At the very edge of the Great Western Continent, divided between the Inland and Outer Seas, is the strife-torn region of Olivenland, so-named after the precious olives that grow close to its coasts, olives which are worth their weight in gold.

Divided between two dozen petty duchies, counts, and the occassional merchant republic, Olivenland offers as many opportunities as Venedig, opportunities for wealth, fame, land and luxury. But what Olivenland can give an enterprising person that Venedig cannot is the chance to be free of the laws of the Reich des Goldenen Ghrales, the Empire that stands strong over the Great Western Continent and the Inland Sea for better or worse.

But the cost of freedom is high - Olivenland is a place where without friends and allies, you are as likely to die in an alleyway as you are to rule your own castle, and be enslaved as likely as you are to own slaves. Where in Venedig, you are safe from petty criminals, in Olivenland, no street or crossroad is free from bandits and desperate men, such is the lawlessness of the times.

Enter the Primefire Battalion. Newly-founded by Rote Kaufmann, the Hero of Venedig, this mercenary company was formed in the aftermath of the Electrum Amnesty, where the enslaved members of the Nobles' Rebellion were freed and restored to their old ranks by Emperor Karl Maximillian XV Schwanhueter. The Emperor had been manipulated and misled by an evil cult (which had tricked the Nobles into starting the Rebellion in the first place) into sentencing them into slavery as punishment, and the evil cult had nearly brought the world into ruin by almost summoning Mansbane, most bloodthirsty of the Old Gods, in Venedig itself.

Now vindicated, Rote has reconciled with the Emperor in full, but many of the people in both the Reich and Venedig aren't as accepting of the resolution of the crisis as they were. So Rote decided to use the connections he had formed in Venedig in order to form his own mercenary company: Its goal, to gather the re-ennobled ex-slaves who were still furious about the Emperor's actions into an enterprise worthy of their fury - The foundation of a new kingdom in Olivenland, and the restoration of order there!

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Welcome, one and all, to yet another RP set in the world of Erde. Unlike Intrigues of Venedig, this will not be a 'Semi-Open World RP', but rather a more linear story, albeit where the players can still make decisions as to what plot hooks to tackle and what the main direction and ending of the plot is.

The overlords of most of the Great Western Continent, the Reich des Goldenen Grahles was born from a boy's broken dream, a dream whose end resulted in a new beginning for the men of the north.

A long, long time ago, the Gods and Goddesses empowered Heroes to fight for them, all except their Queen, the Keeper of the Golden Grahl, from whose cup all magical energies flowed. One day, a young man, Phillip, went to the Holy Vale, where Kaiserstadt now stands, to wonder why this was so. Passing through the Three Trials set by the Keeper, Philip faced the Goddess, who answered his question thus:

"As you have come through my tests, you deserve the truth. The reason I do not raise up heroes and heroines is because I am no Goddess, nor are my family Gods. We are but men and women who have drunk from this Grail," she would present the cup to him, "which in turn draws its power from Existence itself. Therefore, Existence is the only True God."

Outraged at this answer, Philip snatched the Cup away from the woman, and drank from it. And so he became a 'God' himself, and the most powerful of all.

After this, Philip exiled from Erde the Keeper of the Golden Grahl and her brethren, the Gods and Goddesses, before casting the cup into a chasm deep within the world. And this is the reason why anyone with the right knowledge can tap into the earth for magical energy at need. Philip then looked back at the world, and saw his younger brother, Peter, who was learning how to be a healer. Deciding that the age of warrior-heroes was over, he empowered Peter as the first Hero of a New Age, commanding him to unite the people of the Northwestern Continent in worship of Existence, which they are also a part of...

The next few centuries were of expansion and innovation, as Philip, from his realm in the Higher Planes, empowered more 'non-warriors', artisans, thinkers, and even traders, to increase the development and sophistication of the empire founded by his Brother, an Empire that saw the Golden Grahl as the symbol of Existence itself, and who spent every waking moment trying to discover more about the laws that guided it, and how to reshape said laws to their liking.

