JohnSolaris

Fate/Install (based on the mechanics of Fate/kaleid liner Prisma Illya)

This is only a summary meant to convey the basic idea of what the RP will be about, with a lot of finer details left out that will be included in the actual game thread. But if you want to know now, feel free to ask questions.

As the RP is based on a spinoff of Fate/stay night, I assume that the people reading this already have at least a basic understanding of the Holy Grail War in FSN. If you don't know anything about FSN at all, but still want to join, you might have to read things up on the wiki a bit.

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Summary:

As the title says, this will be an RP based on some of the mechanics from Fate/kaleid liner Prisma Illya, more specifically the Class Cards. To those who haven't read the manga or watched the anime, a Class Card is a magical card that contains the power of a Servant, which can be used in two main ways: Include, which uses a Mystic Code as a medium to manifest the Noble Phantasm or some other small part of a Servant; and Install, which merges the Class Card with its user, partially overwriting the person's existence with that of the Servant and granting the person the power, skills, and Noble Phantasms of the Servant, while changing the person's appearance and clothes to match. Thus, instead of with conventional Servants, the Holy Grail War of this RP will be fought with Class Cards.

One thing I should make clear, though, is that while this RP will use the mechanics of Prisma Illya, specifically the Class Cards and the Ainsworth Holy Grail War, it will not focus on the magical girl or loli fanservice aspects. Unless a player wants to make a magical girl character, of course, but that's a different thing altogether. This should illustrate the difference between what the title might suggest and what I'm trying to go for.

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Setting:

The setting of this game will be one of the many parallel universes in the Type-Moon multiverse, one that's similar to Miyu's universe in Prisma Illya.

Since a few decades ago, the world had begun slowly dying, its mana drying up and being replaced by a mysterious dark particle called "Grain", which is toxic and inimical to all forms of life. Two centuries ago, a great ritual was held by the Ainsworth, Tohsaka, and Makiri families, three of the greatest magus families in the world, to attempt to reach the Root, and that ritual is now being resurrected by the Ainsworths of today to improve the world's conditions. The Holy Grail periodically summons Servants in the form of Class Cards, mindless degraded copies of the original Heroic Spirits that scatter around the world and absorb mana out of an instinctual desire to complete themselves. Seven prominent magi have been chosen by the Holy Grail to be Masters, and once a Class Card has absorbed enough mana to reach maturity, the Masters are sent to defeat and retrieve the Card. The mana gathered by the Card is sent to the Grail, while the Master who defeats the Card gains ownership of it, and becomes able to borrow its power. Masters are allowed to fight to take each other's Class Cards as well, and the Master who obtains all Cards at the end of the War becomes the victor. As the Holy Grail expends the collected energy at the end of the war to work its miracle and repair the world, the winner will be allowed a personal hand in the process, deciding the new form that the world will take and thus potentially granting one of his dearest wishes. And so the Ainsworth Holy Grail War begins, fought by seven Masters but many more Servants.

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Some more information on Masters and Class Cards:

Class Cards are not limited to one per class, and each Master can possess multiple cards. Players can submit new Servants to be summoned, but there's no guarantee that a Servant you created is going to end up as yours. Each Master starts with a single Class Card already in his possession, and those specific seven will be one for each class, but aside from those all classes are fair game. And yes, starting Cards can be taken away by force too.

There will only be seven Masters, and each player is only allowed to create one Master character, but other non-Master characters can be created by players. The game should be focused on fun and creating an entertaining story, so I'm going to stop you if you try to abuse this to make yourself an army of followers just for the sake of winning.

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Alternate universe considerations:

Since this is an alternate universe, none of the canon characters should appear, except the Servants, which are mostly mindless and all copies anyways. Alternate universe versions of canon characters can exist (e.g. Miyu compared to Illya), but those are still different people, and thus should have different backstories due to the alternate history. More specifically, the Ainsworth family has replaced the Einzbern family in this universe, so the Einzberns either don't exist at all, or have much less prominence.

On the other hand, many details of this particular universe are still open, so players can fill them out if they wish.

