Your family is in the upper tiers of the 1%. Wealthy, connected, and none of you have to work a day in your life if you don't want to. Your family has also been known over the last few generations, for the odd eccentricity, but none were ever as eccentric as your uncle. When the inheritance was split between him and your father, he took all his money and moved to Scotland, buying an old, half-ruined castle on an island just off the coast and renovating and repairing it. These days, its complete and with modern plumbing, heating, et cetera - and yet it still looks like an imposing Middle-Ages Castle. You only met him a few times, when he returned to visit the family, and he was always kind of weird, but he always told some of the most interesting stories when you were young, of wizards and witches and faeries, lost secrets and magical powers.

One week ago, shortly after your nineteenth birthday you received a letter in the mail. Your Uncle was dead, and he had named you the sole inheritor of his estate, including his castle and a very substantial amount of money. The one condition was that you had to promise to keep the maintenance of the castle, see to his burial on the castle grounds, and visit the castle before actually getting the money or the deed to the castle.

You've flown to Scotland and have just taken a boat to the island. What you don't know is that most of your uncle's stories had more than a bit of truth in them - and that he, and now you, was neck-deep in a world of supernatural politics, and a quest for a forgotten tome of magical power, found and hidden somewhere in the castle by your uncle - oh, and that castle? Its a hell of a lot bigger on the inside.

In this rp, you play the niece of the guy who owned the castle, and I play, in addition to various 'NPCs', as it were, your Uncle's 'apprentice' of sorts, charged with helping you survive the...transition into the secret world your uncle took part in.

Long Ago, this land was ruled by the Tamilkirk Imperium. That has been true for centuries, ever since the coming of the Witch Queen.

No one knows who she was, or what her motive for bringing low the last of the old Empires. The Tamilkirk had survived their great rivals, the Empire of Iredos, whose reigning Wizard-Dukes destroyed themselves in a great magical conflagration. It even survived the Necrotic Empire, whose foul necromancer-nobility fell to internal strife and holy crusade from without. But the Tamilkirk could not survive her. It is said she was once an Elf, but she used foul magics to turn herself into a demon. Her army of orcs, undead and demons took took control of a large portion of the Empire, but even that was not enough. Even as her magics twisted and warped the land she captured into a nightmarish realm known only as The Blasted Lands, the Witch Queen reigned fire and destruction on Minjiara, the capital of the Tamilkirk Imperium. Within a decade, these two blows resulted in the final collapse of the Empire, as rebellion, secession and chaos took even the heartland of the Empire – the Dragonfall River Basin.

All that history is of course academic, to the people of the small, sleepy village of Penderghast. A small farming community on the northern shores of the small Lake Pender, Penderghast doesn't even have 600 souls within it. Life is fairly dull, in Penderghast. Once a year, the tax collectors from the city-state of Medios come through, and occasionally patrols from the Mediosian Army passes through. When help is needed, Medios can always be appealed to, but the people of Penderghast haven't needed to do that in in many years.

But across Lake Pender, the dark secret of Penderghast looms. Over a century ago, it was not Medios that ruled Penderghast, but the family of petty nobility known as House Gleaves. House Gleaves, like all the petty nobles of the region, was overthrown by Medios in the aftermath of the short 'Two Penny War' (supposedly, the Lord Mayor of Medios said those petty nobles weren't worth two pennies, thus the name of the war). But House Gleaves were more than just minor nobles – they let the blood of demons and devils run through their veins, turning to foul magics and fell rituals to grow in power. While House Gleaves may be dead, from time to time, their legacy arrives in Penderghast – the Gleaves family had no qualms about...taking advantage of their subjects, and sometimes, a child with the blood of fiends – a Tiefling – is born. Always there is one or more physical traits that set them apart from normal humans. But Penderghast has always tried to treat each child on their own merits, not letting their unfortunate ancestry color how they are treated. Some succumb to the darkness of their heritage, while others, like Sister Agata, the local priestess of Tyria (the goddess of the Harvest) have gone on to become pillars of the community.

One such Tiefling, now a young woman, has been raised by the village smith and constable, the Dwarf Gardad Norcikid, since a young age, ever since her parents died. But when the village is attacked by demons and cultists, the true legacy of House Gleaves is discovered – a legacy of sin and evil more terrible than ever could have been imagined, and it will take this woman from sleepy Penderghast to Medios, to the ruins of Minjiara – and to the Court of the Witch Queen herself.

