- Invitation Status
- Posting Speed
- 1-3 posts per week
- One post per week
- Slow As Molasses
- Online Availability
- Afternoons and evenings, some weekends.
- Writing Levels
- Intermediate
- Adept
- Advanced
- Prestige
- Douche
- Adaptable
- Preferred Character Gender
- Male
- Female
- Primarily Prefer Male
- Primarily Prefer Female
- Genres
- Fantasy, Science Fiction, Post Apocalypse, Horror, Romance, Survival...
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Status: Just updated the OOC to accommodate LoR 2's Paths of War. | The IC is about to enter an intermission period, as nations meet to discuss international affairs. | 0 Player Spots Available. | 22 Living Player Characters. | 16 Dead Player Characters. | 25 Total Dead. (Missions only.)
The IC is located here. | You can find a world map here (6400x4800), for visual reference. | Mission information will be linked here at a later date.
[warning=red]This role play features plentiful character deaths, stats & traits, and the potential for failure. In exchange, however, the world—in its present state—is nearly entirely because of player-driven actions. The successes, and the failures. If you're interested in joining, beware that this role play can and will chew through the majority of its player characters before it ends.
Seriously, don't try to join this if your character dying would bother you. There are situations where your character will have to take risks that may not pay off and may result in their death instead.[/warning]
green "The Escalating War" is dedicated to explaining the changes the RP has gone through.
"Intelligence Centre" is dedicated towards explaining the current world situation. This is where information about world leaders, world powers, and companions can be found.
"Registration Centre" is the character sheet. Remember—the queen of an entire country is vetting you. You can be rejected for simply not being fit for the duties associated with being a Queen's Blade—so think what would be acceptable for an agent within the story as well as outside of it!
"Resources Centre" is where the stat and trait system is located and explained.
"Master Archives" is where ancillary lore about the world is located. Unlike the Intelligence Centre, this has nothing to do with factions or characters pertinent to the plot. This is historical events, footnotes on races, and so on.
"Library of Records" is all the miscellaneous stuff. You can find a quick Q&A here. This will be useful for new players and old players who are transitioning to the new system. There's also a death counter here.
If you have any questions and can't find your answers in these tabs, please ask in the OOC. You will get a faster answer here than most other places.
The Paths of War
Ten years ago, after the Gods were banished from the mortal realm by Queen Kouri, the kingdom of Renalta was rebuilt from ashes. As part of this effort, the Queen's Blades were formed under the direct supervision of the royal family of Renalta, to serve as international agents for the crown for the impending invasion by the Nine Hells with the absence of the Gods. Their first missions came recently, after a surprise attack on Arian village. For their first missions, casualty rates were high, and several agents did not survive to see the next sunrise. A defensive strategy had been in use by one of the royal family's advisers for the coming conflict—a woman known as Amanda the Archmage. Now, however, as the conflict ramps up with no aid in sight for the ailing Queen's Blades, the strategy must change. No longer can the royalty stand by and watch its agents suffer under mismanagement by an adviser's poor directions.
So it will, no longer, be run by those who place their bets on fate and destiny. On the unnatural, weaving plots of entities who may not have the mortal realm's best interests at heart.
The Queen's Blades have been reformed to meet a new threat, as the hopes of uniting the world against the Nine Hells have been dashed. Treachery has come in the form of a political dagger and cowardice, and though Renalta has stalwart allies thanks to the acts and sacrifices by the Queen's Blades against the coming forces of darkness, it now stands upon the precipice of destruction. The world is but a single stroke away from being delivered into the arms of those who would sell it for their own, vain self-interest.
The royalty of Renalta—Queen Kouri & Queen Alexandria—prepare all of their forces for the coming war. The entire world of Renalta is at stake as the entirety of the Nine Hells prepares to invade the mortal realm. They'll need as many competent agents as they can get, and though the rigours of a Queen's Blade are difficult, they welcome anyone willing to try.
Will you become a Queen's Blade, and attempt to stop the incoming demon invasion? Will you help to rally the other nations together under one, common cause? Or will you turn your back on this world, and leave it to its fate?
The Escalating War Intelligence Centre Registration Centre Resources Centre Master Archives Library of Records-
The Queen's Blades are no longer international agents, but are now direct servants of the crown with a chain of command akin to that of their King's Rangers counterparts. They'll be vetted accordingly, with ineffective agents being dismissed and effective agents being promoted. As such, the entire system has been updated to fit the theme of war. Below, you can find a history of influences the Queen's Blades have had up to this point, as well as the chain of command.
The Queen's Blades are an organization that works for Queen Kouri of Renalta, ruler of the Kingdom of Renalta. They're international agents that hail from homelands all over the continent, and who come from all walks of life. They're agents of the crown, and do mission requests for other nations, in the hopes of gathering allies, bringing stability, and combating corruption. All of these things--diplomacy, warfare, and more--are in the pursuit of their one, ultimate objective.
To prepare for and then defeat the invasion of the mortal realm by the Nine Hells.
Beyond this, everything else is secondary, save for loyalty to the crown.
Each of these actions by the players resulted in changes, good or bad, for the overall story. Some are major, some are minor. Some may never come up again, depending on the path the players take in the story. For new players, this is optional, though perhaps useful reading. For old players, they might be amused to see all they've done and all that's happened already.
This will be updated when all of the current missions are completed. I can't in good conscience assume to know what players will do, or worse still, railroad their endings. That's not fair now, is it?
Characters who behave well in the IC get promoted. As a general rule of thumb...
- Don't rambo or try to resolve issues (especially combat) single handed. Use your team, it's what they're there for. Work together!
- Don't behave like a social neanderthal or make grave accusations against important people for no reason. Committing social faux pas is something Kouri has to clean up afterwards, and this is a quick way to get you thrown out. If your character is an antisocial, hyper-racist, hyper-sexist bigot, they may want to just shut up and keep it to themselves. You're talking to world leaders, here.
- Beware making deals outside of missions, especially with characters like Sarah Darkhammer or Amanda the Archmage. They can be equal parts useful and compromising.
- Do acts of heroism, or otherwise doing the right thing.
- Do express elements of leadership and/or cooperation. If you can work well with others and take the mantle of leadership where necessary, this reflects well on you and ups the likelihood of you being promoted.
- Do think smarter, not harder. The better and more coherent your plans, the more appreciable an asset your character will become.
Ranks: You'll be informed what rank your character is in the OOC, and your character's rank will be mentioned beside your character's name in the list of characters. Dead characters prior to this will remain rankless.
- Recruit: Your character is fresh to the Queen's Blades. Recruits gain one artifact/manpower slot. Try not to die too quickly.
- Regular: Your character has survived at least one round of missions, but hasn't done anything to warrant a promotion. Regulars gain two artifacts/manpower slots.
- Veteran: Your character has survived at least one round of missions, and has been promoted once. Veterans can vote for what missions they're going to do next. Veterans gain three artifact/manpower slots.
- Elite: Your character has survived at least one round of missions, and has been promoted twice. Elites can vote for what missions they're going to do next. Elites generally have their political opinions taken more seriously than their lower ranked counterparts, and are granted a small estate in any nation they've impressed upon: A mansion estate, typically between 5-10 acres, with anywhere between 50-100 servants and bodyguards. Elites gain five artifact/manpower slots. To obtain this rank, you need to do IC-story related content, and gain the political recommendation of at least one world leader.
- Nobility: Your character has survived at least one round of missions, and has been promoted three times. Nobility can vote for what missions they're going to do next and their vote is weighed with twice the value of normal. (1 noble vote = value of 2.) Nobility not only have their political opinions taken more seriously, but are considered members of a political state with the ability to speak on its behalf in a limited capacity. Nobility gain a large estate, between 50-80 acres, and rulership over a small town of anywhere between 500-10,000 people. Nobility gain eight artifact/manpower slots. To obtain this rank, you need to do IC-story related content, and gain the political recommendation of one world leader. Atop this, you need to be given knighthood (or societal equivalent) by that same world leader.
As you can see, attempting to ascend the social ladder and manoeuvre through the political machine has its benefits. Work hard, work smart, and form relationships. It benefits everyone—but most importantly, it benefits you. -
This area is divided into multiple sections, as there is a great deal of information on this world. None of this is required reading unless otherwise mentioned, but if you want to better understand the nations you'll be working with and world leaders who will be employing you, look here. Companions are also located here—they work directly with you on missions by request, though that will be explained in greater detail later.
No, seriously though, you really don't need to read all of this at all. This is reference material, go to it when you need to look something up. Otherwise, trying to read and memorize all of this will probably drive you insane.
Nations
Details about the current state of affairs on the nations, as well as further details on each of the nations of note currently at play on the world stage.
Overall State Nations Info Kingdom of Renalta Kingdom of Liveria Kingdom of Rheinfeld Kingdom of Tuleria The Free Holds The Goblin Holds The Imperium The Blood Sea The Drow Empire The Dwarf Meritocracy-
Friendly
Enemy
Ally/Home State
Neutral or Distrustful
The Kingdom of Renalta is the home nation of the Queen's Blades, and should always be friendly towards them as a result.
The Kingdom of Liveria presently has a positive outlook towards the Queen's Blades, and is on the verge of allying with the Kingdom of Renalta. They are giving humanitarian aid to the Kingdom of Tuleria.
The Kingdom of Rheinfeld presently have a mixed outlook towards the Queen's Blades: They helped forge a peace treaty between the two rebel factions, but in their hour of need on assaulting the capital, the Queen's Blades turned their backs on them.
The Kingdom of Tuleria is friendly towards Renalta, seeing them as a close ally, though still recovering from the reshuffling of their government, and all too acutely aware that it was Kouri who chose to save them: Not the Queen's Blades. They are at war with the Free Holds. As the defenders, their quick military reorganization has kept them alive.
The Free Holds presently have a mixed outlook on the Queen's Blades: They helped assassinate Deimos, but left Rashad in his hour of need, throwing the country back into a state of feuding warlords. Though they've "declared war" on the Kingdom of Tuleria, in truth, it is only a couple of neighbouring holds that have done so, and the rest will only fight on the defensive.
The Goblin Holds are friendly towards Renalta, having recently received a significant military boon thanks to their help. It also helps that the Queen's Blades honoured one of Kouri's promises, and that Emperor Xixis & Queen Kouri share a long and pleasant history together. They're also delivering humanitarian aid to the Kingdom of Tuleria.
The Imperium are allies of the Kingdom of Renalta, and will fight by their side to the bitter end of the war thanks to the repeated, unerring assistance granted to them by the Queen's Blades. The fact that Queen's Blades have given their lives in every mission aiding them hasn't hurt either. They have opened their artifacts and manpower resources for them, and have started sending small missions of their own to try and maintain stability in nations around the world.
The Amazons are part of the Imperium, and fight as a specialized auxiliary force. They, too, have opened their artifacts and manpower to the Queen's Blades.
The Drow Empire have broken away from the Underdark Alliance and have openly declared war on the Kingdom of Renalta. There are sparse reports of demonic sacrifices imbuing the Drow with powerful, but evil spirits, confirming that they have chosen to side with the demons. It may be possible to sabotage this political alliance, as the Drow are not naturally prone to being in a unitary state...
The Dwarven Meritocracy are reeling from the broken alliance and are presently testing the waters, seeing if they should bother to take a side in this conflict. Demons could manipulate them to their side if we don't get to them first.
The Blood Sea Undead have aided the Kingdom of Tuleria as requested, but gained no help of their own. They're highly distrustful of "the deaf" by nature, and while they'll never side with demons, they have threatened to simply attempt mass genocide against neighbouring nations to arm themselves with a corpse army. -
Demon Invasion Potential: (Very Low, Low, Medium, High, Very High.) (Failed missions, or ignoring mission requests, will generally increase this. If a local demon agent is detected, failing to take this are to be corrupted on a wide scale.)