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Lastly, a disclaimer: I am only a relatively casual Type-Moon fan. I have watched the Unlimited Blade Works anime, as well as all seasons of Prisma Illya, and read all chapters of the manga, but I have not read the original Fate/stay night visual novel or any of the supplementary materials. I have done what I believe to be large and extensive amounts of research on the wiki, but as I said, I'm only a casual fan, and thus not obsessive about strict canon accuracy. Sure, I'd like to avoid blatantly obvious contradictions of canon when possible, but I'd rather be flexible and focused on fun, than making sure absolutely everything is as accurate as possible. So please, if you're the kind of hardcore fan who would get really bothered upon seeing me bend the setting's rules a little, this RP might not be for you. Likewise, players will be asked to try not to blatantly contradict anything in canon, but quite a bit of leeway can be given on how the setting's rules can be bent.

That's it for now; I'll give more details in the game thread if enough people are interested for the game to be a thing. So, anyone interested?

Hybrid: Of Transhumans and Modern Magic

@Banana: Basically, what BC said. I have two main problems with your character.

1. No matter how I think about it, I don't think the helicopter tentacles are feasible at all. For starters, they come out of Grover's back arranged in a vertical fashion, while helicopter rotors are horizontal; he'd have to awkwardly bend his whole upper body 90 degrees forward if he wants to have any chance of flying. And then there's the matter of freely rotating joints, which might've been somewhat difficult to install. Finally, each helicopter rotor blade is thin and lightweight, not at all like thick cybernetic tentacles; the tentacles have too much mass to simply transform into helicopter rotors. Overall, as BC said, it's honestly much, much easier to just give your guy a jetpack if he wants to fly, and there's no real reason why the scientists didn't just do that instead of trying to make the tentacles work as helicopter rotors.

2. There's no reason why the scientists would just let Grover go free after finishing the experiments, since he's now an individual empowered with dangerous new abilities. At the very least, they'd want to keep an eye on him, if not outright have him serve in their military and what not. Maybe one of the other test subjects went berserk and destroyed the whole facility, allowing Grover to slip away in the confusion; he could've then laid low for a while as said in the profile. Or you could think of something else; there just has to be some reason why he got free after the experiment.

3. Didn't we go over how severely underpowered an M1911 would be in this day and age? The standard army pistol nowadays would be some kind of miniature railgun with significantly more power than modern pistols, or maybe even a plasma blaster. Not a pistol that would almost certainly fail to penetrate even decently well-armored cyborgs and chimeras.

Hybrid: Of Transhumans and Modern Magic

Reserved for co-GM usage.

Hybrid: Of Transhumans and Modern Magic

Are Neuroaugmentations a thing?

@Lucidnonsense

Yes. The cybernetic side has brain implants, and the bionetic side has... superdrugs or something, which only chimeras are tough enough to (safely) use. There could also be some magic that does that kind of thing, if you're really skilled, enough to pull it off despite magic's usual destructive tendencies.

Hybrid: Of Transhumans and Modern Magic

@Kafka Komedy: That alone wouldn't be enough, unless his father actively exerted his influence and pulled strings to get the cybernetic legs made. However, getting bionetic leg replacements for him would be much easier, for something with equivalent performance to cybernetic legs, so it doesn't make much sense for him to get cybernetic legs over bionetic ones unless he has some specific reasons. One idea I have is that maybe your character was the victim of some disease or poison that caused his legs to rot away, which made him want legs that wouldn't be vulnerable to such things. Keep in mind that while cybernetics are unaffected by disease or poison, they do not have the advantage of self-healing that bionetics have, and thus must be manually repaired.

Hybrid: Of Transhumans and Modern Magic

@Kafka Komedy: I should add that there are three main ways a chimera could feasibly get cybernetic augmentations:

1) Have them custom-made for him through massive amounts of wealth and/or some other form of influence.

2) Buy them off of a black market of some sort. Of course, with shady deals like these, safety is nowhere near guaranteed when using them.

3) Be a cybernetics expert and make them himself.

These are all pretty significant things, so they'd need to be a pretty important part of your character's backstory if you want to go that route.

Hybrid: Of Transhumans and Modern Magic

This looks pretty damn cool. Should my schedule be free enough, I'll be joining for sure. Would you mind giving some examples of Biomods, though? Thinking about characters and wanted to see what you meant by that.

@Kafka Komedy

I'll be co-hosting this game, and came up with the game together with BC, so I can answer your question.

Biomods are basically body modifications that are biological or organic in nature. For example, replacing your arms with a pair of new arms that have web spinners in the hands, allowing you to imitate Spider-Man. Another example would be a bony exoskeleton grafted onto your skin, which can receive nutrients from your bloodstream to repair itself. Such biomods are used mostly by chimeras, since their already superhuman constitutions are required to adapt to the biomods and make them function properly; this allows them to fight on par with the humans' advanced mechanical weaponry. On the other hand, in most cases only humans can install cybernetic modifications to themselves, and not chimeras, since the physiology of humans is much more thoroughly understood than that of chimeras.

