ⒸRⒾMⒺ PⒶRⒶDⓄ✖

[Lutalica]

For the time being consider this a placeholder as I flesh out the meat behind this idea. Until I throw up an OOC I welcome community feedback.

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▐ CONCEPT ▐ Set in a far future fantasy setting (Currently being fleshed out) the diverse cast of characters players will bring to the table share a distinct quirk: For all intents and purposes they are currently the same entity. A curse that begs to be clarified.

♦ Within a reality running parallel to that which the roleplay takes place you robbed, raided or otherwise thieved a particular ring from its rightful sanctum. Though the how, who and where of it change the consequences are uniform: You are now here.

♦ Having placed the ring on your finger you now are now trapped within the 'true' ring (alongside the other roleplayers), anchored to a reality in which the story will unfold.

♦ Each character physically manifests for the duration of their post (and no longer) displacing the previous character back into the ring. This presents itself as a tug of war between the wills of the cast. Post often and it's assumed you're simply better at manifesting than the others. With the one caveat that there is to be no double-posting players may be as active or inactive as they wish. Though the story will never 'wait' for slower players they're always welcome to contribute. This also allows for the RP to constantly be accepting as new victims fall prey to the curse.

♦ The world reacts to you as if you are (and always have been) the currently manifested individual. For instance, let's say a typical bruiser intimidates someone--then morphs into a petite seductress mid conversation. They'll -remember- being deathly afraid of you. They remember anything they witnessed 'you' do and how they felt about it; inserting the new you into those memories. This can lead to interesting developments.

♦ Injuries sustained while manifested are solely the burden of the effected party and persist between manifestations. So, for example, someone was shot; that wound would be there waiting for them the next time they took control. As such death through disease, advanced age and trauma are still inescapable.

♦ When not manifested characters can see and hear the world as if they were the observer. Though they can't experience it through any other senses.

♦ When not manifested characters can communicate vocally to whomever is, though not to each other. If the manifested individual wants to reply they have to do so out loud.

♦ Even if someone has never met your particular character they'll recognize them by association if they've had dealings with any previous manifestation. This even applies to photographs and composite sketches; they could look at a picture of a man and recognize it as the woman now manifested for example.

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Utilizing the ever expanding array of skillsets each new arrival brings to the table the titular Mr./Ms. 'Milieu' had amassed such wealth, influence and infamy over their indeterminately long career as to be considered either the efforts of a larger organization or outright myth. Presently the latter gathers clout, months after 'your' murder.

Having been expertly assassinated the new arrivals inherit both Milieu's legacy and adversary, simultaneously deprived of any whom could identify the would-be (or in this case has-been) culprit. Forced into a world of criminal intrigue where each supposed ally could be their undoing players must ferret out their foe if they are to have any hope of survival.

[ButtsnBalls]

Basically, we're talking about magical DID.

[Shorticus]

...An incredibly flexible roleplay where you're never left out of the story, always able to rejoin, and perfectly able to create interesting roleplay through indirect interaction with the other players...

HELL. YES.

As someone whose schedule fluctuates between "not very busy" to "busy," I am incredibly interested in this.

[Atrexiel]

I am interested! Waiting for that OOC.

[Lutalica]

So I've been thinking on what to do with magic, as I feel it should be very powerful and ubiquitous without straying into 'cuz' wizards' territory. So DnD style magic is right out.

Instead I'll be thinking of it like this: The stars are essentially will o' wisps on a cosmic scale; saturating the planets that orbit them in heat, light and magical energy. This energy (henceforth referred to as 'Orenda') is present in all things, though the puny amount most creatures can accommodate is nothing next to the vast potential of the natural world. Because of this rituals are more or less leveraging the speck of power one might possess to guide or incite naturally present phenomenon. More on that later.

As for magic as a technology, semi-perpetual motion is the means by which most things are powered. Using a practice known as Tsukumography an imprint is crafted through the destruction of a living creature and 'grafted' to an otherwise inanimate object, giving it life. These 'Tsuks' are able move their new bodies to a certain extent, the applications of which prove numerous. Common uses of Tsukumography include self driven machinery, security systems and guided weaponry. Because of the use of well-trained animals as a key component almost every household has several pets, if only as an investment in future purchases

[Shorticus]

On that note, what sort of magic will you allow?

[Lutalica]

For starters, characters will possess too little orenda to 'do' anything spur of the moment. It is simply impossible in this setting to brute force magic. It's all ritual, to the point where it's considered just another branch of science in universe (and likewise best left to teams of professionals) But that doesn't mean you won't have magic. It just means it will be less something you 'do' and more something you 'own'

A player could as an example own a length of Tsukumographed rope. Being alive it could slither around, tie or untie itself at will or prove useful in any number of ways, able to follow simple commands (As long as the animal it was made from understood them.) I'll pretty much allow for most things to be Tsuked.

Another type of magic I'm leaning towards is construction being more or less guiding the environment to arrange itself in a particular fashion. So buildings are mostly natural formations made more cozy by the addition of human comforts. As this is again, very comparable to the time and effort that goes into putting structures up in real life that's not much use to a player.