Demon Agents Detected: (Yes/No.) (If a Demon Agent is detected, and what type it is. If there is more than one Agent, it will be mentioned. There can be, at most, seven Agents on the field at once, though there can be multiple Agents of a single type operating in different missions. It should be noted that Meryl counts as a Demon Agent by the Mage's Guild, and is the only Agent of Sloth that is known to exist.) mission causes it to spike even higher.)
Corruption: (Very Low, Low, Medium, High, Very High.) (Same as above, though if a demon agent is detected, they may outright corrupt high ranking officials.)
Mage's Guild Presence: (Yes/No.) (If the Renaltan Mage's Guild is located here, they can confirm or deny the presence of demon agents, as well as rapidly transport Queen's Blades to and from these locations. Friendly nations or allies who also have Mage's Guilds of their own will usually pass this information along to the Renaltan Royalty.)
Current State: (Very Poor, Poor, Moderate, Good, Very Good.) (The overall state of the nation, and how they're able to deal with things on a military or economic level. The poorer the state of a nation, the more likely they
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Government Type: (The type of government that runs the nation.)
Age: (How old this nation is. In the case of Renalta and the Imperium, their homelands do get talked about prior to the existence of those states.)
Environments: (What the local lands are like.)
Neighbours: (Who are their neighbours, and where?)
Culture/History: (What the people and civilization is like, and how it arose.) -
Demon Invasion Potential: Very low.
Corruption: Very low.
Mage's Guild Presence: Yes.
Current State: Very Good.
Demon Agents Detected: Yes. Agent of Sloth. (Meryl.)
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Government Type: Absolute Monarchy. (Likely changing to a Constitutional Monarchy soon after the war ends, as the old Renalta was.)
Age: 10 Years.
Environments: Rolling grasslands dominate the landscape, with plentiful farmland. There are mountains to the north, swamps to the south, and forests to the east. It is an idyllic land, and though the Kingdom is young, it is quickly growing. Villages dot the land, with Renalta being the only city, and one of the most populated on the entire continent.
Neighbours: Kingdom of Rheinfeld, across the mountains to the north. Kingdom of Liveria, sharing a grassland border to the east. The swamps to the south are a dangerous zone of time errors, and the forest to the east is known as the Dark Forest—it stretches for hundreds of miles, and there is no documented "other side."
Culture/History: Approximately four thousand years ago, during the dark ages after the fall of the Imperium, hapless villages were ruled over with an iron fist by vampire lords and bandit gangs. One day, as the ancient stories go, one such village, ruled by an especially powerful vampire lord, was visited by a foreign female knight, named Myria. She met a man, whose name has been lost with history, but who was determined to free his village. The two trained hard, then took to training the populace in secret. They then marched upon and attacked the vampire lord in his dark castle.
It was at this point that the man was slain, facing the vampire lord valiantly, though he was no match for the vampire's superior strength. The vampire then turned to kill Myria, but before he could break through her stalwart defence, one peasant mustered the courage to interfere, while the rest stayed back, terrified of the vampire lord. This peasant charged from behind and impaled the vampire lord with a pitchfork, killing him. This peasant later became the first King, the village renamed itself after his last name in his honour. The female knight later married the King, adopting his last name.
The village of Renalta then freed other villages around it, quickly spreading and becoming a full fledged kingdom of tolerance. A place of acceptance, culture, and eventually, the exploration of magic. Though they occasionally were forced to fight wars against Gault (ancient Rheinfeld), they never lost the courage to beat back what was otherwise supposed to be a superior foe. The nation thrived, its monarchy beloved by the people, which lived upon the principle of treating the people well. For, after all, the start of the bloodline was nothing more than a peasant, and a foreign knight. Anyone could become the King or Queen, if they proved worthy enough to marry into the line. Whether or not this legend is completely accurate is not known, but the general premise of it is. Either way, it's generally seen as a good story to tell to children.
A thousand years ago, the Kingdom of Renalta was destroyed by the wrath of the Gods. Queen Kouri (a princess at the time) had been evacuated from the kingdom and frozen in time. Ten years ago, she awoke while the Gods were weakened and with the aid of allies, banished the Gods from the mortal realm. This is seen with understandably mixed views, though the populace overwhelmingly likes her, as she is seen as a down-to-Earth, compassionate ruler, who has the best interests of her people at heart. The people of Renalta are extremely loyal to their kingdom, their way of life, and the royal family.
The people of Renalta are a tolerant, peaceful people who pride themselves on being welcoming of immigrants of all shapes and sizes. The idyllic kingdom formed only a short time ago, shortly after the Gods were banished from the world. The largest and most prolific Mage's Guild can be found here, in the form of the Mage's Guild under command of Amanda the Archmage. The rulers of the kingdom are Queen Kouri & Queen Alexandria. There are two heirs to the throne: Twins, who are nine years old.
The military of the nation can best be seen in their swordsmen and crossbowmen, often backed up by regiments of mages. They're an average, run of the mill military machine whose primary strength is found in its variety of cultures and tactics, and indomitable willpower. There has never once been a battle, no matter how upsetting, that the Renaltan military has ever backed down from unless otherwise ordered to retreat.
Prior to the revival of the Kingdom of Renalta, the land was simply a series of disparate towns and villages that worked together to drive away bandits and other troubles. They would have likely joined the Kingdom of Liveria at some point, if not for Queen Kouri's legendary return. The cause for the thriving capital being a major metropolitan city is the steady flow of immigrants, drawn to the welcoming culture of Renalta that most other nations can't even feign to aspire towards. -
Demon Invasion Potential: Very low.
Corruption: Very low.
Mage's Guild Presence: Yes.
Current State: Very Good.
Demon Agents Detected: Yes. Agent of Envy.
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Government Type: Oligarchic Monarchy. (Monarchy rules for life, but an unpopular or poor monarchy can be voted out of power and replaced by a member of the oligarchy.)
Age: 150-200 Years.
Environments: Rolling grasslands, foothills. Mountains to the north, swamps to the south, and a long coastline to the east that runs from the mountains to the swamps. Villages dot the landscape, with only one major city—though it is not as well populated as its ideological rival, Renalta. The architecture is gothic, producing a cold atmosphere that compliments their isolationist views.
Neighbours: To the north across the mountains is Rheinfeld, and within the mountains a loose collection of orcish tribes. To the west is Renalta, its bigger and yet younger sibling. To the east is the vast stretches of ocean, connecting them to Tuleria, though they prefer to prevent trade rather than endorse it.
Culture/History: The Kingdom of Liveria arose some hundreds of years after the fall of the first Kingdom of Renalta sent the world into a second dark age. Bandits, vampires, and orcs raided the little villages throughout the old kingdom, though no area was raided harder than the east coast. Approximately two hundred years ago, the village of Liveria allied with its surrounding villages and, one by one over a conflict that lasted several years, beat back the bandits, the orcs, and the vampire lords. They adopted a policy of isolationism, seeing most of the world around them as barbaric and psychotically violent.
The country as a whole is arranged into certain social classes, though it is most prominently seen as the peasant class who work the lands, the oligarchic nobles who own the land, and the currently reigning royal family who maintains the Liverian way of life against outsiders. They're suspicious of magicians who operate outside of the Mage's Guild, to the point of sometimes hunting them down and killing them if they believe them to be responsible for any illegal acts. Vampires are loathed, as are orcs, though while the lower classes feel nothing but hatred for them, the upper classes tend to feel some level of pity. Especially towards vampires—who typically never had a choice about becoming what it is they are.
Ultimately, as part of their isolationist views of the world, Liverians typically subscribe to their own version of stoicism. Liverian stoicism is about living through pain. Unless the wound is lethal or crippling, they will typically reject magical healing for it and will instead allow the body to naturally mend it by itself.
The Kingdom of Liveria is in a very confused relationship with its neighbour, the Kingdom of Renalta. Families live on each side of the border—it is rare for someone living in either country not to have family on the other side. Yet, Renalta's culture of tolerance towards everyone and open door policy on immigrants doesn't mesh with Liveria's culture of self-protection through isolationism and historic xenophobia towards certain races. The issue is further exacerbated by the fact that the Liverian oligarchy generally doesn't recognize the marriage between Queen Kouri & Queen Alexandria as legitimate, and this includes Crown-Prince Xavier, who has propositioned Kouri for marriage and been rejected years ago.
Their military is best expressed in their Witch Hunter units: Small squads of highly trained, very well armed light troops that can quickly take down powerful enemies, hunt targets down, and so on. When the country itself is threatened, they tend to resort to mass peasant levies as cannon fodder while the Witch Hunters take out important targets. Their military objective is survival, not conquest. However, where it comes to battlefield manipulation through commander assassinations and cunning ploys, none can best them. After all, an army without generals is often nothing more than a disorganized rabble. -
Demon Invasion Potential: Low.
Corruption: Medium.
Mage's Guild Presence: No.
Current State: Moderate.
Demon Agents Detected: ? (No Mage's Guild!)
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Government Type: Anarchy. It is presently divided between the Rheinfeld Republic rebels, and the Templar Order—who wish to establish a monarchy which is kept in check by the Templar Order. The remaining Papal Forces have been shattered across the western half of the country.
Age: 400 Years. It has been ruled by the Papacy for this entire duration, until very recently.
Environments: Rolling hills, grasslands, and farmlands stretch as far as the eye can see east and west. To the south is the mountain border with Renalta, and to the north and west is the Blood Sea. To the east, the same mountain border that stretches across their border with Renalta, curves toward the north and blocks natural access to the vast oceans of the east. There are multiple large cities, though Heiligen Stuhl is their capital—where the Papacy had ruled for the past 400 years.
Neighbours: The Kingdom of Renalta & Liveria are south of Rheinfeld. To the north and east is the Blood Sea, though only a recently discovered neighbour. To the north west is the Imperium, across the sea to the north lay the Goblin Holds, and to the north east is the reforming Kingdom of Tuleria. The Kingdom of Rheinfeld has traditionally been known to be the gateway from the harsh northern kigndoms to the more fertile southern kingdoms, and throughout history has traditionally stood alone.
Culture/History: Though much history has been lost with time, it is known that there was once an ancient nation known as Gault. Gault rejected the rulership of the Imperium, and some time after the fall of the Imperium, they fell into infighting, as dozens if not hundreds of nobles and messiahs all made claims to the throne of Gault. History gets fuzzy for the next thousands of years, as Gault too suffered through the dark ages that plunged the world into suffering and stagnation. By the time Gault finally defeated its internal threats to become a real nation on the world stage, another southern kingdom had arisen to challenge them: The Kingdom of Renalta.
They often went to war with the Kingdom of Renalta, as they were embittered ideological rivals. Where Renalta wanted to tolerate, Gault wanted to punish. Where Renalta wanted to spread diplomacy and peace, Gault was only interested in righteous vindication. The two often went to war and peace. At one point, their royal lines even intermarried with one another—only for the two to fall into war again some few decades later. Eventually, when Renalta fell, Gault became the only nation of the south still standing.
The nation suffered civil wars and riots, but barely managed to keep itself intact. Then, a little over four hundred years ago, the nation ripped itself apart in an extremely violent civil war. There was a faction that wanted to invade and permanently take over the remnants of Renalta, and a faction that declared that such an act would be punished by the Gods, for it was the Gods who had smote the land and its people in the first place to such a weak state. Eventually, after a few brutal years of conquest, the Gods-fearing faction won. This faction installed the Papacy, created the Templar Order as it now stands, and named the kingdom Rheinfeld. While they went on crusades in foreign lands to restore order for the Gods or to attempt to weaken political opponents, they never aimed to capture and hold any further land than what they already possessed.
