The RWBY RP - Story Planning

I'm still working on my character, but I had a question. Do they have to have a counterpart? Because while most do, not all characters in the show have them.

Well, I'll post my character when I finish it (either today or more likely, tomorrow) and you guys can take a look at it, see if it reminds you of anything or not. But yeah, I can definitely draw some correlations between Butter's character and mine. Namely the rich/powerful heritage, the fact that they're a bit of an oddball, growing up outside of Vale and also the fact that they're intelligent but in a fight they'd just seem choppy choppy smashy.

Edit: Yep, most of the backstory is done, I'm down to the last paragraph or two. Will finish today after school, considering it's nearly 3 AM at the moment.

Great character wake, I look forward to seeing her out on the battlefield! However there are just a few concerns we were hoping you could look at for us, firstly is her name: she doesn't seem to have a surname, and so far all huntress/ huntsmen characters do in the cannon. Secondly; you mentioned you have a scar, In distinguishing features yet you don't seem to mention how she got that scar, if you could explain it in your history that would be fantastic. Thirdly, in your history you talk about going to atlas prior to beacon, I assume you didn't mean atlas the academy? Rather maybe you meant a school (like signal academy that Ruby went to) that was in atlas? Because if she's already been to atlas academy that would make her older than the other characters, or that she got pushed up a grade, which we'd like to avoid as well. And lastly your weapon doesn't seem to have a name, and all characters in the cannon's weapons do have names.

That depends on what we decide collectively as a group. Since there are 5 of us currently, that leaves a team split of 2 and 3 across two teams (with NPC's filling the slots) or a four person team with one odd man out (if necessary, I'll be on the separate team.) Or it could also play out with something like 2-2-1. Regardless, to better answer the question of what we're looking for, since it sounds like you don't have something particular in mind already, I think we should wait until Stel posts his sheet, and then go from there.

Oliviaer Gainsboro

The Crushing Blade

Profile:

Name: Oliviaer Gainsboro (O-livi-air)

Age: 18

Gender: Female

Species: Human

Birthplace: Atlas (formally known as The Kingdom of Mantle)

Counterpart: The Black Knight

Appearance:

Height: 6’1” (185 cm)

Weight: 154 lbs (70 kg)

Eye Color: Phlox purple

Build: Moderately tall yet firm, muscular without appearing too bulky.

Hair Style:A complete mess grown out to shoulder length, with a long fringe across the right side. (This minus the headband was as close as I could find to what I was aiming for.)

Hair Color: Gainsboro grey.

Skin Color: Fair, leaning on pale rather than tan due to the cold nature of her homeland.

Distinguishing Features: Oliviaer has a brand on the left side of her collar, roughly 5 cm in diameter. The brand depicts a blade impaled through the crescent moon, the Gainsboro family crest.

Attire: Whenever not in school uniform Oliviaer can be found in her combat uniform. This uniform is comprised of a simple dim grey long sleeved shirt and pants, with and intricately designed black and grey coat worn over the top. The back of the coat bares the Gainsboro family crest in its namesake colour and a layer of padding on the inside layer to provide both warmth and impact resistance. While this resistance isn’t exactly necessary, it reduces the strain on her aura ever so slightly, and the added weight doesn’t bother her. She also wears a gauntlet on her left arm, which allows her to better control her blade in combat without the risk of severing her own hand.

Weapons and Abilities:

Weapon: Brünstad- A large weapon that appears to be a cross between a Greatsword and a Lance. While the weapon appears heavy and unwieldy, Oliviaer can carry and use it effectively with just one arm. The blade shares many properties with an executioner’s axe, often crushing and tearing rather than cleanly cutting through. The weapon is locked to Oliviaer’s arm, making it impossible to disarm her short of severing the whole arm, however remains in the form of a dark attaché case when not in use. The weapon was custom-built by the Gainsboro family for Oliviaer and she has been exceptionally well trained in its use.
Alternate Type: A six-shot revolving Autocannon that fires dust, a weapon capable of powerful and rapid bursts, at the cost of a lengthy reload time and quick ammunition consumption.

Equipment: Three drum magazines (one being pre-loaded) of lavender coloured dust (a mixture of fire dust and ice dust) which bursts into a searing hot vapour on contact with a target. She also regularly carries her scroll. She also regularly carries the case that extends out into her weapon.

