Veda is an alternate reality earth, where we humans were Not the first ones to show up to the party. The geography is similar, but the history is radically different. First came these powerful beings called Elder Things. Elder Things can be anything from a giant intelligent spider, to a human with fish scales. Whatever they look like, they are all very powerful and usually dangerous.

They wield a nameless power akin to magic, with which they have performed terrifying acts of power that have altered whole continents’. They had developed their culture and way of living for centuries before man ever came to Veda. They warred with each other, becoming very reclusive for the most part, hiding in the most remote parts of the wilderness, though a handful built grand cities. They never cared much for science, though some did dabble in alchemy, enchantment, and thaumaturgy.

The God of Veda created six Elders before anything of the others, these Elders were his representatives on Veda and he gave them very specific tasks. One of these tasks was to prepare for the creation of humankind, and when the time came to protect them to some extent. The day finally came and the God created humanity.

Humans were born into a savage land without any magic of their own and no real way to protect themselves. The Six saw to it that they survived long enough to get by on their own, and then they stepped back to watch what happened. Humans quickly changed the established order of things. In their normal fashion, they created colonies, grouped together, and began to tame the land, destroying the forests and various wild habitats that the Elders preferred for their places of residence.

Humanity progressed, quickly this time. Technology came naturally to them, and they had no problem inventing complex machinery. Within a few short centuries they had progressed so rapidly that we were as technologically advanced as humans on earth are today, and then we advanced beyond that. Why did humans strive to progress so quickly? Necessity.

The threat of extinction has always been very real for Veda humans, due to the envious and hateful Elders. Peace was a rare thing in Veda before the Humans arrived, and after they did, there was no cooling the ancient boiling blood of the Elders. War became regular, the Elders strove to enslave the Humans, while the Humans constantly played on the political tension between all the Elders to take some of the pressure off of themselves while they tried to advance far enough to compete.

These wars and political games though very real, were never to big of a threat to either side, after the humans figured out how to play on the Elder's pride, neither side willing to invoke the wrath of The Six by over stepping their boundaries. Then something world changing happened.

A member of the legendary Six Elders, named Prometheus, fulfilled his final mission on Veda. He gave his power to one human who he deemed worthy of it. Prometheus has touted as the very strongest of all Elders, surpassing all with his spell weaving and shear brute strength. All of this was gifted to this one human, along with two other things. The first was the task to protect humanity in Prometheus’ stead, as he would die shortly after giving away his power. Second this man was given the power and responsibility to give something called Talents to humanity.

Talents are the closest humans have ever come to being able to wield magic like the Elders. This was the final straw for many Elders. With Prometheus out of the way, and with humans now obtaining magic, they declared all out war on humanity. A period of time known as the Elder Wars followed, ending in the near extinction of mankind. They were only saved by a treaty created by the human carrying the Prometheus Talent, and a man known only as the Mirror King.

They convinced the Elders to leave what was left of humanity alone if human promised to remain within the walls of a city they would build. Elders agreed. Humans built the proposed city, eventually leaving it due to disease, and building another that would come to be known as either “The Kings City” or simply “The City”. The carrier of the Prometheus Talent disappeared eventually, having had no children to pass his Talent on to. The Mirror King however never aged and was elected to be their literal king. He has been ruling for a hundred years now, a hundred years after the Elder Wars ended. This is where our story begins.

I know this is a Skyrim map, and honestly it doesn't represent the actual city perfectly but it'll work for now. The City was created in a circle, and they've expanded five times, moving the walls farther out each time. It's divided by those rings of development, and then those rings are cut like a pie sectioning each ring into eight districts. They are numbered 1 to 8, followed by which ring their from. They are numbered from the top one on the right, all the way around to the top one on the left.

