Vec

Masks & Magic: The Awakening

@Vec - Only shift is her vision, because heroes see a woman standing in the waters of a mountain lake, offering their weapon and speaking a message only they can hear - though I'd be completely fine with her being an observer while the unicorn talked to her. It's my fault for not including it in the CS, so oops - sorry!

Otherwise Clara is approved!

@Lyla

Oh, I thought we were free to interpret the vision however we liked hence why I went to town with it, my bad!

EDIT: I'll be postin relatively soon (today)

Forgotten Sands: A Divine Journey into the Unknown

hallo, this all looks really interesting. I'm still building my cs, but I'm thinking of making a god with the domains of dreams and oblivion, someone who welcomes the delusional and the desperate when they lose themselves in him to run away from their problems. will have the cs up within the next couple of days, hopefully.

@ActRaiserTheReturned your magic system is very interesting. would you mind if I built off it a little? just in terms of how people could possibly use the 3 studies of magic to reach or interact with my god's domain, that sort of thing. @Vec do let me know if this is okay too.

@Stanifly

I love the enthusiasm :) You can do whatever you like, player made lore has not been established yet (we don't start till next week) so you can brainstorm to your hearts desire.

Forgotten Sands: A Divine Journey into the Unknown

@Rekkuza Alright so, I see a very good character sheet here with generally good thematic coherence, but there are some questions that I have, mainly with regards to the Secrets domain: How does Khthon's mastery over Secrets manifest? What can he/his clerics do with this domain that Earth alone wouldn't cover? I understand the "things get buried underground, therefore secrets" thing you have going on here, and by all means I like it, so please help me understand better how he would be governing such a Domain. Can he hear any secret whispered, or just underground? Can he create/destroy secrets or just store them? Does he control who discovers secret knowledge? What constitutes a Secret? How far does his authority over a 'secret' go before it transgresses into the Domain of Knowledge? I hope you see where I am going with this.

I am asking these so I can push you along to start thinking about how this Domain would be of use to your deity later down the line, cause at the early game, and definitely before mortals emerge, it really won't be that prevalent or useful. If you think you can make it work, by all means go ahead and take it :) At least the two Domains have a good enough connection to warrant the choice.

Secondly, can you give me 3 examples of "proper offerings" and 3 examples of "taking more than given" so I understand where the line is? For example: A miner prays, finds a gold vein, mines it all. Did they take "more than given"? How much of the vein was the gift? It could be said I am arguing over semantics here, and I could be called nit-picky for pointing them out, but It's just something to think over whilst we are still waiting for new people to apply.

Regardless, your CS is approved if you decide to go ahead with Secrets, otherwise we'll have to take a look at it once again if you decide to get a different Domain.

Forgotten Sands: A Divine Journey into the Unknown

@Rekkuza I am currently outside so I can't properly sit down and got through your cs. Once I am back home in a couple of hours Ill take a look at it!

Forgotten Sands: A Divine Journey into the Unknown

If we can get 1 or 2 more players to jump in, I'll start preparing the OOC thread so we can start migrating there.

Forgotten Sands: A Divine Journey into the Unknown

Okay this makes sense.
I was thinking of adding witchcraft to the magic system.

Witches learn power from the Ideals via a special intermediary called a Patron. A Patron is an intelligent spirit like being that represents The Ideal. While Wizards and Mages are like people who melt ice and snow to drink water directly, the Witch's Patron are like water filters.
Boons and Hexes are spells that effect changes representing the witch's interpretation of what the Ideal is,
but aren't always as strong as a Mage or Wizard's spells. On the other hand, the lack of potency from a Witch's spells might actually be an advantage rather than a deficit. Reality won't punish the witch as harshly as a Wizard of Mage.

But this easier access to magic can be tempting, and is still dangerous with over use.

Thoughts?

@ActRaiserTheReturned

Do witches summon these spirits and cast their magic through them, or can they cast their magic without the aid of the spirit? I quite like the former, but not so the latter.

Forgotten Sands: A Divine Journey into the Unknown

<Snipped quote by Vec>

I'm just curious, why these changes, especially the changes for Magick?

@ActRaiserTheReturned

As I said before, I think you should give each school a domain of excellence: e.g., Alchemy excels at persistent effects (potions last days/weeks), Magick excels at large-scale or group effects, Wizardry excels at precision and speed. This solves the power level debate, as they don't even compete against each other anymore, there are simply different uses for each one and they all excel at what they are intended to do.

If we follow your new revision, why would anyone become a Wizard if they can still study a Form and become a master Magician instead, if they can unleash powerful magick with no repercussion, repetition, or cost? As for the Wizardry changes, I feel that just having psychological effects is not enough to make Wizards stand out in lore. I like the wizened old man feel you have going on there, however wouldn't it be infinitely more cool if they had some physical manifestation of their long years of study that affected their very form? It would give them a point of uniqueness; when you found a Wizard while traveling around the world, you would instantly be able to recognize what they are, and depending on how intense the alterations to their bodies would be, the stronger their power could potentially be. It is a double edged sword that gives them a lot of in-game roleplay potential, both as NPCs and as potential player characters.

Forgotten Sands: A Divine Journey into the Unknown

@ActRaiserTheReturned Remove this: "Lastly, especially experienced and powerful mages can absolutely unleash quickened spells on their enemies or desperate friends/allies without a ritual or repetitious casting. To do so, the mage needs a deep understanding of their Ideal they channel from."

Reword the last paragraph in Wizardry to this: "Through madness, ethical, philosophical and other such psychological changes, and in many cases even physiological changes such as petrified skin—in the case of Wizards of Earth—in the Wizard, they change into a different person, thus they are effectively lost. Some Wizards may even find themselves sacrificing their very lives in order to cast a desperately needed Wizard spell, whatever the reason, as without the proper casting, Wizard spells can be very dangerous."

And we are ok :) If you have any issues, I am open to discussing why Magick should not have incantation-less casting, even in high mastery levels.

Masks & Magic: The Awakening

---moved to cs tab

Forgotten Sands: A Divine Journey into the Unknown

<Snipped quote by Vec>
...
...
(sorry if this is hard to make sense of, I didn't base this character on any existing god or media concept so it's kinda hard to explain and warp your head around....)

@Cmmelody

It's totally fine, I am thankful you even dedicated this much time already!

To summarize things, because I feel we might have dipped our toes a little too deep in philosophical issues, I accept your character submission, but with two conditions:

1.) Change the Perception domain to Deception. You mentioned you could play either, and Deception aligns far better with your described role of protecting and concealing evil. This also resolves the thematic inconsistency, as Perception implies awareness and truth-seeking, while Deception fits the tempter who cloaks their followers' crimes and enables them to operate unseen.

2.) Update your character sheet to honestly portray Yzechr as a villainous antagonist: a cosmic tempter who radicalizes the desperate, protects the evil path itself, and finds societal collapse entertaining. Remove any language suggesting benevolence, reluctant salvation or the creation of perception itself. Keep Corruption, it kinda works for the degradation your followers willingly embrace, but I'm more looking forward to seeing how you develop this dark, complex deity IC.

I am also looking forward to what other players will come up with now that we have a definite villain here.