees it as being for the greater good. Or else guarding a dangerous treasure.

Hidden society sounds unique.

Mhm, like maybe....maybe they have really advanced technology, but all explorers who found the island in the past tried to use the technology for evil until he stopped them. So to keep that from happening again, he decided to keep it hidden by protecting it.

Maybe he's from that island, too...so that's why it's really important to him.

So the entrance is under the water?

Oh, that sounds nice...maybe it's a society of merpeople, and that's what he really is. A mermaid, not a monster. People just don't know the difference.

[ Laughs ]

Now, that could be interesting. What sort of powers does a mermaid have? Song, right?

Umm....I'm not sure, actually. We can probably give him any powers that we think would be useful.

Well, if he's going to take out a ship, he'd need some power over water. And singing could distract the captain from steering.

Mm...maybe he has the power to cause whirlpools, then? That could sink a ship, I think...and his magic singing would help keep the captain from avoiding them.

Sounds good. Should we figure out what he actually looks like?

Mhm, sure. I'm not sure what mermaids look like, but we can probably come up with our own version. He'll at least have a tail, I think...

The Sea Serpent actually isn't a very good name for him...you see, he's not really a serpent at all.

Instead, he's a mermaid from a secret society of mermaids, hidden underneath the waters he protects. In the past, mean explorers found their society and tried to use all of their advanced technology for bad, evil things! Things that could have destroyed his home, and maybe even the entire world.

So...after taking care of them, he decided to work defensively, and protect the society from ever being found again by guarding the nearby waters. All mermaids have magical singing voices, of course, which are known to distract humans. He also has the ability to cause dangerous whirlpools, that will take out any ships in the area. Once ship captains are distracted by his voice, they drift into his whirlpools, and then sink to the ocean floor.

By so doing, he keeps his home and family safe...even if it means people think that he's a monster.

The shadows on stage flicker and follow your cue...then fade for the time being.

A pot of tea and some cups appear for you to refresh yourselves with.

The players in this show have been created! Now it's time to plan your attack. You can see what your opponents designed; give an explanation of how your hero or monster attacks it.

Captain Sparrow is both an excellent navigator (especially after a few swigs of rum) and an excellent fighter. His sword, Riptide, was passed down by the former captain of his ship, and it can hurt anything in the seas. Not only can he tell where the waves will lead, he knows where they come from, and he can even make them.

Edited 2014-09-10 02:13 (UTC)

So they can both make waves. That makes things interesting.

He'll have to use his singing to keep that captain distracted...that blade sounds like it could be pretty dangerous.

Yeah, if he's too distracted by the singing, the captain won't be able to think straight to control the whirlpools.

Yeah...that should let our mermaid get the upper hand, so he can use his powers first and win.

He'll have to focus on knocking that sword into the water too.

Oh, that's true...if he loses the sword and it sinks to the bottom of the ocean, our guy won't have to worry about it anymore.

Maybe he can distract him enough to make him drop it.

Hmm....maybe he can wait for the captain to raise his sword, and then start singing, so he can have the best chance of that happening.

Good strategy.

...Do you think there's anything else? Wait for him to raise the sword, start singing so he drops it, create dangerous whirlpools while he's distracted, and then wait for the ship to go down...

I really don't know what else we can add.

Mm, me neither...so, let's go with that and see what happens.

All right.

The mermaid will wait until the captain raises his sword...and then, he'll start singing. As we said before, mermaid song is well-known for distracting humans. The captain should be distracted enough to lose his grip on his sword, and it will fall down harmlessly onto the ocean floor.

Of course, the mermaid won't stop there - he needs to protect his family and home, even in this misguided way. So he'll create strong whirlpools for the distracted captain to sail right into...leading to the ship sinking.

The curtains roll away to reveal the Ring once more. You may proceed to endgame.

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CARNELIAN

ROUND ONE

ASSIGNMENT

DISCUSSION

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SUBMISSION

just so we have something in...

Re: just so we have something in...

ROUND TWO

OPPONENT

DISCUSSION

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SUBMISSION

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