raisin
space cadet
They call me raisin. I’ve been roleplaying since the wee old days of AIM, so this one’s for all my fellow oldies. If you’re nearing thirty, over thirty, and have a penchant for stringing together coherent sentences that propel unwitting characters to places untold – you’ve come to the right place.
Some Non-negotiables:
the plitter plotter of stories waiting to be told
At the end of each prompt, you’ll find my character preferences noted in italics. If any of these worlds intrigue you, but you have a different idea for characters, let me know! These are by no means set in stone. They’re just inspirations. As a rule, I am always up for running in new directions.
I'm also not in any way committed to the names any of the places in any of these plots. So if you have better names in mind, I’m game for changing them up.
INTERESTED?
Great! Shoot me a DM with the following information:
Some Non-negotiables:
- Be an adult, preferably 25/30+. Really, this is just a matter of OOC comfort.
- Write well. Quantity isn’t everything, but quality matters. Contribute to the world and the plot, and we’ll be in good shape.
- Be ghost-friendly. I’ll do my utmost to let you know if things aren’t working out, but I wound up disappearing unexpectedly from these boards a few months ago for unforeseeable reasons that hit hard and fast and, honestly, checking in on RPN was the last thing on my mind. In short – things happen, and hobbies should be hobbies. I will never hound you or shame you for replies, and I will expect the same courtesy. (As a side note - if I had an open thread with you haven’t had a chance to follow-up with you yet, give me a shout. I’d love to reconnect!)
- Life comes first. I work full-time, which means my replies will generally be in the evenings or on weekends. I'll never guarantee a reply every day but I can guarantee at least one response a week and will do my best to knock out 2-3 a week. If you have me hooked, I could easily be good for more than that.
- DM me if you’re interested. I won’t reply to comments here.
- I prefer female mains, but I do genuinely enjoy doubling. I even enjoy creating a host of characters to throw at one another. The trick here is effort. I put the same effort into all my characters, and I would want the same if we expand beyond one-on-one.
- Romance must be earned. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t always hoping for that spark to, well, spark. But conflict is what makes a story great and anything too immediate or too contrived really breaks the integrity of the world for me. I also prefer fxm unless we’re doubling, etc. Essentially, I’m all for any matches, but fxm is what’s most fun for me so I want that possibility to at least be present between characters. If they never click that way, c’est la vie. If they do, I’d like for it to be hard-wrought and well-earned.
- Third person. Anything else just feels jarring to me.
- Dark and gritty. A good story is rife with conflict. My characters will be flawed and they will make mistakes. Hopefully, they’ll learn from those mistakes along the way, but occasionally they’ll double-down and be worse off for it. I want actions to have consequences and I want to write in an imperfect world with high, palpable stakes. That being said, I also want to see sparks of joy and Good Things worth fighting for; otherwise – what’s the point of fighting?
the plitter plotter of stories waiting to be told
At the end of each prompt, you’ll find my character preferences noted in italics. If any of these worlds intrigue you, but you have a different idea for characters, let me know! These are by no means set in stone. They’re just inspirations. As a rule, I am always up for running in new directions.
I'm also not in any way committed to the names any of the places in any of these plots. So if you have better names in mind, I’m game for changing them up.
Alterra is a small island nation, ruled by an aging king. For two generations—nearly a century—Alterra has known peace, and that stability has wrought prosperity. Docks once built for warships now bustle with trade. History remembers the Alterrans as warriors, a nation of pirates always available for sale to the highest bidder. Their commercial allegiance has always left a sour taste in the mouths of mainland kingdoms. Behind closed doors, Alterrans are decried as mercenaries, barbarians even. But their naval prowess has won the tide of every war that could afford their ships, making them a necessary evil in the eyes of most mainland kingdoms.
In times of peace, the island of Alterra has historically been all but forgotten by the politics and in-fighting of the mainland. It was not until the current king inherited the crown from his father that Alterra set its sights on trade. After nearly a generation of languishing in the shadows, the traders of Alterra have proven almost as ruthless as their forefathers were in battle, and their newfound prosperity is disrupting tentative truces among ruling houses on the mainland.
Unbeknownst to the kingdom of Alterra, mainland forces are aligning against the aging king and his ilk. An agent has been smuggled into their ranks, charged with infiltrating the palace, unearthing and relaying secrets back to the mainland, disrupting trade deals, and—if ordered—assassinating the ruling family.
CHARACTER IDEAS:
This one would be ideal for a prince/princess of Alterra vs. the mainland agent. The prince or princess could be the heir to the throne or a younger sibling (this role could also be replaced by a trusted member of the household guard or staff).
The agent could take on a number of forms: a new member of the guard or household staff, a slave gifted to one of the king’s children, etc.
I could easily enjoy playing either side of this paradigm – the Alterran or the betrayer. As for whether (and to what extent) the betrayer executes their assigned task, that will be up to us and the decisions our characters make along the way!
