St. Fortuna's Academy for the Higher Arts
A School for the Magically Gifted
There are two kinds of people in there world. There always have been, and always will be. Those who can use magic, but are constrained by their lack of energy, called Mages. And those who lack magic, but are born with grand reservoirs of magical energy and fantastic, supernatural talents, called Familiars. Though nations rise and fall, rulers come and go, technology advances and becomes obsolete, the balance between Mages and Familiars is eternal, as are their symbiotic bonds.
For centuries, Mages and Familiars have struck up Sacramentum, a contract binding the soul of a Mage and Familiar together. Through the binding of their souls, Mages can tap a Familiar's reservoir of energy and boost the power of their spells, while Familiars benefit by having this energy removed, improving their focus, decreasing their stress, and allowing them a better mastery over their own power, their Ability. This ceremony of binding between Mage and Familiar is so important to our culture, that any magic-centered education would be woefully incomplete without it. Thus, St. Fortuna's Academy for the Higher Arts was founded, so many years ago. And continues to this very day, teaching the younger generations the importance of Sacramentum. Though few use their magic on an intense, day-to-day basis in this modern era, it remains an important part of the curriculum for the citizens of Prydain, for cultural reasons as well as practical.
For centuries, Mages and Familiars have struck up Sacramentum, a contract binding the soul of a Mage and Familiar together. Through the binding of their souls, Mages can tap a Familiar's reservoir of energy and boost the power of their spells, while Familiars benefit by having this energy removed, improving their focus, decreasing their stress, and allowing them a better mastery over their own power, their Ability. This ceremony of binding between Mage and Familiar is so important to our culture, that any magic-centered education would be woefully incomplete without it. Thus, St. Fortuna's Academy for the Higher Arts was founded, so many years ago. And continues to this very day, teaching the younger generations the importance of Sacramentum. Though few use their magic on an intense, day-to-day basis in this modern era, it remains an important part of the curriculum for the citizens of Prydain, for cultural reasons as well as practical.
St. Fortuna's is a magical academy RP set in the modern age, in a magical boarding school in the fictional land of Prydain. It's not your average magical-superpower-school RP though, as magic and powers have a lot of constraints on them that stop people from being overpowered. Players can play either a Mage or a Familiar, and they will get a certain type of magic or a certain Ability. There's another catch to that though, but that comes later.
The students playing Mages and Familiars will then be bonded to each other through magical ceremony, the Sacramentum, and will be learning how to work together with this new symbiosis and improving teamwork. The school highly emphasizes teamwork between a Mage and Familiar, and as a result their grades, rewards, and punishments are all tied together. If your partner gets detention, you have to serve it with them. If your partner gets a low grade, your grade is lowered as a result. If your partner gets good grades and gets privileges to the highly coveted Students Lounge, then so do you.
Mages are born with a type of elemental magic that they can't change at any point in their life. Fire, Water, Metal, Ice, etc... There are 12 magic types in all, each with spells that the students can learn to use and master throughout the year. Familiars are born with an Ability unique to them, one that isn't magical and doesn't require magic to use. Telepathy, night vision, super strength, echolocation, talking to animals and levitation are all examples of an Ability a Familiar might possess. A Familiar only has one Ability, and without being bonded to a Mage, they cannot use it very well. Once a Familiar is bonded, however, it opens up new uses and versatility for their power, and gives them the opportunity to master it.
Now on to the fun stuff. My Co-GMs (onenote and The Errorist) and I have devised 3 prominent game mechanics that we will use in the RP. The first is a point system. Every post a player makes gives them a point, which they can put into one of three stats. Intelligence, Proficiency, and Athletics. These stats are important for players learning new spells, getting good grades, and keeping up in any combat or fitness based scenarios. Doing certain activities can give you a small boost to your points, and you'll want to have enough of them if you want to pass the quarterly examinations, unlock new plot opportunities, and gain new skills.
The next two are tied together. To make things more fun and challenging for everyone involved, players don't get to choose their powers or magic types. We, the GM's, have made a quiz that will help us determine your magic type/power for you, to keep things balanced and give players an opportunity to experiment with magic/powers they might not have ever considered having. You can choose if you want to be a Mage or a Familiar, and even put in what kind of magic/power you would like to have. (We will take that into consideration when we decide your magic/power. We're not complete tyrants. You can even request a different power once, if you really, really, really hate what we've given you. We'll be nice, promise.) If there is an imbalance of mages to familiars or vice versa, we may hold off on allowing new mages/familiars until the balance has been restored.
