CaptainManbeard

Qrowdell Academy (magical school RP)

And I think to sort of give a clean slate for anyone reading along who may be confused by all the back and forth and different rules and everything, I'll say this: Once the main thread goes up, everyone can forget what was said in this interest check thread. I will have all the necessary information for you to know in that new thread, and then I will direct everyone to PM if they have any questions. And while my new approach is to be more lenient with everything, I ask that no one takes advantage of that to try and make this RP more work than it has to be. If it stops being fun for me, I will likely walk away.

Qrowdell Academy (magical school RP)

No worries, if something gray area comes up in game we can just address it then. I get a little carried away with lore/world building so please don't mind me. Almost nothing I've brought up today should even be relevant for my characters anyway.

@Light

No prob! And anyone can always feel free to discuss various ideas with me in PM, and then if something becomes relevant to the RP that others need to know about, I can post it publicly at that time.

Qrowdell Academy (magical school RP)

But, having said all that, I want to keep the amount of information needed for co-writers to be minimal, because then that is less that I have to monitor and correct people on. We need to be careful here with hashing out all these different ideas and potential rules/limitations, because I don't want everyone to be confused about what they can and can't do. Because of that, we shouldn't let the scope of this get too big, and I'd ask that we don't push the envelope too far and what can or can't be done, because then that's just more for everyone to remember.

Qrowdell Academy (magical school RP)

Yeah perhaps the school has a code of conduct regarding the "ethical use of necromancy" with guidelines on what can or can't be done. Perhaps there are people who donate their bodies to the school for use this way, like raising the dead for use in manual labor around campus. There could be certain rules like when and for how long a corpse can be raised, skeletons must be cleaned fully before raising, zombies must have appropriate attire for their intended use and must wear face obstructions to preserve identity privacy of the deceased. Perhaps long standing zombies must be submitted for inspection of structural integrity and upkeep?

@Light

I like the idea of ethical use of Necromancy, which can also be used by detectives to ask murder victims about their killers and such. However, I'd imagine some killers would trap the soul of their victims in a Soul Stone or something to avoid being caught. As for zombies around school for labor, I think they would probably rely more on warforged-like beings or automatons, which would be more structurally sound and last longer. I'd imagine any use of a person's remains would be for strictly academic research purposes.

Qrowdell Academy (magical school RP)

If you want to go more lenient and flavorful this way, I think I will add in more graviturgy for my astrologer to start. Would certain aspects of cosmic magic like time travel still be forbidden? Perhaps the rulings on these are more about particular uses and spells rather than entire forms of magic.

Sure, drawing the life-force out of your classmates is I'll advised, but what about calling a spirit to ask it questions about the past? I'd rule both as necromancy but one is clearly harmless.

@Light

Gravity-based effects are fine, but I would be cautious with grandiose uses of time travel. Regardless of the rules meta-side, in the actual in-RP universe, I would still think time travel would be closely monitored. However, instead of saying "no, you can't do that," I think a better idea would be to have in-RP forces respond in kind if certain thresholds are violated XD. So, in other words, if you wanted to have your character go back in time to change an outcome of something, chances are something akin to Time Wraiths would soon be on their trail XD. Perhaps we can have a Professor who specializes in time-related spells who can teach them how to use mild time-travel that doesn't get flagged, and then it will be up to the character whether or not they abide by that or try to go farther and see what happens XD.

As for what would be considered "acceptable," we can just say that short-distance time travel - say, within 24 hours of your current time - creates sort of like a temporal personal pocket dimension. Basically, that lets you go up to 24 hours into the past to try out different missed opportunities or go up to 24 hours into the future to see possible outcomes, but it has no effect on the actual, "live" timeline. And we can say it has a geographical sphere that extends out five miles in every direction from your initial location. So, that gives one a free reign 48 hour, ten mile bubble to hop back and forth to their heart's content. If they get too close to the edge of the bubble - or try to go beyond that 24 hour window in either direction - they will begin to feel resistance, like a rapidly thickening fog. If they choose to push past that, then the bubble breaks, and it becomes real time-travel, triggering the attention of the Time Wraiths.

As for what the Wraiths are, no one knows for sure, but legend says they are the lost souls of people from previous timelines who broke their bubbles and were forced by the gods to defend the current and future timelines for all eternity. But do the Time Wraiths actually exist? Anyone who was suspected of having encountered them never returned, so how can they really know? The teachers claim they are real, but it is up to the students whether or not to believe them XD.

As for your final question, I would say the Professors frown upon recalling spirits from the dead because interrupting their afterlife is not only extremely rude, but could probably open a path for other forces to follow them through from the other side. Again, you can try it and we'll see how the universe responds ;). That being said, we can probably have ghosts of past Professors who have agreed in advance to be summoned to help students. The living professor who handles that class - probably Arcane History - could give each student a handheld crystal ball to summon and communicate with the dead, but with strict instructions on who they can contact and when.

