[OOC] The Faraway Land: Arcane Adventures (Closed 9/30/18)

Master List of Spells

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[Thinslayer]

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@Lucius Cypher@ReusableSword@Norschtalen@TheForgottenArc

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The Faraway Land: Arcane Adventures

Once upon a time, in a far away land, there was a village. It was small, unassuming, and unimportant. One day, the earth split with a loud crack, and out of the chasm sprang forth mystic energy, which they dubbed "mana." This mana could be controlled by will of thought, easily at that (or so they thought), lending them great prosperity. But the chasm did not stop releasing energy, and in a few years time, the whole world became enveloped in mana.

Thus magic was born into the world.

You, the players, are at the forefront of research into this phenomenon. Armed with little more than a sword and your wits, you set off from your respective tribes on a pilgrimage to where it all began. Naturally, you are not alone, and your journey crosses the agendas of entities high and low. Some may aid you, some may hinder you; watch therefore, and guard your life and knowledge from those who would use it for evil.

The journey is long and arduous, but great power lies at the end of it. Will you persevere to the end?
__________

Gameplay will be a lot like lorebuilding, except it's all IC. Your characters will be expected to experiment and create new spells, documenting them in a tome. The strength and quality of the spells you can create/cast increases as you approach the Chasm. Additionally, there is another sentient force in the world using magic to create and genetically modify life. This phenomenon should be investigated, and terminated if need be.

Some tribes are more technologically advanced than others; some have developed in different technological pathways. Feel free to come up with creative new tribes to encounter. The highest known tech level is Renaissance, with guns, germ theory, and rudimentary electricity. The lowest tech level is early-Medieval.

Random Lore

There are hundreds of tribes scattered across the world, many of them easily hundreds of millions large. They all say they were born of a "world seed" that God cast down from heaven and scattered abroad. Aside from the deific attribution, this is more true than they realize.

An ancient, ageless Immortal oversees the development of the world. While a few remote sects worship her as a goddess, she maintains enough of a presence in society that she is more broadly perceived as a celebrity. She wields tremendous power even before the appearance of magic, and through the judicious use of it in the beginning, she established her absolute authority over the world. She is a benevolent leader, for the most part.

The setting takes place in the 32nd century A.D., in our universe. The planet is named Aion, and it is hundreds of light-years away from Earth. While the sci-fi aspects of this story are not the focus (since I want it to be largely conventional high-fantasy), they bear some relevance to the plot. The planet is a colony of a vast galactic empire (not a cliche evil one, I might add), and the Immortal is its representative, given the task of guiding the population to a future where they can someday contribute to the empire. We're more or less in the early stages of development.

Gameplay will be a lot like lorebuilding, except it's all IC. Your characters will be expected to experiment and create new spells, documenting them in a tome. The strength and quality of the spells you can create/cast increases as you approach the Chasm. Additionally, there is another sentient force in the world using magic to create and genetically modify life. This phenomenon should be investigated, and terminated if need be.

Some tribes are more technologically advanced than others; some have developed in different technological pathways. Feel free to come up with creative new tribes to encounter. The highest known tech level is Renaissance, with guns, germ theory, and rudimentary electricity. The lowest tech level is early-Medieval.

Up to this point, all technology was reached by conventional innovation, research, and development. Much of it was spurred on at the Immortal's suggestion, since she came from a considerably more advanced civilization. For example, Midhaven's waste-burning disposal plant functions as power source for the nearby forge and mill. Since she doesn't know exactly how electricity is made, the system is an entirely mechanical one.

To cite a few more examples, ice tribes up north worked out how to generate electricity through chemical means (i.e. batteries), but they use it in metalworking processes to make aluminum and never thought to use it for modern functions. One of the forest tribes learned how to make airships a while back, and now live almost exclusively as sky-nomads.

Races

* Human (playable): Far and away the most common race here. Aging is a little slower on Aion, so while people still die at roughly the same age as always (<120 years), it takes them longer to show signs of it. Additionally, for reasons too complicated to explain in one sentence, the majority of humans on this world are dark-skinned asian-looking types.

* Immortal (non-playable): Distinguished by their pointed ears, Immortals are otherwise no different from ordinary humans except for their inability to die of old age. Only one is known to live on Aion, though there are rumors of a second, less-benevolent one roaming the world.

