'swords with wolf girl spirits wooden prostetics that try to eat you and trauma' TELL ME MORE TELL ME MORE N O W (please)
...fuck it. sure. let me just dump the setting and then go through the cast just to get the meaty stuff front and center along with bullet points and a few scattered arc ideas. warning, all of these ideas were born from early 2000's middle school me, i can't promise this is good but i can promise that it is indulgent.
Setting: Something between Naruto and Avater in terms of world building. Sorta fantasy but with a specific bent towards a fusion of medieval Europe and Warring States Japan. Like magic is absolutely a thing but every nation has a different degree of mastery of it and different versions of it so some nations just use guns. Every land is named something like "Land Of Sword", "Land Of Flowers" etc. There have been wars in the past but each nation has so much fire power they all just decided to live and let live (unless one of them shows any sort of weakness and then its foxes on a hen with a broken leg.)
Main Cast: 5 people with differing goals that start out just traveling together for safety in numbers but quickly grow attached to the main character and each other to stay together and finish the Quest.
Main Character: Samurai from Land Of Swords, Strongest Swordsman Alive. Wields duel katana, one red and one blue (because its cool.) When he was younger his nation was beset on all sides because the Emperor died too early and left his teenage son on the throne leading to political skulldugggery so Samurai had to Fight All The Time And Kill A Lot Of People. Was surprisingly okay with the killing people thing because he was really good at it.
His main motivation goes as such: Was engaged to a blacksmith, the BEST blacksmith who ever lived. She saw him going into so many battle and come back closer and closer to death and decided Okay Enough Of That and built a literally unbreakable suit of armor. She went into a cursed mine to find the ore despite legends that whoever disturbed the rocks will be broken just the same. Didn't tell Samurai about this, just told him to come back alive. To one day live like a man and not a weapon.
One day while on campaign far from him, Blacksmith's village was burnt to the ground by enemy faction seeking to weaken Land Of Swords weapons. Did so, got Angry Samurai as a bonus. Samurai went on a rampage completely by himself deep into enemy territory half for revenge half hoping he'd die to join his loved one. Unbreakable armor makes it hard to die, said armor being the last thing she ever gave him along with him promising her he'd live makes it hard to take off in a fight.
Got unconditional surrender from enemy nation, was hailed as the hero who stopped a war single handedly, still had to bury the one person who saw him as a human being that deserved a life and not a weapon to be drowning in blood.
Years and Years later, Samurai is middle aged, tired, still the Best, still wants to die, doesn't want to break his promise to Blacksmith. Large pillars erupt from the ground in every nation in the world, with powerful demons flowing out of them. Emperor, now old enough to rule without needing a duel wielding babysitter, allows Samurai to go on a quest to each pillar to confront and kill each demon lord in there, knowing each demon killed will make the remaining more powerful.
Either he saves the world, or he dies trying. Win win.
Lancer: Young Warrior, son of a long lost comrade of Samurai. Finds Samurai early on in the journey in a pub and asks to fight him. Wields a two handed sword with a hilt shaped like a wolf's head, used to belong to his father. He's piss poor at using it, loses to Samurai handidly.
Samurai agrees to let the Warrior join so he could train him, because a sword like that deserves to be wielded properly. Eager, serious, naïve. Spent his whole life on a small farm with only his mother, wants to see the world, and find his dad's killer. Turns out much later that Samurai killed Warrior's father, and that Warrior knew all along and wanted to be trained by Samurai to kill him properly. Samurai also knew this and trained him anyway.
His father was addicted to the frenzy of battle, picked fights with anyone who looked strong, could never satisfy his hunger no matter what he tried. Even after getting married and having a kid, it was never enough, only battle could ever make him happy. His wife didn't matter, his son didn't matter. Battle, only battle.
Samurai was the last challenge Warrior's father ever had, knowing he'd be a piss poor father in any case, made Samurai promise to treat this like a duel to the death. He does.
Warrior must find a reason to grow stronger beyond revenge, because his father literally asked for it, wanted it more then he wanted him, and he finds that reason in...
The Heart: Kunoichi from Land Of Shadows. Part of an ancient clan of shinobi dating back hundreds of years, all in service to the royal family of the nation. Kunoichi's mother was betrothed to the then heir to the throne, who is a Bastard, after her actual father died during a mission.
There is an assassination attempt on the royal family, and Bastard uses Kunoichi's mom as a human shield against arrows, five year old Kunoichi sees the whole thing happen while hiding under a table. But Bastard lies and says his "poor wife" sacrificed herself for him because she believed he needed to take the throne. Bastard was the only one to survive assassination, so he does.
Kunoichi must bite her tongue, because if she calls out the Rightful Ruler as a liar, no one will believe her, she will be hanged for treason, and her mother would have died for nothing.
Joins Samurai and Warrior on their mission to the Shadow Tower under royal order, Bastard says its because she's his finest warrior, and she is, but in reality is hoping they all die so he can stop worrying about her maybe stabbing him in his sleep.
During trip to tower, Kunoichi and Warrior bond, Kunoichi, who knows spirit magic, says Warrior's sword has a spirit in it, a wolf demon from ancient times that was sealed away. Has to unseal the wolf demon to help defeat the Tower Lord. Turns out wolf demon is a 9 foot tall wolf girl with muscles and big tits (allow me to indulge, please), and hungry for battle.
Warrior thinks Wolf Demon is the reason his father was the way he was, Wolf Demon says humans don't need a demon's help when it comes to killing each other, his father was himself from beginning to end, she can't control anyone, only give suggestions. Kunoichi binds Wolf Demon to the sword again so she can't cause trouble, and assures Warrior that while she never met his father, Warrior does care about the people around him.
After victory in Tower, Bastard tries to have Kunoichi and crew killed by forging evidence of her Kunoichi planning to kill him. Whole shinobi clan, who had long turned against Kunoichi for her short temper and refusal to work with anyone or listen to orders, very quickly get ready to kill her.
Warrior blocks a ton of arrows that were headed to Kunoichi, giving her flashbacks to her mother's death. Warrior survives, mostly because Samurai bails them all out, and Kunoichi is banished. With no family and no home, all she has is her new allies, who don't expect anything from her they will not first do themselves.
Warrior X Kunoichi main pair, girl who refuses to trust anyone due to trauma meets boy who is incapable of being anything but honest and faithful because of trauma.
And yes The Heart, a role usually filled by an optimistic and kind hearted soul, is here played by an angry Kunoichi who yells very loudly about how much she doesn't care while caring very deeply about every single injustice she sees on their journey and refusing to continue until they do something about it.
Smart Guy: Sniper from Land Of Flowers. Woman about Samurai's age, wields a sniper rifle as big as she is, Best Sniper In The World, very humble about it. Has a wooden left arm that's made from a living tree from her nation. The tree is as big as a mountain and is technically a god so she needs to remove it daily and pray to it and offer it a leaf off a younger plant or else it gets testy and might grow over her and eat her. I have recently decided that this is a very subtle metaphor for chronic illness medication and/or continuous care.
When party first finds out about the missing arm she says she had an accident when she was younger where she played in a quarry and got her arm stuck between rocks. Warrior and Kunoichi believe her, Samurai can smell the bullshit from a mile away but tells Sniper he won't say so to the kids and let her tell them the truth in her own time.
The team mom, but mostly just to Warrior and Kunoichi, who are barely twenty and are resultantly kinda stupid so need supervision. Treats Samurai like an equal and fellow soldier, knows about his battles from reputation. He does the same.
Turns out Sniper is actually the eldest princess of the Land Of Flowers, and she is planning on overthrowing her mother the Queen and instating a different ruling system because her mother is a Monster. The real reason she lost her arm is that her mother cut it off with an axe.
When she was very young, her older sister tried to get her out of the nation because their mother was planning on using her and all her 5 sisters as pawns in a vast political plan to unite several nations at once and start another war years in the future. They are caught, older sister is killed by Queen as a traitor, but Queen is "merciful" to her daughter by only ordering that her arm be caught off.
None of the royal guard have the nerve to mutilate a ten year old girl sobbing her eyes out, so Queen does it herself. Hence the overthrowing plan, she's going to kill her mother, disband the royal court, and let the people decide what their future will be, while allowing herself and her sisters the same freedom.
Dons a disguise by removing her left arm and putting on a huge black cloak, going as the rebel leader The Raven. Samurai of course sees right through it but doesn't expose her. Queen gives her support to the gang to go to the tower and kill the demons, and as a reward will gain a personal audience with her and Samurai will get to choose a sister as a wife. Sniper has to be physically held back from blowing her mother's head off right there.
Revolution is successful because everyone who isn't rich hated the Queen, and even the Royal Guard turn on her. Queen is dragged before her daughter and is about to be executed before Samurai stops her. He asks her if this is how her nation's future should start, with blood and violence? The Queen is powerless, she can't hurt anyone, she can't hurt Sniper or her sisters anymore. Sniper won, so, if she's going to kill this woman, she better be honest and call it what it is, revenge, not revolution.
Either way he won't stop her, but Samurai wants to make sure his friend isn't lying to herself. Sniper ends up sparing her mother, declaring her without lands, or power, and banishing her, abolishing the court.
Leaves with the gang because she feels she has no place in her home anymore, and did everything she set out to do, and that her presence will only disrupt things.
Kunoichi and her go to a bar one time and Kunoichi gets so drunk she starts talking about her dead mom, and how Sniper reminds her so much of her mother. Kunoichi, so drunk she can barely stand by herself, asks Sniper if she can call her mom, if only in private.
Sniper, who's own mother was horrible to her in every way imaginable and some ways that aren't, knows what Kunoichi is asking of her, can feel the responsibility settling on her shoulders like a stone. She says yes.
Sniper X Samurai also together. Man who wants to die meets woman who wants to kill. me fr fr etc.
And finally, Big Guy: Monk from Land Of Temples. Huge, burly, rude, drunk as a skunk. Excellent at hand to hand combat, especially when he's drunk. Was thrown out of his temple, where he lived his entire life since he was an infant left on their doorstep, and told to never come back, that he was a worthless trouble maker that would do the world a favor by dying in a ditch. Other Monks are assholes.
Monk has severe inferiority complex, his catch phrase is (yelled drunkenly) "YA THINK YER BETTER 'AN ME!?!?" followed by a punch. Very competitive, gang finds him in a wrestling contest when they need a lot of money. Warrior enters and beats Monk thoroughly thanks to training.
Monk is not happy, spends the next few days tracking the gang down to challenge Warrior to more and more rematches. Eventually finds out about them going after the pillar demons, and runs off to fight them on his own to prove he's better. Almost dies, gets saved by Warrior, wounds his pride so much he just sulks off.
Warrior tracks him down, offers to train Monk. Monk asks him why he would bother. Warrior asks, "Why do you care if someone is better than you?" Monk lashes out, Warrior puts him in a chokehold, Monk wakes up and attacks again, Warrior puts him in another chokehold, repeat a few times until Monk snaps that if he's not the best he's not worth anyone's time.
Warrior thinks for a moment, then says that since he saved Monk's life, Monk owes him. Monk asks him what the hell he wants, Warrior says that he doesn't know, "come with us while I figure it out."
Gonna be honest I spent the least time on him so he's rougher but long story short he finds his way back to his home temple and tells all the monks there to suck his dick because he's found people who actually care about him and want him to improve as a person because they care about him personally, not because he annoys them.
Story maybe goes that near the end the group finds out about Samurai's past and his suicidal goal, and try to convince him to give it up and live. Samurai tries to tell them he doesn't have anything to live for at all, and then they all get in severe danger that Samurai saves them all from without thinking.
Moral is trauma will never leave you but the people who care for you will help you carry it, and that moving forward and living is always, always, always the right choice. Even if its the harder choice. Especially if its the harder choice.
and. that's all I got XD hope you liked the word vomit XP