So, in this one, your character is the Tiefling young woman raised by Constable Gardad. You can decide exactly what the nature of her visible manifestation of her ancestry is – Sister Agata (the one mentioned above), for example, has light purple skin, small red horns and eyes that glow with an infernal light. Other Tieflings may look more extreme, with scales in some places, or cloven feet, tails, larger horns, or what have you. Always something a little unsettling, and a little otherworldly. I'll have several characters, that your character might meet along the way, and your character can 'pick' any of them, and eventually, that one will be my 'main'. This choice can be as easy or as hard as you and your character wants it to be, of course.

The city of Veldros has been many things in the over 1,200 years since it was founded. First it was a small outpost of the Necrotic Empire, part of the defensive line against the orcs of the Rough Steppes. Then it grew into a major border city, a critical point for trade moving from the Necrotic Empire to the commercial centers in Balfour Desert and beyond.

Then Veldros was the first of the Empire's holdings to truly cast off Imperial rule, when Food Riots drove out the administrators, instituting a radical reformist democracy – that in turn consumed itself in revolutionary fervor and created oligarchy and tyranny. Old established families with ties to the destroyed old Necrotic Order created aristocratic rule, and then the plutocrats arose to prominence. Veldros has been peaceful, it has been aggressive, it has been isolationist, it has been expansionist.

In the last century or so, Veldros has largely settled down. Its government is a convoluted mess of plutocracy, democracy and aristocracy, and its defining feature is just enough corruption to keep things moving, but not enough to actually be worth putting an end to. In foreign policy, it focuses on controlling as much of the trade into the Balfour Desert as it can, skirmishing with its rival cities Blerren and Orunkol. The rest of its energy is always focused on keeping an eye on the orcs of the Rough Steppes, who raid when disunited, and form massive hordes to lay waste to vast swaths when united. The large and powerful Kingdom of Halrun to the north wouldn't say no to the chance to annex Veldros if the opportunity presented itself, but seems content to let things play out for the time being, its attention focused in other directions.

Inside Veldros, a myriad of cults and philosophies rule – dark mysteries, cults of salvation, ascetics, chaste monks, sacred prostitutes and temples to gods foreign and domestic, good and evil, chaotic and lawful. Most cities have a handful of large, dominant temples and gods, the rest of the deities receiving much smaller focus. In Veldros, no god is dominant, and all religions and cults and orders and philosophical schools all compete for wealth, followers and status. Even the stranger cults have their followings.

Into this theological and philosophical soup steps a young woman cursed by her own heritage – she is the last known member of House Calvian, dissolved for treason and crimes unmentionable when she was but an infant. Too young to be considered culpable even by the Veldran justice system (which is famous far beyond its borders for promoting 'Guilt by Association'), she was raised until the age of 19 by very distant relations out of a sense of familial obligation. But now, considered old enough to fend for herself, she has been cast out onto the streets, lest she taint her former guardians with the reputation of House Calvian.

No matter the wishes of this woman – to live a peaceful life, to overcome the legacy of her family and become a paragon of the community, to indulge in the greatest of evils and carry on her family tradition, it is clear that many others of the factions in Veldros have plans for her as well, few of them pleasant. This woman must find power and allies if she hopes to survive in, or even simply escape from, Veldros, and especially to do even more than that. From the deepest slums to the highest spires, from the strangest cults to the most established temples, the last heir of House Calvian must fight, or she must die.

So, in this rp, you play the 19-year old last heir of House Calvian, cast out of the home and away from the distant relations that have raised her her whole life, and into the worst slum of Veldros. Soon enough, she discovers that her heritage attracts attention and avarice, ambition and aggression, and must use all she can to survive in this suddenly hostile world.

'My' Character will be several characters along the way, and eventually, there would be a point where one is picked and that one becomes my main. But the choice is up to her, based on her personality, interactions, and so on, as some characters become more closely linked, and others drift or flee away from her.

Since humanity has existed, there have been threats to humanity, hiding in the shadows. Demons, Elementals, Lycanthropes, Vampires. And there have been Mages - those gifted with the power to manipulate the primal forces of creation by means of magic, born with the gene allowing its access and control. And there have been Psychics - humans born with powers that may have often seemed magical, but aren't, as conventionally understood. Clairsentience, Telepathy, Telekinesis, and more.

For as long as the United States of America has existed, there has been an institution dedicated to protecting the people of America from these threats. Originally known only as 'Office Four', the organization, hidden from public view, known only to the President and select others, has since nestled itself inside the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Within itself, and within the supernatural community, it has become known as the Paranormal and Supernatural Crimes Unit, reporting only to its Director and the President. By those in the FBI or elsewhere that have had their cases taken over by them, the outfit is known only as 'Section Four'.

Section Four - a name bandied about on conspiracy theorist websites the world over, as a sign of the 'black helicopters' or worse.

