Mecha Carta Institute
In the year 2540, peace had reigned for centuries.
Everything changed when the demon nation attacked.
The peaceful kingdom of Erenduil had no idea what hit them. The skies were raining monsters of every shape and size, the moisture farms burning, the serfs were dying left and right… And in the decades of peace that had followed the previous great war, the King’s Mage Army had withered to nothing, a mere shadow of the fighting force it had once been. Those that were left were old, or trainees—hardly ready to combat the hordes of the Netherworld.
And then one man stood strong. Pressured by the need to defend his family and aided by the familiar spirit passed down for generations, Erikal Slin took up his scythe and jumped into a huge, enchanted suit of magitech armor used as a reaping machine. Battering his way through the legions attacking his farm, eventually Slin convinced the demons he was not worth the casualties.
How wrong they were. The kingdom of Erenduil adapted countless suits to combat and started to produce more specialized models, inspired by Erikal’s example—and the new King’s Armor Division began to force the demon hordes back, supplemented by the remnants of the KMA. The forces of humanity and the demons are now locked in a stalemate with the creation of demonic mechs… And that’s where you come in, maybe to be the difference between victory and defeat.
Not quite yet, though. You’ve got a few years of training ahead of you at the newly formed Mecha Carta Institute, or MCI for short.
From an OOC Perspective:
This RPG is going to be episodic, and as the RPG goes on I’ll post a short plot summary of each episode when it’s completed. For now, all I have is the prologue and the title of the first episode…
Prologue: As the school’s inaugural class, you’ll be the first generation of mages to receive any kind of formal education since the war a few hundred years ago, and the first generation of mech pilots to receive any kind of teaching at all. You’re the best of the best (so they keep telling you, but your personal theory is just that you were the only ones stupid enough to sign up), and the entire Kingdom is counting on you. Do your country proud, trainee!
Chapter One: Rookies
Begins now…
The Institute
The Institute is a large rectangular building, a massive courtyard in the center covered by a high rising reinforced glass ceiling. Mech garages are on the lowest floor of the surrounding square of buildings, classrooms on the level above, and dormitories on the level above that. Combat drills and one on one duels to show off ability take place in the courtyard arena, while the classes both mages and pilots have to take together occur on the second level.
Outside, the acres upon acres of farmland and forests are used for more intense combat activities, like five on five battles and games of capture the flag.
Divisions of the Military
The King’s Mage Corps: The KMC is the original King’s Army. Nearly every soldier is capable of some variety of combat-useful magic, whether they’re a pyromancer or a speed healer. Most have equipment that allow them to focus their power in some way, whether it’s a bow that allows them to launch arrows created from their element or a sword that can be enhanced with their power. Most mages cannot take down a mech on their own, but their sheer destructiveness and support powers are unmatched.
The King’s Armor Division: By far the largest part of the King’s Army both in numbers and mass, the KAD is made up of soldiers that pilot massive, magically powered suits of armor generally referred to as MECHs—an abbreviation that nobody honestly knows the meaning of. Each suit of armor is generally massive enough to hold its pilot in the torso, and most are humanoid… Though there have been more unorthodox approaches, such as MECHs that can transform into wheeled forms or combine with others into a form that’s greater than the sum of its parts. The suit is generally entirely inert when not being piloted, but upon being boarded will have enchantment runes glow all along its body. KAD pilots are, without exception, non-mages: the field of magic that powers the mech will not tolerate any interference from the abilities of a mage, and a mage’s powers will not penetrate the armor of a mech without destroying it.
Profile form:
Italics are for mages only, bold for mech pilots alone.
Name:
Military codename: (You don’t get to pick this, you’ll pick it up along the way)
Gender:
Age: (Note, at least during episode 1, you’re a rookie. You can be an older volunteer, but the military academy does not accept students under the age of 16)
Appearance:
Personality:
Biography:
Military Job: Mage or Pilot
Magic: See the section titled “Magic and You”.
Spirit Name: See the section titled “Spirit Soldiers”.
Spirit Appearance: Just, essentially, what your familiar spirit looks like.
Spirit Power: What your spirit does when activated.
Spirit Origin: Is this the guardian soul of your family's farm? Some magic creature you made a deal with? How did you come to obtain your spirit?
Mech: The name of your mech goes here, but you also need to fill out the mech profile below.
