Code: PIRULUK

Serene hugged herself tighter, a single tear leaking from her eye. She said nothing. She gave no response. But a pained smile snuck across her face briefly before vanishing.

A shadow flitted across Serene's face for a brief moment before disappearing. "Yes, again. It happened once before. I think I was five? Maybe six? I'd always had fun playing with the spirits, even as a child. In fact, back then, I was probably even more in tune with them, before I received training. We would play together, and I would have fun with them as they flitted around me. But one day, for some reason - I don't know why - they were agitated. Bothered. Excited. Upset. I reached out to them, to try and understand them, and before I knew it, I was channeling them, and my village was burning. I remember sitting by myself in the ruins of my dining room, flames bursting up around me. I didn't really understand it at the time. But that was the day I became alone in this world. My parents were caught in the initial conflagration. The rest of the village managed to get out before the fire spread to their homes. But they all knew - they all saw me. They saw me sitting in the middle of the fires, unharmed. I no longer had a place among them. I left my village the next day, and I've been searching for a place to belong since." Serene placed her hands in the air and gazed at them for a few moments, as if looking at some invisible scar. Then she hugged her knees to her chest. "Sickening, isn't it? The same fire that took my parents' lives, the same fire that destroyed my home, and I can't bring myself to part from it. I cherish it. I love it. I nurture it. I live for it. I have no right to call myself their daughter - fuck, I have no right to call myself human, at this point. A proper human would feel more regret, would avoid the fire. Not me. That's not what I did. That's not what I'm doing."

"Hm, mostly it was on account of my ability. Not many people were quite as attuned to the spirits' whims as I was, even when dealing with non-fire magic. Naturally, when they urge me to burn something down, I'm not really in a position to refuse - so my situation is rather unique. That, on top of my tactical ability, meant that even when the upper brass had enough and moved to have me charged with destruction of property, their higher-ups remanded the order on account of my war potential. You should have seen their faces. It was hilarious. Even that Cloudbreaker woman we just killed - I served under her once. That was the time I burned down the command post. From what I've been told, she put in a request to have me officially court-martialed and executed, but it was changed by one of her bosses to a transfer request instead. That was funny." Serene placed a finger to her lips, as if she'd just remembered something. "Actually, from what I've heard, I was due for promotion to a higher rank multiple times in the course of my service. But my, uh, penchant for arson disqualified me from that. So I remained as a middle-ranking officer. Well, not that I'm complaining. The higher-ranking officers don't see much action in the field. If I'm off the field, I have nothing to burn - and that's not a good thing. Because if I don't have an outlet for these... uh... urges, I'm likely to end up torching an innocent village somewhere. That's how strong the urges are, when they come. Think about it as trying to hold in a sneeze, but while stark naked on a mountaintop in Yukihana while drenched in cold water, and you might be able to understand maybe a fraction of how difficult it is. It's part of the reason I joined the army, really. Gave me an avenue to channel my fire, so that I wouldn't unleash my power on a village. Not again."

Serene laughed as the water hit her face. Then she sank below its surface and bubbled a bit before coming back up. "I mean, I don't particularly mind, but what do you want to hear? For things about myself, I'd like to think I'm pretty open about the type of person I am. As far as soldiering goes, there was that one time I set fire to the mess hall. And the other time I set fire to our stores. And that time I set fire to the command tent. Oh, right, there was also the time I set fire to our stables. That was a riot. What would you like to hear about? It's hard to answer a question when I don't quite get what the question is."

Serene kicked her feet, splashing the water around as she digested what Meredith had told her. Then she spoke up. "Y'know, it's not all that important to live up to others' standards. Look at me. I may not be a general, but I still held a leading position. But I never felt the need to change who I was. Even when I was sending people - friends - to their deaths, I never changed. I sent them off with a smile. I still did what I wanted to do. I still had so many sweet, hot, burning, passionate sessions with f-" Serene caught herself on the cusp of launching into a speech about how wonderfully sensuous fire was, and coughed to regain her composure. "A-anyway, my men actually called me "the crazy fire bitch" at one point. What I'm trying to say is that just because you're a leader, doesn't mean you need to act any differently. So what if you're a legend? Who cares? It's not like you wanted to be one. Responsibility? Sure, you have responsibilities now, you give orders that might involve sending someone to their death. But I know for a fact that I'd rather be seen off by a cheerful, joking, kind-of-quirky Meredith than a solemn and serious one. And I'm pretty sure the others share the sentiment. I mean, really, who in our motley crew is going to appreciate gravitas? Klaren?"

