after-school activities

Hey everyone!

As we're sure you're aware of, Halloween is nearly upon us. Obviously in Rakuen City it's only mid-April, but far be it from us to deprive your characters of scares just because the month doesn't match up.

You see, something's upset Rakuen's systems. It can't quite find the data it's looking for. The system is lonely.

It's nothing major. Nothing too scary. At first. You'll start to see little movements out the corner of your eye. Someone will turn the corner ahead of you and vanish. You'll walk into the cafeteria and swear the tables are full, before you blink, try to focus on a face, and the room is emptier.

As the day goes on, Rakuen will steadily overpopulate with hallucinations. For split seconds, people will be seen creeping into classrooms late, eating a Discard's breakfast, getting off the train, battling in the courtyard, wandering round the shops... Some of them may even be recognisable to those who have been here a while. Others your characters might think they know from their worlds. They wear Conquest and Fortitude uniforms - though subtle alterations can be seen, the progression of fashion and rules between images. Some stick around for longer: you might be able to watch them for minutes before they fade back into the walls. They're entirely audible, words dutifully translated by the system as though they were flesh and blood.

They might be in your bed, at your workplace. Completing homework on your computer, listening to long-vanished assemblies in the hall. That said, characters cannot interact with the apparitions in any way - any physical contact just causes you to pass through them. That doesn't mean you can't try, though. Maybe you'll be lucky enough to be there as two apparitions intersect.

This event will last all of this coming Rest Day (27th October - 3rd November). Feel free to create as many ghosts as you like, and direct any questions to the mods. Have fun!

Hey everyone,

As Clara explained on Sunday there will be fights during the weeks as well as other tasks and points shall be awarded or deducted throughout the week. The winning teams get prizes!

On Sunday points shall be awarded for the following:

Tent pitching: How well the Weapons pitch the tent, gain two points for a well put up tent with a neat and tidy interior. Lose a point if the Player has to help get the tent up. If the tent is not up by the time Clara comes round lose two points.

Dinner: One point for if it is edible, lose a point if the Player has to make their own dinner.

There is also wood collecting which doesn't yield points but if characters collect enough wood they can build a fire and toast marshmallows!

On Monday the following people will fight in the morning:

Conquest: Suzaku Kururugi vs Arthur Pendragon and Ein vs Yuka Kozami
Fortitude: Yuri Lowell vs Sora Himoto (OU) and Alex Furest vs Komachi Onazuka

In the evening: Brittany S Pierce vs Yosuke Hanamura

Fights will still yield the same number of raks plus two points for a morning (in-school) battle and four for a evening (interschool) battle. However Weapons will not be transferred.

If you have multiple Weapons you chose one to fight with but must use a different one in your next fight.

On Monday as well as fights the following things will yield points:

Meals Breakfast, lunch and dinner, one point if it is edible, minus a point if the Player has to cook.

Attitude Points will be deducted for complaining! One point if you are a Player, two if you are a weapon. (Yes, life is not fair.)

Activity Monday's activity will be a fifteen mile hike. Clara will hand out rucksacks with what she deems to be the necessities of hiking, one per team for the Weapon to carry (if there are multiple Weapons they can share), a map and compass and send them off. They will be required to meet at check points, three of them; the middle one being a lunch stop, at certain times. Points will be rewarded by how well they do. Anyone who wanders off and gets lost or is late (accidentally or purposefully) will pass out and end up in the check point when it is time to set off again.

Tent inspection: How neat and tidy the tents are, if meal supplies are tidied away. 1 point or a negative point if failed.

On Tuesday the following people will fight in the morning:

Conquest: Yosuke Hanamura vs Santana Lopez and Suzaku Kururugi vs Yuka Kazami
Fortitude: Nanami Asagi vs Brittany S Pierce and Dolorosa vs Yuri Lowell

In the evening: Komachi Onozuka vs Yuka Kazami vs Dolorosa

On Tuesday as well as fights the following things will yield points:

Meals Breakfast, lunch and dinner, one point if it is edible, minus a point if the Player has to cook.

Attitude Points will be deducted for complaining! One point if you are a Player, two if you are a weapon.

Activity Bridge building: Teams are taken to a deeper part of the river and told to build a bridge to carry them over to the other side. The river is chest deep on an average adult quite fast flowing and cold! There is plenty of wood and stones and other materials in the woodland and rope is provided. They have three hours to build a Bridge which their whole team can walk across to get to the other side safely.

