[OOC] Essence of the World: The New Age [CLOSED]

[Themerlinhawk]

Okay cool. I actually like Rtron's suggestion of having him move his soul to a statue and then convert the statue to a living breathing person, I like the allusion to greek mythology that has in it. And it is also kind of a cool little surprise to have in Lazarus’ back pocket

And since I’m currently still fleshing out my characters magical repertoire I have some questions relating to some of the schools of magic (at least what I deem to be schools of magic)

If you want to PM me an answer please feel free I think it might be cool to have a few tricks up my sleeve for when the game starts but if you have to okay some of these with the other players thats cool too and you could just post it here.

since you mentioned it lets start with Necromancy:
I tend to think of this school as manipulation of life force is that in line with how you view it? and are you thinking the classic: Raise undead, summon spirits, bring people back to life type of necromancer or did you have something else in mind.

Abjuration and Evocation I think you pretty much covered with the whole bit about angel magic vs demon magic

As far as Divination is concerned are we talking Oracle status where what you see in the future is set in stone? or is it kind of a murky sense of what might be? (I'm just assuming that farseeing, reading peoples thoughts, sensing demons/angels/magic and sorting through past events also fall under this category but I don’t have any specific questions about them)

Enchantment: So I noticed that Rtron said something about body switching falling under “altering people personality with magic”. I'm assuming Enchantment is a no-no with magic in this setting? Which being said I noticed Luciana’s snake bite ability seems to break that rule. Any clarification here would be awesome.

Illusion I don’t have any questions about as the Miracle Angel entry pretty much covered it

As far as Alchemy is concerned I'm assuming Magic has to play by the Laws of Physics for the most part so I'm assuming matter has to be conserved when changing one substance to another. Also could magic theoretically be used to alter the properties of a material (I.E. make stone maliable like clay, make wood as strong as steel, ect...)

Sorry if I’m being super detail oriented right now I just don’t want to step on anyones toes!

[yoshua171]

Haha, oh no, Enchantment is quite viable actually! I kind of helped spearhead that particular branch of magic (which is purely human and is ancient as all hell, though it was seldom used due to most humans being unable to access their own essence waaay back when). It's called the Art of Athriohm, though you can enchant without it, it's very useful to utilize it as it's a proven and effective method.

I'll give you the basic description for now, and keep working on the write up I started awhile back for a more indepth description of it.

The Art of Athriohm:
An ancient magic of unknown origin, Athriohm has to deal with the manipulation of various magical energies, both from the user and various materials and the like. Most practitioners of the Art are able to pull various energies out of even inanimate objects, as each thing that exists holds its own power, effect, or inherent traits. One might call this essence, but perhaps not. Regardless, the Art is capable of then imbuing the essence(s) it has drawn out into other objects freely by weaving the two (or more) energies together into a cohesive whole. Depending on the complexity of the energies and the skill of the user, more complex effects and modifications can be made. This modification is commonly known as enchanting, though in truth it is called 'imbuing' or 'weaving'. The other aspect of the art is the ability to create, weave, and place what are referred to as 'seals' by most, but are actually called 'sigils'. Sigil making is different from imbuing due to the fact that imbuing takes preexisting attributes and reallocates them into new entities, while sigils take preexisting essence, or the essence of the user, and modify it in such a way as to suit their purposes.

Thus, the Art of Athriohm is essentially the fine tuned control of essence and how it interacts with various objects and magical symbols. It is the control of essence (or magical energy, whichever fits the correct definition) in order to create or destroy. One could even call it the root of human magic, but no one truly knows, for no one has been able to ascertain just how old the Art truly is. It should be noted that the majority of Anriohm, translated as 'recalculators', are on a constant search for what is simply referred to as 'The Origin'. Each of them wishes to discover where their Art originated from, who created it, why it works.

[Themerlinhawk]

We aren't talking about the same form of magic.
Your deffinition of Enchanting is what i refer to as Alchemy or Transmutation. Enchanting for me is the manipulation of perception, thought, feeling or will of another being. Although I guess in theory enchanting for me also encompasses what you're talking about to a degree but its only directed at the individual who is wielding the magic not objects. The form of magic you're talking about for me is again: Alchemy or Transmutation, my deffinition of the two involves changing the properties or energies (Essence if you will) of objects and occasionally people. (Im thinking more in the vein of changing ones self into an animal or something like that. While enchanting's alterations would be more focused on personality or physical/social appeal.)

sorry for the confusion

[Themerlinhawk]

Oh my goodness I totally forgot Conjuration!
I'm assuming it exists in one form or another because looking at characters abilities I've noticed some people can summon animals or creatures to assist them. As far as theories go could one use magic to move from one point to another instantaneously? or could it concievably be used to bring beings from other planes to the plane of the wielder? (I'm thinking something along the lines of calling a Demon from Hell to the surface or something like that)

This one is mostly academic to be honest because I think summoning up a demon or angel from another plane is just asking for trouble lol

[Synthorian]

Themerlinhawk said
We aren't talking about the same form of magic. Your deffinition of Enchanting is what i refer to as Alchemy or Transmutation. Enchanting for me is the manipulation of perception, thought, feeling or will of another being. Although I guess in theory enchanting for me also encompasses what you're talking about to a degree but its only directed at the individual who is wielding the magic not objects. The form of magic you're talking about for me is again: Alchemy or Transmutation, my deffinition of the two involves changing the properties or energies (Essence if you will) of objects and occasionally people. (Im thinking more in the vein of changing ones self into an animal or something like that. While enchanting's alterations would be more focused on personality or physical/social appeal.)sorry for the confusion

That falls under Illusion.

