🌸 鋼鉄の花びら – Steel Petals 🌸 [Recruiting][QuestWorlds]

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OpenQuestWorldsPublic1 / dayMoyreau
noble magical-girls in soul-powered robots battle against demons to save humanity in an alternate history magi-tech world!


Jun 15, 2025 5:16 am
THE PITCH: noble magical-girls in soul-powered power armors/robots battle against demons to save humanity in an alternate history magi-tech world!

GENRE MIX: Mahou-Shoujo, Mecha, Tokusatsu, Romcom (& comedy in general?), alternate history. Loosely inspired by Sakura Wars, Valkyria Chronicles and Symphogear, among other things.

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THE PREMISE: The setting is an alternative 1920s where humanity have been eternally at war with shamons, evil monsters who seem bent on destroying mankind. The technology is more advanced in the time period than in our world, due to Soulstones, an ore that produces great amounts of energy, much higher than anything in our world. In this world, some people have special powers, having a "soul that burns brighter"; these people have been immortalized in history and legend as great heroes, their successors being known as nobility, with their genitor's power laying dormant in them. Among these, some inherit the same power that their forefathers had, having a powerful soul, these people are known as Seisha (or pneumatics). Albeit, many of them got lost in history, making it so that some people with powerful souls can be found among the common people.

The characters are young (typically between 16 and 21 years old) special heroines whose soul burns brighter. Their mission is to protect the fast-growing Imperial Capital of Tokyo from those who want it destroyed. They're able to pilot the new petalframes, prototype soul-powered robots. PCs can hail from all around the world, they just need a reason to care about defending the capital. They will work on the Steel Petal Division, an undercover independent military division created to defend the city with the power of the new petalframes.

Petalframes are currently the greatest weapon of mankind against the forces of evil; the fact that they're soul-powered means that they're only limited by the pilot's spiritual power. They're highly mobile (compared to the sluggish vehicles of the time frame), can carry heavy weaponry and benefit from all combat skills of its pilot, acting as an augmentation of their body.

Petalframes are only possible by tamashishi, a special kind of soulstone that can only be found in Japan. It's specialness is in the fact the it not only has a power source of its own, but can harness energy directly from a person's soul, making it's output potentially limitless. Petalframes are the result of a joint effort by both mystics and Japanese scientists, with funding from rich benefactors around the world.

Due to size constrains, tradition and a barely-known spiritual phenomenon, only women seem to be able to effectively pilot them. Besides that, it takes the powerful soul of a seisha to handle them. Thus, most of the candidates to pilot them are of noble lineages. Those who pilot petalframes are called Blossom Maidens, or BMs for short.

A quirk of petalframes and BMs is that they can activate Final Blossom: a last effort in battle, if removes all limitations on the amount of energy harnessed from a person's soul, temporarily allowing huge outputs of power. The consequence comes in the risks it can bring: almost guaranteed death, or permanent soul-scarring for the most fortunate, meaning complete or partial loss of spiritual powers.
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GAMEPLAY FOCUS: narrative-driven game, mixing slice-of-life, comedy, drama, and INTENSE ROBOT ACTION!!

LOOKING FOR:
+ 4 to 7 players.
+ At least 1 post per day.
+ Proactive players when it comes to cooperating with everyone to create amusing stories.

HEADSUP:
+ Very anime game in general (specially 90s anime feel)!
+ May very tangentially touch on politics. Then again, this is an alternate world where geopolitics barely changed since the 1400s, the world is still ruled by aristocracies and it's set in the 1910s, any similarity between a country and it's modern real counterpart would be in name only.
+ I mentioned romcom in the genres. This mostly have to do with the idea of the players having a """healthy and respectable rivalry, proper of the fine ladies they are""" (not throwing grenades at each other's rooms, please) when it comes to winning the heart of their commander. Of course, maybe the greatest challenge would be to start having any sympathy towards that incompetent fool.

THE SYSTEM: QuestWorlds is a rules-light fiction first narrative system, designed to simulate any kind of fiction. It has a fast resolution system (most scenes can be resolved with a single roll), while also having rules for dealing with longer and more dramatic scenes. All the rules boil down to framing a contest, where the players pick a prize (whatever they aim to achieve), and a tactic: which of their abilities they'll be using and how; then they roll a d20, with rolls below their Target Number (ability rating + modifiers), with anything below the TN scoring a success; then the GM rolls his d20 for the resistance; whoever has the most successes wins the prize.
[ +- ] More on the system
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LOOKING FOR:
+ 4 to 6 players.
+ At least 1 post per day.
+ Proactive players when it comes to cooperating with everyone to create amusing stories.
+ To apply, make your character by describing it (see below).

