INTRODUCTION
The vast lands of Illendriel are full of wonder; sights and experiences that no single being could ever hope to see in multiple lifetimes. It's a medieval fantasy world of vast empires, quiet villages, savage wastelands, and mighty dragons. A world of almost infinite possibilities. Inspired by the likes of dungeons and dragons, final fantasy, lord of the rings, and others of the genre where brave heroes combat vile monsters, this will hopefully have a little bit of something that everyone can enjoy!
OVERVIEW
This roleplay will actually be a series of adventures rather than a single large one, each one controlled by a game master voted on by us, given that there's more than one volunteer for such a position at the time. The stories will mostly take place within the same canon, i.e. what happens in one of our adventures is taken as fact to have happened within the same lore that the other adventures are also a part of. However, they don't all have to, just in case something happens within a story that we don't like or wish to explore a "what if" scenario that would mess up the story if played in the main canon, but would be a blast to do otherwise, such as what if Illendriel is hit by a zombie apocalypse that threatens it's extinction.
This roleplay is, in it's heart, a massive sand box for us to play around with and all contribute to, not simply following my every command as you're all forced to stick to a linear story without any input of your own or traveling off the beaten path. As such this will be at it's greatest once all of our ideas are combining in new and exciting ways. There will not be a large amount of backstory to begin with because of this, as the group might decide to focus our attention towards another direction than the stuff I had planned.
Let's say an old man shows up to give exposition to everyone at the start of a story. People can make the choices for their own character, which could include beating up the man and stealing his wallet, if such a character was accepted by the game master to begin with and able to pull off this fowl dead. Yes; as long as a character's actions are realistic for what they could accomplish, they can do almost anything that's not breaking guild rules. This doesn't mean that people who are a problem for the roleplay will be left to have free reign on making our lives miserable, as the game master or other characters can present challenges for them that they cannot overcome in order to stop them. That being said, do whatever you want as long as you don't spoil the experience for everyone and we should be okay.
This roleplay will start out with relatively short experiences to weed out potential trolls (internet ones, not the race) and allow everyone to get a feel on how this all works before we get into the real meat of this roleplay.
Although I say inspired by certain games/media that use stats and dice rolling, that is not the case here. No stats are used, as things are done based on common sense. If you have a buff dude try to break down a door, we know he'll have an easier time kicking it down than my string bean looking mage. It's up to the game master to decide if they wish to use dice or not. They may do so if they think, "hmm...this has a chance it could work and a chance it couldn't, so I'll roll a dice based on the probability I think it would have". They could also do so simply to add more unpredictability, which could work best for silly stories where you have to roll for simple actions such as drawing a sword, causing them to fling the sword out and have it stick into an ally's back if they roll a 1! However, in general, I don't imagine dice rolls being used much at all.
SETTING
Picture a fantasy world of your choosing and someplace like that likely exists somewhere within Illendriel as long as you stick to certain guidelines and they don't invalidate aspects about other places (and if they do, say it's from another canon if we allow that setting to be used). Some places developed steam punk technology but there's no one advanced enough to create anything better than single firing guns that take a long time to load, like old time muskets. Fantasy flying vehicles may exist but obviously no jet planes. Technology to develop steel exists. Middle Age stuff is where you can picture things generally at, with fantasy and steam punk elements pushing certain inventions, but be careful that it doesn't feel out of place or too advanced for a normal fantasy setting.
Magic exists with many possible effects, and to use it one must often say incantations or fulfill other ways of bringing it into fruition such as mixing magical ingredients. Different styles of magic have their own ways of using it that branched off from each other long ago. However, all are tied in some way to essence; their energy or the energy found in special ingredients as mentioned previously. Using magic is draining, so between that and familiarity/knowledge of magic, these are the two main things preventing it from becoming too powerful. A spell that can blow up the world could exist, but it would require so much enemy that the caster would die from the strain long before they managed to unleash such power. Time stopping falls into this same category, or other all too powerful magical types. The most powerful of magics can generally only destroy a single town.
