beleos: (Default)
beleos ([personal profile] beleos) wrote2022-09-23 08:53 am

HARMONIZATION TRACKER

HARMONIZATION TRACKER
As explained on the relevant info page, Harmonization is the process by which characters grow closer (or more distant!) from the core energies driving the faction they have chosen to follow. This is an intentional process, save for extenuating circumstances that may force them to one extreme or the other, but these will always be made clear.

This page is for tracking your character’s Harmonization Tier, as well as tracking the relevant spells from spellbooks that you choose to take.

HARMONIZATION

To change Harmonization tiers, you’ll use the form and format below.

For all Tier changes, we’re simply looking for a summary complemented by links to threads For Tiers 2+ as a show of how your character is developing, like notable actions for AC. In this case, it's specifically pertinent to your character's growth and how they're progressing through their arc in-game. A write-up detailing development and how their actions string together to enforce their motive/alignment with their respective faction is what we're looking for. Talk about your character and how they're getting better/worse! This should be fun, not a chore, and we’re not looking for perfection so much as understanding where your character is in their arc.

However, if we notice that a significant amount of your explanation is not supported by threads, we may reject the application. Handwaving small interactions is always fine, but handwaving your development to reach a higher Tier is not!

An exception to the above is your initial Harmonization to Tier 1. You just got to the game, so nothing to explain yet!

But still, for a little extra direction, here are some very general criteria for how characters harmonize further (hopefully de-harmonizing is a little more obvious). These are just guidelines, and your character may hit these earlier or later! Or not at all! Higher Tiers are not something that every character is expected to achieve, so keep your character's dedication to their faction in mind as you move up. With Tier 3 and higher, they should have no doubts about their loyalty, for example!

Tier 1 (Tier One spellbook here): The character accepts the basics of their faction’s goal and promise. They don’t necessarily have to fully believe in it and can have many doubts, but they should definitely be inclined to follow their chosen faction over the other. This is generally reached via the introduction scenarios into the game or after one month.

Tier 2 (Tier Two spellbook here): The character is feeling more confident about their chosen faction. While they can still have doubts, most have been put to rest, and a sense of belonging is beginning to grow in them. At this Tier, a character is willing to take risks to further their faction’s goals and tends to feel a fondness for their faction over the other - whether this is due to connections to their allies, leadership, or more personal motivations. This is expected to take around three months.

Tier 3 (Tier Three spellbook here): The character is committed to achieving the goals of their faction and is loyal to it in some way. Their motivations for following their faction should be solidified and easily identifiable, whether their loyalties are to the cause, their allies, or perceived personal gain. This also usually means they have taken great risks to help their faction, such as (but absolutely not limited to) standing against the other faction in combat, being a key figure in claiming an Oracle, or taking part in high-stakes social interactions. They feel what they're doing is right and should be able to demonstrate this through action in some way. This is expected to take between 5-6 months.

Tier 4: The character is wholly devoted to the goals of their faction that to not follow it seems insane. At this Tier, their devotion is fanatical and may have the character come off as not fully having a grip on their own sanity or certainly an extremist in making sure their faction is victorious. Tier 4 comes with additional respect among your faction, a new power crafted by the mods to work specifically for your character that reflects the faction's energies itself, and a special lore-based mission to impact the world of Kenos at large. Few characters are expected to reach this level, and this is expected to take more than 6 months at a minimum to achieve.

SPELLBOOK SPELLS


Each Harmonization Tier also includes a maximum number of spells that a character can learn as a part of the process of harmonizing. These spells are selected as a part of your Harmonization application and cannot be changed without spending tokens to do so. Tokens can also be spent to learn additional spells, but these additional spells cannot be swapped out like the freebies can.

If you have a question about a specific spell, please ask those here! These spells all come from Dungeons & Dragons fifth edition and therefore may not map totally evenly to this style of RP, but it’s hard to know until someone wants to use them! Clarifications will also be added to the spellbook once asked.

IC, these spells are taught to a character by a magical tutor (of which there are plenty, so feel free to make up an NPC for this purpose) or by another player character who knows the same spell. The magical energy needed to power these spells comes from the innate natural force that they’re harmonizing with, hence why each Tier has its own book. Your character is acting as a conduit to shape that force into something new, and simply won’t be a big enough channel if their Harmonization level is too low.

FORMS


Character Name: Their Name Here
Faction: Which Faction is this Harmonization request for?
What did Yima offer your character?
OR
Did your character keep their Sunbeam bead?
Only needed for Tier 1 Harmonization. Delete whichever question does not apply to your faction.