Section Four - the thin line protecting American Citizens as best they can from the predations of vampires, demons, fae and whatever else goes bump in the night.

With its highly skilled investigators, elite paramilitary kill-teams and sophisticated techology developed by it's in-house R&D division (often a decade ahead of most of the rest of the world, at least), Section Four solves supernatural crimes and ends supernatural threats to American Citizens, and the American way of life. Against beings with twice or more the strength of a human, with strange abilities or magical powers, Section Four generally only has wit, determination and a whole lot of firepower on its side.

Like any above top-secret organization, Section Four has to be very careful with who it recruits. It selects only the best of the FBI, CIA, NCIS, Army CID and more to join it, and potential invitees are put through a mountain of tests and veritable forests of non-disclosure agreements before they're even let into a Section Four Black Site.

You are one such recruit. Welcome to Section Four.

The House of Quilor has ruled the Kingdom of Kantrias for four generations - ever since the Inquestran General Cerian Quilor led an army of mercenaries, defectors and opportunists to claim the wealthy and strategically located city of Kantrias. From that city, Cerian Quilor and his army claimed much of the surrounding territory, previously held by other city-states and minor nobles. What had once been unorganized and unclaimed territory between the Most Serene Republic of Kurria and the Inquestran Empire was now a single unified realm, led by one of the most brilliant generals on the continent of Bayetz. Cerian ruled through a combination of clever politics and properly applied ruthlessness, splitting his opposition by creating a Senate with real powers, but structuring such that the various factions in the realm would spend more time fighting eachother for control of the Senate rather than fighting the Crown for authority.

Kings Cerian II, III and IV have continued the legacy of their ancestors - despite Cerian I having led Inquestran soldiers in his little private war to claim his own realm, Kantrias is a close friend of Inquestra and Kurria, and together the three realms form the ruling council of the alliance known as the Valhan Coalition - a military pact that sees the three realms stand together against the corrupt Reynac Alliance - which uses its brutally efficient intelligence service to subvert other realms from within and turn them into 'willing' satellite states - and the Trigati Empire, which will stop at nothing to bring all of Bayetz under the control of its Emperor, Francero Unilon, a man possessed of a messianic zeal to 'fix' the ills of the world and shape it to his own 'perfect' vision.

Few realms on Bayetz have managed to stay out of this cold war - almost all have taken a side or been conquered, but one of the realms that had until recently managed to stay out of the war was the quiet, almost pastoral Kingdom of Alteska. But that has changed - the sinews of war are not soldiers. Not even coal or iron, despite the new industrial age war has entered. No, the true sinew of war is and always will be money, and Alteska has just been discovered to sit on one of the largest deposits of gold on the continent. The kind of real-estate that countless hundreds of thousands would die to claim.

Alteska, faced with threats on all sides, has decided that the Valhan Coalition represents the best option and its King Varro II, a peace-loving and benevolent ruler, to seal his realm's membership in the Coalition has agreed to marry his daughter to Crown Prince Cerian (the House of Quilor being fond of the name) of Kantrias. Sent from a realm that even the largest settlement has fewer than 100,000 people to Kantrias, a 2,500,000-strong industrial powerhouse, full of belching factories and ash-choked foundries, the Alteskan Princess must find a place in her new realm and marry a man she'll only have known for three months prior to the wedding.

So, in this one, my character is Prince Cerian Quilor (fifth of his name, heir to the throne of Kantrias) and your character is the Alteskan princess, thrust into a bustling urban center that at once exemplifies the best and the worst of the new Industrial Age spreading across Bayetz. Where exactly the rp goes from there depends on how things go between our two characters and what sort of story you want to do.

Disclaimer: This premise is based off of the card game 'DragonStorm', but no knowledge of that game is required.

For thousands of years, Dragons and Humankind lived in peace. Elves and Dragons co-existed, some communities merely tolerating the powerful lizards, but others embracing them. Even the Dwarves, who had long ago lost wars against the Dragons, were party to the peace and prosperity across the land. Dragons ruled some realms, but other realms were powerful states ruled by mortals, with magic enough to protect themselves should any sort of conflict arise. But there never was any.

Dragons, creatures of great magic, were fond of taking mortal forms, dwelling among the lesser (in their eyes) races, and as might have been inevitable, some of them interbred with mortals. The product of these unions was a new kind of creature: The Shapeshifter.

Shifters were seemingly normal mortals, but they had the blood of dragons in their veins, which granted them the ability to take strange new forms - some could turn into Dragons for a time. But others gained the ability to turn into creatures unseen and unheard of - Unicorns, Gargoyles, Werewolves, Pegasi and more. Shifters came to be revered by many, symbols of the prosperity and peace of the times...

