CaptainManbeard

Qrowdell Academy (magical school RP)

You know, I feel like even having eight different types of magic may be going too far, because then there is a bunch of extra information for people to remember about what goes under what element, and as stated before, one of my goals is to minimize how much corrective action I'll have to take to keep people within boundaries. So, here's what I'm going to have in the main thread when it goes up:

The Mortal Planes are parallel universes that co-exist in the same space at different vibrational frequences and are connected through various Prime Nexus Points where travel between them in possible using various magical means. Earth is one such Point.

The Aether is a realm of raw energy and power that surrounds the Mortal Planes and penetrates them, like the Force in Star Wars. All magic is fueled using Mana channeled from the Aether.

There are three types of magic:

Natural Magic: Anything that converts Mana into some physical energy or structure in the world, such as manipulating or conjuring the elements, casting healing spells, bending light, crafting illusions, affecting gravity, teleportation, time-travel, etc.

Psionic Magic: Does not create or conjure anything, but rather uses Mana to fuel psionic abilities such as telekinesis, telepathy, and the various other kinetics. Basically, you can control what is already present - including the elements - but you cannot create anything new.

Chaos Magic: Only theoretical, said to be the limitless magic of the Celestials, who are thought to have died out millions of years ago.

The Arcane Tongue is a metaphysical language that was embedded into the fabric of the Aether by the Celestials. Vocally, there is only one dialect the Aether recognizes, but there are over a dozen different runic translations that can be used. Just use your imagination for that, I will not define specific words or phrases.

Basic magic can be done at will, but more complex applications require use of runes from the Arcane Tongue, which are engraved onto your Arcane Conduits, such as wands, swords, amulets, etc. You can also utilize a grimoire with spells written in the Arcane Tongue and channel Mana into the ink to activate the spell.

Anytime the Arcane Tongue is spoken, use triple brackets. {{{"Like this"}}} You may use this method to call out spells and have that vocal component in the Arcane Tongue act as a Conduit as well.

I may add a few extra details with the main thread goes live, but I want to keep information needed for co-writers to remember to an absolute minimum.

Qrowdell Academy (magical school RP)

<Snipped quote by CaptainManbeard>

I suppose things like healing magic being part of Geomancy.
Pyromancy being used to inspire people through emotions like passion etc.
using Pyromancy to purify curses.
Generally more esoteric uses to the schools of magic than throwing the elements.
Like what school would things like Conjuration and Transmutation fall into?

@Sanity43217

Ah, I judge from the terminology here, you're referring to the original magic system I had planned. Much has changed since that was posted, and when the main thread goes live, it's going to be much more open and freeform. In the newest iteration, I've completely removed boundaries from specific mancies and such, and everything boils down to eight kinds of magic: Universal Magic, Fire Magic, Air Magic, Earth Magic, Water Magic, Infernal Magic, Cosmic Magic, and the extinct magic from the gods, Chaos Magic.

When the main thread goes live, my goal is to have a clear picture for everyone about what magic goes where without overburdening people with a giant magic system to remember that I then have to monitor and enforce. I hope to have that ironed out by the weekend.

Qrowdell Academy (magical school RP)

How literal are the elements? Can we play with more metaphorical aspects of elemental magic?

@Sanity43217

What did you have in mind?

Qrowdell Academy (magical school RP)

And I think to sort of give a clean slate for anyone reading along who may be confused by all the back and forth and different rules and everything, I'll say this: Once the main thread goes up, everyone can forget what was said in this interest check thread. I will have all the necessary information for you to know in that new thread, and then I will direct everyone to PM if they have any questions. And while my new approach is to be more lenient with everything, I ask that no one takes advantage of that to try and make this RP more work than it has to be. If it stops being fun for me, I will likely walk away.

Qrowdell Academy (magical school RP)

No worries, if something gray area comes up in game we can just address it then. I get a little carried away with lore/world building so please don't mind me. Almost nothing I've brought up today should even be relevant for my characters anyway.

@Light

No prob! And anyone can always feel free to discuss various ideas with me in PM, and then if something becomes relevant to the RP that others need to know about, I can post it publicly at that time.

Qrowdell Academy (magical school RP)

But, having said all that, I want to keep the amount of information needed for co-writers to be minimal, because then that is less that I have to monitor and correct people on. We need to be careful here with hashing out all these different ideas and potential rules/limitations, because I don't want everyone to be confused about what they can and can't do. Because of that, we shouldn't let the scope of this get too big, and I'd ask that we don't push the envelope too far and what can or can't be done, because then that's just more for everyone to remember.

Qrowdell Academy (magical school RP)

Yeah perhaps the school has a code of conduct regarding the "ethical use of necromancy" with guidelines on what can or can't be done. Perhaps there are people who donate their bodies to the school for use this way, like raising the dead for use in manual labor around campus. There could be certain rules like when and for how long a corpse can be raised, skeletons must be cleaned fully before raising, zombies must have appropriate attire for their intended use and must wear face obstructions to preserve identity privacy of the deceased. Perhaps long standing zombies must be submitted for inspection of structural integrity and upkeep?

