Jim and I originally kicked around the idea of Neverath sometime in February or March of this year. It was in the planning stage for quite a while, and we made some attempts of actually starting but it never quite worked out. Mostly because we didn’t feel like we had enough people, too complicated,  and real life kicked in. Fast forward to December. Actually…I don’t think I need to explain.

My challenge to the RPers for Neverath is this:

• Make your character from scratch
• Don’t worry about the race/species
• Ignore the fighting aspect of your character (magic and weapons, etc)
• Design it with the intention that you had a story you think someone would enjoy listening to you talk about
• Design a character who could interact well with the characters Jim had already made

So if you feel like reading what happened, it’s on the Random Chat/Thoughts thread. And the resulting "argument" is entirely amusing.

I’m not posting anything too difficult (except with the fourth point, which I can understand if said person arguing with me brought it up). All I wanted was for the characters to mesh well and with as little friction as possible. (As in, no robots messing around with ancient demons or something). But said person argues about making people roleplay like a certain wall of text writer. C’mon. If I really wanted to people suffer carpel tunnel, I could’ve found better ways to do it. Don’t bring up the passion of roleplaying when you’re RPing on fscking HMF. You’ve got to be kidding me. HMF is where RPers go to die. Switching up the way you do things means you are FLEXIBLE. If you want to be an unchanging boulder, go right ahead. But that’s not what Neverath should be about. I never intended it to be that way. I wanted characters to develop. And as far as I can tell, those characters were already pre-planned and goals pre-set. I intended on Neverath to be flexible, with things changing all the time. If I wanted a pre-fabricated fantasy storyline, I’d read a book or play some JRPG. Not roleplay.

You say you’re trying to avoid being ‘the norm’. You say it as if it were offensive. The norm is a half-dragon who secretly has this ‘TRUE FORM OF HAX’. You’ve got to be kidding. The norm and what you consider not ‘the norm’ are both the same. Deal with it. Character archetypes are used and reused all the damn time. I don’t think Kaoru is some wonderful masterpiece, as cross dressing/gender swapping isn’t new either. But I think the way my character is presented is kinda neat. I don’t expect some ‘true form’ or what have you be the main feature of your character. Because what good is it, when you only use it at the very end of a story? Not much good for the beginning and the middle, is it?

Give me a character with personality. Give me a character who if they were real, I would hang out with. Give me a character worth caring for. Give me a character that is dynamic and not flat. If some simple criticisms of your character sets you off, then how good is your character? Honestly! If you can not handle a person like me, how could your character or even YOU handle the real assholes? I’m the least of your worries. I know that for a fact. There are people I’ve encountered that have riled me so much, but it’s going to happen to everyone sooner or later.

Do you really think its BS what I’m saying? I’m not saying all of my arguments are totally correct, but I believe that the majority of it is true. My challenge is still out there. You can choose to walk away, or you can face it head on. Don’t tell me RPing is your passion if this challenge is too much for you. Don’t tell me you can’t adapt. Because you can’t really role play if you can’t adapt. Don’t tell me you’re being expressive by sticking to only one method of playing. Because that’s just BS.

Life is all about changes and adapting to them. There are so many choices, but so little time to do it in. Memento mori.

Neverath was something that was being tossed around back in 2006 or so, but things didn’t quite take off. High expectations of other people joining and the fairly steep barrier to entry probably being the most noticeable problems. I’m not quite sure if HMF will work out for Neverath, and I’m not sure if I still want to be engaged in this as before.

Kaoru was a character that developed during Jim and I’s initial talks about Neverath. So as much as Neverath expanded to what it is now, Kaoru did as well. I had Kaoru’s profile taking a backseat while Neverath slowly progressed. Even still, I’m not quite sure what the final profile will look like. Kaoru, in my mind, is a very dynamic character that I think could go well with anything. Without further ado:

Kaoru Minamoto

Magical Trap

Name: Kaoru Minamoto

Age: 17

Gender: Male

Race: Human

Weapons: Kaliedospear - your standard magical wand but with a spear at the end instead. Candy red is the main color of this weapon.

Magic: I imagine Kaoru would have a variety of abilities at this point. But main ones would be magical bindings and traps. Bit of knowledge in both fire and ice as well.

