Franc and Stein's Polytechnic Institute (a school for mad scientists)

[Gisk]

Hey folks! This is a reboot/rebranding of an older idea. I originally started to set it up as a 1x1, but had so many ideas for the setting that I wanted to try to expound it.

Here's the premise in a nutshell:

A slice of life story, set in a steam punk, faux-Victorian world, and focused on a school for mad scientists.

I have a few ideas for sort of "events" to stir up drama, but it will be pretty sandbox, though with a pretty small box.

I may still be adding to the lore, and if you have any questions, feel free to ask. Your questions might help shape the world, and I'm always open to suggestions!

Regarding setting and culture: This RP takes place in Europe in the first half of the 19th century, however it is obviously very much alternative history, bordering real close on fantasy. I'm not going to be a huge stickler for historical accuracy, as long as we make a reasonable effort to keep things thematic.

If we find that we need to specify a year, we can(or if anyone is enough if a history buff to have a suggestion, feel free).
And society in our alt history is going to be a good deal more progressive. Hence the co-ed classes, and people of all backgrounds attending school together.

Regarding posting standards and pacing:
I have no requirements for post length, as long as grammar and spelling are reasonable, and the post makes narrative sense. Sometimes short posts are called for, and sometimes long posts are inappropriate. Just make sure that it's furthering the story.

I don't usually have a posting order, just try not to post back to back. I'd like to see everyone post about once a week, but if we get in a groove and go faster, that's fine. Let us know if there's a delay, or if you need us to skip you or auto-pilot your character.

Regarding rules: I'm pretty casual, so follow site rules, be respectful, and we should be fine. If I ask something to be changed, I'll usually allow you to argue your case, but reserve the right to make all final decisions.

This RP is meant to be inclusive, and the one thing I will not tolerate is disrespect toward your fellow players.

The School

Franc and Stein's Polytechnic Institute

Non rex nisi iustitia
Non deus nisi ratio
((This is meant to say "no king but justice, no god but reason," but I used Google translate, anyone who knows Latin better can feel free to help correct it))

Franc's is a school dedicated to teaching the many sciences that mankind has discovered. The school is co-ed and multinational, and maintains a strict policy of neutrality. Neutrality necessitating independence, the school has long since abandoned a traditional campus, and instead is held on an airship that floats above Europe, occasionally straying into Asia or the Atlantic.

The Disciplines

Franc's teaches a wide variety of subjects and classes, but they are categorized into five disciplines, based primarily on application. The disciplines have a fair amount if overlap, and can also be specialized down further. It is primarily used to help organize the students based on skill and affinity.

Medicine: The practice of diagnosing and treating the many ailments of the frail human form.

Chemistry: The properties of different substances, their reactions with each other, and their uses.

Resurrection: The reanimation of dead tissue to create resurrected creatures("resurrect" is also used as a noun to describe the products of this process). Both animal and human parts are used, and combining parts from different animals is common(though more difficult). Resurrection is achieved by creating a sound body, balancing said body’s humors, and applying a current of aether to catalyze the many physical reactions that constitute life.
A resurrect is trained toward whatever purpose for which it is made through intense conditioning, and this behavior modification is almost a discipline unto itself.

Engineering: There is a great deal of specialization within the wide field of engineering, but it can be broadly divided into mechanical and aetheric. As a whole engineering is concerned with the design and creation of machines and structures.

Automation: A newer discipline, with a lot of overlap in engineering. Automation is focused on creating machines that can act on predetermined protocols, without the need for constant and direct control from a human being. It was first developed as an offshoot of clockwork.

The Airship

Named for the school that it serves as campus, the NKNM Frankenstein is the largest airship in the world. At three hundred and seventy meters, it's a veritable palace. It has a rigid envelope of aluminum construction, and uses helium for its buoyancy, rather than the far more common(and dangerous) hydrogen.
The gondola runs most of the length and width of the envelope, and is the primary structure of the school itself. It has two decks, but the upper deck is off limits to students, and contains much of what is needed to run the school. The aft half of the upper deck is engineering, and immediately forward of the engine rooms is the airshipmen's barracks. Next is the captains quarters, followed by private quarters and studies for the school's faculty.

The School

Towards the end of each summer, the teachers travel separately across Europe to administer placement exams at borrowed campuses. Both new and returning students must take these exams, as they determine what classes a student qualifies for, as well as what privileges they may receive(such as private lab space). Applicants are graded zero through four in each of the five disciplines taught at Franc and Stein's, and any prospective student who scores at least a one in at least two disciplines is invited to attend.

The school will accept absolutely anybody who can pass their exam with an acceptable score, but tuition is quite expensive, so many of the students are upper class. There are, however, a plethora of groups who are willing to sponsor students, so many poor(but gifted) applicants take the exam anyway, and hope for a sponsor if their scores net them an invitation.

