#battledolls

Here is the card featuring Celestial Warden, a new Battle Doll in the SamuraiSkirts universe. Her cosmic-themed DressBlade and ethereal armor give her a powerful, mystical presence, surrounded by a galaxy-inspired background. The tarot-inspired border adds a touch of destiny and celestial guidance, making this card both enchanting and formidable. Let me know if you'd like to explore more designs or abilities for her!

Here’s a breakdown of the new SamuraiSkirts Battle Doll card, Celestial Warden:

Card Character: Celestial Warden

Identity and Role:

Celestial Warden is a mystical guardian and protector of the SamuraiSkirtsBattleDolls multiverse, embodying the strength of cosmic forces. She is tasked with maintaining balance across realms, making her a powerful ally and a formidable opponent.

DressBlade - Starry Cloak:

Her DressBlade takes the form of a flowing, starry cloak adorned with shimmering constellations and ethereal silver details. This cloak has dual functions: in combat, it morphs into a sharp, mystical weapon that channels the power of the stars, while out of battle, it serves as a protective garment that radiates cosmic energy.

Card Abilities and Effects:

Astral Strike: This ability allows Celestial Warden to unleash a powerful attack, summoning the energy of constellations to strike opponents. It’s highly effective against dark or shadow-aligned enemies.

Celestial Shield: Grants a protective barrier for her and her allies. This shield draws on her connection to the cosmos, reducing damage from elemental or magical attacks.

Stellar Alignment: A unique skill where, if certain conditions on the battlefield are met (such as allied Summoners or specific Fate/Tarot cards), she can realign the “stars” on the field, boosting her team’s abilities or weakening the enemy.

In-Game Tarot Function:

Fate Card Influence: If drawn as part of a tarot reading for the querent, Celestial Warden would represent themes of balance, cosmic protection, and guidance from higher forces.

Upright Meaning: The card suggests the querent is being guided by unseen forces and should trust in a higher path. It may encourage the querent to act as a protector or seek harmony in chaotic situations.

Reversed Meaning: It could imply feeling disconnected or out of sync with one's purpose, urging the querent to realign with their goals or reconnect with supportive energies around them.

Design Elements:

The card features celestial motifs, like a galaxy background and silver patterns, symbolizing her cosmic nature and aligning with the tarot theme of universal harmony and destiny.

This card positions Celestial Warden as both a powerful character in gameplay and a spiritually significant guide for the querent. Her dual role strengthens the ties between combat strategy and personal insight in SamuraiSkirtsBattleDolls. Let me know if you'd like to add any unique abilities or features!

To further integrate Celestial Warden into both the SamuraiSkirtsBattleDolls TCG gameplay and its tarot-like aspect, here are additional layers we could develop:

Expanded Abilities and Gameplay Mechanics

Enhanced Abilities:

Cosmic Rebirth: Celestial Warden has the power to “revive” one fallen ally per game. This ability reflects her role as a protector and healer, symbolizing the stars’ cycle of life and rebirth. This skill costs a significant amount of energy, making it a high-risk, high-reward option.

Meteor Strike: A powerful area attack that deals damage to multiple opponents. By channeling meteors from the cosmos, Celestial Warden can target enemy groups, especially effective against dark-aligned or shadow enemies. This ability requires preparation, making it a strategic play rather than an immediate attack.

Tarot Card Synergy:

Astrological Influence: If drawn alongside specific tarot cards (like The Star, The Moon, or The Sun), Celestial Warden gains temporary boosts. These tarot-inspired cards can enhance her protection, strengthen her attacks, or provide strategic foresight, enhancing her mystique and versatility on the battlefield.

Constellation Boost: The card activates a cosmic buff, where other Battle Dolls in the player’s team receive minor improvements based on her alignment. For example, Summoners may gain extra energy, GunBladers get a speed boost, or KeyKeepers can draw extra cards.

Battle Zone Influence:

When Celestial Warden is in play, she can control the field environment. The “Celestial Domain” zone grants cosmic bonuses, reducing the effectiveness of dark or shadow-based enemies while empowering allies with light or star-related affinities.

Lore and Multiverse Background

Origin Story and Background:

Celestial Warden originates from a realm known as the Astral Plains, a peaceful yet powerful dimension interwoven with cosmic energy. She is a chosen guardian, embodying the principles of balance, protection, and celestial order.

Her role as a Battle Doll is not only to protect the multiverse but to ensure harmony among the realms. She is one of the few Battle Dolls with the authority to cross into any territory, and her presence is both revered and feared by others.

Rivalries and Alliances:

Allies: Her close alliance with Summoners allows her to call upon powerful creatures, forming strong synergies during battle. Her connections with KeyKeepers also make her a vital ally when exploring locked realms or areas.

Rivals: Celestial Warden is opposed by dark-aligned Battle Dolls or entities seeking to disrupt multiverse harmony. Her main rival could be a shadow-aligned Battle Doll or a rogue summoner from a parallel dimension, introducing storyline depth and expanding the TCG’s world.