CHARACTER CREATION: To make a character in this game, you must simply write a short text (around 100 words, no hard limits, as some people may put less or more detail into this) describing your character's capabilities. This isn't a text describing their background, but simply what they can do, a full text describing your characters background can be made later based on it. If you do decide to include a character's background in the text, it should be about 300 words instead.

To write this, I suggest you read the two posts on the game forum, in a sub-forum called 'Genre Stuff' (provisory name), with a thread for the world's history and another for the Genre Pack, describing the setting and giving some keyword examples. Keep in mind you're not limited by those keywords, and can just customize them to your desire or write your own from scratch. Writing a keyword is as easy a giving a short description of what it does (just like your character) and then list some possible breakouts and (optionally) flaws for them. This game will employ two special kinds of keywords: Lineage Keywords (if you choose to pick one) and petalframe keywords (describing your petalframe, these are encouraged to be made by you.)

After that, you just extract any passages from the text which may signify abilities, they mustn't be word-for-word exactly like in the text, paraphrasing is totally allowed. Remember to add some flaws too, at least 3 flaws are recommended for each character.

Here's a suggested template for writing your character's description:
• Occupation
• Community
• Culture
• Distinguishing Characteristic (whatever defines your character and stands out the most)
• Then work through adding detail to your narrative supporting:
..o Any incredible powers you have, appropriate to the setting
..o How you persuade people
..o How you deal with violence
..o How you solve problems by deduction
..o How you keep your cool
..o Beliefs
..o Personality
..o Resources

Then, assign ratings to them:
• Assign a starting rating of 15 to the keyword or ability you find most important or defining. Although most players consider it wisest to assign this rating to their occupational keyword, you don’t have to do this.
• Assign a rating of 15 to your distinguishing characteristic (see Choosing Abilities, p.94).
• All other keywords or abilities start at a rating of 10.
• A breakout from a keyword starts at +5. In some cases, you may treat your distinguishing characteristic as a breakout ability from a keyword. In this case, treat it as a +10.
• Flaws are assigned a rating equivalent to your abilities. The first flaw is rated at the highest keyword or ability, the second shares the same rating as the second-highest keyword or ability, and the third equals the lowest keyword or ability. As abilities improve, the ratings of your flaws change to reflect this.
• Flaws should include breakouts when figuring the PC’s highest rating.
• All flaws after the third are given the same rating as the lowest keyword or ability.
• You may designate flaws from keywords as your first or second-ranked flaw.

After that, you distribute 20 starting improvement points among them:
• Each improvement point increases an ability by +1.
• You cannot increase a breakout with improvement points.
• The maximum starting ability rating is 5M; the maximum starting breakout rating is +5, or +10 for a distinguishing characteristic.

Finally, you add a Narrative Rook, which is whatever motivates and drives your character right now. I can change as character's develop and finish story arcs.
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CHARACTER EXAMPLES:
Sakura Shinguji
Hailing from the countryside village of Sendai, she's a calm and caring person, Sakura deeply loves the Imperial Combat Revue and the Grand Imperial Theatre. She strives to care for the theater and help her friends, from helping fixing costumes to cleaning the prop room.

She feels a great duty to protect the city of Tokyo and enjoys performing on the theater, being a talented singer and actress.

On combat, she's a fierce opponent, with mastery of the sword, she uses her family's technique: 'Hokushin Itto Ryu Kenjutsu', shooting a powerful and controlled energy sphere from her sword, the spirit sword Arataka. She pilots a pink koubo, making her an even more dangerous foe, it is equiped with a sword and samurai-inspired armor.

She's charmingly cute, though seem oblivious of it.

On the bad side, she's prone to jealousy and feeling insecure to express her feelings and desires.
Abilities:
Countryside sword-maiden 10
= Self-control +5
= Sword master +5
= Combat prowess +5
Talented performer 10
Spirit Sword Arataka 10
Hokushin Itto Ryu Kenjutsu 10
Passion to help people 10
Cute 10
Good at all chores 10
Pink Koubo 10
= Huge sword +5
= Samurai armor +5

Flaws:
Jealous 10
Insecure 10
Needs to be useful 10
Erica Fountaine
Erica is a nun in training and a cabaret dancer at Les Chattes Noires. Though she always wants to help those in need, her clumsiness an airheadedness often makes problems worse. She has the habit of daydreaming and being oblivious in serious situations.

She carries a cross-shaped submachinegun called "Raphael" concealed inside her dress, being a remarkable shooter.

Orphaned, she went living with Father Leno, who took care of her. She discovered her spiritual powers at a young age, being able to heal people and cause destruction.

She can always bring the best in people, making everyone get along with her; she never gives up on anyone, no matter their flaws.

She's commonly cheerful and lighthearted, but when serious in the heat of battle, she becomes a completely different person, being a very dangerous adversary.

Abilities:
Nun in training 10
= Receive general sympathy +5
= unsuspicious +5
Dancer 10
Raphael cross-submachinegun under her dress 10
Father Leno 10
Healing powers 10
Destruction powers 10
Always bring the best in people 10
Serious combat-mode 10
Expert shooter 10
Unyielding good mood 10

Flaws:
Terribly clumsy 10
Daydreamer 10
Never presumes anything bad from people 10
A tip about abilities: how you word it is very important. A 'submachinegun' ability is just fine, you can shoot with it; but a 'cross-shaped submachinegun under her dress' is just better: you shoot with it, conceal the gun with it and, who knows, even use it against vampires!
Last edited June 23, 2025 3:43 pm
Jun 23, 2025 4:57 pm
Tara Jones

Tara was trained as a stealth fighter her whole life, though you'd never think it. She's got a cheerful exterior and is always willing to share a word or two with others. However, she's relatively easy to annoy and/or anger, despite her usual acceptance of others. Tara prefers to keep to herself, seeing as she has a low social battery. She's very self-conscious and critical of any mistakes she makes and is always anxious about disappointing others.

Tara fights with her Chameleon, the mech that can blend into natural environments. When out of mech,she utilizes hooked daggers to eliminate opponents near or far. However, Tara actually prefers using words over fighting and will try to talk to anyone she comes into conflict with, when possible.

Abilities:
The colorful shadow 10
= Diplomacy +5
= Stealthy +5

Talkative 10
Hooked daggers in her boots and at her belt 10
Mech that can blend into her surroundings- The Chameleon 10
Realism about life and the world 10
Strategist 10
Always sees the light in the worst situations 10


Flaws:
Stubborn 10
Can't stand pressure 10
Self-conscious 10
Jun 25, 2025 2:29 am
Shizuka Gozen

Concept: Unbending Law Enforcer, Happy-Go-Lucky

Shizuka was born and raised in southern Tokyo around Shiba Park. She is 18 years old with unruly black hair, average height with, and an athletic build. Her upbringing was slightly different than other Seisha, as her father, Tokyo’s Magistrate, drilled samurai combat skills and strict lawful values into her. She followed in his footsteps after barely graduating from school and starting working as a both a young samurai and city police officer.

Due to her overzealous nature and freakish physical abilities, she stands out as both a neighborhood officer and a swordswoman. She often ditches her assigned deskwork to explore the city to solve more practical problems. While on-duty she has zero tolerance for any criminal acts but while off-duty she behaves more relaxed and goofy. She’s got a friendly personality unless you are someone who is breaking the law, however as long as someone takes their punishment she doesn’t hold a grudge.

When dealing with mundane issues, she often takes a blunt force strategy while trying to avoid breaking any laws or harming anything. When dealing with shamons, however, she uses defensive tactics until she figures out the best method of attack.

(I think I did these wrong but they convey my character idea!)

Abilities:
Samurai-Police 15
=Legal Knowledge 5
=Non-Lethal Takedowns 5
Athletics 15
=Chases through the city
=Jumping/Falling/Crashing into stuff Jackie Chan style 5
Wakizashi 10
Nambu Pistol 10
Police Gear 10
Sturdy Body 10
Gozen Lineage 10
Police Edition Steel Lotus 10


Flaws:
Dumb with Unshakeable Confidence 10
Doesn’t Wait For Orders 10
Law Abiding 15
=Even small, silly laws 5

Narrative Hook:
Shizuka was placed on the Steel Petal Force to keep tabs on them, since no one is above the law!
Last edited June 25, 2025 5:37 am
Jun 25, 2025 8:49 am
Woah! That's a cool concept!

In fact it is pretty much done right; the only things to change is that her distinguishing ability (the second one that starts as 15 or +10) should be something that makes her different, not a common key-word like Athletic (or the occupation keyword). Normally, this would be the distinguishing feature on her concept, in this case, an ability having to do with her being an unbending law enforcer (or samurai-cop), for example.

After that, Flaws don't use keywords/breakouts, you can word your Law abiding flaw in a way that it includes even small, silly laws instead.

I'll send you an invite!
Jun 25, 2025 2:01 pm
tacokarp says:
Glad to see you back Moyreau!
Oi, it's Ibuki! (Hi.)
Jun 25, 2025 2:03 pm
Hi, Just dropped in to say hello since I saw a familiar face! Good luck on the campaign!
Jun 25, 2025 2:25 pm
If you're interested in joining, by the way, the game says it's full, but it really isn't.
Jun 25, 2025 3:46 pm
hmm I'll see if I can come up with character idea I like and we will see
Jun 25, 2025 4:16 pm
Sure, if you're interested, we'd like to have you!

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