[OOC] Spirit Wielders!

Lakewood City!

Places of interest

Lakewood High: Lakewoods high school which is joined together by Lakewood middle school on the left wing.

Lakewood City: A bustling city of moderate size between forest and ocean. Sky Scrapers acting as hotels and casinos (It's the future gambling is legal more I guess), and old abandoned factories make up the business district. Expensive shore town houses, cheap broken down apartments, and plenty of taverns litter the city, with a few parks sprinkled in between.

The Pier: A pier with a lighthouse, amusement park, and of course, the beach. Long docks make up popular fishing points.

Peark Lake: It's a lake. A big lake nestled in the middle of the woods, next to the school and a camp.

Camp Lakewood: A summer camp nestled on the far end of the lake's shore.

The Suburbs: Middle Class housing

Jebediah's Farm: A large plot of farm owned by an old man named Jebediah, most of it's wide open corn field with a few ranges for cows and horses. A small barn and silo for hay with a modest farmhouse.

Slums: Closely pact together poor houses with the occassional shady bar sprinkled around.

The Foxhole: A Cafe right by the school in the outlet.

Harry's Burgers: A fast food place, but the owner's name is actually Larry.

Jerry's Pets: A local pet store owned by a guy named Jerry, go figure. He's a bit weird.

Lakewood Mall: It's the mall.

[BayRat]

Welcome to Spirit Wielders!

A concept originally created by @Kamen Evie.

This RP will start in the city of Lakewood, located on the coast of Maryland, United States. The year is 2029, expect minute changes at best to modern technology and luxury. The city is a moderate metropolitan shore town with an extended suburbs. The center of the story takes place at Lakewood High. I expect most players to play as a student Medium (Mediums described below). While I can allow one to play a faculty member or someone else entirely, I highly advise you run by me the concept first. Since I want to balance the story between a slice of life high school with the secret identities of magical teenagers fighting monsters I'd like to emphasis to make a character around that role.

The premise of the world is an alternate reality, where a thousand years ago, an event known as the Yggsdrasil Contract sucked away the world's magic, spirits, and other supernatural elements off of the world. However rumors of strange happenings, mysterious disappearances, and strange disasters have been creeping up on the web. Although official reports and governing bodies do their best to cover up the returning of the supernatural, rumors still leak through.

Players will be playing a Medium; humans who possess an abnormally high amount of spiritual energy, which manifests as an Aura. While Spirits are compelled towards what would otherwise be a far more nutritious snack, Mediums can weaponize their own Aura in a way that repels Spirits to a limited degree, making them more trouble than they’re worth for less powerful Spirits, though it’s perfect for attracting Shades in need of a Contract. Mediums can expand and increase their powers towards more practical means through Pacts with Spirits. Mediums that have formed a pact are known as Spirit Mediums.

Spirits are monsters that have existed since time immemorial. Blessed with magic powers and superhuman strength, Spirits had reign over the Earth until the first Pact with Yggdrasil resulted in the destruction of over half the Spirits on Earth. Spirits cannot truly die, however, instead reduced to a harmless, ethereal form known as a Shade, which cannot even be perceived by humans without the potential to become Mediums. These unlucky Spirits have little choice but to make a pact if they wish to have any hope of regaining their form.

You may either have your character start a contract before the events of the first act, or during the first act at your request (All I'll spoil is that it will be a life or death situation; so naturally it's a much better incentive to get your magical powers there.)
Otherwise Spiritual contracts are initiated by the spirit, and will try to make the deal sound as pleasant to the medium as possible; ranging from anything like vague threats of what may come, to wish-fulfillment promises (That could just as well be lies fabricated from the spirit to help convince the character). A spirit will typically approach a character like this in a dream, or dream-like state. Taken to a separate room of the spirit's own design and control.