Tarot Aspect: Interpretations in a Reading

Upright (Positive Position):

Protection and Guidance: The querent is safeguarded by cosmic forces. They are urged to pursue their purpose fearlessly, knowing they are aligned with something greater.

Harmony and Restoration: This card suggests a period of peace or the resolution of a past conflict, emphasizing that cosmic energies are supporting a positive shift.

Reversed (Challenging Position):

Disconnection and Discord: This position may warn the querent of imbalance, signaling they have drifted from their path. It suggests reconnecting with supportive forces or re-evaluating their purpose.

Boundaries and Self-Protection: In this state, Celestial Warden advises focusing on self-care and reestablishing personal boundaries, suggesting that the querent might be giving too much of their energy away.

Visual and Gameplay Enhancements

Alternate Art Forms:

Holographic Variant: Create a rare, holographic version of the Celestial Warden card. This variant might include extra glittering stars, a shimmering cloak effect, or an aurora that adds dimension.

Full-Art Tarot Card: As a collectible, the full-art version features Celestial Warden in a tarot-style card with no text, only symbols. This card could be used in special readings or ceremonial play.

Seasonal Expansion Packs:

Include Celestial Warden in a special “Cosmic Realms” expansion pack, with other celestial-inspired Battle Dolls and tarot-themed items. This expansion pack could introduce new cosmic abilities, celestial weapons, and tarot cards, enriching the game’s universe and lore.

With these additions, Celestial Warden becomes a multidimensional character who integrates beautifully into the strategic, narrative, and spiritual aspects of SamuraiSkirts. Let me know if there are particular elements of her story or powers you’d like to explore further!

To further integrate Celestial Warden into both the SamuraiSkirtsBattleDolls TCG gameplay and its tarot-like aspect, here are additional layers we could develop:

Expanded Abilities and Gameplay Mechanics

Enhanced Abilities:

Cosmic Rebirth: Celestial Warden has the power to “revive” one fallen ally per game. This ability reflects her role as a protector and healer, symbolizing the stars’ cycle of life and rebirth. This skill costs a significant amount of energy, making it a high-risk, high-reward option.

Meteor Strike: A powerful area attack that deals damage to multiple opponents. By channeling meteors from the cosmos, Celestial Warden can target enemy groups, especially effective against dark-aligned or shadow enemies. This ability requires preparation, making it a strategic play rather than an immediate attack.

Tarot Card Synergy:

Astrological Influence: If drawn alongside specific tarot cards (like The Star, The Moon, or The Sun), Celestial Warden gains temporary boosts. These tarot-inspired cards can enhance her protection, strengthen her attacks, or provide strategic foresight, enhancing her mystique and versatility on the battlefield.

Constellation Boost: The card activates a cosmic buff, where other Battle Dolls in the player’s team receive minor improvements based on her alignment. For example, Summoners may gain extra energy, GunBladers get a speed boost, or KeyKeepers can draw extra cards.

Battle Zone Influence:

When Celestial Warden is in play, she can control the field environment. The “Celestial Domain” zone grants cosmic bonuses, reducing the effectiveness of dark or shadow-based enemies while empowering allies with light or star-related affinities.

Lore and Multiverse Background

Origin Story and Background:

Celestial Warden originates from a realm known as the Astral Plains, a peaceful yet powerful dimension interwoven with cosmic energy. She is a chosen guardian, embodying the principles of balance, protection, and celestial order.

Her role as a Battle Doll is not only to protect the multiverse but to ensure harmony among the realms. She is one of the few Battle Dolls with the authority to cross into any territory, and her presence is both revered and feared by others.

Rivalries and Alliances:

Allies: Her close alliance with Summoners allows her to call upon powerful creatures, forming strong synergies during battle. Her connections with KeyKeepers also make her a vital ally when exploring locked realms or areas.

Rivals: Celestial Warden is opposed by dark-aligned Battle Dolls or entities seeking to disrupt multiverse harmony. Her main rival could be a shadow-aligned Battle Doll or a rogue summoner from a parallel dimension, introducing storyline depth and expanding the TCG’s world.

Tarot Aspect: Interpretations in a Reading

Upright (Positive Position):

Protection and Guidance: The querent is safeguarded by cosmic forces. They are urged to pursue their purpose fearlessly, knowing they are aligned with something greater.

Harmony and Restoration: This card suggests a period of peace or the resolution of a past conflict, emphasizing that cosmic energies are supporting a positive shift.

Reversed (Challenging Position):

Disconnection and Discord: This position may warn the querent of imbalance, signaling they have drifted from their path. It suggests reconnecting with supportive forces or re-evaluating their purpose.

Boundaries and Self-Protection: In this state, Celestial Warden advises focusing on self-care and reestablishing personal boundaries, suggesting that the querent might be giving too much of their energy away.

