You can hear the movement of the train; The sound of the engines, the dwindling chatter among other passengers, the wheels moving through the rails...
You yawn.
You haven't slept in hours.
In your right hand lies a letter for you; the reason why you are in this train, and why you are traveling to a new home for, at the very least, the rest of the year.
Inside it, it was a note from the higher ups of the Soyokaze Academy, located in the town of Shirubātaun.
It was a relatively remote place, not many people visited it, but despite that, the academy was know for being a respectable educative institution.
The note inside the letter had a photo of you, and it told you about your transference to this academy
you read the letter once again, stating to feel your eyelids becoming heavy...
(Select your name and gender, the more Japanese/Anime your name, the better!)
[] "To Mr....
[] "To Ms....
We are proud to inform you that you transference at Soyokaze Academy has been successfully completed, we are hopeful for you to start attending classess the 1st of April at 8:00 AM without delay.
We are hopeful for your safety and prosperity within the walls of or academy-"
You notice the photo of you alongside the letter.
[] Introduce an image of your character (It is recommended to use anime styled pictures).
You sigh.
You honestly can't help but start drifting into sleep, as your eyes close, you let out a last though...
'So, an entire year...' And then you knew nothing but darkness.
[...]
...Among Clockworks and Rails...
...The Wheel of Destiny turns....
...Which is the Role you will take...?
ROLES
[] The Delinquent: You are, or were, the kind of guy who parents tell their kids to stay away from; A troublemaker, someone who previously intimidated people for their lunch money, maybe even an earlier smoker too! (You have a decent amount of physical strength. You can be pretty intimidating when you want to be, as long as the situation is favorable. You have a certain kinship with fellow trouble makers, but most 'By the law' kind of people might have a bad first impression of you).
[] The Smart One: You are Smart. With Capital 'S'. You are the guy who obtains straight A's in every test, who doesn't need to study much because you will absorb it rather quickly. (You have an easy time absorbing knowledge. You aren't know for being an athlete or for working out. You are capable of giving directions, and most people will look up to you when an answer to a complicated question is needed, but you will probably have to double your efforts if you want to be inspiring).
[] The Geek: You are the kind of guy who spend almost all of his free time watching movies, anime, reading novels, playing videogames, maybe even playing D&D in your basement, so you have experience when it comes to that kind of stuff. (You have a vast knowledge about all the tropes that come in this kind of setting and more. You have a rather skinny build. You will probably be decent in most social situations).
[] The Background Guy: You exist. That's pretty much it for almost everyone here; call it a curse or a blessing, you have a rather uncanny ability for you and your actions to pass unnoticed by almost everyone. Spooky. (You and your actions have a weird pattern of going unnoticed by most people. You have an average build. You can be pretty much the lord in the shadows, but when it comes to going into the spotlight, you will find yourself having a hard time to get yourself into it).
...And which is the Thread that has led you here...?
BACKSTORY
[] Traveling Family: Your fathers' are often busy working overseas, so this isn't your first time having to live alone or in a dorm. That said, you have heard strange rumors about this place, and you are rather curious about how this year will play out.
[] Orphan: It was sudden. One day, you and your family had dinner as usual, the next? A car crash changes your entire life. You have lost them recently, but at the end, even if painful, life goes on; your uncle has offered himself to take you in his home, but doing so meant having to move to a whole new town, and a whole new school.
[] Regular Student: Right now, for whatever reason, you are being transfered to another school, far enough from home that you have to live on your own for the first time in your life. You promised to visit your family once you have time, but for now? You are on your own.
[] Homecoming: Feels good to be back home, isn't it? This place was your childhood home, for one reason or another, you were forced to part ways with this place, before you even reached two digits of age! You are excited to see what has changed in this old town.
Early Week (Monday, Tuesday), Middle Week (Wednesday, Thursday, Friday), and Weekends (Saturday, Sunday).
You have 4 Action Points per section, which can be used to study mundane or magical issues, train one of your stats or skills, hang out with Social Links, and deal with Events that happen on the academy or the town.
Events can appear either by random dice rolls, or by your actions.
Events ignore the normal flow of time of turns, covering multiple updates until their end.
Once completed, Events grant diverse rewards, such as dices to any stat you choose or to obtain new skills or traits.
You have 5 Combat Stats:
Health Points (HP): Your health. If it drops to zero, you will be forced to roll for salvation to either fall unconscious or to get up.
Magical Points (MP): Your capability to use magic at the moment. It is consumed every time you use a spell.
Power (PWR): Represents your strength, your resistance to damage and the damage of your less magical attacks, including long-ranged weapons.