Book of Mages: Resurgence

This has been posted in both the casual and advanced sections, and the game will be run in whichever section that shows more interest. The expected complexity of posts will be adjusted accordingly.

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Introduction

This is an RP based on the Flash game, Book of Mages: The Dark Times. Of course, playing the Flash game is not necessary to understand or participate in this RP, nor will the RP’s setting be identical to that of the Flash game, as some things have been changed due to personal preferences. Nevertheless, if you’ve played the Flash game before, you may find things pleasantly familiar. And I recommend giving the Flash game a try anyways, as it has a number of highly divergent branching story paths and a lot of replayability in general.

This RP takes place on an alternate planet Earth inhabited by mages, humans who are able to manipulate the elements of fire and water with their minds. The mages are divided into six clans, three of fire (Molten Depths, Blazing Sands, and Ashen Woods) and three of water (Frozen Peak, Spirit Ocean, and Dead Swamp), each with its own unique magic and way of manipulating its element. This game is about the various clans and factions of mages vying for dominance, over the future of this world.

---

A Brief History

History

Year 50: Through methods long since lost, various humans gained the abilities to manipulate fire and water, becoming the first of mages. They organized themselves into the clans of Fire and Water to systematically develop magic and train their newer members. Later in each clan, three distinct ways of using its element emerged, causing the clan to divide into three. Thus a total of six clans formed: Molten Depths, Blazing Sands, Ashen Woods, Frozen Peak, Spirit Ocean, and Dead Swamp.

Year 100: The clans often fought and quarreled with one another, until a single mage, stronger than all others at the time, defeated all of the clan leaders in single combat. And so Alyssa Deepheart of Spirit Ocean became the first Great Mage, leader of all mages in the world and the final authority on all conflicts beyond the boundary of a single clan. From then on, whenever the Great Mage passed away, stepped down, or lost the position for any reason, a massive tournament would be held, where the winner became the next Great Mage. And so the clans enjoyed a period of tenuous peace.

Year 140: Six mysterious mages, one from each clan, spent years visiting numerous famous mages in all of the clans. After they were done, they gathered together to create the Book of Mages, a magical tome that recorded the names and clans of the one hundred mages that they found to be the strongest in the world. The Book took the world by storm, reigniting competitive urges that had been present since the clans’ earliest days. Mages challenged one another frequently to improve their rankings in the Book, and whoever ranked number one was respected almost as much as the Great Mage, when the rank wasn’t taken by the Great Mage altogether.

Year 204: The Great Mage at the time, Caius Thornweave of Dead Swamp, had allowed himself to grow complacent and his magical powers dull, in old age. Many in the world no longer respected him, leading to the time of wide-scale civil unrest known as the Chaotic Period. The clan leader of Dead Swamp, Adrian Corpsedusk, was angered that Thornweave would not pass the mantle of the Great Mage to him. Plotting together with the clan leader of Blazing Sands, Edward Battlebeard, and the clan leader of Ashen Woods, Lorelei Treefire, the three assassinated the Great Mage, and forced a new Great Mage tournament to take place. Though those who still supported Thornweave’s legacy, led by Wilson Steelblaze of Molten Depths, fought the usurpers valiantly, in the end it was Battlebeard who was able to take the Great Mage’s title for himself.

Year 210: Battlebeard had proven to be a brutal, sociopathic madman who cared for little more than power. Gathering a group of mages loyal to him, he formed the Black Robes, a ruthless army dedicated to eradicating anyone who dared to so much as speak ill of the Great Mage. With the Great Mage so occupied and uncaring of other problems, conflicts between clans ran rampant, and crime was commonplace. This period of lawlessness and strife was known as the Dark Times. Those who would not stand for Battlebeard’s tyranny banded together to form a rebellion, calling themselves the White Robes.

Year 221: From the depths of obscurity emerged Theoden Frostlight of Frozen Peak, a genius mage of practically unrivaled power and skill. With his strength and conviction, Frostlight recruited countless mages of all clans to the White Robes’ cause, became their leader, and defeated the Black Robes in one final decisive battle, before killing Battlebeard and taking the title of Great Mage as his own. Under the rule of the new Great Mage and his White Robe followers, the world entered the Era of Peace, and Frostlight became known as the Legendary Mage.