Koizumi cursed as the weapon made a movement which should be impossible. Switching weapons from her spear to a pair of sai knives, she crouched and waited for the moment just before the chain would touch her, stabbing her knives laterally into the chain, each prong of both three-pronged weapons anchoring a different link of the chain to the ground, both knives planted separately, a short distance from each other. Using the momentum of driving down the weapons, she pivoted around the handle of the weapon in her right hand, going over the chain and landing on the other side, quickly re-equipping her spear as she skidded across the ground.

Koizumi immediately leapt to the right, out of the path of the javelin. Ordinarily, she would have deflected it with her own weapon, but the chain was bad news - she'd used a chained lance for long enough to know that. If she tried to deflect it, it was likely the chain would wrap around her, or otherwise that her opponent would use the chain as an anchor to initiate some sort of attack and abuse an opening, or perhaps it was electrified, or some other possibility. Until she had a good gauge of what her opponent could do, taking any attacks head-on was a bad idea. Naturally, going on the offensive was also a terrible idea. She landed a fair distance away and crouched low, keeping a careful eye on both her opponent and the weapon.

The Day Of The Live It's here. After your work, and your practices, and your undoubtedly numerous instances of failure after failure, the day of your first, real concert is here. You are backstage, in your shared dressing room, picking out your outfits. It all rides on this next concert - if you fail again, your career is over. No pressure though. ((Each idol makes one post detailing their Dress Choice and Accessory Choice. I hope you remember what you own; if you don't feel free to ask me on Discord. I'm not going to put it here for the sake of brevity. At the same time, you can choose to converse with one another and pep talk and stuff. I'll progress once everyone has indicated their choice.))

Serene calmly disrobed and slowly descended into the bath, a light blush coming upon her cheeks. This was the first time she was bathing with another person, aside from... well, it didn't really matter. More to the point, while she had shown her nude body before Meredith on numerous occasions now, none of them felt this... intimate, as it were. Somehow, there was a difference between stripping in the wild and stripping in a bath, despite the observer bearing the same set of eyes. She lowered herself into the bath and crossed her arms across her chest, sighing as she felt the water lap away at her fatigue. As she soaked, something occurred to her, and she decided to speak up, the comfort of the water loosening her tongue. "You know, Meredith... it's strange. Back in the desert, when you threatened to take off your armor right then and there, I found it pretty funny, but also found it strange. You seem to be kind of... I don't know, variable? In terms of how you act. Sometimes you sound really reliable and really serious, but sometimes, like back then, you sound way more laid back and less, I don't know, rigid? Even when we're alone like this. Sometimes you're really serious and grave, other times you seem a lot more happy-go-lucky. I guess I'm just wondering which one is the real you." She laughed and scratched her head. "I'm talking nonsense, aren't I? I don't even know what I'm saying."

Koizumi faced down her opponent. Koizumi, not Kagari. For this fight, an analytical mind was key. Spears... they favored a similar type of weapon. Of course, the opponent was a god. That made everything harder. It was best to assume that they had access to some power or other, and that Koizumi was at an immense disadvantage. Making the first attack would be a grave error. She deployed her bits, then took up a defensive stance with her spear, readying her cables to launch if necessary. Then she steadied her breathing and waited. Watched, and waited.

Serene walked round, over to Meredith, and softly placed a hand on her shoulder, leaning in to the soldier's ear and whispering - primarily so that it wouldn't be heard by the others, but the action looked almost sensual in its denouement. "I'll indulge in that bath with you. I'm not too familiar with the others in our group, wouldn't want to ruin their fun. Especially if someone there knows me. So let's have a nice soak together, hm?" Well, technically, the logical course of action here would be to accompany Saffron to the meeting. At least among the female faction of the camp - which for whatever reason had a higher average level of craziness - she was probably the one who was most suitable for matters of court. But that would probably be a bad idea, considering who they were meeting. Besides, the excessively pink archer girl had already volunteered.

Serene allowed a giggle to pass her lips. "I mean, if it's so hot, maybe you could take your armor off? I can't imagine the ventilation in there being very good." She began to take off her own armor as she said this, piling up the plate components in a bundle on her arm. "Muuuuuch better." She then began lazily floating toward the house that Maya was talking about.

Move to A11, Hold Meredith's Hand

Michael laughs. "I'll try my best to make it, but no promises. Anyway, thank you for your time. You heard them, folks! G.G. will be performing this weekend at the sector 1 stadium, so get your tickets today! Coming up next is G.G.'s debut single, Bon Voyage!" The red light at the door goes off, indicating that you're no longer live. Michael stretches and smiles at you. "Good job. I had my doubts, but you girls handled my ad-libs well. You might have what it takes to make it big, after all." You exchange more pleasantries and smiles, then are eventually shuttled back to your ship. Ayaka and Yuki gain 10 Popularity each!

