Winterwake

Avelierys - Original Fantasy World (CLOSED - Indefinite hiatus)

@Pathfinder No, the Academy was built after, and the order didn't become renowned until shortly after the Empress' death and the rise of each Noble line to positions of actual power.

Avelierys - Original Fantasy World (CLOSED - Indefinite hiatus)

@Pathfinder Absolutely, by all means go ahead.

Avelierys - Original Fantasy World (CLOSED - Indefinite hiatus)

Avelierys, a volatile fantasy open world - interest check

Avelierys has a main thread now https://www.roleplayerguild.com/topics/167303-avelierys-original-fantasy-world/ooc, or rather has done for a while because I made the mistake masterfully cunning decision of posting in the casual RP board before doing an interest check!

I am happy with the amount of interest this project has, and as such am giving people the go-ahead to start posting character sheets if they want to. If anyone is unsure about a character they are welcome to post in the OOC there, PM me or whatever.

Avelierys, a volatile fantasy open world - interest check

@Pathfinder

Hey, though I do like the idea I am happy with the world and two playable races as they are right now, with the 'Vesh being a strange alien-reptile-elf like people and the only non-Human race available. Though I am very much aware limiting the current world as it is to two races could lose me people who would potentially be interested in joining I won't be adding any races yet, but might keep it in mind for the future as more of the unknown savage world outside of the Empire is discovered.

Avelierys, a volatile fantasy open world - interest check

@Overlord Thraka

Hey, as much as I'd hate to turn anyone from my RP, it seems to me that you're looking for a universe that isn't mine, sadly. The races I have created exist to serve a narrative, and what little magic exists in the world of Avelierys is rare, destructive and terrifying with magical artefacts being almost entirely unheard of. No doubt we could work the sword into the narrative, as a metal with similar properties exists, but that's about it. Maybe you'd have better luck in any of the other great threads around here.

Avelierys, a volatile fantasy open world - interest check

Hey there, @Overlord Thraka. Glad to hear there's a chance you might be interested. Could you give me a bit more detail about the kind of race and starting gear you were thinking about please?

Avelierys, a volatile fantasy open world - interest check

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Background and setting

Please note that this story could evolve to contain some mature themes, most notably violence, oppression and racism so please keep that in mind before you opt to take part.

This story is set in the Kingdom of Avelierys, the largest and most central nation in the Aleviaryan Empire. It has been 300 years since Empress Aveliere lead a great army of mages in a conquest of the known world and united its kingdoms under her banner, after this conquest she instituted a small contingent of noble houses each made up of the mages who aided her in her conquest, who eventually became the nobles of the present day. The world in which the story is set is one of stark contrast: within "civilised" cities nobles bicker and feud, Knightly orders appear and disappear constantly, mercenary companies do odd jobs for those who are willing and able to pay, the peasantry go about their daily lives and the downtrodden and poor are more often than not forgotten.

Player characters may come from a variety of backgrounds and nations though due to the lore of the setting playing a mage or member of a current, influential noble bloodline will be prohibited, more on that later!

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Rules

• Try to create a well rounded, believeable and lore coherent character. Consider strengths, weaknesses, quirks, mannerisms. If they're interesting and unique, they'll be more fun for others to roleplay with.
• Respect others OOC, regardless of if your characters end up wanting to drown one another.
• Maintain Roleplay etiquette, please avoid powergaming, using meta-knowledge, god-modding etc.
• Keep in mind that your characters can indeed die. Face the consequences of your actions even if your character makes them with good intentions.
• Please try to keep your posts interesting, at least a paragraph or two in length and don't post more than twice in succession. Advanced and casual roleplayers are all welcome here, that being said try to keep things interesting and descriptive!
• Please keep sexual and excessively violent content to a minimum, hide and tag it or take it to PM if it is unavoidable!
• Each player may control two characters at most, keep in mind that not all PCs will know one another or even end up knowing one another. If a character is killed they may be replaced with a new one.
• Characters can be all over the Empire! Please title your posts with the location in which each takes place and separate the actions of characters in different locations by a line break.
• Players are given some creative freedom when writing their backstories and origins, family names, town names and individual cultures etc. are all up to the player to decide.
• Enjoy yourselves! This roleplay will begin with a free roaming, free for all mindset so characters are welcome to go where they please and become who they please. Go ahead and jump in.

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Lore

* Now, this next bit might seem like a lot of information to some of you, but don't worry! You don't need to read all this to get involved, these snippets of lore are designed to give players a deeper understanding of the world of Avelierys. Please feel free to ask me any questions about the world while I will do my best to expand my players knowledge of the setting organically through the RP itself! Feel free to skip ahead to the character sheet template if you want to jump right in!