The Kingdom of Rheinfeld is and always has been a highly religious nation by its very nature, and the banishment of the Gods ten years ago has done nothing to abate this fact. There are very distinct social classes—between the militarized nobility of the Templar Order, and the primarily illiterate commoner mob of the Rheinfeld Republic. In the past, they went on crusades against lands they felt might be irreverent against the Gods, but in recent years, they've lightened up on their once mercilessly bloodthirsty ways.
They worship two gods more than any other—The Father and The Mother. The Father is the God of the Templar, known for his honour and courage. The Mother is the Goddess of the priests and priestesses, who is known for her compassion and forgiveness. They are idols that both the commoners and the nobility typically strive to emulate in all ways—though the interpretations of how that is to be done can vary wildly from person to person.
Ten years ago, when the Gods were banished, it was revealed that the Papacy was not communicating with the Gods whatsoever. The traditionally Gods-appointed position was, in fact, a farce. His miracles were, in fact, magic. The same magic that the Papacy decried and demanded the Templar Order seek out and destroy at all costs. This shook the entire nation, and caused the Templar Order to immediately invoke a crusade against the Papacy—to dethrone them. This, however, also left shock waves within the Templar Order itself: All of its priests, who had been giving blessings, were in fact magicians themselves. This left the Templar Order split on how to handle mages—which it traditionally imprisoned or burned to death—resulting in it being indecisive for its first couple of years of rebellion against the Papacy.
Meanwhile, the Rheinfeld Republic was ushered to life after the peasant mobs became woeful at being recruited for slaughter by the Papacy against the Templar Order. Riots sprang up in the northern frontier, and upon discovery of a different way of governance by the resurfacing Imperium, they began to seek a new way of life: Not one ruled by merciless dictators or an apathetic, militarized nobility, but one where the commoner would be ruled by the commoner. The Templar Order countered that such a government run by the illiterate could not function, and refused to support the notion that would cause them to lose power.
Thus, for another seven years, they three sides fought each other, with none of them being particularly decisive. Recently, however, the Templar Order and the Rheinfeld Republic came together to sign a treaty of peace to turn their sights on the real enemy: The Papacy. The Queen's Blades oversaw the negotiation and ensured the survival of the Templar Order's second in command. When the time came for the battle against the capital however, the Queen's Blades failed to show to help.
Now, the Rheinfeld Republic and Templar Order have captured the capital and driven the Pope into exile. Time will tell if a stable government can be found in this tumultuous land.
Their military is comprised of heavy shock troops which traditionally excel both on the defence and offence. There is no military in the world with a better equipped force than that of Rheinfeld, even in its currently debilitated state. Their elite soldiers are also typically immune to magic outright, making it highly difficult for mages to even hinder them. -
Demon Invasion Potential: Very Low.
Corruption: Very Low.
Mage's Guild Presence: No, but a local Mage's Tower is present and has aligned its interests with those of the Mage's Guild.
Current State: Good.
Demon Agents Detected: Yes.
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Government Type: Oligarchic Monarchy. (Very recent. Prior to this, it was a triumvirate with a military leader, mage leader, and monarch.)
Age: 1400 Years. (1,000 years as a triumvirate kingdom, 400 years as a series of city states. Only recently became a straight monarchy.)
Environments: A myriad of lands are present within the boundaries of this land, though most pressingly mountains to the north, desert sands from the eastern oceans to the Blood Sea in the south-west, and swamps to the south. Magic permeates this land, often producing strange effects. Lizardmen tribal encampments can be found dotting the land, and many races call this land home—even races not native to the continent. Humans and Lizardmen are the primary population here, unlike in most nations, were humans tend to be more dominant than any other population overall.
Tuleria is the capital, and is known for being made out of a mix and mash of cultures. Most of the buildings are made out of limestone. Port Luclin is their primary export and import center for overseas trade goods, though it's not uncommon for captains who leave on adventures to never return, which makes overseas travel dangerous.
Neighbours: To the north west is the Free Holds, whom the Kingdom of Tuleria are often on icy relations with. To the west, cross the Blood Sea is the Imperium. To the south west is the Kingdom of Rheinfeld. Their eastern frontier is bordered by ocean, and they often find themselves the welcome guests of distant lands, though it is rare to ever learn anything about them, as trade is the priority. It's not uncommon for people to come from distant lands through Tuleria, and settle on the continent somewhere else.
Culture/History: The Kingdom of Tuleria was originally a series of city states, akin to the Free Holds, though smaller in nature. Trade from the east brought them power and strange innovations, and the local lizardmen tribes caused them to slowly disassociate from the other merchant's holds. Finally, a thousand years ago—shortly after the fall of the Kingdom of Renalta—three factions arose and took power over the land: The military, the mages, and a monarchy. For centuries this triumvirate of leaders maintained control, and defended against aggressive expansionism from the Free Holds and the Kingdom of Rheinfeld's violent crusades.
When Kouri banished the Gods, the Kingdom of Tuleria was relatively unaffected. They remained a neutral, merchant's nation, even as the lizardmen tribes quietly became more and more irritable with the state of things. Then, one of the leaders of the triumvirate—General Varro—came into contact with a terrible artifact that was later discovered to have corrupted his mind. He was later assassinated, breaking the triumvirate. Before it could reform, the country was then struck by a small invasion from the Nine Hells, who broke through a small tear in reality. The Queen's Blades came to the aid of the Kingdom of Tuleria, and aided in closing the portal while the Tulerian army pushed forward to take it themselves.
In the three weeks that have followed, the triumvirate has been abolished and replaced with an oligarchic monarchy. King Boann retains his seat of power as the King, with Janelle stepping down from political office to focus on reorganizing the Mage's Tower to work with the military. For the time being, the council that helps guide the decisions of King Boann is comprised of various military and mage leaders, as well as some of his previous advisers. The triumvirate has been broken: Perhaps only for now, perhaps forever.
Tuleria as a culture emphasizes trade and knowledge, and its people tend to pride themselves on being free to go about their business as they please... Even if their business is not entirely legal. It's one of the most racially tolerant kingdoms on the continent, only putting value to the merits and skills others possess. So long as their ability to trade isn't interfered with, they tend to stay out of international affairs. Celebrations and parties are common. The tribes that live out in the desert sands and swamps, tend to be somewhat isolationist in nature. Many are nomadic, though some have settled down. They, too, enjoy trade, though they dislike the idea of outsiders "settling" amongst their tribes.
Either way, the Kingdom of Tuleria's military is reorganizing itself to take full advantage of its technological edge in warfare. Cannons and mortars are being produced and salvaged faster than ever, and entire battalions of rifled troops accompanied by mages now line the battlefield. They've done exceptionally well at holding back Free Holder slavers and mercenaries who might have otherwise broken through the weakened Tuleria. The Kingdom of Tuleria is on the cusp of discovering line warfare, and is the only nation to wield firearms as part of its main composition. Lizardmen shock troops are also not uncommon, thanks to them being biologically larger than most humans.
On the naval end of things, the Kingdom of Tuleria quietly resolved its rampant piracy issue by giving independent captains the status of privateers. The Kingdom of Tuleria pays privateer captains to ransack other nation's merchant and military vessels, then allows them to sell their goods in Tulerian ports without question. Though this practice is more employed in the open oceans to the east, it has seen use in the Blood Sea—especially in times of resource shortages or war. -
Demon Invasion Potential: Low.
Corruption: Low.
Mage's Guild Presence: Yes.
Current State: Good.
Demon Agents Detected: Yes. (Agent of Greed.)
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Government Type: City-States Warlords.
Age: Approximately two thousand years, though much of its history has been lost over time, or rewritten to better service newer warlords over their predecessors.
Environments: Long stretches of desert punctuated by the occasional magical apparition or oasis. It's not uncommon to find large animals, mutated by magic either. Typically enlarged versions of otherwise ordinary animals—such as worms large enough to swallow men whole, or scorpions large enough to prey on camels and bears. Individual holds are large and most often surrounded by walls, with rooftops connected by planks to allow traffic both on and above the dusty streets.
To the north lies a magical barrier, and beyond it lies endless snow as far as the eye can see. The magical barrier is normally impenetrable, and though there are sightings of creatures or people beyond the barrier, no contact has been made with cultures beyond the barrier for so long as the Free Holds have existed.
Neighbours: The Kingdom of Rheinfeld to the south, beyond the Blood Sea. To the east lies the Kingdom of Tuleria. To the west lies the Amazons, now part of the Imperium.
Culture/History: For the past couple thousand years, the Free Holds have stood as one of the oldest remaining nations in existence, though their history is fogged by constant propaganda rewritings by local warlords. It also isn't particularly a truly unified nation, having no semblance of a federal government. It operates as a series of city-states, each ruled by a warlord. Each city-state is known as a Free Hold, and the local laws (what few there are) vary from hold to hold. Most infamously, slavery is widespread throughout the holds and is one of the Free Hold's most profitable enterprises.
The Free Holds on an individual level often have their leaders assassinated and replaced save in times of existential crisis. The only time the Free Holds come together to fight is when any foreign nation presents a threat to them through war, conquest, or blockades. They otherwise can be found orchestrating one another's assassinations, bidding on high quality slaves, and evading or preventing their own assassinations. Though often mocked for being named the Free Holds in spite of their slavery, they openly tend to disdain such mockery and point out that any slave strong enough or clever enough to free themselves remains free—there is no state-enforced slavery protections for slave owners.
Prior to two thousand years ago, the Free Holds were often split into anywhere between two to five smaller nations, squabbling over territorial disputes. They were smaller then, and weaker—often falling prey to crusades from the southern kingdom that existed before Rheinfeld. The desert sands were harsh and bred equally coarse men, who took land from one another time and time again. As time went on, only more nations began to appear—more feuding warlords, often trapped to singular city-states and assassinated by their own advisers for power. New bloodlines ran through the thrones faster than sand caught in a gust of wind.
Eventually, the warlords finally agreed to unite under the banner of the Free Holds. To create some level of stability, they agreed that no hold could ever rule over another—all holds were equal, and each would be ruled by its own, strongest and most cunning men. Occasionally, women also ascended to the status of warlord, though not as often as men did, in part due to the prolific nature of the sex trade making it somewhat safer than pursuing the warlord's throne of a free hold.
Eventually, the Free Holds began to grow into a trade power that tried its hand at colonization. This colonization effort later became Tuleria—though the Kingdom of Tuleria denies it, often citing that over a thousand years have passed since that time, and history is often revised in favour of the Free Holds within the Free Holds. Attempts at expansion to the east, through the jungles, consistently failed as the Amazonians there stopped them time and again. There would be no expansion across the Blood Sea either: The Tulerian navy was stronger than their own in most instances, and the southern nations proved far too strong to be inducted into the vastly superior mercantile culture of the Free Holds.
Yet, the power dynamics changed, as the Free Holds continued on. A thousand years ago, when the Kingdom of Renalta fell, the Free Holds grew and thrived. They became the world's reigning military superpower, with hardened, elite mercenary armies that were quick to mobilize and attack anyone who stopped their economic might. For a brief time, it even seemed they might be able to conquer their long time rival—the Kingdom of Tuleria. Before that could occur however, infighting inevitably came, and weakened them from within. They were a superpower that feasted upon itself more than anyone else.
As time went on, the last of the kingdoms of the south fell into anarchy, and formed a new kingdom—the Kingdom of Rheinfeld. Beyond it, the Kingdom of Liveria began to stir to life. Where kingdoms rose and fell, the Free Holds lived on. Finally, the last major change came with the banishment of the Gods. The Imperium rose from nowhere to the west, reinforcing and eventually growing to ally with the Amazonians against the Free Holds. The Goblin Holds erupted from the centre of the Free Holds, and ripped through like a whirlwind of pain. The Kingdom of Tuleria unlocked the magic of gunpowder, and the Kingdom of Renalta thundered back—promoting its ever so frustrating cultural motif of "human rights."