Year 258: Due to Frostlight having brought mages of all clans together to end the Dark Times, intermingling among clans became much tighter and more widespread, leading to a number of mages learning magic from multiple clans, not just their own. However, this soon allowed certain unscrupulous mages to impersonate various clans, eventually leading to a massive war that nearly split the clans apart. In the end the White Robes were able to restore order through sheer military force, but the sheer carnage wrought led to Frostlight stepping down from the position of Great Mage in weariness. From then on, the Great Mage was elected via public vote, instead of a tournament, as the White Robes did not want another power-hungry madman like Battlebeard in power.

Year 293: To prevent another tragedy like the Clan Wars from occurring, the White Robes’ rule gradually became ever more stringent and dogmatic. Each clan fiercely protected its own unique magic from mages of other clans, and those who learned magic from multiple clans were charged with the crime of apostasy, punishable by immediate execution. Those who sympathized with apostates were heavily stigmatized, and the White Robes made sure that their lives were less than pleasant. Open criticism was forbidden, but people secretly called this the Age of Austerity.

Year 306: The apostates and various other outlaws, long since persecuted by the White Robe government, banded together to form their own rebel group, led by Kieran Ashmelt, the highest-ranked mage in the Book of Mages. As propaganda, the White Robes labeled this rebel group as a resurgence of the Black Robes back during the Dark Times. The rebels gladly appropriated this name, as a symbol of their stand against the White Robes, whom they saw as a twisted caricature of its original righteous self. However, the Black Robes had its own extremists and heartless criminals, some of them seeking a world of complete anarchy where they could kill and pillage to their hearts’ content.

Year 312: The Black Robes had been rapidly gaining supporters in the past years, and now controls some notable portion of the world. They’ve created their own pseudo-clan of Rising Steam, and combined the magic of fire and water to create magically steam-powered technologies. The White Robes had been in a state of cold war with them throughout, and the current Great Mage, Lucius Crystalsoul of Frozen Peak, plans to invade and destroy the rebels once and for all. It is at this time of uncertainty that the game begins, where the players’ actions will shape the course of history.

---

Clans

This is a brief summary of each of the clans. In the actual thread there will be much more information. Note that while the majority of each clan’s mages have tendencies for certain magic and combat styles as described below, players can still freely decide their own styles, and are not necessarily restricted by these tendencies.

Clans

Molten Depths: Mages of the Molten Depths clan manipulate magma and molten metal, as well as earthen materials to limited extents. Their magic tends to be slow, but incredibly heavy-hitting and powerful, while boasting solid defense as well. The clan’s specialties are smithing, transmutation, and imbuing magical properties into solid materials.

Blazing Sands: Mages of the Blazing Sands clan manipulate heat and sunlight, as well as wind and sand to limited extents. Their magic tends to be blazing fast and relentless in its numerous and overwhelming assaults, but lacks defense. The clan’s specialty is the manipulation and storage of high amounts of energy.

Ashen Woods: Mages of the Ashen Woods clan manipulate fire and smoke infused with dark and sinister magic, as well as wood and ashes to limited extents. Their magic tends to lack the overt destructive power of other fire clans, but curses victims with various debilitating effects. The clan’s specialty is the use of dark magic to corrupt other magical effects.

Frozen Peak: Mages of the Frozen Peaks clan manipulate ice and snow, as well as coldness and air to limited extents. Their magic possesses a fair balance of offensive power, defense, and the ability to disable enemies via freezing. The clan’s specialty is the magical cryopreservation of substances and effects.

Spirit Ocean: Mages of the Spirit Ocean clan manipulate seawater infused with flowing mana, as well as raw magical energy to limited extents. While their offense is the weakest of all clans, their defense is unrivaled, capable of blocking and disrupting most forms of attack. The clan’s specialty is the delicate manipulation of intricate mana flows.

Dead Swamp: Mages of the Dead Swamp clan manipulate water with poison dissolved within, as well as chemicals and plant matter to limited extents. Their venomous magic kills enemies slowly, or afflicts excruciating diseases that makes enemies wish they were dead. The clan’s specialty is the mixture of potions and other magical liquids.

