*Not accepting
Summary:
•Advanced with high levels of character development and moral intrigue
•Set in a present day Earth (North America, near the mountains), right at the point in time where people begin developing elemental magical powers
•Themes: fantasy RP, including themes of magic, cultural shifts, persecution, animal bonding and, through that, a close connection to the Earth, other fun thingies :D
~~~
It seems like a spring day, just an average day where the sun strengthens another small measure and the warmth soaks into the soil loosening winter's hold on the land. A day just like a thousand others through the years, and yet not like them at all.
It doesn't matter where you were; sleeping, standing in line, at work. No matter where you were you felt it the same as all the others like you. You felt a jolt, a sharp and piercing momentary pain deep inside your mind and body both - like nothing you had ever experienced before. And then an awakening. A sensation of unfurling awareness rippling out from your core through your limbs and...its gone.
Nothing. It was nothing. You shake off your sense of discomfort, of ill ease. Turn a rueful grin on your confused co-worker and mouth words about not enough sleep or a sudden headache, but you can’t shake the sense that something is happening.
Even if it had passed without notice that one moment was the one that would change your life, and the world.
~~~
The next day you notice something strange; maybe the man in the cubicle down the hall calls in sick - the one who never calls in sick. Maybe it's the barista at your favorite coffee spot who's missing, and the other workers are murmuring and passing glances about her leaving mid-shift. Maybe you don't notice for a day or two - maybe you refuse to acknowledge any sort of shift in your world view. It doesn't matter, the change is here and your belief or disbelief won't change that.
Within three days you can't pretend you don't notice anymore. There are few of them but they seem to be everywhere; the woman in the apartment above you is suddenly mobbed by a flock of sparrows, and seems overjoyed at it. Your confusion trails you and only intensifies when you see a fox trotting down Centre Street in the wake of a man.
They are everywhere.
It’s only been days and suddenly your small town is consumed by a flurry of news and gossip; this girl has a weasel or ferret, that boy was seen with a deer. Animals of all sorts are invading the town and none of them are leaving. On the news you see it's happening everywhere, and not everyone is amazed and amused.
A gang of men crowds around a teenage boy and a lynx on the news, they jeer and taunt as the cat hisses and swipes at them. Suddenly someone is pushed forward, and a fight begins in earnest. You turn away from the violence caught on live news, but the next day you hear the boy died and his cat was shot.
The woman with the sparrows, your neighbor, is attacked on her way home from work and you see the broken bodies of three sparrows lying limp in the dust as you want past. The bruises under her eyes and the tears as she grieves for the sparrows is too close, to near for comfort. These things aren't supposed to happen here, not in your town.
You keep your head down and try to go on as though nothing has changed, but you feel something stirring in you; anger, possibly hate...but something else too. Suddenly the life you always wanted is a hollow shell of a thing and something in you is crying out for fulfillment.
And then he is there. Warm fur, the scent of the forest, and love like nothing you have ever felt fitting perfectly into the hollow deep inside. You drink in his scent and touch as a parched man gulps cool water. It bathes your soul and you are whole again, and more than whole. Together.
But the spark within is not gone. It grows and grows until you are full to bursting and when a cocky teen throws a sandwich wrapper and yells "Filthy creature-lover!" the crudeness of his words and the mocking implications of his tone are suddenly too much. It breaks free and a flicker of flame twitches from your fingers and almost, almost, reaches his startled face before it flickers and dies. Just enough, this time. He runs from you as flicker-flames dance on your fingertips. Terrifying and exhilarating all at once, this something that welled up from within.
So this is what has been awakened in you - Power.
Will you be afraid? Will you master it? What changes will the touch and caring of a wild thing bring to your life? Care to find out?
~~~
I don’t know about you, but I’ve always wondered what it would be like if some people suddenly had magic. I’ve also wondered what it would be like to have an animal soulmate. This RP is a blend of those two ideas.
Everything is set in a modern day world, the only difference being that the people are more likely to be antagonistic and suspicious of anything magical. There are fewer books, shows, and movies about anything to do with magic or special powers and being interested in those things is seen as more than a little childish and strange.
Our characters will begin to develop their powers slowly, and the strength and control will grow gradually throughout the game (If you expect to jump in and throw fireballs you’re on the wrong track ;) ). Since this is a huge change they’re going through there will be a focus on character development and interaction.
