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[sub] F A S T  F A C T S
▲ Futuristic Fantasy setting
▲ Action, adventure, drama, romance, and mystery.
▲ Magic, airships, magitek, eldritch abominations and one hell of a road trip.
▲ Story shaped by the players. World-building encouraged.
▲ The RP itself will most likely progress at a slower pace, as people have other commitments that of course must come first.
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[sub][color=darkgray] P I T C H [/color][/sub]
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[i]And cometh the swallowing darkness.
A blighted destiny by sinners south,
leaving only tragedy by powers wrought.
By hands of Lyssa and the touch of her lips,
those brought pure will face the tide.
Despair not for those lost in the darkness
but look towards the peace of the new dawn.
Canticle of Fajjar 17:1[/i]
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The story of Spiritum is about a world known as Yerin, a world where magic and technology have mixed and flowed together for centuries. Long before man had conquered the world, creating massive metropolises, machines that could soar among the very heavens, and highways that stretched seemingly endless across the horizon, before it all a pact was made with the Gods. In exchange for our eternal reverence they taught us the secrets of magic, the ability to draw from the Astral Mist to bend and shape reality in ways thought to be unimaginable. The Gods also gave them a final gift in the form of the Bonding Crystals which breathed life into the still blossoming world. These crystals would form the centers upon which great civilizations would form around.

It would be these crystals which would nearly plunge the world into ruin due to greed and malice in equal parts. One of the kingdoms that had formed around one of the crystals would one day become the sprawling Vangar Empire. Over time the Vangar evolved into a strong military and industrial powerhouse. They used the power of their Bonding Crystal to fuel their army and industry and over time the crystal slowly began to wane in power. To ensure their continued prosperity, Vangar began to invade the many lesser kingdoms around them to secure their crystals for their own use.

This cycle has lead to the current state affairs with the Vangar-Rassvet conflict. The small Kingdom of Rassvet was a small but influential land with a storied history dating back to when the Pact was made. Rassvet followed a policy of strict isolation and neutrality for most of its existence, preferring to keep out of major conflicts whenever they could. Careful guarding and use of their own crystal has preserved it in a state of power unmatched in all of Yerin. Seeing an opportunity to secure a massive boon to their Empire, the Vangar marched into Rassvet with the intent to annex the kingdom and secure their crystal.

Leading the charge against the Vangar invasion is a special branch of the Rassvet military known as WARDEN. Selected from a very young age based upon their aptitude to draw upon the Mist, these warriors possessing both martial and magical skill far above the standard soldier. With the help of these warriors, the Rassvet army has managed to hold the much larger Vangar Excursionary Force at bay for a little over six months now. Though day by day the Vangar continue to gain ground and casualties mount in the thousands on both sides. 

All the while the coming darkness as foretold by the Oracles themselves approaches. Many believe it is a product of the war and the dead. The corpses and the smell of blood driving the monsters from their hiding places mad with a ravenous lust for blood. The crystals which once protected the world know being drained of their power allowing the darkness to slip into the cracks.

Among all of this, the story of Spiritum focus upon a group of freshly graduated WARDENs intent on going on one last road trip as a sort of collective 'family' before they are shipped out to the front lines. Par for the course things don't go as planned. One series of unforeseen events later eventually leads to this group coming to escort a young child with a mysterious necklace connected to the coming darkness and hunted by both Rassvet and Vangar on a world spanning journey to save it all.
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[sub][color=darkgray] O O C  I N F O [/color][/sub]
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Welcome one and all to Spiritum, a rather strange little story if I have to say so myself. The easiest way I could describe it would be to take one part Final Fantasy, one part Stand by Me, one part an old home-brew pathfinder game and sprinkle in some Lord of the Rings for flavor and set to purée. A story about nations and nationalism as much as it is about plucky adventures and the lengths at which individuals will go to preserve their power. It's a more somber take on the 'magical artifact of prophecy' that is seen time and time again, as said artifact is essentially a WMD in its own rite. 

The world of Yerin is a living and breathing one. A world with its own convoluted and sometimes purely idiotic history spanning backwards thousands of years. It's a world with its own backstabbing aristocrats, religions, cultures, heroes, and prophecies. Yet at the same time much of this background has been intentionally left as vague snippets. Allowing players to add to the lore as little or as much as they please.