New Tier: Tier Level
Justification:
As explained above, describe why your character is eligible for a new Tier.

Spellbook Spells:
If applicable, list the spells they'll be learning from the respective spellbook. Remember, these cost AC tokens to swap out!



warmare: (眼帯)

Tier 4

[personal profile] warmare 2024-02-25 12:24 pm (UTC)(link)
Character Name: Hayame
Faction: Meridian
Did your character keep their Sunbeam bead? Yes
New Tier: 4

Justification*:
SERVING MERIDIAN/SPRINGSTAR:
She has served Meridian and Springstar loyally for over a year. Since the Tribune asked her last January, she took on the role of Legionary archery instructor, training with them daily when possible. She participated in the invasion of Alenroux, and spent all her available time there hunting down monsters and patrolling with the troops. At the behest of General Zaman, she undertook a dangerous quest to investigate the Northern Woods of Alenroux with a small squad of shard-bearers and Legionary soldiers, disabling a gate Aetós was using to port in monsters and contributing to less dangerous conditions on the island for a time. She accepted a home in Alenroux from Liem, and so has spent a great deal of time there trying to remind Alenroux citizens through example that Meridian was the one who actually made their island safe to overnight in. When Cyrus warned shard-bearers before the Harbinger Oracle trial, she opened up her property to evacuees from Springstar. After the Oracle, her publicly broadcast contributions led to her being rewarded with the rank of Decurion by the Tribune.

HARDLINER FROM DAY ONE:
From the beginning, Hayame has been one of the only(?) Meridian shard-bearers constantly opposing Zenith without any room for compromise, mutual understanding, or making exceptions for cross-faction favorites. Even if she had not-wholly-negative feelings for one or two individual Zenites, she never hesitated to go for the kill when an Oracle was at stake. Her black-and-white treatment of the conflict has taken the form of trying to run Zenites out of Alenroux and advocating for their imprisonment (at minimum) during Springstar's temporary occupation, or even arguing viciously with her own lover about the "ambassador" talks on Alenroux and her distaste for his participation. She has stated many times, to many people, that she would rather kill herself than live on after a Zenith victory in a world designed by a committee made up of deplorables and an emotion-manipulating witch. Once upon a time, she might have let herself think of what it might be like to be so pathetic a person as to take a space in that world... But after the only man she had trusted with that impossible future killed the Tribune... She rebuked herself and discarded it immediately, with prejudice.

CONSTANT CONVERSION (ATTEMPTS):
Though she has certainly not always succeeded, Hayame has continually tried to bring Unharmonized shard-bearers to Meridian, including since T3 Drizzt, Nebula, Grace, and Karlach. She also tried to convince lower Tier Meridians to devote themselves more fully to the cause, such as Raphael, Ryoma, Fane, and Shez. She has been particularly keen (if not still a bit unsure of her suitability) to mentor Gray. (She has tried to mentor Nebula, too, but they are a bit too similar, oops.) Each time Shard-bearers emerged in mass from the soil of the Tree and came to the information meetings at Heliopolis, she showed up to police the events and try to make sure no Zenites slipped in to spy. She even made occasional attempts to make Notorious Zenite Hardliner Amos Burton see reason about Yima/Zenith, so you know she's unhinged. Her logic attempt at a stance on why Meridian is right to try and revive their worlds and Zenith is wrong is best laid out here.

POLICING MERIDIAN:
... More than recruiting or converting, however, Hayame's cultural importance on loyalty, duty, and honor means that she spends more effort on castigating members of her own faction that she views as unworthy or ill-fitted to fighting for Meridian's cause. When ambassador roles were put up for public debate, she vehemently fought against the choice of members like Voryn and Quetzalcoatl atop of her attention to Zenites. When Aetós made a public communion appeal for information, she angrily tried to get other Meridians to stfu and stop feeding information to such a mysterious, unaligned person. As usual, when the pre-Oracle gossip post went around, she spent just as much time as she did sharing information about Zenites as she did condemning her fellow Meridians who she viewed as traitors or potential information leaks because of their "close ties" to their enemies. Most cruelly (note: she doees not think this was cruel at all), she publicly told Rudbeckia to dissipate herself if she was going to admit to being willing to help Zenites and wanted to be "neutral" and excused from Oracle trials so very badly. Even her friends are not excused her notice, she will condemn them just as readily when they show sympathy or willingness to work with Zenith, clear that she views them responsible for any negative outcome that might result. Quetz she disparaged harshly for not only saving Silco's shard from being shattered but for being so naive and accepting in the first place to not do it herself. (And then look what happened, see!?)

