CaptainManbeard

Qrowdell Academy (magical school RP)

<Snipped quote by CaptainManbeard>

Oh now this gives me a weird idea.

Necromancy paired with electromancy... Magic cyborg who's permanently at death's door but magical stops the door from opening with some magic stuff. How that works when necromancy is taught under strict circumstances... I dunno but ideas go brrrr

@Blizz

Haha, yeah, sounds like a cool idea, but certainly the students would not have access to Necromancy unless they did it in secret, but if they god caught, they'd instantly be expelled from the Academy XD.

Hmmmm... Okay, that actually gives me an idea. I think one of my characters will have parents who are secretly members of the newly-recruiting Cult of Tiamat, and they want their child to recruit other student to take part in secret dark magic classes. So, anyone who wants to play a dark character, feel free to choose a Forbidden Art as a secret Tertiary Arcane Art, but they won't actually learn anything in that field until the secret dark magic classes start. So, even for dark characters, still pick from the eight approved Arcane Arts to start. As for how the secret class works, my character will lead any interested students through a hidden tunnel system under the mountains around the Academy. Members of the Cult were secretly part of construction crews who were refurbishing, repairing, and updating various parts of the Academy over the Summer, and they often stayed late to work on building the tunnels and the Secret Arena after everyone else went home for the night.

When the students/aspiring villains come to the Secret Arena, they meet five members of the Cult, each one a master of a specific Forbidden Art that they will teach. The leader of these is an older woman who is very similar to a Sith Sorceress, having specialized in Cerebromancy and Electromancy during her youth, and then Psychomancy after she joined the Cult. She is wise but has a sharp tongue and issues a warning to the students: "You will see things during your time in this Arena that are not for the feint of heart, but I do not tolerate cowardice. If you want to leave now, I will wipe the memory of this place from you mind, but if you commit and then betray us later, your exit will be considerably more... violent. Are we clear?"

I think I'm gonna split the difference with my character, sort of mixing all the ideas: I have a plan for a character that's the daughter of a pair of shrine keepers, maybe with ties to the other planes. She's in her rebellious phase and a bit rowdy, but otherwise well adjusted society-wise. Probably going to use a combination of electromancy and pyromancy. I think I have some suitable character art for her too!

@vietmyke

Azula, nice! If you decide to have her go to the Secret Arena mentioned above, she would make a perfect apprentice for the Psychomancy instructor XD.

Qrowdell Academy (magical school RP)

I want one of my characters to be a Native American Cryomancer/Aeromancer named Winterhawk, and he's got a tattoo of wings on his back done by his village's witch doctor that can grow out into actual white-feathered wings. As a Battlemancer, he will likely take flight and then fling ice spears from the sky XD.

Two other character ideas: Someone with a powerset similar to Luck from Black Clover, combining Electromancy and Cerebromancy; and a guy who used Ecomancy and Pryomancy to create green flames that heal people.

One thing I want to remind everyone - because there are so many potential uses for each combination, please don't worry about having too many people with similar powers. If someone else has already shown interest in two Arts you wanted to use, it's still fine for you to use them, just make your application of it unique.

Qrowdell Academy (magical school RP)

So, other than me, we have a total of eight people (unless I'm missing anyone) that have shown interest in the RP:

Crimson Flame
Jarl Coolgruuf
Lunafreya Miku
Vietmyke
Blizz
Light
Aladdin Sane
PrankFox

Assuming some of us play multiple characters, we should be able to get a well-rounded team with quite a few Primary/Secondary Arcane Art combinations.

Qrowdell Academy (magical school RP)

@CaptainManbeard Given everything you said, and the ideas floating around from other players, I don't think the idea I had in mind would work too well, and rather than try to fit a square peg in a round hole, I'll return to the drawing board for a new concept. I want to make something that doesn't step on the toes of others, so I'm feeling out what people gravitate towards before I throw my two cents in.

No rush, but I'm particularly waiting to see what @vietmyke decides on as well.

@Light

Feel free to throw some ideas around, or you can also PM me if you'd like to discuss some ideas more directly XD.

