Board Thread:Off Topic/@comment-25857155-20150213020036/@comment-25857155-20150219115529

I apologize in advance for the amount of text that follows - here is my "B-team", this time with fleshed out backstories and fighting styles.


 * Name: Gules “Ragemode” Highblood
 * Team/occupation: Team GRNT, student.
 * Position/Class: Tank/Berserker; team strategist.
 * Species: Human
 * Traits: Remarkably dark skin
 * Other: Tattooed burning blood-drop on the back of his left hand, and a number of scars on the palm of the same.
 * Age: 18
 * Sex: Male
 * Handedness: Right
 * Height: 79 inches
 * Weight: 270 pounds
 * Eyes: Rust-brown
 * Hair: Strikingly bright red
 * Physique: Absolutely ripped.
 * Combat Outfit: Break-away workout pants overtop shorts and a muscle shirt with a leather harness overtop.  Also, his usual tennis shoes.
 * Casual Outfit: Break-away workout pants overtop shorts and a muscle shirt with tennis shoes.
 * Personality: Normally cheerful and quite proud of his family; always ready to jump to defend his family’s honor.  Close friends with Royal Blueregard and Nero Senrai from Signal, but considers Tanner Varn his rival.  Highly competitive.  Surprisingly skilled in social environments.  Also surprisingly supportive of his friends and teammates, having been the one to help Royal when she was going through her identity crisis.
 * Landing strategy: Tough it out.
 * Aura/Effects: His eyes turn red as his semblance grants him power, similar to Yang Xiao Long’s.
 * Semblance: Seeing Red – When he sees blood, Gules gets stronger and faster, but his Aura takes less damage to deplete.  The effect increases with the amount of blood he sees.
 * Weapon: A surprisingly simple but strong greataxe he calls Wrath.
 * Fighting style: Often starts a fight by cutting his left hand to activate his semblance; fights like a berserker – wide cleaving strikes, standing his ground no matter the odds.
 * Symbol: A blood drop ignited in flame.
 * Background: Gules Highblood comes from a high-ranking family, as the name suggests, not far below the Schnee family in terms of wealth, though not as well known, since their expertise lies not in Dust, but in trains.  He attended Signal Acadamy with the rest of his team, and has been friends with Yang for some time.  He has been close friends with Royal Blueregard since his early childhood, with whom he trained from a young age, and was close rivals with Nero Senrai for his years at Signal, but largely ignored Tanner Varn due to his family’s low status.  Now, Tanner has largely replaced Nero as Gules’ rival.  He has met Weiss before as well, though they are both fairly close-lipped about the occasion in question, making it seem to be an embarrassing topic.
 * Notes: Team partner with Nero Senrai.  Straight.  Gules means red.
 * Name: Royal “Roy” Blueregard
 * Team/occupation: Team GRNT, student
 * Position/Class: Frontline/Tank, 2nd in Command.
 * Species: Human
 * Traits: Poolside tan.
 * Other: Has a thin scar along left jaw; numerous others across her body, especially her arms.
 * Age: 17
 * Sex: Identifies as genderfluid, but primarily female.
 * Handedness: Right
 * Height: 69 inches
 * Weight: 180 pounds
 * Eyes: Deep blue
 * Hair: Short bob-cut, dyed blue.
 * Physique: Wiry and fit, near flat-chested, quite strong.  Attractively feminine face, but largely androgynous body.
 * Combat Outfit: Blue jeans and a tunic with her usual brown leather boots.  Also, a steel cuirass in silver with blue trim bearing her family crest.  The cuirass (including back plate) is accompanied by matching spaulders, vambraces, full greaves, and a steel cuisse and faulds.  Like her casual outfit, her combat gear is sometimes accompanied by her blue cloak.  Sometimes also includes a barbute-style helm.
 * Casual Outfit: Blue jeans, a tan tunic with laces at the collar and brown leather rolled-down boots.  Sometimes accompanied by a long royal blue knight’s cloak.
 * Personality: Calm and collected; steadfast in combat.  Stalwart defender and sound tactician; often takes the lead in combat once Gules activates his semblance.  Kind-hearted, but with a wry sense of humor that occasionally breaks through.  A bit lazy when it comes to studying and paperwork.  Goes by Roy among friends, or sometimes Blue.  Seems to change her identified gender with no pattern or logic.  Loves the color blue.  Royal still keeps a fairly idealistic view of what a true knight or huntsman should be.  Relies heavily on Gules for support through tough times.
 * Landing strategy: Tough it out with a roll, or soften the impact with a burst of her semblance.
 * Aura/Effects: Blue.  What else?
 * Semblance: Pulse – gives off a flash of Aura, drawing aggression from nearby enemies and bolstering the Auras of nearby allies.  Advanced control reduces the Aura drain and adds a staggering effect to enemies, while mastery can knock entire groups of foes off their feet.
 * Weapon: A magazine-loaded longsword/gunblade capable of using dust-augmented rounds, which Royal calls Blue Moon.  Coupled with a kiteshield bearing her family crest.
 * Fighting style: An expert with her sword and shield, Royal uses Blue Moon’s gun function mainly as a way to keep threats away from her allies.  She relies on her shield to cover her left side and flank, using her sword to block strikes and counter on her right.  Best at holding back large groups of enemies while her allies finish them, but able to hold her own in a one-on-one fight fairly well.  Fights as a well-trained knight would.
 * Symbol: Her family crest is the symbol of the old Kingsguard of Vale from before the big war – a blue-and-white-crossed shield with a silver crown in the center.
 * Background: Royal was raised side-by-side with Gules; their families have been close friends, the relationship tracing back beyond the great war, both families being descended from ancient nobility.  Since her early childhood, Royal and Gules have trained together to become warriors, and Beacon is seen as the next step in their training.
 * Notes: Team partner with Tanner Varn. Demiromantic – that is, only feels romantic attraction once a close emotional bond is already formed.


