Brand — Roleplayer Guild

In the beginning, there was only one god, the All-Father. Omnipotent and everlasting he searched for a purpose. He looked into the void and believed existence should be shared and the purpose for one should be in another. He split himself in two and the brother gods Euros and Meros were born, as was something new: perspective. The brother gods could not see the universe in its entirety as their father had rather they saw the void in their owns views. They agreed the void should give way to something new, a kingdom for them both.

Meros wanted a kingdom of spirit, everlasting and a world of pure consciousness. Meros built the heavens. Euros, however, wanted something different. He desired a world of sight, touch, sound, sensations and material. He created the world, the stars, the sun, and the moon. The brothers agreed that to regain their omnipotence they would have to see existence through many eyes at once and so they began to fill their kingdoms with other creations in thier image.

Meros thought things should exist in absolutes and believed all things should exist as a force for creation or destruction. He filled his realm with beings to embody this philosophy, Angels to create and protect and demons to destroy and erase. Euros saw his brother's creations but believed things should be ever-changing, and wanted his creations to choose their own purpose. Euros made mankind and gave them free will so that they might be gods unto themselves. However, the free will of mankind was a threat to all creation. They held within their hearts the power to undo all the heavens and Earth.

Meros saw man as a threat to both kingdoms and struck out against them, taking their immortality so that they may die out and fade away. When Euros saw what his brother had done and pitied the plight of his creation. Euros created the animals of the forests for them to feed on, water for them to drink, and woman so that they may multiply and their kind may never fade. Then to protect humans against his brother the god sacrificed his own divinity to separate the physical world from the spiritual and he fell to Earth as a mortal.

When Meros saw his brothers sacrifice he recognized the wrong he had done and wept for his brother who was forever beyond his reach. Rather than watch his brother die and fade to dust as the men he had cursed, Meros threw away his own divinity to create a bridge between the realms and he gave every man a soul, a spiritual counterpart so that when the physical body dies it would live forever in the spirit. In this way, he would never truly lose his brother.

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The realms of men are in chaos. In the western swamps a Kingdom has fallen, a royal lineage betrayed and usurped. To the south civil war ravages the land and a nation is at risk of fracture. In the far eastern deserts the supernatural is on the rise and the innocent are found slain in their homes, drained of blood and the dead are rumored to walk again. In the mountains to the north, a kingdom is buckling under the weight of being a bulwark against the savage nomads beyond the realms of civilization. 

Gorgon

Deep in the marshlands of the west coast, the Kingdom of Gorgon sprawls its roots. These lands are harsh and near inhospitable. Man-eating gators stalk the swamps, witches practice their dark magic in the bayou, while disease and other supernatural forces thrive. Near all civilized settlements lay on the coastal regions where the harshness of the wild has bred a hardy breed of citizens. The economy of Gorgon is driven largely by fishing, shipwrights, lumber, and biodiversity prized for alchemical purposes. Faith in the All-Father, Euros, and Meros is the dominant religion but paganism holds strong roots among supernatural Gorgonites.

 House Blackwater had been the royal family for centuries until recently usurped by House Briar. While the bulk of the king's forces were campaigning overseas the Briar's staged a coup, claiming the throne as their own. When the Blackwater forces returned, the armies of the two noble families met on a narrow stretch of land known as the King's Pass, a landbridge which provided dry access to the capital. There, the Blackwater banners fell and the corpses of the fallen soldiers were strung from the trees. The head of Arthur Blackwater, the once king, was paraded through the streets of Zola, the capital of Gorgon. Sympathizers of the Blackwaters have named the land bridge 'Traitor's Pass' in spite of the Briar's misdeeds, and they have taken to calling the surrounding marsh The Swamp of Sorrows.

There are whispers a few Blackwaters live on, and while the Briar's struggle to cement their rule over their fledgling kingdom there is rumors of rebellion. The noble houses are picking sides and the realm is engulfed in a cold war. Assassination and sabotage are rampant as the minor Houses quietly pick their sides, and no one trusts their neighbor. Gorgon is on the verge of civil war.