I'm still fleshing out a few ideas, but I may allow for a more reactive form of magic that relies on players injecting themselves with a substance derived from extracted orenda before each and every 'spell', but the mortality rate of that will be so high that they only get a set number of uses for the entire roleplay.

[Architect]

This is interesting, and very flexible. I'm definitely interested.

[FantasyChic]

This is a unique RP. I would like to express interest.

[SpookySquid]

Interested. Very interested.

[Framing A Moose]

Never seen anything like this....I like it....

[Noxious]

I want to be a junkie so bad so that everyone has to deal with it.

[Lutalica]

I'll have some more sit down and write time after tonight to keep building this idea up folks

[Lutalica]

Worldwise I'm leaning towards the planet (I welcome name suggestions) being many times larger than earth. I know that such an environment wouldn't be likely to support the sort of ecosystems we'll be playing in but for the sake of the setting I'll be hand-waving it away; Orendo keeps things habitable. Full stop.

I'm attached to it being super massive for several reasons, not least of which to allow for an unfettered decadence of architecture. Consider it the norm for this world's wealthy elite to rely on trains or passenger aircraft to navigate their gargantuan estates. Secondly, fantasy worlds need monsters to slay (Even if our roleplay doesn't focus on that fact), and a world of such scale allows for animals that are to us what we are to ants. With their existence nature is more adversarial to the common man, though it's not with these giants that they'd most often contend. Artillery, fortifications and human ingenuity are more than enough to keep these giants at bay, a fact that is inherently problematic in that the safer our settlements are from such predators the more inviting they become to for their prey. Creatures great and small are always seeking to slip passed (Even over or under) a city's defenses and eke out a living best then can, to the peril of those that already reside there. More on this in the IC.

In regards to technology the setting will be much like the real world, more advanced in some ways and less in some (No internet!) The crux of it being with the existence of magic EVERY problem looks like solving it should start with the orendic sciences; never having to do without meant that more mundane solutions were often overlooked. As an example, they don't have an analog to the space program. Their own world is so massive that few have had the ambition to set their sights towards the stars. Likewise computing technology is primitive at best and certainly not very conducive to entertainment. Guns however do exist, though it's a toss up on whether they'll be conventional fare or if I'll be relying on magic here as well. Something I have decided however is that military grade rounds are Tsuked (Henceforth referred to as seeker rounds), deploying fins mid flight for limited homing capability. Though illegal for civilian use wildfire rounds are an (even more) unsanctioned alternative ever in high demand. Assembled and sold in shady basements or warehouses (To munitions what a meth lab is to pharmaceuticals) they're at best unreliable, almost always crafted from abused animals as it's easier to make a Tsuk mean than motivated.

Returning to the topic of Tsukumography, it is possible to use a human being as a basis for the imprint and graft them to an object. However--doing so is murder. Souls and the afterlife are no more evidenced in this world than in ours; as such it's the old 'Star Trek Teleporter' scenario. The original is destroyed and a copy (in this case imprint) is created elsewhere, moreover it is by this process that a disembodied mental construct is created, so you're getting even less. Some optimists maintain that in time the process may be perfected; allowing for infinite copies to be printed from a single donor animal.

Being the foundation of much of the world building orendo sorely needs to be squared away with a cut and dry explanation. (I'm not quite there yet.) It doesn't have a molecule or particle associated with it; so though it's often thought of like a substance by the laymen it's more properly classed as a natural phenomenon, like gravity. Orendo will in its natural state 'saturate' its surroundings, becoming attached to conventional matter or in its absence energy. Objects with more mass attract more orendo and as such solids 'sap' the magic from surrounding liquids, gasses or plasma. Gravity has no effect upon its distribution, this is what allows it to escape stars; slipping away as easily as light. Matter and energy may also become oversaturated, displacing already attached orendo as more arrives. Because of this it has a tendency to 'sink' into the earth.

Orendo, as magic, is utilized to structure matter or energy in a way that would not be normally possible. This happens naturally as the little tugs and pulls of its presence that fill reams of textbooks in setting. An artificial lattice can be constructed however, and such is the basis of Tsukumography and other orendic sciences. To dumb it down (Or rather not flesh it out any more than needed :P) a medium much denser than the surroundings is used to coerce the flow of orendo in and out of an object; usually mercury, basalt or osmium powder. This forms the foundation of the ritual and is the most critical component--the destruction of which 'kills' a Tsuk, as it's the only thing 'holding' its imprint together. Such paths are likewise used in construction and agriculture to support or stymie plant growth, with rock and metal requiring a harsher hand.

I think I may expand on the 'drugs for magic' idea I had awhile back by way of an inhaled substance called 'surge', essentially just orendo saturated mercury vapor used in conjunction with osmium lattice implants. I'll pick through this idea later.

[Wade Wilson]

@Lutalica Fucking interested. Sign me up.