But all that ended three hundred years ago. Great storms of Warp - foul, corrupting magic unused by all but the insane - began to form over the world, ravaging cities, destroying kingdoms and spreading the horrid and mutating disease known as the Tox. Within a decade, most cities had been abandoned as the storms ravaged the land. There was no sign of the dragons - and in time, they came to be blamed for this assault. Into this stepped the Necromancers. Dark wizard and witches of great power, the Necromancers taught that the Dragons had summoned the Warp Storms (which they named 'Dragon Storms') and sought to rule the world, turning all into their slaves. The Necromancers promised protection and peace - and they would use the Dragons own magic, - the Warp - against them. All they asked was that all those with the blood of Dragons - shifters - be turned over to them. For a necromancer could drain such a being of their power, and use that energy to fuel their own spells. Soon, shifters, once revered, were hunted across the world and in time, Necromancers would establish control over large swaths of territory, and influence in others.

But the truth...the truth was far worse. The Dragons hadn't caused the Storms...indeed, most were dead. On a feast honoring their ancestors, the Dragons were attacked by an alliance of Necromancers and those others among Human, Elf and Dwarfkind that desired the power and wealth of the dragons. Caught by surprise, especially at the dark magics of the Necromancers, most were wiped out and drained of their power over the course of a few weeks, to little notice by the rest of the world. It was this draining that spawned the first 'Dragon Storms' and the continued draining of Shifters only spawns more.

Some time after the rise of the 'Storm Era', a Shifter by the name of Valeria discovered the truth and began to gather a resistance among her own kind, and others, including Shamans troubled by the damage the Necromancers were causing to the spirit world, the Unicorn-revering Wood Elves and the Dragon-worshipping orcish clans, along with others who were sympathetic to their cause. As the Necromancers tightened their rule and influence, more and more people grew to hate and fear them, even if most hated the Shifters just as much.

But without more dragons, and with the Dragon blood to grow weaker with ever generation, the 'Valerian Order' took a dire step - they performed a great ritual, seeding the Dragon Storms with the power to awaken latent, long-dormant dragon blood, creating new shifters out of any with such blood that were caught in a storm. It was the only way to give rise to more of their own kind, to ensure the fight against the Necromancers, a guerilla war with no end in sight, could continue.

But for every new Valerian that is created by this, another new shifter becomes easy prey for a necromancer and their minions....

In this rp, your character is a normal (more or less, you could be a thief, a farmer, an apprentice wizard or shaman in training, a newly recruited soldier, even a noble-born person or something like that, etc) person (human or elf) who is caught outside during a Dragon Storm, which awakens your latent Dragon Blood, creating a spontaneous first transformation - you can decide what form - and now has to survive in a world where you're hunted and hated. My character is a Dragon Shifter who is nearby when you have your transformation, and takes up the role of your mentor, to ensure you stay safe and alive long enough to learn your new powers.

The Kingdom of the Necromancers, as the name fairly unimaginatively suggests, as a Kingdom ruled by Necromancers – masters of the magic of life and death, raising the undead to do their bidding. Vast armies of skeletons and zombies, supplemented by wights, ghouls, wraiths, specters, mohrgs, and even worse undead horrors, all lurk, secluded in deep vaults, waiting to be unleashed on the world of the living.

And, if the current Archnecromancer has his way, they never will be. For over a century now, Lyrus Serriados has abandoned the ambition for conquest that his predecessors all burned with. The days of the Necrotic Empire are gone, and Lyrus sees no percentage in wars of would be conquest that will go nowhere. With the Knights of the Golden Throne still keeping up their sacred watch since the fall of the Empire, and the surrounding lands now controlled by independent Kingdoms – with Kings and Queens that quite like keeping their thrones, thank you very much – Lyrus instead turned a new and novel strategy: Peace and Cooperation.

While the neighboring kingdoms – even Morvak, the one nominally allied with the Kingdom of the Necromancers – bear no love or trust for the Necromancers of Darkmoon Forest and the Deathwood, all are content to live in peace with the Kingdom, and the Kingdom is content to live at peace with them. Instead, Lyrus satisfies himself with subtle games of influence and maneuver worldwide, and in keeping the famously fractious necromancer-nobility of the Kingdom in line. Never before has the title of Archnecromancer ever truly passed to a blood heir, but Lyrus has plans to change that. The only person in the world that Lyrus truly values over himself is his daughter, born to himself and his wife before they both made the transformation to undead themselves, his daughter is all that he has now, after his wife was killed by a powerful Archmage (who himself died soon after at Lyrus' hand.)