The Emperor of Almera is hosting the empire’s first Centennial Celebration of peace. For a hundred years, the regions of Almera have maintained a tenuous truce—united under the Almeran Dynasty. Once a continent of fractured kingdoms, the Empire’s Four Corners are all that remain of nearly a dozen kingdoms. The Corners—North, South, East, and West—were the Empire’s gift to the first four kingdoms that bent the knee to Almera more than a hundred years ago. Each is now ruled by a Duke or Duchess, charged with paying fealty to the Almeran Seat.
This year, that fealty comes in the form of the Centennial Celebration. Across the continent, the Four Corners have arranged contingents to pay homage to the Empire. Though ostensibly a celebration, the Centennial marks an opportunity for the Corners to vie for dominance and favor against one another: to peddle intrigues, broker trade agreements, and propose or disrupt marriage alliances in whatever manner most befits their corner.
Each delegation includes a large host of aristocrats and soldiers alike. It is, after all, the first time in a hundred years that the four disparate Corners will be allowed to converge in the same place at the same time.
The Centennial is set to last a fortnight, with each delegation housed under the same imperial roof. Unfortunately, tragedy will break out long before the celebrations reach their planned end. A massive explosion at the end of the first week will leave the Centennial’s attendants scrambling for their lives, severing the empire’s tenuous peace and thrusting unlikely allies into the chaos of debris, detritus, and loose ends.
CHARACTER IDEAS:
This plot is your oyster. Your character could be a representative from one of the Four Corners—anyone from an aristocrat to an ambassador to a soldier—or a member of the Imperial House themselves. Or perhaps your character has infiltrated the Centennial for their own Reasons. Whether your character was caught unaware by the explosion or was secretly in on it, our characters will find themselves foisted together in a quest to either uncover (or cover up) the secrets behind the plot to dismantle the empire.
This plot in particular would also lend itself well to doubling/tripling/etc.
Centuries ago, the kingdoms of Kholen and Hakar were one: Khol’hakar. The Khol’hakar empire spanned an entire continent—from one coast to the other. Its wealth was born of the Andolar mines, deep in the heart of Mount Andola. The gems harvested from its rocks kept the nation’s armies fed and its people content. For generations, the Khol’hakar Empire knew no bounds. It expanded beyond fathom until the death of Emperor Tyrrus Elanis drove a fissure through the heart of the sprawling nation.
Tyrrus died a young man, taken by fever under the dark of night. His passing was so sudden, there was not time to properly name an heir, leaving behind two irrevocable and irreconcilable claims to the imperial throne:
From the seat of the family’s ancestral home in Kholen, the widowed Empress Iless claimed regency over the empire in the name of her two-year-old daughter, the only child of the late Emperor Tyrrus. On the other side of Mount Andola, in the principality of Hakar, Prince Duran—Tyrrus’s younger brother—staked his own claim on the merit of being the only living male of Elanis lineage.
In the centuries that followed, the Andolar mines had exchanged hands at least a dozen times, making a battleground of the borderland valleys on either side of the mountain. Generations of relentless warfare have weakened Kholen and Hakar, finally driving the fractured kingdoms to the brink of a truce in the form of an alliance: a marriage between the heirs of Kholen and Hakar.
As with any resolution to a bloody, ages-long conflict, it is a solution far easier written than executed. Once two parts of a greater whole, Kholen and Hakar are now vastly disparate nations, each defined by the principles that set it apart from the other so many centuries ago.
Kholen is a bastion of wealth an excess. It was Empress Iless whose forces were in control of the Andoral mines all those years ago. As a result, the kingdom has maintained a tenuous hold on the mountain’s wealth for centuries. But it is not without a cost. The military might of the once-sprawling empire was born in the harsh, rocky highlands of Hakar. What the nation now lacks in wealth, it has made up for in sheer force of will and the strength of its far smaller forces.
It is said that one Hakari warrior is worth a dozen Kholenites, and the math has slowly been tipping in the Hakari’s favor for the better part of the last decade. Kholen has ceded more ground in the last five years to Hakar than it has in centuries. Now, for the first time, Hakar finds itself poised to seize the coveted mines of Andola. But seizing and holding the mines are not the same thing.
Kholen has forged countless alliances over the years, through trade and marriage alike. Even if Hakar managed to take the mines, the battle-hardened kingdom would undoubtedly lack the political and commercial prowess to fully capitalize on its wealth.
In short, the kingdoms of Kholen and Hakar have finally been confronted with a truth they’ve been drowning in blood for centuries: they need each other.
For generations, men have ruled Hakar, clinging to the ideals of Duran Elanis’s patriarchy. Meanwhile, the throne of Kholen has passed from first-born to first-born, elevating kings and queens alike to the crown. These differences alone would make for a challenging marriage, but the betrothed Son of Hakar and Daughter of Kholen have far bigger trials on the horizon:
Unbeknownst to all, an evil waits within the heart of Mount Andola. Once buried beneath a mountain of rock and jewels, it is now only a matter of time before the miners delve too deep, waking an ancient power that thrust the world itself—and the entirety of the continent of Khol’hakar—in a fight for its life.