More Spirit Info, Important

Spirits come in many shapes and sizes, usually bearing similarity to more contemporary animals or mythical creatures, though more humanoid or even mechanical-looking Spirits have been known to exist. They are united by their unique magical abilities as well as a shared grudge against humanity, as many have taken their defeat at the hands of such weak creatures rather personally. Many can speak, though they are often far too proud to speak any human language, and are far from fluent in them. Any communication with a human is almost always done through the spiritual connection of a Pact.

Each Spirit possesses one or more special powers, each known as a Focus. A Focus can be control over an element or force, like fire or inertia, or physical power, like enhanced strength or speed. Having more than one Focus will evenly split their total magical power. For example, a Spirit with only a fire Focus will always have more powerful flames than an equally powerful one with its Foci split between fire and three other elements. A Spirit that is bound through a Pact is typically known as a Familiar, though they tend to detest the connotations behind the term.

Classifications of spirits are determined arbitrary rankings and types. Classifications aren't public knowledge, developed from study under an underground research team not yet revealed in IC.

Elementals: Spirits embodying a pure element or force, such as fire or magnetism.
Guardians: Spirits embodying natural areas or objects, such as spirits of forests, mountains, or even celestial bodies.
Machina: Spirits embodying man made machinery, objects, tools, weapons, or technology.
Meta: Spirits that embody abstract concepts such as desire and nothingness.
Null: Spirits that defy all other categories.
Broodlings: Broods consist of one or multiple broodlings; spirits born asexually from another spirit, and have yet to make their own identities. While most broodlings retain free will they are ultimately bound by kinship to their parent spirit and other broodlings until they have grown enough either by incredible age or power to become their own independent spirit. Broodlings will often share at least one if not many characteristics of their parent spirit, most often based on appearance and/or ability. Over the impossible stretch of time of existence countless broodlings have ascended to an independent spirit and made their own offspring, which is why there are similar broods of appearance and/or ability.

The classifications can be rather loose, and a Spirit can easily end up falling under two or more categories.

Threat Level

Threat levels are a general assessment of how dangerous and/or powerful a spirit is. Keep in mind however that just because a spirit may be ranked at a 2, doesn't mean it can't challenge or defeat a spirit of a higher rank(Though more often then not they due tend to be weaker then a higher rank spirit for obvious reasons.)
Cat. 0: Shades, with absolute no power to wield shades can only exist and hopefully talk and contract mortals to help fix their existence. Due to the theoretical temporary nature of being a shade, Cat 0's aren't officially classified to any known spirit and are only used to describe an encounter with a shade.
Cat. 1: The lowest rank of spirits, these creatures are often smaller creatures and beasts of mundane power. While to the natural world they can still pose some danger they are considered a generally low threat compared to other spirits. In addition to being the weakest official class, Cat 1's are believed to be the most common of existing spirits; at least in theory. Though attacks are rare outside of group based attacks.
Cat. 2: Category 2 spirits are a formidable force, though still low on the ranks. Category 2 spirits are most often powerful broodlings, guardians that have since lost their guarded domain, lesser demons and other spirits. Powerful in their own right but below the more commonly encountered high threat level spirits.
Cat. 3 Most infamous encounters of Spirits consist of Cat 3. Great mythical beasts like dragons and pheonixes, Spirits that resemble angels and demons, powerful guardians, and more.
Cat. 4 Cat 4 aren't too different from cat 3, but tend to be a bit higher either with conceptual powers or overwhelming strength that place them into something more akin with a demi-god.
Cat. 5 Don't bother running, you're already screwed.
Cat. CLASSIFIED

Pact Details

The ultimate bond between a human and a Spirit, a Pact establishes a special link between the two that allows each to draw upon the other: The Medium gains the service and powers of the Spirit, training their spiritual abilities and improving their Aura, while the Spirit can merge with and feed off the spiritual energy of a Medium, eliminating its need to feed, allowing it to gain power through absorbing the spiritual energy from the physical form of a defeated Spirit, and (for better or worse) allow them to experience a variety of emotions and sensations that they may not be able to experience otherwise. Spirits (for the most part) must follow the directions of their Medium, and can be wielded in two ways: Summoning and Channeling:

Summoning:

Summons the Spirit in its true form to fight for the Medium. While Spirits are usually far better at moving in their own bodies, and Mediums are usually far better at coordinating from their own, the Medium is largely defenseless aside from their base Aura power, potentially making them an easy target.

