It’s been 22 years and 3 months since tragedy struck.
The hegemony of angels over the human world, the Surface, was over. The world became unstable. The very Essence, the fabric of all living things, changed. Creatures that were never possible before suddenly became possible. Chaos was threatening to set in. The person responsible for it all was Judas Iscariot, the Tyrant aiming to eradicate all non-human existence. Angels and demons were savagely persecuted and killed at sight, their long-lasting despise for each other making their resistance weak and fragile against the sheer masses of humanity. As their numbers plummeted, their despair rose. It was just a matter of time until they would be all just a distant memory.
But not all humans agreed with Judas’ plans. Some were prepared to fight to bring order back, and were prepared for the ultimate sacrifice – their very soul. Thus a small group of humans, demons and angels teamed up in order to stop the rule of the Tyrant . They combined their power, their very existence, and surrendered parts of their soul in order to combine the remains with those of others’. The new creatures were called chimeras by some and nephilim by others, but in essence they were simply the most capable race of them all.
But not all-powerful. And not invincible.
As they broke though Judas’ army, killing left, right and center, the nephilim finally reached the center of his stronghold. Inside, the fate of the whole world was decided. Judas fell and his most prised possession – the Essence of the World, was retrieved. A sword, born from the flesh, tears and blood of thousands upon thousands of men and women, a sword, capable of altering the very fabric of existence, a sword that was once a woman herself. With the combined knowledge of all races and the help of the last Gatekeeper, Luciana, the Essence was persuaded to disband.
Yet peace was still a distant dream. 22 years of relentless war and genocide had left most of the once-proud city of Loom in ruins and the scars on its inhabitants were deep. While demons and angels were slaughtered with equal vigor and passion, for some humans the reign of Judas was a gift from the Gods. They were made kings in the new order, the power over life and death for once in their hands. For many of Judas’ followers, his reign was liberation and a golden age that was forcibly taken from them once again when their leader fell. The hunters soon became the hunted as a new organization was formed and dedicated to eradicating what they called “fanatics” 3 months ago. This was Master Melody’s Academy – a facility where humans were given nigh unlimited power and required to use it – often on their own. The Academy’s work and methods were largely kept secret but what few rumors escaped told about vicious military training and strong anti-xenophobic propaganda.
Many were there to try to influence the newly founded institution and they weren’t only human. Angels, pushed on the verge of extinction, were desperately pleading for the sealing of Hell and the imprisonment of its newly freed folk underground once again. Demons, on the other hand were reaping all the benefits of their new freedom by either feasting on the humans or trying to spread their roots in their organizations across the world.
Master Melody’s accepted all races as equals and employed the best and most trustworthy individuals to teach their pupils all about war… and all about peace too. The children that studied there were peculiar, to say the least, and they unsettled everyone with their mindset and their drive for peace – no matter the bloodcost. Yet they held the greatest power at the tips of their hands and the world would soon have no other choice but comply.
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World Summary
In short, we have 4 major races, each with its own perks and drawbacks. Angels are most organized and specialize in a few major groups, listed on the site. Demons are mostly selfish and can rarely be classed – unlike angels they can also use magic. Finally, there’s humans who are in between and can also use magic (they’re easy to influence into turning into something non-human – grey angels and surface demons).
Major points:
Magic doesn’t alter space and time, can’t create matter and can’t change someone’s personality, unless its root is an Instrument and the wielder – a Musician.
Essence is in everything alive – consider it something like a spirit, an aura and a life force. Demons can utilize that essence (by taking/eating it from other creatures, mostly) where angels only utilize their own for their work. Humans, as always, are in-between. Chimeras are an option of combining elements of all 3. In physical form essence presents itself in flesh, bone, blood, tears and so on.
The Roles:
Angels, Demons, Chimeras:
Angels and demons are still pretty weakened by all the past events but now they have struck a balance in power. Most of them agree to the Chain of Vengeance, a system whereby whenever a life is taken from one side, the other has the right to react by taking a life back. The ones who don’t subscribe to that belief are called Renegades and are usually hunted down by any of the 4 races.