CHARACTER IDEAS:
Given the social dynamics of the two kingdoms, we’d set ourselves up for the most conflict if the Hakari character is male and the Kholenite is female. With that in mind, I’d prefer to play the ‘Daughter of Kholen.’
The ‘Son of Hakar’ could be either the King of Hakar or his son – whichever sounds most appealing.
A millennia ago, mankind was capable of bending reality to its will. Magic thrummed at the fingertips of every child born to Sadara. Entire cities were constructed along ley lines, drawing on the Source itself to power wonders that thrust Sadaran civilization into a great renaissance of societal and technological advancements. But every resource is finite—even magic.
Eventually, the Source began to ebb. Once potent ley lines flickered, prone to sporadic outages before collapsing entirely, heralding the beginning of the end. Each year, fewer and fewer children were born with magic in their veins. In those early, waning years, being born to magic was considered a gift. A greatness, a calling to a higher purpose. Magic opened doors to children that otherwise would have remained closed to all but the most affluent: education, elevation, status.
But status breeds choice and choice so often breeds indifference. As more and ley lines collapsed, Sadara teetered on the brink of extinction. The kingdom did not need more aristocrats; it needed resources. Raw magic to defend against Sadara’s enemies and power its cities. In short, the kingdom needed mages—those precious few born with the gift of magic still at their fingertips.
Over time, mages became hunted, taken at birth to be trained to serve their city as the resources they were. Methods of control were constructed to wrest unwilling mages into the service their kingdom required: collars made of bronze and encrusted with control gems that paired with gems inlaid in a bronze control cuff. Once a collar was fastened around a mage’s neck, the ebb and flow of their magic would be subject to the control of a magister—a handler trained to staunch and stymie a mage’s magic with a flick of their cuffed wrist.
It was a measure intended to stem the tide of hemorrhaging magic, but—centuries later—it has become a way of life. Where status was once born of magic itself, now it is born of the ability to control magic. Even the lowest level magisters—whose cuffs remain the crude bronze of their forefathers—can count themselves among the nobility. The mages at their disposal maintain Sadaran infrastructure, heating bathwater for highborns and powering the generators responsible for the lanterns that light the kingdom’s great houses. But the Bronzes are a rung below the Silvers, whose polished cuffs control the silvery collars of mages trained in battle—those responsible for manning the kingdom’s defenses, patrolling city streets, and marching to war when the war horns call.
Only the highest born Sadarans wear gold. Their cuffs are the province of luxury, the gift of magic in its truest sense. Their mages number the fewest and are generally relegated to that of royal bodyguards and personal attendants to the Crown and its heirs.
It was, therefore, with great pride that the King of Sadara gifted his heir a golden cuff bound to a golden mage. Though he could not have known it at the time, the king’s gift was fortuitous in its timing. The palace’s waning ley lines would finally go dark less than a week later, leaving the family open to a calculated slaughter.
CHARACTER IDEAS:
This plot is pretty obviously built for the heir to the crown and their newly minted ‘golden mage,’ but I have a feeling we can pick up some additional characters along the way as our intrepid heroes fight their way through the palace slaughter and whatever escapades follow.
I could have a blast with either of these characters, so let me know if one speaks to you and I’ll pick up the other!
Every Laran knows that magic is a stain on mankind, a disease capable of unfathomable destruction. Generations ago, the King of Ilara led a Great Charge to purge the scourge of magic from his borders. For months, rivers and streets ran red with the corrupted blood of those whose mere existence threatened destruction. Neighbors turned in neighbors, terrified parents handed over their children while others ran with theirs. In the end, none survived—not that it mattered.
It is said that a new mage is born every day, despite the Great Charge to eradicate their disease from the land. It is the purview of the Watchers, those cloaked in the King’s Grey, to remain ever vigilant—watching for signs of the stain to stomp out its source before entire villages are lost to its power.
Of course, when the Crown falls to a coup and the heir to the Ilaran throne is entrusted to a band of mercenaries for safe travel out of the kingdom, it will be the corrupted blood of a mage standing between the Heir Apparent and the usurpers at their heel.
CHARACTER IDEAS:
This one’s pretty straight forward. We need a mage and an heir. The mage is part of a band of mercenaries hired to smuggle the heir out of the kingdom. What the heir won’t know right up until they do is that their livelihood depends on the very magic the Ilaran Crown has been eradicating for generations.
I’m open to either character, and this one is definitely well-positioned for doubling/tripling/etc. if that’s of interest.
INTERESTED?
Great! Shoot me a DM with the following information:
- The plot you're interested in (whether it's one of these or something else entirely!)
- General information on your proposed character (doesn't need to be a full character sheet, just enough to let me know what direction you're leaning)
- Any questions or writing preferences you have
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