Player character list is now being built up in the second OOC post. I'll keep it up to date as more people join.
Some NPCs added with descriptions - feel free to use them at will, and if you have an NPC idea, PM it to me and I'll glue it to the NPC list. Also added my own character, though Boorkat needs a picture (might sketch one out down the road). Now to open up the RP with the first IC post. It'll be up in a short while.
Wrangling the NPCs. Won't be making full CSes for NPCs/GMPCs just yet, but they'll come eventually. Expect a short description of NPCs and an IC post to get this thing rolling in the next few hours.
Feel free to take control of NPCs listed as necessary. GMPCs include school administrators and side characters.
Groundskeeper Billy is an older man in his early sixties, standing straight at 6'3" with medium length flaming red and curly hair and a full beard reaching the neck of his shirt. His arthritis has given him a hunched over back though, and these days, he walks with a cane. Billy's magical focus is bent entirely towards botanical and landscaping knowledge, and Billy is responsible for keeping the grounds clean and beautiful. Though he doesn't need to, he uses a vintage reel lawnmower to cut the grass and pass the time.
Billy's other, unofficial job? School security. He cares for students almost as much as he cares about the lawn and will not hesitate to step in if a fight breaks out in front of him.
A younger man in his late thirties sits upon a chair at a desk, surrounded by beige clinic partitions to form a rudimentary cubicle. He spins back and forth in his chair, staring at medical documentation half the time and at blood test tools the other half. Artus stands at 5'6", with clean cut black hair and a pointed, sharp facial structure. He doesn't speak much and prefers to get his job done as quickly as possible. Obviously his magical skills are directed towards healing, and due to the peculiarities of body manipulation, the words one will hear most often in his office are 'Imagine your body as being whole and well,' which are followed by him laying hands upon the patient and regenerating their bodies and clearing up more serious illnesses.
Due to the time period's lack of detailed medical knowledge, he cannot heal most illnesses using magic and instead prescribes standard medications. His area of expertise is in physical trauma, which the Institute has in abundance.
Conrad is a short, round boy of 5'4" and weighing in at a solid two hundred pounds. He's fairly friendly and cheerful, and when he's not engaged in his own classes, he's seen helping students living in the mens' dormitory. His office is a bit of a mess.
Emma is tall at 6'0", athletic, and gifted with insectoid compound eyes due to her status as a fourth generation Chimera. She generally dislikes people asking questions that're answered on the comprehensive FAQ document pinned to the corkboard outside her office window, but if someone in the womens' dormitory actually needs something, she'll often be there before she's even asked for.
Okay, who let the xenobear work as an R.A.? Xthulotl is a first-generation Chimera, and not much is known about his personality on account of it being very, very difficult to communicate with him. Xthulotl communicates via interpretive dance, writing, and low-pitched roarlike warbling. He is absolutely enormous, standing at a whopping 8'7" and weighing one thousand, two hundred and fifty pounds. His office would be cleaner if his razor sharp claws were small and dextrous enough to pick up the pencils and papers he keeps dropping everywhere.
Xthulotl is in charge of the Large Dormitory and handles paperwork for students who aren't quite able to fit through the doorways in other buildings. Because of the construction of Dormitory C, students in wheelchairs generally are referred to this area as well.
Dormitory D is a bit hard to find due to it being reserved for postgrad students and professionals. Barna is a massive hardass and will make life a living hell for whoever put their chewing gum under the common room chairs for the sixth time this month. Barna stands at 4'5" and weighs roughly 76 pounds, but her talent for magic more than makes up for her small stature. Of the four Resident Assistants, Barna is the one most likely to scorch the dormitory walls while chasing students out of recently mopped bathrooms.
Openness: 8 Neuroticism: -3 Agreeableness: -9 Extroversion: 8 Conscientiousness: Off the charts.
Katrice is a third generation Chimera and Boorkat Malkin's granddaughter. She has an entirely human face, save for the sharp, featherlike, blood red spines that make up her "hair" and are presumably the remnants of her family's carapace. She stands at roughly 5'7" and weighs 220 lbs. in shell and muscle, with ice blue eyes and fair skin. Her grandfather's lobster tail extends downwards from her back like a rigid cape, flowing out from beneath her oversized tuxedo jacket.
Katrice's primary role in the school is to serve as the translator for Boorkat during events. Otherwise, she takes classes alongside other students and lives in Dormitory B.
Appearance: The first thing anybody would notice is that Boorkat is enormous, standing at 9' even and weighing roughly 945 lbs. The second thing is that he seems to be a very large walking lobster, with a blood red, ridged carapace covering his entire body all around. Two jet black eyes shine out with a dull glow from beneath the ridge on the top end of his shell, with a second pair of jet black eyes around the side of his head resting below an even deeper ridge. Boorkat's face is difficult to pin down as being human in any way whatsoever, what with the lack of a nose and ears, and the three foot-long incisors surrounding a small mouth flooded with razor sharp teeth.
