Thought Manifest

Dues Ex Artificium

Yes, but not here on RPG. The site has given me too many difficulties, so I've moved the game to another location. The link is at the top of the main post if you want to follow the game there.

Dues Ex Artificium

This is still technically open, but I'm moving it to another site. I have too much trouble accessing RPG's site, and I can't run a game if I can't get on the site to edit information or even read what anyone has to say. If you're interested enough to follow it to another site, then just shoot me a PM, and I'll get you the necessary information. I'm not asking anyone to move away from RPG to the new site. Many people who are coming with me to the new set-up are literally only going to be on the new site for Deus Ex Machina and not for anything else, so just know you have options. You don't have to abandon one site for the other or anything like that.

Anyway, just let me know if you want to come along for the ride. If not, I'll understand. Moving sites is a pain. I just didn't see another option that would satisfy me.

Dues Ex Artificium

I sent everyone a PM. If you did not receive a PM, let me know and I will send it to you.

Dues Ex Artificium

Double post...

Dues Ex Artificium

Rosalind, it's fine. Kids take up a lot of time and sanity. I may not have a first-hand understanding, but believe me when I say I get it.

PlantEater, looking forward to seeing your character.

With the two sides starting separately but eventually crossing paths, the separate thread idea can't work seamlessly. I think Trivia explained it the best, and I still think that's how we should play it out. I understand there are concerns about knowing too much about what the other side is doing, so I'll make sure to always clearly label the PoV of each post/part of a post I make. I would appreciate it if others with characters on opposing sides would do the same.

Dues Ex Artificium

I feel like this would be a little overwhelming for some people, especially with how the site doesn't load easily for a lot of us. If there was a tabs system in place that we could extend, it might be different, but I personally would have a hard time even wanting to read posts for a side of a game that doesn't involve me or my characters, so I wouldn't really want to put that onto anyone who decides they only want one character.

I think the easiest way for now will be to just have a clear break between each character in those posts that players make for multiple characters. By break, I mean either putting each character into individual hiders or having the solid, horizontal line distinguishing between each character, or even having a title distinguishing which character is involved.

If anyone else has any opinions on what they'd like to do, I'm all ears, though.

Dues Ex Artificium

We've had some interest in a Fatanen quest character, so I'm going to start making a character for that side of things. Once I'm done, I'll make the first post.

Kathryn's Manifestations

ZORA GAVRO
[ Female | 32 | Fatan Sairuvar ]
"Deus Ex Artificium" | OoC | Interest Check

Alliance:

Zora's heart doesn't lie with the Fatanen or the Edhil. Instead, she cares only for returning balance to the world at large by stopping both from acquiring the Bracelets. However, she has been pretending to sympathize with the Fatanen Rule.

Race:

3/4 Fatan
1/8 Calva, Fox
1/8 Edhel

Appearance:

5'7"
112 lbs.
Slender but with defined musculature
Long, coarse black hair
Dark brown eyes
Full lips
Oval shaped face
Warm-toned, brown skin unmarked by scars

Class:

Nestad

Abilities/Skills:

Healing

Zora trained under her physician father to understand the human body in a way that not all people do. By tapping into the chi (energy) pathways in living beings, she can effectively gain a "visual" in her mind of every aspect. In this way, she can focus on damage and begin to heal it. The simplest methods involve herbs and surgery tools. The most difficult require her to push her chi into another being to give them a boost that helps the victim's body heal itself. She is only able to do this through physical contact, one person at a time, and it is a severe drain on her energies even with her ability to tap into the heavens and the earth. She cannot effectively complete overly complex surgeries, especially those dealing with brain damage/ailments or genetic disorders. She also has no real knowledge of how to save body parts that have been too badly damaged, but she does know how to amputate.

Imbuement

Her mother taught her the arts of imbuement, and while it came rather easily to Zora, she still enjoys it. While she most learned to add protection spells to objects, her mother also taught her to add curses, luck, and other interesting effects. Unfortunately, such magic takes time and cannot be done in an instant or even at a moment's notice. Otherwise, the magic in the armor wouldn't last. Alternatively, attempting to fuse magic into objects too quickly would force her body to channel more energy from the heavens and earth than her body can feasibly handle. Imbuement can only be done properly by responsible parties.

Potions

Zora's grandmother on her father's side was an apothecary, and the woman taught her a great many things about crafting proper potions and elixirs. Much like imbuement, potions crafting requires focus and patience. Some ingredients require more time to prepare than others, and completing a concoction is never about simply tossing a bunch of ingredients together to magically produce the right effect. While she grew up learning mostly about creating things to heal others' ailments, since she began working for the High King, Zora has learned a great deal more about not only poisons but also such concoctions that can cause weaponized effects such as explosions.

Power Sharing

This form of magic doesn't require any kind of physical contact for Zora to properly do though it is above and beyond the most challenging because, unlike the patience her other areas of expertise tend to require, this one generally needs to be done in the span of a few seconds. As a result, she must channel not only celestial and earthly energies through her body but also the energy of the target(s) she intends to give or take energy from. Because of the speed it usually requires, it is the most dangerous, and she is at risk for overloading herself every time she does it. It's much easier if she can build it over time, but it's lasting time is short and therefore limited. However, she has been working for years on a way to extend the life of this ability.

Short Sword

Zora learned how to wield a short sword with some effectiveness, but she isn't an expert by any stretch of the imagination. She would rather take a body down from the inside with magic or potions than simply slash through it with a blade.