~~~
The magic is based on a combination of the styles used in Mercedes Lackey’s Valdemar books (the mages) and Anne Bishop’s Pillar of the Earth series.
It is elemental, with the four elements and their strengths (aside from any offensive fun-things ;) ) being:
Air:
heightened awareness sensing creatures/people
force fields - shifting
mind-melding
power sharing
Water:
sensitive to emotions of others
force fields - flexible
flexibility in magical thinking
sensitive to magical energy
mind-melding
Earth:
force fields - strong
steady and stable powers
growing things
healing
good support
Fire:
force fields - lashing out
most aggressive
flashes of power
changing one type of power into another
creative use of power
Any one person can have up to three of the elements, but the more elements they have the less concentrated it will be. In order to make it more realistic/fair there will be an element of randomness involved, in the parts you have complete control over being extremely powerful will mean sacrifices elsewhere.
In addition to just elemental magic there are 4 facets to each person’s power:
-Strength is the overall power you can bring to bear. Whether you’re passing it to another person, or throwing fireballs.
-Channeling is a gift for collecting energy from others and passing it to a person who uses it. This would be useful during healing a major injury where the healer’s own energy isn’t enough but they wouldn’t have the focus to collect energy from others as well as heal. (Think of it like braiding; you start with a few strings and end up with a stronger, thicker rope.
-Healing is fairly self-explanatory. Fire and air cannot heal.
-Elemental is the strength you have in directly controlling your elements.
These four facets will be decided through dice rolls. More info once we open the OOC :) Once you join the game and we’ve gone through this system of assigning strengths you’ll never need to worry about randomization or dice rolls again. This is strictly to give you an idea of how strong you will be in comparison to the other players and to add an element of randomness to the powers. (Maybe-sorta to prevent a bunch of SUPER POWERFUL WIZARDS who can kill anything with little creative thought. Flaws are fun.)
Each player will get a personalized bunch of magical info for their character, including some info that only they get. That is the magical info you’ll work from when building your posts.
Characters can have affinities for certain part of their element; ie, a Fire mage could have an affinity for electricity, or an Earth mage an affinity for rocks or plants. You will have complete control over that…but every element has the same basic powers and that’s where we’ll start. Affinities won’t become a factor right at the beginning, but they will play a big part overall.
In general these are the sorts of small-magics, that are innate, you would begin having shortly after bonding, there wouldn’t be a ton of control over them initially either:
Air
-Small bursts of wind, but uncontrolled
-In the case of strong emotions little dust devils will spring up
Water
-Water droplets can be summoned, but not really controlled
-Strong emotions cause short showers or water in containers to spill, no control about it
Earth
-Pebbles, sand, or little clods of dirt can be flung around without any control
-Strong emotions cause little tremors, or sudden dips in the ground
Fire
-Call small sparks or mini flames for a brief second (no flinging fire balls!)
-In the case of strong emotions your hands will heat up to the point that they will burn highly flammable materials like paper, wool, ect
Other powers and abilities will be added as things progress. Generally if you aren’t sure about something you want to be able to do send me a PM describing it and I’ll give you a yes/no/sorta/later ;)
~~~
Animals
The bond animals will all be wild. Period. It plays a major part in the plot.
Since the game is set in North America near the mountains there’s a wide range of animals you can choose from, but if you can’t find a picture of that animal, wild in that region I won’t let you play them. Taking your ball python outside and taking a picture of them on nicely manicured grass doesn’t count. Just FYI ;)
Within that feel free to be creative. You can pick a moose, lynx, cougar, garter snake, flock of sparrows (I will be SUPER picky about anyone wanting a bunch of anythings. The rule of thumb is they must be dumb enough to be considered a flock/hive-mind. No flocks of ravens, they have individual personalities. But if the idea intrigues you then give it a shot and I’ll let you know what I think :)), weasel, fox, ect.
I also want people to consider the less awesome animals. Magpies, voles, hares, ect. There could be a lot of fun to be had with an animal that’s less of a superstar.
I won’t be accepting any duplicates, btw. Whichever sheet gets approved first with a certain animal gets that animal.