They went from having one direct rival nation to three. Still, their military might allowed them to fend off all three and hold the most important of the Free Holds. Slavery still thrives, though there are whispers of change coming from within...
The Free Holds' military is known for being comprised of mercenaries, the most elite of which are part of their mass conscript armies. In days, they can fashion a highly skilled and mobile army, capable of many different techniques and strategies at the drop of a hat. They are masters of no particular art of war, but are capable of nearly all of them. They also have large amounts of manpower, as the Free Holds is one of the oldest nations on the planet—in spite of their tumultuous and violent nature, and desert environment. -
((@Kadaeux worked on this entry, as Xixis Madheart is his character, and the Goblin Holds was his creation as a result of decisions he made in the first role play.))
Demon Invasion Potential: Very low.
Demon Agents Detected: No.
Corruption: Very low.
Mage's Guild Presence: No, but a local guild is present and working with the Mage's Guild to report demon agents.
Current State: Very Good.
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Government Type: Meritocratic Monarchy; Should an heir of the Emperor prove him or herself to have the talent to take the role of Emperor then they're selected as the heir apparent and upon the event of Xixis' death are raised to Emperor or Empress. Should no biological offspring have the talent required, the Emperor may select another of his inner circle who have the talent to take over.
Age: 10 Years, prior to that they were part of the Freeholds.
Environments: Predominantly Deserts and Wasteland dotted with Oases.
Neighbours: Neighbours are Free Holds (north), Imperium (across blood sea - west), Tuleria (across blood sea - east), Rheinfeld (across blood sea - south)
Culture/History: Following the Banishment of the Gods Xixis returned to the 'Free Holds' with an artefact of great power. A Tome of the Madheart Clan studying it greatly he turned its power into the force he needed to band together and unite orc and goblin tribes and take the first major hold in a storm of Orc and Goblins, a tide of monstrous cavalry and great magic. It was then that the defining moments of the Goblin Holds were made apparent. ALL slaves were freed and the Empire was born. Since then a culture of intolerance towards Slavers, and thus towards the Free Holds. In that time Xixis has taken three major holds and a half dozen or so minor holds.
All the while declaring his support in all areas for the Kingdom of Renalta, working to ensure a close relationship between the two 'new' nations over their mutual support during the gods conflict. Foreigners are welcome provided they're not from the freeholds. Any slaves that successfully flee the freeholds are freed within the Goblin Holds.
While the Goblin Holds are predominantly Goblin and Orc, all races are welcome in the Goblin Holds so long as they can obey the simple laws, don't murder people, don't steal from people, don't assault people and don't ever thing of enslaving people. The first and last are punished by impalement, the centre two are punished by 10 years hard labour in the mines.
The Goblin Holds military is relatively typical at first glance... but only at first. While the expected spearmen, infantry and archers are present, but once you look past that it quickly becomes apparent that it's non-typical. The Cavalry are represented by Goblins on Giant Scorpions and Orks on Giant Salamanders as well as the Worm-Riders. Additionally the Elite Units of the Holds Guard typically have the Blunderbuss as their main weapons and the Khopesh and Shield for close combat. They also use other Goblin or orc Shamans as a regular part of the battle line, when Xixis himself isn't supporting them with great acts of magic. -
Demon Invasion Potential: Very Low.
Demon Agents Detected: No.
Corruption: Very Low.
Mage's Guild Presence: Yes.
Current State: Very Good.
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Government Type: Senatorial Republic. The Republic handles the affairs of the state, while the Eternal Empress handles military affairs. The Empress can be overruled by a two-thirds majority in the Senate, but rarely needs to be, as she's generally known as a peace seeker rather than a war maker in most instances.
Age: 10 Years. Prior to this, the lands they inhabited were controlled only by a few small farming villages, who hoped to remain unnoticed by Rheinfeld and the Free Holds, as they had little protection otherwise.
Environments: In the heart of the Imperium, deep forests are being cut down day after day to open up more arable land for the two cities that have sprung up. Animus is the capital, and the two cities are often decorated in Imperial regalia. Grand feats of engineering remain under construction, with architecture the likes of which could feasibly challenge even the most beautiful of Rheinfelder temples, or the Liverian capital—once it's finished, anyway. Otherwise, the much smaller farming towns have slowly started to adopt Imperial culture themselves, though hints of their mixed Rheinfeld-Free Hold background can occasionally still be seen.
To the north, the deep, thick, and dangerous jungles contain the proud Amazonian tribes. These jungles are filled with violent deaths for people, and though the Imperium has begun engineering projects to make them safer, Imperial decrees still require merchant caravans to be escorted by full military guard.
Neighbours: To the east and north-east, the Free Holds pose an existential threat to their existence. Though the Imperium at one point was briefly winning a war against them—taking and renaming the West Hold Colonia for their own liberation efforts, they were beaten back to the river of blood that flows through to the Blood Sea. The two are no longer officially at war, but border skirmishes still occur from time to time. The Kingdom of Rheinfeld can be found on their more southern frontier, across the Blood Sea. The Kingdom of Tuleria lies far across the east, also across the Blood Sea, though Goblin Hold ports lie between them.
Culture/History: The Imperium was once the sole light of civilization across the continent. Their empire stretched from the Amazons, through the Free Holds and Goblin Holds, to where the Kingdom of Tuleria now stands. In their time, magic was but a whisper on the wind, mastered and used only by supernatural and powerful creatures who the Imperium battled with regularly. The Imperium itself united the various mortal tribes and kingdoms, stopping their petty infighting to focus on survival against far more powerful forces. They briefly attempted colonization to the south, to try and relieve pressure upon themselves, only for the colonial effort to break away and become the nation of Gault. Before they could send an Imperial army to reconquer it with ease, they became plagued with an internal issue: Mortals were trying to wield magic, and it was often causing more harm than help, as magic was seemingly impossible to control by mortal will.
Then, ten thousand years ago, their empire came to an abrupt end when Amanda the Archmage unlocked the secrets of magic for any mere mortal to master and use. Magical energies cascaded forth from a hidden well of power, and wiped out most living things on the northern continent. An accident, as Amanda claims to this day. The accident turned the seas into their bloody, twisted state: Making them into a poison where only a few things fished from it could even be considered edible. The once rolling grasslands and farmlands of the northern continent were wiped away, burned into a desert where over ninety eight percent of the population was wiped out in only a few minutes. Only the Amazons were spared, though their nation, deprived of outside help, quickly fractured into tribes and fell backwards in technology.
The thousands of years of dark ages that followed saw no light from the Imperium, and it faded into memory. Little did the world know, that another young mage, named Maurie, had survived the incident. She was a mage, and had been outside of her country when the disaster hit. Overcome with sorrow, she stole as many soul gems as she could and stored as many souls as she could possibly fit into them from the surrounding area, which was permeated with so much magic at the time that she had no effort in taking thousands of wandering souls in. Mostly military, as chance would have it, including her husband and daughter. She then went into a cavern system, in the mountains bordering Tuleria and the Free Holds, and hid there.
It was there that she sacrificed her mortal coil after gathering as much magical energy as she could, turning herself into a Lich for the express purpose of using her own body as a spiritual conduit. This spiritual conduit created a small, illusory area, where the souls she had contained were free to exist. Every six months, the illusory area would reset. The souls could never kill themselves—they would only reincarnate in six months. This continued for nearly twenty thousand cycles, sending people into two camps. One camp wanted to kill Maurie, free themselves, and end it all. The other camp wanted to preserve the last spark of the Imperium for however long they could. The camp that wanted to kill Maurie was known as the freedom camp, whereas the camp that wanted to keep the Imperium alive as long as possible was known as the loyalist camp.
It was at this point that Kouri—princess at the time—encountered them. She saved Maurie from being killed by some of the more unstable souls in the freedom camp, then moved on and banished the Gods. With the Gods banished, the energy of the event flowed in each direction, and Maurie took advantage, finally breaking the bonds everyone struggled under. Everyone was freed, gaining a mortal body once more. Though there was a brief rash of suicides, most of the freedom camp—now free to grow old and die—instead aligned with the loyalist camp, and came out of the cavern system.
The desert sands at first upset them, though the Free Holds upset them more. Underequipped and badly outnumbered, they opted not for immediate conquest, but to slip away. They stole a small fleet in the middle of the night from one port, overloaded the ships, and sailed to the east. There, they landed and found a few small villages, hiding away from the world at large. The Imperium refounded itself there, the Senate becoming elected a short time later. The first act they did was name Maurie the Eternal Empress, as so long as she had magical energy and life energy to sustain off of, her Lich form would keep her everlasting for so long as she chose to live.
The Imperium can be summarized by their ultimate, long-term objective: "The Dream of Empire." This dream was one that the original Imperium espoused, as it was the title of the binding treaty that kept the entire known world under their military control. The Imperium behaves as a federal government, though local nations maintain their identity and governance. Monarchies remain monarchies, republics remain republics, and local laws remain as untouched as possible. The Imperium's mission is to preserve local cultures, not exterminate them. All lands and nations under their control instead unite their military under the Imperial banner, forming massive, multinational armies.
Their culture, therefore, is highly militarized. Duty is core even to coming of age rituals, with the talents of every individual being utilized as best as possible by the state. The senate is also core to their culture, representing the needs and interests of each nation and town under their jurisdiction. There is, however, a small divide between what is known as the "old Imperials" and the "new Imperials." The old Imperials believe that the world and all its nations are simply children of the Imperium that need to be brought under control, one way or another, for the sake of the greater good of all. They also tend to distrust mages, as it was the very unleashing of magic that wiped out their entire civilization. The new Imperials believe that the world will come to its own senses and join the Imperium of their own volition when they are ready, and any idea of outright military conquest of friendly nations disgusts them. They also tend to forgive mages, and thanks to their influence in politics, the Mage's Guild of Renalta was welcomed to aid in the rebuilding effort.
The Imperial military is built around tight formations, with mercenary units and Amazons serving as specialized "auxilia" that operate outside of those formations where appropriate, to best utilize their talents. Though somewhat outdated in strategy, their armies are well trained and equipped. They do often suffer manpower shortages, though on the defensive this hardly impedes them, as their engineering genius allows them to create cunning defences that typically cause an enemy pause on the offence. They are also quick to adapt to new situations, changing their strategies when necessary, though they still struggle to adapt magic into their combat regiments.
The Amazonians are only a recent addition to the Imperium. Their Queen joined the Imperium voluntarily after ancient treaties were discovered that linked the two peoples together as close and trusted allies by the Queen's Blades. She maintains power over her people, and the Imperium avoids interfering with their cultural affairs, though at times the Amazonians and Imperials can squabble over what laws should be local and what laws should be federal. As such, while the Amazonians serve in Imperial armies and give their services freely to Imperial needs, the people themselves largely run their own affairs unimpeded by Imperial.
Amazonian culture is marked primarily by independence and strength. It lives and dies for the hunt. It is matriarchal in nature, with women being the warriors, and men being the caregivers. Amazonian warriors drink treated blood from the river of blood using ancient shamanistic practices. These Amazonian warriors become powerful enough to control their own blood flow, preventing blood from seeping out in open wounds, save if they're knocked unconscious. They also gain unnatural amounts of strength, though their lifetimes are cut in half. Some of the oldest Amazonian women only live to be around forty to fifty years old. Sixty, if they are extremely lucky.
Their shamans do not drink the blood from the river, as doing so makes them vulnerable to possession by spirits. Instead, they learn how to control and manipulate spirits, animals, and nature. As such, shamans are often the heads of tribes—in spite of their physical weakness, their normal, natural lifespans grant them wisdom that their more aggressive warriors typically do not have. Individual tribes in turn follow the words of the Queen of the Amazons, so long as she proves strong enough to be deserving of the title. At any time, an Amazonian tribe leader can challenge the Queen to a duel to take control. None have tried with this current Queen.