The world is at a general state of peace. It has been nearly a hundred years since the Elder wars, a long series of battles between humans and Elders over whether or not Humans would remain free, or become enslaved to the Elders, caused by humans obtaining Elder like abilities known as Talents. The Humans were on the brink of losing when a man calling himself The Mirror King appeared as their savior. He performed miracles that Humankind had not seen performed by anyone besides elders and high ranking S class talents. They immediately accepted him as one of their leaders. Thanks to the treaty created by the Prometheus Cion and the Mirror King, Humans would survive, but they were to remain enclosed within the walls of one city located on the American continent. This city would be allowed to grow of course, based upon population, but no one was to leave it. The briefly powerful humans meekly bowed their heads to this generous offer. The Mirror King helped them build their city and created a system of government and laws. The City expanded over the years and now encompasses nearly a quarter of the area we think of as the U.S. The Mirror King is still alive, he claims to be immortal, but is rarely seen. He remains within his gargantuan palace at the center of the city. He is only seen when performing miracles to reaffirm his divine calling. However as you might imagine there are those that are… skeptical to say the least, of him and his leadership. Many of the laws are controversial as well, a situation which is not helped by the social structure currently present. As an example Talents have been outlawed, the Mirror King claiming that possessing one is like a plague, it eventually drives the possessor mad.

The unwashed masses, which is most people, are at the bottom of the food chain. These are commonly referred to as dusters, street rucks, and rags by the aristocracy. However the idea that is being pushed upon the majority of people is that everyone is being treated more or less the same. The government wants everyone thinking that everyone is equal. Everyone works, everyone has hard times, and everyone is thankful they are still alive. Sadly a lot of people still buy that, but there is an increasing number of people however, that are growing in suspicion. So while some live in a sense of safety, others are strong critics of the government and some are full on rebels planning to supplant the government. There is still a crime underground, and of course beggars and the like, but they have to be sneaky. The Mirror King doesn’t enjoy people dirtying up his city.

The high class of the society is government officials. The government is responsible for everything.
You might wonder if that's it, if the only humans that exist in Veda are within the City walls… well the answer is no. But here is something else about Veda. We won't just tell you everything about the world. Somethings you will need to look for on your own by asking around in game, others can only be found by listening in at rumor boards we have set up, and some you will need to ask experienced players or game managers directly. This is one of those things. Want more info on humans outside of the City? Shoot us an email.
Same with Elders, the in’s and out’s of their society are to be found within the dusty volumes of old texts. To get your hands on them you can go to the nearest library, or hang around the rumor boards. There are a few documents that are readily available to any player as they are considered the common knowledge of today.

This section is informational only, characters you create are to be Normal humans, without Talents. You can use Talented(enchanted) items but that's it. It's necessary for the plot of this particular roleplay.

Talents are the only form of Magic that Humans have access to other than enchanted items, which are known as Talent items. Prometheus gave the first Talent to humans and assigned that human to spread Talents to other humans. The ability to give Talents has been lost, but the ability to possess a Talent still manifests itself randomly among humans, and is often (but not always) passed down through blood. Sometimes the child of a Talent will inherit their parent’s Talent, but not always, and it’s completely random. Though there are inherited Talents that can be traced back to a human who was given a Talent by the Prometheus Cion.
Understanding Talents
Talents are slightly different from normal magic. One does not simply say
a few funny words, wave hands in a certain way, draw ruins, or think very hard of what they want to happen. Talents are more like another limb, or in some cases a 6th sense. They are unique to each person, and are simply something they can each do, if they learn/are taught how. People are also born with them, though they may not discover them until later in life. They also operate by very specific and measurable rules and parameters. The first parameter is called Energy. Energy is basically a persons Aura, and in this case only Talents can use it. The more Energy someone has, the power they have to fuel their Talent. Second, Talents are at least partly bound by science and logic. In other words the way they interact with the world has to be logically explainable. If a Talent can produce fire, then it’s because that Talent’s energy is causing molecules to move fast enough to catch fire. Please include a semi detailed explanation for how your ideal Talent does what it does. More on the rules below.
Also, Talents are raked according to their over all power. The ranking system used for talents is a classic one that you may have seen before, going from strongest to weakest it is as follows. S, A, B, C, D, E, F.
Talent rank is based off of 5 things. 1. Energy Level. 2. Focus Required. 3. Range. 4. Effect. and 5. Skill.

