Spot of Medieval Fantasy nation RP'ing

[Dinh AaronMk]

In a forum abroad in a mistier and rosier time, there existed for a brief moment a politics RP I and a friend of mine built. The RP was set in a medieval fantasy world. In which we took in different races, but the baseline was rather consistently human.

In any event, it came to a slow death once my friend disappeared. But it wasn't really the first time for this RP. In truth, we had taken in on ourselves to revive a similar RP when its own GM had abandoned it. The lack of his existence having lead to a loss of control within the people already in the RP and a feeling of limbo for anyone who sought to get in. So me and my friend being the wise generous people we were: we rebuilt it. I redraw the map and crafted region specification and my friend did the same.

But in any event, as I look at the Nations RP section here I do see a rather brow-raising plethora of contemporary or post-contemporary politics RPs set either in our world, or a fantasy world that looks to operate as our own I feel that maybe diversity will be a good thing. And that what could be used is a good sword-swinging, axe-wielding, and armor-clad mass joust-fest with all the trimmings for medieval politics with a slight chance of lizard people.

Also though I may not hold anyone to it, I would like to note that if I do launch this I will most likely taking my own part with my own state and playing that not as a single entity but as the collection of entities and characters it is. I will expect that of anyone else, and much prefer it. Though it won't be enforced as a rule. Though I will state I absolutely hate stuff like: "WALL CONSTRUCTION 49/100"

And this RP is most likely fantasy in-so-far as non-human races go in a fictional world. Though it is best to keep in mind that I consider the humans the baseline and I don't like people stepping in with uber-strong steel-skin ogres who are covered in a thick scales resistant to a bolt from a crossbow. I will have none of that, it'll need to be kept in a field of reasonability so we don't have armies jetpacking on natural spring-loaded feet; but that's just too silly.


And now with that, time to see how this is received.

[Chapatrap]

Interested. Gaelic tribes incoming t' mess ye oop.

[GemCat]

This sounds pretty good to me, interested!

[taistelusopuli]

Definately sending some nomads/by God cursed vagabonds in your way if this happens!

[Ozymandias]

Sounds fun! I'm in.

[Dinh AaronMk]

And with this interest, I should at least show off the map, with cut-out regions:



Regions will not be named, that'll be up to everyone else if they want to give them all culturally specific names or pursue some manner of uniformity. I'll put out the descriptions if and when a full thread is made.

[Chapatrap]

Do we take an entire region or just part of a region?

[Dinh AaronMk]

Chapatrap said
Do we take an entire region or just part of a region?

Part of a region. Generally pretty small.

When this was a thing on its old forum this pretty much ended up being the nation placement and size:

[Schylerwalker]

Most certainly interested to get back in to NRPing. I would probably make a maritime mercantile nation in Region 1. What will the nature and prevalence of magic be in this world?

[Chapatrap]

Magic is an innate trait that people are born with, and studying magic is only used as a way to gain control of it. Most people born with magical abilities only have abilities in one field. Some have more then one, and some are particularly adapt at it. Very rarely, once in a life time, you'll get someone who can access the entire breadth of magic, and they have the potential for great power. And great insanity.

Basically this (dug it up from murky, stagnant waters of the original), unless Aaron want's to change it.

[Dinh AaronMk]

My general rule on magic is generally fairly restricted. I'm wondering if I should stick to that, or go something more restrictive. The last thing I'd want is for a brigade of battlemages to fire fire-balls with the explosive potential of a howitzer shell. And I'm also wary of mages in large numbers such as that.

There was another RP I helped set up and participated in where magical ability was defined by how much one could sacrifice into it. And the power of the magic was always equal to - or even lesser than - the offering made to fuel it. It was a highly ritualistic sort of field demanding a lot of study and practice so it doesn't turn you into a pile of salt or ash, or just gets you possessed by some spirit.

So it's either the old way or the restricted way. I'll leave it up to discussion since that's the only thing I'm unsure of at this point.

[Schylerwalker]

Why not both? I like the idea of highly ritualized, old-school risky magic. And how about the incorporation of monstrous creatures in an army or economy? Ogrish infantry, war-elk cavalry, griffin air-mail...

[taistelusopuli]

If I have any voice on this debate, the original with a restricted flavor is what I'd vote. Magic is all cool and so. But there is a risk of overdoing it from time to time. That is not we want, right?

[ASTA]

Possibly interested. Depends on the above discussion regarding magic, however.

I was never a large fan of magic in general. I've given it a strong go in NRPs past, but it never sat well with the concepts I was going for with my nations.

[Chapatrap]

I'd say restrict it too. I don't have any plans to use magic and find the whole concept a little OP, at least in terms of political/nation RP.

[Vilageidiotx]

Having been part of the original, I can talk about how we have approached magic in the past.

We have typically been restrictive, either requiring magic to be somewhat explainable from a modern scientific perspective, be muted and weak, or be a born trait that someone has very little control over. It is just too difficult to balance a liberal system of magic amongst a group of people without it becoming gamey, or at least in my opinion.

[Pyro V]

Interested.

How I have done magic is that it will drain off the natural stamina of an individual. The effort it would make to do something (i.e. light a fire, life a rock, etc.) would be taken from the user to do it magically. Which is a heavy restriction, especially in battle. I usually have a system that allows one to "store" their energy, but that could become too powerful in a nation RP (i.e. government forces mages to store all their energy into giant magical death beam that wipes out another country). So, it could be like that. And, if that is added onto the already instability of magic, then it would be fairly restrictive without making it useless as a form of anything.

Of course, just a suggestion. Honestly, in a nation RP, magic doesn't really have to be prevalent. My nation would have a very minimal amount, and I'd likely rarely even mention it unless it came up as a plot-point.

[Dinh AaronMk]

On this execution of the RP I'm likely to have my faction generally unwilling to use magic on cultural reasons. There may be some light use in the form of maybe a court mage of sort. Like the Nords of Skyrim. But it won't be amassing magical energies to make a medieval nuclear bomb, which as a concept itself often implies certain gamey features.

When I launch or partake something like this the last thing on my mind is to play it like Civilization or Age of Empires. So there's that out there.

[Ozymandias]

Dinh AaronMk said
On this execution of the RP I'm likely to have my faction generally unwilling to use magic on cultural reasons. There may be some light use in the form of maybe a court mage of sort. Like the Nords of Skyrim. But it won't be amassing magical energies to make a medieval nuclear bomb, which as a concept itself often implies certain gamey features.When I launch or partake something like this the last thing on my mind is to play it like Civilization or Age of Empires. So there's that out there.

Hah, that's just what I had in mind for my nation/faction (the court mages).

[Schylerwalker]

What about cosmological concerns? As far as I can tell, this is going to be the kind of dark/low fantasy setting where the existence and proof of deities and otherworldly powers is pretty ambiguous. Will there be demons and such?