Amazons are the most outnumbered in terms of military might, but individual Amazonian warriors can only typically be matched by the most elite of warriors from other nations. They struggle to conform to army tactics, being most comfortable in close quarters and in environments such as jungles and mountains. Still, their complete inability to bleed to death makes them extremely survivable, being able to take several arrow hits and keep going unabated. Killing them essentially requires melee combat or magic, both of which Amazonians are trained in from a young age, either as warriors or shamans. -
Demon Invasion Potential: Medium.
Demon Agents Detected: ?
Corruption: Low. (Note: The Blood Sea is very difficult to corrupt, and will likely sooner turn on the nations around them out of mechanical need before corruption would poison them. Though the mere thought of The Choir being poisoned against them does terrify them.)
Mage's Guild Presence: No. It's unknown if such a thing would even be feasibly practical.
Current State: Moderate.
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Government Type: Hive Mind.
Age: No older than ten thousand years, though there is no certainty on when they became conscious.
Environments: They live within the Blood Sea, at the very bottom. They've built simple but highly sturdy structures there, containing bodies for their own uses. The pressure there is sufficient as to make travel there by anyone other than undead impractical. Their existence wasn't even known until very recently, though sailors used to report seeing their comrades going overboard, being sucked quickly down into the sea. One cannot see beyond a mere half a dozen feet within the Blood Sea, making eyesight nearly useless there.
If one were to somehow muster the inventions or magic necessary to visit the "towns" of the Blood Sea, they would likely hear an endless array of maddening whispers coming from all directions, and many hundreds, if not thousands of bodies laying around, just... Waiting, for something to use them.
Neighbours: Every nation on the coasts of the Blood Sea counts as a neighbour. This includes but is not limited to, in clockwise order starting from the top: The Free Holds, The Kingdom of Tuleria, The Kingdom of Rheinfeld, The Imperium.
Culture/History: It is uncertain what its specific birth point was, however, the Blood Sea Undead became aware of their own existence some time after the Blood Sea came to exist. Many thousands of souls after the old Imperium's apocalyptic fall wandered aimlessly into the Blood Sea. This, eventually, over an unknown period of time, created a self-aware entity, known as "The Choir." The Choir is comprised of thousands of souls, thousands of lost minds, who all merged together to share their experiences and emotions. This Choir became able to split off pieces of itself into individual souls, to inhabit the bodies of the dead.
This Choir, though it possessed the experiences of thousands of lost souls, had no real ability to comprehend the individuals who lived on the surface. They appeared only momentarily during the dark ages, and quickly came to the conclusion that the living could not hear their choir until they had been slain and their souls dragged into the Choir itself. So the Choir secluded itself away from what it called "the tribes of the Deaf." From that point forward, all it did was steal corpses wherever it could, to replenish any they lost. They sent spies to analyze the various cultures around them, to acquire new experiences through the occasional kidnapping in the middle of the night.
When it felt the Gods become banished, it felt the oncoming invasion by the Nine Hells. The many thousands of souls within itself debated on what to do. They ultimately came to the conclusion that a mass invasion of another nation was the only logical conclusion: The vastly inferior deaf could not possibly understand them, so the only option was to take as many bodies as possible, and then try to defeat the invasion itself. So it attacked the Goblin Holds, deciding that must have been one of the weaker nations. Queen Kouri was there on a diplomatic mission at the time, and though she was injured by the Choir's military forces, she bathed the streets in fire and purged them of every trace of the undead. What few that survived, fled back to the Choir in shock and horror.
At the same time, a mission for the Imperium by the Queen's Blades to acquire magical artifacts released some of their trapped brethren from an underground passage. These trapped brethren informed the Choir of something it had thought was impossible: The deaf not only heard them, they did as the trapped souls had asked of them so that they would become free.
With a great deal of confusion, it sent ambassadors to Renalta. Though its petition for a mission was ultimately passed over by the Queen's Blades, it did as the Deaf requested of it, and sent reinforcements to Tuleria in their time of need. Now, they ready a new set of requests...
The Blood Sea's culture can be summarized as transfixed around its Hive Mind. "The Choir" is often described as a song of voices and memories by its diplomats. Any undead that leave the Blood Sea from the Choir become disconnected from that song, they become individuals, and while most remain in a fairly simplistic state, its diplomats occasionally exhibit momentary bouts of personality and individuality. Regardless, they often long to return to the Choir, and prolonged time without it can cause them to go mad until they can return to it. They often don't understand how individual people can experience life without a constant stream of thousands of voices in their minds. So many, in fact, that any sense of self is lost within the swarm of thoughts.
Their speech patterns tend to be very strange. Their diplomats tend to refer to themselves as "We", and put extra emphasis on any pronouns referring to themselves. "We will do things Our way, whether the tribes of the Deaf will bother with Us is yet to be seen." They also tend to unsettle undead not connected to the Choir, and are often extraordinarily confused when they see undead that do not want to join the Choir.
Nonetheless, their military might is terrifying. Each one of them that is deprived of the Choir automatically forms mental connections with any nearby peers, creating a network of minds that can better process tasks and complete more complicated strategies as a result. These mental connections are telepathic, meaning that they can't be detected by mages, though they can be interfered with. To counteract this, the Blood Sea undead have undead necromancers, whose sole purpose is to act as the central entity to any "unit" of undead. The more undead there are together, the more efficient and tactical their moves become. It is quite possible for them to network a sufficient number of themselves that it becomes impossible to defeat them in melee combat, because they will have absolutely perfect combat skills.
That being said, their units are typically, physically slower to move about the more of them are connected to each other, and deprived of their necromancers, they become vulnerable to magic. They also can't siege effectively, as their undead bodies start to rot the moment they leave the Blood Sea. It takes mere weeks for their bodies to rot sufficiently that they no longer function. Still, this also means that enemies slain in battle can have their bodies possessed by souls from the Blood Sea and added to the network. If they slay an enemy in exchange for one of themselves, they'll simply take the enemy's body and add it to the network as a replacement for the one they lost. Most of them also cannot suffer morale penalties—they do not fear death, they are death. -
Demon Invasion Potential: Medium.
Demon Agents Detected: ?
Corruption: High.
Mage's Guild Presence: No. The Renaltan Mage's Guild was ejected after the declaration of war. By "ejected", the mages had to escape and destroy their outpost. Some did not survive.
Current State: Good.
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Government Type: Heredity Monarchy/Absolute Dictatorship.
Age: Thousands of years, though the current dynasty of rulers has maintained power for the past 400 years. The Drow are normally not united, often being different, warring towns and cities.
Environments: Harsh. Very harsh. Crops grown here are strange, thriving off of rocks. Many plants also produce light, being one of the only sources of it in the entire underground system. The Drow tend to live deeper in the ground than the Dwarves do, preferring their isolation from most of the surface nations by nature. The tunnels that wind about and connect the various towns to each other constantly change, and are filled with many dangers that often take the lives of travellers callously. Their capital city is lined with spider imagery, with structures either being built into the winding caverns themselves, or mined out to make room for their ziggurats.
Neighbours: Their closest neighbours are the Dwarven kingdoms, though they technically have fairly consistent entrances and exits out into the world through any mountain ranges. Meaning that their neighbours can, at any point depending on the structure of the Underdark's tunnel networks, include: The Kingdom of Tuleria, The Free Holds, The Kingdom of Rheinfeld, The Kingdom of Liveria, The Kingdom of Renalta.
Culture/History: The mythological story of the origins of the Drow is quite simple. A group of men once entered the Underdark and encountered their future goddess, Llolth. Llolth promised them vastly extended lives in exchange for their service, which they gleefully gave, in spite of other, surface religious declaring her to be a false goddess. Llolth gave them their immortality by changing them into the first Drow, who went forth and populated the Underdark, though often with a myriad of failures. The rest of their history is filled with endless betrayals, constantly stopping their empire from ever growing beyond its own bounds. One dynasty falls, another rises, only to fall again. Their recent stability for 400 years has been outright unusual, even.
Upon the onset of a possible invasion, the Drow formed an alliance with the Dwarves. It was done with the hope that they could curry more favour from the Queen's Blades that way. This alliance was tested after the Queen's Blades passed their request over in the first round of missions, and broke when Queen Kouri intervened and prevented the Queen's Blades from taking on a mission on their second set of missions. The leader of the Drow turned away, threatening revenge against the Queen's Blades and against Queen Kouri. Shortly thereafter, she openly declared war on the Kingdom of Renalta, and it's been confirmed that she is likely working with demons to further her own interests.
The Valsharess is the title of the Drow leader. Their society is matriarchal in nature, and thus it shouldn't be surprising to learn that the Valsharess is a woman. A conniving, scheming woman, who often betrays her peers without warning or notice, and inspires her subordinates to do the same to anyone who might threaten her rule. For a brief time, it seemed like she could have been reasoned with. That time however has come and gone, and she is now an enemy of the state.
The Drow military can be summarized with the following word: Invisibility. They use a mix of potent magic and hit and run tactics to bleed an enemy dry before they even get the chance to truly assemble a force to attack them. They also tend to perform well on their home turf, seeming to have a sense of how the caverns will shift and change over time. Offensively, they're somewhat lacklustre due to their lack of disciplined formations, but they are a long lived race, being skilled individuals in combat. -
Demon Invasion Potential: Low.
Demon Agents Detected: Yes. (Agent of Gluttony.)
Corruption: Low.
Mage's Guild Presence: Yes.
Current State: Very Good.
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Government Type: Meritocratic. (Three trials judge leadership: Tolerance to poison (alcohol), a challenge of intelligence (typically through a game), and a duel—sometimes to the death. In order for a challenge to the leadership to be verified, at least one thousand people must sign a petition. Rulership cannot be challenged for at least one year, after that, it's fair game... Even by non-dwarves.)
Age: 650 Years.
Environments: The Dwarves have two major cities located just underneath the surface, in the mountain range between the Kingdom of Renalta and the Kingdom of Rheinfeld. They have outposts both on the surface amidst the mountains and within the Underdark, and are the only people who can claim to know the safe ways to the Underdark. Their cities, technically within the Underdark, are closer to the surface than they are to the drow's cities, both literally and proverbially.
The cities themselves are well lit, with furnaces running day and night that constantly melt down precious metals and forge them into new combinations and materials. On a yearly basis, the dwarves find new and inventive ways of making metal in different combinations for different purposes, from shiny things, to brutish things, to shiny and brutish things. Dwarven outposts, on the other hand, tend to be simply constructed into the sides of mountains and underground caverns, allowing them to conceal their true numbers at a distance if necessary.
Neighbours: Kingdom of Renalta (south—above them), Kingdom of Rheinfeld (north—above them), The Drow Empire.
Culture/History: Prior to the Dwarven Meritocracy, dwarves wandered as nomadic groups in the mountains and in the Underdark. They competed for space with the drow beneath the surface and the Orcs above it. A couple hundred years after the fall of the Kingdom of Renalta, as the Kingdom of Gault started to fall into decay (which would later become the Kingdom of Rheinfeld), the Dwarven people finally settled down into two cities. From these cities, they crowned rulers by their ability to lead armies and solve problematic situations. Unlike the races of men or the drow, however, who sought to consolidate strength to form empires or dynasties, the dwarves had a different set of ideals.
They wanted to collect things. All sorts of things. Grand museums were built as monuments to whatever it is the dwarves could preserve that was worth their time. Most strongly, magical artifacts. The two cities of the dwarves—Mok'tal and Tal'mok—constantly compete about who can acquire the most artifacts. They send expeditions deep into the Underdark and across the known world to find more of them to collect. After six hundred years of this, they boast quite the collection—something that both causes envy and worry for the Mage's Guild in Renalta.