Visual and Gameplay Enhancements

Alternate Art Forms:

Holographic Variant: Create a rare, holographic version of the Celestial Warden card. This variant might include extra glittering stars, a shimmering cloak effect, or an aurora that adds dimension.

Full-Art Tarot Card: As a collectible, the full-art version features Celestial Warden in a tarot-style card with no text, only symbols. This card could be used in special readings or ceremonial play.

Seasonal Expansion Packs:

Include Celestial Warden in a special “Cosmic Realms” expansion pack, with other celestial-inspired Battle Dolls and tarot-themed items. This expansion pack could introduce new cosmic abilities, celestial weapons, and tarot cards, enriching the game’s universe and lore.

With these additions, Celestial Warden becomes a multidimensional character who integrates beautifully into the strategic, narrative, and spiritual aspects of SamuraiSkirts. Let me know if there are particular elements of her story or powers you’d like to explore further!

Here is the design of Shadow Phoenix, a fierce and mystical SamuraiSkirts Battle Doll with her dark, flame-touched DressBlade and a reborn-from-the-ashes theme. Her aura combines danger and beauty, reflected in her twilight and ember-filled surroundings. Let me know if you'd like to dive into her powers or story details!

A Battle Doll in your SamuraiSkirts universe could be an animated or static figure designed for combat, strategy, and interaction within the SamuraiSkirtsBattleDolls multiverse. Here's a potential definition and design:

Battle Doll

Role: A Battle Doll is a highly skilled, customizable, and powerful entity designed for strategic combat, defense, or magical endeavors. Typically used by summoners or fighters, Battle Dolls can take on various forms depending on the character’s skills and affinity to specific "DressBlades," "KeyBlades," or "DressSpheres."

Key Characteristics:

Appearance: Battle Dolls often have humanoid forms, but their designs can vary greatly, from sleek futuristic armors to mystical, flowing robes or elemental armor. Their attire and features are determined by the wearer’s affinities or chosen elements.

Powers & Abilities:

DressBlades: Battle Dolls wield powerful weapons forged from the energy of their user's emotions, essence, or combat style. These can range from sword-like blades to more unconventional tools (such as a whip or shield).

KeyBlades: These dolls can use ancient or mystic keys to unlock powerful hidden abilities or summon allies from other realms. Their KeyBlades represent a connection to legendary warriors and artifacts.

Summoner Ability: Some Battle Dolls can harness the power of their summoner to call upon mystical creatures, elemental forces, or spirits to aid in battle.

GunBlader: A hybrid Battle Doll that integrates both close combat with a blade and long-range firepower. They combine sword techniques with shooting capabilities.

Elemental Forms: Certain Battle Dolls have elemental affiliations, allowing them to adapt to their surroundings (fire, water, wind, earth, etc.) and use environmental advantages during combat.

Behavior:

Battle Dolls can be strategic thinkers, automatically adapting to different scenarios in battle.

They often develop a bond with their user or summoner, making them both fierce protectors and loyal companions.

Customization:

DressSpheres: These are magical spheres that allow a Battle Doll to switch between combat styles, powers, or forms, changing their appearance and abilities. This makes them versatile fighters and tacticians.

Attributes: Each Battle Doll can be equipped with unique armor or enhancements like agility, strength, resilience, or magical prowess, making them suited for different playstyles or environments.

Example of a Battle Doll Concept:

Name: Seara the Flameborn

Appearance: A fiery Battle Doll with red and gold armor, glowing molten patterns across her body. Her hair is a mix of flickering fire and smoke, and she wields a blazing sword known as the Ember Reaver.

Special Abilities: She is an elemental fighter, using fire-based attacks and summoning flame creatures to aid in battle. Her DressSphere allows her to morph into a firestorm that damages all enemies in her path.

This concept would add a unique layer of strategy and visual diversity to your SamuraiSkirts universe. Would you like to develop any other specific Battle Dolls or variations of their abilities?

A Battle Doll in your SamuraiSkirts universe could be an animated or static figure designed for combat, strategy, and interaction within the SamuraiSkirtsBattleDolls multiverse. Here's a potential definition and design:

Battle Doll

Role: A Battle Doll is a highly skilled, customizable, and powerful entity designed for strategic combat, defense, or magical endeavors. Typically used by summoners or fighters, Battle Dolls can take on various forms depending on the character’s skills and affinity to specific "DressBlades," "KeyBlades," or "DressSpheres."

Key Characteristics:

Appearance: Battle Dolls often have humanoid forms, but their designs can vary greatly, from sleek futuristic armors to mystical, flowing robes or elemental armor. Their attire and features are determined by the wearer’s affinities or chosen elements.

Powers & Abilities:

DressBlades: Battle Dolls wield powerful weapons forged from the energy of their user's emotions, essence, or combat style. These can range from sword-like blades to more unconventional tools (such as a whip or shield).

KeyBlades: These dolls can use ancient or mystic keys to unlock powerful hidden abilities or summon allies from other realms. Their KeyBlades represent a connection to legendary warriors and artifacts.