In an effort to make himself look more presentable, Boorkat wears one of the largest tweed suits anybody has ever seen. It looks terrible on him, but it still looks better than walking around with his carapace exposed.
Boorkat's right forearm ends in an absolutely enormous claw that looks as though it can crack an automobile in half, whereas his left forearm is tipped in a humanlike hand. Symmetry didn't seem to be a big deal when he was born.
Age: 62
Species: First Generation Chimera, Crustacean.
Gender: Unknown, but refers to himself as male.
Occupation: Staff
Personality: If anyone could understand him, Boorkat would seem quite friendly and caring. He's about as chatty as first generation Chimeras come, and has to be routinely reprimanded for constantly trying to talk because his 'voice' is incredibly grating and unpleasant. Boorkat is always found in his office on the Administrative Building's first floor, flipping through applications, writing education plans, going over disciplinary reports, and balancing the school budget.
Biography: He's a gigantic bipedal lobsterlike first generation Chimera. It can be safely assumed that his life before working for The Institute was pretty awful. He's been working as Institute Administrator for three years now, and was an intern for four years prior, and even before that he was a student from the age of 16 onwards. Beyond that, though, not much is known and his original application is locked in a sturdy filing cabinet in the school basement.
Attributes:
Strength: 14 Constitution: 10 Agility (gross motor skills): 10 Dexterity (fine motor skills): 1 Intelligence: 7 Charisma: 8 Aesthetics/Appearance: 0
Magic Type Preference: Weapon Conjuration
Innate Magic Talent: Claw Cannon - Boorkat's claw opens to reveal four machinegun barrels lashed together. It's not known if he recreates the inner workings of modern machineguns, but with how many bullets his claw spews, does it even matter? He doesn't need to be accurate if he hoses the entire area either, right?
Interests: Education Reading Writing Playing Chess
Skills: Strategizing Speed Reading Boxing Heavy Weapons usage
Appearance: Robert Brovak is a slightly odd person. Firstly, he wears a burnt orange hooded robe at all times. Secondly, a cloth mask conceals his face, with a pair of goggles covering his eyes. Thirdly, he's very, very thin. Ludicrously so. And he makes a point of never showing skin anywhere - gloves, long pants beneath the robes, high boots, and the like cover him from head to toe.
Beyond his choice of attire, Robert is roughly 5'7" and (clothing included) weighs roughly 100 lbs. If one were to shake his hand, there wouldn't be much to shake and his joints would poke through. Dude needs to eat a cheeseburger or something.
Age: 89...?
Species: Human. Allegedly.
Gender: Male.
Occupation: Staff - Physics and Materials Manipulation Professor.
Personality: Professor Brovak is absolutely terrible at keeping his spaces clean, hates stupid questions, and despises being bothered outside of class. His office hours are only kept because he's required to have them, not because he cares about helping his students. But if a student genuinely wishes to improve their magic skills, he's the first person to talk to, as he gets incredibly excited at the thought of discussing magical theory with and training students. His mouth will not stop running if someone comes to him with a novel idea.
Just don't ask too many personal questions. Professor Brovak is severely paranoid and pushing him too much may end in him booby trapping his classrooms again.
Biography: He's been around for quite a while. So long, in fact, that his documentation smells funny and the ink is beginning to wear away.
Attributes:
Strength: 3 Constitution: 15 Agility (gross motor skills): 3 Dexterity (fine motor skills): 3 Intelligence: 20 Charisma: 3 Aesthetics/Appearance: 3
Magic Type Preference: Material Magic (generalized)
Innate Magic Talent: Earth Manipulation
Interests: Reading Magic Theory Physics Chemistry Biology
Skills: Too many to list. This guy's absolutely ancient.
Name: Ohon Katann
Appearance: Ohon isn't incredibly beautiful, but he's definitely pretty. Or, at least, as pretty as a four foot tall, forty-five pound boy with dragonfly wings can get. He has narrow, soft facial features and large, feminine eyes of a brilliant yellow, and golden skin. Ohon's wingspan measures roughly 8 feet from tip to tip, and each of his four wings has an iridescent shine to it that catches the sunlight with a colorful glow. As he flies, he casts colored shadows upon the ground.
Ohon's fashion style is fairly simple: he wears a white tuxedo with a pink tie and a purple corsage. He keeps his (relatively) long and flowing hair well maintained and regularly changes his choice of hair color.
In combat, Ohon wields an enormous kanabo twice his own body weight.
Age: 17
Species: Fourth Generation Dragonfly Chimera
Gender: Male
Occupation: Student, Second Year. Took remedial classes last year.
