9:00 AM, August 6th, 1210PW. 34 Degrees Fahrenheit. Raining.The Queen was spotted at a party late last night wearing a crinoline. Fashion outlets are in an uproar, with actress Elissa Ardvulf, starring in The Wondrous Laboratory (Coming out Summer 1211 in nickelodeon theaters near you!), issuing the statement, "I don't care if the Queen herself wears one of those horrid old things. Crinolines? Please, I don't need one of those to look good, and neither does anyone else, Queen Milla included. They're not worth the fire hazard." - The Unoctoc View
Far to the south in the grey, overcast skies, a series of red streaks through the clouds just above the horizon. The Deadlands are still being pummeled a thousand miles away and the stream of dust returning to Earth brings a pleasant orange glow to match that of the sunrise an hour earlier. Soft pattering sounds pop in and out of existence as small droplets of rain splash onto the corrugated steel roof over the Institute train stop, with mud visibly forming in the grassy woods on either side of the railroad tracks and the path away from the station and the scent of petrichor sweetening the air.
The first load of newcomers steps off of the train in single file and wanders down the path away from the station, as per the instructions on the acceptance letters sent to each applicant. The new students and teachers are all of various ages and shapes and sizes, though they're predominantly human of normal size and shape. A few chimeras walk behind the rest of the crowd, opting to keep to themselves, and a single sapient Monster in the form of a small, blue-grey, four-eyed housecat walks to the left side of the line of students, sticking to the muddied grass in favor of the gravel that would irritate its footpads.
Upon realizing that he's still rather dry, one of the older men in the procession looks up to the sky to discover that the rain is being parted above the path, and a bemused look crosses his face. I suppose this is what Magic is..., he thinks to himself, having never been exposed to it before.
In fifteen minutes, the procession arrives at the frontal gates of Mordhaben's Institute for Aspiring Mages and enter the courtyard for the opening ceremony. The gates are wrought iron in an ornate floral pattern, twenty feet wide and twelve feet tall. In the center of the gate is a plate of thin metal with the words 'For the Sake of Progress' cut into it in cursive text, and upon arrival, the gates open on their own, revealing a circle twenty meters wide paved with flagstones, surrounded on all sides by the most beautiful flowerbeds and miniature trees in the country, each of which is warm to the touch. The administrative building front steps are on the far side of the courtyard, with a podium standing at the top, and the walls of the administrative building wrap around the entire courtyard to meet the iron fence.
Standing about the courtyard are a handful of figures, who judging by their olive-colored military overcoats and Institute badges are staff members. A short preteen girl in a comically large witch's hat is chattering away in the middle of the courtyard to an incredibly athletic man who could be described as 'abnormally tall for a human'. Two professors of average human height are also chatting away at the front entrance, both clothed so heavily that not an inch of skin can be seen, one of whom has their face covered in bandages beneath a hood, and the other appearing to be wearing a theater mask. Those who are familiar with the Institute would recognize them as Professors Emilya and Hans Vance, and as Professors Brovak and Leere, respectively. Brovak, the bandaged man, gives off an aura of undeniable creepiness which all but the most absolutely moronic would feel simply by looking in his direction. Perhaps it's something about the way he carries himself - almost as though his movements are too smooth and perfect by half.
The rain above the courtyard is, like the rain above the pathway, splattering upon an invisible barrier and rolling off to the sides.
@pkken Cool, no problem. And it's perfectly reasonable for more fantastic Monsters to exist - if you can think of something that has Monster traits from the OOC post, go ahead and use it. Monsters are fucking weird.
We've got a Discord link posted on the OOC linked in my previous post, so you can ask your questions in Discord if you'd prefer.
If you've already been accepted, drop your CS in the character tab there.
@pkken What sort of demons and half-demons are we talking about here? Are you talking more classical fantasy-style demons? Because that would easily be covered by mixed-breed Chimeras. Or are you talking about the savior xenos/"demons" mentioned in the setting info? Those things are off-limits for any player character.
Name: Ivy Frost Age: 16 Gender: Female Species: 3rd generation Chimera (Broad winged raptor) Occupation: 2nd year Student Magic Type Preference: Temperature Control (Fire and Ice, Steam Explosion) Innate Magic Talent: Diamond Armor
Though the youngest of the three Miss Frost is the undisputed ringleader of the trio. Miss Frost Never allows her first name to be used, even among the teachers at the Institute. She is possibly the wealthiest, most refined, most famous student Mordhaben's Institute has in attendance. The Frost family is well known within the Empire and weilds quite a bit of political and financial power. Miss Frost has the looks of a well bred heiress and always dresses the part. She also wears an almost constant smile as a proper lady of her standing should, at least by her parents standards. However, that smile has never once reached her eyes no matter who she turned her gaze upon. Her eyes are cold and piercing, like those of a viper about to strike. Miss Frost also has a poisonous tongue to compliment those snake-like eyes, and she delivers scathing criticism to anyone who wastes her time. It is rumored one unfortunate victim of her toxic words actually commited suicide, though this is unconfirmed and few care to find out first hand if this could be true.
Name: Yvette Urzenheim Age: 17 Gender: Female Species: 4th generation Chimera (Cat) Occupation: 2nd year Student Magic Type Preference: Frequency Control Innate Magic Talent: Aural Relocation
Yvette is well known as the most openly cruel and vicious of the three. She is likewise dedicated to Miss Frost like no one else, in fact disturbingly obsessed may be more accurate. There is nothing Yvette would not do for Frost, though it could be said that there is little Yvette would not do in general. When not fawning over Frost and catering to her every whim, Yvette truly enjoys screwing with others, even if it leads to their ruination. The girl delivers cruelty and concocts elaborate schemes with a smile, all in the interest of her own entertainment. Yvette does not hesitate to use money, her family's influence, or even more deplorable methods to get out of trouble, which she frequently finds herself in. Many suspect, though no one openly voice, that Yvette is mentally unbalanced. Few people would even be surprised if Yvette were to go so far as murder for her precious Lady Frost.
Name: Claire Eisenov Age: 19 Gender: Female Species: Human Occupation: 2nd year Student Magic Type Preference: Jack of Trades in Magic Innate Magic Talent: None
Claire is easily the group's 'nice girl' and general mediator, or in Yvette's case, the voice of reason. Even so Claire is largely neutral and does little to interfere with her two closest friends. Truly the odd one out no onee can figure why she chooses to spend most of her time with the meanest girls currently in the school. A few suspect Claire is secretly the worst of the three but this is definitely the minority opinion. Most people actually get along decently with the girl as she is fairly friendly and approachable. She does have a fierce temper but even when set off there is usually a good reason and she is far less abusive than the others. That said some of her episodes can become violent which has earned her a mixed reputation. Claire's family is also wealthy but much more obscure than the Frosts or Urzenheims, with a far more modest fortune. Also unlike the other two Claire does not throw around the weight of her family name, for any reason. Claire instead prefers to deal with her problems personally.
Name: Ohon Katann
Appearance: Ohon isn't incredibly beautiful, but he's definitely pretty. Or, at least, as pretty as a four foot tall, forty-five pound boy with dragonfly wings can get. He has narrow, soft facial features and large, feminine eyes of a brilliant yellow, and golden skin. Ohon's wingspan measures roughly 8 feet from tip to tip, and each of his four wings has an iridescent shine to it that catches the sunlight with a colorful glow. As he flies, he casts colored shadows upon the ground. Beneath his clothing, one might note that Ohon's skin is incredibly tough and rigid, almost like chitin. His face is surprisingly durable as well, and is more likely to crack and crunch than bruise.
Ohon's fashion style is fairly simple: he wears a white tuxedo with a pink tie and a purple corsage. He keeps his (relatively) long and flowing hair well maintained and regularly changes his choice of hair color.
In combat, Ohon wields an enormous kanabo that weighs as much as he himself does.
Age: 19
Species: Third Generation Dragonfly Chimera
Gender: Male
Occupation: Student, First Year
Personality: Grating. Persistent. Belligerent at times. Thinks with testosterone more than with his brain. You'd do well to keep a large flyswatter handy. Of course, he's slightly clumsy, so he prefers to stay airborne and not risk bumping into things. Ohon Katann is a fairly nice person when you finally get through his incredibly thick and empty head, though most lack the patience to get to that point. Ohon himself is usually the driving force behind his friendships, simply by merit of sticking around and refusing to fuck off for so long that people simply accept his presence as a fact of life, and perhaps eventually see the well hidden 'good' buried deep inside.
Ohon's memory is horribly lacking, and while he's fairly perceptive of others' emotions, he tends to forget things that others might take for granted. Getting punched in the face is no big deal to him - a few minutes later, he'll have forgotten about it completely. But it's inconsistent - saying something unreasonably cruel to Ohon will genuinely upset him, and he won't forget it for a while.