Qrowdell Academy (magical school RP)

And now that I think about it, it might be good to allow some effects to span multiple magic types, like Lightning for both Fire Magic and Air Magic and Air Moisture/Humidity for both Water Magic and Air Magic. More on that when the thread goes live, but again, going to try and keep the info needed to a minimum.

Qrowdell Academy (magical school RP)

And instead of forcing people to remember a specific cosmology of this reality and the different planes and all, I'm going to use fewer terms - the Mortal Planes (many different parallel universes co-existing in the same space at different vibrational frequencies, like a multiverse) and the Aether (like the Force from Star Wars, it surrounds the Mortal Planes and penetrates them and all types of magic are derived from it). We'll still have the types of magic I mentioned before being available to the students (Universal, Fire, Air, Water, Earth, Cosmic, Infernal), and Chaos Magic as an extinct form that comes into play later in the story. I know a few people asked about Infernal Magic being available for an attuned type of magic, and I'm going to allow that now, so long as they know to keep it hidden when in the presence of non-villains. I'd still like people to pick only one or two types of magic to be attuned to at first, but I am not going to enforce that.

Though, one limitation I do still want to keep intact is the use of Arcane Conduits for more advanced magic. If you don't want your character to hold something in their hand - like a wand or sword - you can use tattoos or jewelry instead. Basically, anything that could have runes from the Arcane Tongue engraved into them. My Battlemancer character will have some kind of jewelry (haven't decided yet), my Monster Club character will tribal tattoos, and my Dark Acolyte character will start out having a Katana that can become engulfed in purple flames, but once his dark nature becomes publicly known and he can't hide it anymore, he's going to get Satanic-like tattoos to be his new Conduit.

Qrowdell Academy (magical school RP)

So I'm working on fleshing out the magic system, and I'm feeling myself plagued with anxiety, like "Why am I putting so much work into this? People are gonna be pushing the limits of it pretty much right away and I don't want to be constantly correcting people or asking them to fix issues in their posts. The stricter I make the system, the more work I'm going to have to put in to enforce it. I just want everyone to have fun and for this RP to be a zero-stress environment." Plus I've come down with bronchitis and feel like shit, LOL.

So, a lot of my ideas for a strict magic system are going to be reserved for my novels and I'm just gonna make it more freeform in this RP. We'll just say Qrowdell Academy is a school for the most gifted Magi in the Mortal Planes, so that everyone can feel free to play their power fantasies right away, and that also saves me the trouble of having to correct people and enforce a system. I will still monitor the narrative, of course, and may ask for corrections if plotholes develop. I'm scrapping my ideas for specific proficiency levels in various types of magic, and allowing everyone to be attuned to whatever types of magic they want. I'm removing any and all restrictions - other than keeping the narrative intact - and in doing so, saving myself the trouble of having to enforce any limitations.

Because I'm sick and this is a holiday week, the main thread still won't be up until Friday or possibly over the weekend, but once it does go live, I'm just going to have a few paragraphs explaining some basics and then we'll roll with it.

Qrowdell Academy (magical school RP)

I'll be using live actor faceclaims for all my characters and NPCs, and probably 2D art for monsters and stuff, but everyone can feel free to use whatever they want, live action, anime, cartoons, 3D art, etc. Most of this will be in our imagination, after all :).

Qrowdell Academy (magical school RP)

Also, I do want to clarify a few things for everyone, just in case it wasn't apparent in the intro post or the subsequent posts - while different planes may have different cultures and technologies, on Earth, it is modern day, let's say August of 2023 when they first go to Orientation. As stated in the intro post, the time of day at the Academy within it's sub-planar realm is synced with GMT (Greenwich Mean Time) at the Royal Observatory in London. As for the overall structure of this reality, here is an image that will help, though I'll define it further when the main thread goes up:



Think of this bubble as representing the Aetherscape, and think of the Elemental Planes as if it was cut into four quarter wedges like an apple. The galaxy swirling inside represents the many different Mortal Planes, which are like parallel universes co-existing. They are all spinning so fast that the speed in inconceivable to Mortals and from a quantum perspective, are technically sitting inside all four Elemental Planes at the same time. That motion is what keeps the balance between the elements in the Mortal Planes, and why all Magi are attuned to one of the Elemental Planes. The light in the center represents something I haven't discussed yet, so we'll just call it the Celestial Spark, a place where new souls pop into existence right before being born into a physical body. This cloud of divine light surrounds a black hole in the center of the Aetherscape that represents the Infernal Abyss, and together they act as the anchor for the Aetherscape and work with the Elemental Planes to maintain balance. The black space beyond is the Cosmic Void.