Summoner Ability: Some Battle Dolls can harness the power of their summoner to call upon mystical creatures, elemental forces, or spirits to aid in battle.

GunBlader: A hybrid Battle Doll that integrates both close combat with a blade and long-range firepower. They combine sword techniques with shooting capabilities.

Elemental Forms: Certain Battle Dolls have elemental affiliations, allowing them to adapt to their surroundings (fire, water, wind, earth, etc.) and use environmental advantages during combat.

Behavior:

Battle Dolls can be strategic thinkers, automatically adapting to different scenarios in battle.

They often develop a bond with their user or summoner, making them both fierce protectors and loyal companions.

Customization:

DressSpheres: These are magical spheres that allow a Battle Doll to switch between combat styles, powers, or forms, changing their appearance and abilities. This makes them versatile fighters and tacticians.

Attributes: Each Battle Doll can be equipped with unique armor or enhancements like agility, strength, resilience, or magical prowess, making them suited for different playstyles or environments.

Example of a Battle Doll Concept:

Name: Seara the Flameborn

Appearance: A fiery Battle Doll with red and gold armor, glowing molten patterns across her body. Her hair is a mix of flickering fire and smoke, and she wields a blazing sword known as the Ember Reaver.

Special Abilities: She is an elemental fighter, using fire-based attacks and summoning flame creatures to aid in battle. Her DressSphere allows her to morph into a firestorm that damages all enemies in her path.

This concept would add a unique layer of strategy and visual diversity to your SamuraiSkirts universe.

Here’s an in-depth breakdown of what each component represents in the SamuraiSkirts universe based on the featured card design:

SamuraiSkirt Battle Dolls:

Warrior characters in the SamuraiSkirtsBattleDolls multiverse. They embody both combat readiness and a refined, fashion-forward aesthetic, blending aspects of traditional samurai attire with haute couture or avant-garde fashion.

DressBlade:

A weapon unique to each Battle Doll that serves as both armor and style. The DressBlade looks like a flowing part of the doll’s attire—often resembling a gown or a skirt—that transforms into a sharp, formidable weapon in battle. It reflects the character's unique fighting style, integrating elegance with lethal force.

Tarot-Inspired Card Design:

The card incorporates a mystical, tarot-like visual language, using symbols and patterns inspired by traditional tarot cards. These symbols represent the fate, mystical forces, or hidden powers guiding the Battle Dolls, adding layers of depth and mystery to each character’s story.

Each symbol and pattern also reflects the multiverse’s balance between fate and choice, inviting players to see the characters as more than just fighters but as figures on a spiritual or destiny-driven journey.

Game Card Aesthetics:

This specific art style combines vibrant colors, elaborate patterns, and detailed character designs. The card’s look conveys both fantasy and a hint of realism, capturing the power and allure of the Battle Dolls.

The use of borders and iconography around the card’s edge enhances its status as a collectible, evoking the visual traditions of both trading cards and tarot decks.

This card art helps to encapsulate the SamuraiSkirts universe’s core—its combination of fashion, combat, and mysticism—while giving players insight into the unique abilities and personalities of each Battle Doll. If you have other concepts for different types of DressBlades or Battle Dolls, we can explore those as well!

Here's how this card might function in both gameplay for the #SamuraiSkirts TCG and as a tarot-like reading for a querent (the person seeking guidance):

In the SamuraiSkirtsBattleDolls TCG:

Card Attributes:

Power Level: Each Battle Doll card would have stats, such as Attack, Defense, and Speed. The DressBlade might grant this character a high Attack bonus but require strategy to balance with defense.

Special Ability - “Blade Transformation”: This ability could allow the Battle Doll to alter the DressBlade’s form mid-battle, shifting between forms (e.g., a defensive stance, a piercing attack, or an area attack affecting multiple foes).

Mystical Aura: As a tarot-inspired Battle Doll, this character might also have a unique “Mystical” status, granting access to cards or abilities that draw on spiritual or fate-based themes.

Summon Support: This Battle Doll might also have synergy with Summoner cards, gaining extra power or an aura boost when allied with certain summoned spirits.

Gameplay Mechanics:

Field Control: The DressBlade ability could allow the Battle Doll to influence the battlefield, giving her the capacity to set “zones” where enemy stats are reduced or allies are buffed.

Fate Draw: Once per turn, the player could draw from a special “Fate Deck” if this Battle Doll is on the field. The Fate Deck may contain powerful one-use cards that resemble tarot-inspired effects, making her unpredictable in battle.

Tarot-Like Reading for the Querent:

If this card were drawn as part of a tarot reading, it would serve as a guide to both inner and outer strength, symbolizing the querent’s journey to balance elegance with power, and spirituality with practicality.

Core Themes:

Transformation and Adaptability: Just as the DressBlade changes forms, this card would urge the querent to adapt to life’s shifts, turning perceived “weaknesses” into strengths by embracing change.

