Random Thoughts.....What Are You Thinking?

Fighter - Basic close combat role. Can use a variety of weapons.
-Berserker - Specializing in the use of two-handed weapons, these Fighters can enter an uncontrolable berserk state in order to increase their attacking power.
-Weaponmaster - Focusing their training on the mastery of all weapon types, these Fighters can equip any weapon, but learn nothing but weaponskills.
-Lancer - Specializing in the use of polearms, these fighters have a variety of techniques focused on piercing their enemies defences.
-Warrior - Taking their basic training to the next level, these fighters can use a variety of weapons and abilities to inflict damage on their opponents.

Knight - Basic combat role, focusing on the protection of other party members.
-Paladin - Holy knight specializing in the protection of their party members via the use of defensive and healing spells.
-Dark Knight - Knight specializing in the use of blood magic; inflicting harm upon themselves in order to protect their allies and damage opponents.
-Samurai - Knight specializing in the protection of their party members via offensive abilities and counterattacks.

Monk - Basic close combat role focused on hand-to-hand combat.
-Master Monk - Taking the spiritual training of the Monk to more extreme levels, these Masters can use a variety of spiritual abilities to deal damage to enemies and heal allies.
-Brawler - Neglecting their spiritual training, these Monks have instead decided to focus themselves on improving their physical abilities.

Thief - Basic support role, specializing in inflicting status ailments and stealing items.
-Dancer - Using their bodies as a focus for their mana, Dancers can inflict a variety of status enhancements on their allies and status ailments on their enemies.
-Assassin - Focusing on dispatching their enemies at all costs, Assassins use a variety of physical and magical techniques to inflict heavy damage on their opponents.
-Ninja - Specializing in the elimination of enemies, Ninjas use a combination of swift attacks and special tools to deal damage and inflict status ailments on their enemies.
-Gambler - Specializing in luck-based abilities, these Thief/Caster hybrids can use a wide variety of abilities, but have little control over their effects.

Archer - Basic combat role, focusing on the use of bows and crossbows.
-Sniper - Taking their training to the next level, these Archers can use bows, longbows and crossbows to deal heavy damage to their enemies.
-Hunter - Specializing in the use of bows, these Archers can inflict a variety of status ailments on their targets.
-Gunslinger - Using the recently invented managun, these Archer/Caster hybrids can use a variety of magical attacks to damage their enemies.

Mage - Basic support role, able to use a small variety of both offensive and defensive magic.
-Black Sage - These Mages focus entirely on learning black magic. Able to use a variety of spells to damage and impair their opponents.
-White Sage - Mages focused purely on defensive and healing spells. Able to recover the health of allies and bestow status enhancements.
-Swordsage - Unsatisfied with mystical training alone, these Mages have become masters of combining their magical abilities with the art of swordplay.
-Beastcaster - Masters of manipulating mana, these Mages have gained the ability to siphon their enemies mana reserves; sometimes gaining new abilities in the process.

Caller - Basic support role, able to call forth ethereal beings to aid the party.
-Evoker - Taking their training to extreme heights, these Callers can summon the most ancient and powerful ethereal beings to do their bidding.
-Channeller - Combining their magical talents with martial abilities, these Callers use their own bodies to channel ethereal beings, essentially becoming living weapons.
-Necromancer - Callers that use the corpses of other beings as recepticles for channeling ethereal beings.

Humans. Self-explanatory.

Elves. Not hoity toity prissy princess elves; just humans that evolved slightly differently.

Nierental. Very (like dangerously furry) cat people. Almost extinct due to the Great Shift. Obsessed with the genetic purity of their race, and in turn despise

Nieren. More human-like cat people (humans with cat ears and tail). Result of inter-breeding between Nierental and Humans out of desperation after the Great Shift killed off most of the Nierental.

Rizan. Lizard people.

Physical descriptions are a must-have. As are names.
The more detail you put into your character's personality and background, the more chance they've got of having an actual story segment.
Less background and personality means more chance of being an arena opponent.

For now, characters are limited to one class tree; that is one base class and all it's advanced classes. This is to give each character a sense of uniqueness, while still giving the player some choice in how they progress.
It will be entirely possible to fully level all classes of a tree, but that's the same kinda thing as saying that it's entirely possible to cap every role for every character on FF13; it's possible, but it's not something that will happen over the course of normal story-line gameplay.

Despair Skills; think Limit Breaks or Overdrives. Go nuts; these are your ultimate moves.
Somewhere between 3-6 Despair Skills per character would be good; could get an even progression throughout the game. Make sure to point out which order you want to learn them in.
Try and keep it fitting with whatever class tree you choose, please.

Terra is a very Earth-like planet with a wide range of different environments and a huge amount of creatures inhabiting it. It is, however, roughly twice the size of Earth, has 2 moons (one of which also appears to be Earth-like) and has a visible planetary ring.
Another thing that sets Terra apart from Earth is it's proximity to the Ether (a dimension of pure magical energy; the source of all magic). Being much closer to the Ether, the world is heavily influenced by it's presence, to the point at which it is considered as much a force of nature as the wind or rain. The Ether has many effects on the world, ranging from causing Etherstorms (appearing as a blue-ish green fog, these storms heavily affect magical energies, causing a variety of effects, such as increasing the power of spells, or constantly repleneshing a being's Mana), to creating new creatures (referred to as Etherspawn, these creatures tend not to follow any noticable evolutionary ideals, and instead mostly seem to be random creations), to even transporting things from other places to Terra (throughout history there have been a number of tales of adventurers from other worlds bringing mysterious technologies with them).

