Magical defense force school concept.

Concept

A mysterious race of beings, seen as Devils by some and as Gods by others, has given humanity a second chance at survival after humanity bombed itself nearly to oblivion. Thousands of years afterwards, humans finally climbed up from the bronze age to something more resembling modern society. Technology is finally on par with pre-cataclysm World War 1, and national tensions are rising. One of the gifts given in addition to humanity's survival was the ability to manipulate the world around them - also thought of as Magic.

A form of martial arts known as The Way has been around ever since the first few generations of survivors sprung up, and has been shifting to fit technological developments ever since. These days, it's essentially military training combined with magical training.

Dedicated colleges for training in The Way have sprung up, and our characters play the roles of teachers, students, and professional Mages. The college I'm basing the RP around is open to all potential students over 16, and sends out letters of recommendation to students in public school that it determines have potential in The Way. Open enrollment is a thing, though, and anybody can apply. Acceptance to the college requires passing at least one test out of several different kinds during the Entrance Exam, and such tests cover the areas of knowledge (written tests), athleticism (physical trials), creative problem solving (unique tests based on constructed scenarios), and strategy (typically strategic board games like Chess and Shogi).

The year is 7210 AD, or rather, 1210 Post-War. In the year 2322 AD, Earth made first contact with a superior alien civilization. They were nothing like we expected, and rather than utilizing what could be strictly considered technology, they used what humans could only think of as "magic". Their consciousnesses meshed with the foundations of the universe rather than existing under it as ours do. Humanity, in its greed, attempted to uncover how to gain the aliens' powers to alter reality, and in doing so fell into a civil war between those who wished to do so militarily, and those who wished to do so peacefully. Mars (which lacked a formal name), the Titan Colonial Mandate, and the Belt Stations' Confederation formed an alliance opposing the Democratic Republic of Terra's aggression, and in 2365, interplanetary antimatter warheads were exchanged between both sides, wiping out all life on Earth, Mars, and Titan. Only some farming and mining stations in the Belt Stations' Confederation were left intact, with very, very few remaining educated people, and with all central libraries destroyed, almost all of humanity's knowledge was lost.

Without the support of farms on Mars, the Belters were faced with certain starvation, and made contact with the aliens (who refused to be named, or whose names were unpronounceable via sound - that knowledge has been since lost). The alien civilization was neither benevolent nor malevolent in reality, as their morality does not match our own. But modern humans curse them as demons for what they did, and modern humans curse their ancestors as savages for their own past actions.

The remains of humanity were given roughly what they wanted, in the form of bioengineering, terraforming, and replenishment of flora and fauna, giving them access to something vaguely similar to the aliens' innate abilities and making Earth habitable once more. But what they gave up wasn't worth it. They had traded their sovereignty and their future for immediate survival.

In the past few thousand years, humans have had to build their civilization back up from the early bronze age, with very little real technology. They now know almost nothing of what they once did, save for that space exists and Earth isn't the center of it, that they will one day return to the Stars, and that a civilization of Gods and Devils once saved them from themselves at a great cost. Periodically, landing craft appear on Earth and take the entire population of a small town to who-knows-where without saying a word. And people are getting very, very unhappy about it.

Humans are pretty much what they always have been in shape, size, appearance, etc., but they have gained a few new tricks. Humans are now able to manipulate the fabric of reality as long as they have access to suitable forms of energy - heat, motion, electricity, radiation, whatever. They are no more durable than they used to be, which limits how much power a single person can take in and use.

Each person has an affinity for certain forms of reality manipulation, based on their personality and genetics. But attempts to classify such skills have almost all failed, as the potential abilities of each person are far too varied. Elemental manipulation, matter from energy, energy from matter, telepathy, retroactive manipulation, proactive manipulation, body enhancement, and precognition are just a few of the skills that people can master. No one person has ever successfully mastered more than a few different talents at once, and even within those talents, there are strongly preferred skills, such as pyrokinesis, telekinesis, beast summoning, cosmic disaster creation, and the like, which each person will find they have an affinity for.

A new martial art has appeared that capitalizes on manipulation skills. It's known by many different names - The Way, Star Fist, Gift of Angels, etc., for some very rough translations. But the central concepts are all the same. Intense concentration on the world around oneself, intense concentration on the world one wishes to see, and even more intense concentration on the split between the two concepts have all become an artform. Foundation, the world itself, allows one to protect oneself against other manipulations. Vision, the ideal reality, gives insight into future possibilities. Compromise, or Balance, depending on who you ask, is the ability to split the difference by negotiating with the universe itself.

The more steadfast one person's Foundation is, the less effective others' abilities will be against them and their environment. The more powerful one's Compromise is, the greater the degree to which they can change the environment. Foundation is almost incapable of preventing Compromise from having an effect, but remaining committed to reality as it currently is certainly makes it harder for others to change it. Vision is needed in both, to see what is wanted, and to see what will happen. Foundation cannot protect without knowing the arguments of Compromise, which Vision will give, just as Compromise cannot be achieved without using Vision to know what arguments to make.

Only some of the life that existed on Earth was able to be resurrected after the great cataclysm - some trees, the most widespread animals, bacteria, viruses, etc. Most life on the planet was created by the alien saviors using their own plants and animals as a base. The most dangerous of these are simply referred to as Monsters, and all Monsters are able to use magic either on par with or vastly exceeding the average human. Some Monsters have created their own small, tribal civilizations far away from humans, but there have been some small scale clashes between sentient Monsters and humans from time to time. 

Whether out of incompetence or as a cruel joke, humans and Monsters are capable of breeding with one another, which lead to the birth of bizarre hybrids - usually referred to as Chimeras. Chimeras are hated by all of Monsterkind, and humans have a distaste for them because of their strange appearances, so Chimeras typically either live in segregated areas of human cities, or in neighboring tribes of their own.

How It'll Work

If this works out, I'll be running the RP a little differently from other academy-centric roleplays. It will be faster paced than normal, with routine Time Skips done to keep things from slowing down too much. Periodically classes will be roleplayed if players wish to do so, of course.

A lot of school type RPs get bogged down when they focus on every single class, and when each class can take weeks to finish, each IC day typically takes months IRL. So in the interest of keeping players' relationships with eachother from developing faster than their characters' relationships, it'll be going pretty fuckin' fast storywise. Y'all can decide how your characters' friendships develop when timeskips happen.

The RP will also feature a custom Attribute+Skill and Experience system so that classes still hold meaning even during timeskips, players are rewarded for taking part in expeditions to kill Monsters and/or investigate other problems, and characters have measurable skill development that isn't completely arbitrary. Forewarning: this also means that I'll be using dice rolls when a character does anything that would be particularly difficult for them involving an NPC. Not everyone likes that sort of thing, but I'm not one to limit player creativity and I want to avoid godmoding of any sort being used to end encounters.

Post expectations will be one to two paragraphs. More than that is fine, but there's such a thing as "too much". Scares the newbies away if everyone is writing ten pages with every post: this is casual, not advanced.
Magical defense force school concept.

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