Valeal

The western reaches of these lands are characterized by lush green hills which flatten to green prairies the further inland. Farmland worked by slave labor sprawls the countryside which then gives way to a dense urban metropolis. The idyllic nature of these lands has attracted migrants from the world over, which has become a point of contention in the current political climate. Xenophobia has spread its wicked roots and militant zealots who persecute those of other faiths or cultures is becoming far more commonplace. Reigning in the Capital of Oslo, the crown has done little to nothing to stop the militant faithful, for the crown is currently engaged in a bitter civil war on the eastern edge of the kingdom.

To the east, where the green farmlands give way to dense temperate forests the people of this region have taken up arms against their King. Separated from the rule of the capital by many thousand miles of uninhabited land these people long cherished their relative independence and entertained the idea of self-rule. To further complicate things, the wealth of the kingdom seldom found its way this far east resulting in a grotesque imbalance of prosperity. Additionally, the cultures and religions in this region are ar more diverse because those immigrants shunned by Valean society find their ways here, where the vast swathes of empty forest allow them to live simple, albeit unperturbed lives. In recent years the Crown has increased its cultural pressure in attempts to bring these folk to heel, but those attempts only resulted in spotted resistance which surely gave way to a full-blown rebellion.

The rebels have taken to calling their nestling country Rhinefeld, named after the first Martyr to die to the crowns 'justice'. They've recently laid claim to the second largest trade port in the county, Vespar, and have since named it their capital.

Ferros

Northeast of Valeal and Rhinefeld, temperate forests transition to coniferous trees. High levels of yearly rainfall keep these lands soaked and the poor fertility keeps them wild. Deep in these forested lowlands, a mighty mountain range breaks the sky's horizon with snow-capped peaks which stretch to the heavens. Then beyond the first mountain range, there is a second, with a deep valley presiding between the two filled with a sea of purple-leafed crops. The people of Ferros named it the Violet Valley named after the purple leaves of a hardy food they grow in their terraced farms. Here is where a vast majority of Ferronians call home.

They live in homes on the face of the mountains or within the mountains themselves. Giants used to call these mountains home long before the first men ever set foot on this continent. They built their cities in the hearts of mountains and connected them with a network of colossal tunnels. The giants are long gone but the Ferronians have built their homes out of the ruins. Other than the tunnels, little remains of what the Giants had built. What does remain however are marvels of the modern world. First, an ancient and colossal bridge named Heaven's Pass spans the two mountain ranges.  A bridge so wide it's rumored that it's width breaks the horizon, and constructed by some long forgotten means of magic and masonry it stands as pristine as the day the giants built it. Second, at the tallest mountain of either range, a mountain molded of blackened stone, the peak is sheared off and flattened. Here the Ferronians built their capital, Blackheart, around the ebony head of a titanic statue. Indeed of the statue, only the head remains. It is so large it can be spotted from the lowlands by a vigilant eye. Constructed by the same inexplicable means of magic and masonry Heaven's Pass, the magic of the statue's head wards the mountaintop from cold and snow, resulting in a rather odd display of greenery at such a high altitude.

To the North of Ferros the lands are cold and inhospitable. Wild barbaric tribes of monstrous beastfolk and primal men threaten to scale the cliffs and lay waste to the world. Only the mountains and the armies of Ferros stand between this inhuman horde and complete destruction of the realms of man, or so the Ferronians believe. Though, inexplicably, in recent years the number of beastfolk has grown rampant. Perhaps the Ferronians are right and they truly are all that stands between the civilized world and utter annihilation.

Kain

Far East of Gorgon, Valeal, Rhinefeld, and Ferros, far beyond the great plains where elephants and lions roam, beyond even the scorching desert, rests the kingdom of Kaine along the floodplains of a great river. Here giant crocodiles and hippos stalk the waters, and a host of animals found nowhere else in the world thrive. The people of Kaine thrive in trade of exotic goods such as dyes, slaves, sugars, drugs, fabrics, gems and other rarities. The wealthiest nation in the world they build giant monuments to rival that built by giants, pyramids and sphinxes line the river as trade barges sail the gentle waters. Bulwarked by the desert and ocean Kaine can only be invaded by sea, which that itself may be impossible for Kaine boasts the largest fleet of any known kingdom.