Mushroom collecting: In the early evening teams are sent off to collect mushrooms for the evening, all mushrooms are to be taken to Clara first. Points will be given and deducted by how many actual edible non poisonous mushrooms they have gathered.

Tent inspection: How neat and tidy the tents are, if meal supplies are tidied away. 1 point or a negative point if failed.

Of course you don't have to write all these things just pick and chose what you want to log out and what you want to handwave. However please report all battle results to the Battle records page.

Also please can someone from each team each day tally up the points and post them on the OOC day post under the correct sub heading. As well as the general points tally and if you won or lost a battle please give a short report (or a link to the thread) of the daily activity and you will be awarded (or deducted) points.

IC posts are here and here.

Hello everyone!

I hope everyone is enjoying rest week and isn't too stressed moving houses and starting colleges and all the other fun things you are all doing!

After talking to Elle and Ru we have decided that Round 14 is going to be a little different than normal.

Round 14 will be Rakuen's first half term holiday, a time for the characters to relax, maybe earn some more raks by working. Let their hair down and get caught up on homework!

However this is not all that will be happening, because as well as the first half term we shall also be having the first school trip!

On IC Sunday assembly will be as normal on the 8th September but instead of a list of players there will be a list of students lucky enough to have been selected for this outing. They will leave on Sunday afternoon and return on Friday evening, they wont be told where they are going until they are there!

It will be a fun filled week full of out door activities! With a Rakuen city twist, I hope your characters like camping!

Because this is a Rakuen school trip there will still be Players and Weapons even if it will be a little different than a usual round, if you wish your character to be selected as a Player for this school trip please say so on your sign up.

As a reminder sign ups are OOC but ICly your characters will just be informed that they are going and put on the train with force if necessary. Anyone can sign up including those just joining the game for this round. Sign ups are open from now until 7th September. You may sign up all your characters in one thread if you wish.

<b>Character name:</b> <b>School:</b> <b>Is your character linked? If yes who to?</b> <b>Would you like your character to be considered in the running to be a Player?</b> <b>Your characters main CR:</b>

Also don't forget about AC!

On IC Monday (OOC: 20th June) a group of prefects attempted to open the Conquest Campus tower as they had the Arena. They were once again successful.

As the thread might take a while to write, this post is to explain the effects it has on Rakuen.

The tower begins to hum quietly in a hundred voices as the first prefect touches their plaque, and the hum increases with each prefect's touch. By the end, the hum is a wail, audible from anywhere on the island. And this time, the Arena tower joins in.

At this point, the prefects and anyone near them (ie anyone outside in the area around the tower) are blasted backwards by a wave of unseen force with the gate as its centre, landing a few metres away bruised but unharmed. A five-pointed red star shoots from the spire of the tower and burns in the sky over Rakuen.

During this time several things happen:
- The headmistress of Conquest, Day, collapses.
- The remaining staff gather, collect Day's body, and lock themselves inside the Mayor's Mansion. If any characters try to talk to them as they retreat, they will wish you luck (some more sarcastically than others) but offer no help whatsoever (some more regretfully than others).
- Every shop and building in the city closes; the streets empty. Townspeople grab their children from their playing and lock themselves in their houses, closing the shutters and shooting fearful glances at the sky. Furthermore, all buildings take on a slight blue sheen as Rakuen prepares itself for what is to come.

And, finally, something huge forms from within the star.

Congratulations, Rakuen, you've unlocked your second Tower Guardian, the Red Phoenix of the South . This huge firebird is the guardian of the Conquest campus, with mastery over fire. Indeed its tail is made of flames, its main weapon as it swoops overhead. But not its only weapon: those talons are sharp, so be careful.

Obviously, it must be defeated. As usual, only Players can draw weapons, but for the time that the creature is active, the rule against multi-wielding does not apply. That means that Players may draw whichever weapons they want simultaneously and hand them to non-Players to arm them.

The creature will only attack the Conquest buildings unless characters get too close to residential buildings, at which point collateral damage is inevitable. The island structures are currently guarded against fire by a barrier, but you aren't as protected. It is powerful but by no means unbeatable. Starred Weapons do more damage against it than ordinary weapons, but all weapons are effective. As its element is Fire, any Water-element Weapon will deal huge damage to it, whilst Wood-elements are essentially useless.