Biography: Ohon Katann is incredibly forgetful. He can't remember where he's from or where his family are, but his application at the very least has some accurate info.
Ohon was born as the result of a chimera circus performer having a one night stand with a member of the audience. His name, in his mother's culture, means "Shame of the Family", and he was dumped off at a boarding school as a young child. Other children would be traumatized by being dumped off as someone else's problem, but Ohon's extraordinarily low test scores provided an explanation as to why he didn't seem to care: he was a complete and total moron. While he was often in trouble for one form of mischief or another, punishments seemed to have very little effect. Conversely, seeing how his actions hurt others did have an effect, and he would always shape up if his actions were actively hurting others.
This caused significantly more problems when he struck puberty at 13, and he gained a reputation for sexual harassment at his old boarding school, which still follows him to this day. When he finally was given the boot at 18, he made his way to Mordhaben's Institute for Aspiring Mages with the intent of becoming a productive member of society.
Ohon uses either his physical senses or Vision to determine the velocity and momentum of an object - preferably touching him - and magnifies it using magical energies. The greater the change and the larger the object's mass, the more power is used. While the power can't easily change another sapient creature's velocity, it can be used to change the velocity of objects that those creatures are in contact with, such as clothes and weapons. An object at rest will stay at rest, but an object in motion may be accelerated or decelerated in an instant. Usually, Ohon uses this with his enormous club.
Interests: Making friends. Or trying to. Playing baseball. Food. Being a hero!
Skills: Getting hit. Hard. Getting shouted at. A lot. With really, really mean words. Forgetting his Condensers.
Name: Mionrashk ar Wahaca
Appearance: Mionrashk is a Telkit - a type of near-feline Monster. As such, he is rather small, measuring roughly two feet from foot to eartip, and he weighs in the neighborhood of 30lbs. His species has a large, spiky 'mane' sweeping backwards from behind their ears to cover their necks and much of the shoulder region, extremely powerful hind legs in comparison to the more 'normal' frontal legs, and an incredibly long prehensile 'tail' that could perhaps be described more as a "furry tentacle" sprouting from just above the pelvis. His species walks with a quadrupedal, almost lizardlike gait. Telkits live between fifteen and twenty-five years, and Mionrashk is considered a young adult by their standards.
Mionrashk himself is colored a dull shade of purplish taupe grey, with a deeper glassy purple color in his mane's 'fur'. Each of his four eyes has a horizontal rectangular pupil surrounded by an iris of stonelike green-grey, and the thinner 'fur' of his face is dyed in intricate patterns indicating his clan - that of the Wahaca region of the Deadlands, with swirls and spirals dotted by icons like fangs. Mionrashk has 273 of such fanglike icons dotting his face, with one larger dyed 'tattoo' resembling a claw upon the center of his forehead. The tip of his prehensile tentacle-tail is burnt, with the glasslike 'fur' melted and fused into something resembling a stinger.
Mionrashk does not wear human clothing, and a long, unpleasant patch of hairless scar tissue covers his underbelly region, where his lower floating ribcage is jagged and has healed incorrectly.
Age: 6 Years (30 equivalent)
Species: Telkit (Monster, Feline, S)
Gender: Male
Occupation: Student, First Year
Personality: Mionrashk is a serious, polite sort, as the result of his upbringing. Telkits do not have tight-knit families like humans do, but rather 'colonies' in which social group members claim their own territory and meet at a common area. Mionrashk is much the same way, though among his people, he spent more time socializing than the older generation. He prides his prowess as a hunter, having participated in over three hundred Hunts and having slain almost as many of his targets. But even more important to him than his pride as a hunter is his interest in magic and medicine. While the Monsters of the Deadlands have their own extremely powerful magics, the humans are leagues ahead of them in scientific knowledge, and Mionrashk believes that studying amongst the humans may allow him to bring the secrets of longevity to his people.
Biography: Mionrashk was born in the central Deadlands, in what used to be southern Mexico. Immediately after hatching from his egg, his father taught him to hunt small rodents and insects, then left him in an unclaimed area near the Wahaca Colony. Mionrashk leaned on his instincts to survive in the junglelike environment of the Deadlands, preferring to run and hide when faced with creatures too large for him to fight, and hunted as a kitten for a year before finally finding his way back to the Colony's central area. While Telkits do not place importance on bloodlines and family, he was met with sympathy. There had been a war of some sort, and both his father and his eldest brothers had volunteered for the defense of the Deadlands Academy against humans, where they had been killed by naval artillery fire.
Mionrashk became very close with three Telkits in particular - Kahate of the Thousand Kills, who had returned from the war missing his tail, Minyar, who would become Mionrashk's mate a year later, and Otope, the Colony's Eldest. Kahate taught Mionrashk the intricacies and limits of Telkit magic for four years, during which time Minyar and Mionrashk merged their territories and hunted together. Mionrashk never fathered any children save for one, who was the Chimera child of the human explorer who had killed Minyar with a 'gun'. Mionrashk nearly died when the 'child' outgrew his birthing pouch and tore him open. The chimera child had inherited the human intolerance for hydrogen cyanide, which made up a significant portion of the local atmosphere, and died within seconds of escaping Mionrashk's body. Otope healed Mionrashk and burned the chimera's body to save Mionrashk's image, and when Otope died of old age, Mionrashk decided it was time to move northwards in search of answers to his kind's short lifespan.
During his travels, he encountered humans who spoke of an Institute that sounded rather similar to the Deadlands Academy. And so he chose to enroll.
Interests: Reading. Hunting. Experimenting. Marking territory. Traveling and exploring.
Skills: Sneaking. Tracking others through hearing. Jumping far.
Name: Boorkat Malkin
Appearance: The first thing anybody would notice is that Boorkat is enormous, standing at 9' and weighing roughly 945 lbs. The second thing is that he seems to be a very large walking lobster, with a blood red, ridged carapace covering his entire body all around. Two jet black eyes shine out with a dull glow from beneath the ridge on the top end of his shell, with a second pair of jet black eyes around the side of his head resting below an even deeper ridge. Boorkat's face is difficult to pin down as being human in any way whatsoever, what with the lack of a nose and ears, and the three foot-long incisors surrounding a small mouth flooded with razor sharp teeth.
In an effort to make himself look more presentable, Boorkat wears one of the largest tweed suits anybody has ever seen. It looks terrible, but it still looks better than walking around with his carapace exposed. For some time, he tried to wear a trilby hat as well, but he has since given up as it required the use of glue to keep it on his head.
Boorkat's right forearm ends in an absolutely enormous claw that looks as though it can crack an automobile in half, whereas his left forearm is tipped in a humanlike hand. Symmetry didn't seem to be a big deal when he was born.
Age: 62
Species: First Generation Chimera, Crustacean.
Gender: Unknown, but refers to himself as male.
Occupation: Mordhaben's Institute Administrator
Personality: If anyone could understand him, Boorkat would seem quite friendly and caring. He's about as chatty as first generation Chimeras come, and has to be routinely reprimanded for constantly trying to talk because his 'voice' is incredibly grating and unpleasant. Boorkat is always found in his office on the Administrative Building's first floor, flipping through applications, writing education plans, going over disciplinary reports, and balancing the school budget. On the rare occasion that he leaves his administrative duties to another, it's generally for a school event - such as the opening ceremony, on tours, or at auditorium assemblies.
Due to his lobsterspeak, Boorkat must use a translator to communicate with non-telepathic students.
Aesthetics/Appearance: He's a lobster. Why're you checking him out again? For that matter, why does a lobsterman have a granddaughter?
Magic Type Preference: Weapon Conjuration
Innate Magic Talent: Claw Cannon
Interests: Education Reading Writing Playing Chess
Skills: Strategizing Speed Reading Boxing Heavy Weapons usage
Biography: He's a gigantic bipedal lobsterlike first generation Chimera. It can be safely assumed that his life before working for The Institute was pretty awful. He's been working as Institute Administrator for three years now, and was an intern for four years prior, and even before that he was a student from the age of 16 onwards. Beyond that, though, not much is known and his original application is locked in a sturdy filing cabinet in the school basement, shielded by magic. Boorkat Malkin claims to be the result of some 'creative' explorers in an oceanic cavern near the western edge of the Deadlands Gulf, which he has in the past used as an example of why students should be careful around opposite-sex Monsters.
Name: Robert Brovak
Appearance: Robert Brovak is a slightly odd person. Firstly, he wears a burnt orange hooded robe at all times, save for at events in which he is required to wear the Institute's staff uniform. Secondly, a cloth bandage mask conceals his face, with a pair of goggles covering his eyes. Thirdly, he's very, very thin. Ludicrously so. And he makes a point of never showing skin anywhere - gloves, long pants beneath the robes, high boots, and the like cover him from head to toe.
Beyond his choice of attire, Robert is roughly 5'7" and (clothing included) weighs roughly 100 lbs. If one were to shake his hand, there wouldn't be much to shake and his joints would poke through. Dude needs to eat a cheeseburger or something.
