Hi there! Is this still recruiting?

Quote from Auroras_Dawn >>

Hi there! Is this still recruiting?

 Hi! Yes, it is still recruiting, I plan to keep the thread open until the 21st! (I should probably update the main post with that info, lol)

Edit: Moved my disclaimer to the top, and added some extra info about myself

Disclaimer: I know this is kind of a moot point, but I just reread the entire prompt and I am a grade-A moron. Oh well, spent like half a day working on the writing prompts, not gonna delete them now.

• About yourself: Who you are, preferred pronouns, experience with tabletop, preferred play-style, 
  • My name is Aurora (or Dawn, depending on how you read my username). I'm an 18 year old cis male who's been playing D&D since 5e starting in 2020 (possibly 2021 or 2022, it's hard to know for sure). Since then I've been playing on and off once a week over summer vacation with my group til now, where we still play to this day. At the table, I'm generally a story and role play focused player and tend to write large backstories and lengthy replies. I love in player-to-player and player-to-npc interactions and interacting with the world that the DM has created. My play style in-combat tends to be more support-based role (tank, healing, all that good stuff), but overall I tend to focus on role play and character moments. As for characters themselves, I don't restrict myself on gender, sexuality, or anything of the sort (though I myself am straight). If the character I'm playing was originally written as straight but I see sparks between him and another dude, I'll write a gay awakening.
• Story prompts: Write a one paragraph story for two of the prompts of your choice presented below. For simplicity's sake, write from the perspective of a fantasy, heroified version of yourself, the point of the prompts is to see how you write and tell stories, not to showcase a certain character concept.
• Your beloved lies dying in your arms, slain by the forces of the dragon army. How do you respond? Do you pray for their spirit? Do you swear vengeance? Or does your grief simply overwhelm you? TW: Blood, Depictions of violence
  • I hold the body of my beloved in my arms, tears streaming down my face as I feel the familiar warmth of her body fade. I feel her hand caressing my face, her hand leaving a bloodied print on my face as the light fades from her eyes. Silence. My vision blurs as tears fill my eyes. The enemy jeers as the commander put his sword to my throat, saying something I cannot hear as the only thing I can hear is the last words of my love, and the pounding of my heart. Anger fills my heart as my vision turns red and with a single punch I send the beast flying. Standing slowly, I feel the familiar feeling fill my body - a feeling that I swore I'd put behind me ever since I settled down, but now the one person I swore to protect - my life, my love, my anchor is dead... I have only one thought in my mind: RAGE.
    
    With one swing of my fist, I shatter the armor of a half dragon soldier, ripping his magical quarterstaff (and his arm with it) from him, spinning it behind me as I feel the familiar sensation of my foe's blood splattering against my body. I feel a surge of energy as I swing my quarterstaff, cutting a swath through the army of half dragons in front of me, cleaving through their bodies like paper, as fury guides my blade. Though their blades and arrows occasionally find their mark, the adrenaline pumping through my veins renders their attacks practically worthless. And when the dust settles, the corpses of the dragon army lay at my feet. When the rage leaves my body, the grief and guilt hit me all at once, and I sink to my knees. Years ago I had sworn off battle to settle down with my beloved, but now... now the dragon army has forced my hand. Wiping the blood from my face, I slowly stand, and turn to leave the room... but not before taking a necklace from the neck of my beloved, as a reminder of my failures, and why I fight. With rage and sorrow weighing me down, I left the farmhouse to avenge my beloved.
• You have stumbled upon a dragon hatchery filled with baby dragons. They’re so cute and innocent, but you know that if you let them live, they could grow to be horrible monsters. What do you do when faced with this dilemma? Is your prerogative to play with the cute little critters, or is it to advocate for or against their slaughter? 
  • I enter the hatchery, Staff of Power over my shoulder as I look around at the horde of baby dragons, running around, play fighting, and using their breath on the random insects, and I can't help but chuckle at the little tykes as they carry on with their lives, not knowing the carnage outside that they would eventually be subject to. It would be so easy, so simple to punt these little imps into the stratosphere, and with what the army had done to my beloved some would say I was well within my rights to, as general Dimitri once said, kill every last one of them, but as I stared out across the nursery, something stirred within me - a memory. One of which was swaying me the other way. I remembered a field on the farm my love and I ran, where the cattle would graze. Oftentimes we would get wolves who would attacked our cattle, which greatly diminished our business ability with our neighbors.
    
