GM's Notes: 24/01/17
Welcome to the Crystals of Arcana OOC page! There are currently 4 slots left for this RP, though I may choose to include 1 extra player. This is a high-casual to low-advanced RP and requires dedication to the plot and lots of activity. Please read the rules section for more detail before applying. Thank you!
Please note, some fields are missing as I have not created the headers for them yet. They will be added soon.
A mineral known as Arcana can be found in abundance underground, and mining its crystals to use as an energy source has been commonplace for almost a century. The Council has control over Arcana production and refinement, as well as the production of Magitech. Recently, there have been issues with these crystals - some believe they started the Blue Plague several months ago, littering the outer districts with disease and suffering. Others think that the lack of care and attention from The Council in these underprivileged districts might have been the cause. It is widely accepted, however, that the latest batch of Arcana crystals this past year have been malfunctioning and producing very little to no energy whatsoever, leaving parts of the City without power or in disrepair.
In this RP, your character will be recruited by Viktor Strade to figure out why the latest batch of crystals aren't working. In truth, it's a pretty shitty job and Viktor was essentially picking out of the best of a bad bunch to complete this task. Nobody in The Council actually expects Strade to make any progress on this problem and it's more of a thinly veiled punishment than an actual job, especially considering the fact he has little to no access to Council resources and had to scoop up a bunch of civilians for it. With nothing but a few basic leads and whatever kit they could scavenge, our party will set off on an adventure that will carry them across The City in the hopes of finding out the truth - and discovering more than they bargained for.
[/hr]
A large and sprawling metropolis of Magitech and late Victorian architecture. The City itself is practically the size of a small country, separated into 20 official Districts. These districts spread out from the centre with the most elite populating District 1, which is the largest. As the number increases, the size and quality of life decreases. Only the initial 20 Districts are officially recognised by The Council to avoid spending tax fees on the underprivileged multitudes on the outskirts. After around District 45, the City devolves into a mesh of scavenged material pieced together to make some form of living accommodation. These are called the Slums, and they have a history of bloodshed and chaos.
The mysterious inner workings of the Council are unknown to all save for a select elite, and its existence has been debated for decades. Even though it is called a Council, no-one can be certain of who - or what - leads the City. All that we can know for sure is that there is an enormous hierarchy spread across the entirety of the City, from the ‘Heads’ of Research, Military, Agriculture and Public Relations right down to the bookish clerks and law enforcement officers in the outer districts.
The Council really do control everything that goes on within the City. Their base makes up almost a third of district 1, and they own all of the major businesses; in particular the factories in district 3, the fields in district 4 and the research labs in district 5. Almost everything you own came from a shipping crate from somewhere in the first 5 districts, soaring high above your heads on a mono-rail. Shops have to buy their products from the Council, save for luxury items which are handcrafted (with materials from The Council) or dodgy, unreliable gadgets made from salvaged Magitech and a lot of glue.
It’s their control of resources which allows the Council to control The City - districts that have rebelled in the past were put through ‘Droughts’, where it is illegal to re-sell any Council-owned property to the citizens of a specific district and shipments only contain the barest essentials for living. The threat of starvation and sickness has been sufficient to keep any dissenters at bay for several years now.
The Council are met with general unease as even the lowest-ranking Council Member still has some noticeable benefits compared to an average civilian, be it smarter clothes or a healthier appearance. This doesn’t mean that all citizens immediately despise their Council Members; some are determined to improve the quality of their district in whatever way they can. Others have reputations of being friendly and approachable. All of them share that slight material advantage to the regular civilian, but only some choose to flaunt it.
The starting point of the RP, home to all of the main characters in this story. District 17 is an industrial mining district that produces Arcana crystals. It is littered with narrow alleyways and large pieces of broken-down Magitech. In its centre is (TBA) and surrounding it are restaurants, shops and motels. Most buildings here are tall and narrow skyscrapers, hundreds of floors tall, all interconnected by walkways and bridges as well as the monorail system that runs throughout the City.
The surface level is a haze of purplish-blue, known colloquially as The Smog. If the fall down doesn’t kill you on impact, the effects of The Smog will; composed of water vapour and highly concentrated Arcana dust, inhaling the Smog causes your body to mutate from the inside-out. It is a slow and incredibly painful death. Even so, the majority of people in District 17 use safety gear and take the elevators down the mineshafts every day to mine out more Arcana. It’s drudge work and doesn’t pay well, but The Council provides regular shipments of equipment and resources to the District for free as a reward for their services.