My picking one of those races you’re choosing to be either free-lance good, free-lance bad (Renegade) or as belonging to one of the many ogranisations/sects dedicated to whatever purpose and have a more sandbox type of experience. The creation of those will be up to willing players.
Humans:
As mentioned, the Essence of the World was shattered into a million tiny pieces, all holding immense power and that power was given to the humans. The pieces take on the shapes of weapons, armor or musical instruments and their abilities range widely, the most powerful of it being the altering of matter and IPC (involuntary personality change) which occurs when the shards take the shape of a musical instrument and are played masterfully. However, power comes at a price and for the adolescents who want to master the Instruments, the price could be sanity. As the Instruments themselves hold the remains of countless angel, human and demon souls, they cannot be mastered without leaving an imprint on the bearer’s soul. The teachings are carefully monitored in Master Melody’s Academy of Fine Arts but accidents couldn’t be avoided. Many of the students go insane and all are never the same as they were to begin with. Upon their graduation the Masters are tasked with the protection of peace and order – to hunt down the Renegade and prevent them from reincarnating ever again by reaping their soul and absorbing it forever in their instruments.
If you want to play as one of the Academy, you can expect to have some missions given to you by random people (not necessarily the GM) and you should be generally trustworthy enough to be admitted. (That doesn’t mean you couldn’t have sneaked in and still be a psycho bastard, obviously). Also, feel free to explore the topic of inner voices and insanity with that role, or even things with a slice of life or school life tinge.
Other roles for a human are either a powerless individual, one that specializes in weaponry or magicians.
The site/ Homework:
Pretty much everything but the Characters and Council parts are the same sill. Pretty much everything but the Characters and Council parts are the same sill. You don't have to read it all but it helps if you want to have a better idea about what it's all about. :)
There’s no section for Chimeras as those haven’t been fully explored just yet.
[url=http://essence-of-the-world.weebly.com/]
[url=http://essence-of-the-world.nefaerious.com/Roleplay/]
NB: Both sites are a bit outdated where the first one is the one for Season 1 and the second one is for Season 2-A (which got terminated) Some of the characters are making a comeback but mostly you can ignore that section on both sites. The second one has some additional info, however if anything is contradicting to the first site, we stick mostly to the first as the original. And if you deem it important to find out the truth - just ask. :)
For collabs' please feel free to use http://loretome.net/ or Google Docs.
Some nice summaries by the old team.
RACIAL SUMMARY
Demons: With their robust monopoly on magical arts, innumerable demonic kinds, and a perpetual hunger for essence to fuel their ritualistic evolution, the demons of Hell bring a frightening amount of dread to the table. What they lack in high quality essence, they make up for in their finesse in essence manipulation (life-energy based magic, essentially). Their evolution ritual is always a gamble, though: if they have not consumed enough essence, they risk dying and returning to the Void to await another chance to respawn on the Surface. That being said, demons should never be underestimated as they almost always have a way out of trouble.
There are two types of demons – Hellions and Surface demons. As the name implies, the first reside in the underworld, while the latter – on the human plane, simply called “Surface”. However, this is not the only difference between them – there is a stark contrast between their abilities too. With very few exceptions the Hellions are a lot more diverse and stronger while the Surface demons are basically possessed humans. Surface demons can evolve like their hellion brothers, however typically they are weak werewolves and vampires.
Angels: In stark contrast to demons, angels have the purest, highest quality of essence. Their auras are so forceful and overwhelming that it is a sight to behold; only fools disregard an angel's presence. Fewer in number, the angels possess extraordinary biological abilities, which to some might seem like magic. But angels cannot wield magic, at least not in the flexible way that humans and demon do. Regardless, with their powerfully trained angelic classes, especially Weather Angels, the winged forces of Heaven are not easily defeated, especially in large groups.
Angels strongly resemble humans in physical appearance save for their wings that hold their angelic essence and the memories of their past lives. Should those wings be detached from their bodies the angels revert back to being human and are called “Fallen”.