Note that even if you do not have a channeling form, your medium will still have a medium appearance. Also note that while the appearance may be purely aesthetic, Channelers can incorporate their new look as a form of ability or boon such as magical armor, wings, weird tentacle shit, etc.

Channeling:

The Spirit merges with the Medium, allowing them to channel the Spirit’s power as if it were their own, able to use superhuman abilities and channel their Foci, through a special tool known as a Catalyst that is generated through the fusion, which can vary from the more stereotypical wand or staff to a special piece of armor or even a weapon. This merge alters the Mediums appearance somewhat, though depending on the Spirit and the Medium’s own influence this can change from unique clothing to armor to a fully merged body where the Medium takes on some of the physical traits of the Spirit.

Though this makes the Medium a far more effective combatant, the amount of power that a Medium can use is wholly dependent on the Medium’s own level of synchronization with their Spirit, which almost always leaves the merged Form less powerful than the Spirit on its own. It’s also taxing and the mind and body of a Medium, meaning that it can’t be maintained for nearly as long as a Summon, and Channeling a Spirit far beyond one’s abilities could lead to rather… corrupting side effects. The negative effects of Channeling tend to scale with the power of the Spirit: Fusing with an exceptionally powerful spirit for more than a few moments could be tantamount to suicide, while weaker spirits are far easier to synch with to the point that it may even perform better when Channeling.

Spirit Charge

In addition, the two can pool their power together in a process known as a Spirit Charge. This is a unique ability that allows the Medium to both Summon and Channel their Spirit at once, using all Foci in a single attack with more power than even the combined total of their spiritual energy. Though extremely powerful, it leaves both the Spirit and the Medium exhausted afterwards.

Sealed Form

As taking a Spirit in public areas draws all kinds of attention, many Spirit Mediums like to hide their Spirits in what is known as a Sealed Form. Sealed Spirits cannot use any of their powers, but they take on a far more mundane appearance and suppress their spiritual energy to obscure them from other Mediums. Sealed Forms vary from more mundane creatures that reflect their natural appearance to physical items like gemstones, cards, jewelry, and similar clothing and accessories. The more powerful the Spirit, the larger the Sealed Form needs to be to suppress their power, though inanimate forms are more efficient than an equally sized animate one.

After a Pact has been in effect for a long time, both the Spirit and the Medium will likely have grown considerably in power. A former Shade may have regained its energy to the point that it no longer needs to feed off the Medium to maintain its physical form, at which point it will usually attempt to break the Pact. The Medium may even let it go willingly, though there have been instances of the two remaining bonded even without a mutual need to do so.

If a Medium’s Spirit ever has its physical form broken, the Pact will be broken along with it. This has drastic effects on both parties; The Spirit's form will be so thoroughly destroyed that it may take anywhere from days to centuries to reconstitute to the point of becoming a Shade again, and the Medium's Aura will be changed, hurting their ability to wield it and form further Pacts like a wound that may never heal. If the Medium dies, the Spirit's energy will be similarly wounded, causing it to slowly lose its physical form if it doesn't consume more energy. If a Spirit ever becomes completely enraged with its Medium, it may attempt to break free of the Pact. If it succeeds, it may eventually fade back to a Shade, depending on how much power it has accumulated over the course of their partnership. However, it is then completely free to turn on its former master or whatever else it sets its sights on to feed its renewed hunger.

A spirit that has absorbed enough energy and has retained a physical form long enough can remain on the natural world indefinitely, provided they aren't destroyed. However due to the nature of certain spirits this may not be feasible for certain exceptions. In general, Independent spirits that have obtained self autonomy are referred to commonly as monsters, though more a more classified nomenclature are miscreations.

