[h2]Welcome to Mordhaben's Institute for Aspiring Mages![/h2][hr][h3]The School[/h3]
Welcome to Mordhaben's Institute for Aspiring Mages!, more commonly known as Mordhaben's, or to locals The Institute. We are a school dedicated to educating future generations of Mages in [i]The Way[/i] for the sake of science and safety. Mordhaben's Institute for Aspiring Mages was founded in the year 27PW, long before the Unoctocan Empire's founding, and has a long and rich history of progress for the sake of humanity.

Mordhaben's Institute for Aspiring Mages is a welcoming place and accepts applications from students of all ages that have completed primary and secondary education, or have gotten a diploma equivalent certificatation (D.E.C.). Tuition is completely free to students as the Institute is funded through the Unoctocan Empire's Mage Corps. Graduates are given a license for open usage of advanced and dangerous Magic skills, and are automatically given the option of joining the Mage Corps upon graduation. Graduates are, however, not [i]required[/i] to join the Military, and the majority of graduates go into freelance work or get employment requiring advanced Magic knowledge.

At Mordhaben's, we focus on nurturing the inborn talents in every student. As such, we recognize that not everybody's talents lie in the same areas. The Entrance Exam only requires that applicants pass a single test out of a multitude of different types of test, including written tests of knowledge, practical tests, athletic tests, and tests of strategy. If the honored applicant has a hobby or interest, we request that the applicant informs us so that we may work that hobby or interest into the entrance exam in some form and evaluate whether it has use.

We offer a multitude of courses in academics and military training, with a strong focus on Astronomy, Geology, Strategy, Aircraft Piloting and Maintenance, and Mechanized Cavalry Command and Maintenance. Combat training is mandatory for all students, and consists of Pistol, Rifle, Knife, and Unarmed training. More specialized subsets of martial arts training are also available, though not necessary and not always recommended - your rifle will carry you further than knowing how to use a chain whip will.

In addition to our classes, all students will go on weekly mandatory excursions for community service, typically for community safety and defense. Each student will choose a partner for each excursion, and will be overseen by either a teacher or a professional Mage during their outing.

[hr][h3]Setting[/h3]
A mysterious race of beings, seen as Devils by some and as Gods by others, has given humanity a second chance at survival after humanity bombed itself nearly to oblivion. Thousands of years afterwards, humans finally climbed up from the bronze age to something more resembling modern society. Technology is finally on par with pre-cataclysm World War 1, and national tensions are rising. One of the gifts given in addition to humanity's survival was the ability to manipulate the world around them - also thought of as Magic.

A form of martial arts known as The Way has been around ever since the first few generations of survivors sprung up, and has been shifting to fit technological developments ever since. These days, it's essentially military training combined with magical training.

Dedicated colleges for training in The Way have sprung up, and our characters play the roles of teachers, students, and professional Mages. Mordhaben's Institute for Aspiring Mages is one of the oldest and most prestigious of them all, but it certainly isn't the only one.

[hider=General History]The year is 7210 AD, or rather, 1210 Post-War. In the year 2322 AD, Earth made first contact with a superior alien civilization. They were nothing like we expected, and rather than utilizing what could be strictly considered technology, they used what humans could only think of as "magic". Their consciousnesses meshed with the foundations of the universe rather than existing under it as ours do. Humanity, in its greed, attempted to uncover how to gain the aliens' powers to alter reality, and in doing so fell into a civil war between those who wished to do so militarily, and those who wished to do so peacefully. Mars (which lacked a formal name), the Titan Colonial Mandate, and the Belt Stations' Confederation formed an alliance opposing the Democratic Republic of Terra's aggression, and in 2365, interstellar antiplanetary antimatter missiles were exchanged between both sides, wiping out all life on Earth, Mars, and Titan. Only some farming and mining stations in the Belt Stations' Confederation were left intact, with very, very few remaining educated people, and with all central libraries destroyed, almost all of humanity's knowledge was lost.