Humans: Let's be blunt here, humans can be weak and strong; dumb and wise. Yet they remain a force to be reckoned with; they always have and always will be. Their essence is far richer than demons’, yet not too rigid for them to use magic (unlike angels). They are the most numerous and can also have offspring, unlike their supernatural "cousins." They have the most potential to become highly effective, but it is a long journey with no promises of reward at the end. Such is our struggle, but therein lies our greatest strength: determination.
TECHNOLOGICAL & MAGICAL SUMMARY
1. Technology is for the most part modern day with a hint of some futuristic gadgets and such. Certain individuals and secret organizations are on the rise to using advance technology to combat the supernatural. As such, magitek is starting to become a bit more commonplace.
2. Magic is based around essence. What is essence? Essence is the mysterious entity that is the source of everything keeping this world together. It can't be created or destroyed, just manipulated and used for a variety of things, that I guess for all intents and purposes we should call magic. Essence is everywhere, it's within all living beings and is in all inanimate objects. Yet each of the three main races (angel, human, demon) utilize essence in different ways simply due to their biology. I encourage all of you to utilize creative magic around the broad rules of each race.
Angels: Angels cannot manipulate essence around themselves. Instead what they must rely on is the potent essence that is unique for them alone, hence the description that they have a “holy” aura around them. Angels are already physically strong so the majority of magic is defensive in nature. Using a lot of healing, illusion and protective magic, not to say that offensive is impossible for an Angel. Far from it, but it is more common for Angels to have more defensive magic than anything else.
Demons: The polar opposite of angels. Their own inner essence is rather bland in comparison to that of an angel or even a human. To compensate for this weakness, they manipulate the essence around them for a variety of mostly offensive magical spells (such as generic fireballs and lightning combination). Once again, this is not strictly limited to offensive magic, this is just the norm for demons. The demon lords of Hell, for example, have far more at their disposal. Additionally, with their longer life spans, demons generally have greater knowledge and experience with magic than humans.
Humans: Humanity, for the most part, have not been able to use magic for most of their history. Their very bodies form a barrier between humanity and access to its own inward essence, with only a small handful of humans having been able to cross that barrier throughout time. However, with the fall of the final gate (Hell's Gate) 200 years ago, the balance of essence has gone out of whack and has been slowly shifting. This has resulted in mankind having greater access to their own essence for magical purposes, albeit it's still incredibly difficult. Humans, have a strong essence within themselves like angels, but instead, humans use it to mix with the essence of the outside world, making a diverse of magic very possible for humans. Think of it like a form of alchemy or chemistry: mixing one's own essence with some other kind of essence to basically form a magical cocktail of sorts.
[center] The Academy
[img=http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/451x600q90/537/0mWPva.jpg][/center]
Master Melody’s Academy for Fine Arts is one of the playable options, organisation-wise. It’s going to be, as I see it (and unless someone else has other suggestions) the only playable option if you expect some structure like missions and involuntarily formed teams and such. Also, if you want a somewhat more lighthearted school-like setting (with the bonus of murders! xD).
The missions/events will be up to everyone to offer – it gives you the opportunity to be a temporary GM much like being a teacher and giving the students your own tasks or challenges to complete your course. You could do that either by entering a teacher NPC or PC or just by being a narrator (say, kids are out on a field trip and you enter a bad-guy that attacks them; or one of the students has reoccurring dreams which turn out to be a demon possession; or someone gets murdered etc.). Just post in the OOC that you have an idea and you don’t even have to consult me and give me the outline, as long as it’s within the universe limits – I’d like to be kept in the dark as it’ll give me the sense of adventure as well, as a player and not as a GM. I will, of course, also come up with such events/missions so we’ll try to keep it interesting (until someone breaks in and decides to kill all the kids there xp).
Anyway, what is the Academy? As I’ve mentioned, it’s a place where kids learn to master a piece of the (near-)almighty Essence of the World. Learn, because the Essence is the combined soul and life-fragments of millions of angels, demons and humans, all their combined knowledge, experience and… feelings. To put it mildly, it’s an assault to the senses.
So, because no one can really prepare the kids for that, yet their power is needed, the teachers at the Academy are a variety of creatures from all over the place. The apprentices, however, are exclusively human. That’s because while humans are most susceptible to essence influence, they also have the potential to be the most resilient.