[Rtron]

Synthorian said
Solus could take her if you want Rtron. His 244 years of experience made him a legend in this world.

Merlin's character has her. Though, I do have a question for you. Are you still going off of what happened in season 1? If so, then Solus would have met Mary before. Mairyell to if he's coming back. And Szayeis. Indirectly. The only thing that changes is that Mary never made it to scotland and safety. And never saw the world go to hell.

merlin said Which being said I noticed Luciana’s snake bite ability seems to break that rule. Any clarification here would be awesome.

Yeah, just ignore that. Luciana is going to undergo a change again. On a sidenote though, it didn't change a person's personality, so much as force them to do what she wants. Occasionally. And buff their powers.

[Synthorian]

I believe we are sticking with what happened in season 2. I sure as hell am.

[Rtron]

Synthorian said
I believe we are sticking with what happened in season 2.

Yeah, Mary never actually entered season 2. None of my characters did, in fact. So I just need to go by Season 1 happenings. And the summary involving Luciana. And yes Sir is returning.

[Synthorian]

Rtron said
Yeah, Mary never actually entered season 2. None of my characters did, in fact. And yes Sir is returning.

Good stuff. Hopefully Solus will get to kill him this time. :P

[Rtron]

Synthorian said
Good stuff. Hopefully Solus will get to kill him this time. :P

That was the plan. You know, massive battle, entire cities destroyed, that type of thing. Sir is going to call Solus again by the way.

[Synthorian]

Rtron said
That was the plan. You know, massive battle, entire cities destroyed, that type of thing. Sir is going to call Solus again by the way.

"200 years and no phone call? What kind of friend are you, Sir?"

[Rtron]

Themerlinhawk said This one is mostly academic to be honest because I think summoning up a demon or angel from another plane is just asking for trouble lol

Well, actually, it's plausible. Angels can trap and summon Demons, humans, and other Angels. With humans having all sorts of new powers, there are bound to be similarities.

[Rtron]

Synthorian said
"200 years and no phone call? What kind of friend are you, Sir?"

And that is why Sir likes Solus!

[Synthorian]

Rtron said
And that is why Sir likes Solus!

Lol, indeed.

[Themerlinhawk]

Okay so Im just going to through out enchanting as a school and divide what i think of as its powers into illusion evocation and alchemy. This is all purely academic for the most part since the schools of magic wont really matter once we're actually moving along I just felt the easiest way to ask about a bunch of forms of magic would be to divide them into some easily definable categories. I still need some feed back on divination, necromancy and alchemy (My favorite forms of magic for the record) but I think that mostly answered my questions and I think I can get along with my character creation. Thanks Y'all.

And while im working on the character. Rtron where is most convenient for Lazarus to have his home/base of operation? Since I will be Mary's new guardian

[Synthorian]

Solus' CS is up on the first page, right after the OP.

[Wind Wild]

Riight… QaA time. *secretly loves it*

I’ll start off simple – the major taboos are
1- No time and space travel
2- No matter/essence creation
3- No essence manipulation (in the sense of complete change. If you have a angel+human+demon chimera and you’re a Musician (or possibly another spell-caster) you can enhance the angelic part to subdue the demonic one but you can never remove either completely.)
4- No essence destruction either.

Aka – no teleporting, time-travelling, species change (there’s a small loop-hole here if anyone’s interested).

Themerlinhawk said or could it concievably be used to bring beings from other planes to the plane of the wielder? (I'm thinking something along the lines of calling a Demon from Hell to the surface or something like that)

That would be possible but hard. You’d have to impose your will over another creature and while some are capable (like Tamer angels) it’s still quite the feat. I need to point out here that I’m also banning parallel realities, pocket dimensions and such. If you were looking at Saella, the reason why she had those minions in an amulet was more complicated than a pokeball – the amulet was a portal linking her to a particular place in Hell that acted like a prison. Until 200 years ago, in-between was void (abyss/nothingness/netherworld of a sort) which couldn’t be crossed by almost anyone. Nowadays the Gate is broken and there’s rifts in the void so it’s more likely that you can easily access Hell but still – Heaven, Surface and Hell are the only planes (if you don’t count the void) in this world.
Oh, saying that, it is possible in this season to have amulets and obviously, Instruments, to collect essence in.
Apropos, summoning animals and such will also need to be very well-explained so it doesn’t fall into the banned “matter creation” category.

I see there’s a bit of a confusion about enchanting. I think that all of you have valid points so allow me to suggest a summary: Enchantment is the art of bestowing an item or person with some additional properties.

Themerlinhawk said Your deffinition of Enchanting is what i refer to as Alchemy or Transmutation. Enchanting for me is the manipulation of perception, thought, feeling or will of another being.

I see where you’re coming from but let’s try to call that illusion/possession/taming and IPC for simplicity’s sake. We could call both of the above examples enchantment but it could get messy. That’s just my opinion.

As for changing into another creature, I’d say that’s a no-no. It IS possible under certain circumstances (through prolonged exposure or consumption of essence which I’ll also demonstrate IC) but it’s not the “snap your fingers and turn yourself into a giraffe” kind of thing. Plenty of demons can change appearances but the cost is essence, and not their own. xD Anycase, randomly changing yourself into something else is a tricky business and I’d say almost exclusively demonic, with a few human and no angelic exceptions.

Merlin, I’m still undecided about Necromancy. The main question is should essence fragments/spirits still have consciousness and personality or should they just serve as raw power. Other than that, the bringing a body back to some semblance of an animated state and leeching/giving away essence/life force is pretty much what I’m thinking about, yeah.

As far as Divination is concerned are we talking Oracle status where what you see in the future is set in stone? or is it kind of a murky sense of what might be? (I'm just assuming that farseeing, reading peoples thoughts, sensing demons/angels/magic and sorting through past events also fall under this category but I don’t have any specific questions about them)

It’s the first. The Clairvoyants and oracles are valued so highly exactly because their visions always come true. They’re involuntary, though, and uncontrollable – a clairvoyant can have only one vision in their lifetime and it could be something trivial or it could be a sixth sense that “a tall man with a black beard is going to do something great” that was a main component of the angelic Council and its modus operandi. But the visions don’t have to be murky either, I do like breaking clichés so it’s likely that some clairvoyants rap their visions out rather than put them in fine poetry.

As far as Alchemy is concerned I'm assuming Magic has to play by the Laws of Physics for the most part so I'm assuming matter has to be conserved when changing one substance to another. Also could magic theoretically be used to alter the properties of a material (I.E. make stone malleable like clay, make wood as strong as steel, ect...)

We haven’t delved into alchemy or magic as much as you might think so many things are up for grabs as long as you’d have them and are willing to explain it to everyone to understand. We’ve always operated on the basis that magic requires essence so yeah, you could say those are the rules, though you don’t have to be super pedantic about quantity and such. For example an interesting detail is that the angels always made sure none of their deceased ended up in demonic hands exactly for that reason – it would allow the latter to have a little essence-feast and then use the charge for whatever goal. And yeah, while we haven’t used magic to alter physical properties I think it could be interesting to see, again, if it’s not OP like turning every weapon coming your way into jelly and melting people’s fingers. :)

Btw Rtron, Luciana’s snake-bite thing doesn’t need to go. Creatures like the Battle and Tamer angels, the Sirens and let alone the Gatekeepers, have the ability of subduing others to their will as has been demonstrated in S1. Obviously it has to be well-played so no players get offended but I believe for the sake of the story and with enough player-dialogue there should be no problem with a few OP techniques like that. I trust players’ sportsmanship, hence the option to play as Musicians. 

*wipes forehead* And there I thought I could let go on being pedantic…. But Merlin asked for it and it’s interesting to delve into details! *wines petty excuses* Ahem, anyway. For the people who don’t want to go that deep, you don’t have to. You can try to keep things simple and so can we.

[yoshua171]

As a note Wind, and Merlin, the Art of Athriohm is not strictly enchanting (by either of our definitions) and is a far more broad variety of magic really. Heck, a lot of human magic has properties similar to the Art, either unintentionally, or because the Art was likely the first, or one of the first, human magics whether people are aware of it or not.

In terms of changing the properties of materials, that is one of the chief things that Practitioners can do. It's what I referred to as "Weaving," in the description. Taking the properties of one thing and imbuing them into something else. However, if you did not have those properties from the essence of another material, you could instead use Sigil making (either by literally making seals or by simply mimicking the proper patterns) and alter, bolster, or add to the traits of a given object or thing. One of the limiters on it, though, is that Practitioners can only alter their own bodies (still limited as it does not allow one to change into an animal or the like) and the bodies of either those who consent to such, or of that which is inanimate. There are good reasons for such, and I'm working on writing them up :P

I just thought I'd clarify that bit regarding the Art as it is a very broad discipline when it comes to what it can accomplish. I mean, you can fling fireballs, create ice, chang ethe temperature, instigate weather changes, bind things, imbue things with different properties, etc etc.

On the other hand, one can do this without using the Art. One can instead use another type of magic to do so, though it may be similar, and will always be based around the use of Essence (as that's how magic works in this verse).

But yeah. I'll stop rambling now. I think I'll start working on the necessary revamps to Szayeis (as I never did get to finish up his little...plot) and perhaps Mairyell. Not sure about the Broker though, still gotta figure him out.

Saella, maybe. Vaihrn...who knows.

[Rtron]

merlin said Rtron where is most convenient for Lazarus to have his home/base of operation? Since I will be Mary's new guardian

Whereever you want. She's going to be following him after all.

[Rtron]

yosh said Szayeis...plot

Um...that's the plot that didn't involve Mary right? >_>