Extra: Anything else?
Mech profile:
Note, PLEASE check the “Mech Tech” section below to be sure that you at least understand what level mechs are currently at. I won’t update the form every time new technology is developed, but I will add it to that section of the post.
Name:
Classification: Mechs generally fall into one of three archetypes: Hammer, Sword, and Epée. Hammer type mechs are slow, huge, heavy hitters, many times some variety of construction armor adapted to combat usage. Sword mechs are lighter and faster, focused on a balance of speed and ability to do damage. Epée class armor is the lightest and least damage resistant, but generally far faster than either of the other classes and far harder to master. This blank is generally more a matter of GM convenience than an absolute seal on what type of powers the mech has.
Appearance: Fairly obvious, but if spirit activation changes how the mech looks in any way you need to add it here. You’re all rookies, so the mechs tend to look moderately cookie-cutter: they’re humanoid and look somewhat like armor. Classification and personal preference can change the details, like color and relative bulk, somewhat.
Weapons:
Upgrades: What have you changed about the mech since its creation? If you’re making a new char, leave this blank.
History: What was your mech originally, how did your character get it… If those are of interest, explain them here. Most of your weapons are likely to have come from the Institute, and your mech can have too. If that's the case, mention it here.
Mech Tech:
Let’s talk about what mechs are.
For decades, robotic suits have been the staple of menial labor in Erenduil. Sure, a combine harvester might be better at harvesting than a humanoid mech, but mechs are more adaptable than their specialized counterparts. Whether you need a ditch dug, large equipment moved quickly from one place to another, or your moisture gatherers emptied and returned before the sun goes down, a mech has long been the safe, reliable bet. There have been some experiments with alternative power sources (notably a massive failure of one with carbon burning), but practically all mechs are powered by a focusing core immediately behind the cockpit. The core gathers ambient magic from the environment around it, using its ability to suspend physical laws to create energy from nothing. The practical upshot? The glowing, humming, donut shaped device placed in a heavily armored compartment in every mech powers all of the devices in the suit using local magic, and protects it from solely magic based attacks.
Put too much strain on the Core, however, and it will cease to function—or, heaven forbid, explode—putting you up the creek without a paddle. Cores do wear out from time to time, as well, and completely nullify the abilities of any mage attempting to pilot the mech they’re installed in by draining the magic from them.
TL;DR: Don’t let the shiny donut sitting behind you get exploded.
As far as weaponry goes, the designers of the baseline mech implements of war have a taste for the medieval. Swords, shields and spears are common, allowing the pilot to take full advantage of the brutal physical ability of the suit to smash their enemies. Bows aren’t rare, taking either the form of a focusing instrument that channels the gathered power of the mech’s Core into a bolt of magic energy, or of a railgun-like device that fires massive custom arrows at high speeds. The finicky nature of magic delayed the development of automatic firearms on a mech scale for some time, but they’re now somewhat practical, though the rapid rate of fire puts a heavy drain on the Core and necessitates a cooldown time.
Overall levels of tech are high (think roughly on the level of Mass Effect minus spaceflight and with magic instead of eezo), but not all weapons and technology are adapted to mechs. Mech size ranges from 30-40 feet tall (~9-12 meters for everyone but Americans). They’re fairly tough, but a mech will survive much longer against magic based attacks than physical—a few heavy hits close together from another mech and the circuitry nearby will start to fizzle.
Technological weapons, like missiles or rockets, have limited ammunition but are not powered by the Core.
All mechs only have one spirit slot.
Magic and You: Magic, essentially, is a force that allows the laws of ordinary physics to be suspended and the fantastic occur. It allows pyromancers to cause spontaneous combustion, a KAD mech to move with power far beyond that of its pilot, and a healer to kick the body’s systems up a notch and cure wounds much more quickly. Most humans have no ability to manipulate it at all—in fact, the only species to reliably produce mages are the demons—but some are capable of interacting with it on a higher level. Most adepts have had some manner of technological focusing devices surgically implanted into their body, amping up their powers and cutting down on the amount of meditative focus required to cast spells. Before the advent of mechs, mages were the supersoldiers of the King’s Army, able to do things far beyond an ordinary warrior armed with a simple laser sword and focusing bow. With mechs making foot soldiers capable of going toe to toe with a mage and winning handily, they’re fading from usefulness—but they still bring a delicacy to missions mechs cannot. What magic’s effects are and its triggers can vary from mage to mage, but all mages fit into one of three categories: Psionic, Verbal, and Somatic.