More info to come :)
~~~
Bonding
When you first bond there is a rush of magical energy that will pass from the animal to you at the first touch. This rush of pure and uncontrolled power will bleach your eyes a brilliant ice-blue (later on it may become a special skill to magically be able to mask this color…*hint*) and they will stay that way. This is the mark that shows you have bonded, and is a big plot point and makes the characters the focus for persecution.
They’ll be about this color:
Other than that, once you’ve bonded it is typically for the life of the pair. The death of a bondmate is a soul wrenching experience, and the partner left alive commonly pines or commits suicide. A bereft bondmate will eventually find a new partner, so if their friends and family can keep them alive they will survive, although it’s not easy.
The animals who become bondmates also gain a few characteristics, such as exceptionally long life (triple normal life span, or as much as quadruple in some cases), enhanced intelligence that GRADUALLY increases over the course of the bond and to realistic levels. Ie a bear will not suddenly begin spouting Shakespeare upon bonding, but after 15 years he might begin to appreciate the merits of poetry. Especially if it talks about things they like, such as honey and she-bears.
In the case of someone who bonds a collection of animals (flock of sparrows, bunch of prairie dogs, ect) the entire flock is enhanced, but each individual (while brighter and more longer lived than it’s normal counterparts) is not changed all that much. And they can still be eaten by hawks.
The animals do not communicate in words, but more feelings and images accompanied by body language.
Ex:
Quark the raven cocked his head at Mary as he flashed a picture of the last bite of sandwich currently held between her two fingers falling to the floor. He flirted his tail and sent ~hunger~ to her, before ruffling his feathers and attempting to look as pitiful and hungry as a very fat raven can.
Mary raised an eye brow and said “As if you needed another sandwich, Mr. Greedy-guts” Before popping the last bite into her own mouth.
Quark narrowed his eyes slightly, then shook out his feathers and slicked them back as he turned his back on her. He hunched down with a corvid-grumble in his throat and sulked as he sent her a picture of himself sitting out in the snow and starving, sending a sulky sensation of continued ~hungry!~ emphatically before stretching out his wing to preen huffily.
More to come later :)
If you made it this far and are still interested Nemaisare and I are looking for about 4 players (plus us will be 6 PCs). We're co-GMing, so either of us can answer questions.
*waves* I hope you like it!
Summary:
•Advanced with high levels of character development and moral intrigue
•Set in a present day Earth (North America, near the mountains), right at the point in time where people begin developing elemental magical powers
•Themes: fantasy RP, including themes of magic, cultural shifts, persecution, animal bonding and, through that, a close connection to the Earth, other fun thingies :D
~~~
It seems like a spring day, just an average day where the sun strengthens another small measure and the warmth soaks into the soil loosening winter's hold on the land. A day just like a thousand others through the years, and yet not like them at all.
It doesn't matter where you were; sleeping, standing in line, at work. No matter where you were you felt it the same as all the others like you. You felt a jolt, a sharp and piercing momentary pain deep inside your mind and body both - like nothing you had ever experienced before. And then an awakening. A sensation of unfurling awareness rippling out from your core through your limbs and...its gone.
Nothing. It was nothing. You shake off your sense of discomfort, of ill ease. Turn a rueful grin on your confused co-worker and mouth words about not enough sleep or a sudden headache, but you can’t shake the sense that something is happening.
Even if it had passed without notice that one moment was the one that would change your life, and the world.
~~~
The next day you notice something strange; maybe the man in the cubicle down the hall calls in sick - the one who never calls in sick. Maybe it's the barista at your favorite coffee spot who's missing, and the other workers are murmuring and passing glances about her leaving mid-shift. Maybe you don't notice for a day or two - maybe you refuse to acknowledge any sort of shift in your world view. It doesn't matter, the change is here and your belief or disbelief won't change that.
Within three days you can't pretend you don't notice anymore. There are few of them but they seem to be everywhere; the woman in the apartment above you is suddenly mobbed by a flock of sparrows, and seems overjoyed at it. Your confusion trails you and only intensifies when you see a fox trotting down Centre Street in the wake of a man.
They are everywhere.
It’s only been days and suddenly your small town is consumed by a flurry of news and gossip; this girl has a weasel or ferret, that boy was seen with a deer. Animals of all sorts are invading the town and none of them are leaving. On the news you see it's happening everywhere, and not everyone is amazed and amused.