Dexterity (DEX): Represents your speed, capability to move silently and to evade attacks, and your precision with long-ranged weapons.
Arcane (ARC): Represents the depth of your knowledge about magic, and how well are you capable of using it; be it in subtle ways, or in powerful blows. It also serves as a way to reduce magical damage.
And 3 Social Stats:
Knowledge: Represents the amount of (regular) knowledge. Useful when investigating or when required to know about a subject.
Charisma: Represent your capability to interact with others. Useful when talking to others.
Determination: Represents your overall capability to push through adversity. Useful when shaking off mental aliments.
Each one of your Social Stats have 6 ranks in total.
The higher the stat, the harder is to raise it.
D6 and D20 are the most common dices here.
D6 are going to be used in Combat
D20 are for practicing your Skills, to determine your accuracy to determine the outcome of certain situations.
D100 are mostly restricted to either background rolls, or to special Events.
In Combat, multiple D6's are used.
You obtain one dice (D6) for every 4 points in your Combat Stats.
You obtain one dice (D6) for every rank of your Social Stats.
Skills can give you benefits, open certain actions, and give bonuses to rolls within their area of expertise.
The Skills are classified by rank, in the following order:
Traits are part of a characters personality; they define a great part of a character's actions or relationships.
Some Traits are opposed to each other, and when two characters with opposed traits interact, they will receive maluses to their social rolls with each other.
Some traits have ranks that show their importance or severity in the character.
A Social Link is a way to represent the relationship or bond between two characters.
Each Social Link has ten levels of Depth, each divided by six Relationship Points.
A SL can downgrade a level or break depending on factors like time since you and the SL had interacted, actions taken that the SL disapproves, or words and actions taken against this SL.
SL can grant bonuses to certain actions, obtain information that could be useful for the future, trigger Events related to them, and open paths that would have been closed without them.
Remember; Friendships and Bonds are a Power by themselves.
The Background Guy: For some reason, you have the uncanny ability to pass unnoticed by almost everyone. Homecoming: You came back to your childhood home after many years; hopefully this will be a good time to do so.
Combat Stats
HP: 12/12 ("Well... All in all, at least I'm healthy.")
MP 0/15 ("I... cast fist?")
PWR: 12 ("I feel as if I could give it a shot at the Olympics.")
DEX: 16 ("Wow. Just... Wow.")
ARC: 02 ("Well, at least I'm learning")
Social Stats
KNOWLEDGE: Average ("I do fine in school... I think.")(**····) CHARISMA: Invisible ("Yeah... I'm used to this") (*·····)
DETERMINATION: Lacking ("I'm just not inspired") (*·····)
Traits
Fading Into The Background (???) "But... I'm right here!"
Gives maluses to perception rolls when to attempting to find you while in hiding (-3), the malus increases when standing still (-1) and when hiding among a crowd (-2).
Gives maluses to perception when attempting to link you to any event (-4), unless any proof is provided; this also happens when attempting to claim responsibility of any action or event.
It is harder for you to leave an impression, good or bad, in a person; Social Links require more effort to obtain and raise.
Eerie Calmness (???) "I know I should be scared, but..."
Ignores the need to roll for composure, regardless of the situation.
Depending on the situation, this may cause issues with your allies, specially those who had failed their own composure rolls, due to your extreme calmness during a situation.
Skills
Gunslinger (Incompetent) "Y'know... Maybe the Wild West ain't for me right now..."
Your Skill when using pistols.
At this Rank, you receive a malus of -4 to Accuracy (D20) and a -2 to Damage (D6).
Spells/Arts
Explosive Release (Minor) "I recommend you to take a step back."
Causes a magical explosion every time the user Awakens.
It causes 1d4 of damage and it ignores defensive rolls outside of evasion.
Inventory
Unnamed Dagger (Equipped) "It... just appeared in my hand one day?"
Dagger used mainly for stealth take-downs
Adds 1d6 to attack, bonus (+4) when attacking unsuspecting enemies.
Unnamed Pistol (Equipped) "I swear I'm not making this up!"
Pistol of old design, it doesn't seem to need to be manually reloaded.
Adds 1d5 to mid-to-short range attacks, it also seems to be compatible with many magics...
Social Link Rank 1 of 10; 0 of 6 Relationship Points
School counselor. Says that you are always welcome in her office. You have talked to her about your family. Seems nice.
[X] Plan: Invisible boi
- [X] "To Mr....