Age: 89, or that's what his paperwork says.
Species: Human. Allegedly.
Gender: Male.
Occupation: Magic Theory Professor.
Personality: Professor Brovak is absolutely terrible at keeping his spaces clean, hates stupid questions, and despises being bothered outside of class for anything other than serious questions on magic. His office hours are only kept because he's required to have them, not because he cares about helping his students. But if a student genuinely wishes to improve their magic skills, he's the first person to talk to, as he gets incredibly excited at the thought of discussing magical theory with and training students. His mouth will not stop running if someone comes to him with a novel idea.
Just don't ask too many personal questions. Professor Brovak is severely paranoid and pushing him too much may end in him booby trapping his classrooms again.
Aesthetics/Appearance: Between 0 and 10, depending on your interest in creepy old men.
Magic Type Preference: Material Magic (generalized)
Innate Magic Talent: Earth Manipulation
Interests: Reading Magic Theory Physics Chemistry Biology Pranks
Skills: Too many to list. This guy's absolutely ancient.
Biography: He's been around for quite a while. So long, in fact, that his staff documentation smells funny and the ink is beginning to wear away. There's not much of value that can be found just by searching through it, and he doesn't talk about his personal past, even when pressured. There are school rumors that he is, in fact, not 89, but rather has been around the school's founding - but he vehemently denies this and, when asked, merely asks in return where he is in the school's historical photos if it's true.
Name: Leonora Serannen
Appearance: Leonora is a tall and elegant woman that has put a great deal of thought and effort into her appearance. She is 168cm (6 feet) and weighs 61kg (134lbs). Her hair is long, flowing and golden and her eyes match its colour. While some would claim Leonora looks stunning without any work done, she still applies a great deal of cosmetics to just about anywhere she thinks she can improve upon. Possessing an enormous wardrobe, Leonora is almost never found wearing anything short of high fashion, though she tends to favour wearing a good pair of trousers to skirts. As a fifth generation Chimera, Leonora has only one trait belonging to her monstrous ancestors, and that is the feline claws on the tips of her fingers. She always wears custom made gloves built to mask her Chimera trait.
Age: 28
Species: Fifth Generation Feline Chimera
Gender: Female
Occupation: Staff – Mage Corps Instructor and Guidance Counsellor
Personality: Leonora speaks exceedingly politely and formally, sparing no effort to carefully craft her sentences so as to avoid causing offence. Seemingly in line with her role as the institute’s guidance counsellor, Leonora is proactive in approaching students and inquiring as to their wellbeing. Her only mildly provocative trait is that she’s been known to ask somewhat probing questions to others, even ones of a socially or even politically charged nature. Leonora is known to be difficult to read, as her default expression seems to be a pleasant smile, even when met with a difficult individual.
Magic Type Preference: Sensory Manipulation Innate Magic Talent: Perception Manipulation – Making people see things that aren’t there Interests: High Culture, Philosophy, Politics, Psychology Skills: Eloquent Speaker, Military Trained and Seasoned, Firearms Knowledge – Pistol Specialist, Clever Tactician
Biography: Leonora was born the bastard child of an affair between a wealthy and influential aristocrat and a fourth generation feline Chimera. Initially, Leonora’s existence was unknown to her father, and her mother had never planned to get either of them involved in her father’s world. However, her mother would die of illness one day, and upon her death, Leonora’s father happened to track her down and decided to take Leonora in. Having many particularly bigoted friends and associates, her father attempted to keep her nature as a Chimera a secret, but the rumours got out, and Leonora was frequently the target of hostility from those in her social circles. Still, while her early life was not perfect, her father was always fairly nurturing, and she still lived a largely privileged existence.
Leonora attended Mordhaben’s like so many others, and while prejudice existed at the Institute, Leonora found that people tended to forget what you were so long as you performed well, and perform well she did. Leonora was not only an excellent student but also a talented mage, and graduated from Mordhaben’s semi famous for her demonstrations of ability during her time. She was scouted by a captain in the Mage Corps, who wanted to make certain that she of all people became a soldier. If you asked Leonora, she would tell you that she signed up because she wanted to prove herself on the field of battle.
She served for several years under the captain that mentored her, only to suddenly resign from the Corps following an incident that occurred on the field of battle. While Leonora has not spoken of it to anyone, those that have heard anything about it know that the captain of her unit was killed under suspicious circumstances, though an official investigation reached no clear conclusion. Shortly after her departure from the military, Leonora took up a position at Mordhaben’s as a member of staff.
Name: Professor Zayid Leere
Appearance: Unknown 5'7" Little is known about Leere's actual appearance, down to gender, age, skin color, and even their voice which is androgenous. Leere wears a pale face shaped mask and is otherwise covered head to toe in clothing. Their hair is silver, thick, straight, and shoulder length hanging down either side of their face. Their eye color is impossible to tell for sure through a pair of shades and even seem to change color or have no color at all the closer someone looks.
Leere's professional wear looks like a blue military officer's uniform featuring a long coat and pants tucked into long brown boots. They also wear black gloves and a slick looking military officer's hat. Underneath their coat is a white dress shirt and underneath this is a black shirt with a very long neck. Despite the neat, official appearance of Leere's uniform there are absolutely no markings of rank anywhere on it.
Leere wears no obvious weapons whatsoever and rarely if ever display their magical talents.
Age: Unknown
Species: Unknown
Gender: Unknown
Occupation: Mordhaben's Professor, Substitute Teacher
Personality: Professor Leere is a very difficult person to read. Not only does the mask conceal expressions and distort speech but much of their behavior and statements appear contradictory. Leere also will sometimes say and do things that are plain strange. Yet at the same time all of Leere's words and actions seem to have some underlying meaning or purpose. Leere is undoubtedly very smart, giving even the most senior mages across the empire a run for their money. Some suspect Leere is even more intelligent than they let on, though why they would hide the depth of their genius is as much a mystery as anything else about them.
Leere seems perpetually amused thanks to the slight smile on their mask and the tone and way in which they speak. This is supported by the fact that Leere seems relaxed and impossible to surprise or rattle. However, Leere's true thoughts and feelings are possibly, and even likely, hidden behind that mask and strange demeanor. Their words sometimes hint at emotions that are not openly observable.
Name: Emilya Vance Occupation: Vision and substitute Magic Theory professor Species: Human Age: 11 (42) Gender: Female Magic Specialty: Magic Identification and Analysis
Emilya Vance is easily one of the most recognizable and unusual professors teaching at Mordhaben's Institute. Emilya appears to be, and in fact physically is, an eleven year old human girl. Her actual age is forty two but she will appear no older than eleven until the day she dies.
Appearance: 4'0" 78 lbs. She has light silver hair with a bluish tint roughly around shoulder length or a little longer. Her hair is thick, fluffy, and difficult to tame. Her eyes are a lighter hazel than her brother's and her skin tone is a lighter tan as well.
Emilya is very, very cute but wears a stern face constantly and has cold eyes which can be unsettling. She wears a large almost classic conical 'witch hat' with high heeled boots in an attempt to appear a little taller. She also uses platforms in her classroom to stand as close to eye level as she can with her students. Her upper body is shrouded in something akin to a robe or cloak, while her pants are recognizably the same style as Mordhaben's uniforms, tucked into long boots. Her non-uniform outfit is mostly black with blue lining.
Personality: Professor Vance was always a straightforward, no nonsense type of person. However, since the accident that left her trapped as an eleven year old version of herself for the rest of her life, a serious attitude is the only attitude she outwardly projects. She is simultaneously bitter and resigned to her curse. She works hard to make sure she is respected based on her position and actual age and comes down hard on anyone using the words cute, adorable, or precious to describe her. Beneath this prickly exterior and her insecurity over her appearance Emilya is a surprisingly well adjusted woman, if a bit on the aggressive side. She can even be quite pleasant and fun to associate with. However, only her brother and closest friends get to see this side of her.
Emilya is more than skilled enough to create the illusion of or even shapeshift into an older version of herself. However, for undisclosed reasons, she does not do so except briefly and occassionally.
Name: Hans Vance Occupation: Foundation professor Species: Human Age: 40 Gender: Male Magic Specialty: Counterspells
The Vance family is known for being large, physically fit people, and Hans is no exception. With the physique of a man half his age Hans looks better suited to being a hand to hand or PE Instructor than the foundation magic professor.
Appearance: 6'6" 309 lbs. The lines on his face and salt and pepper colored hair are the only marks of the younger Vance sibling's advancing age. That, and his tired hazel eyes. He tries to keep his hair at least relatively short and combed back but it is thick and difficult to tame. He also tries to stay clean shaven yet almost always has a shadow or outright stubble. His skin is a medium tan save for the lighter tone of his many scars.