Lyrus has long groomed his daughter to be his eventual successor – though Lyrus fully intends to rule for centuries more, at least. But he is an Elf, and so too is his daughter, and eventually his daughter's mastery of the Dark Arts will be enough for her to also join the ranks of the living dead, still in full control of her mind and body. In the Kingdom, Lichdom is the highest status of all – eternity as a powerful undead spellcaster, powerful magics leaving their bodies essentially perfectly preserved, as if they were still among the living (especially Lyrus, who is infamous even in other realms for being quite vain), but virtually unkillable as long as their phylacteries remain intact.

But until his daughter is at that point, Lyrus will take no chances with her safety, and there has always been a member of the Deathknights, a warrior order bound in service to the gods of death and necromancy worshiped by all in the Kingdom, at her side. Inside or outside of the Kingdom, it matters not.

And in the Kingdom of the Necromancers, with its fractious politics, and culture that glorifies scheming and backstabbing, a bodyguard is always a good thing to have.

--------------------
So, in this one, your character plays the daughter of the Archnecromancer Lyrus, and my character is the Deathknight currently assigned to you just recently (given that elves don't even reach adolescence until they're some 80 years old, you've had several assigned Deathknights in the 125 years or so you've been alive. My character would either be male or female, as your preference. The plot would involve the politics of the Kingdom and the lands neighboring it, and the challenges of practicing the Dark Arts, etc. Your character would be 'evil' by standard definitions, and definitely would need to have a certain amorality for this idea to work, but it doesn't have to be uber-dark

Empire of Iredos was founded, almost two thousand years ago, by the twelve apprentices of one of the Greatest Archmages to come out of the Dawning Wars, Dravius Iredos. His power and knowledge was too much for any one normal mage, and so, his apprentices amicably split it, uniting to bring civilization and peace to a land still recovering from a series of wars that had reshaped the world, fought with magics unimaginable to the modern era.

One of the many lands the Empire fought with, as it grew larger and more powerful, expanding for power, wealth and security, even for idealism, was the United Kingdom of Ahlenna, the last of the Elven Nations in this part of the world – for in the aftermath of the Dawning Wars, most of elvenkind fled to their greatest strongholds in the oldest and deepest of forests, such as Ahlenna.

Unlike most of its foes, Ahlenna was never conquered by Iredos. It was forever a thorn in Iredos' side as it expanded southward, bolstering resistance from the local humans Iredos tried to take over. Eventually, Iredos won out, but Ahlenna remained too strong to conquer. But there was one thing that Iredos could do. One of the reigning Wizard-Dukes, Hycantos, undertook a great ritual to destroy Ahlenna. While he did manage to wreak great havoc on Ahlenna, turning part of it into a ruined swamp, and breaking the unified kingdom into the modern realms of Syleria and Iltea, it cost him his life in the process, and still, the elves in the south remained free. They were still too powerful, even divided, to take on, and soon enough, Iredos' attention was forced to a greater threat, the rising Tamilkirk Imperium.

It has been many centuries since Ahlenna was split, and still Syleria and Iltea are intact, bastions of elvenkind, though many elves do live beyond the borders of those lands. But Iredos is fallen, many centuries gone, destroyed after the reigning Wizard-Dukes fell upon eachother in a magical conflagration, the details of which remain unknown.

But Iredan artifacts remain sought after, for in all fields of magic but necromancy, Iredos was unmatched in its day. And the elves of Syleria and Iltea, with the memory of the Iredan threat still looming large in their history, are among those that seek lost Iredan magics.

Deep in the heart of the old Empire's core territory, there sits five Obelisks covered in mystic runes and fairly humming with magical power, their purpose and creation unknown. But in recent months, elven oracles have been seeing them in visions and dreams – and the Legacy of the Wizard-Dukes may be more than mere lost artifacts and political boundaries.

-----------
In this rp, your character is one of those elven oracles, someone with a connection in her dreams to the gods of Elvenkind, visions of future events and the present across the world. Like all oracles, you have no control over when you get the dreams or what they say. As the youngest and newest of the oracles, your visions are the most limited of them all, though of course, they will grow in time. But in trade of, you are still sane and healthy in mind and body (the visions, over time, will drive those that have them insane and make them very physically frail) Dispatched by your superiors to lead an expedition to these Obelisks, and understand what is coming, you meet a strange young human male (my character) who claims descent from one of the Wizard-Dukes of old, also trying to understand these Obelisks.

But darker forces are also interested in the Obelisks and what they represent...for the Legacy of the Wizard-Dukes is a mighty one indeed.