Destiny Reborn! A Dark Fantasy Isekai with a twist.

[BayRat]

In the fantastical world of Harvess, it is said that those reincarnated from another world bring with them a great destiny. In truth, however, it is not order that these people bring, but chaos. Historically this chaos has been dressed up as 'order', to control the darkness that looms and waits beneath the depths of this great world. Normally, reincarnation occurs naturally, dead solves from one world crossing into the next, being born again as a newborn. There are circumstances where instead of being reborn, reincarnated are instead revived with their memories intact of their previous world. And it these individuals that harbor great power or potential; often they arrive in this new world having made a contract with a paladin artifact, turning them into great heroes.

But what would happen if those brought from the other world were forced into roles that weren't heroic? How will their choices then reflect Harvess and its peoples. What Chaos would that bring? That was what the former adviser to the demon lord wondered. This mysterious shadow to the king of demons enacted a great ritual that brought disaster to the other world, dragging in a great number of souls from various walks of life, and harvesting many of them into the roles of monsters. The consequences of this ritual also seemed to bring fourth a great deal of disaster and chaos to Harvess too, beyond those reincarnated, a resurgence of monsters, powerful natural disasters, and great sicknesses all plagued the land during what would be now called the year of Hell on Earth.

Farance, the great kingdom of heroes and legends, were not all without hope though. The Arsenal of the Paladin Corps had intervened, making contracts with souls entering harvess to save them from their fate as monsters and turning them to heroes. The Mage College of Sarafel, and the Holy Church, were also successful in salvaging many souls, keeping them human in their new lives. Though the influx of refugees would only hurt the kingdom while suffering through this hellish year. Those that had made contracts with the sacred artifacts, and other refugees who would be recruited by the various factions of the kingdom, would be trained to prepare to save this blighted world (And earn their keep.)

Your character is a Reincarnated. Apparently a great destiny awaits you! Or from what people say. However, as mentioned, this disaster did not just bring in an influx of new heroes, but new monsters as well. Even those saved from such a fate we're not all made heroes, some due to their lack of potential or laziness had to acclimate in lower statuses. So you get to pick from the options of: HERO! (Chosen Paladin, you made a contract with one of the aforementioned Paladin weapons before being revived.) Mage! (You were recruited by the College to study magic, for the most part mages are not as powerful as Chosen Paladins, but reincarnated people often have enough potential that they can learn to be skilled mages quicky.) MONSTER: You along with many others were dumped in this world with some sort of terrible curse (or blessing, depending on how you look at it.) but regardless, people hate you and are hunting you down, including the heroes of this story. You get to pick from three races (Children of Hecate), Witch, Vampire, Skinwalker/Werewolf. Each have their own conditions, but all are hunted by Paladins. (This is more for people that want to have a villain PC or what have you, so be advised.) OTHER: not everyone that was reincarnated is as destined for greatness as people say. Perhaps you are a knight's errant to a paladin, a measely squire in training. A humble priest at the Church, a powerless rogue learning the tricks of the trade from the thieves' guild, or hell, pick up farming. If you wanna help out the monster PCS/NPCS without being a monster yourself? Certainly. Everyone has free will after all.

The Adventurer's Guild is a sort of unified collection of the various factions of Farance to help get heroes fight monsters and do other things to help out. They have a bounty board for hunting monsters and criminals, as well as jobs posted to say, escort travelers or deliver goods. Graduated Members of each faction use the guild as their primary source of income and place to hangout.

I don't want to get too indepth with the power system since there is a lot of info, especially regarding magic, so i'll try to keep the main topics brief.

Paladin

Think magical girl but a knight. You have a special connection to a weapon that has a powerful soul inside (Can be a witch's soul, demon, some magical beast like a dragon or phoenix, an angel, etc.) Its common for these weapons to have lost the ability to retain sapience, and even still those that do rarely are able to communicate. The contract is more of an instinctual process then a verbal or written form. To many that even recall it its more like a personalized dream as the weapon seeks out a 'worthy master'.
Paladins are trained to use 'ki' or spiritual power to enhance themselves, granting them basic superhuman ability (Strength, speed, etc.) They can't do magic on their own, whatever powers they have are linked directly to their special weapon that is soul-bonded to them. They have a transformation sequence for their knight form, the weapon typically has one special trait, and an 'ultimate' technique (Which can be like, another transformation, or a really big attack, etc.)

