SWORDMASTER
What is a Swordmaster?
To answer this it would be best to start with how Swordmasters came to be. It has to do with Darwin’s theory of evolution. This theory revolves around the survivor of the fittest (in a nutshell really). When evolution decides to throw in a new variation the survivability is determined by the fact whether the variation is a improvement or not. If the variation gives the new being a advantage over it’s fellows than this being will have a greater chance to live and pass on this change to it’s children.
Imagine a world (in this case Paradon) where humans are involved in a terrible war against a truly powerful foe capable of summoning hoards of creatures. Most of these creatures are pretty weak and stupid but there are countless of them.
In this war many die but the survivors go on to have children who are raised as the next generations of soldiers. This is where Darwin comes in, as the weak tend to die first the strong are the ones who go on and produce the next generation. At first nothing happens but after a few hundred years the people who are born tend to be stronger and faster than those born centuries ago.
As time goes on the weak ones are killed off and the strongest survive until after a few millennia things settle down. People born in this time are about 10 times stronger and have lightning reflexes but their children don’t appear to get stronger than this.
All of this changes with the arrival of the first Swordmaster. A swordmaster isn’t stronger than other people, the difference is in the fact that s/he’s a natural born fighter able to absorb techniques like a sponge.
Learning at a incredible rate they soon surpass their teachers and this is where once again things slow down. Then a new breed of swordmaster appears, one that doesn’t just learns the existing techniques but actually creates new ones. This led to the rise of the current swordmasters, these were finally able to reach the full potential of the human body. Using the incredible power that resides in the human body (also called ki) they were able to perform enormously powerful ki-attacks. They were also able to gain perfect control over their bodies regenerating limbs, slow ageing and even stop ageing.
As time went on the ki-attacks invented became more and more powerful until a single swordmaster was able to destroy the world with a single ki-attack. Fearing what would happen should one of these swordmasters go out of control or fall under the power of a mage the Gods decided to intervene. They made a deal which bound the swordmasters power preventing them from unleashing their powers. In turn the swordmasters would granted immunity from magic and they would be allowed to continue to train other swordmasters.
There are several rules that now bound their power of which the main ones are:
1: It is forbidden to use their most powerful attacks unless granted permission
2: They are forbidden to use their powers to kill unless in self defence, defence of others or by command of the Gods.
3: They are forbidden to take a throne (only exception of this is Elisabeth Queen of Paradon. At the time there was nobody qualified to take the throne so she was allowed to rule as Queen. So far she has ruled for over 40000 years)
4: They are forbidden to teach any of their techniques to others. Swordmasters are trained on the planet Minerva and only there. Swordmasters are allowed to train others up to a point, the forbidden techniques are only taught on Minerva. The entire system is off limit for non swordmasters.
5: They are not allowed to harm the innocent unless ordered by the Gods.
There are several others but these are the main ones.
When the contract is sealed the swordmaster can continue his/her training to become a fully trained swordmaster. The contract usually takes the form of a ring that the swordmaster wears, although a ring is most common some are known to become earrings or wrist braces. These contracts are bound to the swordmasters live force making it impossible to remove them. When s/he breaks the rules it will be investigated whether it was justified or not. If it was justified s/he will live if not s/he will die.
Because even without their most powerful attacks they are still immensely powerful and skilled fighters the Gods make use of them from time to time. Whenever a world is in need of a hero and one can’t be found locally they send a swordmaster to this world. As each world is different with not only customs but also language it takes while to get accustomed to the world. The God who called the swordmaster magically transfers the required knowledge to the swordmaster but this has the effect that s/he will be comatose for several days to a week.
Combat abilities of swordmasters:
They can learn techniques at incredible rates, some can learn just by watching it performed just once. They can use the ki that is found in their bodies to perform amazing powerful attacks. There are 2 different kinds of ki-attack, the external ki-attack collects the energy and sends it out from the body while the internal ki-attack centers in the body. The external attacks are usually very destructive and often cause great damage. The internal attacks are much less destructive but no less deadly. Ki can be used to restore wounds, increase strength, speed and indurance.
Because of the contract that was made with the Gods they are immune to magic. Unfortunately this isn’t a total immunity because of some loop holes. They are immune to black magic but white magic is sometimes partially blocked or even not at all. The main reason for this has to do with the intend of the caster, if s/he casts a spell to stop a swordmaster from harming people there is a high chance of the spell getting through.Contrary to their name they don’t just master the sword only in fact a swordmaster is a master of every weapon technique whether this relies on a sword, ax, staff or even bow. If it is a weapon than they have mastered it but each has their own preferance in weapon used. A swordmaster is also stronger with his/her preferred weapon. When two swordmasters of equal strength and skill fight the one who uses his/her preferred weapon will win 9 out of ten times.
