[Ithamar]

The Throne Room

Sitting on his throne, the Arena God seems lost in thought. Xanthos, the pseudodragon attendant of the war god, hovers quietly in place, waiting for his lord to speak. Clearing his throat, he starts speaking quickly, and Xanthos begins scribbling equally fast, the pen in his tail zipping furiously across an old looking parchment.

Pausing his speech, the Arena God looks up and across the room at the gathered crowd of gladiators. Standing from his throne, he towers over most of them. His face shows a mixture of happiness and consternation. Suddenly he bellows out, "More! We need more gladiators! If one of you hopes to ascend to my throne, to take my rank, you must prove yourselves! Endlessly battling each other will only hone your skills so far."

Striding down the lush carpet towards the mighty warriors, the Arena God seems to grow in size as he approaches. Smiling at his hard working fighters, he pats a few on the back and points at a few others, "So, GO! Return to your home planes, be they the abyss or the heavens or some dark realm in between! Find me more gladiators, find more like yourselves willing to spill blood, to endure pain and hardship, and to be made fabulously powerful beyond all mortal reckoning."

The Arena of Ascension is a gestalt player vs. player game that has been running for over two years. We have already had more than 1,000 fights. (My hope is that we have enough steam to keep running for another few years at least.) During that time we have had lots of great players come and go. And while the Arena is still as active as ever, there is definitely room for a few more brave souls willing to waste a lot of time and brain power trying to come up with creative ways to decimate their foes. There is no role playing required, though the one prerequisite is that you be a good natured sort of individual that won't storm out in a tantrum when your gladiator gets vaporized on the first round. This is supposed to be fun, and hopefully a bit exciting, and a good way to blow off some steam.

So let me sum a few important things up:

• You can create a monstrous gladiator, using any number of combinations of powerful creature, templates, etc.
• Or you can be a regular, boring ol' human, elf, halfling, whatever.
• You can start at level 10, 12, or 14. (Though starting at higher level costs you a bit of flexibility.)
• There is rapid advancement of your character, and so long as you are willing to stick with it, you will reach level 20.
• Once we have more committed players, an Epic Arena will be opened up. (Still tweaking some of those rules though.)
• No psionic powers or psi-like abilities.
• Nearly everything is public and all the players work together to check for errors, rules questions, etc. Trust me, this helps keep things running much more smoothly.
• There is a very big thread full of all of the Rules. This includes character creation, house rules, banned stuff, allowed sources, etc. I'd highly recommend you checking this thread out ASAP if you're interested.
• Here is the roster of Current Gladiators. Check out who your competition will be, and also get a feeling for the power / cheese level of the arena.
• There are no tiers / class segregation. So wizards will fight rogues will fight trolls will fight warlocks etc.
• And if you couldn't tell, this is for D&D 3.5.

If you want to play, start formulating an idea for a gladiator, perhaps even poke your nose into the Green Room (OOC) and ask some questions or just say hi. When you think you're ready, and definitely want to play, PM me and I will set you up with a private thread where we can discuss your ideas and get your gladiator(s) all ready to go. Once your gladiator is ready, you will roll initiative (yep, we have a thread for that as well), and then I will set you up with a fight.

Feel free to ask questions here if you'd like. I'm sure some of my veteran players will stop by to answer questions in the (rare) event I'm offline.

I do not want to exclude anyone, but if you have no idea what Gestalt is, or if you have never made a character higher than level 3, then this might not be the game for you. But even still, we've had all range of players, from newbs to old 2nd Edition guys, and the Arena God is quite accomodating.