No matter what happens, the creature will disappear on IC Tuesday nightfall (OOC 23rd/24th June). If the characters manage to defeat it before then, there will be an award:

- If this is the second tower that has been opened while the character has been in Rakuen (characters who were in the city during Round 7) they receive a gorgeous bottle made of ornate blue glass. Inside the bottle is a roll of parchment: instructions. Write a letter addressed to someone in your home world, place it into the bottle and throw it into the lake. You won't get an answer (they don't have a magic bottle, after all) but it is guaranteed to reach them. (Note: Letters can be addressed vaguely e.g 'my mother' if it is to a person whose name has been forgotten) Bottles can be traded or given to other characters. If your character doesn't have a use for it, they can give it or sell it to someone who does.

- If this is the first tower that has been opened while the character has been in Rakuen (character who arrived in Round 8 or afterwards) will receive a voucher for use in Rakettear. This voucher allows the character 'one free item'. This can be anything available in Recette's huge catalogue of items from all worlds.

Items can be sold or swapped or used as bargaining material, whatever your characters wish to do with them.

This post is for any questions and also plotting, if your character will be a discard on IC Monday, post here so that Players can grab you, emergency battlefield vows are a-go!

Note about death: If you die during this battle you wake up as normal in your bed and can rejoin the fight. Dying in this battle will not give you an undead ring though and if you are counted as a "living" weapon you remain so.

The Tower Information page has been updated.

Also!

It's Round 10, and as a celebration of reaching double digits all characters in Rakuen will wake up to find a commemorative T-shirt at the bottom of their bed.

These T-shirts are in various colours... highlighter colours that is. Neon pink, blinding green, obnoxiously bright orange. They have, in clashing colours, text on them. "Congratulations for spending X Rounds in Rakuen" (where X is the number of Rounds your character has been here). If your character has died in game there will be further text on the back "And only dying Y times". This text will update each round, or each death. Whichever is appropriate.

Further more these T-shirts do not fit anybody... They are either ridiculously tight or swamp the wearer completely. There is a note attached to say they can be worn as part of the uniform with no penalty, and they might have special properties. Who knows?

The final stage of the tournament is up! There is a fight for third place in the afternoon and then the grand final in the evening.

3PM: Daenerys Targaryen vs Arthur Pendragon
6PM: Duzell vs Stellaluna

The IC post is here. Some of the threads are placeholders as I don't know which Weapons the characters are using yet, please reply to this post to let me know so it can be announced IC.

Please decide who is winning by 8th June or like earlier rounds I will flip a coin to decide the winner. Please report the winner to the Battle Records.

The next stage of the tournament is up! The pairings for the quarter finals are:

3PM: Samuel Henderson vs Daenerys Targaryen
4PM: Stellaluna vs Anya Alstreim
5PM: Duzell vs Dave Strider
6PM: Arthur Pendragon vs David Strider

The IC post is here. Some of the threads are placeholders as I don't know which Weapons the characters are using yet, please reply to this post to let me know so it can be announced IC.

As in the knockout rounds you don't have to log your fight if you don't wish but you do need to report who won to the Battle Records by the 5th June. For any battles not decided by then I will flip a coin to decide the winner.

Hi Rakuen!

It is once again time to announce this Round's Players, but this Round will be a little different!

This is because it is time for Rakuen's first tournament round.

A tournament round is exactly what it sounds like. There is a big tournament in the Battle Arena with matches throughout the week, and the winner is proclaimed champion.

How this will work

There are eight Players in each school. On IC Monday and Tuesday (30th May-2nd June) the fights will be in-school, bringing the number of competitors down from 16 to 8.

When the Round change assembly goes up on IC Sunday (26th May) we will announce the opening pairs. Everyone, regardless of school, will have until the 2nd June to announce who won on the battle records page. An IC post will go up for battles to be logged (though as usual they don't have to be.)

For any battles where the winner is not reported by the 2nd of June we will flip a coin to decide in order to keep the event moving smoothly.

IC Wednesday (3rd June) will be the quarter finals, Thursday the semi finals and Friday the finals. There will be prizes!

For the first round of battlesm Players may use up to two Weapons in a fight (though not at the same time, unless they have dual wield). As usual, we ask that Players wait until all Players have Weapons before vowing with more than two.