Rising Steam: Not a true clan per se, mages of the Rising Steam pseudo-clan are all apostates who have forsaken the mastery of a single clan’s magic for the ability to combine multiple clans’ magic into something new. Due to the wide variety of magic that its members possess, this “clan” doesn’t have much in the way of general tendencies or specialties, except perhaps the steam-powered technologies that were recently invented by combining fire and water magic.

---

Factions

There are two major factions in the game, the White Robes and Black Robes. Players are encouraged to join one, though they may stay neutral if they wish. Note that unlike their original incarnations in the Dark Times, the current Black and White Robes are neither fully “good” nor fully “evil”; there will be much more moral complexity here.

Factions

White Robes: The White Robes are the current ruling government of the world, led by the Great Mage Lucius Crystalsoul of Frozen Peak. Their primary purpose is to maintain societal stability and peace among the clans, but in the past decades this once-noble goal had been corrupted into something much more authoritarian. To ensure that past tragedies do not repeat themselves, the White Robes do not hesitate to use censorship, propaganda, and outright military oppression in extreme cases to maintain their rule. After all, to live a safe and harmonious life, certain freedoms must be sacrificed. The most harshly punished crime in the White Robes’ regime is apostasy, the learning of magic from clans other than one’s own, and it is enforced with an iron fist. Members of the White Robes including genuinely compassionate and well-meaning souls, as well as aspiring tyrants who wish to absolutely control every last aspect of the public and private lives of their subjects.

Black Robes: The Black Robes are a group of rebels opposed to the White Robes, whom they see as oppressive and must be removed from power. It was formed and is being led by Kieran Ashmelt, an Ashen Woods apostate who currently ranks number one in the Book of Mages. Being formed out of mostly apostates and other outlaws, the Black Robes advocate freedom, the freedom to learn and do as one wishes. If certain safeties must be compromised to attain this freedom, then so be it. The Black Robes do not currently have enough power to engage in open warfare against the White Robes, but are still strong and influential enough that the White Robes have not yet had any opportunities to eliminate them without suffering unacceptable losses. What they lack in power, the Black Robes make up for it in resourcefulness and flexibility, relying on guerilla warfare and underground activities to keep the White Robes on their toes. Members of the Black Robes include well-intentioned freedom fighters, but also psychopathic criminals who want an utterly lawless world where strength is the only thing that matters.

Book of Mages: Resurgence

Edit: I'm going to post this in the casual section as well, and the game will be run in whichever section that shows more interest. The expected complexity of posts will be adjusted accordingly.

---

Introduction

This is an RP based on the Flash game, Book of Mages: The Dark Times. Of course, playing the Flash game is not necessary to understand or participate in this RP, nor will the RP’s setting be identical to that of the Flash game, as some things have been changed due to personal preferences. Nevertheless, if you’ve played the Flash game before, you may find things pleasantly familiar. And I recommend giving the Flash game a try anyways, as it has a number of highly divergent branching story paths and a lot of replayability in general.

This RP takes place on an alternate planet Earth inhabited by mages, humans who are able to manipulate the elements of fire and water with their minds. The mages are divided into six clans, three of fire (Molten Depths, Blazing Sands, and Ashen Woods) and three of water (Frozen Peak, Spirit Ocean, and Dead Swamp), each with its own unique magic and way of manipulating its element. This game is about the various clans and factions of mages vying for dominance, over the future of this world.

---

A Brief History

History

Year 50: Through methods long since lost, various humans gained the abilities to manipulate fire and water, becoming the first of mages. They organized themselves into the clans of Fire and Water to systematically develop magic and train their newer members. Later in each clan, three distinct ways of using its element emerged, causing the clan to divide into three. Thus a total of six clans formed: Molten Depths, Blazing Sands, Ashen Woods, Frozen Peak, Spirit Ocean, and Dead Swamp.

Year 100: The clans often fought and quarreled with one another, until a single mage, stronger than all others at the time, defeated all of the clan leaders in single combat. And so Alyssa Deepheart of Spirit Ocean became the first Great Mage, leader of all mages in the world and the final authority on all conflicts beyond the boundary of a single clan. From then on, whenever the Great Mage passed away, stepped down, or lost the position for any reason, a massive tournament would be held, where the winner became the next Great Mage. And so the clans enjoyed a period of tenuous peace.

Year 140: Six mysterious mages, one from each clan, spent years visiting numerous famous mages in all of the clans. After they were done, they gathered together to create the Book of Mages, a magical tome that recorded the names and clans of the one hundred mages that they found to be the strongest in the world. The Book took the world by storm, reigniting competitive urges that had been present since the clans’ earliest days. Mages challenged one another frequently to improve their rankings in the Book, and whoever ranked number one was respected almost as much as the Great Mage, when the rank wasn’t taken by the Great Mage altogether.