NO MERCY FOR TRAITORS:
Hayame has always treated those who leave Meridian for Zenith as traitors, and, with only one exception (Liem, who she brought back herself with an Accord) she has refused to have anything positive to do with them once they proved themself disloyal or weak-willed, even if they "returned". She does not skip the opportunity to remind people of their disloyalty either, whether it was arguing to Meridian post-Oracle that they should abandon all the traitors to Zenith and refuse them reentry, using Gen's own words to try and disqualify him from ambassadorship, calling out John Gaius, spitting upon Link for bringing Bondrewd into Meridian only for the former Zenite to be arrested for trying to investigate Heliopolis' tree, or visiting Gen in prison to remind him whose city Springstar was. Zenites who joined ("claimed to join") Meridian did not fare any better- she refused to associate or take gifts from Bondrewd, sure that he was merely scheming something pretending to be a Meridian, she threatened to kill Jyn if she caught a single whiff of her having turned coat just to spy.

ORACLE VICTORIES:
Since the Iconoclast Oracle, the loss of which Hayame bitterly attributed to too many Meridians being weak of will or body, Hayame committed herself to the idea that she has to become stronger, sharper, and harder to make up for the useless and secure victory despite them. In the Exalt Oracle, she threw herself into claiming the Oracle objects, losing one to force of nature injury, finding one with a fellow Meridian (then having it stolen by Zenites), nearly killing a Zenite who infiltrated Meridian's camp, and raiding Zenith camp with Liem to steal an object back. Being involved directly in a lot of the object claiming effort only reinforced her (potentially not good) thinking that "unless I do it myself we won't win". This was only reinforced further by how well her efforts to win the Harbinger Oracle went, its aspect goading her on to show it how determined she was to win no matter the cost. In that trial, she worked with various Meridians to solve puzzles, fought her way out of trap rooms (sometimes barely but) with sheer will power, tried to kill/injure Zenites on sight (such as Rin and Childe), forced herself to team up with her most hated Meridian enemy Voryn to dissipate Silco, sacrificed her mane to the Oracle effigy, and killed the void possessed Fane before he could kill her or damage Meridian efforts further. Apparently her efforts earned her something of an MVP status for that trial round- something that helped her reputation in Springstar when it turned out the entire thing had been broadcast to the populace of Kenos.

RECENT ATTEMPTS AT BECOMING A BEACON OF HOPE & VICTORY:
Though she had been heading down a path of isolation and loathing, alienating herself from a majority of her own faction while still refusing to give up on Meridian's goal, Hayame has slowly and gradually changed for the better(?) in the half-year since she reached the third tier of Harmonization. A great part of this change was spurred on by the acceptance, love, and support she experienced with local Meridian diplomat/strategist Claude von Riegan, whom she hesitantly agreed to enter a relationship with after he confessed his feelings to her during the Iconoclast Oracle. She kept their relationship a secret for months out of fear that it would damage his reputation as a moderate and hers as a warrior, but since it was outed by the Harbinger Oracle broadcast Claude told her they could work together openly, encouraging her to embody the spirit of Springstar for the people to bring them hope Meridian would emerge victorious. It was not an easy decision for her. But despite the fact that they have sometimes fought bitterly, Set's encouragement that she forge herself into something inspirational to Meridian and think about what she could do for her temporary home, also inspired her to consider the idea seriously. After thinking back on advice from Akua about her capacity as a leader and discussing the scenario with Liem... She decided to finally, truly, start to try. Though she is still not succeeding as much with her fellow shard-bearers, she has been making a conscious effort since then to be more open and reliable towards the citizens of Springstar and Alenroux, to present herself as a proud and unbreakable warrior who will always fight for Meridian's victory and Springstar's success.

... And then everything changed when Kowloon attacked and the Tribune was murdered. She felt it. The sudden loss distracted her, the Zenite she was fighting gained an advantage, fire sparked, and the next thing she knew was beneath the rubble. It was almost tempting to just die there. To just give up, to rest, finally, but Cyrus left a last wave of hope behind, and with that... ?

Spellbook Spells: N/A until we discuss the Tier 4 power ig? I'll brainstorm???

* DISCLAIMER: the bitter judgements re: Meridian shard-bearers are the personal opinions of Hayame and do not reflect that of her player, Rizu!!!!