And so, life was good...until the last direct descendant of Peter, Wolfram the High, tried to conjure up the Grahl from the center of Erde so that he can become a God himself. He failed, and the calamity broke the Northwestern Continent in two, creating the Great Inland Sea, and turning the future site of Venedig into a set of isles in a lagoon.

However, the Holy Vale had enough lingering magic to save a great multitude of people, and from this was continued the Reich des Goldenen Grahles, now ruled by the Schwanhueter dynasty, descendants of Wolfram's Keeper of the Swans, Karl Maximillian I. But not all believed in the legitimacy of this new ruler, and others believed that the Reich as a whole had been a mistake and that the disparate peoples of humanity should go their own way. But Karl Maximillian I and his descendants managed to regain the allegiance of huge swathes of land, including the nascent city of Venedig.

One Millenium Later, the Reich has yet to restore the full extent of Wolfram the High's Empire, and its current ruler, Karl Maximillian XV, was content to let it be so, but less content to bow to the demands of his own nobles, who had been given many privileges by his father and grandfather, so that they would help them snatch up the 'Rebellious Provinces'. And so, after matters came to a head, the nobles rose up in rebellion, which was crushed by the Emperor with the help of a new weapon: Gunpowder.

After this, Karl Maximillian XV was the unquestioned master of the Reich des Goldenen Grahles, but his eldest son, Otto, was stabbed to death with shivs while visiting a cell filled with imprisoned rebels in order to reassure them of clemency. Needless to say, the Emperor was outraged, and promptly issued the infamous Iron Decree, which ordered that all the imprisoned nobles and their families would be sold to slavery in Venedig. And so it was done.

Update: Thanks to the Church of Existence proving that the entire Noble's Rebellion and Civil War was an attempt by an evil Cult to undermine faith in the Reich as a nation in preperation for said Cult's summoning of the Old Gods back to Erde, the Iron Decree was replaced with the Electrum Amnesty, which restored the freedom and noble ranks of the enslaved members of the Noble's Rebellion. But many of the ex-noble ex-slaves weren't willing to live under the reign of an Emperor who can allow himself to be advised to such cruelty, and so left the Reich entirely, exiling themselves. This was not wholly regarded as unhappy by the people of the Empire, as in other respects, Karl Maximillian XV was proving a wiser ruler than before...

"People say the Gods are Uncaring, and that is a general truth. But as it is a general rule, there must be an exception," this was the words of the first traveler from Tian to reach Venedig.

Once, there was a Dragon, who was also a God. This Dragon reigned over a mild land, and watched over its people with a pleasing eye, appreciating the way that they formed societies and organizations. One day, to see them up close, the Dragon took human form, in order to find out more about these creatures.

And what he saw was this: They smiled, they laughed in joy, they cried, they lived and they loved. And he loved them back. But when he turned back into a dragon and went back to the heavens, he saw that no matter what he did, great and small, he would always harm those who looked up to him, either by not doing enough or by doing too much. After that, he cried, and the tears of the Dragon fell down into human lands, dispersing into magical energy, and empowering the first Magi.

And that is the real reason why humans are able to do magic...

With myths and legends that contradict the Goldenen Grahles' and the Confederation's, the Celestial Empire of Tian believe that Love is the true moving force of the universe, and that all pain, all suffering, will be ended once everything in existence, from the lowest insect to the highest God, are united in one harmonious whole. Disunity and Separation, they believe, is an illusion, or at best, a wound, a wound that can only be healed by communion with others, a communion that recaptures, at least for a moment, the greater unity with Love.

But despite this, the citizens of the Celestial Empire do not eschew individuality altogether, or at least, the majority doesn't. Everyone must find their own ways of communing with other people, their own paths to unity, and true harmony comes from realizing that people can change roles, lives, and characters, and yet still remain part of the whole.

Thus, under a good Emperor, chosen from among the descendants of the Dragon, the Celestial Empire of Tian is a good place to live, where food is plentiful, medicine and literacy are widespread, and the roads and borders are kept safe by large, well-organized armies of professional troops. Under a good Emperor.

