On January 1st, 2300 AD, a portal opened in the sky above the planet Charon. Billions of spirit-beings poured forth from the void beyond and infested everything in their path. Microorganisms, plants, animals, and living things of all kinds fell prey to them, mutating and evolving in a matter of hours into hideous monstrosities. At the time, the humans living on Charon were ill-prepared to face a whole world's worth of enemies, and soon humanity was driven to the brink of extinction. Just as all hope seemed lost, twelve humongous beasts called Guardians rose up from the earth to drive back the invaders. With their impossible strength and earth-shattering magic powers, they drove the void-spawn back through the portal (or into hiding) and closed it. Only four of the twelve survived the war.

The war inflicted irreparable scars upon the land. The crumbling world of the Void collided with the world of Charon, leaving great swaths of darkness in its wake. Lands that were once teeming with joy and life were now covered in ashes and obsidian glass. The formerly docile creatures of Charon would occasionally and without warning transform into vicious, cunning monsters.

The Guardians sought to tip the balance of power back into more rational hands. They genetically modified some of the humans into several branch-species including elves, dwarves, and orcs, each with their own unique strengths. To all species they gifted Undying Strength, wherein no person would weaken or exhibit signs of age until the last ten or twenty years of their lives.

But humans are an ungrateful lot. The very first colonist of Charon, an immortal demi-godlike human named Vanaerys, realized that if the Guardians were slain, their powers would scatter and give the power of magic to the world. With eight of them already down, there was just enough magic to threaten the others. He rallied the survivors of the conflict and helped them kill three of the four remaining Guardians. The last one, a fire dragon named Caradras, fled and went into hiding, swearing revenge on the humans who betrayed him.

Years passed. Stories of the Void War, and the subsequent hunt for the Guardians, passed into legend. The various races began to spread across Charon once more, filling it with life despite the everlasting scars of war. But Caradras did not forget, nor would he soon forgive the humans' betrayal.
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If you wish to join this RP, there are a few rules I'd like everyone to follow.

* [u]Be active.[/u] Each player character will be assigned a vital role in the story; thus, anyone who drops the RP may ruin it for everyone. Do NOT join if you have known life events coming up that will hamper your ability to participate. I expect at least 1 IC post per week; please notify me if you need another week. If there are 2 weeks of inactivity for any reason, or if you consistently take longer than a week to post, I will begin working on a plot solution that minimizes your character's involvement. If a month of this behavior slips by, you'll be dropped from the RP. I don't mean to sound all tyrannical about this, but nearly every RP I've participated in has died due to shenanigans like this. Please try to understand.

* [u]Participate.[/u] As protagonists in your own story, your characters will be expected to take action of their own accord. Don't expect me to put in all the work just so you can react to it. To facilitate participation, players will be allowed to create NPCs, towns, obstacles, events, and even MacGuffins and minor antagonists (the latter two with my consent first). Please make use of this freedom. Also please do not abuse this freedom.

* All narration must occur in [u]third person past tense[/u]. No exceptions.

* Do NOT post Character Sheets in the OOC thread. I will not review or accept them in any thread except the Characters thread.

* [u]Don't ask me to bend my own rules.[/u] The story is designed around them, and while I confess to being a walking carpet when it comes to bending or breaking rules, in the end, it'll hamper my ability to properly GM this story to a conclusion. Don't take advantage of me, please. :P

* The themes of this RP are intended to be upbeat and hopeful, with anime-themed character art styles. I may post epic music and background pictures to enhance the experience. If you're looking for grimdark and gore in the story...well, you'll probably get it, if I'm being honest with myself, but that wasn't my intention! xD

* Romance and relationships are encouraged. If characters engage in more explicit activities, however, take it to PM and fade it to black in the thread.

* Speaking of maturity, deeper themes like racism, ethics, love, and family will probably be explored in this RP. Adults only, please.
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[hider=Theory & Mechanics of Magic]
Every sapient creature has three components: soul, spirit, and body. The soul is the essence of who you are. Your memories, personality, rational faculties, and such are part of your soul. It is the "spark of life," the difference between a living creature and a dead one.