How powerful are swordmasters?
Swordmasters are classified not by how powerful they are but by the amount of damage they can do in a single attack. This sort of attack used to determine this is a external ki-attack and will be performed after a swordmaster completes his/her training. As time goes by this grade may change due to the fact the swordmaster keeps learning new techniques. Their maximum power rarely changes but the amount of damage they do varies on the ki-attack used. This way it is possible for a swordmaster to be classified as stronger as s/he gets older (if s/he takes the effort to learn new techniques that is).
The different classes are:
E: complete destruction within a 5 light second radius
D: complete destruction within 5-25 light second radius
C: complete destruction within 25-625 light second radius
B: complete destruction within 625 light seconds-50 light hours radius
A: complete destruction within 50 light hours-2500 light hours
S: complete destruction within 2500 light hours- 5 light years
SS: unlimited class, complete destruction from 5 light years till ......
As you can see from this chart they are ridiculously powerful but because of the contract they are unable to release this power. There are some exceptions however and these are the very few who managed to break the contract and who are no longer bound by the rules.
Those who serve a God as a priest are often free do what they please so long as it is done in service to their God. If the God they serve is a God or Goddess of Love then there usually is little to no danger of being vaporized, should you happen to die at their hands you can be sure to die a happy happy person.
It is another thing if the God in question is a War God as is the case of the group of swordmasters known as the Black Angels or as they more commenly known as the Angels of Death. Even though they never use their full power or their most powerful attacks they usually bring total devastation where ever they go. They are the last resort that Queen Elisabeth uses when all other options are exhausted. Although they don’t destroy the planet itself they do tend to kill everything above the age of 12. The commander of the Angels is known only as Slaughter (his real name has been forgotten long ago) and surprisingly enough most members of the Angels are female.
Rulers of the swordmasters:
Swordmasters don’t have a single ruler like a king or Queen. Although they belong to the Paradon empire they are a independant planet within this empire. Queen Elisabeth may be their queen but she doesn’t rule them. Instead they are ruled by a counsel of 13 swordmasters who rule through consensus. These 13 counsel members are regarded as the most powerful swordmasters alive but contrary to popular believe this isn’t the case.
It used to be this way but as time passed the old members left their seats to whoever wanted the position. As swordmasters tend to do whatever they want the counsel usually does very little rule making, most of the rules are already made by the Gods anyway. The counsel does make decisions about economic issues though which leads to it’s members often being greedy little buggers. The true movers and shakers often don’t bother with the counsel and tend to do whatever they want to do.
Most powerful Swordmaster:
The most powerful swordmaster and often considered the leader of the swordmasters is Alica Minerva. She is named after the planet because she created it and she also used to be counsel member. She has many nicknames of which the most known are: The Blind, The Godslayer, The Godmaker, The Merciless.
The first one is pretty obvious as she is blind. When she was young she got into a fight against a much weaker opponent and playing with him she gave him a change he never should have gotten and he managed to strike her face blinding here. She could have easily healed the wound and restored her sight but after long thought decided not to do this. She had a made a bad mistake and healing the wound would mean that she could make mistakes without paying a price. If there was no price to pay what was there to keep her from making the same mistake again? It did have the effect that she no longer “sees” the world in quite the same way as most people do. She is completely immune to any misleading or illusion techniques.
The second is also obvious. She has a rare gift that not only can she learn techniques by seeing them performed but she can instantly improve this technique and create counters against it. Her other gift is the ability to create new techniques and it is estimated that over 90% of the techniques created are made by her. Most of these are so powerful that it is forbidden to teach them. Hearing that Gods cannot be killed she decided to test this theory and tried to create a technique capable of destroying a God. Needless to say she succeeded but this send shockwaves through the ranks of the Gods and also unbalanced the universe. The destruction of the God came close to destroying everything and she was forced to create a solution which leads to the next nickname.
She created a new technique allowing her to actually create Gods but as she found it rather annoying to do so. Not only did she have to waste effort to destroy it she also had to waste effort to create one to take it’s place. For this reason she changed tactics and instead ‘recycles’ them now. What she does instead is destroy it’s personality and puts a different one in it’s place.
The last nickname is also pretty obvious as she is completely without mercy. When in battle she will show no mercy whatsoever, she will not forgive and she will not forget. There will be no escaping her wrath as some unfortunate souls learned the hard way. One of her former enemies decided he needed some revenge killed one of her children before he committed suicide. Not about to let a little death stand between her and her victim she thought about it for a while. First thing she learned was to call his soul back and capture it next was the recreating of his body and reuniting the two. It is rumored that he is still alive somewhere screaming for mercy that isn’t going to come.