Teachers

Doctor Thelonious Franc, a seventy year old Dutch man. Dr. Franc is the curmudgeonly school administrator. While he loves the students dearly as a whole, he doesn't seem to like them much on an individual basis. Any student who transgresses egregiously enough to be sent to his office is in for the harshest punishments the school provides. In addition to running the school, Dr. Franc also teaches mechanical engineering classes for the most advanced students.

Doctor Jurgen Vogel, a fifty-six year old German man. Soft-spoken and a little morose, Dr. Vogel is nonetheless well respected by students and faculty alike. He is widely considered the kindest of the teachers, and the most inviting of confidence. Dr. Vogel teaches chemistry and metallurgy.

Mister Isaac Turing, a thirty-five year old American man. Mister Turing is an anxious perfectionist. He has a jittery manner, and can become quite irritable if things don't go the way he expects. He teaches protocol for automatons, as well as mathematics in general.

Professor Tallulah Toste, a 48 year old British woman. A stickler for manners, it is widely joked that Professor Toast is the unofficial etiquette teacher at the school. She tends towards the indulgent side, and can be manipulated by polite flattery and good manners. Professor Toste teaches physics, aetheric principles, and mechanical engineering.

Miss Jane Walthrop, a 27 year old British woman. Though polite and perennially helpful, she is often marked by her distinct lack of humor. She doesn't seem overly serious, but rather misses the joke most of the time. She does, however, have a quiet appreciation for puns. Miss Walthrop teaches gross anatomy, biology, and behavior.

Science

Generally speaking, we are working off of a very fantasticalized version of science, here. Below are a few basic concepts, but feel free to expound when writing your posts!

Humors

A living body contains three humors, which help it to function. Their balance is of vital importance to the health of an individual. In a living being, humors can be balanced by healthy activity, and can be unbalanced by poor health. In a resurrected creature, they must be calculated carefully, and checked for proper balance. The balance of humors in a rezzie(to use the commoner's parlance) is not the same as its living counterpart, simply because they are not living.

Red humors bring vitality and vigor. A deficit would leave one sluggish and weak. An excess causes fever and inflammation. Resurrects, being sensitive as they are to heat and fire, can be greatly affected by this excess, risking damage to valuable components.

Yellow humors aid in the function of the organs, and the purification of the body. Their balance is more complicated than simply too much or too little, as the location in the body is a good deal more important. Imbalanced yellow humors can cause bad smell, irregular bowels, and can cause a bad reaction to drink.

Gray humors relate to thought and intelligence. Select few physicians work with these, and resurrects are afforded very little, as they need only be intelligent enough to obey.

Aether

A mysterious force that exists all around us. Though it is capable of permeating any matter, it has been discovered that it tends to collect in vacuums(it is theorized that the vacuum beyond our atmosphere is dense with Aether, but no airship can reach that high… yet). As a result, vacuumed glass tubes can be used to collect, store, and direct aether, which can power devices and produce a wide variety of effects under the right circumstances.

Character Sheet

Please add a picture reference at the top. No real photographs, please.

Name:
Age:
Gender:
Appearance and dress: There should be a picture reference above, but feel free to expound on how they typically dress, as well as their demeanor.

Background: A brief description of who they are and how they came to attend Franc and Stein's. Bear in mind that you will need to explain how the character has the knowledge to qualify, and how they can afford the school.

Connections: Any other people that they have useful or meaningful connections with. This can be NPCs or other players. A few examples would be a patron that paid your character's tuition, a relative who is powerful, either through nobility or capital. Please ask before making a connection with a character(NPC or PC) that another player created.

Test scores:
Medicine:
Chemistry:
Resurrection:
Engineering:
Automation:

Test scores are rated 0-4, and determine privileges and classes that a student is eligible for. The minimum is at least a one in at least two separate disciplines. At present there is no maximum, unless I feel the need to make one. For reference, a score of 1 represents someone at an under graduate level, a 4 is someone taking classes of the highest level the school offers for the discipline in question.

Sphere: Students are divided into groups called "Spheres," based on the total of their scores. I will not be telling you where the divisions are, or how many Spheres there are, until the start of the story. So leave this blank until then.

Specialties: The five Disciplines are quite broad, and represent a wide range of different skills and concepts. Here you can specify what sort of work your character does, and what they are best at. Here you can get creative, throw anything at the wall and I'll let you know if anything doesn't stick.

[Fading Memory]

Wild.

[Skwint]

This looks interesting.

[Wiltinglily]

Interested

[Fading Memory]

To elaborate on my ‘wild’, it gives me vibes of a young adult novel series I read as a young teenager that left long lasting impressions on me. Thusly, I am interested. Thusly, Wild.

[Expendable]

Mad science. Fun.