Qrowdell Academy (magical school RP)

Circling around 3 character concepts right now- deciding between the 3...

1. Grumpy/Delinquent on the outside, softboi on the inside, spear-chucking geomancer, probably a chip on his shoulder

2. Tomboyish and athletic electromancer, surprisingly well adjusted

3. A friendly satyr from another plane, an aero/ecomancer from an enclave of druids/hunters- blissfully ignorant of human culture

@vietmyke

Sounds good!

Also, I'm thinking the freshman classes in the Academy center around the different ways to use magic, so that they can apply to anyone regardless of affinities. For instance, there could be a Battlemancy class that is kind of like gym class and focuses on teaching them to implement magic into basic self-defense/martial arts forms similar to Avatar: The Last Airbender and Legend of Korra. Anyone who wants to join the Stormhawks Battlemancer team will find that useful.

There could be seven Core Classes everyone takes: Battlemancy, Alchemy, Runology, Enchantment, Arcane History, Abjuration, and Evocation, and then Specialized Classes for each specific Arcane Art. Additionally, there could be electives and advanced classes that become available in their junior and senior years.

When the main thread goes up, I'll include a list of spoiler tags in the first OOC post, each one containing various aspects of the RP world, including everything we've all discussed here and more fleshed out stuff. I'm thinking a large component of magic could be the runes/ Arcane Tongues, though I think I want to change an aspect I had written before - instead of having multiple ones, it might be easier for the RP to just have a single spoken Arcane Tongue that has multiple runic writing systems engraved into the Aetherscape (so that if anyone wants to include images of their Conduits with runes on them, we're not locked into one style). Anytime we need a character to actually say any part of the Arcane Tongue out loud, we can just write it in English and wrap it in triple brackets, like: "I want you to know," he said, then grinned and switched to the Arcane Tongue, {{{"I have more power than you'll ever know!"}}}

As for how it sounds when spoken, we can just say it has similarities to Quenya (one of the Tolkien Elvish languages):

Qrowdell Academy (magical school RP)

<Snipped quote by CaptainManbeard>

This, but boosted by cerebromancy so it’s basically effortless lmao

@Blizz

So it would look kinda like this but with a staff? EPIC. XD.

Qrowdell Academy (magical school RP)

Hope having two Cerebromancers in the group isn’t a problem.

@Crimson Flame

No, it's fine because they can be used differently and you can each choose a different Secondary Arcane Art. It seems your character is geared more towards illusions manipulating visible light with telekinesis, whereas Blizz's character is more like a Jedi.

Qrowdell Academy (magical school RP)

I’m thinking I’ll go with a Cerebro martial wizard after all. I have no idea what their secondary will be though.

Here’s what I’m thinking about: Trained by a “retired” Bahamut paladin in their home, who also did Cerebromancy. This paladin taught them psionic techniques, such as telekinesis and some levitational stuff, as well as fighting skills. This paladin was like a role model for them, and they learned a lot about Bahamut’s entire ethos, though wasn’t really interesting in worshipping Bahamut. That means that they have a healthy respect for Bahamut and the teachings of honor and Justice, like growing up with someone who’s openly Christian and passively learning about the religion as a result.

Coming to the academy they’ll have some basic, homeschooled psionic knowledge and hand to hand skills, but they won’t have a level of power comparable to someone who had more formal studies because being taught by a paladin isn’t the same as going to magic school. They use their martial training to use magic, those two things are essentially intertwined. What that means, I don’t know yet but that’s what I’m going with

Focus is probably a magic staff or some other small thing they got from their teacher

@Blizz

Sounds good! And now I suddenly envision what social media might look like for Magi in this reality, LOL! I can just picture your character being homeschooled and looking up magic guide videos on ArcanaTube or something LOL.

Qrowdell Academy (magical school RP)

How plausible is it that someone would have had some experience/training with magic before joining a proper academy? I'm thinking of playing someone who's already a bit traveled, and knows enough magic already to fend for themselves on simple mercenary jobs. Would that be ok? I don't imagine they'll be more powerful than the other players per se, but maybe they would already know their affinities and know a small handful of spells before joining the school?