Lastly, like your power/magic type, we will be choosing your partner. Once a balanced starting group has been reached, we will match you with another player when the IC begins, who will become your partner. They will be your dorm mate, your study buddy, your class partner, and your teammate in combat. All characters will be beginning their second year at the academy, so they'll all be roughly the same age and with the same level of experience. We will be allowing new people to join continuously as the RP goes on, and we have made contingency plans if your partner suddenly drops out or is on hiatus. So no worries in that regard.
There will be a much deeper explanation of the world, the magic system, powers, and the grading system when the OOC is up. (Seriously, we have like 20 pages of this stuff written, we've been very meticulous.) We've decided that there will be a minimum writing requirement of 1,000 characters per post, which would be roughly 2-3 medium sized paragraphs. Once we've gotten some interest, we'll put up the OOC and let people start making characters and taking the quiz. There will be exams to take, contests to win or lose, quests to undergo, and mysteries to solve, all over the course of the school year! We've developed extensive lore and magic that is simple enough to understand, and leaves enough room for players to be creative and experiment.
If you have any questions, onenote, Errorist and I will be happy to clarify. We're looking forward to starting!
The students playing Mages and Familiars will then be bonded to each other through magical ceremony, the Sacramentum, and will be learning how to work together with this new symbiosis and improving teamwork. The school highly emphasizes teamwork between a Mage and Familiar, and as a result their grades, rewards, and punishments are all tied together. If your partner gets detention, you have to serve it with them. If your partner gets a low grade, your grade is lowered as a result. If your partner gets good grades and gets privileges to the highly coveted Students Lounge, then so do you.
Mages are born with a type of elemental magic that they can't change at any point in their life. Fire, Water, Metal, Ice, etc... There are 12 magic types in all, each with spells that the students can learn to use and master throughout the year. Familiars are born with an Ability unique to them, one that isn't magical and doesn't require magic to use. Telepathy, night vision, super strength, echolocation, talking to animals and levitation are all examples of an Ability a Familiar might possess. A Familiar only has one Ability, and without being bonded to a Mage, they cannot use it very well. Once a Familiar is bonded, however, it opens up new uses and versatility for their power, and gives them the opportunity to master it.
Now on to the fun stuff. My Co-GMs (onenote and The Errorist) and I have devised 3 prominent game mechanics that we will use in the RP. The first is a point system. Every post a player makes gives them a point, which they can put into one of three stats. Intelligence, Proficiency, and Athletics. These stats are important for players learning new spells, getting good grades, and keeping up in any combat or fitness based scenarios. Doing certain activities can give you a small boost to your points, and you'll want to have enough of them if you want to pass the quarterly examinations, unlock new plot opportunities, and gain new skills.
The next two are tied together. To make things more fun and challenging for everyone involved, players don't get to choose their powers or magic types. We, the GM's, have made a quiz that will help us determine your magic type/power for you, to keep things balanced and give players an opportunity to experiment with magic/powers they might not have ever considered having. You can choose if you want to be a Mage or a Familiar, and even put in what kind of magic/power you would like to have. (We will take that into consideration when we decide your magic/power. We're not complete tyrants. You can even request a different power once, if you really, really, really hate what we've given you. We'll be nice, promise.) If there is an imbalance of mages to familiars or vice versa, we may hold off on allowing new mages/familiars until the balance has been restored.
Lastly, like your power/magic type, we will be choosing your partner. Once a balanced starting group has been reached, we will match you with another player when the IC begins, who will become your partner. They will be your dorm mate, your study buddy, your class partner, and your teammate in combat. All characters will be beginning their second year at the academy, so they'll all be roughly the same age and with the same level of experience. We will be allowing new people to join continuously as the RP goes on, and we have made contingency plans if your partner suddenly drops out or is on hiatus. So no worries in that regard.
There will be a much deeper explanation of the world, the magic system, powers, and the grading system when the OOC is up. (Seriously, we have like 20 pages of this stuff written, we've been very meticulous.) We've decided that there will be a minimum writing requirement of 1,000 characters per post, which would be roughly 2-3 medium sized paragraphs. Once we've gotten some interest, we'll put up the OOC and let people start making characters and taking the quiz. There will be exams to take, contests to win or lose, quests to undergo, and mysteries to solve, all over the course of the school year! We've developed extensive lore and magic that is simple enough to understand, and leaves enough room for players to be creative and experiment.
If you have any questions, onenote, Errorist and I will be happy to clarify. We're looking forward to starting!