Without the support of farms on Mars, the Belters were faced with certain starvation, and made contact with the aliens (who refused to be named, or whose names were unpronounceable via sound - that knowledge has been since lost). The alien civilization was neither benevolent nor malevolent in reality, as their morality does not match our own. But modern humans curse them as demons for what they did, and modern humans curse their ancestors as savages for their own past actions.

The remains of humanity were given roughly what they wanted, in the form of bioengineering, terraforming, and replenishment of flora and fauna, giving them access to something vaguely similar to the aliens' innate abilities and making Earth habitable once more. But what they gave up wasn't worth it. They had traded their sovereignty and their future for immediate survival.

In the past few thousand years, humans have had to build their civilization back up from the early bronze age, with very little real technology. They now know almost nothing of what they once did, save for that space exists and Earth isn't the center of it, that they will one day return to the Stars, and that a civilization of Gods and Devils once saved them from themselves at a great cost. Periodically, landing craft appear on Earth and take the entire population of a small town to who-knows-where without saying a word. And people are getting very, very unhappy about it.
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[hider=The Modern Planet]
Earth is a shattered, torn place these days. It's been just under five thousand years since the Solar Civil War tore the planet to shreds, and the Earth is still reeling from the aftereffects of the apocalyptic weapons exchanges. When the missiles struck the Earth, they embedded themselves hundreds of meters into the ground before detonating, effectively cracking the planet open like a clump of clay struck with a baseball bat. Enormous craters were formed as huge chunks of the planet were thrown into the sky, and the explosive shock triggered tectonic activity on levels not seen since the planet first formed and cooled.

Continents have shifted about, new mountain ranges have formed, and existing mountain ranges have been split in half to form deep ravines kilometers deep. Debris thrown into orbit from the explosions includes remainders of old human cities, stone, dirt, clay, and enormous volumes of water. In the past five thousand years, the Earth has gained a new Satellite - much smaller than Luna, but much more unusual. "The Glob", as the common folks call it, is a large hunk of loose mud and gravel saturated with water, and shifts in shape as it passes through the sky, freezing on the side furthest from the sun and shifting from an orb to an oblong egg any time it passes near Luna. Luna itself has had its orbital path thrown off by The Glob, and rather than moving in a proper ellipse, its orbital path shifts on a routine basis, though neither satellite seems to be in any danger of falling out of orbit any time soon.

The Earth also has a spiral of debris hundreds of thousands of kilometers long trailing along on a suborbital trajectory, steadily being pulled back down to the planet between the tropics with the heaviest concentration centered along the Equator. This debris spiral is responsible for ending the Great War that occurred over a thousand years ago, when it finally came back into contact with the planet and rendered the tropics almost uninhabitable. Smaller chunks of debris simply burn up in the atmosphere on descent, but the larger ones have resulted in ceaseless streaks of fire across the sky as the Earth turns, and the spiral trail's slow reentry has caused a thick layer of ash clouds to cover most of the region. These "Deadlands" are now the home of swarms of Monsters who have migrated to escape the steady expansion of human territories.

Tropical weather has grown rarer with the cooling of the oceans in the tropics, and arctic weather has increased in frequency in further north and south latitudes, leaving the remaining habitable regions of the planet with a temperate and pleasant Spring and Summer, but harsh Winters.

While some of the most common flora and fauna on the old Earth are still present, the scenery is much different due to the replenishing and terraforming efforts of the alien civilization that saved humanity's remnants from starvation. Large "mushroomlike" trees are more common than pine or oak ever were, several regions have oddly colored and razor sharp grasses, and in general the ecosystem is a completely different beast. It's still plenty fertile though.[/hider]

[hider=Magic]
Humans are pretty much what they always have been in shape, size, appearance, etc., but they have gained a few new tricks. Humans are now able to manipulate the fabric of reality as long as they have access to suitable forms of energy - heat, motion, electricity, radiation, fat stores, whatever. Humans are no more durable than they used to be though, which limits how much power a single person can take in and use, and the initial source of magic energy always has to be the caster's own body (typically resulting in a blood sugar drop). Mages have to "step up" their energy chain with other sources, or else they risk exhausting themselves.

