The Gauntlet

The Gauntlet - a different kind of tournament.

In this proposed series of RPs, your character must face a gauntlet of battles and/or challenges arranged by other members in order for a chance to obtain a legendary weapon. Well, sort-of-legendary; it isn't legendary *yet*, but given that it's a copy of a pre-existing legendary weapon, it has the power of one. That weapon is Excalibur II.

This weapon will be offered up as a reward by the host of the gauntlet - Esaniel - who will have uncovered the artifact and decided to test the mortals to see if any were worthy to wield its might. Which is is something he does because he's basically a lowercase g god and they just be like that sometimes.

The abilities of the weapon will be essentially identical to Esaniel's own Excalibur, and by extension, the Excalibur of myth, just with one notable exception - its form will change depending on its wielder.

So if your character prefers guns over swords, Excalibur II will become a gun and its holster. If you prefer hand-to-hand combat, it'd become a pair of gauntlets. If gauntlets aren't your style, it will become a ring or an amulet. So on and so forth.

In whatever form it takes though, its abilities will be the same:

Excalibur II wrote:

- When in its scabbard (or equivalent 'off' state), it'll grant its wielder not-quite-invulnerability. This entails a greatly enhanced healing factor, an inability to feel pain, and wounds that will not bleed, so bloodloss isn't a factor (assuming your character can bleed, anyway). This way whenever you're not attacking, you are always passively defending.

- A passive immunity to lesser and moderate curses and other generalized negative effects, regardless of whether or not it's sheathed, holstered, or otherwise 'turned off'.

- Powerful Holy/Light magic attacks. At least two of these are specific to the weapon: 'Purifying Light', which is a blinding glow that halves the power of all dark and evil magic nearby and heals all minor to moderate wounds, and 'Retribution', which is a light that envelops and extends beyond the weapon and is its single most powerful attack. This 'Retribution' attack will change its form depending on the form of the weapon though, obviously.

- All other Holy/Light attacks will be yours to decide, as the weapon will grant you the passive ability to create and cast them, with the stipulation that none are stronger than 'Retribution'. This makes it perfect for fighting ghosts, ghouls, demons, and the generally impure-of-heart, since it gains passive power bonuses against all of those, but it's not immune to anti-magic attacks and/or defenses.

- General Unbreakability: The weapon, whatever form it takes, cannot be destroyed by any traditional means. You can still lose the weapon or even lose the ability to wield it somehow, but it cannot be so easily destroyed. Especially not by Dark Magic, since it is made to be its counter. It isn't completely indestructible, however - it's still a magical artifact, so touching on anti-magic again, if its abilities are somehow cancelled out, its protections will disappear and it will be very much breakable.

- An overall boost to your character's physical stats: If you're an ordinary person, it will give you the strength of ten men, but if you're already strong, it won't make you ten times stronger. Rather, it will just add on an additional ten men's worth of strength to you. Your speed and endurance will also increase to the same degree. This way, even if you're frail and weak, just holding Excalibur II makes you strong. Whether or not there is a visible change to your body to match this is up to you though.

- A passive bonus to charisma with regard to deities and angels, and similar divine beings: If you've got such a powerful, blessed artifact, they're gonna be a little more willing to hear you out, after all.

So yeah, it's a legendary prize for a legendary accomplishment, and even though the RP will only be semi-canon, Excalibur II will be the winner's to use immediately, forever. So you'll get to add that to the power/equipment list of whichever character manages to win it.

Here's how I envision the RP functioning.

Obviously, it'll be in the gauntlet format. This means you will take on one challenge after another with no breaks in-character, so you'll have to be very careful not to completely exhaust them or show their trump cards too early.

There will be either 7 or 9 challenges, including two pre-planned battles at the end. These would be a battle between everybody who managed to make it to Phase 6, in which only one may pass (by whatever means that happens), followed by a final battle with Esaniel himself.

The form of this final battle may change based on a variety of factors, however. Depending on how things go, it may not even be a battle. It's not impossible to win his favor throughout the gauntlet and get him to just give it to you immediately. The primary goal of the gauntlet is proving yourself 'worthy' of holding the weapon, after all.

As for every challenge before that? I'd like it to be submitted by you guys, whether you take part as someone vying for Excalibur II or not!

These challenges can be whatever you want them to be. A puzzle, a quiz, a straight-up battle, or anything else you can think of. All of it will have to be approved by me, though. I myself won't be taking part in this at all save for as one of the Task Masters, I've decided to call them, and Esaniel himself.

So if you're going to submit something other than a battle, you have to PM me all of the details and the solution you have in mind so I can approve it. This is mostly just to curtail Bookman, I'm not gonna lie, but it's probably good for me to know everything that's going on for this anyway.