Inner Balance: Combining samurai strength with beauty, this card advises on harmonizing fierceness with grace, teaching the querent to assert themselves while maintaining inner peace and composure.

Protection and Boundaries: This card might remind the querent of the importance of setting boundaries, learning to defend their values and spirit from external pressures.

Position Meanings:

Upright: Represents a time for decisive action where they must wield their strengths with intention. It suggests readiness for challenge or competition, guided by confidence in one’s unique talents.

Reversed: Could symbolize hesitation or the need to reassess one’s approach, indicating areas where the querent’s energy may feel “blocked” or misaligned. It may call them to recalibrate and reconnect with their sense of purpose.

Complementary Cards:

If paired with a Summoner card, this reading might symbolize the need to call on external support or allies, highlighting partnership, teamwork, or seeking guidance from mentors.

By blending gameplay and tarot themes, the #SamuraiSkirts card functions as both a tool for strategic TCG combat and a powerful symbol of personal growth, adaptability, and inner harmony in a tarot-like setting. Let me know if you'd like to explore specific characters or additional themes!

This sounds like a dynamic and immersive card game universe! With #SamuraiSkirts blending weaponry, fashion elements, and summoning powers across a multiverse, it has a ton of potential for both narrative depth and collectible appeal. Are you integrating characters from EnXanting and the X-Men into the SamuraiSkirtsBattleDolls game as well? It could create a fascinating mix of worlds and powers.

Here’s a refined look at key aspects of #SamuraiSkirts and SamuraiSkirtsBattleDolls, based on what you've described and are working to develop:

SamuraiSkirtsBattleDolls Multiverse:

A fictional universe where unique warrior characters, known as BattleDolls, engage in epic battles or challenges across different realms.

This multiverse combines samurai-inspired aesthetics with fantasy elements, such as fashion-integrated weaponry and specialized combat styles.

#SamuraiSkirts Trading Card Game (TCG):

A collectible card game that uses tarot-like elements, where each card represents characters, abilities, or items from the SamuraiSkirtsBattleDolls multiverse.

Players can use strategy to wield cards like DressBlades, KeyBlades, DressSpheres, and more to combat other players.

Key Elements:

DressBlades: Weaponry or abilities that are as much a fashion statement as they are combat tools, highlighting style within a battle context.

KeyBlades: Inspired by Kingdom Hearts, these symbolize unique, mystical blades that allow users to unlock powers, realms, or secrets.

DressSpheres: Likely referencing Final Fantasy's "Dresspheres," these could allow players to "change" their character's class, abilities, or form mid-game.

GunBlader: Characters or abilities that combine firearms with swordsmanship, creating a hybrid fighting style.

Summoner: Cards that summon powerful entities, allies, or spirits, adding an extra layer of strategy and alliance-based mechanics.

A tactical, narrative-driven tabletop RPG blending samurai combat, magical warfare, and strategic team battles, designed for 6 players (5v5 + Game Master).

Game Overview

Players: 6 (5v5 teams + 1 GM)

Game Style: Turn-based strategy with roleplay-driven battles

Setting: A Neo-Rococo Samurai Fantasy World, where Battle Dolls—warrior spirits infused into ornate doll-like bodies—fight to protect or rewrite the world's destiny.

Objective: Teams compete in battle scenarios while engaging in deep roleplay to influence the world’s fate based on their faction’s philosophy.

Game Structure

1. Character Creation & Battle Doll Customization

Each player chooses or creates a Battle Doll, determining:

Class & Role (Tank, Striker, Healer, Mage, Support)

Faction & Alignment (Holy Order, Abyssal Veil, Rogue Dolls, etc.)

Signature Weapon (DressBlade, Sanctus Veil, Ripple Requiem, etc.)

Core Abilities (Chosen based on class + unique personal skills)

Personality & Bond Traits (Roleplay-driven choices that affect in-game interactions)

Example Classes & Roles

2. Gameplay Mechanics

A. Turn-Based Combat System (D20 + Ability Rolls)

Players roll a D20 for attack accuracy, ability effectiveness, and counterplay.

Each class has 3-5 unique abilities that modify dice rolls and affect the battlefield.

Positioning matters—movement across a grid-based battlefield influences attack reach and defensive strategies.

Example Combat Round:

Initiative Roll: Determine turn order (D20 roll + Speed stat).

Action Phase: Each player chooses to Attack, Use a Skill, Move, or Defend.

Reaction Phase: Opposing team may counter, dodge, or activate passive abilities based on conditions.

End of Turn Effects: Status conditions, healing, buffs/debuffs resolve.

B. Game Master’s Role

World-Building & Roleplay: The GM introduces missions, alliances, and world events.

Battlefield Control: The GM sets environmental effects—holy sanctuaries, cursed lands, or shifting terrain.

Story Consequences: Player actions determine faction conflicts, betrayals, and evolving alliances.