While it is possible to form Pacts with multiple Spirits at the same time, this is ill-advised, both due to the increased difficulty of coordinating multiple Spirits and due to the fact that the spiritual energies that the Spirits consume can exceed the amount that a Medium can produce, killing them. It often requires pacts to be made with multiple weaker Spirits to be successful, which can lead to excessive wounding of the Medium's Aura should they be careless with their Spirits in battle.

Format the character sheet however you want. Picture and Description for appearances preferred but just a description is sufficient if you can't find a good picture reference.

By default mediums have access to Channeling, Summoning, and a Spirit Charge. However you may revoke access to any of those categories to specialize further into another. For instance if you want rely solely on Channeling you can remove the summoning option, and vice verse. You can also remove your super charge to improve either your summoning or Spirit Charge generally.

Also note to remove the () in the character sheet lines.

Rules:
Standard stuff here.

No godmodding or Metagaming.
Don't be an asshole OOC.
The GM and CO have the final say, if we don't like something then that's that.

[Savo]

Alright, so here's my general evaluations involving each and every application posted in the chary tab. I am going to regret everything after going through all of these, but it will be a fruitful effort ripping and tearing through this till I drop. Those that I don't have any issue with will be listed at the top. I'll be somewhat lenient on certain parts, but I will try to ensure that most applications adhere to what is listed in the OoC.

This is only for the people who have had their chary sheets accepted. I will get to the unaccepted sheets as soon as I can, but for now, lets get this show on the road.

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@Duoya | @Bubsy 2 | @GreenGoat | @banjoanjo | @ClocktowerEchos | @Chasers115 | @The World

You all are good to go for now.

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@Lasrever

In any case, a few things I need to ask.

For starters, how quickly can she drain the energy of other people? Is there theoretically no limit to how many people she can be taking energy from at once? Does it matter what kind of touch there is whether its her grabbing someone or being clustered up and keeping contact? How quickly can she drain energy when she's out of spiritual energy? Is it a slow ramp? What's the point of storing five years worth of energy if it drains in just one day?

Just need to know before I can form some proper judgement.

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@Scribe of Thoth

Alright, so, questions.

For starters, how long will it take for him to cause something to decay? While you did state about prolonged contact, I would like an exact number on that, i.e. seconds, minutes, etc. Furthermore, by contact, does it need to be specifically with the catalyst, or can he just grasp someones hand and start rotting them there? If gripping or touching them is the case, then will it speed up if he just grapples them/is touching more parts of a persons body?

I need to know more before I can come to a tangible conclusion about your character.

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@Snagglepuss89

Something just seems strange with this character and I can't exactly put my finger on it. Generally speaking, the powers are OK, at least, I find nothing too lore breaking or breaking in general about them. I think it might be more on the characterization side of it all, but I think it has to be the general question of why is he even fighting? Why is he teaching when he lacks the energy to do so? Why doesn't he just finish his studies? Why is he more tired than the girl who has 5+ spirits leeching off her who doesn't seem tired at all? Why doesn't he just break off the pact despite the spirit being nothing but an ungrateful nuisance to him and making him drained?

There's a lot more, but honestly, I don't understand the character. I'll get back to you on this all when I've ruminated on it a bit more.

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@PapiTan

I'm curious about this one as a result of Snaggles chary since I want to maintain consistency - why is it that she can have control over so many spirits, yet not have the same characterizing fatigue as Arthur? Granted, I know what you wrote down in the weakness section and that's fine, but how is she not suffering in the same way as him?

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The only complaint I have for everyone, GM's included, is the fact that most of these applications are cluttered and unorganized as hell, Jesus Christ. I'm going to refurbish the application down the line, or at least make the main one more organized.

I'll get to the pm's down the line, but for now, I'm going to bed.