The story itself will go at a slower pace focusing more upon character interaction and development in the interest of creating good scenes and interactions between players rather than rushing forward from action set piece to action set piece. The focus always being on telling a good story. It's a strange tale about friendship, war, the inevitability of oblivion, the burden of fate, and the choices we make. But hey if it sounds like your thing well then why don't you come and say hi?
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[sub][color=darkgray] T H E  C O M P E N D I U M [/color][/sub]
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[indent][center][i]General world-building stuff for your reading pleasure. More will be added as we go on.[/i][/center]
[hider= M A G I C]
Magic is the art of being able to pull from the Astral Mist. The Mist is the surrounding energy that encompass the space around Yerin in its plane of reality. Stars and galaxies are not as we know them but actually points of highly clustered magical energy within the Mist itself. The art of mastering this power comes in two parts. First and arguably the more important of the two is a person's natural aptitude as some are just wired to be more finely tuned to Mist than others. The second is actually learning how to use said magic, the memorization and knowledge of vast sums of knowledge whose complexities and intricacies mean the difference between a successful spell and leveling an entire city block.

The power bound in spell formulae may be used for healing, teleportation, destruction, creating illusions, and altering form. Though the mist also affected by the caster themselves and each magical burst is different from person to person. Magic is considered a danger, a blessing, the future, an art and a science all wrapped into one tight bundle. Despite its dangerous properties and potential for massive abuse, magic is seen as something of a sacred thing. As a gift from the Gods it carries with it a certain amount of weight and wonder that comes from centuries of religious thought. Due to its divine origins, the Church has a strong investment in the magical arts and its oracles are some of the best magic users in all of Yerin.[/hider]

[hider=T E C H N O L O G Y]
Technology in the world of Yerin has developed alongside and with advancements of magic. This fusion of the unknown and the rational being a fundamental building block in the world. From a technological level the world is futuristic compared to our own but close enough to our own reality as to not be totally distant. People drive cars, take trains and use airships to get around. They have wireless phones and their own form of the internet. It's a place where soldiers with assault rifles can be seen fighting against flying monsters and men that can call down electricity from the sky.  They also have other more stranger things like giant walking war machines, matter replicators, floating cities and gunsblades.

In many places technology and the industries around it is seen as the way forward as especially in the Vangar Empire and its provinces where they have had to focuses heavily on technology rather than magics to reduce the stress and drain on their limited Bonding Crystals in an effort to sustain their large and sprawling empire. It's the general rule in all places, that technology general comes first as a military invention before slowly over time being filtered down into the general public's use.
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[hider= W A R D E N]
WARDEN can trace it starts back to the early years of the Rassvet. Following in the lineage of a monastic order of magic wielding knights who protected the kingdom from evils that normal men could not. WARDEN serves in the same general purpose of defense of the Kingdom but now do it as deceive shock troops using combined technological and magic power to shatter enemy lines and go on general suicide missions for most normal people.

Every year the Rassvet Government conducts a grand survey of all children within their lands ten years of age. They run the children through what amounts to a series of aptitude tests of all kinds. Those who were considered possessing desirable traits were then taken to the Capital to be trained in the Citadel. The sprawling complex that is essentially a city sized military base within a bigger city complete with its own security force, power supply and laws would become the children's home for the next ten years. Within they were put through hell through one of the most rigorous training regimes in all of Yerin.

Upon graduating WARDENs are placed into one of three tiers:

First Class are the best that WARDEN has to offer. Operating on a level beyond any member of the Rassvet military including their fellow WARDENs and consisting of barely one hundred individuals at any given time these individuals. 1st class WARDENs are given special privileges and are sent in to deal with the most important of matters and are usually working behind the insure the protection of Rassvet.  They generally act as singular walking armies going in alone and without backup.

Second Class WARDENs are generally squadron leaders put in charge of Third Class WARDENs above the average cut and skilled combatants and tacticians. Those that are not in command position are sent in squads to deal with direct concerns that while troubling do not require 1st Class intervention. Only the best of the Second Class have even a chance of being promoted up to 1st Class.

Third Class WARDENs are the general face of WARDEN as they are the most numerous and the most commonly seen by the public. They work alongside the regular forces of the Rassvet military as independent detachments working in tandem to complete operations. There most common use is as shock troops designed to create large holes within enemy positions to be exploited.
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[HIDER=  B O N D I N G
C R Y S T A L S]
Gargantuan crystalline structures as old as Yerin itself, filled with magic energies and can be harnessed as powerful power supplies. They also have other effects such as keeping monsters away, ensuring the continued vitality of the surrounding land, among others. In short in the world of Yerin civilization cannot exist without the presence of these Crystals for better or for worse.
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