Personality: Grating. Persistent. Belligerent at times. Friendly for the most part, but good god is this guy a pain in the ass. You'd do well to keep a large flyswatter handy. Of course, he's rather clumsy, so he prefers to stay airborne and not risk bumping into things.
Biography: Ohon Katann is incredibly forgetful. He can't remember where he's from or where his family are, but his application at the very least has some accurate info.
Ohon was born as the result of a chimera circus performer having a one night stand with a member of the audience. His name, in his mother's culture, means "Shame of the Family", and he was dumped off at a boarding school as a young child. Other children would be traumatized by being dumped off as someone else's problem, but Ohon's extraordinarily low test scores provided an explanation as to why he didn't seem to care: he was a complete and total moron.
Attributes:
Strength: 7 Constitution: 15 Agility (gross motor skills): 11 Dexterity (fine motor skills): 0 Intelligence: 1 Charisma: 1 Aesthetics/Appearance: 9
The Frontal Courtyard is the first thing anybody will ever see upon entering Mordhaben's Institute for Aspiring Mages through the front gate. A very thick forest surrounds the area outside of the Institute, limiting visibility from outside. The Administrative Building wraps around the courtyard, leaving a large open space with a round gathering area paved in large flagstones, and two sidewalks leading from side doors in the Administrative Building's wings to the front of the gathering area.
A huge staircase leads from the paved gathering area to the Administrative Building portico, which takes up fully one third of the visible face of the wall it springs out from. A podium sits at the top of the steps in the center, with a huge pair of ornate mahogany and glass doors directly behind it.
The Cafeteria is lit by thin shafts of sunlight through windows at the very top of the room. The room is fairly square, and the ceiling is slightly lower then is comfortable for larger Chimeras at only 10'. A pair of double doors on the side of the room leads to a stairwell buried in the ground, and outside is a fenced-in outdoor eating area with a large number of metal tables with attached benches identical to the ones inside. Inside the cafeteria is effectively a large buffet packed with foods from across the world, with a separate line and cafeteria buffet space for each type of food. The more exotic nations' buffets are smaller and visibly more poorly staffed, and each buffet space seems to have its own miniature kitchen, like at a food court in a shopping mall. The trays are green plastic, many of which are old and cracked, with the structural fabric net visible through the chips in the plastic.
Czar Willamus IV is a properly handsome man, with short, cleanly kept silver hair and ice blue eyes framed in a perfectly symmetrical face. A large handlebar moustache rests upon his upper lip, waxed to perfection. Frederick Willamus is only 24, and is the youngest Czar to ever hold power in the Unoctocan Empire. He appears to be 6'0" and 170 lbs., with plenty of lean muscle gained through constant sport hunting and polo in his off time.
A picture of the current Czar can be found in most public places in the Unoctocan Empire.
The previous Czar was an imposing man at 6'2" and weighing a whopping three hundred pounds. Like his son, he had cleanly kept silver hair with a symmetrical face, though rather than a handlebar moustache, he kept a full beard that reached all the way to the bottom of his sternum. Czar Willamus III died at the age of fifty-six seven years ago, passing on rule of the Empire to his eldest son of 17. Sadly, Willamus III's death left more of a mark on history than his life. The cause of death is as of yet unknown, and Imperial Mages have been working around the clock to determine the nature of his death for years with only limited success.
So far, it appears that the Willamus royal family is afflicted with a blood curse, irremovable even by the nation's foremost experts in Foundation and Vision. But the perpetrator is not known, nor is the mechanism by which the curse works.
First General Cazel is the foremost warrior-poet in the entirety of the Unoctotan Empire. Her magic skills are poor aside from the basics of spontaneous barrier creation as taught in The Way, as well as an intense talent for active usage of Foundation techniques. Cazel is nigh immune to magical effects and dispels enchanted and conjured objects merely by being near them, and her martial skill is only slightly less than that of the berserkers of the Dountri Confederation.
She stands at a tiny 5'3" and weighs 160lbs. in pure muscle, with a square, bricklike jawline and long, wavy red hair over golden skin and green eyes. Were Cazel not a dedicated weightlifter, she would weigh in at a much more reasonable 90lbs.
First General Cazel Uoyvvo is a widely celebrated figure and makes more public appearances for the mass media than the Czar himself, often acting as his representative. She has also published a number of treatises on The Way, as well as twelve best-selling books of poetry, two epic poems, and an ongoing science fiction series about the Captain of a boat that can sail beneath the ocean. "The Deepest Depths" was the book that prompted Unoctocan engineers to design the first prototype submersibles in 1184PW, leading to the production of the Imperial Navy's first Unterboat fleet.
At only 62, General Uoyvvo has had a surprisingly good career and has been said to be the ultimate renaissance woman of the era.
Class Scheduling and Missions
As with the maps, the Google Documents for this section are being built, though they aren't necessary just yet. The will at minimum be up and accessible once the IC Tab manages to escape the opening ceremony.