Personality: Alright this is where things start to get difficult. This is where you basically describe how your characters acts, what fears they have, what strangle little quirks the may have, and anything else along those lines. Try to be more descriptive than just listing personality traits, for instance, Loner (Though to start out there is nothing wrong with that). Possibly the hardest part of this is when you have figured out your character’s personality you have to try and post accordingly.

Originally, I had setup Kaoru to be, amusingly, a loner. I’m still working out his character as I’m writing up his story, but he’s not as much of a loner anymore. He’s the friendly sort, nice guy, all that. I would think others see him as moralistic. Doesn’t believe in ignoring those who’ve hit rock bottom. The kind of guy who attempts to see the best in people. Wants to help in anyway he can.

He doesn’t want to be the hero. He wants to be the guy who helps the hero stop the villain with sage advice, or finds the uber-weapon. He WANTS to be the “other guy” in the adventure. Whether or not that happens is anyone’s guess. The limelight really isn’t the place for him, he thinks.

Some negatives…Biggest one I would say going into this is his self-esteem. If he’s not being useful to other people, he feels like he’s nothing. It’s going to be hard when there are situations he can’t get himself or others out of. Another negative would be his patience. If there’s a problem or situation, he wants to be there and doing everything he can to resolve it ASAP. Anger might be an issue related to the other two negatives, but that isn’t something I see happening early on.

Appearance: This section can or can’t be omitted depending on if you have a picture of your character. Make sure to include basics like hair color, eye color, height, weight, build and than you can move on to other more defining features. Does your character have long legs? What kind of facial structure do they? Any scars or tattoos? These are just a few things you can ask yourself when trying to describe your character to someone else.

Kaoru stands at about five foot six inches. His short, charcoal black hair and royal blue eyes are the first things one can spot from a distance. Up close though, his feminine build throws you off. One could use the term “pretty boy” and they would be correct. One wouldn’t notice him in a crowd with his nondescript standard shirt and pants. However, with his uniform on, his girlish face and frame become just that much more noticeable with the school’s small class sizes.

Biography: If you recall the opening text to Neverath, that was written by none other than Kaoru himself. Standard invitations to the school result in a limo ride and brief talk about the school. I originally had planned a fight in which Kaoru would be sent to the office. He’s not in trouble, and a mention of Neverath by the Principal before being excused to go home. The next day would start with the limo appearing outside Kaoru’s house. I scrapped this and right now, I’m thinking either a message from the source of the Kaliedospear, Kaoru’s cousin, or a challenge by Jim’s character, Marilyn.

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Notes:

Like the title suggests, it is still in progress. I originally planned on writing a prelude to Neverath with Kaoru being the main character, and some other characters in Neverath playing some sort of role. Central characters to Kaoru would be JUNA and Marilyn. Initial discussions being that Marilyn would be Kaoru’s main opponent, and JUNA being thrown in the mix somehow. Though Jim had Marilyn being the main villain in a lot of this, I see Marilyn just being thrown into a situation where there isn’t much of a choice but be evil to escape her predicament. The whole vampire thing being a problem that Kaoru would have to deal with. Vampires just might be the biggest problem Kaoru ever faced…I see Kaoru and Marilyn’s relationship being that of what one is expected to do and what one wants to do. Srsly, Kaoru doesn’t think anyone can be truly be evil. Just annoying as heck. I really see some blurring of the lines in Marilyn’s/Kaoru’s story, because Marilyn being the good character and Kaoru being the bad one would just be fun.

JUNA, to me, is a character who slowly builds up emotion and starts from scratch to build up a personality of her own. That, in my mind, is cute. My prelude to Neverath includes Kaoru meeting JUNA very early in development. I want to say Kaoru plays a role in JUNA’s development in a big way, but depending on the situation, that may or may not happen.

What else did I want to say…Kaoru’s main concept was that of the magical girl. "Girl? Kaoru’s a guy, right?" Well, genderbending has always been an amusing concept. Magical girls in anime tend to be overused, and I thought to combine both genderbending and magical girl transformation sequences. But, I also made Kaoru’s female personality distinct from his male personality. So there’s some multiple personality/schizophrenia involved. I’m very curious to see how well this all works in action. Perhaps the personalities are distinct enough that people think of them as being two different people altogether. I haven’t really worked this whole thing out.