Magi

Magic is rooted in the five elements: Spirit, Fire, Earth, Water, Air. Every soul has an affinity towards one element (Even if you can't do magic.) Sorcery refers to elemental magic based on one of the aformentioned elements, or 'compound sorcery' which is dervied from a combination of two elements. A magi that can perform sorcery is usually only able to use the element they have an affinity with. So someone with a fire affinity can naturally only cast fire. With a wand however (One of the most important tools for magic users), the affinity bound to the wand can act as a medium to cast a secondary element sorcery. Its also possible for some to unlock a 'lesser affinity' for both use of sorcery and vocational magic to further expand their power over magic.

Vocational magic are the more 'magic' kind of spells, derived from the combination of three elements. There are five combinations, and a 'white' and 'black' magic version of that combination; Evocations and Invocations respectively. Restoration, for example, or healing magic, is derived from Spirit Water and Fire. Whereas its inverse, Execration, or death magic, takes the same elements but is used for well, necromancy.

You do not need to be able to use sorceries to cast vocational magic, nor do you need vocational magic to do sorceries.

Humans and most creatures are only able to perform White magic. (Sorcery is a neutral magic and doesn't really apply here, this is just in the context of white versus black magic.) If one were to cast black magic, they will become a warlock. A mage that has been cursed by the first black magic spell they cast. In addition to never being cursed to no longer being able to cast white magic, the curse of the warlock has additional side-effects based on what type of black magic they first tried to cast. Necromancy, or execration, for example, can render someone permanently magically ill, or develop undead-like symptoms. A mage using the invocation of transmutation to turn things into gold, may end up slowly being petrified into gold themselves. While some magic can exist to alleviate the symptoms of these curses, the only cures are to either give up magic altogether forever, or to embrace the dark powers and become a monster.

However, one can bypass becoming a warlock with a familiar. A familiar is a being that is soul-bonded to a magi, typically by either contract or subjugation. By having their familiar take the burden of casting a black magic spell, they can avoid being cursed themselves. Familiars have other benefits too, as they can assist casting vocational magic with their own affiliated element, or be used as a powerful summon; depending upon the type of familiar. Conventional familiars can just be an ordinary pet, like a cat or dog. Powerful monsters may end up in similarly passive forms as contracted demons and magical beasts may have their powers sealed.

Warrior

Before The formation of paladins, warriors are the original and fundamental 'strength' of humanity. Like Paladins they train in the use of Ki to enhance their powers and martial arts. They are essentially Knights without paladin weapons, and difference schools teach different styles of martial arts from hand-to-hand to specific weaponry like swords or archery.

Rogue

The thieves' guilds do not have any fancy powers like the other factions. They are first and foremost merchants, thieves, brigands, mercenaries, and most importantly, scouts. They have stocks of various magical items that the more privileged members may exploit, but are otherwise not suited for combat. Instead they focus on stealth, travel, dungeon-crawling, deception, espionage, intelligence, etc. Due to these skills they are often useful in guild parties for this reason. If nothing else to provide information to the concerned party.

Priests

Priests/Priestesses serve the Light, the disembodied divine god of Farance. They do not do magic, and in fact, can't as part of their holy vows. Instead they can perform miracles through their divine worship. Miracles range from the ability to heal, to cast light, warding away undead, creating holy water, etc. There is a limit to how many miracles a priest can perform in a given day, depending upon the strength of the miracle, and how much favor they have earned to The Light.

Squire

generally refers to Paladin members that aren't chosen Paladins nor a common knight. They instead serve a knight, or preferably, a chosen Paladin as their sidekick essentially. They don't do anything special on their own.

Witches

For whatever reason, perhaps because Hecate insists that witches are her 'daughters', all witches are female. Witches can either be born from another witch (union with a human typically), or a human that undertakes a special ritual. In the reincarnated case this technically applies to them, though they wouldnt be aware of the ritual itself due to just being killed in one world and re-awakening in the next.

