The Empire of Caradia. An expansive piece of land that would take a year to cross if it were flat and had no trees. But it's got rolling foothills, forests, villages, ancient relics and buildings, and lakes and rivers all over. It's back and sides are enclosed by the mountains which opens up to the sea. The have ports that allow them to travel to countries such as Lumoise, Waylox, or the singular island country of Haton for trade. The other countries are a little further out and they've yet to establish a good repertoire with them. It's currently in a time of peace, but with a slowly building anxiety. The current Empress, Esmeralda, bares an uncanny resemblance to the statues of the twin Goddesses that the people worship. The problem? One Goddess represent everything that is good, which leaves the other to be all that is bad. But they look exactly the same, it's the posture of the statue that separates them. Good reaches for the sky and the other reaches towards the the earth. The Emperor insists that this is sign that their reign is divine and that no one has the right to question it. The people debate constantly which twin they believe that Esmeralda is supposed to be. She strives to be the good Goddess to them, wanting nothing more than to see the country flourish. The Goddesses seem to almost be insulted by her trying to be them because in the past few years, reports of a plague in some of the villages on the far side of the empire have reached the royals. Then to make matters worse, creatures started crawling out of the woodworks, originating from one of the villages. The creatures have bodies that are completely black like ink, but are practically bulging with muscles. Their heads are elongated skulls of animals, teeth stained with blood as well as the claws on their hands and feet. The only way to tell if one is alive or dead is by the dull red glow in the eye sockets. They're mercilessly and seem to thrive on the reaction their presence creates. Needless to say, blame is being flung at Esmeralda's lovely face, blaming her for the problems being struck up under her rule. What is an Emperor to do for his distressed queen but to take up arms and go to the problem at the source. He plans to make the journey to the village where the creatures were said to first appear and he hopes that the answers to making them disappear lies there. Esmeralda pleads for him not to leave since the plague was in that region as well, but he can't sit idly by while his people continue to suffer. He sends out a decree to have those willing to brave the trip join him. He insists that his armies need to stay where he has them posted to protect the people from the monsters. You will be one of the recruits joining the Emperor as he makes his journey to the mysterious village. Please check with me on species other than human, please and thanks. These rules ought to sound a little repetitive for an advanced rp, but I'll state them anyways. No god moding or power playing. Your characters are not perfect and will miss or get hit eventually. You cannot control other people's characters to make them do what you want them to do, unless you have expressed permission from that character's user. Try to post at least once a day. I realize that's hard and sometimes you get busy, and if that's the case, try to forewarn us. I don't want people getting left behind and then getting ill when we thought they were a no show. On that same note, try to not post a hundred gazillion times and leave people behind. If it's you and one other character talking, try and find one of those collab things and post it that way. Just try not to have ten novels in a post. I suppose I shouldn't make the assumption we're all adults here, but I kind of am. I don't mind swearing, just try to have some other kinds of vocabulary mixed in there too, and innuendos and such are fine. Anything too much more than that, we need to draw a line. If you really need to have your kinky scene with someone, take it to the PMs. Lastly, this is a made up world. Anything that isn't directly stated by me or by a character that's devised the place we're in is up for manipulation. You can do whatever you want to get your plot conveniences. Run your idea by me in the ooc or the pms and if I give the ok, then go for it. If you have a question about how the people of Waylox would react, again, just shoot me a question. Have fun with! I'm looking forward to it! Okay to sum up how magic is looked at in Caradia: It's not a foreign concept to them. They do trade with a country called Lumoise (Which is on the other side of the crag than Waylox for those who look at my other rps) which is run by mages, their religion revolves around it. Caradia's not super thrilled with mages, but if they're not hurting anyone then they see no need to really involve themselves in their business. People are a little more likely to give a weird look if they know you're a mage, but, unless you have a bad reputation, they aren't gonna run in terror from you. If you've established a good reputation then they'll ignore that weird magic mumbo jumbo and be quite chummy with you.

Is magic the norm here? Or is it a rarity only the naturally chosen or the insanely rich can learn to use?

Anyone can be taught, but it's usually those with the natural inclination that go on to learn more, which doesn't have to be a rich person. Let's be honest, the emperor and Osanne know some simple magic as well, but only what can help them on the field.

@Sanachan Well i put my finished cs in the characters section. I hope that was ok to do as im still waiting approval.

I think everyone is still figuring out the characters tab; I've seen it used for applications, but I've also seen it used for only approved characters. So I don't know.

So many mage characters. I'm going to have to do some fancy insane logicking for Logen not to get killed at the beginning of this RP. XD

It would be nice to have some daggers and arrows on our side as well.

I figured we got the knight, the healer, the ?templar?, the alchemist and the... Cook... Lol On a side note, my guy has no spell slinging ability. Although he can cross rifts and possibly annoy a few baddies by leaving them stranded Deadside. His only other offense is his knowledge of alchemy (not transmutation alchemy) and a basic wooden rusted Sythe that doubles as a walking stick.

It just feels obtuse that we have two "totally not dead, guys" trapped characters if the GM vibes off that CS, I was hoping for something less out of the left field myself but I can't really complain about others creative mojo.

Sry i didnt read Rtrons bio until after i made my cs. I thought he was a spellblade or something

But regardless, we'll see how the GM feels in a few hours I'm sure.

No, he can't be dead or partially dead. You should've asked me in the PMs if that was acceptable before posting the CS, I ask that in the OP. We'll give it a little bit once we start, people still tend to wander in, and see if we don't get some ranger/hunter or some rogue characters. If not, people are more than welcome to make more than one character if they want

So both Rtron and i have to change it? Is there a reason behind why in the story or just that you dont want a dead character?

His character isn't dead, but leave that to me to discuss with him. And yea, I don't really think dead characters would fly very well in my world, period. Plus I asked for human characters, and to PM me for anything that wasn't. And dead is no longer human. But it would have been a no there anyways cause the reaction most people in the world would have to that. They would try to kill him, burn him, bury him, throw him out to sea, but he would never be allowed to travel with the group.

When you said about non human characters i was thinking more on terms of beast characters like lizard and wolfmen. But thats fine i get it, i guess its back to the drawing board... I just dont want to make the same cookie cutter rogue character thats missing, i like to think up something original. Any ideas or reccomendations would be encouraged :)

I actually love the idea of an alchemist character. It would kind of make sense to bring one, albeit not a horrific zombie-skeleton one, in order to actually locate and isolate a cure for the plague. I could totally see him as a money-grubbing friendless weasel that's totally vital to mission, knows it, and basically forces everyone to drag him around and protect him. Throw in a vague character weakness and a Scroogian "one thing I love more than money" mentality and you've got a fun little character to play. Well, it's more of a whim than a suggestion, anyways. Edit: Give him a thing for cute young girls like Pythia and you can even have him appear to be all creepy-stalkerish, then it turns out he lost his own daughter to the plague and is slightly more noble than he lets on. Probably the reason why he hasn't already turned tail and run. Just spitballing of course.

I mean yea, an alchemist would be interesting, just keep him breathing and having needs of some kind

Good to get that sorted, hopefully we can get some more players.

Indeed. Logen and Pythia are going to get along swimmingly, I can feel it! They're not going to be on opposite ends of the spectrum at all! :D Okay, maybe I laid the sarcasm on a little thick there.

Well, at least it's going to be fun interacting with you again, Rtron. =)