    When we inquired as to how we were supposed to deal with the wolves, many suggested we kill the bothersome beasts to prevent them from ever attacking again, but I further recalled that when I went out to kill the wolves with my beloved, we found that the wolves were slaughtering our cattle to feed their children. Upon seeing this, my love stood against killing these wolves, seeing as they were only trying to ensure their children survived. I objected, of course, but my beloved adamantly refused to back down, insisting that we help this family of wolves, because they're just trying to protect their own, they didn't know what they were doing to us. Eventually, she wore me down, convincing me to help her breed an excess of cattle to feed the wolves. As I recalled this, I sighed deeply, stowing my quarterstaff as I decided to aid these young dragons - each and one of them, as that's what my sworn other would have done.
• Finally, you’ve made it. You fought long and hard, and lost many along the way, but your final challenge is before you, and it’s time to end this. How do you inspire your companions in the face of death? Do you deliver a rousing speech, cast one last blessing spell on the group, or do you simply prepare yourself, ready to defend your allies when the time comes?
  • I crack my knuckles as my party and I arrive at the dragon king's castle. I grip my love's necklace firmly as I recall everything that led up to this - the loss of the life of my love, the nursery of draconic newborn, the slaying of the four draconic generals, the party at the tavern before this, and take a deep breath as I prepare myself for the final battle that looms ahead. Suddenly, I felt a nudge on my thigh. The dwarven wizard that was on my party said we were giving out speeches to the others, because it was a "hero thing" and we were "heroes" so... I rolled my eyes initially, but decided why not? Could be fun. We gathered together as the dragonborne artificer poured us all a mug of alcohol, and the speeches began.
    
    The elven bard boasted about his loved ones back home (rude), his reasons for adventuring (nobody cares), and his thankfulness that he was elected team leader (when did we agree on that) but that was it. The artificer's speech was better, talking about how he had family, but no friends before this and if he were to die, he was happy to die among friends. Finally, the wizard speeched about how the entirety of the realm was counting on us, and he was proud to save the realms with us, then it came to me. I wasn't that much of a talker, everyone knew that, but 2/4ths of the party had gave proper speeches, so I cleared my throat. "Well.. here we are. I'm not much of a speech giver, so I'll make this short. I originally went on this journey to kill the dragon king, the one responsible to my loved one's death. This was supposed to be a quest for vengeance, but I never expected..." and I looked around at the people around me with a subtle grin on my face. "I never expected to form a band of brothers, sisters, and siblings like this... ...and the elf" (the elf flipped me the bird at that) "But... I'm glad I did. I'll tell you this - before this, I was in it for myself, no one else. This was my personal quest but now... I'd gladly die for anyone of you." And from there, we cheered, prepared to take on the world.
• The battle has been hard, but its almost done. You are sole member of your party standing, and the boss looms over you. What does your final attack look like, and what consequences does it have for you, the rest of the party, or even the world? TW: Disembodied limbs
  • Though we entered the castle of the dragon king with gusto and swagger, though we slaughtered every soldier we came across, though we believed we were ready... We weren't ready. Not by a long shot. As we entered the lair of the dragon king, as we stood before the strongest dragon with every intent to walk away with his head... we had no idea what we were up against. Almost immediately the wizard and bard were stripped of their magic, as the dragon king's spell-suppressant aura stripped them of any semblance of worth. At the same time the artificer's machinery was rendered useless by something the dragon king called technomagic and with a single show of power made all four of us terrified to face off against the terror we saw before us.
    
    And yet... as the dragon king made his way to us to slaughter us like cattle, I found myself questioning why I even journeyed to this place, only to die instantly. I thought of the journey we took, what everyone else had to loose... and I realized I was the only one who could do anything. Gathering all of my resolve I walked forward, unsheathing my quarterstaff, and tackling the dragon king, breaking the staff of power in my hands in half. I knew what would happen. I knew that there was a high chance I died, but I didn't care. If I took down the draconic bastard in front of me, then my death would be well worth it. Upon being snapped, the staff used burned every single unused charge (to which were all of them) and exploded in a cataclysmic eruption of otherworld energy, taking both the king and myself into the planes of hell (by which I mean we both ******* died). When the dust had settled, the only thing that remained was the necklace of my beloved, and my own severed hand, clutching it dearly.
• Themes: What themes and tone would you like to explore? Do you want a game that involves learning hard moral lessons, or are you just here for the ride? It’s meant to provide a little something for everyone. And the point of the playtest is to make it balanced and fun, so whatever you want, I’m sure we can find a way to incorporate it.
  • Anything that pushes the players to genuinely role play, rather than just swinging things at the problem in hopes they'll either fix or break something. I also love it when backstories and character history is used within the main story because that tells me that the DM really cares (of course, if you don't have time to rad through my multi-paragraph backstory, DM me and I can give you the important bits). I don't really have any triggers ( *looks at my watchlist of anime*) so aside from the ultra-mega nono stuff like CP (if ik, ik) and shit like that, I'm good with almost everything.

I'll decide the group and send out the invitation by tonight, but for now this thread is technically still open (Even though I doubt we'll get any more apps)

Quote from Raccoon_Master >>

I'll decide the group and send out the invitation by tonight, but for now this thread is technically still open (Even though I doubt we'll get any more apps)

 (Forgot today was the day. I'm so excited!)

Yeah, I was surprised with how many applicants there were! Definitely will need multiple groups lol

Whoop whoop!

With so many excellent entries, I don't think I'll be selected. But it looks that everyone who is will have a fun time 😀

Fingers crossed, this sounds exciting :)

Players have been accepted! If you want, I can post the list here, so everyone knows

Quote from Raccoon_Master >>

Players have been accepted! If you want, I can post the list here, so everyone knows

 That might be easiest.

Quote from Raccoon_Master >>

Players have been accepted! If you want, I can post the list here, so everyone knows

 I'm personally fine with it.

Quote from Raccoon_Master >>

Players have been accepted! If you want, I can post the list here, so everyone knows

 Please do