Endless Quest



The bustling township of Apothicus, run the mage lords hailing from the oversea city referred to as the Iron Peak. An immense city of craftsman, magical or otherwise. It is from this place a lone mage had traveled to perfect their craft. To create a space that would be known to the chosen few as the Infinity Bridge. The dream of this once glorious tower was meant to be the beginning of a grand and vast empire. Interlinking portals to every inch of the known world were to be established and anchored here at the hub tower of Sei Ostravis, known in his glory days as the greatest nether traveler to have ever existed. His work alone had laid the foundation for Iron Peak to amass the riches and security it flaunts today thanks to his secure trans-dimensional rifts.

Many know the old saying of never reaching too far. Sei was not one to allow himself such limitations.

From his expansive tower he created the Archstone, a diamond created from what many speculate to be a piece of reality itself. The result of folding rifts uncounted into each other, an attempt to create a way of choosing a destination and accessing it through a singular Archway. His creation was believed to unlock the mysteries of every corner of the world, everywhere from the front of his tower door to the pits of Arachnos itself. The stone did much more than give instantaneous transport to the known and unknown parts of the world; it had unlocked rifts created by the diamond itself. Roaming fields of green rich with flowers and blooming trees, dark caverns filled with jewels beneath the hard rock, and some speculate that it can even transport you to the realm of the afterlife. None have ever dared.. Not since Sei took his greatest reach.

To the realms beyond worlds. The twisting chaotic nether. True infinity stretched beyond space and time. Sei succeeded in his ultimate search for infinity and was consumed by it. The crystal had been unstable, the magic tethering the worlds together via the rifts was crumbling ever so slowly. The eruption of his greatest workings would have torn the known universe asunder in an attempt to return itself to 'normal'. In a last ditch effort to save not only his lifes work but the trillions of lives he now realized he had put in peril, Ostravis shackled his very soul into the center of the once bright and shining diamond. It's core now holds a sickly red shimmer with countless almost imperceptable lines spiderwebbing inside its multicolored facets.


"Tower of Sei Ostravis; Master of the Infinity Bridge, keeper of rifts, Hero of the Iron Peaks"
(Note: The Infinity Bridge is located 30 minutes from the city of Apothicus)



Rather than abandoning the greatest achievement of their time, the mage lords were quick to seize the land about their former colleagues tower and began the transformation from simple village to thriving city. Resources flowed openly for well over 50 years, creating a similar township to the Iron Peaks. Attempts to unravel the mystery of the Infinity bridge yielded bountiful fruit when they discovered it served as a gateway. But such good intentions go awry if left unchecked.
Without the creator of the stone to show them the way, the Infinity Bridge has begun to create its own rifts filled with life. Often times drawing upon the real world to replicate terrors unseen by humans. Colossal insects roam a sprawling hive rich with treasure. The vast plains now house barbarian tribes bent on destroying invaders. These areas are simply referred to as Planar Dungeons.
Adventurers have cropped up from all around the world as word of treasure and wealth are whispered into their ear day after day. This growth in the life of combat and exploration has given rise to the Advent Guildhouse and the Church of the Endless, organized to scout rifts for others to fully explore and clear.

In the town proper there are many areas to explore:

Taverns litter every corner, offering hearty food and a warm bed for those who can strike their fortune in the rifts.
Hospits and healing pavilions have sprung from the seemingly endless flow of wounded caught unaware by the deadly threats lurking over the horizon now.
Farmlands dot the countryside, great mansions for the nobles and a gigantic structure in the middle of town now houses the Church of the endless Ones.



The church is where those faithful to the unnamed come to pay their respects to those who had come before them. For a fee, you can store a piece of your soul within a blood crystal. Should you be killed in the rifts, you will be ressurected in perfect likeness of how you were before death. Even your equipment is returned, so long as it is marked with the sigil of the mage emporium.