Hans is very tall and heavily muscled by human standards, and in excellent health for a man of forty. Hans was a well known mercenary in his younger days and he has the scars one might expect of such a history. He almost always has his weapons and ammunition on him, and encourages similiar vigilance in his students. Said weapons include a trench gun, grenade launcher, .45 calibur semiautomatic pistol, and bandoliers of the appropriate ammunition. He prefers to wear the standard Institute uniform when teaching though he sometimes removes the coat later in the day, or if the weather is at all on the warm side.
Personality: Hans is a somewhat stiff and professional man most of the time but he does not project the edge that Emilya does. Despite his serious, no nonsense demeaner he is easily the more approachable of the two siblings.
Name: Rayna Denzel Occupation: Close Quarters Combat and Physical Education instructor, Unoctoc Empire Air Corps instructor, representative, and recruiter Species: Chimera generation 4 (Water Dragon) Age: 23 Gender: Female Magic Specialty: Energy Conversation
Rayna Denzel is one of the most well known and popular professors even among new students. Her seemingly limitless energy and charisma combined with her high level of involvement at the school makes her one of the most memorable teachers at the institute.
Appearance: 5'6" 140 lbs Rayna has fiery ginger hair, red eyes, and medium tan skin. She plays herself off as entirely human by wrapping her arms and legs in bandages each day, but she is actually a chimera. Her lower arms and legs are covered in irridescent light blue and violet scales. These scales are lightweight and thin but still provide notable protection from minor damage. Her hair is pretty straight but tends to feather outwards and is fairly long, at least past her shoulders. She tends to let it hang freely and a hasty ponytail is about the extent of her attempts to tame her hair.
Physically Rayna may look like a normal human but her lean muscles are stronger than the average human and she keeps herself in peak physical condition. She keeps her clothes minimal and light in good weather favoring shorts, tanktops, and lightweight running shoes. When piloting aircraft and in colder weather she adds a black and yellow hooded jacket and goggles.
Personality: Rayna is a highly active member of Mordhaben's staff as well as the school's representative and recruiter for the Unoctoc Empire's Air Corps. She is very open, honest, and approachable and tends to make easy friends of almost everyone she meets. She can be a hardass if the situation calls for it and she is no stranger to tough decisions but she prefers to be a positive motivational force.
Name: Blair Stein Occupation: Survival, Special CQC professor Species: Human Age: 31 Gender: Female Magic Specialty: Summoning
Blair Stein is one of few openly religious teachers at Mordhaben's and this aspect of her life is very important to her. Tall and muscular Blair both appears and acts as the classical knight or paladin of fantasy stories; enemy to injustice and evil and a bastion of hope in an often amoral world.
Appearance: 6'4" 206 lbs. Blair has curly brown hair tied in a low ponytail, brown eyes, and lighter golden tan skin.
Blair is an unusually tall woman considering she is only human, with well defined muscles. She is not unattractive but rather a handsome, statuesque woman, clearly a warrior as one might expect of the stereotype. During most of her time on duty Blair can be seen wearing a full suit of archaic heavy plate armor and is armed with several melee weapons considered outdated these days. She removes her helmet when teaching but keeps it nearby. The armor is a dull gold and black and is accompanied by a full cloak and scarf, usually bright red.
Personality: Blair is best described as an honorable, religious, and altruistic person; a shining example of the storybook hero. Her religion itself does not require her to be a 'good' person in the least and in fact encourages one to look out for themselves before others. Blair is the way she is because she wants to be, and if she thinks deeply about it she comes to the conclusion that protecting and being kind to others is also a good way to protect herself and what is hers.
Appearance: Malovroch is an enormous creature at 10' from head to toe, with almost absurd musculature. Malovroch has a face like death itself, reminiscent of a charred cattle skull, with four solid black eyes that swallow light and defy perception, and four cruel horns twisting upwards in all directions. Its skin is like the bark of a burnt tree - rough, deeply cracked, and an ashen shade of darkest grey. Upon its back are a pair of enormous batlike wings of black hide, each with a dull reddish orange glow dimly leaking through along the wings' bones and joints. Malovroch's hands are vaguely humanlike, save for its claws, which are reminiscent of pickaxes. Like most Monsters, Malovroch's hip joints are flared out sideways, and it walks with an shuffling, stomping gait upon two 'feet', which are almost identical to its hands, though its thumbs are shifted backwards and angled outwards like a humanoid's heel. Malovroch's body is cloaked in ceaseless flame and black fog, spewing from ports around the back of its head like the fur collared capes of ancient royalty. Beneath this cloak of flame is a long tail, coated along the topside with large, jagged black scales of compacted carbon.
Malovroch's outfit changes from day to day, but it's style can only be described as 'flamboyant'. One day, Malovroch may be seen wearing a rainbow toga, and the next, a gigantic silk ballroom gown and a tiara. It only very rarely wears 'professional' outfits, and it eschews shoes on account of its feet generally burning them away within the hour. Malovroch, despite its appearance, looks almost harmless. Almost.
Malovroch's voice is hollow and guttural, rippling like the waves of a roaring campfire. Imagine standing in a dark tunnel and hearing the agonized screams of dozens of short Scottish miners miles away echoing through the mountain halls, and you'll understand what it's like to hear Malovroch speak.
Age: 4,732 Years (Carbon dated)
Species: Monster - Abyssal Fiend
Gender: Pseudo-Mineral
Occupation: Staff - Sewing and Smithing Instructor
Personality: Malovroch is almost excessively cheerful and friendly, and is always willing to lend a listening ear and offer advice. Its love for teaching is almost unrivaled, and its love for teaching often gets it into confrontations with Professor Brovak, who sees teaching as merely being a means to an end and dislikes working with ignorant students. Malovroch's love for its job and its students shines through in the way it carefully instructs struggling students on the proper ways to thread needles, how to safely handle a forge, how to deal with love troubles, and the like, and at every class, Malovroch passes out vegan-friendly, gluten-free oatmeal raisin cookies, with large oatmeal flakes to avoid the misunderstandings that come with mistaking them for chocolate chip. Its love for baking is almost excessive, and Malovroch occasionally sends bags of cookies to other professors to pass out to their students.
One would expect an ancient magical creature to be filled with a wealth of knowledge surpassing all others, but alas, Abyssal Fiends have poor memories relative to their lifespans and can only remember roughly eighty years with memory quality only being that of a normal sapient creature. Malovroch studies magic for fun, knowing full well that it won't make as much progress as other creatures with long lifespans, and knowing that it has such memory problems doesn't seem to disturb it but rather overwhelms it with joy. 'I never have to worry about having nothing new to learn!', it chirps, as it returns to the same books it's read many times before.
Malovroch is intensely sensitive, and hates seeing others being mean to one another for any reason.
Interests: Cooking Sewing Forging Making friends Remaking friends Mining Fashion
Skills: Sewing Cooking Forging Accidentally scaring people
Biography: Malovroch was once, like the rest of its kind, a subterranean Monster living in the deepest depths of the Earth, living by consuming other subterranean creatures and growing by consuming raw mineral ores. Abyssal Fiends are creatures typically lacking any sense of human morality, altruism, or sociality, and generally live on their own as they dig their ways through the bottom of the planet's crust. On occasion, one may venture closer to the surface in search of sustenance. In Malovroch's case, it came so close to the surface that its tunnels erupted through the walls of the Rocky Gorge in what would become northwestern Mordbauvin, and for the first time, it was exposed to light other than that of flame. Granted, it wasn't much light (the depths of the Rocky Gorge would be considered pitch black by humans), but this curious, cool light intrigued Malovroch, who then began clawing its way up the walls of the abyss until, many kilometers up, the light grew thick enough for it to see the night sky. The beauty of the outer world astonished and frightened Malovroch, and in typical Abyssal Fiend fashion, it responded to this fear by lashing out to destroy it. But try as it might, nothing it could do would destroy the sky, and soon, it gave up.
Exposure to something more powerful than itself was a first, as nothing it had ever encountered beneath the surface had ever been able to withstand its magic or its claws. And so Malovroch became one of the first Abyssal Fiends to experience what we might call 'curiosity'. Malovroch explored the lands for decades, eventually losing its way back to its home in the core, and left hundreds of deep holes in the ground in which it slept during its travels. Upon encountering humans, it first tried to kill and consume them as it had killed and consumed so many other animals on the surface. It succeeded, and a small tribe of human settlers was wiped from the map, their wooden homes burned to the ground.
But it also noticed that these strange pale animals were wielding tools. 'These feeble creatures use their environment to make up for their weakness?', it thought to itself, disappointed that it had never thought to do the same. When it encountered another village, the villagers ran in fear, and it simply sat down at the village's blacksmith's forge, where it examined the tools used, the forge itself, the heat of the forge, the fuels used, and what they had made. And two days of deep thought later, with the villagers watching carefully lest it try to kill them and packing to evacuate the whole time, it picked up the hammer and began to work. The first tool it made was a pickaxe, though a shoddy one, and it offered this pickaxe as a gift to the villagers. The town blacksmith took offense at Malovroch's shoddy craftsmanship and dragged the beast back to the forge, where she taught Malovroch how to use it properly, how to shape and treat the metals, how to purify ores, and essentially everything needed for a completed product to come out in the end. And so Malovroch became an apprentice blacksmith, and learned the trade within two decades, as well as the human language of the time.