Each person has an affinity for certain forms of reality manipulation, based on their personality and genetics. But attempts to classify such skills have almost all failed, as the potential abilities of each person are far too varied. Elemental manipulation, creating matter from energy, creating energy from matter, telepathy, retroactive manipulation, proactive manipulation, body enhancement, and precognition are just a few of the skills that people can master. No one person has ever successfully mastered more than a few different talents at once, and even within those talents, there are strongly preferred skills, such as pyrokinesis, telekinesis, beast summoning, cosmic disaster creation, and the like, which each person will find they have an affinity for.

A new martial art has appeared that capitalizes on manipulation skills. It's known by many different names - The Way, Star Fist, Gift of Angels, etc., for some very rough translations. But the central concepts are all the same. Intense concentration on the world around oneself, intense concentration on the world one wishes to see, and even more intense concentration on the split between the two concepts have all become an artform. [i]Foundation[/i], the world itself, allows one to protect oneself against other manipulations. [i]Vision[/i], the ideal reality, gives insight into what was, is, will be, and what is possible. [i]Compromise[/i] is the ability to split the difference between [i]Foundation[/i] and [i]Vision[/i], and as some have put it, is the art form of arguing with the universe and winning.

The more steadfast one person's [i]Foundation[/i] is, the less effective others' abilities will be against them and their environment. The more powerful one's [i]Compromise[/i] is, the greater the degree to which they can change the environment. [i]Foundation[/i] is almost incapable of completely preventing [i]Compromise[/i] from having an effect, but remaining committed to reality as it currently is certainly makes it harder for others to change it. [i]Vision[/i] is needed in both, to see what is wanted, to see what has happened, to see what still is, and to see what will happen. [i]Foundation[/i] cannot protect without knowing the arguments of [i]Compromise[/i], which [i]Vision[/i] will give, just as [i]Compromise[/i] cannot be achieved without using [i]Vision[/i] to know what changes to make.

[i]Vision[/i] and [i]Compromise[/i] can be used to draw energy from alternate sources and magnify the degree of the effect a Mage can create. While the initial power source must be in direct contact with the Mage in some way, the Mage can 'steal' energy from natural occurrences with enough knowledge and experience.
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[hider=Monsters and Chimeras]
Only some of the life that existed on Earth was able to be resurrected after the great cataclysm - some trees, the most widespread animals, bacteria, viruses, etc. Most life on the planet was created by the alien saviors using their own plants and animals as a base. The most dangerous of these are simply referred to as Monsters, and all Monsters are able to use magic either on par with or vastly exceeding the average human. Some Monsters have created their own small, tribal civilizations far away from humans, but there have been some small scale clashes between sentient Monsters and humans from time to time. 

Whether out of incompetence or as a cruel joke, humans and Monsters are capable of breeding with one another, which lead to the birth of bizarre hybrids - usually referred to as Chimeras. Chimeras are hated by all of Monsterkind, and humans have a distaste for them because of their strange appearances, so Chimeras typically either live in segregated areas of human cities, or in neighboring tribes of their own.

[hider=Notes on Chimeras and Chimera Generations]
Chimeras are categorized by generations interbred with humans, and by familial Monster genetics. Chimeras may interbreed with other Chimeras, which results in odd mishmashes of Monsterlike features layered on top of the human features they've gained. Monster aspects are universally recessive traits.

First Generation Chimeras are the most Monsterlike by a long shot, and have typically only gained an Earthlike and humanlike skeletal structure, removing half of their ribs and reforming their limbs and joints to more closely resemble Humans. They typically retain their Monster sizes and most Monster internal and external organs, and tend to have trouble communicating with humans vocally. They are invariably just as intelligent as humans are though, regardless of Monster species in the mix. First Generation Chimeras are the most hated by Monsters, and more aggressive Monsters that might ignore humans will often attack them on sight. A First Generation Cephalopod Chimera would walk on two primary legs and have a human internal structure, but would also have slimy and slick hides and (depending on species) extremely thick natural shells, resembling walking nautiluses or squids.