The Magi Emporium is a series of merchant houses who have made a tidy profit off the buying and selling of magical artifacts, weapons, armor, potions, anything under the sun that an aspiring adventurer would need to brave the unknown. Their specialty is a sigil that can be etched upon a piece of equipment that will allow it to be summoned from the rift it was lost in, only if it was not destroyed beforehand.
Though they advise you to buy their sigils it is always explained that they hope it need not become a necessity. Safety is always the better choice!



The Adventurers Guild is the most commonly known building in the city. Those who wish to form a party to strike for a specific type of rift often find companions and advice in these safe halls. Though there is often rivalry between parties, rarely do adventurers spill blood in or around the city, for fear of being targeted by the authorities and losing their Guild Licence. A requirement to be allowed past to sentries placed all around the Infinity Bridge.

Beings of every race wander these streets, even ones some would believe to be 'aggressive' or outwardly violent can be seen peacefully wandering the city. Orcs, Kobolds, Dragonkin can be found occasionally, Necromancers, Archwizards, Shape changers, Barbarians with monstrous pelts on display, even a Lich has been granted access (but under close watch).

Will you and your party claim the treasures to be found in the infinite?

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Rules:

1: My word is law. I say you aren't welcome here, you must leave.
2: Respect your fellow players.
3: If you would like a special race / character class, please PM me the details.
4: Character Sheets must be approved by Myself AND my Co-GM(s)
5: Loot is randomly generated by me, so is the monster encounters.

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Character sheet:

Name: Self Explanatory

Age: (18+)

Race: No pureblood devils or angels

Appearance: If you are using a picture, please put it at the top. Use this spot to reference any specific markings you have.

Equipment: You are all new adventurers. Your gear must reflect this.

Personality:

History: Why are you an adventurer, why are you at the infinity Bridge, where do you come from. (Make up places if you want.)

Guild Ranking: Standard ranking system; wood, bronze, silver, gold, platinum, mithril

Misc: Whatever you want to put here is up to you

Goals: Everybody wants something. These rifts can go anywhere and replicate most anything, so what are you aspiring for.

How tantalizing. Since this is party based, it would probably be a good idea if us party members told each other what our plans were for characters. I'm not betting money on a team of rogues routing the barbarian horde plane.

I wouldn't be too terribly worried on that corner at the moment. The rifts are well controlled at the lower stages, meaning there will often be small areas with a small contingent of enemies. Often times it might only be a single large enemy you must dispatch.

@Ptolemy Since you've brought it up, I've always been a Warrior kind of guy. I like to be on the front lines, sword in one hand and shield in the other most of the time.

I have already been working on mine for a while, for those of you joining the Rp. I am making a Lycanthrope Berserker-esque Assassin style character.

Bloodhunts and Howls, Fangs and Fouls, new blood brings all new Wolves to the Hunt.

I love this. How quickly do you envision the IC moving, @Zelosse?

Btw, interested in making a magic-user, anything I should know regarding magic?

I really don't have a preference, although I'm personally leaning towards cleric or white mage. Something that belongs in the second or third lines. What is the expected posting rate?

Edit: Ha ha, Spark beat me too it.

I really don't have a preference, although I'm personally leaning towards cleric or white mage. Something that belongs in the second or third lines. What is the expected posting rate?

Edit: Ha ha, Spark beat me too it.

The character I'm envisioning is a private security contractor who uses a mixture of wards/barriers and summoning magic to protect the businesses and residences of the wealthy. Adventuring into rifts is a role he took on to acquire loot that could prove useful in his primary profession.

Actually pretty close to my plan for character abilities. So perhaps a more offensive mage then? Hmmm. Character concept options are a bit muddy since I just stumbled upon this thread and have no idea who or what I want to play as.

@berd Ah, I read cleric and thought you'd be more along the lines of a classical healer. Whoops.

Well healing is a part of it, but that tends to be played down in combat unless people are regularly getting chopped up in this thing.

@berd Ah, I read cleric and thought you'd be more along the lines of a classical healer. Whoops.

@berd Touche, what sort of magic did you have in mind for your cleric specifically? If your character idea is pretty sweet, I have another concept lined up which I could use instead.

I love this. How quickly do you envision the IC moving, @Zelosse?

Btw, interested in making a magic-user, anything I should know regarding magic?