Abilities:Possessing an inhuman amount of strength required to wield her weapon effectively, Oliviaer is a merciless combatant who strikes down her foes with brutal force and carefully aimed blows in equal measure. Having been trained by many of The Family’s most skilled fighters, as well as some of the best trainers money can buy, she has learned to wield her weapon with devastating power and precision. She makes up for being a large target with her endurance and ruthless offense combined with surprising bursts of speed. Oliviaer’s fighting style aims to end fights quickly before her enemies can fully grasp her abilities and draw her into a space where her large weapon becomes a burden.

Other Skills: Oliviaer is a surprisingly intelligent girl with a very high capacity for learning, however she lacks common sense in some areas simply due to the fact that they were never deemed necessary to teach her. She has also been taught etiquette by her father for formal occasions and is a rather diligent house-worker.

Aura: Grey (a colour often associated with conformity and unremarkable objects.)

Semblance: Impact Pulse – Oliviaer’s semblance is an equally defensive and offensive ability that renders her immobile for a chosen amount of time (with a maximum of ten seconds) and impervious to all but the most destructive forces. During this time her gainsboro-grey hair her takes on a silvery sheen, and her aura becomes clearly visible around her. Attacks towards Oliviaer during this time are absorbed, stored as energy which is violently released in a spherical discharge around her. Depending on the strength of the attacks suffered during the shielded phase, enemies can suffer anything from being knocked off their feet to broken bones and internal damage. The amount of time spent shielded adds to the strength of the discharge, therefor quick bursts rarely yield enough strength to do serious harm to an enemy, however they can be very useful for negating small yet otherwise fatal attacks. Like most, Oliviaer’s semblance is not an unlimited well of power. It requires a large amount of concentration to use and maintain, and using it too much too often has proved detrimental for her own health.


Personality:

Oliviaer was brought up in a way that left little space for a personality of her own to flourish. She is, or at least believes herself to be, nothing more than a tool of her father’s will. As a result, she possess an iron discipline and a fierce sense of loyalty, however her upbringing has left her lacking in social skills resulting in her often coming off as a cold and indifferent person. While her fighting style may seem brutish she is surprisingly intelligent and is keenly perceptive of her surroundings. Sadly, whatever free will she may have is easily removed when The Family is brought into the equation, her loyalty closer to the borderline of servitude than any family bonds. She locks her own desires and will within a cage of iron to do her father’s bidding, although it’s possible that with enough time and interference her father’s hold over her may lessen.

History:

Oliviaer’s story begins with a family much older than herself, the Gainsboro family possessing a long and twisted tale of its own. Oliviaer has no living relatives besides her father, however the Gainsboro family is much larger than simply the two of them. For many generations the Gainsboros have been an infamous crime family amongst Mantle’s underworld, with a large hand in many industries and even a small hand in politics. However over the generations Atlas, as it is now known, became a more militaristic nation, with law and order being heavily reinforced throughout the land. The Gainsboros have been on the back foot ever since.
Oliviaer never knew her mother, or her twin sister. While her own birth went off without a hitch, the second child was a miscarriage and took the life of both mother and child. Oliviaer’s father had no intention of treating her as his heir, not at least while he was still breathing, and he had other intentions for her. She was quickly taught two rules to live by:
One – Never disrespect The Family.
And two – Never disobey The Family.

Oliviaer’s upbringing was strict. By the age of five she would wake up each day to do chores and receive tutoring, then at night she would return to an empty room with naught but a bed and a blanket. She didn’t ask for anything and she didn’t talk back, she quickly found they resulted in suffering. Her childhood continued on in the same way for many years, more and more being added to her list of chores; housework, exercise, tutoring, swordplay, etiquette, and finally aura.
Aura was the most difficult, and Oliviaer’s abilities didn’t begin to manifest until she was entering her teens. Her aura granted her an increased vitality and endurance, as well as vastly improved her physical strength. Her semblance however, was not an inherited ability, and her father never found an adequate teacher to teach her how to properly use it. Still, she began practising each night in her room, and slowly improved herself over the years as she gained more experience with real combat.
During one particular sparing session she was determined to use her ability to negate every hit she received, and she did so, timing the ability perfectly with each attack. However such high use of the ability within such a short amount of time did more damage to her than her sparring partner ever could, and she was left hospitalized for several weeks.