- Asuka Iwamoto
- [X] The Background Guy: You exist. That's pretty much it for almost everyone here; call it a curse or a blessing, you have a rather uncanny ability for you and your actions to pass unnoticed by almost everyone. Spooky. (You and your actions have a weird pattern of going unnoticed by most people. You have an average build. You can be pretty much the lord in the shadows, but when it comes to going into the spotlight, you will find yourself having a hard time to get yourself into it).
- [X] Homecoming: Feels good to be back home, isn't it? This place was your childhood home, for one reason or another, you were forced to part ways with this place, before you even reached two digits of age! You are excited to see what has changed in this old town.
[X] Plan: All according to keikaku - [X] "To Mr.... - Idaina shisōka [X] The Smart One [X] Orphan
For some reason the idea of a super smart guy trying to create a plan for the best possible school life but being constantly subverted by supernatural events he didn't account for sounds really funny to me
Also [X] Plan: Invisible boi
Just in case mine doesn't work
I wanted to vote for the most aggressively common student and pick a Regular backstory for maximum inconspicuousness, but I suppose there is a plan with a similar sentiment already.
Scheduled vote count started by UNKNOWN01 on Aug 4, 2021 at 11:52 PM, finished with 16 posts and 16 votes.
[X] Plan: Invisible boi - [X] "To Mr.... - [X] The Background Guy: You exist. That's pretty much it for almost everyone here; call it a curse or a blessing, you have a rather uncanny ability for you and your actions to pass unnoticed by almost everyone. Spooky. (You and your actions have a weird pattern of going unnoticed by most people. You have an average build. You can be pretty much the lord in the shadows, but when it comes to going into the spotlight, you will find yourself having a hard time to get yourself into it). - [X] Homecoming: Feels good to be back home, isn't it? This place was your childhood home, for one reason or another, you were forced to part ways with this place, before you even reached two digits of age! You are excited to see what has changed in this old town.
The last thing you remember doing was falling asleep inside your train ride to Shirubātau, your childhood hometown, and so you expected to wake up inside the same train, maybe with it having reached it's destination, as it was usual for these things to heppen, right?
Instead, you found yourself... Here.
It's difficult to give this place an appropiate description; mostly due to the lack of natural light in the area, said light, bright green, you could notice, came from luminiscent rocks that laid scattered around in the floor.
The only colors you can see around are red for the walls and pitch black for the floor. You tried to focus your vision in said floor, but you noticed that you were completely uncapable of seeing anything reflected on said floor; Had you not been walking on it, you would have mistaken it for some sort of fall.
A very deep fall.
The strangest thing that you notice is that, for some reason, you feel... oddly calm about this whole situation.
Sure, this place is clearly a dream, but you would have thought that the sheer detail and your strange lucidity inside of this dream might have made you feel at least a little bit uneasy, but so far, you felt completely in control of your feelings.
Looking around a little bit more, you were able to find some sort of crack in one of the walls, big enough for you to pass through it, if a little bit cramped.
And that's when you heard it.
No, more like, felt it.
You started to feel the ground shaking, your first thought was an earthquake, but that thought disappeared when you heard the heavy, crushing steps coming from one of the walls.
That was the moment when your strange feeling of calm left you, and emotions like anxiety, nerves, and fear came back to you.
Oddly enough, you also felt relief for a second; feeling so calm in such a weird situation was a truly strange sensation, and you feared that it might have been permanent, but that relief was washed away as you heard the sound of footsteps coming closer, stopping, and then the sound of a lock being unlocked came to your ears.
Now actually terrified, you forced yourself to go through the crack in order to escape... whatever existed behind these walls.
'Come on, come on, come on, come on...!'
In your state of panic, you managed to get your whole body inside the crack before the door opened.
When it did open, you felt the glow of light the side of you that wasn't looking to advancing to the darkness of the crack.
The footsteps came closer, more hurried, you noticed.
Your foot eventually lost touch of the ground, giving you the realization that there was a fall, and that you had to let yourself fall.
The thing that had entered the room had taken notice of your position, and you could hear it attempting to pass through the crack.
...No, that wasn't what it was doing.
You felt your body become slightly less cramped inside the crack, as you thought over your dilemma.
The thing was forcefully opening the crack by sheer brute force.
That was the moment when you realized that you needed to make a choice. And fast.
You looked back to the room where the thing was.
It... looked surprisingly human, at least in shape, they had two arms, two legs, a torso, and a head.
They had some sort of armor covering their body, and some sort of helmet covering their face.
It would have made you mistake them for a human rather easy, if it weren't for two details:
They had some sort of... black smoke(?) emanating from their body.
