Honestly, I wasn't expecting for Mathias to be accepted lol

Excited to start this. Oz has been a character concept that has been redesigned like 8 times, so glad to finally give him the suffering he deserves. (He doesn't deserve it but he does for being one of my characters)

@Remram
Your character, that knows the complexities of the actual physical properties of practical objects.
🤝
My character, that knows the complexities of abstract fundamentals of magic, gravity, and other properties of physics. Who also can take the variables of objects to change their properties, just needs to know what variables even exist.

They'd work so well together if mages didn't hate sharing their trade secrets.

@Kronshi

Would Oz want to learn how to handle a gun? lol

@Remram
He wouldn't be opposed.

@Kronshi

Was more of a joke, unless you want Oz to 'parry this you filthy casual' some other mage.

@Remram
One past version of Oz was a spellsniper so I'd find it fun to explore him learning firearms, but this version's reliance on his hands to do calculations would make it difficult. So I meant it as a half-joke myself.

I'd be interested in seeing if the idea comes up naturally through the course of the RP but I don't plan on him using a firearm.

Alright, iz time to cook.

@Asuras First off, gonna put forward an idea for worldbuilding, where the independent mages of the City, once they become capable enough not to be a complete liability to those around them, are invited to join a loose collective or union. Basically, my thought is that it'd serve as a body for the Houses to request third-party fixers to handle problems or issues that'd require plausible deniability, and it also serves as a way for independent mages not to get completely bullied into bad deals by Houses, in a kinda 'if you fuck with one of us, the rest of us will maybe possibly take action'.

Also should confirm: is this in the US????

@OwO If you want, it could be the situation where Amaya looked out for Macaron during her early years, in more of a 'teach her to cook food and get odd jobs' kinda way. Probably saw something sympathetic in the literal teenager. If they were extra close, one of Amaya's particular crafts could have been formed/obtained initially to mentally soothe Macaron during particularly bad nights in the City.

@Estylwen Don't think that there's any actual reason for Amaya and Reina to have any significant relationship with one another, but Amaya herself probably has a negative bias towards Obscurity peeps, because it's pretty likely that her whole life/family/friends/town got fucked over by Obscurity peeps. Maybe it's a case where they encountered each other before during various hunts of Manifestations. Maybe it's a case where Reina, being the head of the family, has heard of lesser members of her House being killed within Labyrinths or secluded portions of the Dark City, and what information could be extracted from their desiccated souls point only towards a blinding shaft of light.

@Remram Amaya probably has no trust for the Dark Sphere Command because whatever the fuck did they do for her? Certainly, they didn't do jack shit about mass disappearances of people and the mind-wiping of the town. She'd have been more alright with it if the government was completely ignorant about the matter, but now that she knows their asses have an actual presence within the Dark City, it's like, bitch. Y'all fucking suck.

That being said, did you have clear ideas/plans for The Mist, or did you plan on Asuras handling most of it? Figured it'd be interesting if Amaya encountered/knew of The Mist herself, due to her particular line of work.

@Kronshi Don't got nothing, unless you think it'd be funny if House Falloch had an open contract on Oz, because the possibility of him exposing Family Secrets after leaving them was too high to simply let be. Then they could have met when Amaya considered jumping his ass early on, before reconsidering it since his scruffy, asocial ass reminded her of Macaron and she went to give him a heads up about it instead.

@ERode Ooh, I definitely see a blood feud between Precedence and Obscurity. Perhaps Reina uncovers some clues or pieces together the unique 'fingerprint' of Amaya's magic, aaaaand they can play between negotiations and sabotage...? Cause she wouldn't let those disappearances/murders slide.... ;>

@ERode

Yeah, that's a pretty fair take for Amaya to have about the Dark Sphere Command. I wouldn't be surprised if they have crossed blades due to her freelancing jobs depending on what she was doing, but I can also imagine that Mathias personally would want to help her.

I have some ideas, but will work with Asuras regarding The Mist, but it is entirely possible that she would have encountered/knew of him. I can say that he is a rogue mage, but a merc like her

Edit: I am the 69th post. Nice.

@OwO If you want, it could be the situation where Amaya looked out for Macaron during her early years, in more of a 'teach her to cook food and get odd jobs' kinda way. Probably saw something sympathetic in the literal teenager. If they were extra close, one of Amaya's particular crafts could have been formed/obtained initially to mentally soothe Macaron during particularly bad nights in the City.

That sounds good. It's incredibly funny that Amaya would have developed a craft because of Macaron's instability. That'd probably mean that Amaya's one of the few people that Macaron will legitimately get mad for when something bad happens to her.

also the random cooking manga style comfort food flashbacks they share.

@ERode
I don't think Oz left House Falloch on bad terms. He didn't metaphorically leave the house as in he disowned himself, he just physically left to get his own place and do research outside of Falloch's libraries. So I don't think they'd have a contract open on him.

However, I feel like as Oz transitioned into the adult mage world, he probably found out that he likes both Obscurity and Precedence crested because one is associated with secrets and mysteries and hidden truths while the other is about absolute truths and rules and authority. Oz is trying to learn all the secrets, all the rules, and all forms of truth because he wants to define what the universe is. They probably hate him though. He brings hidden things into the light and tries to bend rules to see what breaks.

I feel like once he does meet Amaya and Reina he's going to have to mediate between the two to keep them from killing each other. He's a small man stepping into a large world and has no clue the kind of history these two would have experienced.

I feel like once he does meet Amaya and Reina he's going to have to mediate between the two to keep them from killing each other. He's a small man stepping into a large world and has no clue the kind of history these two would have experienced.

Yeah, I can see that. Reina would never kill anyone, though. Never.

@Estylwen That's fine with me. From Amaya's own side, she's mostly just ticking off boxes, going after each House that specialized in Obscurity and puzzling out if they have any actual involvement in her own stuff. If it came down to an actual all-out fight, she'd more or less just be running away and hiding every time, because the difference in resources between the head of a House and an independent mage is basically unbridgeable.

It is fun to have that whole Demon-Possessed vs Demonsbane thing though.

@Remram I'm not totally sure if they would end up crossing blades that often, because in most cases, Amaya does contract work for other Houses. So it's like...on her side, she doesn't really want any smoke with the DSC, because they have significant Realspace influence, and on the DSC's side, they probably wouldn't want to obstruct the work that a House (that they wouldn't know the identity of) had paid to get done. Things would be different if Mathias was out-of-uniform during an encounter though.

Small note too: she'd be absolutely flabberghasted that Mathias decided to teach the Craft to someone whose name was literally Maverick.

@OwOYeah.

soothing the howling of the mind, pulling away the psychological afflictions

I saw the line and went for it.

Anyways, comfy cooking flashbacks sound good, but unironically, it's probably a situation where Amaya doesn't actually know all that much about adulting either. She can certainly boil a hot pot of water though. With an electric kettle.

@Kronshi It'd be interesting in general to consider how much impact one's personality has upon their Crest and vice versa. Amaya's own biases come strictly from understanding that its the Obscurity peeps who are able to do stuff like summoning shadow monsters and wiping/editing memories, so that's more of a personal bias than anything else.

I don't think any mediation would really be necessary or even justified, because Amaya was definitely the aggressor in this particular instance kekek. Probably one of the things that're immediately obvious would be that, for someone who spent their formative years purely in the Realspace, she adjusted relatively quickly to the amoral, lawless life of the Dark City real quick. So I guess somehow it's the demon-fused life-eating child-leader of a House that has more scruples than the small-time kiddo who just got in deep during her young adult years.

---

Also Asuras. There's a Dark City for every metropolitan area out there, yeah? Are there Houses that have like, national or global levels of influence? Or are all Houses, no matter how powerful, still mostly contained within their individual City?

If the former, may be useful to distinguish between levels of influence that player-made Houses have, and perhaps also have a list of, idk, the top 5 most infamous Houses nationally and internationally.

@ERode
I imagine that since magic is tied to the Aspects and the aspects are almost philosophies of how one approaches magic, that certain personalities are better suited for some aspects. So not all mages of an aspect would have shared personality traits, but I personally feel like the higher on the food chain you look, the more similarities you'd see.

It'd be difficult to find a skilled Precedence that was also shy and a pushover, so most of them are likely confident if not arrogant since spells that build off authority are probably stronger in the hands of mages that believe they're an authority figure.

Similarly hard to find:
Obscurity that forgoes lying and manipulation
Manifestation with no aspirations
Complexity that isn't perceptive
And Dynamicism that's scared of change.

So I think there'll be some "same hat!" energy between those with like-crests if nothing else.

@ERode

How much of a different story are we talking about if she met Mathias off duty?

Also, it's a weirdly common name around there. A lot of things and people are just called Maverick.

@ERode you could have made her a water in the microwave person

Alright, iz time to cook.

@Asuras First off, gonna put forward an idea for worldbuilding, where the independent mages of the City, once they become capable enough not to be a complete liability to those around them, are invited to join a loose collective or union. Basically, my thought is that it'd serve as a body for the Houses to request third-party fixers to handle problems or issues that'd require plausible deniability, and it also serves as a way for independent mages not to get completely bullied into bad deals by Houses, in a kinda 'if you fuck with one of us, the rest of us will maybe possibly take action'.

Also should confirm: is this in the US????

I think we'd need to come at this idea from a certain perspective:

For someone born to or married in a House, the underlying social binding there is blood. Being in a House means that your survival and success is, to some extent or another, beneficial to the others in your group -their legacy, and the strength of the group relies on at least some members being alive. For any one mage in a House, their cousin surviving means:

1) Your name persists that much more
2) Your blood can continue in some capacity
3) Maintenance of the group can lead to reciprocation

For an independent mage, #1 and #2 are non-starters. That sort of social structure doesn't exist in an independent group. Which leaves us with #3. Being in an independent union of mages is, at its core, about creating a protective sphere. But to maintain that protective sphere, everyone collectively has to agree on ensuring it. And there can be (I think) two reasons why one would feel compelled to maintain it, as opposed to simply leeching off of it:

1) An honor code is compelling enough to the mage
2) Money is involved

This leads me to believe that the most likely scenario is that there are TWO independent unions of mages, both working in very different ways. One invites mages with notably community-oriented dispositions, and is far more exclusive. Likely a smaller union made up of mages who are open to forging friendships with one another (but also no less willing to do dark deeds on a payer's behalf). Another union is for those who are desperate, and need the money. The threat of being kicked out by enforcers who notice your lack of reciprocation (and thus losing a cash flow) is enough of a reason to maintain the group protection personally.

And yes, we're in the US.

Also Asuras. There's a Dark City for every metropolitan area out there, yeah? Are there Houses that have like, national or global levels of influence? Or are all Houses, no matter how powerful, still mostly contained within their individual City?

If the former, may be useful to distinguish between levels of influence that player-made Houses have, and perhaps also have a list of, idk, the top 5 most infamous Houses nationally and internationally.

There are Houses with global reach, yes, and would certainly be classified as the "largest". As might be expected, due to their longer histories, they do tend to favor their originating locations much more, and thus make their name (and population) biggest in countries/cities of origin. Not every Dark City necessarily has a House nearby, however. Some cities simply end up, by pure happenstance, without much of a Dark Sphere with it. They nevertheless experience arcane phenomena, and as such tend to have more of an air of "mystery" to them by the mundane population, as things like Manifestation incursions go unfixed for longer periods of time, for example.

I can throw up a top 5 list, certainly.

@ERode

It is fun to have that whole Demon-Possessed vs Demonsbane thing though.

Yeahhh, I noticed that right away. It's kinda perfect.

(I'm actually so excited to start this, looking over the CSes.)

@Remram I mean, she'd just treat him as another independent mage encountered in the Dark City. So passively cautious but not immediately drawing steel n all.

@OwO A microwave is too heavy to carry around. Electric kettle and instant noodles/dehydrated meals though? God combo.

@Asuras With regards to Houses getting peeps to marry into them, is it usually a House-to-House kind of thing, or is it more common for them to snag significantly capable independents into their House?

@ERode

Fair enough. Would they have crossed paths at some point? The DSC does try to cooperate with houses so it's possible that they may have met that way.