@Light

I mean, they might have trained some at home with their parents, but since this is the equivalent of going off to college, they would probably be considered children prior to enrolling at the Academy. I'm not sure who would hire a child for mercenary work on modern Earth (well besides real-world examples in impoverished areas of the planet), but you could say your character comes from a plane where they have an ages-old tradition of children going on a two-year solo journey when they turn sixteen. At the start of the RP, you could say your character has recently returned home from their pilgrimage or whatever you want to call it, during which they offered their services as a mercenary-for-hire at various locations during their journey. And now that they're eighteen, they've enrolled at the Academy.

As for knowing Arcane Arts prior to coming to the school, I'm fine with them knowing some basic stuff, and we can say some communities and households have their own Crystal Mirrors. You could say that in your character's hometown, wherever that is, they have a town hall with a Crystal Mirror that every child looks into on their sixteenth birthday. Then, once they know their Auras and ideal Conduit, the town craftsmen outfit them for the two year journey. You can also say that prior to this, they received some survival training and basic magic instruction from local mentors.

And actually, I think we should all have something similar so that we are all a little familiar by the time we get to the Academy. My main character is going to have been born and raised in a modern human city, but his high school had a secret "magic class" for Magi students that prepared them for the Academy. If anyone wants to have their characters from a human city as well, feel free to say they were in the same class as him, then they can already be friends prior to the Academy and request to be roommates in the dorms.

I have an idea for a character based roughly on genasi, with the whole lightning or stone spear shtick, I have an alternative for a sorta tomboy girl with general lightning powers

@vietmyke

Sounds good!

Qrowdell Academy (magical school RP)

So Bahamut's generally seen as the "good guy" god and tiamat the "bad bitch but not in the good way" right?

I have a bard character who beat tiamat in a card game once (astral drifter background) but I don't know that much about her lol

@Blizz

Don't worry, I am heavily adapting them for this setting, so previous knowledge of their D&D-related counterparts is not necessary XD.

A little about the gods:

Billions of years ago, at some point after the Big Bang sparked the universe into existence, subatomic globs of primordial ectoplasm throughout the Aetherscape began condensing into larger clumps, eventually becoming something akin to giant glowing space jellyfish with partial cosmic sentience. Modern Magi refer to them as Proto-Gods, and they gradually evolved as the universe expanded and the first signs of life in the Mortal Planes began to appear. Eventually, fragments of the emotions, memories, and dreams of the Mortals began bleeding into the Aetherscape, which sparked the Proto-Gods' transition into the Celestials, the first true gods with greater cosmic sentience (sometimes they are also referred to as Elder Gods or Old Gods). Although it should be noted that no known entity in existence comprehends the full history of the universe or what happened prior to the Big Bang - that is a mystery even the gods have never solved.

The Celestials created the first Prime Nexus Points as they crossed over into the Mortal Planes, silently observing the development of life over many millions of years and employing a strict non-interference policy. After living extremely long lives, they began to feel their energy dim, shocked at the knowledge that even they could grow old and die if enough time passed. Deciding their power could live on in the hands of lesser beings, they began writing the first Arcane Tongues and embedding them into the fabric of the Aetherscape. Selecting chosen Mortals from various races to ascend to godhood, the Celestials taught them how to use magic and then gradually faded from existence. These new deities came to be known as the Ascended Ones (sometimes called the New Gods).

In the planes connected to the Prime Nexus Point on prehistoric Earth, the Ascended Ones included Dragon Gods, Fae Gods, Beast Gods, and Storm Gods, to name a few. Though, it's important to note that none of them knew about Black Mana at that time - the Celestials had deliberately pushed that aspect of the Aetherscape deep into the Outer Void in the hopes no one would ever venture that far. It wasn't until millions of years later - around the height of the Roman Empire - that a group of Cerebromancers first discovered Black Mana. Another thing to note is that the Ascended Ones have long lifespans, but that is only a blink of an eye compared to what the Celestials had. For instance, Bahamut and Tiamat have been alive for about three thousand years and are already considered "old."