--"A long time ago, the gods and the mortals lived in harmony, they inhabited a city known by the name of Aquaria, the Seat of the Gods. Built over a lake that spans as far as the eye can see, close to the mysterious floating lands of Arcadia, Aquaria was a one of kind place of adventure and mystery.
It's within this unique place that this story will be told. Are you ready to take part on it?"
Overview
Aquaria was the second most important settlement, the greatest trade hub, known for its extensive book and commodities trading, and the most culturally advanced city of an empire that spammed most of the known world. However, after the a long story, the empire fell to little but scraps, yet Aquaria remained firm. The biggest city-state of remaining world, Aquaria holds a veritable trove of mysteries and adventures within itself.
It's no surprise that many adventurers never leave the comfort of the city walls, after all the city they live is full of areas to be explored. These stories will focus mostly on these adventurers.
World & People
Given its role as a major trade and cultural hub, Aquaria is home to a plethora of people from all backgrounds, races and professions. However, the large majority of the native population is composed of humans and elves, a spiritually powerful race of exclusively feminine beings endowed with fox-like ears and tail. Elves were much longer lived than humans but, given their single gender, they could only produce off spring with humans and that any male coming from such a union will be human; over the time the average life expectancy of an Aquarian born citizen became of around 150 years. Even then, elves can easily reach the early 200's.
With such a long lived populace, it's expected that Aquaria would become a cultural hub and it's. Aside from being known as the City of Water, Aquaria is also known as the City of Books. Literacy is taken seriously in Aquaria and most people have a hobby of reading. In fact, Aquaria's Grand Library is world's biggest library; said to be so vast that no one knows for sure the exact number and content of all the tomes there stored. Expeditions to isolated sectors of the Grand Library are common with adventurers seeking rare and otherwise forgotten lore.
It's not only of literature that Aquarian culture lives. Arts and music are also a major cultural asset. In fact, It's common place to name children after artistic related themes, music in special is very appreciated as a source of names, in honor of one of the city's greatest heroes of times long past, the elven knight Arianna "Aria", also known as the Knight of Gales. Education is also rather high quality. The University of Aquaria, attached to the Grand Library, is perhaps the last center of education of its level on the otherwise savage world, receiving visitors of all places on its Halls of Learning.
When it comes to politics, Aquaria is an advanced place as well. Aquaria is ruled by a council of representatives composed of five thirteen members chosen from the various social classes of the city, each with a decade long non-hereditary term of office and administered by a High Queen that holds the executive powers withing the city. The Queen title is hereditary and the royal family is composed primarily of elves descended of the knights of legend, Arianna and Sedril.
Lastly, but not least, let us not forget that Aquaria is also a city of adventure and of commerce. Everyday its bustling streets and markets get filled with people bargaining all kinds of goods from all places. There's an old saying that goes by: "You can see more of the world staying a day in Aquaria than in a lifetime of travel." In many ways it's not wrong. The city is also bustling with adventurers, who congregate in Aquaria's many adventuring guilds, which are further united under the banner of one of the two major adventurer leagues, the Wind Harpists and the Water Cartographers.
Mystery & Magic
Magic is an arcane force that exists all over the world and permeates every living being. Magic can be used to conjure and manipulate the Greater Elements (Fire, Water, Air or Wind, Earth, Light and Darkness or Shadow). All magic is composed of manipulation and combination of those elements, but given that magic is an expression of the soul of each individual, there are no two completely equal mages. Even if some basic spells can be learned by everyone, all mages have a unique expertise, though it's more likely that those who share blood bounds will have similar expertize.
All living beings (and some non-living ones as well) are capable of magic, but not everyone practices it. In order to perform the mystical arts a strong will to reshape reality to meet one's internal view is needed. All mages are capable of manipulating all of the Greater Elements. However are at their best when dealing with their Elemental Alignment and can't really draw any power from the ones opposite to their alignment.
Like with magic, all beings are born with an Elemental Alignment one of the Greater Elements, rarely will be born someone with two different alignments as long as they aren't opposite to one another. Even more rare are those who practice Spirit Arts, that is, they are bound by a contract to the Spirits --sometimes called fairies-- of the land granting them powers similar in nature to magic but that come from their aptitude to channel their Spirit's power. One can't use both normal magic and Spirit Arts at the same time, having a Spirit contract seals you ability to use normal magic as the Spirit uses their Master's mana to sustain themselves.
When it comes down to it, the main difference between normal mages and Spirit users is that the first use their own mana to power their spells, leading to a burn out sensation and eventually increasing fatigue from prolonged usages of magic. Spirit users channel power from their Spirits, which i turn do channel it from the land itself, meaning that no fatigue is incurred for magic usage, but the Spirits need rest to recharge their energies and while they are dismissed, their users' power is greatly diminished. The only exception to this are the Elves, who can channel magic directly from the land just like Spirits do, meaning that elves never run out of magic power or get tired from spell casting. Lastly, Spirit Users are generally capable of greater feats than normal mages, but are restricted to the elements their Spirits can manipulate.
Aquaria is also a land of mysteries, full of ancient ruins and barely known even for those who live into it. Really a place of boundless possibilities where the limits to one's adventures tends only to be as big as their ambition, or courage.
Character Sheet
Name: Self-explanatory.
Age: Self-explanatory.
Gender: Self-explanatory.
Race: Self-explanatory.
Height: Self-explanatory.
Weight: Self-explanatory.
Appearance: A brief description (around a paragraph), picture (anime only, please), or a combination of both, at your own leisure.
Character Concept: Describe here what/who your character is, in simple words. You can include hints of personality and back story as well, but keep it all to a reasonable size. (one paragraph should be enough)
Combat, Abilities and Skills: What can your character do? How is their favorite combat style/maneuvers/spells? What are they good in? Can they cook, play cards, pick locks or bend steel bars with raw strength? As always keep this short and concise.
Equipment and Inventory: Your character's important possessions. Be reasonable, you don't need to list every single small trinket here, just the most relevant ones, usually those your character can carry around.
Other: Anything not above that you may think that can be important, e.g. a description of any important companions, facts or places. Maybe even a song/other media that inspired you, if you feel like adding it. (Totally optional, by the way)
Sample Post/Introduction: Give us an idea of who your character is (and of your level of writing), writing a snippet about a key turning point on their life or about their day-to-day life. Don't be hesitant to be creative with locations or NPCs but keep it within the realm of the possible (i.e. no Mary Sues/Gary Stus of any type). (max. of three moderate sized paragraphs, or around 2000 characters. Don't do anything too poor but also don't go over this limit, please)
Final Word
Thanks for reading up to now --If you are reading this I guess I can assume it, right?--, this is a long standing idea for a high fantasy, anime inspired setting that I have, or better, part of said setting.
As you can see what I came up with is more of a scenario than a premade campaign --Any tabletop player would know what I mean by that--, so this setting has the space to accommodate various stories and will get constructed and expanded as that is done.
For the initial adventure I have in mind, I'm looking for a relatively small group (4~8 players) mostly up for a dungeon crawl style game. If that interests you, don't hesitate to drop by and discuss, maybe leave a CS. And if you would rather be interested in other kinds of stories, political intrigue, cloak and dagger, etc., you can leave a suggestion as well. I'm always up for ideas.
-- Thank again and have fun,
KoL.