There’s three unspoken tiers of people in district 17. The lowest and most populated rank are the miners, anyone who works within the mines with the machinery or in the caves themselves are generally regarded as the equivalent to blue-collar workers; essential, making up the bulk of the population in the district. Everyone has an immediate family member who works in the mines. A little ways above that are the shopkeepers, bar owners, hairdressers, doctors...anyone who doesn’t work in the mines or the Council live in this melting-pot. There are few Council Members in district 17 - mainly because there hasn’t been much of a reason to put any in there. Crime levels are usually okay, but with the outbreak of the Blue Plague criminality has increased sharply. The bridges aren’t safe to walk across at night. More and more people seem to vanish - drunkards falling off the edge of a precarious walkway isn’t uncommon, but one would shudder to think about how many bodies must be piling up on the surface level...
Literally the lifeblood of the City. Magitech is the electricity that runs through almost every nook and cranny of the metropolis, and it powers everything within its reach. The energy comes from a particular mineral known as Arcana - its crystals can be found in abundance deep underground and they are hooked up to any device you can think of like batteries. Of course, the larger the crystal, the more energy it can provide - but Arcana has a finite amount of energy per unit of mass and even more needs to be mined up from the earth to keep the City running.
Magitech is always created in the official districts, but it is distributed everywhere. The people within the City are subject to advertising campaigns for the latest new gadget almost every other week; toasters guaranteed to never burn the bread, torches that can be mounted onto any vertical surface, self-heating teacups, small-scale force fields you can attach onto fragile packages...the list goes on and on.
Magitech weaponry is rarer than normal firearms and a little more difficult to get a hold of unless you’re part of The Council, but it’s not unheard of. People have been seen with laser pistols, special energy shields and electrified knives.
These are a newer technological breakthrough within the City, and there have been quite a lot of debates surrounding the concept. Named after James Buffant, who devoted his life to ingesting Arcana and recording the effects, these chemical products are mass-produced temporary superpowers in pills, bottles or syringes. The most common ones alter the senses or increase durability, strength and agility. Some are purely cosmetic, allowing someone to change their appearance or shapeshift for around half an hour. All of them are Council Approved and rarely last over an hour or two.
With the creation of Buffs, many individuals started wondering if The Council was hiding the true potential of Arcana ingestibles. Nonapps are Buffs that aren’t approved by the Council and they’re technically illegal, because their potency makes them addictive. Nonapps grant the user stronger powers for half the duration alongside some pretty horrible side-effects. They’re homebrewed and unreliable; with the side effects ranging from nausea to growing a third limb or being covered in scales, many people avoid Nonapps simply because they’re so unpredictable.
The mysterious inner workings of the Council are unknown to all save for a select elite, and its existence has been debated for decades. Even though it is called a Council, no-one can be certain of who - or what - leads the City. All that we can know for sure is that there is an enormous hierarchy spread across the entirety of the City, from the ‘Heads’ of Research, Military, Agriculture and Public Relations right down to the bookish clerks and law enforcement officers in the outer districts.
The Council really do control everything that goes on within the City. Their base makes up almost a third of district 1, and they own all of the major businesses; in particular the factories in district 3, the fields in district 4 and the research labs in district 5. Almost everything you own came from a shipping crate from somewhere in the first 5 districts, soaring high above your heads on a mono-rail. Shops have to buy their products from the Council, save for luxury items which are handcrafted (with materials from The Council) or dodgy, unreliable gadgets made from salvaged Magitech and a lot of glue.
It’s their control of resources which allows the Council to control The City - districts that have rebelled in the past were put through ‘Droughts’, where it is illegal to re-sell any Council-owned property to the citizens of a specific district and shipments only contain the barest essentials for living. The threat of starvation and sickness has been sufficient to keep any dissenters at bay for several years now.
The Council are met with general unease as even the lowest-ranking Council Member still has some noticeable benefits compared to an average civilian, be it smarter clothes or a healthier appearance. This doesn’t mean that all citizens immediately despise their Council Members; some are determined to improve the quality of their district in whatever way they can. Others have reputations of being friendly and approachable. All of them share that slight material advantage to the regular civilian, but only some choose to flaunt it.
The starting point of the RP, home to all of the main characters in this story. District 17 is an industrial mining district that produces Arcana crystals. It is littered with narrow alleyways and large pieces of broken-down Magitech. In its centre is (TBA) and surrounding it are restaurants, shops and motels. Most buildings here are tall and narrow skyscrapers, hundreds of floors tall, all interconnected by walkways and bridges as well as the monorail system that runs throughout the City.
The surface level is a haze of purplish-blue, known colloquially as The Smog. If the fall down doesn’t kill you on impact, the effects of The Smog will; composed of water vapour and highly concentrated Arcana dust, inhaling the Smog causes your body to mutate from the inside-out. It is a slow and incredibly painful death. Even so, the majority of people in District 17 use safety gear and take the elevators down the mineshafts every day to mine out more Arcana. It’s drudge work and doesn’t pay well, but The Council provides regular shipments of equipment and resources to the District for free as a reward for their services.