Second Generation Chimeras become more human medically speaking, taking on human internal organs and further reshaping their bodies to resemble humans. Sizes are brought down or up towards human, though not always fully. Some Monster appendages and attributes are lost, and their hides become more mammalian. Second Generation is roughly where Chimeras are guaranteed to have humanlike vocalization abilities, though their voices tend to be very unusual and grating. Second Generation Chimeras onwards have a progressively greater chance of losing their second set of eyes in favor of a humanlike face. A Second Generation Molluscoid Chimera would have a much smaller shell and loses most of its limbs, with the remaining limbs becoming more mammalian and its facial structure moving from completely molluscoid towards humanoid.

Third Generation Chimeras generally have their entire bodies covered in mammalian, humanlike hides, though exterior things like feathers, fur, and spines tend to remain. They have fully humanlike vocalization. Typically, the Monster-esque secondary pair of eyes is gone by the Third Generation. This is roughly where average humans without odd fetishes stop being horrified by their appearances. Third Generation Cephalopod Chimeras may resemble Illithids as presented in Dungeons and Dragons.

Fourth Generation Chimeras are almost entirely humanlike in appearance and behavior, save for a small number of Monster features that may remain, such as claws, carapaces, animalistic ears, fur, feathers, etc. Occasionally duplicate appendages may be present depending on ancestral Monster species, such as a second pair of arms or legs, or the standard Monster secondary pair of eyes. Monsterlike organs that are still functional under the new humanlike form tend to remain - for instance, a Fourth Generation Insectoid Chimera would likely have compound eyes sitting within a human shaped face.

Fifth Generation Chimeras are almost entirely human, only retaining one or two minor Monster attributes, such as digitigrade legs, animalistic ears, tails, shells, wings, and the like. These include animal-like people often present in old Earth animated shows and graphic novels such as nekos and Faunus in RWBY.

Sixth Generation Chimeras only retain vestigial Monster aspects. The most extreme Sixth Generation monster aspect recorded to date has been a case in which a man's big toes were used as a foot support rather than his heels, which were narrow, unpadded, and rested atop his big toes while standing. More common aspects tend to be fewer or more fingers, slightly sharper teeth than average, the ability to wiggle one's tailbone, etc.

Seventh Generation onwards are effectively entirely human, though there is a minor possibility that children borne between two seventh generation Chimeras may resemble Sixth Generation Chimeras if remaining Monster genes are passed on from both parents.[/hider]
[hider=Notes on Monsters]
Monsters come in a multitude of different forms. While they are all capable of performing Magic, they tend to look wildly different from one another, save for a few things in common due to their origin as modified xenofauna.

Monsters generally have complete rib cages rather than half rib cages like Earth fauna do, meaning there is no such thing as a Monster with a soft underbelly. Monster hides are often thicker and more radiation resistant than Earth fauna hides are. Almost all Monster species have four eyes rather than two, with both predatorlike forward eyes and preylike side eyes. And Monster "fur" and "hair" is generally more akin to spines, and resembles either narrow, bladelike scales, or feather shafts. Monster "fur" and "feathers" are also more brittle than Earth fauna equivalents as well, owing to the higher concentration of silica and iron in Monster bodies. Monster pelvic and shoulder joints are always side-mounted rather than vertically mounted, giving their legs a much wider range of motion, and Monsters' pelvises and tailbones extend further to provide their legs more muscle mounting points and greater range of motion.

Monsters are categorized by resemblance to Earth fauna, by size, and by danger rating.

Sizes are S, MS, M, ML, L, XL, 2XL, 3XL, and X.
Danger Ratings are F, D, E, C, B, A, S, and X.

Only one known Monster is an X in both Size and Danger.
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[hr][h3]Character Sheet[/h3]
Either post your Character Sheet in the OOC and send an @Mention to the GM and Co-GMs, or PM it to the GM and Co-GMs. Do not post your Character Sheet in the Char Tab until after a GM has given approval. If your CS is well-written and fits the roleplay, it'll probably be accepted. If you're not sure about something, PM it and we'll give some constructive criticism on what may need work or edit it. I don't want to bar anyone from entering the RP because of a misunderstanding.