"Oh? Something Cool? That should be a sight for sore eyes." Michael smiles and gives you a thumbs up, clearly pleased with your performance. "Well, I'm afraid that's just about all the time we have for you girls today, but you can be sure I'm looking forward to your performance. Do either of you have any last things you want to say to our listeners before we end this segment?"

You probably want to give more details on the system - right now there's nothing that tells us how the RP works. Numbers, or an explanation of the combat system would be nice. Is combat turn-based or free-form? Is distance a relevant factor? How is damage calculated? Just by looking at your OP, I have a ton of questions that are unanswered: - You said that Aim doesn't set your hit rates for Strikes or Shots, but then you say it affects your hitrate? In what way? - You said that players can feel free to be creative with their weapons, though "there are limitations" - what limitations? Specifics would be appreciated. - Support and Offensive Semblances will have a cooldown in combat. Okay, based on what? Could I have a nuclear blast as an Offensive Semblance, with a 1 turn cooldown? - You give no examples of Semblances. Your sample sheet has no Semblance - how do we know what's allowed and what's discouraged? I would suggest giving 2-3 examples of a Semblance for each Semblance type. This also ties in to the issue of not having numbers. Let's say I have a Semblance that gives me a speed boost, a la Ruby's. How would that be realised? A percentage bonus? A flat bonus? If it's a percentage bonus, how much is too much? Could I feasibly have like 2000% Speed? Or is it something more abstract? If so, what is an example of a stat-boosting Semblance? - You mentioned that the weapon will scale with stats, but how will it scale? What stats will it scale off?

Introduction Hello. It's Acqui again, with another new initiative. This time, it's a new RP system that I've been experimenting with. Let's see if it takes off. Context I was sitting around, procrastinating and trying to avoid studying, while also thinking about that imaginary ideal game that I want to make one day, but will likely never get around to actually making. While I was doing that, and basically daydreaming, my thoughts turned to the question of how a forum RP could utilise a highly modular system to make basically any skill one could want, while still remaining constrained within a single battle system for balance. Realising this was basically an impossible goal, I started to refine the goal and work out the details, deciding to instead focus on a tactical game which had room for modular modification, and this system slowly formed in my head. tl;dr Acqui was bored and this thing happened. LilyClash The LilyClash System is designed to provide a mechanically intensive system for Forum RPs that encourages teamwork and planning ahead, while allowing for maximum flexibility in the types of characters that players want to play. The system has an emphasis on the removal of RNG, to minimise the amount of rolling that the GM needs to perform, and to encourage a higher degree of tactical play. The System The system's combat itself is rather simple. Combat is turn-based occurs on a 10x10 grid and is delineated into Battle Rounds. A Battle Round ends when every unit has taken a turn, and a new Round begins. At the beginning of each Round, the Turn Order for that round is evaluated based on Initiative, with higher-INIT characters moving first. Then skills/buffs/effects which shift turn order will take effect. On each turn, a player can make 1 Movement action and use 1 Skill. The Battle is over when either side is completely annihilated, or when all objectives are accomplished. Simple Enough. What is not quite so simple, however, is Character Creation. Character Creation is designed to be as flexible as possible, allowing you to make any number of skills with unique effects, while staying within the bounds of what the system permits. And there are a LOT of options. The Character Creation doc is currently at 31 pages, and will only grow as I continue to add more effects, conditions, and features to the system. Interested? If you are at all interested in this system, please feel free to check the documents included in the linked Drive below. For now, there's only a basic overview of the system and a Character Creation Guide, but I intend to add a black Character sheet and a few sample characters as soon as I have the time to do so (likely within the next week) https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/0B_LPtj7Gz8mEVnhJaGd5aDB2X3M?usp=sharing Recruitment I'm pretty satisfied with what I have now as a core set of rules/skills, but I welcome any and all suggestions for the types of skills/effects you'd like to see included in this system. In the meanwhile, I'm also recruiting 4 players for a playtest of this system - the scenario for that test will be finalised at a later date, but it's going to be a 2v2 deathmatch to test for broken combinations and to see if anything needs nerfing/buffing, and to get an overall feel for how the system plays in practice. I welcome any comments, suggestions, criticisms, or thoughts about what I've put together, and I hope to be able to run a full RP using this system in the near future.