Once Oliviaer’s aura manifested, her father had a weapon capable of utilising her training and her strength crafted for her. The weapon was given the name Brünstad, and when he gave the weapon to her as a gift began to explain his goal.
With Atlas’ increased military strength, the Gainsboro family was withering and dying. Their operations were more limited with each year, and they had been reduced so much in size that The Family would surely be doomed if they were caught. And so Oliviaer’s father decided that it was time for a little ‘aggressive expansion’. Prior operations in the other nations had always been small time for The Family, but now was the time to upgrade those small outposts into fully fledged branches. The one issue, the one nail in the floor, the one problem with her father’s plan was The Kingdom of Vale. Vale, with its close proximity to the Mountain Glenn area, had a very high concentration of Hunters and Huntresses. Oliviaer’s father reasoned that if one of their own became a Hunter or Huntress, they’d be able to deal with any ‘hiccups’ in their operation. Her purpose was to fit this role, and to crush any that opposed The Family.
Oliviaer didn’t know whether the plan was right or wrong, good or evil or anything else. She didn’t know if she wanted to fill this role or if she wanted to crush those who opposed the Gainsboro family. All she knew was that her father had told her to do something. The Family had told her to do something.
“Never disobey The Family.”

Through the following years Oliviaer grew, and as she grew older she grew stronger, faster and tougher. The hulking behemoth of a weapon; Brünstad was once larger than she was, but she continued training as instructed and eventually the weapon felt like little more than a large stick in her hand. She recalled her first attempts at using the weapon; it was so large and unwieldy, it was all she could do to just keep a hold of it while swinging. After several incidents where she would have to catch the blade in her free hand to slow its momentum she would return to her father with broken bones and deep gashes in her hand. Eventually her father had a powerful gauntlet made for Oliviaer to prevent this. Not only did the gauntlet prevent Oliviaer from injuring herself with her own blade, but allowed her to use even her fist as a devastatingly effective weapon.

Oliviaer flourished into a young woman, almost matching her father in height by seventeen. She continued training daily, and would sometimes hunt what few Grimm clung to the outskirts of the nation of Atlas, meanwhile her father and other members of The Family had already begun using all sorts of connections to legitimise false documents and information for her enrolment. Oliviaer’s father however still had doubts. It was not so much a lack of trust in his daughter’s obedience; she had barely disobeyed him once in the past decade. No, he was concerned about her willpower. Mr Gainsboro had dirtied his hands many times since his own father had introduced him to The Family, but after all was said and done Oliviaer was still just a young woman. He knew that if the chance ever did occur that he would need his daughter to deal with someone in order to hide The Family’s expansion into Vale, he couldn’t take the chance that she wouldn’t be able to go through with it. Her resolve needed to be put to the test.

The task Oliviaer’s father gave her was a simple one: Months prior a ‘customer’ of The Family had taken out a small loan and skipped town before he was supposed to pay it back. Oliviaer was tasked with sending the message to any repeat incidents that the Gainsboro family were not push-overs. The Family’s goons had already tracked the man down to a town on the western coast of Atlas, and soon after she left her father’s estate with a small black case in hand. Within a couple of days Oliviaer arrived at the location. The town was an old fishing village that had expanded. This resulted in the town being divided between the old town, more akin to slums due to a lack of maintenance, and the modern half of the town. These slums bore very few inhabitants, making it the ideal location to hide. Oliviaer soon tracked the man down to a large shack beside the shore in the old town, and quickly made her move. The man hardly seemed surprised when she knocked on his door, Brünstad in hand. He admitted to having gambled away the money and had no way to pay it back, his little show of resistance to The Family simply being a last ditch effort to avoid his fate. The man knew what to expect and resigned himself to death.

For the first time in many years Oliviaer was hesitant. She had done many things during her time in The Family, but she had never taken a life. This was something she was not sure even she could handle. She stared at the man for the longest time, whom had chosen to stand by the window and watch the ocean in his final moments. For the first time she struggled within herself, questioning her actions and her service to her father until her attention was drawn to her weapon. Her mind cleared itself as she spoke quietly to herself, reciting the rules she had lived by up until that point.
“One – Never disrespect The Family.”
She raised her weapon towards her target.
“Two – Never disobey The Family.”
Law enforcement never found the second half of the body.

Oliviaer was welcome home with celebration in the days following, both on her success and her acceptance into Beacon. Later that night she received a brand on her left collar, displaying the insignia of the Gainsboro family, and was considered a fully-fledged member of the organization. She continued to stay with The Family for several more months, training and occasionally doing small jobs for her father, before she departed for Vale. She stayed in the kingdom for three weeks prior to the beginning of the academy’s school year, mainly to get the lay of the land and learn her surroundings, until the day when her first day of schooling began.
She was almost excited for the occasion.