Rounds can be won in the usual way, and fights outside the arena can still happen (and are encouraged!) Please note though that even if you win the round by vowing, you will still be expected to fight in the tournament.

For the quarter and semi finals Players may use up to three Weapons, and for the finals Players may use up to four.

If you have any questions please don't hesitate to ask.

The dates for this Round are:

26th - 29th May - Sunday
30th May - 8th June - Monday - Friday (two OOC days to one IC day)
9th - 15th June- Saturday (rest day)

The Players for this round are as follows:

Conquest
Samuel Henderson
Nunnally vi Britannia
Kotaro Mochizuki
Sis Strider (AU)
Arthur Pendragon
Duzell
Jadesprite
Stellaluna

Fortitude
Shion
Dave Strider (AU)
Daenerys Targaryen
Jade Harley (AU)
Anya Alstreim
Dirk Strider
Ishtar
David Strider (AU)

On IC Tuesday (OOC: 20th April) a group of prefects attempted to open the Battle Arena tower. They were successful.

As the thread might take a while to write, this post is to explain the effects it has on Rakuen.

The tower begins to hum as the first prefect touches their plaque - not quite the hum of a large machine, more the sound of quiet voices - with the humming getting louder with each prefect's touch. By the third prefect, the noise will be loud enough to hear all over the city. Once all four prefects have placed their hands on their respective plaques, it's more a wail than a hum.

At this point, the prefects and anyone near them (ie anyone in the arena) are blasted backwards by an unseen force, landing a few metres away, ruffled but unhurt. A five-pointed yellow star shoots from the spire of the tower and burns in the sky over Rakuen.

During this time several things happen:
- The young shopkeeper, Recette, collapses.
- The remaining staff gather, collect Recette's body, and lock themselves inside the Mayor's Mansion. If any characters try to talk to them as they retreat, they will wish you luck (some more sarcastically than others) but offer no help whatsoever (some more regretfully than others).
- Every shop and building in the city closes; the streets empty. Townspeople grab their children from their playing and lock themselves in their houses, closing the shutters and shooting fearful glances at the sky.

And, finally, something huge forms from within the star.

Congratulations, Rakuen, you've unlocked your first Tower Guardian, the Yellow Wyrm of the Centre. It is a large, serpentine dragon without wings or horns, almost like a massive snake but for its six legs. Its scales shine gold, its eyes, glossy black. As the central guardian, its mastery is over Earth. It can cause localised earthquakes with its tail. Fun.

Obviously, it must be defeated. As usual, only Players can draw weapons, but for the time that the creature is active, the rule against multi-wielding does not apply. That means that Players may draw whichever weapons they want simultaneously and hand them to non-Players to arm them.

The creature will only attack the school buildings and the battle arena unless characters get too close to residential buildings, at which point collateral damage is inevitable. It is powerful but by no means unbeatable. Starred Weapons do more damage against it than ordinary weapons, but all weapons are effective. As its element is Earth, any Wind-element Weapon will deal huge damage to it.

No matter what happens, the creature will disappear on IC Wednesday nightfall (OOC 23rd/24th April). If the characters manage to defeat it before then, everyone will receive a voucher for use in Rakettear. This voucher allows the character 'one free item'. This can be anything available in Recette's huge catalogue of items from all worlds.

This post is for any questions and also plotting, if your character will be a discard on IC Tuesday, post here so that Players can grab you, emergency battlefield vows are a-go!

Note about death: If you die during this battle you wake up as normal in your bed and can rejoin the fight. Dying in this battle will not give you an undead ring though and if you are counted as an "live" weapon you remain so.

There is now a Tower Information page on the main navigation.

So it's finally time for our first dungeon to launch! We've gotten you all set up over in our IC Post - just find your character's name and get yourself set up. We're going on RNG to create each team's ship adventure so whenever you need something new, let us know, but to be honest we are totally okay with you creating your own dungeon to an extent.

Want to fight a monster? Go for it. Want to find treasure? Great! We'll pop in to tell you what you've found. We're going for an average of three treasure areas and three monster areas per adventure, here.

There are also traps, so be careful!

Remember Players may enter and leave the dungeon as many times as they like and swap Weapons when they wish, just let your Weapons know when they will be needed.

If you have any questions or comments please find a mod or comment here and we will do our best to help!