You have complete creative freedom. Just keep in mind most of you will be starting level adventurers, with similar magic skills.

Taking something classically offensive, like fire or lightning, and giving them a more defensive twist. For instance, burning away damage to the party, summoning creatures made out of lighning to guard the party, boosts, wards, etc. So like I said, very close to yours. But it's also up in the air cause I like to tie that stuff to the type of character I play so it fills a larger theme. Their powers reflecting their personality, current situation, and goals.

You have complete creative freedom. Just keep in mind most of you will be starting level adventurers, with similar magic skills.

It's more that I was worried I'd come back from work on the weekend to 50+ posts in the span of three days. There's just no way I can keep up a pace like that anymore. Too many life responsibilities.

@berd To be honest with you, my pace is equally slow. I intend to do the rounds very simply; I post, everybody gets a chance to respond, I do a followup.
Regular posts from me will usually cover the topics of; Plot, IC play-by-play responding, world responses/direction. If that makes any sense.

Man, you guys are already going for mage-type characters. I was planning to make one too.

Maybe I should play a beastmaster instead. Is that alright?

Character sheet:

Name: Grendrick LeFloure

Age: 41

Race: Human turned Lycanthrope Beastman

Appearance: Grendrick is a large beastmen, a Lycanthrope to make others seem like runts. He stands ten foot tall, in the the usual lycan stance. (The hunched, hunting posture of werewolves.) Grendrick has a large scar near the center of his chest which slashes diagonally from the left to the right very steeply.

Equipment: Grendrick favors and uses several plates of iron armor which are strong and durable for his style of combat. These pieces include: A Mask-like Helmet, a right pauldron, and right gauntlet hand-forged to fit his design, a left bracer, and greaves and leg plates not boots.

Personality: Grendrick LeFloure was once a kind but courageous man. He helped everyone he could, he was caring and stoic and peaceful. He pushed and strived for the collaboration of humanity to seek harmony and peaceful lives. However he wasn't a monk or a pacifist. He knew all too well the dangers of the realm. This made him a fighter, a contender for the rights of people and their safety. However after his transformation many of these personality traits ceased to exist. He was still a fighter for the ideals of what was right, but he went about it differently, and after the climax of his history, he has changed even further. Grendrick now fights to clear Rifts, to hunt the strongest prey, to push his primal presence even further. He is authorative and fear-inspiring to say the least, a commanding figure and voice to be heard when speaking.

History: Grendrick was once human and was living a normal life in this world. He came from a far off farming village to the north referred to as "Silver-shire." It was in this town that a young boy grey into the earliest adulthood one could due to the forces of political powers. Silver Shire was a farming town but's name was granted to it from the small silver rocks that could be found through it's farmland. It was a couple years after Grednrick's tenth year that he had to change into a man. A Mage came about the time saying he owned the farmlands and would respectably put the people to work to keep them employed and earning money. However it was quickly realized he didn't mean through farming, for the Mage used his magic to lay wind across the field and wipe it clean. Then he did what everyone least expect, and he used Teramancy to hoist up great channels into the earth. These tunnels were short and nothing more than entry ports all across the farmland. He had forced the town to turn into a Silver mine. He had total control those who once tilled the fields and gathered crops now dug and clawed at the earth for nothing more than a shiny rock.

For several years Grendrick was raised as a young man working the mines for Silver to get payed, that was the only upside to it all. His family was getting payed as well as himself, which meant the family did a little better for themselves, but they were being worked to the bone. Grendrick hated the mage for this, the mage had torn up all of what made Silver-Shire what it was in the beginning, and now all that was left was a Mage's workforce. This thought, this nature to the world, was driving Grendrick into an angry adulthood, but he found one thing that was a saving grace.. her name was Emilia Starling.

Emilia was a goddess among this world as she walked and through the town and drew Grendrick's attention no matter what he was doing at the time. She became the center of his word for years as he worked and aged, slowly trying to get to know her and becoming close with her over the countless days of their lives.