Religions and cultures from all walks of life here thrive, and living among humans there is an abundance of other races from the world over, the diversity of which is unrivaled anywhere else. The people here are ruled by a god-king, an immortal presiding in his forbidden court at the top of a golden pyramid in the capital of Able.

Kain has been blessed by a prolonged period of peace and prosperity under the eternal rule of their god-king, but recent events have appeared to put that at risk. People are are going missing at an alarming rate, corpses are sometimes found lying in the street drained of blood, and there are rumors that the dead are rising again to wander the desert sands.

When Meros sacrificed his divinity and gave every human a soul, he created a bridge of sorts between our human bodies here in the physical world and our spiritual counterparts. Mages can use this bridge to draw energy from the nether, and those who know how to wield this energy in a meaningful way can turn it into powerful spells and incantations.

Magic requires a great deal of concentration to cast and the weaving of magical energies into a useful spell is not only a learned skill but a dangerous one as well, since losing concentration could result in a spell backfiring on the caster. Currently, there are three recognized branches of magic and these branches are broken down further into schools.

Destros

Airmancy is the school of control over wind magic.

Pyromancy is the school of control over fire magic.

Hyrdomancy is the school of control over water magic.

Geomancy is the school of control over earth magic. 

{Fortos

Fortos is the school of protective and augmentative magic, ranging from magical barriers, anti-magic shells, or blessings such as night-vision or water-breathing.

Puras is the school of expulsion and healing. Practitioners can heal wounds and expel unwanted magics and even substances from the body, ranging from poison to demon possession. Masters in the art of Purification can even 'seal the bridge' of an unfortunate target, effectively rendering them unable to use magic. The duration of this seal depends on the skill of the user and can range from a few seconds to the targets entire life. 

Mystos

Illios: allows the caster to alter a target's perception of reality, and powerful mages can even trap a target within a false fantasy, much like a dream, sometimes a target is so entranced by this fantasy they refuse to leave, and eventually die from starvation or dehydration if not looked after for the remainder of their life. Effectively Illusion gives the caster control over a target's mind.

Necros: Magic dealing with disease, blight, reanimation, or other magic associated with death or the soul. This school of magic also allows the user to bind souls to objects or vessels, allowing the creation of gollems, elemental servants (when used with one of the branches of Destros), or sentient weapons. 

Hexas: enables the caster to place hexes on an unfortunate victim. Hexes can range from turning a victim into an animal, fusing their body with objects around them and leaving them forever immobile, placing a hex which causes the victim to swell and explode, or simply giving them a string of bad luck. The imagination is the limit with curses, however curses more so then any other magic have a high likelihood to backfire. Curses are similar to alchemy in many ways, but whereas Alchemy allows the alteration of objects or ones own body, curses allow a caster to alter someone elses body in a negative manner.

Alchos: allows the caster to alter the physical properties of an object, such as turning iron to gold (temporarily), or even altering their own forms such as turning themselves into animals or the exact image of another person, shape shifting as it's called

When Euros fell to the earth as a mortal his brother, Meros, sacrificed his godhood as well to create a bridge between the spiritual and material realms. When Meros did so he bequeathed unto his brother a gift, a crown set with ten arcane stones, each of which would grant him mastery over one of the ten schools of magic. This crown made him a god among men, but he was still mortal none-the-less. He envisioned his death and before the time of his demise came to fruition he sundered the crown, splitting it into ten shards embedded with the arcane stones. His loyal followers spread the stones across the face of the Earth, hiding them away from the hands of men who would desire to make themselves a god. Throughout history these stones have recovered and lost again,. Those who controlled these stones came to be known as Titans and were named after the school of magic their stone held dominion over: The Titan of Fire, The Titan of the Tide, The Earthen Titan, The Howling Titan, The Blessed Titan, The Pure Titan, The False Titan, The Undying Titan, The Cursed Titan, and The Titan of Change. Throughout history, and in the absence of the prime gods Euros and Meros, various titans have risen to godhood or have fallen from grace. Today a plethora of pantheon of gods rule over the Earth, many of which were once mortals who claimed their celestial thrones through the power of these stones.

