Thar Shaddin

Availability: Up to Saruna, I am fine with more people.

Posting Speed: Standard

Characters Involved: Shiv
Kuyeix

Location: Tian Xia


Summary: Kuyeix is looked for men of her tribe and runs into the superstitious sailor Shiv in a port city of Tian Xia.

Can I just say that I get the AA reference? #TotTG

\m/ \m/

So I was thinking: what if Kuyeix's tribesmen were taken by slavers? That could give us an opportunity for PIRATES! Or something. High seas drama?

PIRATESSSSSSS!

Hrm, I need a day or two to figure out how the heck to get them on the right track (did not think it through). But I am not forgetting! I will get to it.

Okay. Here is what I propose to make things a bit quicker paced and to save us from a bunch of tedium:

Kuyeix responds yes to Kori.
We time skip the next week or two as they work on finding out where her men went.
They figure out they need to take a ship to another port town.
Cut to them on the ship.
Maybe ahve some dialogue to sorta fill in everything that happened and how the interactions between kuyeix/shiv have either progressed or not (we can figure that out before I post).
Once everything is set in place, their ship gets attacked by pirates.
They're pressganged into service.

sound okay?

Just saw this.
And yes, that works for me perfectly.

I'm being a little lazy and just going with the junk http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Junk_%28ship%29

Maybe something like three masts, two decks below the top? A smalltime trader maybe.

We can hash out the pirate ship better since that one will likely be the one they're on for most of the thread.

Also yay! They're finally off!! I took a few liberties with Shiv. If there's anything in my post that inaccurately depicts him, let me know and I will change it pronto.

Hello folks!

Is there space for another character in this RP?
(I've been wanting to play a nautical character for a while now, and this RP looks entertaining.)

Thus far, I've come up with the following skeleton of a character:

===Lu Jīnwū, known as the 'sea raven'.===

A competent pirate, cheerful by nature, and honorable in his way.


I've worked raven symbology into Jīnwū's background from the time of his birth due to the way the motif has been running through the RP thus far. I decided on a pirate, rather than a sailor, as I noticed you are considering having pirates attack and pressgang the PCs.

Plot-wise, meeting a pirate with that kind of portentous name might be a decent hook to get the character involved with Kuy and Shiv's ongoing narrative.

I've done a little research on chinese sailing, boats, and pirates - I've added some notes and links into my first post at http://www.tharshaddin.com/rp/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=3062

Historically, asian piracy could range from a captain with a single ship to a vast fleet numbering hundreds of ships and tens of thousands of men (The pirate queen Ching Shih is a brilliant historic example of the pinnacle of success in chinese piracy)

If you do like the sound of Jīnwū, please let me know how much influence you'd want me to give the character within pirate circles, and how prevalent you'd like Pirates to be in the seas off Tian Xia for the purpose of the RP.

It will be very easy to flesh out the history of the character application to justify anything from simple pirate to something more akin to a lieutenant, first mate, or even a captain if the RP required it, as well as sprinkle the application with some contextual detail for Tian Xian piracy.


In the meanwhile, here is a brief taste of what I'm working on, background-wise.

===Brief History===

Jīnwū had nine brothers. Five died of plague, one died from tetanus after stepping on a rusted sickle, one was born with weak lungs and didn't last six months, and two died after being pressganged into service when a border dispute erupted between Lu province and the neighbouring Wei territory.

As the tenth and only son, his parents named him 'Jīnwū' after the sun raven spared by Houyi the archer when, according to folk legend, the 10 Sun Ravens' (known as sanzuwu) combined presence were burning the world.

Coincidence or not, the tenth son has lived longer than any of his other brother's managed. Jīnwū's luck has always been good. Just, never quite working in the way he'd like.

Which, to cut a long story short, is why Lu Jīnwū is a pirate at age 32, has been so for almost two decades, and has not seen his home in as many years.


===Notes on Area Names===

At present time for location names, I've referred to a map of 5th century BC china, located at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_of_Lu - Specifically the map found here:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/c ... en.svg.png

I noticed that Ji on that map matches up nicely with Ji on the Thar Shaddin map here: http://www.tharshaddin.com/w/images/3/3 ... educed.jpg

oh my god I totally forgot they were on a junk and implied there was a crow's nest. Fail. Fail. Fail. Quick! edit before anyone can notice!

There is room (unless kori demurs) but I must warn you that the thread is veeeery slow.

Also pirates was the whole point of the rp, really. A few years ago we'd talked about doing a pirate rp (and I was going to create a little gender-ambivalent critter based off the russian vodyanoi, but never got around to it), but it never quite stabilized. So when Kori wanted to put Shiv into action, we sorta talked out a way of getting onto the high seas in chat, and this sucker was born. *coughcough* Kuyeix was the only character I had available at the time. Soooo, I quite like Jinwu.

I'm not really sure what the rp would require just yet. I haven't really gotten a good hold on where it might go from here on out. :s

Cheers! Then I'll wait for Kori's reply before working on the piratical side of Jīnwū's history.

The one detail of Jīnwū's application I'd like you guys to decide on is his level of influence in Tian Xian pirate circles.
His rank equivalent, I suppose one could term it.

Shall I make him a captain of a single ship in a larger fleet of pirates?
A lieutenant/first mate/something similar?
Or low-rank - just one of the 1-300 sailors (depending on ship size) aboard the junk?

(His personality, as it currently portrays itself to me, wouldn't lend itself to making him a captain of a pirate junk working solo. He feels a lot more comfortable with his profession so long as there is someone above him to take some share of responsibility.)

If you both decide to give Jīnwū the green light, I'll whip up a full application.

I could also then work on a post running tangential to the current posts: a foreshadowing of the pirates who eventually intercept Shiv and Kuy's vessel. (If we go with that idea, I'd make that first post -very- open to requests for amendment to better fit in with the direction of the RP you have in mind)

On the other hand, if you decide to keep it a 2-person RP to minimise the post delays, I'll simply keep the idea of Jīnwū shelved for a character further down the line

I say go for the pirate captain, man. I also really like the idea of a second thread sort of running parallel up to when they intersect. . .or slightly before, I guess, since I'd foreshadowed it was there in my last post.

I always like more people, it's just that for slow threads I want people to be forewarned so they aren't disappointed or disheartened by the speed.

We'll see what Kori says when he swings around!

Pirate captain it is!

Checklist:
1 - Create an Application for Jīnwū
2 - Create a description for his vessel
3 - Describe the most important NPCs on his crew
4 - Write up a description of the fleet and leader of the pirate group Jīnwū belongs to.
5 - Put together a new thread
6 - See if I can con(vince) someone else into making a character to join that thread

This will keep me entertained for a while, methinks

I could totally npc until-it-turns-into-a-real-character (not like that hasn't happened before, ahaha)

. . .I really did want to make that critter. Though that might be outside the bounds of what you'd wanted for the pirates. Arrr.