Upon his eighteenth year of birth, he took Emilia's hand at the center of the town. It was bustling with commerce and marketing as the Silver-mining town flourished. His attention to this all had gone cold as all he saw was young Emilia. Her seventeenth year had come a few days before his eighteenth and he did what any hard-working man would do for their goddess. He proposed to her, and she said yes to the man. This led to a wedding in no more than a few days and the whole town rejoiced to a wedded couple that seemed to be well known for their public displays of affection towards each other. People recounted the times they saw Grendrick chasing after Emilia through the streets, or the times he brought her a bushel of flowers for having been late from the mines. They were quite honestly the most well known young couple in the town and everyone seemed ecstatic for their happiness and marriage.

However this peace in their life didn't last long at all. Two years passed, merely two years, before the greatest tragedy hit Grendrick where it would hurt most of all. He could hear her voice in his head, and she was so soft and happy, but this was an illusion as couldn't accept the reality to it all. One late night while the two slept in their bed, only two years after their wedded day, and he shook violently to a waking anger. Her voice was yet again soft and in his ear. "Grendrick." It whispered to him but when he turned to see her, she was gone. Nothing was wrong with the bed, it was pristine as if she had never existed in the first place. He rushed through their small home to see the front door was open and the moonlight flowed through it. He pressed to the doorway and frantically looked out through the night of the town, hoping to see her walking or just admiring the night, but she was gone. His eyes flared with anger beyond the immaginable reaches of emotion and thought, and yet they let water pool under them as he stared up at the moon. It was full, and the Full moon was always their favorite thing to admire together.

That night wasn't a goodbye however, within mere days Grendrick left the mines, he left the life of a working man. He was destined to find his Goddess again, for he couldn't accept her being gone. He knew someone had kidnapped her, she would never leave willingly, they were as perfect as a couple could honestly be in this world. They were happy and no day was dull for either of them, so Grendrick knew she was taken by force. He scoured the town for days and weeks looking for clues and signs of her leaving. However he found nothing at all and he tried to think, that is when he realized it must have been the mage. This man, angered and wielding two large hueing axes went to wage personal war against the Mage. The Mage never expected a towns-person to come seeking him out in an angry way, so his small had minimal defences, which was to Grendrick's aid. He chopped through each door until he made his way to the peak and confronted the Mage. The mage however never had Emilia in his tower or at all for that matter. The Mage pleaded for his life, Grendrick had taken him by surprise and the presence of this large male made the mage shrivel and sink into the corner as he begged for mercy and tried to sway Grendrick from ending the mage.

"I can help you! I can give you the power to find who kidnapped her! I want to help! You were two were always so lovely!"

Grendrick cared not for the Mages pleading and whimpering, but when he spoke of giving him the power to hunt down those who took his wife, he relinquished the grip on his axes and spoke to him. He instructed that his life would only be spared if he gave him the power he needed and only if this wasn't a betrayal. This agreement was met and within a few days the Mage had his preparations made for the two complete their agreement. The Ritual would proceed through the night, and it would empower Grendrick with the capabilities to find Emilia. However in his haste he never asked in truth what the scope of the ritual would do to him. He didn't care, in earnest nature. He merely wanted his wife and life back. Only if he knew how his would turn out in the end.

The Ritual began at Midnight when the moon was high and the two went into the long Ritual. Grendrick was at the Mages whim now as he began saying incantations and shining magically drawn runes in the air that quickly floated out and surrounded Grendrick as they hovered around him. More and more of them were made until a complete ring was formed. As Moonlight showed through the Wizard's windows into the tower, the Mage knew it was truly time. He began the chanting of the final incantation as the Cresent waning moon sat overhead in the sky, and once the words were finished, the whole world seemed to be silent. The wind ceased, the mage never uttered a breath, Grendrick waited for something to happen, the runes ceased in their places, no birds were heard, not even a night owl, and the world was dormant for a moment. This was only for a moment though as a scream was heard throughout the night. It radiated out across the town and for a mile or so out into the wilds. It was Grendrick, he had roared out in pain as amassive Phantasmal blade skewered through his back and through his chest into the ground. He was held up from falling by the magical blade, but he spat blood in a shower out across the floor as he writhed in agony and pain. His eyesight faltered and his senses were lost, his hazy vision was about to end as death drew closer for him, but then it happened. The Crescent moon overhead shifted greatly, filling out it's edges and reaching the full cusp of the moon. The light intensified and the green-ish blade radiated a bright white color before Grendrick felt the power flow through him. His body snapped and shifted, crackling bones and shredding muscles were heard as he changed, morphing, and growling out in anger and pain as it all came to and end. The blade fizzled out from his body, and not even a scar was left from it's presence, all that remained was the Grendrick. The lupine Lycanthropic beast. He was larger than the average, thick dark grey fur, long pointed ears, dagger-like claws, a long bushy tail, he was a titan of a beast. He was now ready for the hunt.