When a necromancer seeks to bind a soul or return a soul to a corpse they first go into a trance, after which their soul is transported to the bridge between the primal and spiritual realms. At the first step of this journey, the necromancer will find themselves standing in an ankle-deep pool of water surrounding by an ethereal mist with a portal back to the realm of the living glowing at their back, dissonant whispers of the lost echo through the fog. The week willed may lose themselves in the mist and spend all eternity searching for a path home.
 
If the necromancer is able to find their way through the fog, they will come to a large gate of solid gold with the head of a Lion engraved on the front face, aptly named the Lion's Head Gate. A mage may open the gate, after which they'll find themselves wading through a knee-deep stream of water with glowing bright orbs of light floating gently downstream. These lights represent the souls of every living creature that exists on the material plane. Because these souls still belong to the living, they are impossible for a necromancer to interfere with. The further downstream the journey, the deeper and more intense the stream becomes until it leads you to the second gate. A gate of ebony stone with a scorpion engraved on the front face. Beyond this gate the souls submerge themselves, with the recently deceased being closer to gate. Once the souls are submerged a necromancer may carry it back to the realm of the living, although a necromancer should be wary that carrying a powerful soul places a heavy burden on the shoulders of the necromancer, making the journey back to life more arduous; greedy necromancers beware. If a necromancer dares journey further downstream, to find the souls of those centuries past, the water grows to a rampant river and the journey back to life becomes near impossible for any mortal to trek. The river eventually passes through an Ivory gate burning with eternal flames, after which the water cascades into the afterlife. 

***Bringing a soul back from death is no simple feat. While the souls of lesser creatures or animals may be easier to recover the journey of recovering a human (or similar soul) should be treated with caution and reverence.)***

Name:
[What is their given name, also include any nicknames they may have]

Gender:
[Male, Female, etc]

Age:
[Your age]

Race:
[Upon approval, you may play any race. Just be mindful that the setting takes place in the human kingdoms and nonhuman characters will likely face prejudice in certain regions]

Appearance:
[Picture, written description, or a combination of the two]

Nationality:
[Gorgon, Valeal, Rhinefeld, Ferros, Kaine, or Outsider]

Magic:
[Does your character know magic? If so list up to two schools of magic here. If there's some magic you want to use but don't see it on the list just ask. If you don't want your character to know magic that's fine too and I promise they wont be underpowered compared to any other character.]

Backstory:
[How did your character become who they are? You could write an exposition or you could write a specific scene from your characters life. Please 3+ paragraphs. I will be using this to judge if you would be a good fit for this RP or not]

Skills: [You may be proficient in 6 skills from the following list, proficiency means you'll get a +5 bonus to any rolls you make for those skills.]
Athletics: Covers difficult situations you encounter while climbing, jumping, swimming, and your general fortitude in overcoming physical obsticales. 

Acrobatics: Covers your attempt to stay on your feet in a tricky situation, such as when you're trying to run across a sheet of ice, balance on a tightrope, or stay upright on a rocking ship's deck.

Sleight of Hand: Whenever you attempt an act of legerdemain or manual trickery, such as planting something on someone else or concealing an object on your person.

Stealth: When you attempt to conceal yourself from enemies, slink past guards, slip away without being noticed, or sneak up on someone without being seen or heard.

Arcana: Measures your ability to recall lore about spells, magic items, eldritch symbols, magical traditions, the planes of existence, and the inhabitants of those planes.