The Ancients.
Over time, 4 sentient races evolved on Terra:

Humans evolved in some of the more mild climates of the world. An inventive race, humans spread rapidly in their search for new materials with which to build. Due to this rapid expansion, however, their first encounter with the Rizan was less than friendly. After a long period of war with the Rizan, humanity slowed it's expansion almost to a complete standstill.

Rizans are a race of lizard-like people that evolved in the more tropical climates of Terra. Preferring to build their settlements near large sources of water, they rarely venture away from the sea. This has caused some Rizan to develop slightly webbed fingers and toes, and even small fins on their tails. Being highly adaptive to their environment, the Rizan had little interest in developing new technologies to aid their lives. However, after being attacked by Humans during their era of expansion, the Rizan took a heavy interest in metalurgy and techniques used in crafting weapons and armour.

Elves evolved in the arid deserts of the world. Being extremely similar to Humans (so much so that cross-breeding was possible before the Great Shift), they were the first race to successfully negotiate with Humans on even terms. The main difference between Elves and Humans is their elongated ears, which are speculated to have evolved as a means of aiding in heat dissipation due to the large amount of blood vessels contained within.

Nierental are a race of humanoids with extremely feline-like features. Their bodies tend to be covered in a short fur, they have cat-like ears and tails, and they are extremely sensitive to the Ether and all magical energies. Having evolved in forests in the more mild climates of Terra, the Nierental are a very reclusive race. Heavily focused on religion and genetic purity, they do not get along well with other races; often causing disputes over differences in belief. During the Great Shift, an extremely large portion of the Nierental died due to their Ethereal sensitivity, after which they split into two groups; one keeping the old traditions of purity and seclusion alive, and one going out into the new magic-rich world in hopes of finding a compatible race with which to reproduce.

Over time, the Human, Elven and Rizan civilizations began to work together, and soon enough, the borders were no longer based on race, but entirely on political allegiance. These new alliances flourished with the combined skills and ideas of each race, and quickly developed machines powered by the Ether itself. Cities were lit at night by Etherlamps, ships sailed through the sky as if it were water, and mechanical horses charged across the battlefields spewing Ethereal flame upon their enemies.
But it would not last.

The Great Shift.
At the height of the technological advancement of the ancient kingdoms, there was an extreme change in the Ether. Where once it was akin to a calm lake, with teleportation through the Ether being commonplace, it was now a raging sea, with teleportation now resulting in the target rarely being heard from again. Those that did survive recounted having no control over their destination, and simply being lucky that they got ejected when they did.

However, the Ether was not all that was affected. Due to it's proximity to the Ether, Terra was torn asunder. Plains were split by giant chasms, mountains crumbled into the ground, and while some islands disappeared beneath the sea, others rose up elsewhere, as if to take their place.

The Ether-based technology of the ancient kingdoms was also affected; many towns and cities were entirely destroyed by the overloading Ethertech. Machines that didn't overload rarely work anymore; a problem attributed to the change in the form of the Ether.

It was shortly after this disaster that the first Etherstorms were recorded; scaring the already terrified populations even more. Some religious factions claimed this was the act of their gods, while some scientists claimed it was the result of over-exerting the Ether through Ethertech. Neither group were taken seriously, and both fade into obscurity within decades.

Nieren.
The Nierental were the race most affected by the Great Shift, due to their incredible sensitivity to Ethereal energies. Roughly 90% of their population died due to the drastic changes in Ethereal energy causing their bodies to shut down. After this, the remaining Nierental were divided into two groups; one group wanted to continue living their lives of purity, while the other decided to venture out into the Ether-rich world and attempt to find a suitable species with which to breed with in an attempt to quickly repopulate their species.

It was found that, due to the abundance of magical energy in the world, it was now possible for Humans and Elves to cross-breed with Nierental, whereas before it had been impossible. The result, however, was not what the Nierental had expected; more of the Human and Elven traits were dominant than the Nierental, and as a result, the offspring looked like Humans or Elves with Nierental ears and tails.

The Nierental named these offspring "Nieren"; "tal" meaning "pure" in their native language.

Ethercite.
Another change brought upon Terra was the appearance of Ethercite; a kind of crystal that seemed to contain the powers of the Ether. Reluctant to toy with the Ether so soon after the Great Shift, the study of Ethercite did not begin for almost 200 years, and even then, progress was incredibly slow, until it became known that Ethercite was in fact not tied to the Ether, but a completely isolated source of Ethereal energy, much like Mana

Now, almost another 300 years after Ethercite study began, Ethertech is once again commonplace, with Ethercite cores taking the place of the technology that drew power directly from the Ether.

Ether - 1) The source of all magic. 2) The magical energy produced from the Ether.
Etherspawn - Creatures born of the Ether.
Ethersent - People from other worlds, stranded on Terra due to the Ether.
Mana - Ether produced by living beings. Used to manipulate the Ether (resulting in Spells, Despair Skills, etc.)
Despair Skill - Powerful skills used via a surge of Mana tied to emotional state.
Ethercite - Crystallized Ether. Varying qualities produces varying effects, with lower qualities being used in common Ethertech, and higher qualities being used in the construction of Enercite Cores.
Ethercite Core - High quality Ethercite used to power larger Ethertech such as airships.
Ethertech - Technology relying on Ether as it's power source.
Etherstorms - Weather-like occurences of large amounts of Ether seeping into the world.
The Great Shift - Cataclysmic change in the Ether that destroyed most of the ancient civilizations.