[Martian]

Interested in this as well.

[scribblehead]

I'm very interested, but I have some questions. What is the typical age range for players you're expecting? You mentioned the schooling being equivalent to undergraduate level at the base level, but would that also be the age range? Would there be exceptions made for very young savants, or older characters who have gone back to school now that they have the time or money? I'm also curious about ressurects versus automations. The Automations have the advantage of being able to complete the same tasks without an involved teaching process, but would they be less or more sturdy compared to ressurects? I imagine ressurects would have to deal with some level of decomposition, even if it's extended or extremely slowed by the aether, so would they eventually fall apart? Could someone combine automations and ressurects to create a hybrid with unique pros and cons? You also called the school "Franc and Stein" and include a Franc as the headmaster, who I'm assuming is the descendant of the Franc founder, but what happened to Stein or his family?

[Gisk]

@scribblehead So there's no age limitations imposed by the school. I meant it when I said they will take literally anyone who can pass the test and pay the tuition. I think the average range is what you might see at your average college between late teens to mid twenties, but there absolutely are outliers.

A resurrect is functionally "alive," so they will heal if properly maintained but they do require maintenance, as their humors need to be kept in balance. The better they are constructed, the easier this is. The highest quality are self regulating. Resurrects have legal limitations on how smart they can be(in this world, how much of the "gray humors" they are allowed).

An automaton will, given the same inputs, always perform a given task exactly the same way. Resurrects meanwhile, have a certain amount of variation, depending on their conditioning. Automatons are definitely sturdier than resurrects, typically, being machines rather than flesh. An automaton can operate in circumstances that a resurrect never could. In extreme heat or cold, for instance, or an an absence of oxygen, or a toxic environment. Automation is a new science, however, whereas resurrection has been in use for decades.

There's no hybrid at present, but hey, maybe one of our students will be the one to make that leap!

Thelonious Franc is one of the founders. Stein died years ago, I will clarify a timeline a little later.

[Expendable]

@Gisk - What is the general policy concerning transplants and prosthetics? Say an eye transplant and an arm prosthetic?

Is it possible and what are the states of these two?

[Gisk]

@Gisk - What is the general policy concerning transplants and prosthetics? Say an eye transplant and an arm prosthetic?

@Expendable

Great question! Transplants are relatively common practice, including whole body parts like a hand, foot, arm or leg. An eye is doable, but a doctor capable of it would be considered nothing short of an artist. It's been done, but it still makes the papers when it's successful.

Mechanical prosthetics are a different matter. At present there's no machine-nerve interface(again, maybe something a student works on!), so any mechanical prosthetic will fall short of the bionic arm that you might envision. They'll tend to be simple and clumsy, though a clever engineer can find ways to make them functional and useful. Just like we do with mechanical prosthetics today.

Regarding culture: lower class folks take a pretty utilitarian approach, and won't scoff at whatever it takes to get a working arm back. But higher class people see (obvious) transplants and prosthetics as a sign of poor health. So a wealthy person would try very hard to find the very best doctor, and a replacement part that looks as much like their own as possible.

Lower quality transplantations also require more care to keep them healthy. Lopsided arms, or a lumbering gait can be signs of poorer trasnplant work, no matter how the recipient tries to hide it.

Worth noting that those attitudes are in society as a whole, but on board the NKNM Frankenstein, scientific curiosity will often win out over decorum, even among the high born.

[Expendable]

So transplants are the better choice.

[Gisk]

@BenG85 a quick nudge, as you expressed interest in the previous thread.

@Expendable

Well for an eye there's not really another option at present. For an arm it depends on the person, but I assume you know what you're thinking of for your character better than I would.

I'm going to make some write ups for more tech and science that has been formally established. For the purposes of your own writing, the rule of thumb is basically as long as it doesn't directly contradict something that's already been said, you can probably do it. I'll say something if you do something that's too far out there, but I'm hoping to see creativity, so I'll endeavor to make most things work, if you're willing to work with me.

[Expendable]

For this character, the upper class reactions to transplants helps. Pity about the poor state of prosthetics.

You mentioned you would do some basic tech write ups - I'm assuming that gunpowder and other explosives are available?

[Gisk]

Yeah, for sure there's gunpowder.

And don't write mechanical prosthetics off completely! There's a lot you can do with them, even if you can't link to nerves directly.

[scribblehead]

@Gisk Thank you for answering my questions. :)

[RickyG85]

@Giskhey, thanks for thinking of me, but this was so long ago I kinda lost interest...

[Noktys]

@Gisk I find this quite interesting.

[Czelsc]

I am interested if this is still open.

[Gisk]

@Noktys@Czelsc

Yeah, I'm still in the interest check phase, so it's definitely still open.

If you're interested, you can feel free to post a CS here in the thread, so I can see what kinds of characters people are making.