Witches have the divine Authority of Hecate to be able to cast both white and black magic without restriction. This alone is a powerful trait they share. They are immortal spellcasters with bodies that may appear like ordinary woman (Albeit it isn't entirely uncmmon for them to have hints of supernatural traits, which may include any of the following: glowing eyes, horns, claws, unusual skin tone (Like Green or Blue), and other strange miscellaneous details (Like having a duck's foot for a left foot as an extreme weird example. Others can also appear identical to humans with no apparent traits.) But are in truth are more magical then biological. All witches bear the mark of Hecate on some feature of their body, such as their eye, tongue, on their wrist, neck, etc. It should go without saying that all witches are indeed powerful spellcasters, and even those reincarnated who have only recently become witches would find themselves with great power.

Witches do not need to eat, drink or sleep, as they are no longer 'biologically' alive in that sense, though they can still partake in any of those activities without issue. The only stipulation is that they occasionally need to eat a human soul to retain their power and avoid becoming feral.

Being immortal, so long as their head is intact they can remain conscience, and even if there head is destroyed their bodies will naturally regenerate. The only way to destroy a witch is to destroy their core. A Crystal-like structure usually within where their heart would be. Cores aren't easy to destroy, but powerful magic or silvered weapons are both effective against it. Destroying the core will destroy the witch, but unfortunately for the witch instead of instead death its a slow, agonizing one; It can be quiet the variety as a witch may slowly petrify and crumble away, disintegrate to dust, slowly crack and light up until they finally explode, melt away wicked witch style along with other slow and dramatic ways to die. As their own immortality works against them, they will remain sapient until completely destroyed in this way.

Vampire

True Vampires are normally only born, and humans that have turned into vampires are 'vampire spawn', lesser vampires. In the case of the reincarnated though, those that became vampires awakened as true vampires instead of spawns, perhaps due to the unique circumstances of becoming a vampire in this case.

vampires are incredibly power, and sort of work like an inverse to Ki, as their undeath renders them incredibly superhuman. In addition to strength and speed, being able to see in the dark, superhuman reflexes, the works are all under their power. Vampires normally aren't able to cast magic, but due inherit unique powers, usually posessing three. These can include turning into a a bat, swarm of bats, monster bat form, a wolf form, mist form, being able to hypnotize people with their gaze, freezing people on contact, any other tropic vampire traits you can think of probably apply as well.

Being undead, they do not need to eat, drink, or sleep to survive (Though they'll need to drink blood to retain sanity, more on that later), they do not need to breathe, aren't vulnerable to conventional illness, all that. So long as a vampire's heart beats, they can regenerate from any injury, with exception to if their head is destroyed, thats usually game over. Staking the heart to prevent it from healing itself will also immediately paralyze a vampire, which can make them easier to destroy afterwards. (Staking doesn't necessarily kill the vampire, removing the stake aftewards will revive them.)

Aside from their vulnerability to holyness, like holy water, and things that ward undead. Fire is somewhat effective against them, not they are any less vulnerable to fire as a normal person, but combined with the bright light can disorient them as they burn. They can't swim, Garlic renders them nauseous, Sunlight burns them away, wounds inflicted from silver are harder to recover from, etc.

Feeding on blood will make a vampire seem more alive, as they are drained of blood, they'll retain more monstrous appearances like paler skin, gaunt physique, etc more assocaited with a vampire, and may even appear to age. If they starve themselves on blood completely, they'll turn into a strigoi, or feral vampire; Which are lanky, pale bat-like monstrosities of vampires that have given in to animalistic instincts and loss of intelliegnece.

Skinwalkers

The shapeshifters. When a skinwalker is born, they are typically associated with a type of animal that they can turn into. While mastery over this form is possible, usually they have no control over it, and become feral half-man half-beast monstrosities under the full moon. Skin walkers are resistant to most forms of damage, save from silver, which is a critical weakness to them. Like vampires they can only be destroyed by destroying the head. Skinwalkers that have mastered their powers can change forms at will, and can even adopt new forms from people or animals they've killed. This can be particularly troublesome if they happen to shapeshift and imitate a loved one, as they can even replicate memories of their shapeshifted target.