Welcome to Mordhaben's Institute for Aspiring Mages!
The School
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 The Way 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 required 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.
Setting
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.
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.
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.
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. Foundation, the world itself, allows one to protect oneself against other manipulations. Vision, the ideal reality, gives insight into what was, is, will be, and what is possible. Compromise is the ability to split the difference between Foundation and Vision, and as some have put it, is the art form of arguing with the universe and winning.
The more steadfast one person's Foundation is, the less effective others' abilities will be against them and their environment. The more powerful one's Compromise is, the greater the degree to which they can change the environment. Foundation is almost incapable of completely preventing Compromise from having an effect, but remaining committed to reality as it currently is certainly makes it harder for others to change it. Vision 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. Foundation cannot protect without knowing the arguments of Compromise, which Vision will give, just as Compromise cannot be achieved without using Vision to know what changes to make.
Vision and Compromise 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.
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.
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.
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.
Character Sheet
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.
Name:
Appearance: (Picture optional, text description required)
Age: (16 upwards)
Species: Human, Monster (describe type - restricted to S through M-L size), or Chimera (list generation and type)
Gender:
Occupation: (Student, Staff >list position>, or Professional Mage >list professional occupation if any>)
Personality: (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)
Openness (to experience, new things, etc.): -10 to 10 Neuroticism: -10 to 10 Agreeableness: -10 to 10 Extroversion: -10 to 10 Conscientiousness: -10 to 10
Biography: (only what staff would know from their application)
Attributes: (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:
Magic Type Preference: (either use one of the predefined categories, or describe a custom magic category) Innate Magic Talent: (this is for your character's strongest trick, e.g. pyrokinesis) Interests: Skills: (add a few things your character is good at; you can keep filling it out as the RP goes on)
Rules
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.
Closing Notes
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.
I'll get started on putting up an OOC and IC post, then. I think I'll discard the usage of dice except for as a way of determining some NPC actions, but that's not really an "official" policy so much as a personal roleplaying choice.
It'll most likely be a few days, but I'll ping everyone here when it's up.
I intend it to mostly deal with extremely difficult or out of character actions. For instance, if a human character wanted to jump a twenty foot gap, it might be necessary, but not so much for a froglike chimera.
I'll think about whether it's a good idea or not and get back to you on it. Thanks for the input!
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. The college I'm basing the RP around is open to all potential students over 16, and sends out letters of recommendation to students in public school that it determines have potential in The Way. Open enrollment is a thing, though, and anybody can apply. Acceptance to the college requires passing at least one test out of several different kinds during the Entrance Exam, and such tests cover the areas of knowledge (written tests), athleticism (physical trials), creative problem solving (unique tests based on constructed scenarios), and strategy (typically strategic board games like Chess and Shogi).
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, interplanetary antimatter warheads 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.
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, whatever. They are no more durable than they used to be, which limits how much power a single person can take in and use.
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, matter from energy, 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. Foundation, the world itself, allows one to protect oneself against other manipulations. Vision, the ideal reality, gives insight into future possibilities. Compromise, or Balance, depending on who you ask, is the ability to split the difference by negotiating with the universe itself.
The more steadfast one person's Foundation is, the less effective others' abilities will be against them and their environment. The more powerful one's Compromise is, the greater the degree to which they can change the environment. Foundation is almost incapable of preventing Compromise from having an effect, but remaining committed to reality as it currently is certainly makes it harder for others to change it. Vision is needed in both, to see what is wanted, and to see what will happen. Foundation cannot protect without knowing the arguments of Compromise, which Vision will give, just as Compromise cannot be achieved without using Vision to know what arguments to make.
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.
How It'll Work
If this works out, I'll be running the RP a little differently from other academy-centric roleplays. It will be faster paced than normal, with routine Time Skips done to keep things from slowing down too much. Periodically classes will be roleplayed if players wish to do so, of course.
A lot of school type RPs get bogged down when they focus on every single class, and when each class can take weeks to finish, each IC day typically takes months IRL. So in the interest of keeping players' relationships with eachother from developing faster than their characters' relationships, it'll be going pretty fuckin' fast storywise. Y'all can decide how your characters' friendships develop when timeskips happen.
The RP will also feature a custom Attribute+Skill and Experience system so that classes still hold meaning even during timeskips, players are rewarded for taking part in expeditions to kill Monsters and/or investigate other problems, and characters have measurable skill development that isn't completely arbitrary. Forewarning: this also means that I'll be using dice rolls when a character does anything that would be particularly difficult for them involving an NPC. Not everyone likes that sort of thing, but I'm not one to limit player creativity and I want to avoid godmoding of any sort being used to end encounters.
Post expectations will be one to two paragraphs. More than that is fine, but there's such a thing as "too much". Scares the newbies away if everyone is writing ten pages with every post: this is casual, not advanced.
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