* Orc (playable): The product of some very nasty experiments on an (now-dead) Immortal, orcs are designed to maintain their peak physical capacity from adulthood to death. Aging doesn't slow them down, and their muscles never atrophy, allowing them to reach heights of strength only dreamed of by ordinary people. This means, however, that they also have increased energy consumption, and in fact one orc regularly eats enough for about two or three humans. Thus, orcs rarely have developed civilizations and are more commonly found either as nomads or mercenaries for the wealthy. If an adequate food source could be found, orcs would reproduce like rabbits and overpower everyone else. This fact is not lost on certain ambitious wizards...

* Voidspawn (playable): Sentient mana-spirits that appeared from the Chasm. Since they are incapable of affecting the world without a physical form, they prey on creatures that are on the brink of death, pushing out a native soul to take its place. The resultant being, if it survives, can be identified by its purple irises, and often possesses immense magical talent. Being non-native to their bodies, however, their lives are rather fragile and can, at times, be destroyed by mundane things like stress.

A Non-Comprehensive List of Interesting Creatures

* Sprites, cute ball-shaped mana-forms with the genetic composition of plants. Whoever designed them used a vegetation template.
* Wargs, wolves grown with magic to twice their normal size. Their intelligence appears to have grown with them.
* Aery, a type of mana spirit inhabiting dispersed particulates, rather than a singular object. The Voidspawn most often take this form before they can locate a body.
* Goblin, a small and ugly creature genetically related to monkeys, and with similar thieving habits. Surprisingly unintelligent for a mammalian biped.
* Reptiliforms, a category of creatures including dragons, drakes, wyrms, wyverns, and such like. Dinosaurs appear to have been the genetic design template. These creatures wield great conventional and magical power, making them dangerous foes if crossed.
* Venus Mantrap, a larger and enhanced Venus Flytrap equipped with tentacles to actively capture its prey. Contrary to how hentai portrays them, they are not interested in lewd activities. They slowly digest their food over several months, and while some try to tear apart their meals before eating them, a few species have worked out how to keep their prey alive during digestion. Very nasty plants. Easily identified by their lovely aroma.

[Carlyle]

@Thinslayer Room for one more?

[Thinslayer]

Absolutely! Added your name to the tag list.

[Nightknight]

@Thinslayer I like the premise for your RP. May I join in as well? I don't have a character concept now, but I would like to make one.

[Thinslayer]

Sure! Your name has been added to the list.

[ReusableSword]

@Thinslayer still room for a straggler?

[Thinslayer]

Yup! Come on in!

[Thinslayer]

All right everyone, send in your character applications. The opening sequence I create will depend on the kinds of characters we get- like, if we get lots of non-combat researchers, I may start us with a meeting at Midhaven Castle. Warriors may get started off with an action sequence. If you have any questions, concerns, or suggestions, don't hesitate to post them.

[Nightknight]

@Thinslayer I know you said that this isn't D&d, but it has loosely inspired a character idea i have for a necromancer. I know necromancy is generally frowned upon in many fantasy settings, but I love the idea of a necromancer who isn't a complete douche. I'd be willing to live with the stigma if that means raising the dead or communing with spirits.

[Thinslayer]

Roll with it and see what happens!

[Nightknight]

@Thinslayer Concerning magic, can we come up with spells that require certain conditions to be met to cast? And if so, would it effect the spell in any way? I am curious as how magic and spell-casting works in your setting, as I do not know much of how you are playing it. I think it would be cool if someone has to jump through several hoops in order to get a badass spell to go off, plus it can add another dimension of depth. It could also make it to were people can't just spam lightning bolts or something, but that's just me.

[Nightknight]

I good analogy as to what I am talking about is the Nen system from HunterXHunter (assuming you've seen it) where each character had powers and abilities tailored to their personalities and the more conditions they place on their abilities the stronger they become to compensate for being more difficult to pull off.

[Thinslayer]

@Nightknight
I'm glad you asked.

While I have no wish to spoil all the mechanics of magic before the story even starts, what people immediately observed about it was that it responded directly to their thoughts, in effect breathing life to their imaginations. The thing is, magic has no mind of its own, so the depth and complexity of a spell depends entirely on the depth of the imagination that spawned it. Moreover, it responds to natural laws to some degree, so the straight-up creation of new matter is far more mana-consuming than rearranging existing matter to fit your needs. A good mage will therefore 1) imagine his spell to the best of his ability and 2) consider the most efficient available resources to produce it.