Later, it became acquainted with and befriended many of the housekeepers of this nameless settlement, who taught it all about what a home is, what families are, and how they maintained their homes and eased the workers' daily exhaustion. Malovroch was intrigued by all of these concepts and eventually built a house of its own - though its house was crude, built with untrimmed trees and raw clay baked with its own flames. Malovroch became one of the most important figures in this village, taking the lessons it learned about social natures to heart, and was known as a friend to all. Eventually, Malovroch saw fit to give the village a name: Mordhaben. Hundreds of years passed and the village grew into a proper town and eventually a small city. Then the Great War happened. Afterwards, Malovroch helped with the early construction of Mordhaben's Institute for Aspiring Mages, where it has lived for over a millennium as an ever-present, ever-caring member of the staff, though it never had any aspirations for administrative positions, and its mental faculties were lacking enough that had it wanted any power it would not have gotten it anyway.
Malovroch's presence at the Institute has always gone in cycles. Twenty years might pass as an instructor, followed by twenty years in the Postgraduate Research Laboratories, followed by a further twenty years as instructor once more. This year, in 1210PW, Malovroch has finally stepped out of the Research Laboratories and has reopened its old classroom to new students.
Nothing here yet. Can we get an artist in here or something to help with Monster pictures?
Welcome to Mordhaben's Institute for Aspiring Mages!
The School
Welcome to Mordhaben's Institute for Aspiring Mages!, more commonly known as Mordhaben's, or to locals The Institute. We are a school dedicated to educating future generations of Mages in The Way for the sake of science and safety. Mordhaben's Institute for Aspiring Mages was founded in the year 27PW, long before the Unoctocan Empire's founding, and has a long and rich history of progress for the sake of humanity.
Mordhaben's Institute for Aspiring Mages is a welcoming place and accepts applications from students of all ages that have completed primary and secondary education, or have gotten a diploma equivalent certification (D.E.C.). Tuition is completely free to students as the Institute is now funded through the Unoctocan Empire's Mage Corps. Graduates are given a license for open usage of advanced and dangerous Magic skills, and are automatically given the option of joining the Mage Corps upon graduation. Graduates are, however, not required to join the Military, and the majority of graduates go into freelance work or get employment requiring advanced Magic knowledge.
At Mordhaben's, we focus on nurturing the inborn talents in every student. As such, we recognize that not everybody's talents lie in the same areas. The Entrance Exam only requires that applicants pass a single test out of a multitude of different types of test, including written tests of knowledge, practical tests, athletic tests, and tests of strategy. If the honored applicant has a hobby or interest, we request that the applicant informs us so that we may work that hobby or interest into the entrance exam in some form and evaluate whether it has use.
We offer a multitude of courses in academics and military training, with a strong focus on Astronomy, Geology, Strategy, Aircraft Piloting and Maintenance, and Mechanized Cavalry Command and Maintenance. Military training is mandatory for all students as part of our contract with the Unoctocan Empire, and the bare minimum involves basic infantry training, though we strongly recommend taking part in our Aviation and Mechanized Cavalry programs. Specialized subsets of martial arts training are also available, though not necessary and not always recommended - your rifle will always carry you further than knowing how to use a chain whip will.
In addition to our classes, all students will go on weekly mandatory excursions for community service, typically for community safety and defense, or for scientific research. Each student will choose a partner for each excursion, and will be overseen by either a teacher or a professional Mage during their outing. Occasionally, this will include excursions to locations outside of the Empire, so that we may all gain a better understanding of other cultures.
Setting
A mysterious race of beings, seen as Devils by some and as Gods by others, has given humanity a second chance at survival after humanity bombed itself nearly to oblivion. Thousands of years afterwards, humans finally climbed up from the bronze age to something more resembling modern society. Technology is finally on par with pre-cataclysm World War 1, and national tensions are rising. One of the gifts given in addition to humanity's survival was the ability to manipulate the world around them - also thought of as Magic.
A form of martial arts known as The Way has been around ever since the first few generations of survivors sprung up, and has been shifting to fit technological developments ever since. These days, it's essentially military training combined with magical training.
Dedicated colleges for training in The Way have sprung up, and our characters play the roles of students, teachers, and professional Mages. Mordhaben's Institute for Aspiring Mages is one of the oldest and most prestigious of them all, but it certainly isn't the only one.
The year is 7210 AD, or rather, 1210 Post-War. In the year 2322 AD, Earth made first contact with a superior alien civilization. They were nothing like we expected, and rather than utilizing what could be strictly considered technology, they used what humans could only think of as "magic". Their consciousnesses meshed with the foundations of the universe rather than existing under it as ours do. Humanity, in its greed, attempted to uncover how to gain the aliens' powers to alter reality, and in doing so fell into a civil war between those who wished to do so militarily, and those who wished to do so peacefully. The Colony of Grey Mars, the Titan Colonial Mandate, and the Belt Stations' Confederation formed an alliance opposing the Democratic Republic of Terra's aggression, and in 2365, interstellar antiplanetary antimatter missiles were exchanged between both sides, wiping out almost life on Earth, Mars, and Titan. Only some farming and mining stations in the Belt Stations' Confederation were left intact, with very, very few remaining educated people, and with all central libraries destroyed, almost all of humanity's collective knowledge was lost.
Without the support of farms on Mars, the Belters were faced with certain starvation, and made contact with the aliens (who refused to be named, or whose names were unpronounceable via sound - that knowledge has been since lost). The alien civilization was neither benevolent nor malevolent in reality, as their morality does not match our own. But modern humans curse them as demons for what they did, and modern humans curse their ancestors as savages for their own past actions.
The remains of humanity were given roughly what they wanted, in the form of bioengineering, terraforming, and replenishment of flora and fauna, giving them access to something vaguely similar to the aliens' innate abilities and making Earth "habitable" (a somewhat debatable term, given those mysterious beings' difficulties in understanding our needs) once more. And, to boot, these aliens guided a number of the surviving stations back to Earth's surface, where they still rest, oftentimes centers of civilizations. But what humanity gave up wasn't worth it. They had traded their sovereignty and their future for immediate survival.
In the past few thousand years, humans have had to build their civilization back up from the early bronze age, with very little real technology beyond what could be scavenged from the safest old-world ruins. They now know almost nothing of what they once did, save for that space exists and Earth isn't the center of it, that they will one day return to the Stars, and that a civilization of Gods and Devils once saved them from themselves at a great cost. Periodically, landing craft appear on Earth and take the entire population of a small town to who-knows-where without saying a word. And people are getting very, very unhappy about it.
Earth is a shattered, torn place these days. It's been just under five thousand years since the Solar Civil War tore the planet to shreds, and the Earth is still reeling from the aftereffects of the apocalyptic weapons exchanges. When the missiles struck the Earth, they embedded themselves hundreds of meters into the ground before detonating, effectively cracking the planet open like a clump of clay struck with a baseball bat. Enormous craters were formed as huge chunks of the planet were thrown into the sky, and the explosive shock triggered tectonic activity on levels not seen since the planet first formed and cooled.
Continents have shifted about, new mountain ranges have formed, and existing mountain ranges have been split in half to form deep ravines kilometers deep. Debris thrown into orbit from the explosions includes remainders of old human cities, stone, dirt, clay, and enormous volumes of water. In the past five thousand years, the Earth has gained a new Satellite - much smaller than Luna, but much more unusual. "The Glob", as the common folks call it, is a large hunk of loose mud and gravel saturated with water, and shifts in shape as it passes through the sky, freezing on the side furthest from the sun and shifting from an orb to an oblong egg any time it passes near Luna. Luna itself has had its orbital path thrown off by The Glob, and rather than moving in a proper ellipse, its orbital path shifts on a routine basis, though neither satellite seems to be in any danger of falling out of orbit any time soon.
The Earth also has a spiral of debris hundreds of thousands of kilometers long trailing along on a suborbital trajectory, steadily being pulled back down to the planet between the tropics with the heaviest concentration centered along the Equator. This debris spiral is responsible for ending the Great War that occurred over a thousand years ago, when it finally came back into contact with the planet and rendered the tropics almost uninhabitable. Smaller chunks of debris simply burn up in the atmosphere on descent, but the larger ones have resulted in ceaseless streaks of fire across the sky as the Earth turns, and the spiral trail's slow reentry has caused a thick layer of ash clouds to cover most of the region. These "Deadlands" are now the home of swarms of sapient Monsters who have migrated to escape the steady expansion of hostile human territories.