The spirit anchors the soul to the body by channeling energy, or "life force," into the soul. Blood is the primary medium of this energy. Note that it is, I repeat, a "medium," not a container - one does not lose spiritual energy when they lose blood. It's more like the relationship between sound waves and air - air is the medium of sound waves, but one cannot lose, collect, or capture sound waves by manipulating air.

The body is your manifestation in the physical realm. The brain functions as the interface between soul and body. When your soul attempts to move, your brain translates the thought into a corresponding bodily action. The interface works both ways - if your body encounters a traumatic experience, your soul (and thus your personality) may be permanently altered.

To cast magic, one must convert spiritual energy into physical energy. Humans normally cannot do this unassisted. Traditionally, mages would summon a higher spirit to provide this assistance, so all the mage had to do was give it instructions. But higher spirits are just as sapient as we are, and considerably more powerful. Moreover, the only higher spirits that respond to summoning are demons. Thus, such magic is risky and extremely dangerous.

The ancient settlers of Charon found a solution. Mimicking the microtubule structures in neurons responsible for consciousness, artificial transplanar substances could be created. That meant consciousness could flow through areas other than one's own mind. They designed a nanoparticle using this principle, called lazuli, to use as an artifical medium of consciousness. Send spirit energy through it, and it would convert that energy into physical energy.

Lazuli revolutionized the practice of magic. By drawing certain shapes with suspended lazuli dust, the spirit could be partially ejected and manipulated in a consistent manner. Spells could be coded like computers, and by the time Charon was settled, they'd created whole libraries of spells for untold millions of unique tasks. While much of this information was lost during the Void War, the basic principles are still widely known.

The life forms on Charon were genetically altered to organically synthesize and produce lazuli dust on their own, and in time, the substance could be found in all life on the planet. Today, the vast majority of all spells cast use lazuli dust as their conversion medium. Until the death the Guardians, though, there wasn't enough mana in the world to cast much of anything.

How does one apply this?
(Note: If the following is too obtuse, refer to [url=https://www.roleplayerguild.com/posts/4558469]this post[/url] for further explanation.)

Suppose you want to heal a wound with a substantial chunk of flesh gouged out. First, create a memory matrix spell to store all subsequent spells you wish to include. Your first instinct should be to add a regeneration boost; that'll be helpful, but it won't restore the original functionality of the damaged flesh. For that, you'll need to regenerate it according to the body's "blueprints" - in this case, DNA. Use a limited Copy spell to copy the DNA structure into spell code and cast it into the memory matrix. Modify your regeneration spell to follow the DNA development profile and cast that into the matrix too. Finally, you must specify the area to be healed. You don't want to overheal or underheal, so use either a timer or position function. Physical tracing of the area usually works best, so cast the spell, channel it through your fingers, and trace it over the wound until healing is complete.

Or suppose instead you want to launch an exploding fireball. Create a memory matrix, add Element Summon spells for your reactants, specify containment parameters, and let her rip!

Tomes are useful because some spells can get impossibly complicated, and drawing them correctly freehand would be a superhuman feat. With a tome, all you need to do is Copy the image on the page and cast it. Some of the more technologically inclined mages take it a step further and design weapons that can "print" lazuli dust into the desired shape and cast it with a simple thought. Such magic weapons don't even need a trained caster to function - anybody can use them.

Forging magic weapons, on the other hand, is an entirely different animal...
[/hider]

The IC opening post will be created once the Crown Princess player character is submitted.

Remember, while our ultimate goal is to stop the dragon Caradras from destroying humanity (and the world of Charon), we will have multiple sub-goals along the way. For the more active members of this RP, here's a rough roadmap of where we're going:
* The princess player character ascends the throne on her 20th birthday. Her generals (portrayed by me) provide her with a report on the war and will suggest some strategies. Depending on her choice, the player characters will be summoned and issued their respective orders.
* The human cities that surrendered are enslaved. Freeing them from enemy control will provide immense strategic advantages.
* Valuable assets, such as brilliant commanders or spies with intel, may be found in dangerous and hard-to-reach places. Retrieving them should be a priority.
* Humanitarian missions can bolster our popularity among both humans and non-humans. Propaganda and culture can be just as potent weapons as swords and bows.
* Caradras is the cornerstone of the enemy's forces. Kill him, and opposition will eventually crumble. Not immediately, mind you, because he chooses his commanders well, but without his guidance and sheer power, they won't last long.