Year 204: The Great Mage at the time, Caius Thornweave of Dead Swamp, had allowed himself to grow complacent and his magical powers dull, in old age. Many in the world no longer respected him, leading to the time of wide-scale civil unrest known as the Chaotic Period. The clan leader of Dead Swamp, Adrian Corpsedusk, was angered that Thornweave would not pass the mantle of the Great Mage to him. Plotting together with the clan leader of Blazing Sands, Edward Battlebeard, and the clan leader of Ashen Woods, Lorelei Treefire, the three assassinated the Great Mage, and forced a new Great Mage tournament to take place. Though those who still supported Thornweave’s legacy, led by Wilson Steelblaze of Molten Depths, fought the usurpers valiantly, in the end it was Battlebeard who was able to take the Great Mage’s title for himself.

Year 210: Battlebeard had proven to be a brutal, sociopathic madman who cared for little more than power. Gathering a group of mages loyal to him, he formed the Black Robes, a ruthless army dedicated to eradicating anyone who dared to so much as speak ill of the Great Mage. With the Great Mage so occupied and uncaring of other problems, conflicts between clans ran rampant, and crime was commonplace. This period of lawlessness and strife was known as the Dark Times. Those who would not stand for Battlebeard’s tyranny banded together to form a rebellion, calling themselves the White Robes.

Year 221: From the depths of obscurity emerged Theoden Frostlight of Frozen Peak, a genius mage of practically unrivaled power and skill. With his strength and conviction, Frostlight recruited countless mages of all clans to the White Robes’ cause, became their leader, and defeated the Black Robes in one final decisive battle, before killing Battlebeard and taking the title of Great Mage as his own. Under the rule of the new Great Mage and his White Robe followers, the world entered the Era of Peace, and Frostlight became known as the Legendary Mage.

Year 258: Due to Frostlight having brought mages of all clans together to end the Dark Times, intermingling among clans became much tighter and more widespread, leading to a number of mages learning magic from multiple clans, not just their own. However, this soon allowed certain unscrupulous mages to impersonate various clans, eventually leading to a massive war that nearly split the clans apart. In the end the White Robes were able to restore order through sheer military force, but the sheer carnage wrought led to Frostlight stepping down from the position of Great Mage in weariness. From then on, the Great Mage was elected via public vote, instead of a tournament, as the White Robes did not want another power-hungry madman like Battlebeard in power.

Year 293: To prevent another tragedy like the Clan Wars from occurring, the White Robes’ rule gradually became ever more stringent and dogmatic. Each clan fiercely protected its own unique magic from mages of other clans, and those who learned magic from multiple clans were charged with the crime of apostasy, punishable by immediate execution. Those who sympathized with apostates were heavily stigmatized, and the White Robes made sure that their lives were less than pleasant. Open criticism was forbidden, but people secretly called this the Age of Austerity.

Year 306: The apostates and various other outlaws, long since persecuted by the White Robe government, banded together to form their own rebel group, led by Kieran Ashmelt, the highest-ranked mage in the Book of Mages. As propaganda, the White Robes labeled this rebel group as a resurgence of the Black Robes back during the Dark Times. The rebels gladly appropriated this name, as a symbol of their stand against the White Robes, whom they saw as a twisted caricature of its original righteous self. However, the Black Robes had its own extremists and heartless criminals, some of them seeking a world of complete anarchy where they could kill and pillage to their hearts’ content.

Year 312: The Black Robes had been rapidly gaining supporters in the past years, and now controls some notable portion of the world. They’ve created their own pseudo-clan of Rising Steam, and combined the magic of fire and water to create magically steam-powered technologies. The White Robes had been in a state of cold war with them throughout, and the current Great Mage, Lucius Crystalsoul of Frozen Peak, plans to invade and destroy the rebels once and for all. It is at this time of uncertainty that the game begins, where the players’ actions will shape the course of history.

---

Clans

This is a brief summary of each of the clans. In the actual thread there will be much more information. Note that while the majority of each clan’s mages have tendencies for certain magic and combat styles as described below, players can still freely decide their own styles, and are not necessarily restricted by these tendencies.