She also shows no mercy to her pupils and now armed with the knowledge of reviving dead bodies she can really cut loose and not hold back. Her reason for doing so is rather simple: “Your enemy won’t show you any mercy so why should I? Now quit whining and continue as I don‘t remember telling you to stop.”
She is one of the few swordmasters one who the contract has no effect meaning that she is free to do what she wants. When she finished her training she was classified as a weak C but she is now classified as SS but people say that she is much to powerful for that class and want to create a new one for her. She is often fascinated by the different forms of power and energy that can be found in the universe. She has spend a large part of her live studying these forms of power and in doing so made them a part of her own power. Because of her immense power, skill and the fact that the contract no longer held her the Gods tried to make her a God as well hoping that this would hold her in check better. It was decided to discontinue this option although they will deny this it is believed that her threat to kill them all if they did this may have been responsible for this decision.
She did accept the position of Servant of the Gods. As the name implies a Servant works for the Gods performing various tasks. Considering her power she is often given those tasks that call upon her strength such as neutralizing rogue or insane Gods or swordmasters. So far nobody has forced her to do anything that she didn’t want to do.
Virgin swordmasters:
They. Do. Not. Exist! The reason for this is very simple. Because of their immense power absolute control is needed to prevent them from accidentally releasing their power. During sex there is a very large chance of losing control and after a particular bad incident it was decreed that no swordmaster would leave Minerva as a virgin. The last incident had a swordmaster losing control and killing her lover in a pretty bad way (she crushed him to death). Realizing what had happened she was overcome with grief and she killed herself. Unfortunately she left a crater 2 miles deep and 10 miles across killing not only herself but also 15 million people.
For this reason all swordmasters are forced to lose their virginity as part of their training. There is no escape this part and although they are given as much free choice as possible they must make it. Should they fail to make the choice then it will be made for them and whether they want to or not they will be forced to experience pleasure beyond their wildest dreams. While this method isn’t exactly nice it is effective and after it was taken into effect the number of accidental deaths have decreased to almost zero.
Gods in Paradon:
So far whenever i speak of the Gods i have used plural this is because in this universe there are countless Gods. As Gods can’t die they will continue to exist whether their followers are still around or not. Each world has a history and a religion of their own meaning their own Gods. The people of Paradon are pretty pragmatic about this and just add the God to whichever temple it belongs. War Gods go to the War Temple while Love Gods are housed next door in the Pleasure Temple. Then there are the Gods of Death, Live, Justice, etc. All of these temples are housed in the Gods District in the capital Paranor.
Every now and then people who feel that their own God is the only true one go there to preach but they usually tend to disappear without a trace. While they don’t mind people preaching like this somewhere far away it is another matter when this person appears on your doorstep screaming that you don’t exist.
While there are many Gods who do the same thing they are not equal in strength. There are Demigods, Gods and the most powerful are the Supreme Gods. Priests can draw on the essence and power of the Gods they serve becoming very powerful.
Some priests such as Slaughter who has been serving and drawing the essence of his God for millennia is considered to be a Demigod by now. Children he has sired are considered to have divine blood in their veins and most show some divine power.
These children generally stay and live in the Gods District or on Minerva. Some of them have managed to become full Gods but most don’t really care about their heritage.
Why did i just bother reading all of this?
Well i have been running around with this world in my head for years and it appears that they want to come out (I blame Alica).
I’m not a (good) writer and even if i was i don’t have the time so i decided to give you guys a chance. I have laid down some of the groundwork and rules now it is up to you to decide what to do with it.
You can either write a story about the world or ask the God of your own world for a swordmaster to help you out. Remember the rules which govern them and while some are free of these rules these will never be send to world as a hero. Once a swordmaster has been send to a world s/he is there to stay as s/he can never return to the world s/he came from. Not every swordmaster is very happy about that so you may expect some b****ing and whining.
Also one must keep in mind that although they are extremely powerful they are just normal people with everything this implies. They can be grouchy, lazy, annoying, greedy, etc. They are also not unbeatable, they are very hard to beat to be sure but they can be defeated.
I already told you one way to defeat them under the part combat abilities but there are other ways. You could simply pile enough people on him/her until his/her power runs out (this is very costly however as it takes a lot of people to wear out a swordmaster). The easiest way to defeat one is by having somebody s/he trusts betray him/her.What do i get out of this?
Well i hope that this will give people ideas and inspiration to something i can’t do right now: write a story about swordmasters.
Should you decide to write a story featuring them what do you owe me? NOTHING!
The only thing i want you to do is post a link to this page so that others can find it and use it the same way you just did. Also a link send to me where i can find your fiction will be greatly appreciated.
I will post some more background info on the Paradon Empire sometime in the near future. If you want the info earlier just contact me