The current ruler of Tian, Emperor Gao Ming, is anything but 'good'. In the interests of spreading harmony and love across all corners of Erde's globe, Gao Ming had delved into forbidden arts, conducting experiments on blood and souls in hopes of 'condensing' people into raw magical energies, which he considers to be the purest manifestation of Unity. Crushing dissent using an aborrhent artifact of immense magical power, the Whip of Chainbringer, God of Slavery, Gao Ming has sent his armies to expand in all directions, and even sent spies and emissaries to Venedig, hoping to find a way to take control of the city...

Update: Gao Ming's Agents in Venedig failed, but in such a way that ties with Tian were not too seriously disrupted. But realizing that the Reich was too strong, the Celestial Empire sent more agents further afield, in order to look for opportunities in the region of Olivenland...

The Xul Warrior-Artisans are a race of natural survivors and warriors, the most prominent sapient nonhumans on the planet Erde. With a rich store of lore and legends, they have a unique origin myth that emphasizes the importance of mortals in the world:

Long ago, in the Age of Creation, the God Mansbane was exiled by his brothers and sisters so that the latter can claim the rich plains and forests of Erde. Raging at being forced to live in a desert waste, Mansbane sought revenge by seeking to lay waste to the world, and so extend his domain to the areas he had been denied. And so he created his own race, a species of fighters, siege engineers, and tacticians, who would exterminate the other races from the land. With skin and hair the color of the sand, sharp teeth for tearing apart flesh and plants, cat-like eyes that can see in the dark, and strong arms that tire less quickly than most humans', these 'First Xul', our ancestors, would have made a fine instrument for the destruction of life.

However, Mansbane did not realize that his creations had their own hopes and dreams, and when he told the First Xul, whom he had given axes meant to shed the lives of other Gods, of his plans, they turned their weapons against him, realizing that if Mansbane expanded his domain, everyone would suffer in the end, including them. And so, in the first rebellion against the first tyrant, the 'First Xul' threw off their shackles, and in defiance, added the 'Warrior-Artisans' to their name.

And they had lived alongside the other races, as equals, ever since.

Millennia later, the Xul pride themselves on making the unlivable livable, using their knowledge of irrigation and engineering to create gigantic reservoirs and wind traps to collect water so that they can live, no, thrive, in the deserts of the Southern Continent. Pioneers of the Druidic arts, the Warrior-Artisans are also masters of using grasses and plants to hold back the dunes of their desert home, preventing said desert from advancing. But make no mistake, they are still fierce soldiers, and their axes are the nightmare of hardened warriors.

Following a matriarchal culture based on the 'Great Mothers', female Xul who have endured the pain of both battle and childbirth, or followed the alternative path of Druidism, the tribes of the Confederation live in relative peace, with disputes being settled through non-lethal, but still fierce, duels. However, this peace has not dulled the edge of the Xul's axes, for the Great Mothers hire out thousands of mercenaries and engineers to Venedig, some of them bringing the Creed of Survival, whose prime commands can be summed as such:

"The proper response to suffering is to use tools to remove the cause of suffering. When you thirst, dig a well. When you hunger, plow a field. When you have an enemy - that's what an axe is for!"

Note: Xul look like brown-skinned Orcs.

Update: The attempt to summon Mansbane in Venedig itself failed miserably, but the Xul were awakened to the clear and present danger the Old Gods, Mansbane's family, present to the world. Now, their Druids and Axefolk (as Xul practice Gender Equality) roam the region in greater numbers, seeking out Cults dedicated to the Old Gods and any vestiges of the latter's influence on the world. These Xul 'Zealots', acting in concert with the Inquisitors of the Church of Existence, could be great allies - Rote himself has good relations with them...

The Church of Existence - The Church of Existence is the most common Religion of the Empire and the lands beyond it, and has been proven to be both factually true yet somewhat compatible with the Tian and Xul teachings. Its main belief is that as Existence is the only True God, and Sapient Beings are capable of consciously altering Existence, then Sapient Beings are the most divine parts of the Universe. This, in turn, spurs a belief in the essential dignity of every person, although a few local bishoprics still allow the practice of slavery and even fewer are slaveowners themselves (although they proclaim that all of their slaves will eventually be free).