DJ Michael grins - his first genuine show of emotion - and flashes Ayaka a thumbs up, praising her for the quick thinking. While he does so, he continues to speak into the mic. "Is that so? That means you know it then? My word, you girls are close. Well, never let it be said I'm not a gentleman - I'll not pry any further. Back on topic, though, Crown Smile, you say? Interesting. Can't say that I see that brand around here very often. C'mon, give us a little insider info; what are you girls going to be wearing for this upcoming concert? Any worries or concerns about it in particular?" The question this time was directed at Yuki.

Serene turned in the direction of the enemy commander, now within visual range, and shouted a taunt, unsure of whether her voice would carry that far. "Oi, Cloudbreaker! Maybe you should throw your tome instead - you might actually hit something!" While she shouted, she casually launched another torrent of flames at the nearby armored soldier. Attack Knight 1.

DJ Michael's eyes twinkle at the unexpected morsel. "Oh? You're more in sync than ever, you say? You heard them, listeners, so let's have them prove it!" He thrust the mic back in front of Ayaka. "Ayaka, could you tell us what Yuki's favorite brand is? Oh, and while we're at it, please tell us the colour of her underwear, too." The staff in the room held up another placard: The second bit is a joke. You don't have to answer it if you don't want to.

DJ Michael pulls the mic back toward himself. " G★G, you say? Mind telling us what it stands for? And while we're at it, tell us a bit more about your upcoming concert. That last one was kind of painful to watch - if I may be honest. You're saying this one will be better? What song will you be performing? Or is that a secret?" This time he hands the mic to Yuki, awaiting a response.

Kagari crossed her arms and shifted her weight. "So, basically, what you're saying is that this contest is a farm." She sighed and scratched her head. Eh, I'm not good with this serious stuff - and Hiroki being here is making me awkward. Take over. Seriously? Again? Don't you think you're switching with me a bit too often? ...Just switch. Fine. Kagari's eyes closed, and when they reopened, they were a lot sharper - more calculating. Koizumi adjusted her posture, evenly distributing her weight, then spoke in an uncharacteristically emotionless voice. "You said that the power balance was delicate, and that adding a new god would upset this balance. But isn't the prize for this contest ascension? If one of us wins and somehow defeats Cardinal, how could you grant us this prize without upsetting this balance? The way I see it, the most likely option would be to give us Cardinal's plane - but that would mean we would simply be illegitimate gods, no? Unless you're saying one of you gods will step down and relinquish your plane to us?"

Yuki and Ayaka find themselves in a radio booth. The place has seen better days. The soundproofing on the walls is wearing thin, peeling off in several areas. The mic's steel looks tarnished, the table looks worn out, and the window that separates the recording room from the sound studio looks grimy in places. The DJ, a morose-looking young man in a faded suit, sits across from them and regards them with a tired smile. "Apologies for... well, this. We used to be a pretty well-known studio, but we've lost a lot of listeners in recent years to newer styles of music. All those gimmicky idols - they're all the rage these days. Little appreciation for good old-fashioned, music-focused idols these days. So now we just play old tracks, and interview the few rare new vanilla idol groups that pop up - like you people. It's a shame none of you seem to last very long." He fiddles with the mic and turns to the control room, giving them a thumbs up. He then turns back to the girls. "Well then. A couple rules. First, feel free to go on tangents, but don't overdo it - we don't have a lot of time. Second, we don't work with scripts here, so I'll be adlibbing most of my questions - I expect you to follow up in turn. Even if I ask one of you a question, the other can feel free to answer or cut in. And finally, don't swivel in the chairs. They creak. Now, we're going live in 3...2...1..." He hits a button on the table, and his manner changes completely - gone is the morose, world-weary man, and in his place is an excitable young DJ. "Hello System, this is DJ Michael and you're tuning in to nine nine seven point five alpha's Stellar Stream! It's a wonderful solar afternoon, but we're getting accident reports in space sectors gamma 2, 5, 7 and 83. So if you're planning to hop over to Sector Three for a quick bite, you probably want to try taking the Underwarp today. But enough about the traffic - joining us today, we have a pair of fresh new idols, fresh off Earth - that's right, the mother planet, Earth! Some of you might be familiar with them after hearing about their absolutely disastrous first performance! You guessed it, it's none other than Ayaka-chan and Yuki-chan, from..." He thrusts the mic in front of Ayaka's face. A man in the recording room holds up a cue card that reads "Introduce your unit's name!"

Move to D11, Roast Wyvern Rider 5

Kagari stole a glance at Hiroki. She was a bit annoyed that someone else had gotten to see that girl's face before she had, but given the circumstances, well... She was cute though. Really cute. Like, super cute. So cute she wanted to grab her and hug her and- No, no. Not good. Things were still awkward. If she did that kind of thing it would probably have a bad result. She sighed and remained standing, crossing her arms to hide the trembling.