For the purposes of this Gauntlet, whatever you choose will put whoever hosts that particular challenge both out of contention for Excalibur II and in alignment with Esaniel. In-RP, they'd be one of his chosen 'Task Masters'. From there, after approval, you basically have free reign in how you run your particular part of the Gauntlet. You can judge somebody as 'victorious' by whatever criteria you want, so long as you're fair about it.

So basically this would be an opportunity for you to put your fellow RPers to the test and have a little fun. Do something you normally couldn't or wouldn't in the RPs.

Also, obviously, you also won't be able to take on your own challenge, so the more people who submit ideas, the better. This way, everybody can take part while still fitting into the 7 or 9 challenge format I have in mind.

So. What do you guys think. Yes, no, questions, comments, anything?

You deserve a cookie just for throwing the idea out there. Also, it's your RP James, I  agree that you should know everything that's going on, otherwise you would have problems running it.

I'm not a fan of the reward you chose, if I wanted a character to have a powerful artifact I could just give it to them. On the other hand, I look forward to seeing a variety of challenges and participants doing their best to clear them. The RPs made for this are enough of a reward for me.

Can we provide more than one challenge (and its Task Master)?

Also, what would be the IC reason that one cannot take on (their own) challenge? Does that participant not even arrive on the stage? Does them skipping one challenge count as a loss in the final score? Perhaps they just voluntarily skip it, like it's a singing challenge and they admit they can't sing? Or the participant knows the Task Master and doesn't want to take advantage of their extra knowledge?

Can participants cooperate during challenges, or are they encouraged to compete and cause problems for their opponents? Will that vary with the challenge? Obviously they'll be competing in the free-for-all fight, but a lot can happen before then.

Does failing any particular challenge knock out a participant? Or do they continue the gauntlet, hoping to score more points and catch up, and so everyone will get to participate in all challenges up to the final free-for-all, when one remains standing and meets Esaniel?

If the participants don't get knocked out, then what do you think of just opening all challenges of the gauntlet on the same day, and letting them run simultaneously? Perhaps except for that free-for-all at the end. There'd be multiple active RPs and the whole gauntlet would take less days overall, although that could be quite challenging for people with less time available (I know I could handle that model, but I'm a sucker for RPs either way).

Okay, that's enough questions from me for this post. Good luck James.

I was stewing on what the reward could be for a while there, but I figured for something new and experimental, I'd be better off safe than sorry. So, I went with the option of a powerful weapon. To my understanding, Python has a cloak that protects him from time manipulation he obtained in an RP once? Which partially acted as the inspiration for this. It's a powerful item which could or could not change a character going forward and a lasting artifact of a past RP. It's all about how it's played.

Anyway, as for your questions,

1) I'm considering allowing 2 submissions max per person depending on how many people show interest. If there's a lot of people at least submitting ideas, then there's no need. If not, then maybe. For now let's keep it at just 1 per customer.

2) IC the reason would be that there are a lot of people participating and they're not meant to interact. So ideally, no participants will take part in the same challenge - it'll be unique for each of them until the Phase 6 Brawl.

3) You can't skip. It's a gauntlet. You've gotta do it all at once or not at all, one failure is the end.

4) Encouraged to compete. The intent is for them to "prove worthiness", and this will be levied against them. On a meta level, it's a challenge all its own, meant to put everybody under a stressful situation. Nobody will know who's doing what or how far along they are. They'd just know there's others after the same prize.

5) One loss and you're out. You have to succeed in every challenge to earn Excalibur. 2.

6) I don't fully understand this question, or at least what you're proposing. They'll get knocked out or they won't, I'm gonna keep it simple with that. It makes it a more grueling, but rewarding, challenge. In the end you could say the true reward will be the sense of accomplishment in managing to complete it all more than it will be the weapon, if you wanted to be a cheesy fuck about it.

Oooooh so, it took me a bit to understand it. I asked those questions under the impression that everyone would face the same challenges in the same order, perhaps as a group. But if each participant is going solo and faces, say, 7 challenges that get randomly selected from, say, a pool of 30 or 40 in total, minus that member's challenges, then yes there is enough for 4-6 participants and nothing will repeat.

... and that explains why you asked for challenges from everyone, not just regular RPers. So there can be a LOT to choose from. Alright then.

Of course, if not everyone reaches the Phase 6 Brawl then some challenges they could've taken could go unused. I guess it can't be helped, though I'd like to see everyone make it that far and so everyone that submitted a challenge gets to see somebody taking it on. But that's up to the numbers and individual performace. Just gotta wait for it to happen.