Culturally, the dwarves focus on personal strength. That strength is most often expressed physically, but it is sometimes seen as the intelligence of a person, or their courage. Indeed, the legends about the ancient kingdom of Renalta, and how princess Kouri stood up to the Gods, impressed dwarven children for many generations for her strength in valour, even if they believed her to be dead for centuries. It should come as a surprise to nobody, then, that in that time, the Dwarven Meritocracy has seen a couple of human rulers pass their tests before. They never lasted long, but they did manage to pass them and briefly rule the Meritocracy. Unsurprisingly, they also have a strong alcoholic culture, having managed to brew drinks so lethal, that only they could drink them.
The Dwarven Meritocracy is the only nation that trades regularly with the mechanists. From there, they distribute and export such goods at a higher price in order to import foodstuffs they can't grow on their own—primarily to make new kinds of alcohol.
Militarily, they often are quite conservative on the offensive, preferring to dig underneath their opponents rather than charge them head on. Nonetheless, there are few groups in the world that can boast the sheer constitution of a dwarven defence, as dwarves have been known to survive for several days without food and still fight vigorously. Their advanced metalworking allows them to forge unusual and stronger armour, and sharper weapons. Still, dwarves prefer not to wage offensive wars, and will need to be shoved hard to agree to fighting on an enemy's terms rather than their own.
People
Details on the important people in each nation, and any important people not affiliated to a nation. Consider these small details, and mostly common knowledge about each character which you can exploit for your own purposes. All of this information was made possible thanks to Mikan gathering it for you. Characters are categorized based on which nation they've sworn allegiance to, and characters who belong to no nation state can be found in the "other" category.
Characters Info Kingdom of Renalta Kingdom of Liveria Kingdom of Rheinfeld Kingdom of Tuleria The Free Holds The Goblin Holds The Imperium The Blood Sea The Drow Empire The Dwarf Meritocracy Non-Affiliated-
Name: (Their name.)
Role: (What it is they do that generally makes them important. Some people are important because they're useful. Others, because of hereditary characteristics.)
Age: (How old they are.)
Sex: (What their physical gender is.)
Appearance (Various physical characteristics. Nothing too detailed in general.)
- Height:
- Weight:
- Hair colour:
- Hair style:
- Eye colour:
- Skin colour:
- Normal Dress:
Facts (Quick list of facts about the character. Can range from something as important as "banished the Gods" or "uses pyromancy" to something as random as "likes cheese made from the farms of Veritas valley.")
- Fighting Style.
- Reputation.
- Family.
- Et cetera.
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Name: Kouri of Renalta.
Role: Queen of Renalta, head of the Queen's Blades and King's Rangers.
Age: 29. (1,029 if you count the 1,000 years she was frozen.)
Sex: Female.
Appearance
- Height: 5'11".
- Weight: 135 LBS.
- Hair colour: Blue (dyed), black (natural).
- Hair style: Long and well kept, down just past her shoulders.
- Eye colour: Dark blue eyes.
- Skin colour: White, sometimes outright pale when she is driven to exhaustion.
- Normal Dress: Dresses, typically well made, but not overly extravagant. When leading forces into battle, it's not uncommon to see her wearing specially made half-plate armour, though she's generally not a front line warrior.
Facts
- When in combat, she typically uses tactics and her great skill with pyromancy to deal with opponents. She avoids the front lines, as that is not the place for a member of the royalty.
- Beloved by her people, though nobility tend to have mixed views. Some like her, especially the chivalrously minded. Other, more conservative nobles who ended up losing overall power within their respective villages when she rose to power, view her with suspicion.
- Queen Alexandria is her wife. She has two children, both nine years old. There are also rumours of an uncle or older brother who survived and is being kept in secret, but such rumours are unfounded, as the ancient tales tell of no older brothers, and Kouri can confirm that she only had two sisters.
- Kouri was the one to lead a small force to banish the Gods. In the end, she succeeded. Some have blamed her for the invasion of the Nine Hells, though it's often argued that such an invasion was inevitable, as the Gods were weakened. If it weren't Kouri, someone else would have likely banished them anyway.
- Tales of her legendary beauty were not exaggerated, and it is not uncommon to find nobility and knights propositioning her, for one personal act or another. They're all rejected, as she's quite happily married to her wife.
- The Kouri Plushie is a real commodity, that was sold prior to her reawakening. It's still sold now.
- This person is essentially your boss. She can dismiss you from the Queen's Blades at any time, should you prove to be more destructive than helpful to the cause. She can also ultimately veto any promotion or executive order. In essence: Don't behave like a monster, or Kouri will deal with you like her servants deal with the trash.
- She is essentially a fairytale princess turned queen: A living legend. Wherever she goes, she's immediately recognized, and there are few people that hold opinions other than "a menace" or "a saviour."
- Queen Kouri has a potent bloodline (refer to "bloodlines" in the Master Archives for more information), but it does not seem to further deteriorate over time. This bloodline only seems to have minor effects with some ancient artifacts and certain kinds of spells. Her soul has extra protection against possession attempts, for instance. This unknown, royal bloodline is passed down to each child in the line.
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Name: Alexandria Sumera Nebacaesar, of Renalta.
Role: Queen of Renalta, head of the King's Rangers. Though not officially the head of the Queen's Blades, she can issue orders to them all the same.
Age: 31.
Sex: Female.
Appearance
- Height: 5'9 (Human), taller as a Lycan.
- Weight: 190 LBS. Heavier as a Lycan.
- Hair colour: Chestnut/mohagany red. In lycan form, her fur has a slight red tinge to it.
- Hair style: Down around her shoulders, though her bangs are cut to keep them out of her eyes. In lycan form, her fur is thick and protective.
- Eye colour: Sea green?
- Skin colour: Tanned, light shades of brown.
- Normal Dress: The kinds of clothing one might expect a Prince to wear. Tight leather pants and puffy white silk shirts are normal. This drives some fashioners crazy, as they'd rather see her in a dress, but she's comfortable in more practical clothing. Her clothes and armour on a battlefield are both enchanted to mold with her lycanthropy, preventing her from shapeshifting back naked. She wears a collar around her neck, that allows her to retain control over her shapeshifting.
Facts
- In human form, she uses a bow, and can switch to a one handed sword to engage in melee duels with great competency. In lycanthrope form, she has a pair of claws. Use your imagination.
- An ex-pirate who served aboard an infamous pirate ship known as The Felidae, and a lycanthrope. Needless to say, she's not popular among some nobility. The commoners however view her as a symbol, that anyone can obtain greater things in life, and reform themselves to be better people. She's known to be very affectionate and protective towards her family, and isn't shy to show it around some of the more conservatively minded nobility.
- Queen Kouri is her wife, and she has two children—though neither are related to her by blood. Her family lives in Arian village, and it's not uncommon to see her visit them from time to time, or for them to visit her in the capital.
- Still worships the goddess Morgana Le Fay, the one who created lycanthropes. By what little knowledge can be derived of the political state of the Heavens, Morgana did not take a side in the conflict between Kouri and the King of Gods.
- Extremely uncomfortable around undead, almost to the degree of constituting a phobia.
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Name: Hanus Wolfsblood.
Role: General of Renalta, old vampire, Drow noble.
Age: 800+.
Sex: Male.
Appearance
- Height: 6'2".
- Weight: 230 LBS.
- Hair colour: White-silver.
- Hair style: Kept short, for simplicity's sake.
- Eye colour: Silver. (Trait of Vampirism.)
- Skin colour: Black as the night.
- Normal Dress: He goes everywhere in half-plate armour. A plate mail chest piece with chain mail on underneath, a gambeson underneath that, metallic wrist, forearm, ankle, and thigh pads. On the rare occasions where he can be found out of his armour, he wears simple, white silk garments.
Facts
- He's a berserker vampire who wields weapons imbued with living souls, that are capable of minor magical feats. It's equally common to see him lead charges, or direct them from the back line.
- Among the Drow he's considered an oddity. Though he's a member of nobility, he hasn't bothered with Drow politics in hundreds of years. He was a wanderer for ages, and now serves Kouri and Alexandria until the end of their days, at which point, he believes he will end his own life.
- He has no known family to speak of. Even if he did, he hasn't interacted with them in centuries.
- The people of Renalta regard him as an eccentric curiosity, but one that is loyal to the throne, and is a prime example of their world famous cultural and racial tolerance.
- Any affairs concerning the military of Renalta typically go through this man.
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(Created by @Orion as this was originally his character in Legend of Renalta 1.)
Name: Dean Hansen
Role: Diplomatic Liaison to the Imperian and Famed Hero of Renalta
Age: 33
Sex: Male
Appearance
- Height: 5'10"
- Weight: 190lbs
- Hair colour: Brown
- Hair style: Shortly cut, kept neat and proper
- Eye colour: Brown
- Skin colour: Pale White
- Normal Dress: Light plate armor, emblazoned with the crest of the Renaltan Kingdom
Facts
- Raised a common Farmboy in what is now the grreat city of Arian, but was in his time just a village
- Wields the Magic Warhammer Godsplitter, taken from a Lich
- Dean is used to fighting in larger scale battles. Fighting as opportunities present themselves for clean efficient confrontations.
- HIs mother lives in Arian village
- Has 2 Sisters
- Helped bring the Imperian out of their magically induced stasis
- Fought in the interests of the Renaltan Kingdom in gaining the Imperium a foothold on their colonies
- Helped banish the gods
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Name: Xavier Goushard.
Role: Crown-Prince of Liveria. (Ruler.)
Age: 32.
Sex: Male.
Appearance
- Height: 5'10"
- Weight: 180.
- Hair colour: Black.
- Hair style: Short, prim and proper with each and every day.
- Eye colour: Green.
- Skin colour: White.
- Normal Dress: Well made silk shirts and pants decorate this man's wardrobe, most often in a mix of black or red colour schemes. If he expects combat, he dons an old but still functioning set of half-plate: A plate mail chest piece without shoulder pads or a neck guard, which has his family's crest upon it. His family's crest is also often embroidered onto his silk clothing. It is a rather simple looking crest: A simple, green leaf, with jagged edges.
Facts
- In combat, Xavier will generally prefer to avoid the front line and use a crossbow instead. When pressed into melee, he holds his own remarkably well, having been trained from birth in the art of duelling, though he can be overwhelmed by masterful opponents. Most often, he is a tactician, who prefers to keep a couple witch hunters close by to strike down any who he becomes engaged in melee combat with.
- Xavier is known for being cold, though generally fair. He shows a healthy Liverian disdain for the lesser, more bestial races, but not so much so that he's incapable of seeing their strengths, or working with them from time to time.
- Helénē, his daughter, is the only other surviving member of the current royal family. All the others died of old age or disease, except for Helénē's mother and Xavier's father, who were both assassinated at the same time only about a year ago.
- His father took the throne after deposing the previous ruler for incompetence, making Xavier the second of his line, and his daughter, Helénē, third. If Helénē manages to ascend to the throne, the Goushard family will be the longest lasting royal family in Liverian history.
- Years ago, as the Kingdom of Renalta was reestablished, Xavier offered Kouri a hand in marriage in order to try and strengthen his own royal line. Kouri rejected him for a commoner she had been travelling with, named Alexandria. This left Xavier with something of a political mess, which he ended up resolving, though which has haunted him. Xavier has professed a great deal of affection for Kouri, and this affection has not seemed to have dulled with time.
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Name: Princess Helénē.
Role: Heir apparent of Liveria.
Age: 16.
Sex: Female.
Appearance
- Height: 5'7"
- Weight: 135 LBS.