[Lutalica]

So military and domestic drones will be old hat in setting; since giving motion to the motionless is sort of -the- thing here. Initially they were crude; sailed spears and the like, nowadays they're ahead of the curve if compared to real life robotics. The limiting factor I'd stress being that they're only as intelligent and well behaved as their animal component. It's the sort of world where your car could get sad because you don't wash it. Unsurprisingly this makes taming a lucrative (and cut-throat) industry.

These 'drudges' preform best if structured similarly to their component creature: guard dogs, birds of prey etc. Though it's not beyond a good trainer to acclimate them to an unfamiliar form. The simplest of such being self driven gears and living engines, the cornerstones of modern living.

Speaking of modern life (and that's as good a segue as I can manage at the moment) Transportation is something I've been mulling over. I'd appreciate if interested parties could weigh in. Would you prefer that they be clean energy analogs of real means of conveyance (Sleek and futuristic) or rather that they borrow from the animal world (Legged locomotion)

[Shorticus]

You're going to be a little disappointed by my opinion, I think:

"Eh, it's whatev'."

Really, I'd be pretty cool with whatever aesthetic you choose for the setting so long as you feel it suits the world. I'm still interested.

I've been thinking about character concepts, but I think I'll hold back on them until we get to the thread itself.

[Wade Wilson]

So military and domestic drones will be old hat in setting; since giving motion to the motionless is sort of -the- thing here. Initially they were crude; sailed spears and the like, nowadays they're ahead of the curve if compared to real life robotics. The limiting factor I'd stress being that they're only as intelligent and well behaved as their animal component. It's the sort of world where your car could get sad because you don't wash it. Unsurprisingly this makes taming a lucrative (and cut-throat) industry.

These 'drudges' preform best if structured similarly to their component creature: guard dogs, birds of prey etc. Though it's not beyond a good trainer to acclimate them to an unfamiliar form. The simplest of such being self driven gears and living engines, the cornerstones of modern living.

Speaking of modern life (and that's as good a segue as I can manage at the moment) Transportation is something I've been mulling over. I'd appreciate if interested parties could weigh in. Would you prefer that they be clean energy analogs of real means of conveyance (Sleek and futuristic) or rather that they borrow from the animal world (Legged locomotion)

@Lutalica

I'm thinking maybe a bit of both? Some people use animals, some people use more futuristic/modern transportation? Hell, maybe even make it a little cyberpunk, with augmented/cybernetic animals? *shrug*

[Shorticus]

I'm just imagining giant mechanical dogs instead of cars and giant mechanical worms instead of subways.

[Lutalica]

Alright. Then I'll be leading with the idea of 'automotiles' arising alongside or before wheeled alternatives. So instead of a horse drawn carriage in (the equivalent of the Victorian Era) you'd have the carriage itself trotting along. I'd imagine leisure cars like these would rely on a 'floaty' suspension as the Tsuk keeps the cabin and its passengers level, but could escalate beyond bumpy at a gallop. The advantage this has over having a Tsuk (or living animal for that matter) pull a wagon along would be the ability to traverse stairs, turn in place, shuffle sideways etc. I think trots or motes' would be good shorthand for these.

Wheeled vehicles I think would have the appeal of more manual control over what's going on. Powered by Tsukumography rather than simply animated through it. Maybe even have hybrids that can park themselves with a special release.

For aircraft I'm thinking of actual wings. Even though this would require them to be so large they'd cover the craft like a tent when not in use. Additionally no fuel means no refuelings, so aircraft could soar near indefinitely; only landing for repairs. Given the pre-discussed scale of most everything attached to government or wealth this could mean more than just airborne aircraft carriers. Think mobile fortresses. Helicopters and the like are in their infancy, and I don't think breaking the sound barrier is tech feasible.

@Wade Wilson

Hell, maybe even make it a little cyberpunk, with augmented/cybernetic animals? *shrug*

Cybernetics are strictly out. One of the technologies that undershoots our own in that regard. It's not that they can't make a functioning prosthesis and attach it to you, it's that the limb would have a mind of its own. I am keenly interested in a few alternatives however:

◤ Helping hands - A backpack or harness style Tsuk marketed towards amputees, engineers and artisans; literally the solution to "I've only got two hands!". Costly due to the specialized training required and the difficulty associated with breeding and rearing suitable helper monkeys.

◤ Previously I mentioned that the orendic sciences are used heavily in construction and agriculture as a means of planned growth. I think that that could extend itself to animal eugenics. For now we'll just refer to it as Post-Breeding. As this would require preforming surgery on an infant human augmentation via this manner is unconscionable. Seen almost exclusively in dedicated work animals (scent hounds, weather birds, etc) post-breeding fills a niche where even purpose built Tsuks would be too clumbsy.

- As an addendum to the above, which I don't think I've yet mentioned: Tsukumographed creatures retain only a token array of senses. ((This may change later. Depending on if I think having everything have a face is silly or cool))

◤ I could see cross species organ transplants being a cyberware analog. I'm undecided. If it ends up being thrown into the pot it'd be less designer bioware and more a patchwork of animal parts. They'd need a lattice to keep your body from rejecting them, and as that's the physical (often fragile) component of a ritual damaging it leads to organ failure.