In what is now to be known as the First Canticle - formerly Year 347 of the Seventh Aeon - mankind's sins rose up as if to swallow him. War set fire to the Known World, terrible beasts swarmed from the jungles of its edges to devour his most ambitious holdings, and in the kingdom of Yachiel, ruled by the city of Dais at the world's strong center, a black flower of corruption took root and then blossomed. Men gave themselves over to unnatural pleasures - astrology, meditation, the seeking of visions, taking council with unclean spirits - and grotesque arts and theatre, and in this way Dais turned its eyes from the world, as it burned and was ravaged, and those wisest gathered in its defiled universities to whisper that all was lost.
But God had not turned Her eyes from the Known World, though it had rejected Her long ago, and She sent Her angels to save us.
Rejoice! In our blackest hour She smote the Black Flower of Dais and burned it clean with Her light - and though the city was destroyed, its people were saved! Reborn as Blessing, the City-upon-the-Altar, it has been made beautiful, pure, and a refuge for all Her wayward children, wicked or unworthy though they be. Now Her Blessing flows forth to blanket the Known World! Her angels soar to do Her work, raising men and women of good heart to an incredible holiness, charging them to strike back against the darkness and bring Her light to this awful world. They offer peace, freedom, and strength to us all without let or lien, asking only that we keep the least of Her graces:
Do not raise thine eyes to the stars.
Let not thy mind be empty; let not thy flesh fall idle.
Seek out no false truth, no false future.
Never must thou take council with an unclean spirit...
But God had not turned Her eyes from the Known World, though it had rejected Her long ago, and She sent Her angels to save us.
Rejoice! In our blackest hour She smote the Black Flower of Dais and burned it clean with Her light - and though the city was destroyed, its people were saved! Reborn as Blessing, the City-upon-the-Altar, it has been made beautiful, pure, and a refuge for all Her wayward children, wicked or unworthy though they be. Now Her Blessing flows forth to blanket the Known World! Her angels soar to do Her work, raising men and women of good heart to an incredible holiness, charging them to strike back against the darkness and bring Her light to this awful world. They offer peace, freedom, and strength to us all without let or lien, asking only that we keep the least of Her graces:
Do not raise thine eyes to the stars.
Let not thy mind be empty; let not thy flesh fall idle.
Seek out no false truth, no false future.
Never must thou take council with an unclean spirit...
So! Checking interest for a non-traditional "sorcerous mecha" game. Players will be sorcerers - warriors, thieves, mages, or more ordinary citizens who have opened their mind (or had it opened by force) to the Sea of Dead Stars below the world and become versed in forbidden arcane lore under the tutelage of its unclean spirits. As a result, or possibly as a continuance depending on your life was going, you find yourself arrayed against the forces of God as the world crumbles under an omnidirectional assault from Her Circle of Light, the beasts beyond the Edge of the world, and the treachery of eight surviving nations engaged in a mad struggle for survival and primacy. This stuff is to some degree your problem. Especially that first part: just by existing, you violate God's four 'don't you do it' commandments: you regain magical power through meditation and learn or refine your knowledge by observing the stars, receive visions, and go among unclean spirits to interpret those visions before they end up driving you mad.
All sorcerers can see and speak with unclean spirits, drown themselves temporarily to visit the strange dark islands of the dead, and call upon lifeless power to achieve various ends - weirds, of which each player will be able to choose or develop a few - including one particularly important feat: the power to resurrect and dominate one of the Nephilim, the gigantic and monstrous children of angels and men slain to a one in the ancient world. The Nephilim are at least loosely humanoid and loosely conscious, though the precise shades along those spectrums of form and sapience will be up to each player. These terrible beings are not beyond the strength of the world's legions to bring down, but angels are - and for some reason even angels fear to tread where dwell the Nephilim. Though God's desire is crystalline in clarity - that all sorcerers be destroyed and the Nephilim butchered, broken, or captured - her angels do not join the Circle of Light in hunting you. Why, who can say? Who can know the mind of God?
Maybe you chose to be a sorcerer, practicing the "unnatural pleasure" of astrology to seek eldritch truth among the stars, meditating yourself into the terrible nirvana known as the death of the self, or taking part in the damned sacrament of angelflesh offered as a luxury or reward to the rarest of individuals by the enigmatic Black Knives. Maybe you were forced to be, your brain nested by the instructional red worms of the First Sorcerer, your third eye torn open by the ritual spike of an unclean spirit, exiled from death by the hideous Rite of Twice-Damning. Maybe it was all a terrible accident, your soul wrenched open by a botched exorcism, your heart captured by a wind bringing the alien dreams of the dead Nephilim you're destined to animate.