[hider=Base Character Sheet: Feel free to add more detail.]
[b]Name:[/b]

[b]Appearance:[/b] (Picture optional, text description required)

[b]Age:[/b] (16 upwards)

[b]Species:[/b] Human, Monster (describe type - restricted to S through M-L size), or Chimera (list generation and type)

[b]Gender:[/b]

[b]Occupation:[/b] (Student, Staff [list position], or Professional Mage [list professional occupation if any])

[b]Personality:[/b] (only what others would notice immediately; I'd recommend filling out the personality test scores below, but you can remove those if you have a suitable description)

[i]Openness (to experience, new things, etc.):[/i] -10 to 10
[i]Neuroticism:[/i] -10 to 10
[i]Agreeableness:[/i] -10 to 10
[i]Extroversion:[/i] -10 to 10
[i]Conscientiousness:[/i] -10 to 10

[b]Biography:[/b] (only what staff would know from their application)

[b]Attributes:[/b] (Distribute 40 points. +10 for Staff and Pros. Chimeras/Monsters may add biological weapons like venomous stingers, psychoactive gas/dust abilities, etc. at the cost of 5 points each.)

Strength: 
Constitution: 
Agility (gross motor skills): 
Dexterity (fine motor skills): 
Intelligence: 
Charisma: 
Aesthetics/Appearance: 

[b]Magic Type Preference: [/b] (either use one of the predefined categories, or describe a custom magic category)
[b]Innate Magic Talent: [/b] (this is for your character's strongest trick, e.g. pyrokinesis)
[b]Interests: [/b] 
[b]Skills: [/b] (add a few things your character is good at; you can keep filling it out as the RP goes on)
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[hr][h3]Rules[/h3]
[list]
[*] If you've RPed at all, you should know the usual ones: godmoding is frowned upon, controlling other characters is bad, don't metagame, etc.
[*] If you're not going to be able to post for a while, let the GMs know with an @Mention.
[*] Writing Standards are mid Casual. Aim for a paragraph or two, keep things clean. This is a Casual roleplay, not Free or Advanced, so undetailed one-line posts and ten page essays are frowned upon here.
[*] Keep up with your character stats. I'll be posting classes completed and associated stat additions in the second OOC post, so if you're not sure where your character's skills should be, refer back to that.
[*] Don't be an ass in the OOC. If a GM or Co-GM tells you to stop a discussion, then stop.
[*] Respect other players. While I encourage characters to be assholes IC, ask the other player via PM before you do something lewd/disrespectful/creepy/violent/otherwise unsavory to their character. Some folks get really, really creeped out by that sort of thing, and I don't want it to cause OOC drama.
[*] If you're not sure about something, ask the GM and/or Co-GMs.
[*] Real life comes first.
[*] Above all, have fun.
[/list]

[hr][h3]Closing Notes[/h3]
If bad things are happening in real life or you feel the need to drop out of the roleplay, post in the OOC with an @Mention for the GM and Co-GMs, or send the GM and Co-GMs a private message. Let us know how you want your character to be handled. I will not kill off player characters without permission, except for in cases in which the player has repeatedly broken respect rules. The default treatment for missing players is for characters to be put on a bus elsewhere until the player returns.

This is going to be a faster-paced roleplay than most. I will be making full use of routine timeskips in order to keep things rolling. A lot of school based roleplays get bogged down because they try to roleplay every single class, and each class and each combat situation has the risk of carrying on for days on end, or in slower RPs even weeks. Weekly missions will either be roleplayed in their entirety or given a short and simple description of roughly what happened and how successful they were, depending on how much of a rush we're in and how much is going on IC. Players have the annoying tendency to have their relationships develop a hell of a lot faster than their characters' relationships do when the roleplay is slow. Let's keep that from being a problem here.

We're using an Attribute and Skill system here. Attributes are effectively meaningless in-character but do grant some modifiers to skill gain. Why? Because it gives a measurable, non-arbitrary form of character power growth, and it helps pad the harshness of skipping weeks in-RP, as every single class and combat event will supply player characters with points towards class related skills as well as universal skill points.

Character skills are to be determined on the fly, as skills can be effectively limitless. I'm not going to sit down and list out every single thing that a person can be good at or know - if you want your character to know something or be good at something, then put it in your character sheet and keep it updated.