[ERode]

Medium

^{Normal Vibes}

Name: Sandy Samejima
Age: 15
Grade: 10
Gender: Female
Normal Appearance: Sandy’s 5'2 and has difficulty deciding whether she should be angling her head upwards or downwards when shooting menacing glares.

Medium Appearance: Sandy’s still 5'2, but now that she can fly, she’s a whole lot more inclined to not care about her height. Her face becomes softer too, which, oddly enough, makes her expressions even creepier when she bares her gaping maw full of razor sharp incisors.

Personality: Sandy has straight As and zero fudge. After a relatively dormant Grade 8, she has finally hit her rebellious puberty years, and dang has she hit it hard. The only time she pulls down her surgical mask is to eat or to snarl/frown/sneer at people, and her eyes are fixed to a permanent glare as she stalks aggressively around everywhere. She doesn’t do teamwork, and like heck she’s gonna give a rat’s arse about whatever saccharine sophistry those seniors spout about society and solidarity. It’s a dog-eat-dog world out there, and there’s no way Sandy’s gonna be a chump any longer, going with the flow and all that jazz. Nuh-uh, she’s a lone wolf now, and though they don’t make tombstones for stray dogs, she won’t have to beg and do tricks for treats either. A solitary predator in a world of thieves and backstabbers, that’s what Sandy is.

Background
The Samejimas were first generation immigrants, hardy folk who moved to America in anticipation of future trouble from the East Asian mainland. Though a Masters in Engineering back in Japan, Mr. Samejima’s credentials weren’t accepted or put on the same standard as degrees earned from domestic institutions, and he worked as a labourer in construction sites. Mrs. Samejima’s fortune was greater though. As laws around gambling loosened up and casinos began to boom, she wormed her way up the professional ladder of one of the larger casino franchises, until she received a management position at the Ocean Spray Casino in Lakewood City.

Which was great, because it meant a big boost in income and gave Mr. Samejima the chance to turn into a full-time housedad. But it was also terrible, because Sandy was seven years old, had just gotten her first all-American friend AND NOW THEY’LL NEVER BE FRIENDS AGAIN, SINCE LONG DISTANCE FRIENDSHIPS NEVER WORK.

For a while, she was bitter about it. But fiber optic Internet, an IPad, a room to herself, and daily meat dishes bought her acceptance of the situation soon enough. With that, Sandy lived, studied, played, and enjoyed herself. Her dad really was stupidly smart, and his tutoring made her smart as well. They had a nice house in the suburbs, a mini-garden where they grew cherry tomatoes, and went on a vacation every two years to somewhere safe and historic, usually European. All in all, Sandy lived a privileged, happy life.

That didn’t even change when this ghost shark tackled her when she was 12 and made a contract with her. Sharkie was cool, after all, and being able to swim how she wanted was cool too. Of course, her parents were overly concerned with the whole idea of their child making a contract right under their noses with no supervision, probably having her soul sold in some way in the process, but Sandy was just happy for a chance to do some cool things.

What changed then, to twist her so?

Her image, really. Just her image.

Other: “Yer talking pretty big fer someone in biting range, aren’tcha.”
While one may be deceived into thinking that the shark plushie Sandy has is the sealed form of Sharkie, it’s really just a plushie of a Pokemon she thought was cool.

Spirit

^{Channeled and True Form}

Spirit Name: Shequerasomuiezhruk, simplified as Sharkie
Spirit Classification: Broodling
Sealed Appearance: Shequerasomuiezhruk’s sealed form is a set of dentures, emulating rows of pointy teeth. Chomp chomp indeed. It’s actually a bit of a pain to wear them all the time, so Sandy keeps them in her pockets and has a neat sleight-of-hand trick to pop them in her mouth when she pulls her mask down to aggressively gnash at people.

