Long-time moderator Darth_Angelus is a noted machinima artist. In early 2011, shortly after visiting Disneyland, he approached Kim with the idea of creating a series of animated shorts highlighting an adventuring Hero and Princess, who both leaned into their stereotypical tropes and defied them, as a way of promoting and celebrating the still-new site.
The first short called "A Heroic Rescue" featured a heroic rescuer in armor riding his unicorn steed up to a castle where a vampire had imprisoned a princess. After battling and defeating the vampire, the princess declares "You saved me, my hero!" and leans in for a kiss. The hero says "no time for that," breaking the moment with the sound of a record scratch, and pulls out a phone. "I have to update my RP Repository profile."
Creating this short turned out to be more of a challenge than either Kim or Darth_Angelus had anticipated -- for example, the unicorn model, although it had a galloping animation, did not actually move. It had to gallop in place and have the scenery moved around it for the opening shot. Additionally, the movie-making software that Darth_Angelus was using at the time had swords the character models could hold, but no animations for using swords. Instead, Darth_Angelus had to use the stock animations for aiming guns. He filled the room with floating cubes that he instructed the models to point their swords at in sequence until it looked reasonably like they were actually clashing their swords together, then set all the cubes to invisible.
This piece of innovation caused A Heroic Rescue to be shown at Dragon*Con as part of their machinima spotlight.
The next short released was a prequel to the first short, featuring the Princess sneaking around the tower where the vampire had imprisoned her, hiding from the skeleton patrols and trying to get ahold of a weapon to do her own rescuing. Unable to get into the locked armory, she discovers a desktop computer in an alcove in the castle instead, and uses it to post on the RP Repository inviting adventurers to come assist her. It turns out that this is how the Hero heard about her plight to begin with.
The third short featuring the Hero and the Princess showed them both on laptops around a campfire, presumably after the vampire incident. They are clearly RPing together on the RPR. The Hero tells the Princess, "Stop cheating, you can't possbily do that in a dress!" referring to some RP post the Princess has just made. The Princess protests that he doesn't know anything about wearing a dress, and he challenges her to prove that it can be done. The Princess disarms the Hero with a backflip.
However, their duel is interrupted by a massive arachnid monster that they fight (and defeat) together. The Princess helps the Hero up. They kiss passionately, despite being covered in monster blood, then the Princess says, "Are you thinking what I'm thinking?"
There is an immediate smash-cut to the RPR homepage, showing that The Princess and The Hero have befriended one another.
This three episode series was greatly expanded on during Epic Week 2012, when The Princess and The Hero featured as main characters in a series of 7 videos released over the course of the week to celebrate the site's birthday.
Since then, the Hero and the Princess have often appeared as part of Epic Week plots, often functioning as forward-scouts or engaging in side-adventures that inform the larger plot.
The first short called "A Heroic Rescue" featured a heroic rescuer in armor riding his unicorn steed up to a castle where a vampire had imprisoned a princess. After battling and defeating the vampire, the princess declares "You saved me, my hero!" and leans in for a kiss. The hero says "no time for that," breaking the moment with the sound of a record scratch, and pulls out a phone. "I have to update my RP Repository profile."
Creating this short turned out to be more of a challenge than either Kim or Darth_Angelus had anticipated -- for example, the unicorn model, although it had a galloping animation, did not actually move. It had to gallop in place and have the scenery moved around it for the opening shot. Additionally, the movie-making software that Darth_Angelus was using at the time had swords the character models could hold, but no animations for using swords. Instead, Darth_Angelus had to use the stock animations for aiming guns. He filled the room with floating cubes that he instructed the models to point their swords at in sequence until it looked reasonably like they were actually clashing their swords together, then set all the cubes to invisible.
This piece of innovation caused A Heroic Rescue to be shown at Dragon*Con as part of their machinima spotlight.
The next short released was a prequel to the first short, featuring the Princess sneaking around the tower where the vampire had imprisoned her, hiding from the skeleton patrols and trying to get ahold of a weapon to do her own rescuing. Unable to get into the locked armory, she discovers a desktop computer in an alcove in the castle instead, and uses it to post on the RP Repository inviting adventurers to come assist her. It turns out that this is how the Hero heard about her plight to begin with.
The third short featuring the Hero and the Princess showed them both on laptops around a campfire, presumably after the vampire incident. They are clearly RPing together on the RPR. The Hero tells the Princess, "Stop cheating, you can't possbily do that in a dress!" referring to some RP post the Princess has just made. The Princess protests that he doesn't know anything about wearing a dress, and he challenges her to prove that it can be done. The Princess disarms the Hero with a backflip.
However, their duel is interrupted by a massive arachnid monster that they fight (and defeat) together. The Princess helps the Hero up. They kiss passionately, despite being covered in monster blood, then the Princess says, "Are you thinking what I'm thinking?"
There is an immediate smash-cut to the RPR homepage, showing that The Princess and The Hero have befriended one another.
This three episode series was greatly expanded on during Epic Week 2012, when The Princess and The Hero featured as main characters in a series of 7 videos released over the course of the week to celebrate the site's birthday.
Since then, the Hero and the Princess have often appeared as part of Epic Week plots, often functioning as forward-scouts or engaging in side-adventures that inform the larger plot.
Lore Wiki » Recurring Characters » The Tropes » The Princess & The Hero