There are six disciplines of Magic:

High - There are many theories that try to explain High Magic. Some say that it is the power of The Divine, it is the power of positive emotions, channeled through the human soul. Nevertheless, High Magic is the power of controlling Magical Energy itself, allowing for the ability to see all Magic, to draw available magical energy from the sky and earth, create constructs of condensed Mana, create and fuel magitech and enchanted items, ward people and places from magic, and finally, the ability to create bolts of silver-white light that cause damage that cannot be healed by magic to Mages and Magical creatures... But not ordinary targets, whose burns can be healed as normal.

Note: High Magic has been nerfed; the last sentence has been edited so that only other Mages and Magical Creatures, as well as magitech, receive damage that cannot be healed by Magic.

World - World Magic is control over the physical elements of the world. You want to create Fire? World Magic. You want to alter Gravity to make yourself float? World Magic. You want to use lightning to electrocute a person? World Magic. Basically, if it has nothing to do with changing one thing to another, or controlling something that isn't wholly of this earth? World Magic is your key. Basically, Bending from Avatar: The Last Airbender, but without healing or spiritual arts and with control over gravity.

Change - This is the magic that deals with changing one thing to another. This magic can knit wounds and reverse aging, cause trees to grow fists and turn vines into whips. This magic can change one substance to another, turning lead into gold, earth into acid, and fire into water. What it cannot do, however, is affect stuff protected by High magic, or mess with things that are already dead. That belongs to another school, the magic of the Underworld.

Underworld - Death is all around us, and the old laws against disturbing the ghosts who chose not to pass on are gone, cast into the wind. Nevertheless, the souls of the departed have to be treated with respect...but it is not the same for their bodies. Underworld Magic is the magic of Necromancy; it is the magic you wield when you want to raise an army of the dead, to control the shadows of the world, to speak with ghosts, and to strike people dead with one blow (this is a high-level spell). You can even use this to transcend death, allowing you continued existence in this world without the need for food, drink, and sleep...

Timespace - The magic of traveling vast distances in a single bound, of teleportation, portals, and scrying. The strongest Magi can even control probability, making a person luckier or unluckier, sometimes to absurd levels. But what it can not do is reverse the past; basically, no time travel. Bullet Time and Time Stop are also possibilities for incredibly strong practitioners but have certain requirements that limit their effectiveness in combat.

Bullet Time and Time Stop Nerfs: Bullet Time can only be activated defensively when confronted by attacks too fast for the mundane body to dodge normally. And by that, it only works when people are shooting bullets at the guy and it can only be used to dodge bullets and other attacks - it cannot be used to attack in turn. This keeps what I want - PCs being able to dodge bullets - without making them overpowered in offense, as well as giving PCs the choice not to shoot bullets in the first place.

As for Time Stop, not only can the 'time bubble' be cut apart by Ex. Swordsmanship, but it doesn't work on sapient beings; it can still be used to stop bullets, explosions, crashing trains, rampaging animals, and lightning strikes, but not melee strikes from sapient beings - neither the user or his opponents can use ranged attacks in a Time Stop. The in-universe reason for this is that having a Soul protects you from unauthorized changes to the timeline.

Mind Magic - This magic deals with controlling minds and altering emotions of both humans and animals, as well as creating illusions, mental compulsions, and even erasing or editing memories. A very powerful magical discipline, but strong willpower can break its effects...

Basically, each PC is supposed to mix and match effects from multiple sources of magic, although specialization is a thing.

Countering and Dispelling Magic

Making Anti-Magic spells is a bit complicated, but basically, you first need three High Magic spells, including the Anti-Magic rote, and one spell of the School you want to dispel. For example, if you want to dispel Underworld Magic, you need three High Magic spells and one Underworld Magic spell. As you have six starting spells available, you can theoretically be able to counter or Dispel three schools maximum. You can only counter or dispel High Magic if all six of your starting spells are of that school.