Spirit Appearance: Shequerasomeuizhruk’s true form is not that of a shark, it’s that of a manta ray with a tentacle face. Big difference. Though to Sandy’s credit, it IS as big as a tiger shark. Sorta weird that it has four eyes though, two glassy, telescopic ones at the front, and two normal, beady ones at the sides.

Spirit Personality: Shequerasomeuizhruk sorta just drifts about doing whatever it wants to. Most of the time, it adopts a subtle bemusement towards Sandy’s existence, but otherwise, it just lazily floats in the air, indolent and passive. Occasionally though, it’ll have a sudden burst of activity, and nag the ever loving crud out of Sandy until she does what it wants. Usually, that involves trespassing.

Other Information: Shequerasomeuizhruk has six tentacles. The two longest ones are its limbs, while the four smaller ones are its mouths. More specifically, each one is a mouth. That makes Sharkie a one shark Barbershop quartet, which is honestly quite pleasant. It also beatboxes though, and Sandy likes that vibe more.

Contract

^{Unlimited Power}

Contract Background
When the Yggdrasil Contract happened a millennia ago, it wasn’t just all the Spirits on Earth that was affect, but all the Spirits that were simply passing by as well. The original Shequerasomeuizhruk was one such creature, a space-faring Spirit ripped apart by the effects of the calamitous contract and tossed down unto the blasted Earth by the consequence of a power it could not understand. Diminished as it was, it would never gain the might to scrape the starscape once more, never drink the vapours of nebula, never dive into the vortex of a meteor strike, never rejoin its space-faring brethren.

It did not understand, so it will understand.

Centuries passed, and it continued to expand its understanding, contracting with Mediums before splitting itself off to widen the search for knowledge, widen the search for oddity. One day it will learn. One day they will learn. And once they do, they will transmit that knowledge to the rest of the universe by whatever means necessary, to prevent such calamity from befalling any other kin upon those far-off star systems.

A thousand years have passed, and the 112nd broodling of the original Shequerasomeuizhruk was not so picky with what Medium it chose, what terms it needed to serve. So it offered its service to a child, and the child accepted.

That was all, and that is all.

Channeling Abilities
Though still bound to the planet that imprisoned its original, when Channeled, Shequerasomeuizhruk enables Sandy to move in any direction she likes, regardless of gravity or any other force and obstacle. She can phase through non-magical objects, move with no concern for inertia, and do all sorts of wonky things when freed from any law of motion. While this doesn’t allow her to cheat her way into superstrength, as any object she’s incapable of moving will be automatically phased through, this does allow Sandy to move without physically moving.

Beyond that, however, Sandy is also able to select a portion of space to transport into her stomach, a stomach that, in her Channeled form, is a hammerspace sphere with a fifty meter radius. While this is great for keeping all sorts of handy dandy stuff, such as extra snacks, bandaids, and batteries, this is even better for swallowing people whole and just casually transporting them with her as she swims through the sky. Of course, she could swallow angry, unfriendly people too, converting her stomach space into a time-out zone, but if they were to attack the boundaries of the hammerspace sphere, she would feel that. Attack enough times and she’ll throw up, spewing the contents of her stomachspace right in front of her before actually vomiting too.

Not fun, definitely.

Also she can bite very hard. Like, shark-hard. It’s the only real badass thing she can do.

Weaknesses: Sandy’s main offensive tool is biting hard. Biting is a very close-range thing to do, and she needs to be tangible to do it too. With no durability to speak of, that’s usually not smart.

While Channeled!Sandy can phase through physical objects just fine, her maximum limit for intangibility is set by her lungs, which is currently two minutes, and she's incapable of phasing through magically-generated/enhanced physical matter, including the flesh of Mediums.

[BayRat]

@ERode

I think this mostly works out, though I think the matter phasing could be nerfed slightly. Is it fine if we apply a limit in that Sandy can't breathe when phasing through matter, like swimming under water, and therefor can't remain doing so without suffocated to avoid any super cheese with it; Not that I don't trust you with that ability I just like some expanded limitation on it.