Geography and locations

Kingdom of Avelierys and Averine City
Averine city is the largest nation in the Empire, considered to be the centre of the known world the capital and boasting temperate climates is a huge sprawling port town made up of many districts, listed clockwise beginning at the northeastern corner against the city wall one will find: House Sauvage, a huge castle which once belonged to Empress Aveliere, now owned by Lady Anya Sauvage; The residential district, where wealthy townsfolk live, also the location of the grand library and many an inn and shop; The market district, a bustling marketplace and the location of many a shop, with a number of side streets and large houses snaking off, this district is also the location of the main city gate; The city docks, where the city is often busiest is a hub of commerce and trade which puts all others to shame, it just so happens the docks are also a breeding ground for poverty; And finally the Delucian district, a large residential district for the city's elite and the location of Lady Runah Delucia's manor. Oh yes, it's also where the brothel is located.

Velucian Peninsula
To the west of the city is a massive, nigh inhospitable mountain range of deadly crags and sheer, crumbling cliffs and further still is the beginnings of a marshland which stretches far into the west populated only by northern Velucians, Sethkra'Vesh and nomadic tribes. Located to the southwest of Averine City, cut off by land by the neighbouring mountain range is a peninsula and series of neighbouring islands known as Velucia, a puppet-state of the kingdom of Avelierys typically populated by olive skinned and black haired Humans. The puppet state boasts a warm, moist climate and is the home of the prestigious Silver Shield academy.

Surrounding the capital city to the east are miles and miles of farmland which spread off into the distance, as one continues further afield farmland eventually gives way forest with the occasional nameless townstead here or a lonely farming hamlet and further still one will find birch and pine forests which give way to frozen tundra.

To the north of the city and stretching as far as the farmland is an expansive forest of mixed trees dotted with the occasional market town but populated mostly by the elusive and reviled forest folk, the Sethkra'Vesh, or as Humans know them, Dregs. Further north still is an endless desert which modern folk consider inhospitable and impossible to cross.

South of Averine city is an expansive salt water ocean dotted with sparsely populated islands, one of these, south of the Velucian peninsula is the island of Delucia, a small port city build upon an island and the original home of House Delucia.

People and places

Queen Aveliere the conqueror
A great warrior, diplomat and battle-mage, so much so that her life is one of legend. She is the woman responsible for creating the world as it is today.

Lady Anya Sauvage
Head of house Sauvage, a calm, calculated and often condescending woman. Often considered one with radical ideas which never quite seem to come to fruition, just one of which is to give the Sethkra'Vesh people equal standing as citizens of the kingdom with the same opportunities and rights as Humans.

Lady Runah Delucia
A brash, fiery youth with olive skin, white hair and the yellow eyes and facial tattoos of a battlemage. Despite her young age she seems to have full control of House Delucia, for better or for worse.

The Academy of the Silver Shield
An large military academy on the Velucian peninsula known for training some of the most skilled and dangerous soldiers in the entire Empire, the Silver Shields. By royal decree, once a Velucian child reaches 12 years of age they are taken by the Academy and tested, and the small number who pass the initial test become students for between 5 and 6 years during which they follow a secret training regimen under the watchful eye of strict instructors. Those who finish their time in the academy are granted the title and armour of the Silver Shield and are often bought as personal bodyguards, assassins and enforcers by the richest of the rich. In times of strife and war the Silver Shields are called upon by the Noble Houses to serve as their vanguard to extraordinary effect.

The Grand Library
The Grand Library of Averine city claims to contain the complete collection of every book, scroll, tome or piece of writing ever written and published by Humans, it's no wonder that the building is closely guarded by a quartet of masked battlemages at all times.

Races

Human
Most of you probably know what a Human is, you might have even met one before! Humans are the standard against which most other fantasy races are compared. Within the world of Avelierys Humans are a common, diverse race who come in many shapes and sizes, with a distinct look and society depending on where they come from and their racial bloodlines.
Aleviaryan Humans are typically fair skinned, with varying natural hair colours and blue or green eyes.
Cold Humans of the east typically have pale skin, blonde, white or brown hair and blue or white eyes.
Warm Humans from Delucia and the southern islands typically grow darker skinned the further south they hail from, and their hair and eyes are almost always black.
Velucian and Mountain Humans have olive skin, black or dark brown hair and brown or green eyes.
Humans have all sorts of first names, with surnames often based on places, deeds and professions.
Humans have no official religion, but some choose to see magic as a godly force.