Clans

Molten Depths: Mages of the Molten Depths clan manipulate magma and molten metal, as well as earthen materials to limited extents. Their magic tends to be slow, but incredibly heavy-hitting and powerful, while boasting solid defense as well. The clan’s specialties are smithing, transmutation, and imbuing magical properties into solid materials.

Blazing Sands: Mages of the Blazing Sands clan manipulate heat and sunlight, as well as wind and sand to limited extents. Their magic tends to be blazing fast and relentless in its numerous and overwhelming assaults, but lacks defense. The clan’s specialty is the manipulation and storage of high amounts of energy.

Ashen Woods: Mages of the Ashen Woods clan manipulate fire and smoke infused with dark and sinister magic, as well as wood and ashes to limited extents. Their magic tends to lack the overt destructive power of other fire clans, but curses victims with various debilitating effects. The clan’s specialty is the use of dark magic to corrupt other magical effects.

Frozen Peak: Mages of the Frozen Peaks clan manipulate ice and snow, as well as coldness and air to limited extents. Their magic possesses a fair balance of offensive power, defense, and the ability to disable enemies via freezing. The clan’s specialty is the magical cryopreservation of substances and effects.

Spirit Ocean: Mages of the Spirit Ocean clan manipulate seawater infused with flowing mana, as well as raw magical energy to limited extents. While their offense is the weakest of all clans, their defense is unrivaled, capable of blocking and disrupting most forms of attack. The clan’s specialty is the delicate manipulation of intricate mana flows.

Dead Swamp: Mages of the Dead Swamp clan manipulate water with poison dissolved within, as well as chemicals and plant matter to limited extents. Their venomous magic kills enemies slowly, or afflicts excruciating diseases that makes enemies wish they were dead. The clan’s specialty is the mixture of potions and other magical liquids.

Rising Steam: Not a true clan per se, mages of the Rising Steam pseudo-clan are all apostates who have forsaken the mastery of a single clan’s magic for the ability to combine multiple clans’ magic into something new. Due to the wide variety of magic that its members possess, this “clan” doesn’t have much in the way of general tendencies or specialties, except perhaps the steam-powered technologies that were recently invented by combining fire and water magic.

---

Factions

There are two major factions in the game, the White Robes and Black Robes. Players are encouraged to join one, though they may stay neutral if they wish. Note that unlike their original incarnations in the Dark Times, the current Black and White Robes are neither fully “good” nor fully “evil”; there will be much more moral complexity here.

Factions

White Robes: The White Robes are the current ruling government of the world, led by the Great Mage Lucius Crystalsoul of Frozen Peak. Their primary purpose is to maintain societal stability and peace among the clans, but in the past decades this once-noble goal had been corrupted into something much more authoritarian. To ensure that past tragedies do not repeat themselves, the White Robes do not hesitate to use censorship, propaganda, and outright military oppression in extreme cases to maintain their rule. After all, to live a safe and harmonious life, certain freedoms must be sacrificed. The most harshly punished crime in the White Robes’ regime is apostasy, the learning of magic from clans other than one’s own, and it is enforced with an iron fist. Members of the White Robes including genuinely compassionate and well-meaning souls, as well as aspiring tyrants who wish to absolutely control every last aspect of the public and private lives of their subjects.

Black Robes: The Black Robes are a group of rebels opposed to the White Robes, whom they see as oppressive and must be removed from power. It was formed and is being led by Kieran Ashmelt, an Ashen Woods apostate who currently ranks number one in the Book of Mages. Being formed out of mostly apostates and other outlaws, the Black Robes advocate freedom, the freedom to learn and do as one wishes. If certain safeties must be compromised to attain this freedom, then so be it. The Black Robes do not currently have enough power to engage in open warfare against the White Robes, but are still strong and influential enough that the White Robes have not yet had any opportunities to eliminate them without suffering unacceptable losses. What they lack in power, the Black Robes make up for it in resourcefulness and flexibility, relying on guerilla warfare and underground activities to keep the White Robes on their toes. Members of the Black Robes include well-intentioned freedom fighters, but also psychopathic criminals who want an utterly lawless world where strength is the only thing that matters.

Pokemon: Digital Masters

Actually, I'll change Call Legend so that if Mew is summoned, it will use a random TM move instead of Transform. I don't want any of the summons to be a complete dud. Similarly, Slow Start on Regigigas will count the number of turns Mega Gardevoir Y had been in battle, and thus will not always activate whenever Regigigas is summoned.