1. Energy Level. This energy level does not grow or shrink very much, it stays about the same for a person's entire life. This is what a Talent is fueled by. Talented generally have more energy than non-talented people, though just because someone is an A class, that does not mean they have half a metric butt ton of energy. Remember, several other things factor into this. Energy is important, but what good is it if the only thing the Talent can do is create light? Even if they can produce extremely bright light it's still a very limited ability.

2. Focus. How much concentration does the ability take? Can the owner juggle and do it at the same time, is it a passive and always active, must the owner be in a highly meditative state to use it?
Maybe it depends on what they are doing trying to do with their talent. Maybe sometimes it is super easy, and sometimes not. It is worth mentioning here that Talents Can have multiple abilities. For instance they can be super strong, and be able to fly. (btw more versatile abilities are stronger. super strength is very specific and sounds appealing, but being able to alter the molecular density/mass of an object and therefore performing what seem to be great feets of strength has many more uses.)
3. Range. This one is fun. Why? Because for it to be effective you must use your imagination. The questions in the form give some basic prompts, such as can you cast it as far as you can see, but what if you don't need to see what you are aiming at? Here are two examples. Gallet is a talent who can form shadow animals. His energy literally takes the form of tangible creatures, his range is very small, he can only create them 2 feet in front of him. That said, it doesn’t matter all that much because he can pre program them with a mission as he creates them . So he can create a tiger and tell it to go hunt him some food. Now the tiger 2 feet in front of him can leave his sight and go hunt completely anatomically. Once formed the beasts are not connected to Gallet at all, aside from their programming. of course this means he must have detailed programming. So he can just form animals and wait for them to come back to him. Low range? Or long range? technically long range. Cinder is another example of creative range. She can only cast her ability as far as she can see. However she does not need to see her target with her eyes. She is able to locate people thru their emotions which she can sense. So someone behind a brick wall is anything but safe from her, because distance wise he is in range and she can sense him instead of seeing him.
4. Effect. The skies basically the limit. You'll see people who bend and use lighting like it's a piece of fabric, pyromancers who can track enemies using heat signatures, people who can force objects to simply stop existing and a lot more.
5. Skill. How good is the Talent at using their ability? Of the 5 factors this one is one of the few that will actually change. As they get better at using it, the more they will be able to do with it. For instance the Talent Cinder can aim her ability using her other ability to sense emotions. But just because she can do that does not mean she knows that yet.

Do's and Don'ts
Donts
1:no resurrection. The energy type usage in this world does not allow for things like re-creating or catching a soul, it just can’t happen. However animating a corpse the same way you would a puppet or such a thing is allowed. It must however comply with the standard explanation for how Talents here work.
2: Talents may not be overly powerful. There are no perfect Talents in this world, no one just automatically has the upper hand. Even if someone has a ridiculous Talent there will either be a good reason for it (aka it aids over all plot line, they were able to tell a very good background story earning them that power if they asked for it etc, all determined by the game managers.) or they will have severe handicaps. That does not mean people cannot become more powerful if they try, but the main point of it is to avoid people trying to just bludgeon everyone with brute force and encourage them to develop finesse. We hope this will provide for a more entertaining game and story over all.

Do’s
1: There isn’t much to say here really, everything else is free game. If you can imagine it and can describe in a logical way how your powers work, then by all means go ahead.

Players will create denizens of the city. Character may not be talents, and they may not be high ranking government officials. They can be police man, or low ranking officials though. Otherwise you can be pretty much anything. There are criminal organizations, stores and shops, inns, rebellion's, take your pick. Don't worry to much about staying within the cannon of those organizations for now, after you submit your character sheet we will message you with any tweaks that need to be made. As far as storyline you need to know goes, there isn't really much. Most of it will remain secret for plot purposes. Decide your role in the city, your first post will be about you going about your normal day, and after charcters are accepted we'll let you know more.