Sethkra'Vesh
The forest folk, dregs or Sethkra'Vesh are a tall, lithe Humanoid people. Larger, stronger and more agile than Humans they are typically reclusive and avoid contact with Humans for good reason, though some find their way into Human cities usually as slaves or servants and only very rarely as anything else.
Sethkra'Vesh have rough, dry skin which can be any variation, shade or pattern of black, grey or brown, they have no hair and yellow, green or blue eyes.
Sethkra'Vesh have Gaelic sounding names and no surnames.
Sethkra'Vesh culture typically holds nature, natural forces and emotion in extremely high regard, though they do not necessarily worship concepts such as the seasons, the wind, the sea, anger and happiness for example, so much so, that they are often perceived as nature worshippers.

Concepts and miscellaneous lore

Oppression
The Sethkra'Vesh are horribly looked down upon in modern Aleviaryan society, considered beasts of burden by Human law, and occasionally kept as slaves. Officially there is no punishment for killing one and even doing so in the poorer streets of larger cities carries so little social stigma it is considered akin to littering. One exception to this is the easternmost town in the Empire, a town called Warcho where the Sethkra'Vesh occasionally hunt with and live among the Human population but know to make themselves scare whenever Imperial eyes and ears come snooping. Playing a Sethkra'Vesh character will be difficult, and you'll face strife every step of the way on your journey, but don't let that put you off. What is it they say? After the rain, the earth hardens.

Mages and Magic
In the world of Avelierys, magic is not something anyone can learn. Exceptionally rarely, a Human child can be born a mage and are easily distinguishable and identifiable as Mages by their unnatural eye colours, often red, purple or yellow. By Imperial law these children are given up by their parents or taken away from their parents at birth by hired Mage-Hunters and made further distinguishable from normal Humans with vibrant facial tattoos. What happens to them after that very few know, but the kingdom of Avelierys never seems to be without its masked, silent battlemages.

Currency
The Empire uses 4 distinct types of coins each of a different metal and shape: Circular coins made from copper called Shards, silver triangles called Bells, gold squares called Gems and extremely rare platinum diamonds simply called Platinums. Each type of coin is worth 100 of the former except for Platinums which are worth 10 gold Gems. A good drink and a filling meal will cost about 10 copper Shards.

Gods and religion
Religion is outlawed by Imperial law and has been since the days of Empress Aveliere. It is said that she used magic to either slay or disprove the gods, and many a scholar argue about which it is to this day.

Fiction, fantasy, monsters and technology
The world of Avelierys is set in a late medieval fantasy, a world of plate armoured knights wielding all manner of medieval weapons, castles, wind powered ships and big, ugly and clumsy firearms. Monsters aren't a common sight but do exist, and when they do are often the subject of bounties and hunts.

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Character Sheet

* Players are welcome to bring their character across organically or write an in-depth backstory and personality for them beforehand, it's all up to the individual.

Character Name:
Species:
Sex:
Physical Description (Pictures can go here if you want):

Profession:
Starting Equipment/Belongings:

Avelierys - Original Fantasy World (CLOSED - Indefinite hiatus)

Avelierys - Original Fantasy World (CLOSED - Indefinite hiatus)

The rooftops of Averine stand against the backdrop of a blue sky slowly greying as the morning threatens rain. The market was already busy, with some merchants setting up their stalls while others call their merchandise above the hustle and bustle in the street while the market guards keep a stroll nonchalantly about with their spears watching for thieves. A heavily built, tall man with a mop of messy black hair and even messier beard boasts about the quality of the Blacksteel arms and armour he is selling. Butchers, grocers, carpenters, jewellers, cloth merchants try their best to beat the competition and to sell their wares as the market gets busier and busier.

By the port a fishmonger wanders the docks with a wheel barrel full of his morning catch, peddling them to those he thinks might be interested. Rumour has it there was a murder in the early hours of the morning, a sailor off a ship just in from Delucia lost three card games in a row and accused his opponent of cheating, one thing lead to another and the sailor was stabbed leading to one of the three men involved being apprehended while the other escaped.

Outside the city the townsfolk from the surrounding farms plough fields and care for their cattle. A man in an ornate breastplate and matching morion carrying a pike heads towards the city gates with a bound and shackled, wolfish-looking man in tow. Even further afield the citizens of the Empire go about their daily lives with no knowledge of rumours or strange happenings. Save for the occasional blood feud, the rumour of horrid monsters sighted here and there, it would seem that all is well in Avelierys, and without so much as an insult or scandal involving the nobles for weeks one might wonder how long this apparent wellness can keep up.