Looking perfect now, thanks Wake!

Stel you're character is looking good, we just have a few things we want you to look at for us, and then we can get right to the action!

Firstly AJ, and I simply want to clarify if you intend your character to be some kind of villain, as she is after all attempting to infiltrate Beacon in an attempt to make personal gains.

Funny enough I was actually toying around with a semblance similar to yours, AJ and I deemed the original concept to over-powered and we have similar concerns for yours, see my first rendition of the semblance mirrored something quite a lot like the legendary king midas' golden touch, but more fit for the the RWBY universe in that Midas was going to turn matter into dust, while yours seems to be able to just pull it out of thin air, we saw a couple issues with this A) That it, like mine was entirely too overpowered in that you could have an unlimited supply of ammunition, that you could gain out of thin air, even if restricted this is problematic, which leads us to problem that even if we did restrict it, it would likely have to be to the point where both logistically, and from an RP perspective makes it kind of useless, in that it would have to nearly completely drain a person's aura (Dust contains immense energy after all), and that only the tiniest of amounts could be created otherwise, why wouldn’t the gainsboro family just keep her daughter at home to make all the dust they could ever want instead of sending her to Beacon? Being a crime syndicate is the rich lazy man’s game, I sure as hell wouldn’t waste my time sending her out. So that being said we hope we can work with you on this semblance, as it will likely need to be changed, or tweeked, and both AJ, and I would love to help you with, if you have absolutely any questions we would be happy to talk, and offer suggestions,

Thirdly your character doesn't really have a counterpart, we would definitely appreciate matching to one, as all of the huntsmen/huntresses in the cannon do, and we would like to remain consistent with this,and we have a couple suggestions for you! A) A gender-Bent Black Knight, due to your predominantly grey, and black color scheme, and your lance/sword weapon it seems you’d fit that profile quite nicely, option is a gender-bent Al Capone (or Possibly Bonnie; as in "Bonnie, and Clyde"), seeing as your character's family history is so entrenched in crime, a gangster motif might fit quite well. With either of these character they give the possibility of yet another team either of gender-bent warriors, or gender-bent criminals, or something, especially if the already noticeable pattern for the other team is legends of greek mythology (of which GG is also planning on making a character related to such mythos), and of course these are just suggestions, feel free to find some form of a counterpart that you deem fitting, and you may even find that you can draw a little inspiration from whoever you pick to tweek some other aspects of your character.

Also with your lavender dust (which seems pretty cool by the way) that reminds us, we are certainly giving the green light on characters being able to make there own dust, just don’t be dumb, and make like nuclear dust or something).

Next we’d like to look closer at that weapon of yours, upon some research we found that it seems to be a copy of something called the “Insane Cannon Lance” which we can overlook, though this is typically frowned upon, however the weapon itself has some issues, as we’ve seen with the cannon, when it comes to all the really large weapons they seem to have a sort of “inert-mode” and for your weapon we would highly recommend something like this as it would be incredibly cumbersome to be walking around with a giant sword connected to your arm, now Ruby’s scyth, and Coco’s handbag are both fairly large weapons and both shrink down pretty far, so potentially your weapon could too, and we would definitely suggest doing this, it could be something as simple as a box she merely grabs the handle of, which could then envelop her entire wrist, and locking to her arm, as you said the device does. Next we are concerned about the potential OPness (hehe, Pness) of the gatling-gun like feature of the weapon, if you’re going to keep this function we’d like more specs regarding the gun, as it has great potential to be far too powerful, as we saw from coco adel her gatling gun was able to easily fire through a group of nevermore’s (which took RWBY’s entire team just to bring down one). Dispatching them like it was nothing, and that sort of thing is a bit too much in the way of power, and even still Coco doesn’t have the close range capabilities that your weapon does, typically what we see is a good balance of power in weapons, where you have with coco: with little-to-be-desired in the way of close quarters combat (where she literally just hits people with the handbag) that is matched with the devastating power of her gatling gun, Yang has poor range, with moderately good damage from her guns in the gauntlets, and phenomenally good fighting abilities with her melee capabilities, while Ruby has moderate abilities with her scythe as a melee device, and as well as with her with her long range sniper, our concern is that this sword/lance/gatling gun may be too much in all fields, with few drawbacks other than weight, which your character seems to have overcome.

Thank you very much for the submission stel, please let us know if you have any questions!