There’s three unspoken tiers of people in district 17. The lowest and most populated rank are the miners, anyone who works within the mines with the machinery or in the caves themselves are generally regarded as the equivalent to blue-collar workers; essential, making up the bulk of the population in the district. Everyone has an immediate family member who works in the mines. A little ways above that are the shopkeepers, bar owners, hairdressers, doctors...anyone who doesn’t work in the mines or the Council live in this melting-pot. There are few Council Members in district 17 - mainly because there hasn’t been much of a reason to put any in there. Crime levels are usually okay, but with the outbreak of the Blue Plague criminality has increased sharply. The bridges aren’t safe to walk across at night. More and more people seem to vanish - drunkards falling off the edge of a precarious walkway isn’t uncommon, but one would shudder to think about how many bodies must be piling up on the surface level...
Literally the lifeblood of the City. Magitech is the electricity that runs through almost every nook and cranny of the metropolis, and it powers everything within its reach. The energy comes from a particular mineral known as Arcana - its crystals can be found in abundance deep underground and they are hooked up to any device you can think of like batteries. Of course, the larger the crystal, the more energy it can provide - but Arcana has a finite amount of energy per unit of mass and even more needs to be mined up from the earth to keep the City running.
Magitech is always created in the official districts, but it is distributed everywhere. The people within the City are subject to advertising campaigns for the latest new gadget almost every other week; toasters guaranteed to never burn the bread, torches that can be mounted onto any vertical surface, self-heating teacups, small-scale force fields you can attach onto fragile packages...the list goes on and on.
Magitech weaponry is rarer than normal firearms and a little more difficult to get a hold of unless you’re part of The Council, but it’s not unheard of. People have been seen with laser pistols, special energy shields and electrified knives.
These are a newer technological breakthrough within the City, and there have been quite a lot of debates surrounding the concept. Named after James Buffant, who devoted his life to ingesting Arcana and recording the effects, these chemical products are mass-produced temporary superpowers in pills, bottles or syringes. The most common ones alter the senses or increase durability, strength and agility. Some are purely cosmetic, allowing someone to change their appearance or shapeshift for around half an hour. All of them are Council Approved and rarely last over an hour or two.
With the creation of Buffs, many individuals started wondering if The Council was hiding the true potential of Arcana ingestibles. Nonapps are Buffs that aren’t approved by the Council and they’re technically illegal, because their potency makes them addictive. Nonapps grant the user stronger powers for half the duration alongside some pretty horrible side-effects. They’re homebrewed and unreliable; with the side effects ranging from nausea to growing a third limb or being covered in scales, many people avoid Nonapps simply because they’re so unpredictable.
- Activity is a must. The group will be 5 players max - if posting more than once a week is going to be difficult for you, it’s best you move on to something a little less demanding. This doesn’t mean there’s going to be a post every other day but there will be moments where it’ll be much faster than others.
- No metagaming or godmodding. This is especially important as there may be moments where certain players receive more information than others depending on their skills. As the GM, I reserve the right to intervene under certain circumstances - for example, I may choose to give you a surprise side-effect to the use of a Nonapp. I’ll probably PM you beforehand and give you a choice if it’s going to be serious.
- Character Sheets have a purpose in the RP! This basic template acts as the file that the Council has on you. All Character Sheets should be PM’d directly to me, and they will be revealed at the start of the IC. At least one of the subheadings should be written out in detail with at least 2 large paragraphs. I personally suggest that you consider the Psychoanalytic Report or the Background for your ‘long answer’ sections.
- Since it’s such a small group, Drama should be kept to a minimum. If you have any issues with the RP or the players within it, please don’t hesitate to contact me via PM so we can peacefully arrange a compromise.
- No metagaming or godmodding. This is especially important as there may be moments where certain players receive more information than others depending on their skills. As the GM, I reserve the right to intervene under certain circumstances - for example, I may choose to give you a surprise side-effect to the use of a Nonapp. I’ll probably PM you beforehand and give you a choice if it’s going to be serious.
- Character Sheets have a purpose in the RP! This basic template acts as the file that the Council has on you. All Character Sheets should be PM’d directly to me, and they will be revealed at the start of the IC. At least one of the subheadings should be written out in detail with at least 2 large paragraphs. I personally suggest that you consider the Psychoanalytic Report or the Background for your ‘long answer’ sections.
- Since it’s such a small group, Drama should be kept to a minimum. If you have any issues with the RP or the players within it, please don’t hesitate to contact me via PM so we can peacefully arrange a compromise.
[IMAGE FOR APPEARANCE]
Name:
Age:
Height:
Weight:
Blood Type:
Occupation:
Relatives:
Background:
Psychoanalytic Report: (Personality)
Skills: (Max 5)
Weaknesses: (Min 5)
Phobias:
