"Hear all citizens! King Gonagas, the Lord of this land and the Defender of the people, has sent out a decree to all cities, towns and villages; to all who are now living within the boundaries of the Kingdom. Hear the words of your King!
"From King Mikill Gonagas to all ready and able who are willing to take up arms in defence of the Realm,
"'The Kingdom is facing a threat from the surrounding countries and the lands round about it which requires immediate action. To protect the freedom of the people, I, the King, will send a dispatch of the Royal Guard joined with all the volunteers who are given a rank in the Guard, on a pre-emptive quest to strengthen the position of the Kingdom and our ability to defend it.
Report at the gates of Helsset, the City of the King, before the harvest season begins.
May the hand of The Guardian be over us all.'"
This was the tidings the messenger came with. You are a person of remarkable skill and talent in your art be it swordsmanship, controlling the supernatural and the elements, stealth, alchemy or anything else. Regardless of the questions and doubts the strange and unexpected open call aroused, you answered and left for Helsset. Whether it was glory or adventure, title or rank, revenge or revolution. You had your reasons.
You met a group of other volunteers in the previous village you traveled through, the village of Giron - the last at least somewhat politically meaningful village on this streak before arriving to Helsset. Since Giron, you have been traveling together as a party. That was three days ago.
Since this game can only accommodate a small number of players, I must do this in an application way. Post your character here on the OOC first. The characters that pass can enter the character area of the thread. The rest that do not pass, you all can follow the unfolding story and you are more than welcome to future visits to Idumea!
Character Sheet
Name: I have used a sami dictionary Age: traditional lifespans Gender: male/female Race: human, (forest/mountain/dark)elf, dwarf, mixbreed Briefly about ancestry...
Nature: how the character is as a person with a few words Looks: how the character looks like and what equipment s/he has Class: what ever is the character's art Detailed description...
Story: Brief history of the character
Motive: Reason why you answered the call if you have shared it with the party. If not you can send it to me via PM.
Lore
Idumea In short Idumea is a flat world that was created by god-twins Nieida (now the Queen of Darkness and called Droha(=Rebellion)) and Ganda (now the Guardian of Idumea). Idumea used to be one big continent surrounded by water. Now, several millenias later, the continent is broken and divided. One third of Idumea was moved towards West, out of the horizon and is now only a part of children's legends and included in some religious texts. The rest was carried towards East and shattered. The whole face of the lands changed because of this tumult. A mountain, Heaven's Peak, that once was in the center of Idumea is now a lonely island equally unreachable as the lost one third.
The Kingdom of Eana Is a kingdom on one of the Eastern Continents. It is an in-land kingdom that surrounds the Lake Guhkki and a couple of other lakes. The kingdom is mostly hills and planes but here is also a good deal of forests and some small mountains.
Helsset is the city of the King. Other bigger cities are Roavenjarga, Giron and Davvi. Most of the people in the kingdom are farmers and merchants. In comparison to it's size, Eana has a rather large army.
Helsset, the City of the King Helsset has been built on a mountain side at the South-Eastern end of Lake Guhkki. In order to get there from North, one must sail the lake or travel along the West-bank towards South. A steep protecting mountain range rises on the East side of Helsset and has been well fortified. Towards North there is the lake. Towards west and South there is mostly fields and a descending tail of another minor mountain range that surrounds the Anaar Fields and the town of Avveel.
Helsset is the biggest and most populated city in Eana, around 10 000 citizens. It keeps growing, mostly along the shore of the lake since much of the area towards South and West is used for agriculture. The city is protected by the Royal Guard, the elite military unit in the Kingdom that is directly responsible to the King.
In Helsset you will find people who live in the streets and you will find the rich who enjoy of all the benefits the beautiful parts of the city has to offer. There are areas where the poor have no entrance and there are areas where the rich don't dare to go.
Anaar Fields Anaar Fields is a relatively large triangular field on the Western bank of the Lake Guhkki. It is completely surrounded by a small mountain range in the North and in the West. The only ways in and out for most people are the Rocky Gate, a wagon passable short cave, in the North-Eastern corner and a barely wagon passable path by the mountain in the South.
On the Western edge of the field there is a waterfall diving into a dense forest. The waterfall starts a minor rapid that once it comes out of the forest, calms down and becomes a river. The river then streams straight down on the gentle slope into the lake.
Avveel Avveel is a picturesque village of a little less than two hundred people. It is situated on the South side of the river bank with a bridge reaching across the stream. The villagers are almost all farmers. There is a shrine for the Guardian, an inn, blacksmith, tailor, shoemaker, doctor and a trader in town.
From time to time there is a good deal of traffic going through the town. No-one stays for long. Everyone are on their way to Helsset. This results the inn being the most profitable business and the trader as a good second.
Strength of one's art depends on his or her faith - understanding and knowledge of matter, unwavering trust that matter will heed when it is commanded. Using supernatural skills strains stamina. Running out of stamina means fainting, black out, coma of a kind depending of how severely the individual in case has been exhausted.
The most basic magic is natural magic, ability to control the elements - the natural world around you. For those who have made an extra effort towards light or dark in action and in deed, there is a possibility to add some extra flavor. The basic elements are water, air, soil and wood. Other elements are fire, lightning, ice and gravity.
Alchemy Traditional concept. Ideas & thoughts are well received.
Necromancy Traditional concept. Ideas & thoughts are well received.
Summoning Because the embodied spirits have a will of their own they can't be commanded, only called. To become a summoner one must find the spirit, challenge the spirit's test, win and make a covenant with it. Loyalty to the covenant is the key to the relationship's strength.
Each element and force of nature has it's own spirit. The spirits are in essence highly intelligent animals, kings and queens, the alphas of their sphere. Other animals and creatures of Idumea worship and serve them as their protectors and providers.
There is only one spirit for each element. They hide in their nests that are well protected by the environment and other creatures. A summoner must make a great effort to reach a spirit. When/if a candidate arrives they must kneel and bow to the spirit to get it's trust. Then for an outsider it looks like that the two just stair each other to the eyes. In reality the spirit has taken the candidate to an out-of-body maze with riddles.
If the candidate clears the maze s/he must face the spirit in a duel alone at the end of the maze. Upon victory the candidate must then make a covenant with the spirit. Then the candidate - now summoner - is released back to his/her body.
If the candidate fails at any point, s/he is released. The spirit disappears and changes the nest somewhere else.
Other forms of magic and supernatural arts are possible except those involved with space and time.
The nations and races of Idumea are human or very human like. The kingdom ruled from Helsset is mixed in races. You will find humans, elves, dwarves and mixed breed mainly. There are pale humans and dark skinned. Where they come from and who were their ancestors affect this. Elves are also different. An elf who has his/her roots deep in the forests naturally looks different from the one who comes from the dark underground caverns or from the one who came from the mountain tops.
The leading thought behind the inhabitation of Idumea is that everyone can be traced back to the "Adam & Eve" of Idumea. Thousands of years of isolation and living under certain conditions has formed the races to what they are now.
About Humans Consider humans as they in reality are. They are diverse and versatile. They are able to adapt and change according to the environment easier than most races. They also lack some senses or attributes that makes them inferior to other races in their native environment.
They live mostly on plains, shores & coasts, valleys & hills by forests and on mountain sides. It is very rare to find pure humans in extreme environments.
About Elves Elves became a separate race long, long ago. During one of the wars a nation was completely scattered. Those that didn't run perished. After a lifetime of hiding they settled where they could find shelter and safety. The deepest forests became the home for some, highest mountains for others and the dark underground for some.
The centuries passed and the environment molded the people. The centuries turned into millenias but the traditions of protection remained strong and the elves remained isolated. Every now and then rebellious individuals left the safety, were disowned, exiled or just ran away for what ever reason and joined the world outside their sanctuaries.
Forest Elves live in harmony with everything green and living. They build their homes in trees and they feed of what the nature provides. They have developed a natural trait of reading the living nature. They are adept at tracking and hunting among other things. For them every living thing has a story to tell. Stories are their teaching from babe to grave.
Mountain Elves are the advocates of wisdom. They grow up and study with the stars. Nothing is more valuable to them than wisdom and knowledge. They are reverent and silent people. Their culture makes them more skilled in supernatural arts than any other race.
Dark Elves live in the darkness of the deep underground caves. Being robbed of light most of the time their ability to sense the environment in other ways has enhanced. They see better than all other races when it is dark. They don't see in absolute darkness either but they have other ways to see. Out in the world they always have their eyes covered during the day.
About Dwarves There are many stories of how dwarves came to be and every dwarf tells the same story differently and every time they tell it, it is different. In short a master miner-smith-magician carved the first dwarf of a rock and with his magic made her a living being or their ancestors just loved mining and small holes. What ever the case, dwarves are the best smiths and when something happens with rock, they are the first to know. They are slower but stronger than other races.
Dwarves live by mountainside caves. They don't live deep underground like the dark elves do but they prefer the safety of their rocky holes over open air.
About Duolvvas/Albmot (mixbreed) Duolvvas is one of the few words that have remained of the original Idumese language. It means filthy. Albmot is a word they themselves mostly and humans some use. The pure races almost by rule look down to mixbreed individuals. The humans are the least concerned. That is why the mixbreed usually lives among humans.
A mixbreed gets physical attributes from both parents. They also have some benefits of both races though not necessarily as strong and sharp.
Rules of Engagement
- Regular Guild rules apply, behave, play fair, no god mode, no playing other's characters and so on... - All off-topic discussion should be colored gray
- The game goes in rounds where I begin by playing the setting of a round and the rest of you have one turn. I will give direction at the OOC of exceptions and play the environment/NPC turns as the game goes on. - Once the game begins, avoid using hiders. I will use them to give information to characters that is not openly known. I will use the following format:
- Two (2) paragraphs is the bare minimum of a turn. A paragraph to me is three (3) good phat sentences. Three (3) paragraphs is good and more the merrier. - Watch your grammar! From reading you guys' input so far, I am not worried
- When the characters speak, use the individual assigned color. It makes things a whole lot clearer. Colors are in order of rotation: GM | gold @Lord Santa | coral @BytheSpleen | teal @Baklava | bisque @nrtashi | lavender @Shikaru | khaki
Here's my CS. Tell me if something's wrong with it.
Name: Steven Steelfist
Age: 17
Gender: Male
Race: Human
Nature: Steven’s rather stoic, but he’s hardly unemotional. Despite being carefree, he’s also practical and tends to be simple. Steven tries not to overcomplicate things. He can be fairly stubborn and petty, however, though it doesn’t seem like it. Nevertheless, he doesn’t hold grudges and typically does whatever needs to be done, even if he usually doesn’t do anything else. He’s the kind of guy who doesn’t set his mind on much, but when he does, he goes all the way, and he’s adaptable enough to make it work.
Looks: Steven sports black hair and dark eyes, and at first glance, his features have little that are distinct about them. He’s slightly taller than average, and his build is a little bigger. His expression is usually neutral and rarely changes. However, if you look deeper into his eyes, then you realise that he actually doesn’t really care about a lot of things, bringing about a certain air of calmness which translates to his body language.
Steven is currently wearing his normal clothes and is wielding his dad’s halberd, as well as carrying stuff in a backpack and lugging around his dad’s old plate armour. Looks heavy, but it isn’t to Steven.
Class: Farmer/knight/juggernaut, kinda. Let me explain.
Practically from the first time he could walk, Steven was trained to help out on the farm. And then, after a little of that, he was taught how to fight from his dad. He learned knight skills and built up his strength in order to use them effectively should the situation call for it. Over his lifetime, Steven’s managed to build up an uncommon amount of endurance and strength, enough to carry almost anything unencumbered, though this isn’t purely because of his upbringing.
Story: Steven’s story begins with his father. Steven’s father was a relatively successful knight famed for his endurance on the battlefield. He rose up the ranks to be quite a respected knight, but decided to settle down with Steven’s mother and return to his roots. Buying a sizeable property, he began tilling the soil like he did in his youth.
Steven was born as part of 8 siblings. 4 sisters, 3 brothers, though Steven was the oldest son (not oldest sibling, mind). As such, he got trained for the sword stuff first. He kind of just accepted it, as none of his other siblings really wanted it, mainly to spare his dad’s feelings. In all honesty, Steven just wanted to live life for a while, doing stuff. Not really anything specific, just stuff.
His life passed rather uneventfully for a while, until…
Motive: The announcement came! His dad couldn't take the call(old wounds and stuff) and the rest of his siblings weren't really ideal so Steven decided to shoulder it by himself. The way he figured it, his dad would be pretty happy, and it wasn't like he was doing anything else with his life. And besides, seeing stuff he’d never seen couldn't be a bad thing, right?
@Lord SantaThank you for your interest! That will do. Just give him about 10 years more age. That will give the character more credibility. Once we have more "applications" I will look into which characters will move on to the story. If you want to further build your character and ask questions concerning the world and the game, you are most welcome to do that.
I'd just like to point out that 23 is an age where you can be an experienced knight, as they are typically trained from childhood, and the average age of death is less than 40. He doesn't seem too experienced, so 18 is probably reasonable.
@taistelusopuli Also, regarding spirits, is it possible that there would be both major and minor spirits? Like, minor spirits for each tree, and major spirits for 'trees' or 'plants' as a whole? Or maybe there are spirits connected to particular buildings, forests, mountains, constellations, etc.
@Jozarin Thank you for the info regarding knighthood!
Regarding the spirits... Your suggestion is very much possible. I am not going to say no, since I have not considered that aspect before. Minor spirits are welcome in a reasonable extent. It would make sense since every star is a soul of a warrior who died defending Idumea. All living in Idumea does have a spirit or intelligence of a kind.
Having being corrected on my history, no. My main worry is modern teen heroes. But I believe it is save to assume a late teen was already very mature all those years ago. So, in short, you are fine! =)
Having being corrected on my history, no. My main worry is modern teen heroes. But I believe it is save to assume a late teen was already very mature all those years ago. So, in short, you are fine! =)
Is there anything you are wondering about lore?
Nothing yet, but I'll keep in mind that I can ask about something if it's bothering me.
Question, what exactly are the characters being called for? It was pretty unspecific.
Yes, it was rather unspesific. If you remember from the IC thread, the game we are about to play is an episode that happens on the way to Helsset. So this game won't go all the way there but that could be the next game. I would just have to write it first.
Anyhoo, behind the castle gates in Helsset, the good king has become hungry of power. He has been reading the sacred scrolls and learned much of a sphere that records everything that happens in Idumea and contains all knowledge. The possessor of such item would be almost invinsible.
The King had sent many on a quest to find this spehere with a threat of death upon failure and a promise of what ever they may desire as a reward. Eventually a messenger came with news. One of the Seekers, a battle-mage, had found it and sent word for help in aquiring the item.
This is a quest the King will send the volunteers and Royal Guard unit. Of course, because of being power hungry, the call of duty could not be clear and straightforward.
Nature: Cunning and stealthy, she'll stab you in the back, literally and figuratively and rob your corpse. Growing up on the streets she doesn't trust people, not really trust anyway. She'll pretend to trust you until she gets what she wants.
Looks: Long brown hair covering her right eye, blue eyes. She wears a skin tight leather suit along with a black tattered cloak. On her back is a sheath for her switchsword,two normal length Falchion blades co-joined by a iron peg.
About her waist is a belt with a small dagger sheath on either side housing 6 inch dangers. Clipped to one side of the belt is a claw, used to grapple up walls and the like. Various bottles of poisons line the belt as well for her to dip her daggers in.
She is 5'7 with an athletic build, a scar running down her left cheek beginning at the eye.
Class: Assassin.
Story: Ever since she could remember she was alone having to fend for herself, no one she could trust, no family, no friends. She took to a life of stealing to get by, of course at first she wasn't very good at it and got caught more times than she suceeded.
Over the years she got better, stealth became her friend and only true ally. She lurked in the shadows, robbing those that passed by. Eventually she grew bolder and began robbing houses and shops, word got around to the underworld about a popular new thief.
She began accepting jobs to steal certain things, eventually taking on missions of assasinations. Of thus she was highly skilled. Until she heard the decree, goodbye petty change, hello kingdom treasury.
Motive: To get in good with the King and steal everything not nailed down, even possibly steal from the others that decided to take up this little request.
@taistelusopuli If you have any questions or edits you'd like me to make, do let me know. Also if you have any questions as to what the hell a switch sword is I'm sure I could find the movie I completely ripped it off from based it on.
@Shikaru Something like that was what I had in mind, when I read the sheet. Can't help thinking about Lightning's weapon from FF13. How aggressive is Illumina about stealing? Is it about when ever she can or rather when she considers it worthwhile?
@Shikaru Actually, I have 2 questions regarding your sheet, though these are just in order to satisfy my curiosity.
If your character is a career thief/assassin, why's she on the recruitment list? And how would they find out where she lives in order to recruit her?
I can answer to that one :) maybe I should've written this more in detail. The call was an open call that the messenger read out in the open so that all could hear it. Sorry, for the confusion.
I can answer to that one :) maybe I should've written this more in detail. The call was an open call that the messenger read out in the open so that all could hear it. Sorry, for the confusion.
two normal length Falchion blades co-joined by a iron peg.