He did just that too, he hunted. He hunted for nearly twenty years, sniffing out the faint remnants of her scent and fighting through what seemed like a menagrie of goons and thugs in the search of Emilia. But it wasn't until the cusp of his thirty-eighth year that he found her. Emilia had been in the hands of a Bandit King. A man many referred to as the Oak-saw King. He ran his operation out of an old timber mill, an open place nestled inside a dense forest with little traffic. It was perfect for him, but now it had all changed. Grendrick had found his wife. The lycanthrope went into a rage when he saw her sitting next to this "King." His nose and eyes lurking from the shadows for only a moment longer before he leaped into the frey. He quite literally leaped from the shadows and went on a rampage. He slaughtered the bandits endlessly due to his growing hatred and adrenaline, but he was not unharmed. He suffered one wound after another recklessly laying into the bandits until all that remained was the King. Grendrick's deep, growly, voice spoke out to them as he told the king to run and leave his wife. Emilia was freightened, she had never seen such a monster in her whole life, and it kept referring to her as it's wife. She screamed as the beast and the king bantered, she was now hiding behind large wooden pieces and the Bandit thrones as she peaked at them. Now locked into a battle, the heavily armored Bandit King put up a fight beyond most of his caliber, a measly bandit with a shoddy group of thugs, but Grendrick was already weak and suffering several injuries. He was barely holding the fight, but as he felt the fight waning, and his loss incoming, he noticed what he had fought for was hiding. She was scared of them both, more so of him. She didn't recognize him and she would never have known. He couldn't fathom the world without her, his rage was new, unbridled, not for the bandit, not for the mage, not for her kidnapping. It was a rage for himself, for what he had become, and with an instant realization he over-threw the fight against the Bandit and ended his life, tearing his throat from his body with his lupine jaws. His rage revealed more of what he hated about himself now. He spoke from across the clearing to Emilia, trying to explain all that had happened, but in the end ran off screaming for her life from the very man she once loved most in this world.

His life had become a cliche love/tragedy story all in one fell swoop. He couldn't imagine returning to Silver-Shire, they would never let him back, they would hunt and kill him immediately. He got in touch with the Mage, and the mage directed him to Apothicus. There he worked and did his duties, he began to climb the latter, and within only a few years he was a High Silver ranking member with a rather well-written contact with the Iron Hands about his privileges and take from the rifts.

Guild Ranking: High Silver

Misc: Grendrick has far superior senses than any who have ever encountered him in this life. He can track the scent of old blood for days on end, almost as if never losing the scent, even if having lost the trail. His hearing it more acute than even normal lycanthropes, and his eye-sight is sharper than any bird's. He was made to hunt, and he was trained to kill.

Grendrick is also associated with the Iron Hands and the Infinity Guardsmen. Due to his ranking and position among them.

Goals: Grendrick seeks challenge, blood, and wealth. He clear rifts to gather gold and to keep people safe, but his own goals are to hunt the strongest prey, and to become the Apex Predator.

ANNOUNCEMENT: since you are all going to be in the same party, feel free to suggest a group name! The final decision will be put into the official title of the rp

@Guilty Spark@Hammerman

I think we should just make our characters. If we're too similar or anything then we can make modifications and talk it out with some more definitive ideas behind us.