 * Name: Nero “The Enigma” Senrai
 * Team/occupation: Team GRNT, student
 * Position/Class: Infiltrator/Assassin, main damager.
 * Species: Human
 * Traits:
 * Other: Remarkably unremarkable.
 * Age: 18
 * Sex: Male
 * Handedness: Ambidextrous
 * Height: 68 inches
 * Weight: 175 pounds
 * Eyes: Very dark brown
 * Hair: Black
 * Physique: Remarkably average
 * Combat Outfit: Same as his casual outfit, but with the shirt buttoned up and accompanied by a black overcoat.
 * Casual Outfit: Plain jeans, a white tee-shirt with black short-sleeve collared shirt left unbuttoned, and boring white tennis shoes.
 * Personality: An excellent speaker, able to negotiate virtually any conversation the way he wants it to go.  Very smooth operator.  Rarely allows anyone to know about his personal life.  Has superb innate timing.
 * Landing strategy: Uses his semblance to reach the ground safely.
 * Aura/Effects: Shadow-grey.
 * Semblance: Displacement – instant teleportation to a location in line-of-sight, causing significantly more drain on Aura the further the distance (very similar to the Blink ability from Dishonored).  Advanced control reduces the cost of blinking to further locations, and Mastery grants the ability to carry someone else with him through Displacement.  Causes him to appear and disappear in a haze of not-quite-smoke that precedes his teleportation slightly (that is, a moment before his displacement, a black haze appears where he is about to appear).
 * Weapon: A pair of matched tanto/handguns that he calls Blood and Venom.
 * Fighting style: In open combat, Nero performs similarly to a stereotypical anime-style ninja, using his Displacement ability rapidly over short range to confuse his opponents.
 * Symbol: A black swirl in the shape of a four-point spiral galaxy, featured on the sides of his blades and on the chest of his jacket.
 * Background: While little is known about his history before he became Gules’ rival at Signal, it is assumed that Nero was born outside the Kingdoms.
 * Notes: Team partner with Gules Highblood. Assumed straight.


 * Name: Tanner Varn
 * Team/occupation: Team GRNT, student
 * Position/Class: Support/Lancer
 * Species: Human
 * Traits:
 * Other: Heavy scarring on his back.
 * Age: 17
 * Sex: Male
 * Handedness: Left
 * Height: 72 inches
 * Weight: 200 pounds
 * Eyes: Green
 * Hair: Brown, trimmed short
 * Physique: Well-proportioned and well-muscled.
 * Combat Outfit: Black cargo pants, green shirt, and low black leather boots, topped by leather armor adorned with his emblem on the chest.
 * Casual Outfit: Black cargo pants and a green shirt with black low-ankled boots.
 * Personality: Very serious.  Hides envy of Gules’ high status with careful respect.  Highly competitive.  Very willing to open up about his past, but not about his family.  While normally tense and unlikely to laugh, Royal seems to be able to get him to loosen up with surprising ease.  He gets along fairly well with Blake, and has nothing against Faunus or even the White Fang.
 * Landing strategy: Jams his lance into something to slow his descent, or rolls to soften the impact.
 * Aura/Effects: Green.
 * Semblance: Redux – auto-activates to give Tanner split-second precognition to allow a “redo” of incoming lethal damage.  Has the drawback of making Tanner live through his death before he can prevent it from happening.  Advancement allows the skill to activate for nearby allies who are personally close to him, and mastery allows him to activate it at will in combat a limited number of times daily.
 * Weapon: An unnamed lance that transforms into a rifle.
 * Fighting style: Prefers to use his rifle rather than his lance, letting his teammates occupy the enemy while he takes them off from a decent distance.
 * Symbol: Simple crossed silver lance and rifle on a green background.
 * Background: Tanner never met his father, and his mother was not able to support him and his sister while keeping their home.  As a result, the Varn family lived on the streets for most of Tanner and his sister’s childhood.  To keep his mother or sister out of less savory professions, Tanner started doing work as a thug at a young age.  When he was thirteen, Tanner started attending Signal Academy on a skill scholarship as part of a plan to pull his family out of the streets.  He graduated from Signal half a year early and spent the next six months working nonstop to provide his family with a home, taking any combat-related job he could find.  He succeeded, managing to purchase a small house outright on the outskirts of Vale, and was prepared to keep doing so until he was contacted by a mysterious benefactor who offered him a full-ride scholarship at Beacon.  By this time, his sister had grown skilled enough in combat to take his place as primary bread-winner for their household, and sends Tanner regular updates on how things are back at home.  Tanner prefers to keep quiet about his family life to other people.
 * Notes: Team partner to Royal Blueregard.  Straight, sort of – later becomes romantically inclined toward Royal, regardless of her choice of gender identity.