Being swallowed by, nestling within, or even riding these armored and undead giants is not a proposition for the faint of heart, but with such power to augment your sorcerous might, what working could be out of reach? Rally to the far corners of the world to fight back the bestial invaders. Break the Circle and its coup of the human destiny. Develop your necromantic powers and walk the enchanted palace-tombs of the Sea of Dead Stars. Loot the treasures of fallen empires or the occult graves of a doomed prehistory. Gatecrash Heaven. Sell flowers on the corner while the world burns around you, hey, the power is yours.
Aesthetics: A little Evangelion, a little fantasy-horror. The world takes its cues from an Aztec/Nordic mashup at its edges - jaguar berserkers, feather-strewn longhouses and huge iron ziggurats - and gets steadily more Indoeuropean as you move inwards. Nephilim themselves are monstrous, but their armor (burial sarcophagus, really) allows for more traditional mecha designs to be selected. Because I know people like images and I know the specific aesthetic I'm thinking of would be a nightmare to find art for we're gonna lean into ancient futurism for all those sleek-but-clearly-serial-number'd mecha designs out there. Cthulhutech Engels, custom EVAs (preferably aiming closer to the 05s than the 00s) and the kind of things that show up if you search Five Star Stories Mortar Heads are all fine, as are less humanoid examples.
Nephilim have names, or possibly epithets, inscribed in their tombs. Some communicate these names as their own; others do not, or are unable. These ancient names are things like Fantastic Howl, Maw of Sunset, Fleshless Fang, and Wolfkiller - modern sorcerers may name them as they like, and their enemies will surely do likewise.
Sorcerers can dress like traditional spellcasters of a necromantic bent, use the suspiciously-plugsuit-like (keep it tasteful, please and thank you) ritual vestments often found buried with Nephilim, or take up any of the world's styles of dress, really. Depending on their cultural background, names tend to sound like South American/Scandinavian or Indian/Medieval European mashups. Some people instead take on god names, made up of one or two natural things, to show their devotion. In the Circle of Light, taking names that instead reflect virtues or positive qualities have become popular.
HIGHLIGHTS
Small, loosely-regulated group to allow storylines to split or conjoin as desired, following a short introductory period. I'm looking for 4 - 6 players, no more.
Mystery! Where did God come from, and what is she really? What happened to the two Vanished Principalities, the ones no one can remember except from pre-written histories, chronicles, and trade agreements? What exactly are the Nephilim and how did they come to be? What's beyond the Edge of the Known World, through the ivory gates of Heaven, lurking at the heart of the Sea of Dead Stars?
Intrigue! Eight nations have withstood the conquest of the Circle of Light, using terrible means to keep four of the angels at bay. A vast increase in beast rampages seems to occupy the others. These nations scheme, maneuver, and surge against their enemies - which sometimes include each other. Thirteen stand conquered, but corruption and rebellion are truly unavoidable traits of the human spirit.
Horror! There are realities inimical to mankind. There are those things that crawl in from the Edge, not all of which can be faced in battle, or faced at all. There is something that writhes beneath the Sea of Dead Stars. There are certain rumors about the angels and those who would serve them best, of spasms in the Light...
And of course, combat in giant Evangelion-esque undead angel-children as the main selling point. Face off against living armies, terrible beasts, the transformed paladins of the Circle of Light, enemy sorcerers, and even the seemingly-unstoppable angels of God.
Flexible character designs - choose whether you want your magic to act as supplement to your (heroic and extraordinary) mundane skills (a warrior who drains the strength of his enemies or commands a cadre of skeletal soldiers, a thief who can step through walls or wear the faces of the dead, a flower girl whose undead blooms are pretty all year round, whatever) or if you are a savant of sorcery in all its dark majesty.
Flexible mecha designs - the Nephilim were not a particularly united brood. Develop eldritch powers and mutations to customize your Nephilim, refining or exchanging them over time - or even ripping fresh parts from the Nephilim of other sorcerers and similarly compatible entities.
Hey, guys! Glad for all the interest. I'm gonna kick up official recruitment at the end of the weekend, but for now I'd like to open the Discord for character workshops, questions, coordination, et cetera. Link's here: discord.gg/ce4FPDp
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