Tropical weather has grown rarer with the cooling of the oceans in the tropics, and arctic weather has increased in frequency in further north and south latitudes, leaving the remaining habitable regions of the planet with a temperate and pleasant Spring and Summer, but harsh Winters and utterly erratic Autumns.
While some of the most common flora and fauna on the old Earth are still present, the scenery is much different due to the replenishing and terraforming efforts of the alien civilization that saved humanity's remnants from starvation. Large "mushroomlike" trees are more common than pine or oak ever were, several regions have oddly colored and razor sharp grasses, and in general the ecosystem is a completely different beast. Despite the blasted and nearly alien ecosystem, it is perfectly fertile.
Humans are pretty much what they always have been in shape, size, appearance, etc., but they have gained a few new tricks. Humans are now able to manipulate the fabric of reality as long as they have access to suitable forms of energy - heat, motion, electricity, radiation, fat stores, whatever. Humans are no more durable than they used to be though, which limits how much power a single person can take in and use, and the initial source of magic energy always has to be the caster's own body (typically resulting in a blood sugar drop). Mages have to "step up" their energy chain with other sources, or else they risk exhausting themselves.
Each person has an affinity for certain forms of reality manipulation, based on their personality and genetics. But attempts to classify such skills have almost all failed, as the potential abilities of each person are far too varied. Elemental manipulation, creating matter from energy, creating energy from matter, telepathy, retroactive manipulation, proactive manipulation, body enhancement, and precognition are just a few of the skills that people can master. No one person has ever successfully mastered more than a few different talents at once, and even within those talents, there are strongly preferred skills, such as pyrokinesis, telekinesis, beast summoning, cosmic disaster creation, and the like, which each person will find they have an affinity for.
A new martial art has appeared that capitalizes on manipulation skills. It's known by many different names - The Way, Star Fist, Gift of Angels, etc., for some very rough translations. But the central concepts are all the same. Intense concentration on the world around oneself, intense concentration on the world one wishes to see, and even more intense concentration on the split between the two concepts have all become an artform. Foundation, the world itself, allows one to protect oneself against and disrupt other manipulations. Vision, the ideal reality, gives insight into what was, is, will be, and what is possible. Compromise is the ability to split the difference between Foundation and Vision, and as some have put it, is the art form of arguing with the universe and winning.
The more steadfast one person's Foundation is, the less effective others' abilities will be against them and their environment. The more powerful one's Compromise is, the greater the degree to which they can change the environment. Foundation is almost incapable of completely preventing Compromise from having an effect, but remaining committed to reality as it currently is certainly makes it harder for others to change it. Vision is needed in both, to see what is wanted, to see what has happened, to see what still is, and to see what will happen. Foundation cannot protect without knowing the arguments of Compromise, which Vision will give, just as Compromise cannot be achieved without using Vision to know what changes to make. But Vision on its own is a powerful tool, and those skilled in it may uncover secret knowledge or even see their own possible fates and make changes to prevent them.
Compromise can be used to draw energy from alternate sources and magnify the degree of the effect a Mage can create. While the initial power source must be in direct contact with the Mage in some way, the Mage can 'steal' energy from natural occurrences with enough knowledge and experience. This is done by means of using the lowest-skill Compromise skill - simply pushing magical energy out into the world and drawing a connection between the source within their own body and the source they wish to tap into. Beware, though: the unskilled may experience harsh backlash without knowing how to tailor this connection to their needs, and worse, the use of Vision may permit others to know when they intend to use magic and where their energy sources are.
Only some of the life that existed on Earth was able to be resurrected after the great cataclysm - some trees, the most widespread animals, bacteria, viruses, etc. Most life on the planet was created by the alien saviors using their own plants and animals as a base, through intense magical bioengineering. The most dangerous of these are simply referred to as Monsters, and all Monsters are able to use magic either on par with or vastly exceeding the average human. Some Monsters have created their own small, tribal civilizations far away from humans, but there have been clashes between sapient Monsters and humans from time to time.
Whether out of incompetence or as a cruel joke, humans and Monsters are capable of breeding with one another (even when their methods of reproduction are wildly different), which lead to the birth of bizarre hybrids - usually referred to as Chimeras. Chimeras are hated by all of Monsterkind, and humans have a distaste for them because of their strange appearances, so Chimeras typically either live in segregated areas of human cities, or in neighboring tribes of their own. Some societies are more open-minded and welcome Chimeras with open arms.
Chimeras are categorized by generations interbred with humans, and by familial Monster genetics. Chimeras may interbreed with other Chimeras, which results in odd mishmashes of Monsterlike features layered on top of the human features they've gained. Monster aspects are universally recessive traits. Chimeras may also breed with Monsters, though this is extremely rare due to Monsters' instinctual repulsion towards Chimeras.
First Generation Chimeras are the most Monsterlike by a long shot, and have typically only gained an Earthlike and humanlike skeletal structure, removing half of their ribs and reforming their limbs and joints to more closely resemble Humans. They typically retain their Monster sizes and most Monster internal and external organs, and tend to have trouble communicating with humans vocally. They are invariably just as intelligent as humans are though, regardless of Monster species in the mix. First Generation Chimeras are the most hated by Monsters, and more aggressive Monsters that might ignore humans will often attack them on sight. A First Generation Cephalopod Chimera would walk on two primary legs and have a human internal structure, but would also have slimy and slick hides and (depending on species) extremely thick and large natural shells, resembling walking nautiluses or squids.
Second Generation Chimeras become more human medically speaking, taking on human internal organs and further reshaping their bodies to resemble humans. Sizes are brought down or up towards human, though not always fully. Some Monster appendages and attributes are lost, and their hides become more mammalian. Second Generation is roughly where Chimeras are guaranteed to have humanlike vocalization abilities, though their voices tend to be very unusual and grating. Second Generation Chimeras onwards have a progressively greater chance of losing their second set of eyes in favor of a humanlike face. A Second Generation Molluscoid Chimera would have a much smaller shell and loses most of its limbs, with the remaining limbs becoming more mammalian and its facial structure moving from completely molluscoid towards humanoid.
Third Generation Chimeras generally have their entire bodies covered in mammalian, humanlike hides, though exterior things like feathers, fur, and spines tend to remain. They have fully humanlike vocalization. Typically, the Monster-esque secondary pair of eyes is gone by the Third Generation. This is roughly where average humans without odd fetishes stop being horrified by their appearances. Third Generation Cephalopod Chimeras may resemble Illithids as presented in Dungeons and Dragons.
Fourth Generation Chimeras are almost entirely humanlike in appearance and behavior, save for a small number of Monster features that may remain, such as claws, carapaces, animalistic ears, fur, feathers, etc. Occasionally duplicate appendages may be present depending on ancestral Monster species, such as a second pair of arms or legs, or the standard Monster secondary pair of eyes. Monsterlike organs that are still functional under the new humanlike form tend to remain - for instance, a Fourth Generation Insectoid Chimera would likely have compound eyes sitting within a human shaped face.
Fifth Generation Chimeras are almost entirely human, only retaining one or two minor Monster attributes, such as digitigrade legs, animalistic ears, tails, shells, wings, and the like. These include animal-like people often present in old Earth animated shows and graphic novels such as nekos and Faunus in RWBY.
Sixth Generation Chimeras only retain vestigial Monster aspects. The most extreme Sixth Generation monster aspect recorded to date has been a case in which a man's big toes were used as a foot support rather than his heels, which were narrow, unpadded, and rested atop his big toes while standing. More common aspects tend to be fewer or more fingers, slightly sharper teeth than average, the ability to wiggle one's tailbone, etc.
Seventh Generation onwards are effectively entirely human, though there is a minor possibility that children borne between two seventh generation Chimeras may resemble Sixth Generation Chimeras if remaining Monster genes are passed on from both parents.
Monsters come in a multitude of different forms. While they are all capable of performing Magic, they tend to look wildly different from one another, save for a few things in common due to their origin as modified xenofauna.
Monsters generally have complete rib cages rather than half rib cages like Earth fauna do, meaning there is no such thing as a Monster with a soft underbelly. Monster hides are often thicker and more radiation resistant than Earth fauna hides are. Almost all Monster species have four eyes rather than two, with both predatorlike forward eyes and preylike side eyes. And Monster "fur" and "hair" is generally more akin to razor sharp and brittle spines formed of silicate compounds, and resembles either narrow, bladelike scales, or feather shafts. Monster "fur" and "feathers" are also more brittle than Earth fauna equivalents as well, owing to the higher concentration of silica and iron in Monster bodies. Monster pelvic and shoulder joints are always side-mounted rather than vertically mounted, giving their legs a much wider range of motion, and Monsters' pelvises and tailbones extend further to provide their legs more muscle mounting points and greater range of motion.
Monsters are categorized by resemblance to Earth fauna, by size, and by danger rating.