- Hair colour: As black as a raven's wing.
- Hair style: Sweeping just past her shoulders.
- Eye colour: Green.
- Skin colour: White, sometimes outright pale.
- Normal Dress: Black and red dresses, often of a silk variety, though sometimes of plain looking cloth. Some are more practically designed, while others exist solely to accentuate her beauty for prospective suitors to notice.
Facts
- Helénē is not trained in combat. She barely understands even the basics to swordplay, or archery. This is made up for with her magic, however, as she can abandon her physical form, turning it into a decoy to become an ethereal spirit. In spirit form she cannot pass through solid objects, though she can possess anyone she chooses and control them. The more powerful their will or control over magic, the harder it is for her to maintain control. Upon leaving a possessed person, her ethereal form reverts to a physical one. This allows her to escape trouble in the body of one of her potential assassins, if need be.
- She is seen as a warm, loving, gentle soul, in great contrast to her father. Though she can wield Liverian skepticism and is a practising politician, her empathy far outstrips that of most of her peers. After the death of her mother and grandfather, however, she often keeps to herself, and avoids sharing intense emotions with most others.
- The only other surviving member of her family is her father. All others died of old age, died of diseases, and in the case of her mother and grandfather, assassination.
- It is rumoured that, prior to her assignment to the Queen's Blades, Zoe Vasilios was one of Helénē's personal protectors, and that Helénē is one of only two people to know what Zoe looks like underneath her mask.
- Helénē is often propositioned by knights and other nobles, but seems to have picky tastes. Nonetheless, it likely will not be too long before she is to be married to someone. Perhaps one of the nobles who is courting her...
- Helénē's skin is sometimes pale and her health sometimes poor, leading many in Liveria to wonder if she suffers from a disease of some sort. It wouldn't be the first time someone in her family died of a disease, either.
- It is well known that Helénē grew up with tales of the legend of Renalta, and as such she looks up to Kouri as a heroic figure in her life. The fact that Kouri rejected marriage to her father has not dampened such admiration, either.
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Name: Emil Landsteiner.
Role: Second in command of the Templar Order.
Age: 28.
Sex: Male.
Appearance
- Height: 6'2"
- Weight: 220 LBS.
- Hair colour: Blonde.
- Hair style: Kept tied back in a pony tail.
- Eye colour: Green.
- Skin colour: White.
- Normal Dress: Found in the standard dress of the Templar Order--that is, heavy plate mail. His family's crest, a simple, lit wax candle, is adorned upon the chest piece, and upon his shield.
Facts
- A brutal hand to hand combatant who relies on his strength and shield to fight defensively. He is known for drawing fights out to long lengths of time, so as to fatigue an opponent, then take advantage of a weakness. Prior to his recent promotion to second in command, he also had experience commanding entire groups of Templar.
- A well educated if somewhat boring fellow with no particularly exemplary traits that stand out being exceptional competency at everything he does. Perhaps the only remarkable thing about this man is he has been happily in wedlock for four years, but has failed to produce offspring as of yet. Ideologically, he is probably the perfect example of a standard noble Rheinfelder. At least, by the views of the Templar Order which he serves.
- This man is second in line for heir of his family's fortune and fame, only playing second fiddle to his older sister, who is the head of the household. Both of his parents are dead.
- He dreams of one day visiting the stars, somehow, as he believes the Gods are somewhere out among the stars... Just waiting to be found again.
- He is a man easily fascinated by other cultures, though distrustful of foreigners. A strange combination to be sure.
- During the slaughter of the Papal Forces, Emil Landsteiner was busy bringing wounded Templar and Rheinfeld Republic soldiers to the back lines, where they could receive medical attention. He did not participate in the slaughter, though he has kept his mouth shut on how he feels about it.
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Name: Davian Valorious.
Role: Templar Order leader.
Age: 23.
Sex: Male.
Appearance
- Height: 5'8"
- Weight: 195 LBS.
- Hair colour: Blonde.
- Hair style: Short, prim and proper.
- Eye colour: Light Blue.
- Skin colour: White, often like the snow.
- Normal Dress:Akin to most other Templar, he wears white robes when off duty, though his are adorned in his family's noble crest. A blue blood through and through, his top notch armour is perhaps only matched by that of Taigyn's in the Templar Order.
Facts
- An aggressive and arrogant man, he often fights on the front line, surrounded by other Templar. When pressed into a fight alone, he demands codes of chivalry be followed, or else otherwise refuses the fight and beats a hasty retreat. This man is also somewhat tactically inept, with the only strategy in his repertoire seeming to be "charge wildly in the general direction of the enemy."
- A snobbish though well meaning man, he grew up with a silver spoon in his mouth. He generally considers the peasantry to be an inferior mob of ill educated, illiterate fools, and the mere idea of granting the Rheinfeld Republic their democracy appears to make his stomach turn. Even towards Queen's Blades, he will generally regard them as little more than good servants to the crown of a foreigner. Nonetheless, he doesn't disdain commoners, and wishes only to ensure their efficient use and for them to have reasonably good lives.
- He has a pair of sisters, two parents, four grandparents, three uncles, two cousins, and one aunt. Most of them are irrelevant, though his parents do still technically retain ownership over the family estate, in spite of Davian being the one to manage it.
- Davian is a well educated nobleman, though his education lies more in the area of politics and social affairs, rather than in warfare. Nonetheless he has routed out multiple witches in the past, and has taken great delight in their executions. He tends to loathe mages, and only barely represses such loathing with a thinly veiled guise of civility. To mages, he is a wolf in sheep's clothing. In spite of this, he does not kill Mage's Guild envoys and punishes anyone who makes attempts at slaying foreign guests who have magical talent.
- Davian is set to inherit his family's fortune, though he is an active suitor, attempting to find someone with which to breed and share in his wealth with. Time will tell if the marriage he is seeking with someone is out of love or out of necessity.
- Like all Templar, he is immune to magic, and can detect its use or presence at certain distances.
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Name: Alida Spiegel.
Role: A leader among the Rheinfeld Republic movement. Ex-Templar.
Age: 41.
Sex: Female.
Appearance
- Height: 5'7"
- Weight: 185 LBS.
- Hair colour: Black.
- Hair style: Kept tied back in a ponytail, with her bangs cut off to allow her to see clearly at all times.
- Eye colour: Brown.
- Skin colour: Black.
- Normal Dress:Outside of combat, she typically wears plain, peasantry dresses that were sewn for her by some of her friends. In combat, she wields the gear of a Templar: Heavy plate mail, from head to toe.
Facts
- More of a symbol than anything else, her presence inspires a sort of divine fervour in all of her allies fighting with her. Still, having been trained as a Templar years ago, she retains knowledge of effective melee combat techniques, and can be found at the front line with her fellows, hacking and slashing away.
- Honourable, trustworthy, and remarkably well educated for a peasant. Her leaving the Templar Order has not particularly soured her relations with them, making her the perfect segway between the desires of the Republic, and the diplomatic compromises needed with the Templar Order to get there.
- Her father passed from this world years ago. Her mother however still lives, kept in secrecy to keep her safe. She was an only child for the pair.
- Her parents were immigrants to Rheinfeld from a distant land, though they spoke little of it, and Alida knows nothing of it. She grew up a Rheinfelder to the core, in spite of her exotic skin tone in comparison to many of her more paler compatriots.
- Her and Davian are known to share a venomous dislike for each other, as Davian believes her leaving the Order should be considered dishonourable, while she finds his pompous ways frustrating to deal with.
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Name: Boann of Tuleria.
Role: High King of Tuleria.
Age: 32.
Sex: Male.
Appearance
- Height: 5'10"
- Weight: 170 LBS.
- Hair colour: No hair.
- Hair style: Bald.
- Eye colour: Black.
- Skin colour: Blue, like a gemstone.
- Normal Dress: Primarily desert robes and the like, though jewelry can often be found adorning this man's fingers and around his neck. Tuleria is a rich nation, and he, a rich King. In combat, he can be found in a mix of light and heavy armour.
Facts
- In combat he uses a staff, though he typically prefers to avoid the front line where possible. He also wields blackpowder rifles, which he feels more comfortable with.
- A somewhat reserved High King who is rarely seen by his people, though known for seeking the best for his people according to his vision of a Tuleria free to trade. He is one of the main forces pushing behind Tuleria's recent technological innovations, hoping to give his kingdom an edge against the Free Holds.
- His wife, Queen Jezmin, though she typically avoids the political spotlight, and thus has little particular meaning for the Queen's Blades unless otherwise noted. She is a human. Beyond this, he has no living family.
- He belongs to an ancient race, which has been dying out with the procession of time. They once held great influence in Tuleria, and now, King Boann is one of the last, as many have been going infertile over time. There seems to be little difference between them and humans, save what can be visibly discerned from on the surface. It is unknown if King Boann is infertile, but he has yet to produce any offspring.
- Similar to Renalta's nomenclature, Tulerian royalty's surname is adopted after the name of the country, often replacing or displacing the original last name of the person who once had it. There is no precedent for why this is, and may not continue to be used in the future by other High Kings, who are free to dismiss it on a whim.
- His reign during the era of the triumvirate was one infamous for little consensus and fewer things still getting done, due to constant blocking by Varro and Janelle. This new government gives him more power than he had before, though he has yet to be tested with it.
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Name: Janelle.
Role: Archmage of the Tulerian Mage's Tower.
Age: 36.
Sex: Female.
Appearance
- Height: 5'5"
- Weight: 135 LBS.
- Hair colour: Brown.
- Hair style: Long, flowing down to her shoulders.
- Eye colour: Blue.
- Skin colour: White.
- Normal Dress: Often found wearing orange robes, with the emblem of the Mage's Tower stitched onto them. Beyond this, she wears jewelry, much like other wealthy Tulerians. In combat, she wears no armour, and depends entirely on magic to protect herself.
Facts
- Typically not found in the battlefield to begin with, though when forced into a confrontation, she is well versed in whipping up storms of sand and wind, to rip through entire lines of men and send them scattering in every direction like puppets.
- Often compared to Archmage Amanda of the much larger Mage's Guild. Janelle, however, is known for being extremely inquisitive, and quite friendly when she isn't preoccupied with orchestrating experiments using members of the Mage's Tower to help her.
- Her family lives somewhere in the Free Holds. Beyond that, she says nothing, for very understandable reasons.
- Rumour has it that she was forced to step down from her political position on the once mighty triumvirate, rather than doing it by choice. Regardless, she has great political influence, and multiple members of the oligarchic advisory board for the High King were hand picked by her.
- She is married, officially. A forced, arranged marriage, with someone from the Free Holds. She has since rejected it time and again, not that it has stopped a certain, rich, fat bastard in the Free Holds from constantly claiming her as runaway property. Not even the Free Holds takes his claims seriously.
- As one can surmise, she was originally born in the Free Holds, and as a child, was smuggled into Tuleria. Political opponents have often tried to put into question her loyalties, but if the mountain of dead Free Hold spies has anything to say, it's that she loves them about as much as she loves the bloodsucking parasites that live within the swamps.
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Name: Marcela Adrianna Otis.
Role: Admiral of Tuleria.
Age: 26.
Sex: Female.
Appearance
- Height: 5'9"
- Weight: 165 LBS.
- Hair colour: Brown.
- Hair style: Long, sometimes unkempt.
- Eye colour: Green.
- Skin colour: Heavily tanned, giving her quite a healthy glow underneath the light of the sun.
- Normal Dress: Leather pants and cloth shirts adorn this woman's wardrobe, as she was born with the soul of a sailor. In combat she often wears only light armour, as in long ship battles, heavy armour would typically fatigue her too heavily to use it properly.
Facts
- Fighting Style.