@Light

I like the idea of ethical use of Necromancy, which can also be used by detectives to ask murder victims about their killers and such. However, I'd imagine some killers would trap the soul of their victims in a Soul Stone or something to avoid being caught. As for zombies around school for labor, I think they would probably rely more on warforged-like beings or automatons, which would be more structurally sound and last longer. I'd imagine any use of a person's remains would be for strictly academic research purposes.

Qrowdell Academy (magical school RP)

If you want to go more lenient and flavorful this way, I think I will add in more graviturgy for my astrologer to start. Would certain aspects of cosmic magic like time travel still be forbidden? Perhaps the rulings on these are more about particular uses and spells rather than entire forms of magic.

Sure, drawing the life-force out of your classmates is I'll advised, but what about calling a spirit to ask it questions about the past? I'd rule both as necromancy but one is clearly harmless.

@Light

Gravity-based effects are fine, but I would be cautious with grandiose uses of time travel. Regardless of the rules meta-side, in the actual in-RP universe, I would still think time travel would be closely monitored. However, instead of saying "no, you can't do that," I think a better idea would be to have in-RP forces respond in kind if certain thresholds are violated XD. So, in other words, if you wanted to have your character go back in time to change an outcome of something, chances are something akin to Time Wraiths would soon be on their trail XD. Perhaps we can have a Professor who specializes in time-related spells who can teach them how to use mild time-travel that doesn't get flagged, and then it will be up to the character whether or not they abide by that or try to go farther and see what happens XD.

As for what would be considered "acceptable," we can just say that short-distance time travel - say, within 24 hours of your current time - creates sort of like a temporal personal pocket dimension. Basically, that lets you go up to 24 hours into the past to try out different missed opportunities or go up to 24 hours into the future to see possible outcomes, but it has no effect on the actual, "live" timeline. And we can say it has a geographical sphere that extends out five miles in every direction from your initial location. So, that gives one a free reign 48 hour, ten mile bubble to hop back and forth to their heart's content. If they get too close to the edge of the bubble - or try to go beyond that 24 hour window in either direction - they will begin to feel resistance, like a rapidly thickening fog. If they choose to push past that, then the bubble breaks, and it becomes real time-travel, triggering the attention of the Time Wraiths.

As for what the Wraiths are, no one knows for sure, but legend says they are the lost souls of people from previous timelines who broke their bubbles and were forced by the gods to defend the current and future timelines for all eternity. But do the Time Wraiths actually exist? Anyone who was suspected of having encountered them never returned, so how can they really know? The teachers claim they are real, but it is up to the students whether or not to believe them XD.

As for your final question, I would say the Professors frown upon recalling spirits from the dead because interrupting their afterlife is not only extremely rude, but could probably open a path for other forces to follow them through from the other side. Again, you can try it and we'll see how the universe responds ;). That being said, we can probably have ghosts of past Professors who have agreed in advance to be summoned to help students. The living professor who handles that class - probably Arcane History - could give each student a handheld crystal ball to summon and communicate with the dead, but with strict instructions on who they can contact and when.

Qrowdell Academy (magical school RP)

And now that I think about it, it might be good to allow some effects to span multiple magic types, like Lightning for both Fire Magic and Air Magic and Air Moisture/Humidity for both Water Magic and Air Magic. More on that when the thread goes live, but again, going to try and keep the info needed to a minimum.

Qrowdell Academy (magical school RP)

And instead of forcing people to remember a specific cosmology of this reality and the different planes and all, I'm going to use fewer terms - the Mortal Planes (many different parallel universes co-existing in the same space at different vibrational frequencies, like a multiverse) and the Aether (like the Force from Star Wars, it surrounds the Mortal Planes and penetrates them and all types of magic are derived from it). We'll still have the types of magic I mentioned before being available to the students (Universal, Fire, Air, Water, Earth, Cosmic, Infernal), and Chaos Magic as an extinct form that comes into play later in the story. I know a few people asked about Infernal Magic being available for an attuned type of magic, and I'm going to allow that now, so long as they know to keep it hidden when in the presence of non-villains. I'd still like people to pick only one or two types of magic to be attuned to at first, but I am not going to enforce that.

Though, one limitation I do still want to keep intact is the use of Arcane Conduits for more advanced magic. If you don't want your character to hold something in their hand - like a wand or sword - you can use tattoos or jewelry instead. Basically, anything that could have runes from the Arcane Tongue engraved into them. My Battlemancer character will have some kind of jewelry (haven't decided yet), my Monster Club character will tribal tattoos, and my Dark Acolyte character will start out having a Katana that can become engulfed in purple flames, but once his dark nature becomes publicly known and he can't hide it anymore, he's going to get Satanic-like tattoos to be his new Conduit.