Sizes are U, XS, S, MS, M, ML, L, XL, 2XL, 3XL, and X. Danger Ratings are F, E, D, C, B, A, S, and X.
Mordhaben's Institute is in the remnants of what used to be Wyoming, roughly one hundred miles to the southeast of the tail end of the Rocky Gorge. Further to the west, the Flynenhael Gulf Cliffs stand on either side of the Flynenhael Gulf. Across the Flynenhael Gulf is a large landmass that used to be the western coast of North America, stretching all the way from a narrow land bridge near what used to be Alaska all the way down to Baja California. To the East of Mordhaben's Institute, built near the ruins of Chicago, is the great city of Unoctoc Station, seat of the Unoctocan Empire. Further to the east of that lies the Northeastern Bay - a blasted crater hundreds of miles wide opening up much of the continent to the ocean. Numerous other dry craters are scattered throughout the continent where major population centers used to be, now blooming with fresh life.
In the Southeast, cutting across from what used to be eastern Texas all the way up to what used to be northern Virginia, is the nation of Airelosia, which is currently in a white peace with the Unoctocan Empire following a short-lived conflict and Unoctocan victory in 1204PW. The Unoctocan Empire covers most of the landmass, and borders with the Flynenhael Conglomerate to the west are fuzzy at best and heavily disputed.
The Unoctocan Empire is home to Mordhaben's Institute, and most closely resembles old Prussia culturally, though the government is required to be more egalitarian than its old Earth equivalent simply by merit of the existence of magic. While they do have a royal family, this royal family eternally has the sword of the military held above their heads, and parliament has the sword of its citizens held above their heads as well. Revolution is paradoxically staved off by encouraging revolution. The language of Unoctocan Common, translated into English for the purposes of this roleplay, is most similar to Gothic and Vandalic with hints of modern German. The Unoctocan Empire was founded in 804PW and has in the past four hundred years expanded westwards from its capital to cover the old territories of Govoria to the north, Swazivan to the southwest, Mordbauvin to the northwest, and Hasval in the center of their territory.
The Flynenhael Conglomerate to the West is less a nation and more a loose confederation of communities, and resemble old tribal societies more than anything, using a mixture of direct democracy and mutual aid, with a strong focus on magic and advanced radio technologies for long distance communications. Each community is free to join and leave the Conglomerate as they please, though the Conglomerate has spent large amounts of resources in ensuring that its member communities are self-sufficient and extremely well protected with static defenses. The Conglomerate has a wildly varied culture stemming from its historical respect for other cultures, save for one defining feature: their dedication to egalitarianism. The Conglomerate is, as such, composed of hundreds of different tribal cultures which have banded together over its long history stretching all the way back to 241 PR (Pre-War). The Flynenhael Conglomerate is the only modern nation to have participated in the Great War over a millennium ago, and is currently embroiled in a soft territorial conflict with the Unoctocan Empire in which border towns regularly switch national identity in exchange for gifts of resources from both respective nations. The Flynenhaeli language sounds similar to modern earth's Welsh with English grammatical structures, but there are dozens of distinct ethnic groups within the Conglomerate with their own tribal languages, and Unoctocan Common has become their second nationally recognized language after a centuries long trade war.
Airelosia to the Southeast is the most brutal by far, with a military meritocratic dictatorship in place that actively encourages would-be rulers to assassinate their superiors, under the thinking that a strong enough leader for their nation's needs will be able to protect themself. Airelosia is a watery place, overrun with the descendents of bamboo and kudzu and continually bombarded with heavy rainy seasons throughout the year, giving it a unique culture all of its own. Airelosia is notable in that it exterminates all traces of non-domesticated Monsters wherever it can, including Chimeras, likely due to its proximity to the Deadlands. Airelosia is the second oldest nation in what used to be North America, and has been around since 0PW, when the population of Aivez revolted against the tyrannical Hozez dynasty in response to Aivezu soldiers being executed for failing to defeat Hasvali forces in combat over the Appalachian Mountains. It's debatable whether the system of governance they came up with was better than what they had before, but it at least seems stable. The Airelosian language is most similar to Spanish and Latin, though its grammatical structure resembles nothing in the modern world. Unoctocan Common has come into widespread usage amongst the nobility and in border regions, though it is not formally recognized as a national language and likely never will be.
Shitty Legend: Unoctocan Empire, Flynenhael Conglomerate, Airelosia, Deadlands, Unclaimed Territory, Oceans and Seas
While the Unoctocan/Airelosian border is concrete, all other borders are soft and ill-defined.
Yellow Stars are fallen Stations, used as major central cities in the Unoctocan Empire, Flynenhael Conglomerate, and Airelosia. Orange Blips are each region's preeminent Mage Universities.
Mordhaben's Institute is located in the midwest Unoctocan Empire. Ysfel Hwm Davin is located in Flynenhael's trade hub city of Saern Llos. Yuutos Academy is located in the Deadlands, in the Yuutos Peninsula. Universita Centraliz Aivezu is located in northern Airelosia, in Centraliz Aivezu.
The Imperial City of Unoctoc Station is in the northwest Unoctocan Empire, sitting only a few miles outside of the ruins of Chicago and on the coast of the Unoctocan Sea. The city itself is primarily made up of modern brickwork apartment towers and factories, though ancient structures with smooth red clay surfaces and pseudo-Gothic architecture are standing near the Station itself. The Station is a massive cylindrical tower standing at the south end of the city, soaring a two kilometers into the sky and measuring sixty-five meters in diameter. Stained glass windows cover up gaping holes twenty meters in diameter each with jagged edges that have been machined down on the north, southwest, and southeast sides of the tower at 700 meters, 400 meters, and 200 meters in the air respectively. Three ruined and nearly unidentifiable structures with fifty meter long scaffolded tubes lay in a heaps outside of the city, presumably having been knocked off of the station's core during deorbiting. The Station has the words "MINERAL STATION 188" written vertically across its northern side beneath the top window in riveted chrome plating. The time of day may easily be determined by looking at where the reflections are cast off of the shining text, and much of the city's population uses this "station hour" as a measure of when they should take a break from their jobs and take care of other business.
Saern Llos, the greatest trade hub in the Flynenhael Conglomerate, sits in the middle of the enormous peninsula that forms their nation, on the slopes sweeping down from the Flynenhael Gulf Cliffs. The Station is three miles long, narrow, and fifty meters wide and tall, and runs from Northeast to Southwest. What used to be a scientific observation port on the topside of the Northeast end has been converted to The Peoples' Garden, and the length of the western side of the Station has been torn open to expose the tightly packed trade city built within its five decks to the open air and sunset. The words "ANOMALY OBSERVATION STATION, 212" are printed across the eastern side in enormous, bold, black letters. Beneath the overhang formed out of the jagged top of the western side is a two and a half mile bazaar resting along the ground, where foreign traders come to set up stalls, offload inventory, etc. East of the city is a wide, square tunnel sloping many miles downwards through the cliffs' slopes towards the Flynenhael Gulf, and the tunnel shows traces of having been blasted open cleanly with magic. At the end of this tunnel is a port, where trade ships regularly dock to take on and offload goods traded at Saern Llos. Buildings within the Station's decks are made of solid steel, salvaged from the remains of the western wall and made to appear uniform with the outer hull. The inner streets are lit with magically constructed artifacts spewing violet flames rather than electric lights, and the entire top deck is dedicated to the grounds of Ysfel Hwm Davin.
Centrali Publica, the capital of Airelosia, is located on a triangular manmade island of bricks surrounded by hundreds of miles of thick marshland, in the core of the nation near the Aivezu Materitoro Peninsula, a mere four hundred miles from the Deadlands' dust storms and aurora. Centrali Publica's Station's visible portions are similar to a four hundred meter per side triangular pyramid with fifty meter arms tipped in ancient biospheres erupting from each side. The entire station has been painted a brilliant shade of white trimmed in gold, with the number 57 resting upside-down on all visible sides, and the station's arms perform a similar function to Unoctoc Station's shining lettering by casting a shadow across the town. The buildings surrounding the Station are widely made with frames of Shroomwood, which is an off-white form of local fungal tree stem, with layered walls of woven bamboo fibers meant to let cooling breezes through. Upper-caste micro-palaces soar many stories into the sky with open decks and no windows beyond the pull-down shutters of similarly woven bamboo fibers. A shantytown on sticks surrounds the manmade island, stretching for roughly two miles in each direction.