Enchantment Rules

Enchantment requires High Magic and a spell that you or another party member knows, along with an item to be enchanted. Note however that the weaker and less durable the material is, the magic you can put into it is more limited; for example, oak can be enchanted to emit laser beams, birch cannot. This is the same for metals, and the strongest of spells can only be enchanted into 'Perfected Electrum (more below)'.

Perfected Electrum

Electrum is a mix of Gold and Silver that occurs naturally but can be made by artificial means. This material, if treated by High and Change Magic by four different Magi (see 'Group Spells' below) can be 'perfected', aka transformed into metal as hard as a diamond yet not as brittle, and whose lightness is that of cloth. But the most valuable property of Perfected Electrum is that it can contain very, very strong spells, except for Resurrection (see below under 'Group Spells'). Thus, Perfected Electrum is made only in very small quantities, under the watchful eye of the most powerful states...

Group Spells

Basically, multiple spell-casters with different Schools can do things that would strain a single Mage. This also helps in compensating for single Magi's weaknesses in specialization.

Example Spell:

Resurrection (High, Change, Underworld + materials for a new body) - Three Magi, or alternatively, a single Magi who has six High, Change, and Underworld spells each, can bring back a dead person. High Magic is used to supply magical energy for the permanent return of the Soul (they must always be willing), Change is used to turn inorganic material into organic matter, and Underworld is used to tug back the Soul from wherever it's been. Resurrection cannot be Enchanted into Items.

Any PC can replace a spell from their spell list with an 'Exceptional Skill', which is basically a talent that counts as completely mundane as far as Erde is concerned, even if it would be supernatural in our world. All Exceptional Skills can resist the magical equivalent, or even counter them; for example, Exceptional Swordsmanship allows you to cut through magical barriers or attacks, while Exceptional Medicine can cure wounds caused by High Magic and normally unhealable by any spell, provided one has the right materials. Exceptional Skills can be anything you want, as long as 1.) it does not have an obviously magical effect, and 2.) It is an enhanced version of something a normal human can already do, just boosted to implausible levels.

This is an incomplete list of examples:

- Exceptional Swordsmanship
- Exceptional Archery
- Exceptional Unarmed
- Exceptional Endurance (can resist even magic)
- Exceptional Bureaucracy
- Exceptional Trading
- Exceptional Diplomacy (stuff done with this can resist the effects of Mind magic, even if the target is weak-willed)
- Exceptional Medicine

Exceptional Skills can also be stacked, aka doubled or even tripled in power. For example, you can use up three spell slots to gain Exceptional Swordsmanship x3, which allows you to cut through a two-story building made up of granite, and tear apart a Time Stop with a slash. More on stacking in the Rules section.

Note that Exceptional Skills are intended to be specialized, but at the same time, lack the versatility of Magic. And yes, you can have both Exceptional Skills and Magic; Exceptional Skills replace individual spells, not the entire spell list.

1.) No godmodding, powerplaying, metagaming, etc. etc.
2.) Any mature scenes, aka anything above nudity, must be taken to PMs.
3.) No OOC feuding! If you must argue, be respectful. IC, meanwhile, you can hate each other as much as you like as long as it doesn't seep over to OOC.
4.) You can control NPCs when I explicitly say that you can control them or if they belong to your Custom Faction.
5.) That said, you are allowed to create three PCs each, but only one Custom Faction per player.
6.) Please notify me if you will be gone for more than a week, I myself will let you guys know if I will be gone for that same amount of time.
7.) It's a fantasy world; you can learn Magic - two new spells of any School per Story Arc, more if you find a willing mentor and time. New Exceptional Skills, on the other hand, are easier to stack, harder to learn - You can double the power of two Exceptional Skills every first arc, and select a new exceptional skill every second arc. Venedig will have Eight Arcs, so you get to stack two skills on the first, add one skill on the second, stack again on the third, and so on.
8.) The primary races are Humans and Xul (brown-skinned Orcs). Elves are a minor civilization and not superior to Humans, and need GM Permission to play. Same for Dwarves and Gnomes.