As alluded to, in the world of Harvess there are other things in this vast world beyond humans and this struggle. Mythical beasts roam the earth, Elves and Dwarves are the other two prominent races but as they are mostly isolated and aren't involved in the reincarnation destiny that humans seem to be in, aren't tied to the story necessarily.

[Dezuel]

I would like to show my interest for this :) Paladin time!

[Dr Acula]

You have an interested Magi or Alchemist on your hands. Alchemy = super useful for adventurers and occasionally need escorting or fetching rare ingredients.

[banjoanjo]

Interested

[BayRat]

@Dr Acula

Ah that should be interesting? I haven't listed out the full magic system but just so you're aware Alchemy or potion making is a form of spell-medium, in that spells can be imbued in potion form.

[PapiTan]

Mayhaps, bninch.

[Dr Acula]

@Dr Acula

Ah that should be interesting? I haven't listed out the full magic system but just so you're aware Alchemy or potion making is a form of spell-medium, in that spells can be imbued in potion form.

@BayRat

Oh, that actually sounds really cool!

[VarionusNW]

Consider me tentatively interested, hue hue.

[Snagglepuss89]

Been a couple years since I've done much writing, I might poke my head in.

[BayRat]

I am currently working on the OOC, but here is a discord link.

discord.gg/aceaMfCy

@Snagglepuss89@VarionusNW@Dr Acula@PapiTan@banjoanjo@Dezuel

[BayRat]

roleplayerguild.com/topics/193022-des… The ooc is also done.

[Kazemitsu]

I'm curious. Are skinwalkers naturally evil or are they just considered evil/bad because of what they can do?

[BayRat]

@Kazemitsu
Considered evil, like the other monsters they still have human feelings and free will and all that. Though most, especially newborn skinwalkers (Which there are many given the cataclysm), can't control themselves under a full moon; much like a werewolf. And do have a preference of eating human flesh.

[Kazemitsu]

@BayRat Do they have a physical tell on what they are beyond the newbie berserking?

[BayRat]

@Kazemitsu
Divination magic can reveal them, along with them being sensitive to silver or holy stuff, otherwise they'll uusally resemble ordinary people.

[Kazemitsu]

@BayRat So so long as ya dont get all dumb or an active hunt isnt going on you're pretty safe? XD Also what kind of animal variants are available? (yes lotsa question x.x )

[BayRat]

@KazemitsuNot exactly. Inquisitors and hunters are pretty actively hunting monsters like it will employ people that can detect them if they have any leads on nearby stuff. And of course, if you end up feral in a full moon in or nearby a populated area thats another problem. But yeah, there are ways to avoid it. Generally not a good idea to live near major cities for those reasons.

In theory, a skin walker's first form can be any non-mythical animal. But mammals like wolves, bears, and deer are the most common. Skinwalkers that learn to shapeshift at will can take the form of any other non-mythical animal they kill, even humans, though its key to note that in order to have evolved a skin walker needs to have killed and eaten a few humans before they can gain control over their power.

[Archazen]

I'm tentative on this, I was wondering if you'd be open to a paladin but with a harsher edge? Perhaps more of a cursed weapon? I have this idea of a reincarnate being chosen by a weapon that wants him to be evil etc. but he constantly fights against this? He'd generally fight against using his transformation?

[Kazemitsu]

@BayRat Aww only non-mythical animals allowed? XD

[BayRat]

@Archazen

Hmm, it would be hard to make that. Paladin weapons that aren’t ‘pro Paladin’ are more or less locked up or destroyed, or made sure they at least lose their awareness before unsealing them. There might be some cursed items out there that can fulfill what you’re looking for, but they wouldn’t be a Paladin in those cases.

@Kazemitsu It would be pretty op all things considered if they can turn into mythical monsters as well. Their hybrid forms are usually sufficient to rival a vampire regardless of the type.