Since we'll be working with a fully developed magic system, I may introduce NPCs from time to time to illustrate spellcasting techniques I came up with.

[Nightknight]

@Thinslayer If I may ask another question (cause I'm on a roll :) ), can I say my character imagines up a spell where he can conjure up a dark fog but only in shade or dark places? Like for example it would help reinforce in his mind the obscuring fog.

[Thinslayer]

The power of a dark fog need not be arbitrarily amplified by placing conditions upon it. Fog is created through the following conditions:
* Draw water on a large scale
* Bring the ambient temperature to the dew point

Fog usually "burns off" when the ambient temperature rises (e.g. when the sun comes out), so to create a long-lasting fog, you'll want to control the ambient sunlight. The cheapest way, mana-wise, is to create a sort of cloaking spell that bends sunlight away from your fog zone. Note that optical cloaking will improve the darkness of your fog even when the sun is gone, so in that respect, a more complex spell is more powerful. It's not the limitations placed on your spell that strengthen it, per se, but the depths to which you create it. The obvious downsides, of course, are mana cost and casting time.

Does that help?

[Nightknight]

@Thinslayer Kind of. I get that adding more things increases the spell as opposed to placing arbitrary limitations. I guess I will just roll with whats natural and you can correct me if I end up stretching the rules to a ludicrous degree or something.

[Thinslayer]

Gameplay example:

Sir Nocturne leaned over the table and studied the map. In order to set up the "dark fog" experiment, he would need a dry location where fog did not normally form, but where lots of water could still be found. That meant a desert with a high water table. There were a few places like that, but the one that stood out to him was the Valley of Kings. The already eerie atmosphere would be a bonus. He grinned, feeling rather clever, and declared, "Let's go to the Valley of Kings!"

Astran folded his arms and squinted. "You sure about this? If anyone's testing out necromancy, we'll be smack in the middle of a zombie apocalypse."
"It'll be fine, trust me!"

It wasn't fine. By the time Nocturne had calculated the dew point and worked out the visualization of the spell, they'd run for hours from the hordes of skeletons patrolling the valley.

"Cruddy pieces of-" Astran spat as he bandaged his arm. "Good thing they were just skeletons instead of zombies. Are you sure we still need to be here?"
"Yeah, I'm almost done," pleaded Nocturne. Everything was ready. Water would be drawn up from the underground wells, and sunlight would be bent away from the fog zone. Energy would be leeched from the air and used to evaporate the water. If all went well, the evaporated water would re-condense into fog.

Holding this image in his mind and referencing the calculations in his tome, Nocturne began to concentrate.

Water bubbled up from the earth. The sky grew darker, and soon even the noon-day sun seemed little more than a strange sunset. With a hiss, the moisture burst into cloud. Fog fell over the valley.

"Yes!" Nocturne held up his hand to hi-five his partner.
Astran just folded his arms.

"Yeah, let's just get out of here now."

[Nightknight]

@Thinslayer I'm 95% done with my character. All I got to do now is upload the images, but I don't know how to do so from my computer files. Is there any way I can do that?

[Thinslayer]

@Nightknight
Find a site to upload your images to and link to that. I prefer Flickr, since you can downsize large images however you want and link directly to whatever size image you pick. Other uploading sites, to my knowledge, don't let you do that.

EDIT: You can also use PicResize, but it's really finnicky and doesn't always register images as valid images. The connection isn't secure either, so use it at your own risk.

[Thinslayer]

Flickr 3rd party linking tutorial

Flickr 3rd party linking tutorial

Let's say I wanted to show you some art I commissioned for one of my original characters, Gwenivere Valentine. Here's the image on my Flickr Photostream.


Click "Download this photo," but do NOT click any of the sizes! That will just download the photo to your computer. Instead, select "View all sizes."


That'll take you here. I selected the Original size to give you a feel for just how big this image is. The artist who rendered it did a really good job, IMO. That was money well-spent. Anyway, let's go for the 500 width size instead.


Much better. Copy the image address.


Now select the Image button here in RolePlayerGuild (or press Ctrl+G) to yield the following string of characters:
[ img ][ /img ]

Put the your image link between them like so:
[ img ] c2.staticflickr.com/2/1937/3104750710… [ /img ]

And presto!


To center it, use [ center ][ /center ].