Example GM Actions:

"The Cathedral Gates Collapse!" – Alters battlefield layout mid-fight.

"A Forbidden Relic Awakens…" – Introduces a new mechanic mid-match.

"The Holy Order issues a decree!" – Forces players into moral dilemmas.

3. Game Modes

"Sacred Duel" (Best of 3 Battles) – Competitive arena fights to claim relics or gain territory.

"War of the Factions" – Story-driven campaign where each choice reshapes the world’s balance.

"Abyss Invasion" (PvE Mode) – Teams work together against GM-controlled enemies, facing impossible odds.

"The Betrayal Path" – Hidden traitor mechanics where one player has secret objectives that may disrupt the mission.

4. Additional Customization

Doll Fashion & Cosmetic Upgrades (influences prestige and faction standing).

Bond System (players forge rivalries or partnerships, granting in-game bonuses).

Faction-Specific Skills (special perks based on alliances).

Final Thoughts

Battle Doll Stats: Umbra Embrace

The Paddle-Wielding Water Phantom

Basic Profile

Name: Umbra Embrace

Title: The Tidal Phantom

Alignment: True Neutral (Moves like the waves—unpredictable, flowing between destruction and tranquility.)

Type: Elemental Battle Doll

Class: Paddle-Type Water Maiden Samurai

Weapon: "Ripple Requiem" – A crescent-bladed paddle that can shift between solid and liquid states, generating powerful shockwaves and water constructs.

Affiliation: Abyssal Veil Sect – A secretive order of water-element battle dolls who act as both protectors and destroyers of the ocean’s will.

Core Stats (Max: 10 points per stat)

Special Abilities & Techniques

"Lunar Undertow" – Swings Ripple Requiem in a full arc, generating a phantom tidal wave that drags enemies into a spiraling vortex.

"Tideborn Veil" – Wraps herself in a cloak of mist, becoming semi-transparent and difficult to track.

"Requiem Cascade" – Unleashes a crescent-shaped shockwave from her paddle, slicing through enemies like a water jet.

"Abyss Waltz" – A fluid chain of spinning strikes where she moves like a whirlpool, evading and attacking simultaneously.

"Drowning Embrace" – Conjures water tendrils that bind enemies, sapping their stamina as they feel like they’re sinking into an ocean abyss.

Weaknesses

Weak against wind-based attacks—strong gusts disrupt her water formations.

Struggles in arid environments where moisture is scarce.

Extended phasing (Tideborn Veil) drains stamina and risks losing physical form temporarily.

- Prologue 2 - The Battledolls

Eruptions in the night. Vast swathes of the continental plates of a far-gone planet, buckling and spewing magma. The surface of Argo shuddered like water disturbed by the footsteps of history.

Mountains were thrown up like the grit on a cracking boulder. The tectonic structure of the planet cracked, lines of overlapping orange fury lancing through the miles of bedrock from the liquid core as it came apart.

A geological event the likes of which could never be seen from the surface wracked the planet, until the lasers and massed cannons of the Green Kireken fleet sliced through the grinding, sloshing rock to the radioactive core. Their Dahlocque allies had retreated, subtly moving back to “prime firing range” as the last inhabitants had fled, to be chewed from the sky by the masses of heavy cannon levied at them.

In a pulsing explosion of exotic matter, and with the skirling lamentations of the world’s spirit, Argo was annihilated, rupturing at first and then blasting out in all directions, overlapping concentric rings of dread power washing over the Kireken ships, badly battered already from the colossal aerospace war they had fought to establish dominance over the planet.

Several came apart. Others exploded, their mass driver reactors and dark matter engines whiting out past critical, taking with them more than a quarter of the massed Kirek fleet.

The Dahlocques retreated fully, their ships’ conflict-drives powering up and launching them through the un-realm that gave them their name.

***

The last thing Kha’rit saw was the swiftly descending fist of the Battledoll.

Trishna looked up suddenly. Khira was nearby, the other doll surveying the pools with the whirring mechanisms of her eyes. Her head turned back through an arc too far for a human’s body to meet Trishna’s eye, taking in the spurt of alien blood that had painted her double’s snow-white carapace without any sign of judgement. A silent communication passed between them, a blurt of encoded binary on a hidden frequency. And then they were off again, two robed, alabaster figures leaping from rooftop to rooftop, far away from the scene of Kha’rit’s death.

The interior of the Kireken flagship, Divak’s Terror, was more than just a troops carrier. Every Kireken was a soldier, from the moment they pupated from the Smearlings they were born as to the moment they breathed their last on the end of their enemies’ weapons. The interior of the ship was a city.

Through that city, the Battledolls rampaged. The protectors of the Flower Girls, Argo’s muted dream for the future, the Battledolls were powerful, deadly and beautiful. Trailing the cables torn from their incubation tanks on Argo, and dressed hastily in the robes of Argonian war enactment, they soared on the thermals above the city in Divak’s Terror.

They were slaughtering and butchering in vengeance for their planet. More than a hundred thousand Kireks were present in Divak’s Terror mere hours ago. With less than a hundred Battledolls, the Argonian people had torn into the guts of their enemies in brutal vengeance for the death of their planet, and now mere dozens of thousands remained.

A squad of Kirek War-Harvesters teleported into the vast hall of the city, streaking from their entry point near the ceiling on membranous wings culled from the skins of their enemies.

Trishna flicked her hand towards them, silently directing a duo of Battledolls elsewhere in the city towards them. The cant of the machine language in her head slowly rose in pitch as more Kirekens answered the call to the battle raging through the streets. She barely registered as their ghostly forms burnt blue fire to launch themselves upwards, gracefully arcing into the sky where they skewered the War-Harvesters with their fists.

Trishna looked around, finding a suitable kicking-off spot a few feet from her chosen landing place. She hit the roof of the next Kireken building lightly, rolled over the chassis of her shoulders and kicked out in a well-timed spiral that took her over an incoming blast from the heavy cannons of the Kirek internal guard.

Though they were both humanoid, that was where the resemblance between the two warring races ended. The Kireks were originally a society of three races, though the Blue and Red Kireken species had all but died out millennia before.

Trishna landed at the top of a long pole, tricking her feet around it and extending the blades built into her wrist as she swung over and down, slicing through the wiring that kept an array of sensory apparatus attached to it.

The green-skinned Kireks scattered as she landed on the street below, rolling over once more to lash out with her cabling, slicing the legs from under them and toppling them. Some tried to crawl away and she ran over them, crushing organs and bone underfoot.

They were almost insectoid in appearance. That was the impression their large, glassy eyes and the feathered, swept-back tendrils extending from their foreheads gave. Standing on average six and a half feet, they were taller than the Battledolls, but slimmer, their bodies taught and tightly muscled with very little difference between male and female.

The Battledolls, on the other hand, were whirring servos and Thaumaturgic energies encased in robotic shells. Their wide hips and powerful legs gave them a vaguely feminine appearance, but their cherubic faces were androgynous. They were tools of protection, repurposed to kill.

Trishna leapt a dozen stories up, kicking her foot through the hard basalt structure of a spiralling Kireken tower to give her some leverage, and kept on running, realigning her body to scale it vertically. All the way up, foetal Kirekens gestated in their egg-sacs, unformed bodies slowly coalescing in vitreous liquids. She smashed them as she went, her hands and the blades along them whirring through the air with blinding speed.

At the top of the spire, more than a dozen of her sisters were already tearing into the hollow tower at the weakest point, near the pinnacle.

A warning light flashed behind her metal retinae, and she pirouetted over a cluster of the eggs as a huge form impacted into the tower next to her. Smashing a fist through the structure, she managed to catch a glance of the six-armed Kirek war structure before it rotated its body around and gave chase. Dodging the falling shards and shrapnel of the battle ongoing around her, she leapt over a sweep of its arms, the targeting arrays laced through her cabling scanning the engine of destruction even as she weaved through its lumbering strikes. Wrapping her robe up in her arm, she held it to her and dove backwards. Time slowed to her perception as the myriad programs and run-times built into her circuitry processed the vast amounts of data she was feeding them, and suddenly snapped back as she landed on one of the creation’s shoulders. Scuttling over it like a parasite, she swung her body over to its underside and burned her headlights brightly.

The emaciated form of a blue humanoid shouted wordless threats at her. The Blue Kireks were not quite extinct, but that was their power: The planet Kirek was among the first in creation to develop sentient life, long before the laws of nature had settled into a recognisable pattern. As the kireks died, the few that remained would absorb their essences, adding their power to theirs. As dozens of mechanisms throughout her structure realigned, scanning the decrepit body of the enslaved Kirek before her, she felt the actinic taste of pity, deep within her memory core. Something stirred, but firewalls and deadlocks shut down in the center of her processors.

Drawing her fist back, she barely noticed as the Kirek closed its eyes in acceptance before she drove her fist through the weak point in the chest, splattering herself with blue blood and wrenching the cardiovascular organ from its body. As it died the Thaumaturgic mesh around its body sparked and died with it, killing the power to the machine.

The blues were different. But from the colour of their skin and sensory vanes where their ears might have been, they could almost be human.

Letting the alien’s heart fall from her hand, she kicked the enormous bulk of the thing away from the tower and watched as it crushed a thousand or more of the Kireken eggs below her. Holding her hand flat, she knifed it through the wall of another egg-sac and swung on its lacerating membrane until she was running up the tower once more.

In just a few powerful leaps, she was at the top.

***

At the bridge of Divak’s Terror, helmsmistress Xenarch the XVIII oversaw the destruction of Argo with a grim face, her lipless mouth taut with barely repressed anger. The Dahlocques, their supposed allies, had retreated in the face of the explosion and were waiting for them to be torn apart by the unleashed forces of the Argonians. There were fires on hundreds of dozens of decks and in tens of thousands of corridors. She turned to the Kireks arrayed in front of her, scattered around the command deck, which was laid out like an enormous inverted colloseum.

“Each of you! Stop lollygagging about, we have a genocide on our hands!”

The two closest Kireks to her saluted, but were immediately withered by the gaze of her ochre eyes. “To your stations! Send cleanup to decks eighty-nine to four hundred and seven, west by south-3. The city is burning! Send forth more Harvesters, we have yet to reap our fill of the dead!”

Behind her, walking on a large gantry in iron-shod boots, a blue-skinned scientist bared his teeth. “And would you like a side-order of Soylent Emerald with that, madame?” The question slithered from his clenched jaw amidst a stream of curses and muttered blasphemies as the four mechanical arms fused to his back worked at the energy overflow of a large, roiling orb of orange light, like a miniature sun. Xenarch twisted around in her chair to bark a verbal riposte to him, but as she did so he growled down at her.

“The conflict sphere is destabilizing, Your Highness, so unless you plan on coming up here to give me a daintily-proffered hand, I suggest you leave me to my work as I leave you to yours.” He accompanied the gritted-teeth stream of dislike with an equally annihilating glare, and the two locked eyes for a few moments.

Breaking the tension, one of the consoles towards the vast viewing screen ignited. Both turned to see the helmsman at it burst into flames, writhing in the seat he was wired into. With a grim bark of laughter, the blue scientist returned to his work.

Xenarch punched the console in front of her in frustration, and flipped open a switchbox. Gritting her teeth, she switched each of them to ‘Deploy’.

“Sending in the Hobbes.”

***

Trishna raced to the center of the tower, where the rest of her sisters were tearing up chunks of biological masonry. Most Kireken architecture as at least partly organic, grown from gene-deposits of armoured creatures. They weren’t bugs, but they were close. Trishna jumped over the heads of her sisters, landing in the middle of them with a hammering downward kick. The noise was abominable, even above the roar of the burning city below them.

Tearing at the chitinous innards of the tower, the Battledolls lifted their hands as one before knifing them down repeatedly. Breaking through, they grabbed onto the inner layer and tore it out. Slowly, they were digging down.

Another warning flashed behind Trishna’s eyes, and she straightened at the same moment as her sisters. As one, thirty eyes looked up, focussing on a point several meters above them. There was a burst of static, and several of the Battledolls were thrown down, suddenly locked to the tower as though it were an electromagnet. A slice was torn through the air, cutting it as though it was a solid thing, and in an instant they were among them.

Shorter Kireks, a head smaller than the Battledolls, with burning red eyes. In their hands were vibrant blades of energy, projected from hilts that were powered by motors on their backs. There were more than twenty of them, but as Trishna’s target locks attempted to focus they were already on top of her.

They swept over the battledolls like a wave, lopping forearms and exposed cables like knives of molten iron through butter. A particularly battle-scarred individual raised his fist towards Trishna and glared. There was a sudden contraction of the air around her, and in a pall of billowing purple fire, she was shunted.

Her body passed through a veil torn in the world, and was thrown back through the Conflict. Fire and Ice, mixed polarities and thunderous lightning smashed around her, and though she could not claim to have seen them, her memory banks would later be found to be full of images of colossal, mountainous creatures that regarded her with scorn.

And with a horrible, tearing shatter of her senses, she was ripped back. Her hands came up for purchase on something, anything, but as she tried to calculate her velocity she realised that she had been thrown far, far over the edge of the tower. She was trying to grab hold of a cable, a post, anything, but her body wasn’t moving. Her head impacted a reinforced bunker, and her reactor overloaded.

Khira, with her sisters on the tower, had been pushed to the edges of her computing capacity. The Hobbes were everywhere and nowhere, moving too fast for them to track. Blurting a burst of information to her sisters that conveyed so many bytes as to be auditorily noticeable, she flexed the cables on her back and whipped them out around her.

The interfaces along their lengths snapped to those of her sisters’ cables, they having moved in concert, and instantly a mesh of overlapping steel covered the top of the tower. Green electricity, tainted by the Thaumic resonators in their reactors, billowed along their lengths, coalescing in the center of the criss-crossed cabling and detonating in a wave of green flames.

The Hobbes were thrown out from the center of the tower, but the Battledolls, tied together, were unmoved, stalwarts in the sea of energy they had unleashed. Khira looked up, her vision overloaded as the blade of an energy-weapon slashed towards her-

***

Up at the Helm, Xenarch smiled a dark smile. “Automatons at the tower destroyed. The Hobbes succeeded, though their numbers have been decimated. As ever, commandant Zavvi has survived.”

Looking over at the secondary helmsmistress, Xenarch bared her teeth. “Get us out of this rad-heap. We’re losing hull integrity by the second.”

Her subordinate balked, cowering from her show of dominance. “And what of the city, Mistress Xenarch?”