In the northwest Deadlands lies a collapsed, rusted-over space station with merely the number 873 printed across it. Nature has reclaimed much of its structure, and most of the station's outer hull has been buried for millennia. Surrounding the station are massive jungles of indigo shroomtrees and razor sharp crystalline plants, with a river running from southeast to northwest only a mile away. Much of the flora here are all coated in thick layers of foul-smelling mucous secreted from their leaves to keep out excess moisture, and are rendered effectively impossible to set ablaze. Trust us, we've tried before. Three small villages are scattered about, with two villages of grass huts lying in the north and south respectively, and a third village hidden from view, though likely in the west due to the identification of a second species of tribal Monster hunting group different from those in the first two villages. The very air here is deadly poison to all non-local life. It took twenty-four Unoctocan scientific expeditions to gather this much information, during which no fewer than two hundred and ninety-three Imperial Battlemages and scholars have died. No further expeditions are planned for the forseeable future, by order of the Czar.
The Character Sheet
Fill this thingy out, double-check your math on character attributes, and PM it to me or shoot me an @Mention with your CS in the OOC tab. Put effort into it, eh?
If you wish to run a Staff or Professional Mage character, PM me with details on what position and/or occupation you want them to take. The RP will be taking place predominantly at the Institute, so if you're bothering making a full CS for them, they're going to have to have a reason to be at the Institute for a long period of time.
Name:
Appearance: (Picture optional, text description required)
Age: (16 and up, or Monster equivalent in the event of shorter lifespans)
Species: Human, Monster (describe type - restricted to S through ML size), or Chimera (list generation and type)
Gender:
Occupation: (Students only at this time. List year, first years preferred. Will open up to Professional Mages and staff members at a later date, when the roleplay mandates it).
Personality: (only what others would notice immediately; I'd recommend filling out the Big Five test scores below, but you can remove those if you have a suitable description)
Distribute 40 Points. Most characters' stats should range between 3 and 8. Minmaxing players had better be good at playing that character, because these numbers ain't just for show.
Monster Characters may cap out any given two attributes at 12, and First Generation Chimera characters may cap out any given two attributes at 11, but they still have the same total point value. This is in exchange for their physiological inability to use human equipment.
One point may be spent for any "special" biological ability, such as flight, fire-breathing, acidic blood, etc.
0=Dead or Unresponsive. Don't use this. 1=Severely Disabled 2=Disastrous 3=Exceptionally Poor 4=Poor 5=Average 6=Above Average 7=Gifted 8=Exceptional 9=Monstrous 10=Absurd
P/F/V/C impact what each attribute is most useful for. P = Physical, F = Foundation, V = Vision, C = Compromise.
Strength: P (Pretty obvious. Can you suplex a train or not?) Endurance: PFC (How long can one continue to work, fight, or use magic?) Constitution: PF (Welcome to the Salty Spitoon! How tough are ya? - physical durability, including poison resistance) Agility: P (Gross motor skills - movement speed, acrobatics, climbing, etc.) Dexterity: P (Fine motor skills - weapons accuracy, finesse, writing neatness) Intelligence: FVC (In this case, ability to learn new things quickly and draw connections between concepts.) Wisdom: FV (Resistance to faulty information and impulse control. The lower your Wisdom, the more propaganda you swallow.) Charisma: C (Social skills, language skills, and animal skills! Contrary to popular belief, not boosted by alcohol.)
Magic Type Preference: (Magic category - manipulation, energy conjuration, object conjuration, time alteration, illusion, etc. - come up with shit if necessary) Innate Magic Talent: (specific magic skill that may or may not be linked to magical type preference, such as chucking fireballs, dispelling magic, seeing into an object's past, manipulating playing cards, controlling golems, etc.) Interests: (E.g. underwater basket weaving, history, quantum mage-chanics, etc.) Skills: (Add a few things your character is good at; you can keep filling it out as the RP goes on.)
Biography: (3+ paragraphs, 5 preferred. Put your heart into it!)
The Rules
If you've RPed at all, you should know the usual ones: godmoding is frowned upon, controlling other actively played characters is bad, don't metagame, etc.
If you've got to drop out, let the GMs know with an @Mention. Please don't just disappear without warning for weeks. This kills the RP.
Writing Standards are mid Casual. Aim for a paragraph or two, keep things clean. Please don't scare the newbies.
Don't be an ass in the OOC. If a GM or Co-GM tells you to stop a discussion, then stop.
Respect other players. While I encourage characters to be assholes IC, ask the other player before you do something lewd/creepy/unexpectedly violent to their character. Some folks get really, really creeped out by that sort of thing, and I don't want it to cause any problems.
If you're not sure about something, ask the GM and/or Co-GMs.
Real life comes first.
Above all, have fun.
Closing Notes
I would've put "Slice of Life" up in the tags, but I ran out of space. The roleplay will be moving fairly quickly in terms of IC time - there will be frequent time skips in order to keep things from stagnating and to avoid players' relationships building faster than their characters' relationships. Half the RPs I've been in, I've ended up RPing with other people one-on-one outside of the roleplay because we got bored. Let's not have anyone need to resort to that here.
The format we're going with is as follows: Each in-character day will begin with a semi-detailed summary of what topics are covered in each class, happenings around the school, and happenings in the world around us. Players may choose to roleplay any given class periods, in which case I will slow down and stop the time progression so that other interested players can jump in, until they so choose to stop and continue on with the flow of time. If a larger timeskip happens, I will quickly summarize anything important that has happened in the meantime, as well as condensing a list of topics and skills that had been taught during classes. Please try to keep track of what your characters have at least tried to learn, eh?
And finally: If you're interested and want to know more, please join us on Discord at discord.gg/fCbhrcj Or just go there to hang out and talk about stuff. We'll be using Discord to help in collaborative posts, particularly with mission running. Discord stuff no longer relevant.
@DesperatePerson With Layla's name, may I suggest that she be from Flynenhael, to the west? Their native language is most similar to a mashup of Welsh and Gaelic, and it'd be nice to have some other foreign characters as well. :)
Finish up the personality and biography and I'm pretty much guaranteed to accept it - liking what I'm seeing so far.
@Etranger You already know what I think of your characters being here - accepted by default, and welcome back.
@Kaesus Like with Desperate, finish up the personality and biography and you're in. I'm liking what I'm seeing, and I suspect that Kian will enjoy Professor Leere's classes immensely, given his styles of magic.
@Rekaigan Loving how your character is the first proper foreigner in the cast. Looking forward to seeing how Magnhilde reacts to Monster and Chimera staff members at the Institute. ;)
Accepted, and PM'd some cultural details on Airelosia that other characters will definitely not be aware of.
@LordofthePies Brush up the formatting and pull off the scale stating what which numbers are worth. I might personally suggest throwing in some mentions of a corrupt magistrate and lazy police forces as well. Living in a family of ne'er-do-wells would make him the target of local police, who act more like thugs than protectors -- at least, outside of the Imperial City of Unoctoc Station, where there is no civilian police force but rather a military police force. It's your biography of course, so do with it as you wish.
Accepted once the CS is finished. :)
@Avant Military families aren't always down-to-earth and accepting, but this one seems to have learned the lessons of service well - especially since many of the most dedicated soldiers in the Empire are Chimeras, though they aren't as prevalent as they are in Flynenhael. Joseph's family may have been involved in a recent military action that's been documented but yet not posted on this interest check - dumping it in a hider below. Don't have to add it to your biography, but it's stuff that his family would at the very least have heard of, given their military affiliations. :)
Accepted.
Other characters may be aware of this conflict as well, with the possible exception of characters from Flynenhael, Southern frontier towns, or the Northern City-States (will expand upon Southern and Northern towns further in the OOC).
There was an event six years ago in which Airelosia made an attempt at expansion to the South, where they occupied the Caribbean and exterminated the local sapient Monster populations. When Airelosian forces didn't stop their move through the Deadland Gulf southwards, the most unusual thing happened: a distress call from a magic academy operated by Monsters was sent to their associates in Mordhaben's Institute, and the Institute requested military aid on behalf of the Yuutos College in exchange for their agreement to operate as an official military university for the Empire.
While the Unoctocan Empire had a much weaker navy than Airelosia did at the time, Airelosia had dedicated their entire navy to securing lands to the south, inside the Deadlands. They needed the entirety of their naval forces to be able to hold off oceanic Monster attacks while making landfall, which meant that the Unoctocan Empire was able to blockade the mainland and cut off fuel and food transportation. The UE offered for Airelosia to surrender, they declined, and the Unoctocan Grand Fleet attacked the Airelosian forces from the north, sandwiching them between the land-based magical assaults of the Yuutos College, oceanic Monster attacks from the east, and artillery fire from the fleet itself. After most of their vessels were crippled or outright destroyed, Airelosia surrendered, and a ceasefire was signed.
Unoctocan forces took almost no losses, and the primary cause of Unoctocan soldier deaths during the entirety of the conflict wasn't combat but rather a sickness similar to influenza, so the victory was used for widespread patriotic propaganda printed in state-owned newspapers.
Joseph's family is likely aware of Airelosia rebuilding their military forces with a higher focus on land-based combat over naval combat, though this will take ten years at the minimum to be even the remotest threat to the UE, which has vastly superior ground forces and a modestly superior air force.
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