A gang of men crowds around a teenage boy and a lynx on the news, they jeer and taunt as the cat hisses and swipes at them. Suddenly someone is pushed forward, and a fight begins in earnest. You turn away from the violence caught on live news, but the next day you hear the boy died and his cat was shot.
The woman with the sparrows, your neighbor, is attacked on her way home from work and you see the broken bodies of three sparrows lying limp in the dust as you want past. The bruises under her eyes and the tears as she grieves for the sparrows is too close, to near for comfort. These things aren't supposed to happen here, not in your town.
You keep your head down and try to go on as though nothing has changed, but you feel something stirring in you; anger, possibly hate...but something else too. Suddenly the life you always wanted is a hollow shell of a thing and something in you is crying out for fulfillment.
And then he is there. Warm fur, the scent of the forest, and love like nothing you have ever felt fitting perfectly into the hollow deep inside. You drink in his scent and touch as a parched man gulps cool water. It bathes your soul and you are whole again, and more than whole. Together.
But the spark within is not gone. It grows and grows until you are full to bursting and when a cocky teen throws a sandwich wrapper and yells "Filthy creature-lover!" the crudeness of his words and the mocking implications of his tone are suddenly too much. It breaks free and a flicker of flame twitches from your fingers and almost, almost, reaches his startled face before it flickers and dies. Just enough, this time. He runs from you as flicker-flames dance on your fingertips. Terrifying and exhilarating all at once, this something that welled up from within.
So this is what has been awakened in you - Power.
Will you be afraid? Will you master it? What changes will the touch and caring of a wild thing bring to your life? Care to find out?
~~~
I don’t know about you, but I’ve always wondered what it would be like if some people suddenly had magic. I’ve also wondered what it would be like to have an animal soulmate. This RP is a blend of those two ideas.
Everything is set in a modern day world, the only difference being that the people are more likely to be antagonistic and suspicious of anything magical. There are fewer books, shows, and movies about anything to do with magic or special powers and being interested in those things is seen as more than a little childish and strange.
Our characters will begin to develop their powers slowly, and the strength and control will grow gradually throughout the game (If you expect to jump in and throw fireballs you’re on the wrong track ;) ). Since this is a huge change they’re going through there will be a focus on character development and interaction.
~~~
The magic is based on a combination of the styles used in Mercedes Lackey’s Valdemar books (the mages) and Anne Bishop’s Pillar of the Earth series.
It is elemental, with the four elements and their strengths (aside from any offensive fun-things ;) ) being:
Air:
heightened awareness sensing creatures/people
force fields - shifting
mind-melding
power sharing
Water:
sensitive to emotions of others
force fields - flexible
flexibility in magical thinking
sensitive to magical energy
mind-melding
Earth:
force fields - strong
steady and stable powers
growing things
healing
good support
Fire:
force fields - lashing out
most aggressive
flashes of power
changing one type of power into another
creative use of power
Any one person can have up to three of the elements, but the more elements they have the less concentrated it will be. In order to make it more realistic/fair there will be an element of randomness involved, in the parts you have complete control over being extremely powerful will mean sacrifices elsewhere.
In addition to just elemental magic there are 4 facets to each person’s power:
-Strength is the overall power you can bring to bear. Whether you’re passing it to another person, or throwing fireballs.
-Channeling is a gift for collecting energy from others and passing it to a person who uses it. This would be useful during healing a major injury where the healer’s own energy isn’t enough but they wouldn’t have the focus to collect energy from others as well as heal. (Think of it like braiding; you start with a few strings and end up with a stronger, thicker rope.
-Healing is fairly self-explanatory. Fire and air cannot heal.
-Elemental is the strength you have in directly controlling your elements.
These four facets will be decided through dice rolls. More info once we open the OOC :) Once you join the game and we’ve gone through this system of assigning strengths you’ll never need to worry about randomization or dice rolls again. This is strictly to give you an idea of how strong you will be in comparison to the other players and to add an element of randomness to the powers. (Maybe-sorta to prevent a bunch of SUPER POWERFUL WIZARDS who can kill anything with little creative thought. Flaws are fun.)
Each player will get a personalized bunch of magical info for their character, including some info that only they get. That is the magical info you’ll work from when building your posts.
Characters can have affinities for certain part of their element; ie, a Fire mage could have an affinity for electricity, or an Earth mage an affinity for rocks or plants. You will have complete control over that…but every element has the same basic powers and that’s where we’ll start. Affinities won’t become a factor right at the beginning, but they will play a big part overall.
