CaptainManbeard

Qrowdell Academy (magical school RP)

<Snipped quote by CaptainManbeard>

I can’t imagine why an elf would have that as a racial trait though.

@Crimson Flame

Or another option is to have a specific type of elf race that has powers like Mystique.

Qrowdell Academy (magical school RP)

<Snipped quote by CaptainManbeard>

I can’t imagine why an elf would have that as a racial trait though.

@Crimson Flame

Just gonna leave this here XD XD XD

Qrowdell Academy (magical school RP)

I’m thinking for my Jedi wizard, her ability to cast magic will be based on a number of different mediums. For spell 1 she uses a magic stick, for spell 2 she writes a rune down, for spell 3 she does some somatic Naruto hand sign bullshit, etc. the reason for that is because she’s self taught/homeschooled. She just learned whatever worked for her.

Bit of a mixed bag when it comes to what she used as a focus, but her fancy wizard stick is generally what she’s accustomed to the most since she’s trained with it for years.

@Blizz

Hmm... Her hand signs could be one of the runic systems for the Arcane Tongue, kind of like a magical version of sign language. In written form, it could look something like Kanji, with different slashes and curves matching the formation of the hands and fingers. That would actually allow her to use magic that maybe she isn't able to write down, like: "Crap, I forgot my notebook!" and she uses hand signs to shape out the runes instead.

That being said, I've been thinking about the individual spells, and I'm wondering if it would be easier for storyflow to just lump similar effects together. For instance, instead of having stuff like Fireball, Burning Hands, Fire Blast, etc. as separate spells, maybe have those together like Firebending in Avatar: The Last Airbender. Manipulating existing Fire/Air/Water/Earth or converting Mana into those elements could be done at will, kind of like how powers work in X-Men, but through a Conduit. And then the more complex stuff could be where written spells in the Arcane Tongue come into play.

So, if you have a magic stick, you wouldn't necessarily need to have a specific spell attached to it, you could just use it to fling out Force Pushes at will or something. That was fall under Universal Magic, and if you choose Air Magic as your elemental affinity, you could jump and flip around like an airbender and also use lightning with your staff, kinda like this:



And you could also have Arcane Tongue runes tattooed on her arm or wrists to fire Force Pushes out of her hands like:

Qrowdell Academy (magical school RP)

If you need help setting a server up let me know, I’m pretty good with it

@Blizz

I should be good, but thanks for the offer! I've set up a few servers in the past, so as long as the process hasn't changed drastically in the last six months or so, I should be fine XD. And since it's just a small group, I'm not worried about coding any chatbots or anything.

Qrowdell Academy (magical school RP)

<Snipped quote by CaptainManbeard>

Yeah, I’m probably going to use the Universal magic route.

@Crimson Flame

Okay, cool! Though, you'd still be attuned to one of the four elements, so feel free to toy around with that. And for the appearance altering part, you could always have that as a racial trait, similar to a Changeling or a Skrull.

Shit, I totally forgot about that option before. Racial abilities not tied to magic. So, as long as it's not too overpowered, everyone can feel free to add racial traits to their characters, such as wings, darkvision, heightened senses, form-shifting (such as lycanthropes), etc.

Qrowdell Academy (magical school RP)

That system sounds interesting. I’m fine with that, as long as I can keep my character ideas lol.

Also, now that we’ve got a bunch of people interested in this, do you think we should get everyone into a discord server? Might be easier to talk back and forth between each other that way

@Blizz

I haven't logged in to Discord in a while, need to figure out my log-in credentials, lol. But yeah, once I do that and have a server ready for us, I'll send a group PM with the invite, though I won't be super active in the chat myself until I have everything for the IC, intro post, and character sheet template written up.

Qrowdell Academy (magical school RP)

Hmm, so if I wanted to keep the casting illusions and telekinesis, what plane would I go with?

@Crimson Flame

Telekinesis would be covered by Universal Magic, and you could flavor some of the elements to cast illusions, such as using water vapor/moisture in the air to reshape the flow of light through the atmosphere around you, kind of like casting a rainbow. Or you could use air itself to reshape the light. Or you could have that covered by Universal Magic as well by using mild telepathy similar to the original idea for Cerebromancy.

Qrowdell Academy (magical school RP)

So, to recap, if we go with this newest idea, these are the magic types I'm thinking:

Universal Magic (any magical effect not tied to the Elemental Planes, the Infernal Abyss, or the Cosmic Void)
Fire Magic (powered using Raw Mana from the Elemental Plane of Fire)
Water Magic (powered using Raw Mana from the Elemental Plane of Water)
Air Magic (powered using Raw Mana from the Elemental Plane of Air)
Earth Magic (powered using Raw Mana from the Elemental Plane of Earth)
Infernal Magic (powered using Raw Mana from the Infernal Abyss)
Cosmic Magic (powered using Raw Mana from the Cosmic Void)
Chaos Magic (extinct form of magic without a known source, thought to originate with the gods)

Of course, none of our characters will touch Chaos Magic (at least not until much later on), but I included it because it has historical context within the world. I'm thinking the ultimate goal of Tiamat is to return Chaos Magic to the Mortal Planes so that she can be free of all constraints, and perhaps our characters eventually hunt down the Vestiges of Bahamut, which can be super-powerful Arcane Conduits that allow them to temporarily use Chaos Magic themselves to thwart Tiamat and her forces. But that's a long ways off, we'll worry about that when we get there XD.

So, does that sound good to everyone?

Qrowdell Academy (magical school RP)

@Light

Oh, and I forgot to answer the other part of your question - Yes, natural affinities would only be tied to the four Elemental Planes. To harness magic from the Abyss, one must plunge their mind into the farthest depths of their own inner darkness, which requires training and meditation, unless they've experienced some horrible trauma that caused them to draw upon the Abyss subconsciously. Conversely, to reach the Cosmic Void, one must attain a keen mind through rigorous emotional and academic self-discipline.

And to make things easier, we'll just say Raw Mana is an invisible energy that doesn't take form or color until it is filtered into the Mortal Planes through the Magi channeling it. There can be some abilities known as Universal Magic that just use Raw Mana regardless of what Plane it comes from, which any Magi can easily use. The easier abilities from this would include stuff like magical blasts without a particular element and force/sound effects, while more advanced applications can be telepathy, greater telekinesis, etc.

To give everyone creative freedom for how their magic looks, we'll just say the color of their summoned Mana and the subsequent magical effects are purely visual flavoring, like the color of one's hair or clothing. That means if someone is attune to the Plane of Fire, for instance, their flames can be any color they want.

Qrowdell Academy (magical school RP)

<Snipped quote by CaptainManbeard>

I like this approach. It's open ended in picking what kind of magic we use, and it only makes sense that there would be teachers that instruct students how to do certain things with it. I'm just double checking that you did intend for us to only start with one affinity this way then (and only from among Air, Earth, Fire and Water), and we'd have to learn others as we go?

@Light

Well, we can probably say they learned some from their parents or mentors in high school, so that they can start the RP with some knowledge of other elements beyond the one they're attuned to. For instance, let's say a character was born attuned to the Plane of Air, but then learned from an uncle how to draw Mana from the Plane of Fire to create tiny flame tornadoes or something. They can still use magic from different Planes, we can just say their attuned one is easiest to use, kind of like cantrips in D&D.