Mythology is diverse. Belief in gods comes down to "what counts as a god" a lot of the time. Multiple gods exist, depending on definitions. Many religions have at least a grain of truth to them. No god is all powerful, and most are actually weak compared to how people would normally view gods, able to be killed by mere mortals. Gods are beings who existed since the dawn of creation, which is the main thing that they all have in common.
The geography of Illendriel is vast, from icy tundras to volcanic planes. Three great continents exist called "Leum", "Tallo", and "Vellor", as well as many smaller land masses. Vellor is the most war torn, Leum is thought to be the most peaceful, and Tallo is the middle grounds. However, all are prone to monster attacks from time to time.
The world is inhabited by many races and monsters. They can be heavily inspired by things from other things as well as having some that are completely unique to this roleplay are take a unique spin on old ideas. Humans, of course, exist in plentiful amounts, but with a healthy mix of other races thrown in where they are not out of place in most areas. Beast folk are also common, which are humans with animal characteristics such as cat ears.
RULES
1. Forum roles apply. I say your character has lots of free will here, but don't have them do them something that would cause a ban hammer to fall upon us.
2. You may not control other character's actions in any way unless that's specifically mentioned as a power of a character, such as puppetry or obvious stuff such as grappling their limbs in certain ways. You must get permission by the player to do controlling in other ways. Killing/harming other characters is allowed, but keep in mind that you may be ganged up upon by other players and the gm if you do so without their will. You can say, "I suddenly swing my sword to decapitate my former comrade's head", but the gm may cause an NPC to swoop in and stop you or something.
3. Don't leave people waiting on an IC post for more than a week without good reason. Doing so will invalidate your right to rule #2, allowing us to control your character as desired to move things along. If you're still missing by the next time your deadline comes around then you will likely be kicked out or killed (in character, not in person, as that would be a little excessive). We don't have to punish people in this way, but it's still an option.
4. Don't double post.
5. Wait until everyone else involved with your character has had a chance to post before posting again as to not leave someone in your group behind without a chance to contribute.
6. Post a good paragraph per IC post. Some smaller posts are allowed but don't make a habit out of it. We want to see some effort. Bigger posts are better than smaller if you must go overboard one way or the other.
7. You may post multiple characters on here, but don't swamp us with them.
8. You don't need an actual character, but instead just help with the lore/background/NPCs if you desire.
9. You don't have to join every story within this roleplay.
10. Any of you can organize a second (or even more) story taking place in this setting at the same time a main one is going on, which should be handy if there are a lot of people not currently interested in the main story.
11. Characters accepted by me here doesn't me that they can automatically join all adventures taking place under this roleplay's banner. It just means that they fit into the lore of this world and are not some ak-47 duel wielding fairy (which could be pretty epic, now that I think about it).
12. These are just standard rules. A game master can add on or change rules as they feel the need to do so, and I can also add on rules if I come up with them and feel they are mandatory.
13. I can overrule the game master, but will use this power only with support from most of the people involved.
14. Have fun and don't spoil things for the rest of us!
CHARACTER SHEET
For the sheet, don't bother posting the stuff I have in parenthesis in your final sheet, which is just there to explain the stuff in the sheet.
Name - (They can have made up names or "earth names", although earth doesn't exist here)
Age -
Gender -
Race - (If a race other than the obvious humans, elves, dwarves, etc, please explain about them)
Personality -
Appearance - (Written or picture)
Abilities - (Magic, talents such as good knife throwing, very strong, etc.)
Equipment -
Backstory - (You may make up small nations, towns, etc. on the fly that your character is involved with. However, if they're part of some continent sprawling empire of doom, I'll have some input for you)
ADVENTURE SHEET
The following sheet is for if you wish to start an adventure with us, serving as the game master of it or electing someone else to do so. It can be posted to the OOC at any time you come up with the idea, although official voting will only take place once our current adventure is coming to a close.
Adventure Name -
Length - (short, medium, epic adventure containing hundreds of pages)
Tone - (Light hearted, deathly serious)
Short Description - (You don't have to post any spoilers you have in mind, but instead just disclose everything you are willing to about it that gives us a feel what the adventure is about)
Character Stipulations - (Any special traits for them that you have, such as being evil, non-powered, goblins, etc)