Somatic: Somatic mages must be able to move to cast spells. Benders in Avatar or the Legend of Korra would be a fine example of a somatic mage, and somatic mages do in fact usually have some manner of practiced fighting style that goes with their casting. Any kind of binding will generally block a somatic mage’s abilities, but their magic is linked to implants in the reflex section of their brain, meaning they can cast reflex spells at reaction time speeds instead of having to consciously think of them.
Verbal: For a verbal mage, spellcasting is all about words. Generally, ordinary Erenduilian (OOC: English) words, arranged in such a way that they allow the caster to focus spells. A more powerful spell usually requires longer and more complicated statements to successfully complete. If a verbal mage is silenced, their spells will fail. Verbal casters are a good mix of power, some of the spontaneity of a somatic and the difficulty of stopping that a psionic caster brings to the table.
Psionic: No words or motions are required for a psionic mage. They cast entirely through thought, the only requirement of a successful spell being a concentrated, complete thought run through their mind and directed at a target. However, since they only cast through sheer force of will and have no focusing device to speak of other than implants, a psionic mage is woefully underpowered compared to somatic and verbal mages, and anything that breaks their focus will shatter their spell.
Spirit Soldiers:
Though mages generally have a familiar spirit, spirits are far more applicable and varied in the world of mech pilots. Spirits are usually small creatures, around the size of a small dog, and generally grant a pilot one, specific, battle-shifting power. Most have some sentimental value to the owner, whether they’re the guardian of a person’s home or an animated family keepsake. It’s ironic that, at the height of technology, some of the greatest aid comes from the fury of the earth itself. Powers can range from a short, berserker power boost like that of Erikal Slin’s Overdrive, or a long term, slow autorepair of mech systems. Most are fairly weak, but so little is understood about them that they may yet reveal abilities unknown.
A note on combining and transforming mechs: In order to combine or transform, a mech MUST have a spirit capable of sustaining the alteration through magical input, thus consuming a spirit slot.
Sponsorship System:
Essentially, this is my homebrewed rewards system. If you’ve played Heroes of Beacon, you may be cringing and thinking “Oh God are Kaithas and Daxam going to make me participate in terrible contests?” (jk Lug I love you)
The answer is no. Rewards are done based on IC play almost exclusively, though a few might be handed out for helping us around the game. Simply, the better you play (staying in character, generally playing realistically) and perform in game battles, your characters will attract the attention of the feudal nobility and merchant guilds through their reliability and valor. Wanting to win honor or customers for themselves, these wealthy men and women will come to you and offer their support in exchange for you wearing their colors or otherwise advertising their association with you. Whether you choose to sell out or not is entirely your decision, but the resources granted by a sponsorship can be directed toward developing more tech or other equipment for your character and others. Occasional tech upgrades will come from time to time anyway—but this system allows you to direct the flow of development. Be wary, however, of attempting to perform beyond what your character is capable of. You may end up looking the fool, and oftentimes everyone will have the same tech available to them unless it’s expensive or otherwise rare.
And, that brings me to my last point. Rules!
1. Obey RP Guild rules. That goes without saying, but I just want to make it explicit.
2. Listen to staff, for the moment me and Daxam.
3. No godmodding, metagaming, bunnying... Your control is limited to your character, unless permission is granted to you otherwise. Fitting into that: If your character attempts to godmod or perform beyond his or her abilities to gain more sponsors or glory hog, they will likely get hurt in some way IC. Sprinting at a line of demon soldiers with nothing but a paper machete and miraculously dodging all attacks in an attempt to seem brave will get you killed. Don't do it.
4. Put "Steel Salvation" in the extra blank to prove you read these.
5. No one but a GM may kill your character without your permission, and it will only be done in the event of a grievous offense or to prevent an offense from taking place (i.e. death seems unavoidable). If you disagree in the latter case, feel free to PM me and we can sort things out.
6. NPC reactions are primarily the staff's purview, and most demonic creatures are not mooks to be wrecked by your oh-so-mighty character. Respect their strength, and respect how I have the townspeople and nobles react to your character and his or her tactics.
7. Have fun, and welcome to Mecha Carta!