I’m not bothered about giving you strict rules, guidelines, a map of the Academy and a time-table – it’s still mostly up to you what you want to mention while you write. There are some things we do need to decide on, though, such as what age-group we’re aiming at. I haven’t decided on that so anyone interested in being an apprentice can express their preference.
As for the weapons themselves, it’s again up to you players to decide what you want your shards of the Essence to be like. They can have a developed personality, or many, or just offer occasional flashbacks, or cause mood-swings or leave you drained and impassionate about anything. Go all out – you have full control over the shape, size and personality of your Instruments. The only thing you have to consult me about is the powers, obviously.
RULES
This will be both a challenging and a fast-paced RP. It won’t be always grim and the deadlines won’t be too strict but I expect everyone to post at least once every 2 weeks. More, if you’re holding up the story. If you haven’t been active for a month and haven’t warned us about your absence I’ll take action and probably exclude you from the RP. The reason for this is not just because I hate slow RPs, but also because in my opinion that’s what makes most RP die as the players lose interest and their excitement and enthusiasm die down.
The time of the day will be posted by whoever starts the new time of day IC. Aka, if we’re starting in the morning everyone (who wants to) posts about their character in the “Morning” and when everyone who wants to write is done or a week RL time has passed, we move onto the next – “Daytime” and write about our characters in the day. The transitions and time-skips will be communicated in the OOC where you can reserve a spot to post at this or that time of day and we’ll ask if anyone needs to post before we move on. Again, the maximum we’ll wait for anyone to post is 2 weeks.
When it comes to collabs I suggest you start those in advance as they may take time to complete and you don’t want to stall other players/characters or block them.
Obviously no god-modding and no deliberate ruining or other people’s plans or demeaning of their characters. We work as a team and should respect each other – keep the “my character is better than your character” to the IC.
Try not to make your characters too OP/invincible. We won’t use a dice system but a good sports ethic is in order and I’ll tell you off if you overstep your boundaries. Everyone has a weakness and we want weaker characters to exist and have a place in the story as well.
No explicitly sexual scenes please. Romance and sex are ok but keep them civil and without details such as tits and balls.
If you’ve read, understood, and agree to follow the rules put “Peace shall Rule” or a variation of it at the end of your post.
CHARACTER SHEET TEMPLATE
Name: (in case of amnesia or some other cliché, put "Currently Unknown")
Alias/Nickname: (are they famous with anything?)
Age: (apparent and actual; if you are older than 100 years old, you better have a good reason for it)
Race: (Self explanatory)
Appearance: (could be either a picture or a description, or both. If you are an angel, describe your wing color, size and type (optional). Size is important: a large winged angel might fly for long periods of time, but would have trouble moving in tight areas; vice versa for a small winged angel. By extension, it just makes it more interesting to research different types of bird-wings to fit your ideas best.)
Social Status: (how high up the hierarchy they are; how do others deem your character; if you are in any organization of any sort, mention it here.)
Relations: (do they have family, friends, admirers, servants etc.?)
General Activity: (what they do with their days? Do they have a duty or job? Are they wanderers? This entry, by no means, limits your character, but it would be considered your character's MO; modus operandi; general way of doing things.)
Abilities: (If you are an angel, put your Class here, and maybe additional info if your angel has a unique style. If you have more than one angelic class, ask permission. If you are a demon, human or chimera, this is your magic set. You don’t have to be super detailed about it and just give us the general idea)
Equipment: (any unique equipment should go here; it does not matter if your character has it on their person or not; for example, having a house full of relics would go here. Also add any familiars, slaves etc.)
(For the Masters and Academy kids only add three small sections here – “Instrument”, “Fragment abilities” and “Fragment personality” – what the prevailing attributes of your “toy” are and if it has a distinct character.)
Personality: (1-2 paragraphs, or you may opt to put "Will show IC")
Biography: (2 or more paragraphs. Please specify what part of it is well known and what isn't. I suggest you only tell us what is known to the vast public and reveal the rest / the truth in-story.)