Armor and Weapons:

Boots: Sturdy, black leather
Vest: Black leather, black fur trimmed
Belts: Black and red leather crossing over chest, back, hips, and thighs
Short Sword
Pouches of Various Potion Concoctions

Personality:
(What kind of person is your character? What quirks do they have? What are their emotional strengths and weaknesses?)

History:

Zora Gavro was born from a long line of Nestad people. Her father focused primary on medical care while her mother focused on imbuement. Both taught her their secrets. Unfortunately, her mother's side of the family disowned her when she married a mixed-race man, so Zora never got the chance to meet them. Fortunately, her father's side embraced them with great love and joy. Her home life in the small Eriston village of Ostlyn at the southern Vonga border.

There was a fable Zora was told as she grew about two gods, Duath and Lim, who battled over the world to bring it into chaos or into order. It was a popular myth in Eriston, but her Edhel great-grandfather told her a different version of events, one in which Lim took the bracelet of Duath to a group of varying races that she had gathered together. They were dubbed the Varnegwaith, a society of people who were given two important tasks. The first was to take Lim's Bracelet to a strange race of beings where it would be separate from Duath's Bracelet but also protected. The second was to keep the Bracelet of Duath a secret at all costs, to keep it from the hands of those who had any notion of using its power.

The Varnegwaith protected their secret through generations and select indoctrinations. They maintained their cover through archiving the knowledge of the world to share with others. Because they were so forthcoming with all other knowledge, none suspected they kept a meaningful secret. Unfortunately, as time passed, the necessity for secrecy seemed less important to some. A few of the Varnegwaith gathered together to sell the information about the Bracelet of Duath to the highest bidder. Instead, a powerful, militant leader betrayed them and burned their library to the ground in search for the artifact. They found nothing, and those who were not killed in the struggle were scattered.

Zora loved the fable dearly, but it came as a shock when, at the age of thirteen, directly after the Nogyth massacre, her great-grandfather told her that she was descended from the Varnegwaith. Great-Grandfather Urion was descended from two Varnegwaith who made sure their story was whispered through the generations. It became even more pertinent, to Urion at least, once word of the Bracelet's recovery had been found. He urgently taught his great-granddaughter all he knew, hoping that she would use the knowledge to reclaim the Bracelet. After all, as a man of obvious Edhel heritage, he would never be able to get close to the High Royals to stop them, but as a young woman who could visually pass for Fatan without anyone second-guessing her lineage, she could get close to him.

Zora trained to become the Varnegwaith her great-grandfather believed she could be and then some, but the urgency of it never really hit home for her until her family received word that Fatanen soldiers were coming for them. They were abominations, mixing racial bloodlines, and they were to be dealt with immediately.

Other:

Relationships
- Miriam Loros | Female | 50 | Living | Fatan | Mother
- Tirnon Gavro | Male | 73 | Living | 1/4 Calva, Fox; 1/4 Edhel; 1/2 Fatan | Father
- Rusceth Gavro | Male | 103 | Living | 1/2 Calva, Fox; 1/2 Edhel | Grandfather (Father's father)
- Leona Mullin | Female | 88 | Living | Fatan | Grandmother (Father's mother)
- Urion Ocarnil | Male | 4,195 | Edhel | Great-Grandfather (Father's grandfather)

Dues Ex Artificium

71342, Rowen has been accepted, but I would like more detail about the golem, Squeaks. What I want to know is what kind of personality, life span, and limitations Squeaks has. What does it's body look like? Can it move on its own? Does it walk, float, bounce, roll or have some other way to maneuver through the world on its own or does it need to be carried around like an inanimate object (like a balloon or a backpack might need to be)? Does it have a kind of personality? Does it obey Rowen's every command, or does it occasionally do its own thing? Can it communicate with him? Does it need to be "fed" to maintain its form, or is it deteriorating over time?

I would like to set some limitations myself. The Golem that Lim created in the myth was a fully sentient being who could think for itself. It had self awareness and intellect. It had the ability to think the way that any of the six races could. As a very young Sairuvar who does not have the power of a god, I don't think Squeaks should be sentient. I will allow it the ability to learn but only through mimicking what it witnesses others do without magic. I want it to be limited to being able to manipulating its physical environment with its own body only. Magic requires absolute sentience and an ability to think outside the box. I want Squeaks' ability to think to be limited to thinking inside the box. It won't be able to invent things to make its life easier. For example, it never would have been able to think to invent a wheel or a plow or anything like that. I also don't want it to be immortal. I want its lifespan to hinge on more than just Rowen being alive. I want you to think of some kind of regular maintenance that Rowen needs to do to keep it "alive."

As far as building on the lore, that's totally okay. I actually love that so many people feel so comfortable doing that. I purposely left some things without a whole lot of detail so that others could use their creativity to build a character who fit the basics but could also build on what was there. I love seeing other interpretations of it. Anything about the Bracelets is just myth and conjecture. They've been out of commission for so long that what exactly they can do is basically lost. They've just been learning what the Bracelet of Duath alone can do, and they haven't even tapped into its true potential. To be fair, I don't really think that any one person can tap into one bracelet's true potential without its sibling.

Anyway, I can actually make a little hider section with some extended mythology about the bracelets. I'm encouraging everyone to contribute because different nations (maybe even different regions within those nations) could have different myths about it. Maybe we can all contribute to a list of ideas about what powers the bracelets hold both separately and together.

Dues Ex Artificium

I'm going to make a character for the other side if anyone shows interest. That way, even if no one else makes a character, everyone has the opportunity for interaction.