In general these are the sorts of small-magics, that are innate, you would begin having shortly after bonding, there wouldn’t be a ton of control over them initially either:
Air
-Small bursts of wind, but uncontrolled
-In the case of strong emotions little dust devils will spring up
Water
-Water droplets can be summoned, but not really controlled
-Strong emotions cause short showers or water in containers to spill, no control about it
Earth
-Pebbles, sand, or little clods of dirt can be flung around without any control
-Strong emotions cause little tremors, or sudden dips in the ground
Fire
-Call small sparks or mini flames for a brief second (no flinging fire balls!)
-In the case of strong emotions your hands will heat up to the point that they will burn highly flammable materials like paper, wool, ect
Other powers and abilities will be added as things progress. Generally if you aren’t sure about something you want to be able to do send me a PM describing it and I’ll give you a yes/no/sorta/later ;)
~~~
Animals
The bond animals will all be wild. Period. It plays a major part in the plot.
Since the game is set in North America near the mountains there’s a wide range of animals you can choose from, but if you can’t find a picture of that animal, wild in that region I won’t let you play them. Taking your ball python outside and taking a picture of them on nicely manicured grass doesn’t count. Just FYI ;)
Within that feel free to be creative. You can pick a moose, lynx, cougar, garter snake, flock of sparrows (I will be SUPER picky about anyone wanting a bunch of anythings. The rule of thumb is they must be dumb enough to be considered a flock/hive-mind. No flocks of ravens, they have individual personalities. But if the idea intrigues you then give it a shot and I’ll let you know what I think :)), weasel, fox, ect.
I also want people to consider the less awesome animals. Magpies, voles, hares, ect. There could be a lot of fun to be had with an animal that’s less of a superstar.
I won’t be accepting any duplicates, btw. Whichever sheet gets approved first with a certain animal gets that animal.
More info to come :)
~~~
Bonding
When you first bond there is a rush of magical energy that will pass from the animal to you at the first touch. This rush of pure and uncontrolled power will bleach your eyes a brilliant ice-blue (later on it may become a special skill to magically be able to mask this color…*hint*) and they will stay that way. This is the mark that shows you have bonded, and is a big plot point and makes the characters the focus for persecution.
They’ll be about this color:
Other than that, once you’ve bonded it is typically for the life of the pair. The death of a bondmate is a soul wrenching experience, and the partner left alive commonly pines or commits suicide. A bereft bondmate will eventually find a new partner, so if their friends and family can keep them alive they will survive, although it’s not easy.
The animals who become bondmates also gain a few characteristics, such as exceptionally long life (triple normal life span, or as much as quadruple in some cases), enhanced intelligence that GRADUALLY increases over the course of the bond and to realistic levels. Ie a bear will not suddenly begin spouting Shakespeare upon bonding, but after 15 years he might begin to appreciate the merits of poetry. Especially if it talks about things they like, such as honey and she-bears.
In the case of someone who bonds a collection of animals (flock of sparrows, bunch of prairie dogs, ect) the entire flock is enhanced, but each individual (while brighter and more longer lived than it’s normal counterparts) is not changed all that much. And they can still be eaten by hawks.
The animals do not communicate in words, but more feelings and images accompanied by body language.
Ex:
Quark the raven cocked his head at Mary as he flashed a picture of the last bite of sandwich currently held between her two fingers falling to the floor. He flirted his tail and sent ~hunger~ to her, before ruffling his feathers and attempting to look as pitiful and hungry as a very fat raven can.
Mary raised an eye brow and said “As if you needed another sandwich, Mr. Greedy-guts” Before popping the last bite into her own mouth.
Quark narrowed his eyes slightly, then shook out his feathers and slicked them back as he turned his back on her. He hunched down with a corvid-grumble in his throat and sulked as he sent her a picture of himself sitting out in the snow and starving, sending a sulky sensation of continued ~hungry!~ emphatically before stretching out his wing to preen huffily.
More to come later :)
If you made it this far and are still interested Nemaisare and I are looking for about 4 players (plus us will be 6 PCs). We're co-GMing, so either of us can answer questions.
*waves* I hope you like it!
(urms... for posterity...?)