History:  Measures your ability to recall lore about historical events, legendary people, ancient kingdoms, past disputes, recent wars, lost civilizations, and various creatures. 

Investigation:  The ability to deduce the location of a hidden object, discern from the appearance of a wound what kind of weapon dealt it, or determine the weakest point in a tunnel that could cause it to collapse.

Animal Handling: Whether you can calm down a domesticated animal, keep a mount from getting spooked, intuit an animal's intentions, or tame a beast. 

Insight:  whether you can determine the true intentions of a creature, such as when searching out a lie or predicting someone's next move. Doing so involves gleaning clues from body language, speech habits, and changes in mannerisms.

Medicine: Your ability to diagnose and treat ailments or injuries without the use of magic.

Faith: Your ability to commune with deities or invoke the power of your god. 

Perception: lets you spot, hear, or otherwise detect the presence of something. It measures your general awareness of your surroundings and the keenness of your senses.

Survival: Ability to follow tracks, hunt wild game, guide your group through frozen wastelands, identify signs that owlbears live nearby, predict the weather, or avoid quicksand and other natural hazards.

Deception: determines whether you can convincingly hide the truth, either verbally or through your actions. This deception can encompass everything from misleading others through ambiguity to telling outright lies. 

Persuasion: Your ability to exert influence over others through words or actions.

Personality:
[This doesn't have to be long, just give us an idea of how your character's brain ticks]

Equipment:
[Include weapons and armor here along with anything else that could be found on your person. Keep your equipment simple, if your character doesnt know any magic you may include some kind of magic artifact here.]

1. All the standard RPG rules apply

2. Your characters are not invincible. Death is a very real possibility for your characters and play with that fact in mind.

3. One character per player.

4.  Don't be a dick

5. Adult themes will be portrayed within this RP, within the Iwaku rules of course.

6. The posting pace will be weekly, perhaps bi-weekly dependent on everyone's schedules. However, if you are holding up the story I will not hesitate to continue without you.

7. All rules and game mechanics are subject to change as I see fit, but if I make any changes I will notify all players.

8. Join the discord. The link is posted on the first page of OOC.

The combat in this RP will be dice based so you'll need to make a dice campaign for your rolls. At the start of combat, I will roll initiative for all parties involved. This will determine the order in which combatants will act, and the rolls will be posted in OOC.

When I introduce a hostile creature I will highlight their name in either Green, Yellow, Orange, or Red. The color of their name will determine how difficult the engagement will be and will be used to determine how easy or difficult they are for your character to hit. When it is your turn, throw a 20 sided dice in the OOC. Then, use that dice roll to determine whether you hit or not and write your post accordingly. Use the chart below:

Green:
0 - 3 No Hit
4 - 8 Hit (2 hits kill a green creature)
9 - 12 Mortal Blow (the creature will be dead at the end of their next turn or on the next hit)
13 - 20 Finishing Strike (You kill the creature and may write accordingly)

Yellow:
0 - 6 No Hit
7 - 15 Hit (4 hits kill a yellow creature)
16 - 18 Mortal Blow
19 - 20 Finishing Strike

Orange:
0 - 10 No Hit
11 - 17 Hit (six hits to kill)
18 - 20 Mortal Blow

Red:
0 - 12 No hit
13 - 20 Hit (The hitpoints of a red creature will be tallied by the GM)

All creatures will take multiple hits to kill (short of a Mortal Blow or Death Strike). So if you hit a creature keep that in mind when you're writing. So, for instance, don't say you stab a creature through the throat on a normal hit because that would be more akin to a Mortal Blow. On the creatures turns, I will be rolling off screen to allow myself as GM some creative liberties. If I feel your characters are working together I may give a bonus to your rolls. Remember this is a story so write things out. Tell me how you worked together. When a creature is near death I will tell you as much so that you may treat the next hit as a Death Strike. I may also give your characters a bonus to rolls if your characters do some preparation before a fight (such as scouting, forming a battle plan, or other things that would ready your character for a coming fight), or if your characters ambush a target. 

For any questions please ask.
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