And their eyes... Were so red and they looked like they were burning, the sheer act of looking at them made you feel an unspeakable amount of dread.
"You... Come... Here...!" The voice was deep, and you were too scared to distinguish it from male to female.
You made your choice.
You looked back at the abyss before you...
"NO...!"
And let yourself fall into the darkness-
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
You woke up with a jolt, your head being received by the kind touch of the walls of the train car.
"Ack!" You felt pain.
This was a good start.
"Attention passengers, we have arrived at Shirubātaun station. Repeat, we have arrived at the Shirubātaun station."
You were awoken by the mechanical voice of the announcer.
You looked around you, noticing that there were many people who were leaving the train, apparently having reached their destination, just like you.
As you looked outside through the windows, you noticed the orange-ish sky that made you realized that it was probably almost evening.
You sighed at the discovery, 'Dammit...' That means that you would have a hard time sleeping tonight, considering how much sleep you got during your ride.
You frowned.
'I... dreamed about something?' Your dream had mostly been washed away from you memories, but there was something of that dream that your memory refused to forget.
It was...
[] ...The eerie sense of calm that you had with you through most of the dream.
[] ...The creature with the black smoke and red eyes. [] ...The feeling of falling into darkness, and the terror you felt.
You shook your head.
'A weird dream, nothing unusual'
This wasn't the first weird dream you had since your childhood; maybe the weirdest, but not the only one.
You were quick to take inventory of things you had with you; your backpack, which had a enough sets of clothes to last for a week, money from your parents, and enough educational materials like books and stuff to make sure you didn't needed to buy anything for a while.
The last thing you revised that you had with you was...
[] A hand mirror: Something from your mother, she told you that this used to be hers, and that she would feel happy if you kept it to yourself; The look of worry and happiness in her face when you accepted it kept you awake that night. [] An old pocket watch: Something from your uncle, he told you that this was a family relic, and that he would be happy for you to have it; he died a few weeks after that conversation. [] A jade pendant: Something from your father, he told you that this used to be his, that it would keep you safe as a 'good luck' amulet and that he would be happy if you were to have it; his face was as serious as it could be when he told you this.
You finally set foot outside the train after checking your stuff, and once you did, you allowed yourself to feel the gentle breeze touching your face.
'Ah... it does feels good to be back home.'
Your face now had a tiny smile painted on it, you remembered all the good times you had in this place; even after your family moved to the closest big city around, you never felt like you belonged there, you felt alone, like another cog in a gigantic machine you couldn't be truly part of.
To some, the metropolis and it's glamour were something they could truly enjoy, but for you? You were quite happy to be outside.
'Alright, what to do now...'
You could always go to the dorms, after all, it would be the place were you would spend most of your time, and meeting your co-habitants was bound to be a decent idea.
...On the other hand, you arrived earlier than scheduled, which meant that nobody was expecting you yet, so you had a few hours to yourself until you had to check on the dorms.
'Decisions, decisions...'
[] Go to the dorms straight away: It was the logical choice; You registered, left your things inside your appointed room, meet you co-habitants, and let yourself rest from the journey. [] Wander a little: Well, if there was nobody to tell you not to... -[] The commercial area: Shirubātaun had a place that was unoficially designated by the locals as a 'commercial' area, which had the most stores and services in the whole town; you used to find everything here interesting as a child, might as well see what has changed. -[] The Residential area: The place with the most houses, relatively close to the commercial area, and with a lot of schools and play grounds for children, it was a place you might be interested in seeing. -[] The Park: In the town's center, it was a quiet place, to relax and to think about life... or something along those lines. It might be somewhere good to visit. -[] The Outskirts: There's a lot of nature on the outskirts of the city, it is relaxing and it has a lot of animals around; you remember sneaking here once or twice as a child to play around.
Well, here it is the update... I don't have much to say right now, now that I think about it.
Um... Oh! warn me of any typos if it isn't much trouble, and I would enjoys feedback; any help to better my writing skills is welcome!
Anyways, the character sheet should be updated when this whole prologue ends, so...
[X] Plan: Calm, Time, and Outsider. -[X] ...The eerie sense of calm that you had with you through most of the dream.
-[X] An old pocket watch: Something from your uncle, he told you that this was a family relic, and that he would be happy for you to have it; he died a few weeks after that conversation. -[X] Wander a little: Well, if there was nobody to tell you not to... --[X] The Outskirts: There's a lot of nature on the outskirts of the city, it is relaxing and it has a lot of animals around; You remember sneaking here once or twice as a child to play around.