- A youthful, idealistic woman, who has an incredible track record with putting unwanted piracy down. Only The Felidae—a pirate ship that Queen Alexandria once served upon—still manages to elude capture to this day. Once this war is over, many believe she will make it her personal quest to see the Felidae brought to justice, rather than pursuing a more political career.
- Two brothers, one sister, and a set of living parents are part of this woman's family. Miraculous!
- This woman was going to become the new head of the military part of the triumvirate, however, given the state of the country, the triumvirate proved to be—at least for the moment—an untenable proposition. She was one of the people who pushed to disband the triumvirate, at least temporarily, in order to prevent leadership deadlock during these extraordinarily dangerous times.
- She often imports goods and weapons from distant lands, being particularly fond of those from a land known as the "Kingdom of Dreams."
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Name: Rashad.
Role: Warlord of a major hold.
Age: 25.
Sex: Male.
Appearance
- Height: 6'0"
- Weight: 170 LBS.
- Hair colour: Black.
- Hair style: Short, though often messy.
- Eye colour: Blue.
- Skin colour: Heavily tanned, differing from the natural whites of the southern countries.
- Normal Dress: Various desert robes, often enchanted with magical properties, as he is a mage. Beyond this, he tends to dress fairly innocuously, so as to avoid attention in some situations, and give assassins false hope in others.
Facts
- Rashad is first and foremost a cunning political figure, and thus his greatest tool for combat are his assassins. Secondarily, he is a competent mage, who can surprise his opponents with sudden, vicious gusts of wind. He's also fond of mechanist trinkets, and items imbued with illusory properties.
- A savage political animal who nonetheless commands the respect of many other warlords in the Free Holds. He has time and again slaughtered any assassin who has come for him. His surprisingly apathetic views towards slavery have won over some within the Free Holds, and some outside of it. If anyone were to end up uniting the Free Holds, it would be this man.
- If Rashad has any family, he has cleverly disguised any connections he once had with them. He has even gone so far as to obfuscate his surname, often adopting fake ones from time to time just to further throw off his assassins.
- This man is the one that managed to orchestrate a peace agreement with the Goblin Holds, as part of his attempts to appease the Queen's Blades for help.
- As part of his more forward-thinking, liberal politics in the Free Holds, Rashad refuses to employ or sell sex slaves. He simply either liberates them or finds new tasks for them to do instead. This is greatly agitating to some of the other warlords, who gain a majority of their profits on the sex trade, depending on where the trade winds blow.
- After the Queen's Blades failed to assist him on his last request, he has mysteriously gone missing. Some wonder aloud if he has been slain, or kidnapped by demons, though Tina claims to know his whereabouts.
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Name: Tina Yusaf.
Role: Warlord of a minor hold,
Age: 19.
Sex: Female.
Appearance
- Height: 5'11"
- Weight: 155 LBS.
- Hair colour: Blonde.
- Hair style: Military cut, short as can be.
- Eye colour: Blue.
- Skin colour: Primarily white, though a somewhat darker shade of white than is usual for the southern countries.
- Normal Dress:
Facts
- An ex-assassin, she uses daggers and perfidious trickery in combat with opponents. She also typically carries poisoned throwing knives, with poisons she has built up an immunity to.
- She's often seen as a lapdog to Rashad, though she has her own political interests. Being a woman, she didn't acquire power over an entire hold by simply asking nicely, and so she is seen as a competent scrapper as much as she's seen as a sycophant.
- Most of Tina's family is dead. There are some rumours that she murdered some of them herself.
- Unlike Rashad, Tina does happily sell and employ sex slaves at her hold. She has even indulged in some of them herself. His more liberal views have not rubbed off on her.
- She is a half-elf, though she appears to age at the same rate as humans do. Some wonder about why her elven side would willingly throw away immortality to die in a Free Hold. True love? How ludicrous a concept!
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Name: Xixis Madheart.
Role: Emperor of the Goblin Holds.
Age: 26
Sex: Male
Appearance A Goblin in 'arabic' style dress.
- Height: About knee-high to a Troll.
- Weight: None of your business!
- Hair colour: Black
- Hair style: Shorn with ritualistic patterns.
- Eye colour: Red
- Skin colour: Green
- Normal Dress: Arabic Leader, medieval.
- Notable Markings: A significant amount of ritualistic tattoos.
Facts
- Helped Banish the Gods
- Tamed the Great Sand Worms
- Freed tens of thousands of slaves
- Possessor of the Sacred Tome of the Madheart Clan
- Has seven wives.
- Has thirty-five children. *Only three have proven capable of Shamanism.*
- Fights dirty. (Seriously, sand magic is dirty stuff..)
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Name: Kregg Nskulla
Role: General of the Regular Forces. (IE: Not the Mages)
Age: 43
Sex: Male
Appearance Ork
- Height: 6'7
- Weight: 'Fit'
- Hair colour: Hair?
- Hair style: As above.
- Eye colour: White
- Skin colour: Green/Grey
- Normal Dress: Arabic Warlord
- Notable Markings: Ritualistic Scarring, full-body.
Facts
- Excellent Orc Warrior
- Uses a broadsword and shield with chain armour.
- Was one of the Slave freed by Xixis.
- Excellent Strategist
- Has no wives.
- Has no children.
- Has a tab at Maude's House of Elves, yet none of the female whores can ever remember servicing him. (Xixis disapproves, I mean Elves are virtually beastiality...) Such a regular the Madame who runs Maude's has a "10th service free" deal going for him.
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Name: Maurie Merryweather.
Role: The Eternal Empress of the Imperial Republic.
Age: 10,043. (Though for most of that time, she was trapped.)
Sex: Female... Ish.
Appearance
- Height: Repressed: 5'8". Unleashed: 7'5".
- Weight: 385 LBS. While Repressed, she appears to be 140 LBS.
- Hair colour: Repressed: Brown. Unleashed: None.
- Hair style: Repressed: Long and flowing, often with a flower or two in them. Unleashed: None.
- Eye colour: Repressed: Brown. Unleashed: None.
- Skin colour: Repressed: White. Unleashed: A ghostly blue, incorporeal spirit... So no skin, really.
- Normal Dress: Repressed: She often appears in the clothing of nobility, wearing Imperial regalia. Eagles adorn the shoulders of whatever she wears, often darkly coloured dresses and the like. Unleashed: A suit of armour which she ordinarily keeps repressed under a field of magic.
Facts
- Maurie is a Lich, which means she sacrificed her mortality and life to become an undead creature, whose soul is bound to a phylactery. Her physical body can be destroyed, and so long as she is given a sufficient amount of time and protection, she will be gradually restored at the location of her phylactery. In combat, this means she can wield her most powerful though ultimately self destructive spells, from her deep knowledge of necromancy.
- Often seen in a positive light by the senators of the republic, as she rarely issues military decrees that would circumvent the economic decrees of the senate. Some, however, see her as an unholy abomination. Especially since the only thing that keeps her alive is by feeding off the energy of many hundreds of trapped souls in an artifact she wears, known as the Eternal Soul Gem. An artifact which the Queen's Blades retrieved for her by request. It is not known if she will willingly relinquish her immortality at any point.
- Florence Merryweather is her husband, officially. She also has a daughter, though after events that transpired ten years ago, she has evaded the political scene to become a farmer instead, disavowing any claim to the throne. This means that when the Eternal Empress passes on, there will be no hereditary replacement.
- In her repressed state, she manages to maintain a human-like appearance and composure. This taxes on her magical ability, preventing her from casting overly complex spells until she abandons the disguise. Other undead and mages can often see through the guise, which is only maintained for the sake of comfort. Unleashed, she no longer maintains this guise and reveals her true form: A spiritual essence embodied within a suit of armour, which hovers just a half of a foot above the floor.
- She was married to Florence Merryweather before the apocalypse destroyed her nation. The two are sometimes on icy terms presently, as she belongs firmly to the New Imperium, while he often remains trapped within the mindset of the Old Imperial mindset.
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Name: Florence Merryweather.
Role: General of the Imperium.
Age: 45. (10,045 if you count the time he was trapped in Maurie's spell.)
Sex: Male.
Appearance
- Height: 6'0"
- Weight: 180 LBS.
- Hair colour: Brown.
- Hair style: Short, military cut.
- Eye colour: Brown.
- Skin colour: White.
- Normal Dress: Often found in official military uniform, in high quality armour. Outside of that uniform, which is a rare occasion, he wears simple clothing, far more befitting of a peasant than a general of a nation.
Facts
- After spending thousands of years honing his skills, his hand to hand combat is nearly unmatched in the entire world. Nonetheless, his true calling is in tactics and strategy, as he has yet to lose a battle from which he has led forces. His age is slowly catching up to him, slowing him down gradually, bit by bit. As well, while he is an excellent fighter, his survival instincts have been dulled, and he sometimes forgets to avoid blows that cause injury.
- Seen as and supported by the majority within the Imperium outside of the senate, he is often looked upon as a national symbol of what it means to be part of the Imperium. Florence lives, breaths, and eats all in the name of the Imperium. He generally espouses directives of honour, and extreme loyalty towards the empire.
- Maurie Merryweather is his wife. His daughter has become a farmer, disavowing any political claims of her own to either of her parents.
- Florence sided with the loyalist camp for many thousands of years, but eventually defected over to the freedom camp. This is still sometimes a sore spot between him and his wife.
- He does not trust mages. He sincerely believes that all mages should be held under strict control, and often advocates that the Imperium form its own laws about magic, and its own organization to control mages.
- He is an Old Imperial, and as such he believes that all of the other nations are ultimately "children of the Imperium" that he must not only strive to protect, but eventually incorporate within the Imperium... One way, or another.
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Name: Queen Ethlinn.
Role: Queen of the Amazons, part of the Imperium.
Age: 21.
Sex: Female.
Appearance
- Height: 6'2"
- Weight: 210 LBS.
- Hair colour: Red.
- Hair style: Long and often wild looking.
- Eye colour: Green.
- Skin colour: Tanned, much like the standard of the Free Holds.
- Normal Dress: Leather armour covers only the necessary places for this woman, as she lives in a jungle. Outside of that jungle, she will often wear more socially appropriate leather garments, so as to avoid luring more stares from foreigners than she already does.
Facts
- Quick, aggressive, and opportunistic. She wields spears in battle, having a great deal of strength and speed with them. There are stories of her piercing armour as thick as plate mail with them, and doubtlessly, it is within her capacity.
- Her people are still highly uncertain of their new queen, and only tentatively follow her into the future. She is seen as being somewhat weak willed and unready for leadership, as her mother perished abruptly and tragically before she could fully finish teaching her daughter the ways of the Amazons. Still, as an individual warrior, she is admired for her strength, and often sought out as a partner for certain other activities by her peers.
- Ethlinn's father lives and is very proud of her, though her mother died a short time ago. The Queen's Blades helped her in a hunt to slay the demonic corruption-infested creature that slew her.
- She is an Amazon, and thus, she drinks from the river of blood that is connected to the Blood Sea. This gives her control over her own blood flow, though it has halved her life expectancy.
- Queen Ethlinn is the one who led her people into folding into the Imperium. This decision has come with mixed feelings from her people, though she has retained absolute control over the Amazonians. She has the ability to simply veto any Imperial decree she disagrees with. There are rumours that she and Florence sleep together, but such rumours are unsubstantiated, as such behaviour would be politically disastrous for both parties.
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Name: Valetorias Merra.
Role: Speaker. (Ambassador.)
Age: ? (Unknown.)
Sex: ... Male?
Appearance
- Height: 5'9"
- Weight: 200 LBS.
- Hair colour: White.
- Hair style: Long and dead looking.
- Eye colour: Empty, pale, and dead. May have once been brown.
- Skin colour: Pale white.
- Normal Dress: Ancient armour from more ancient times decorates this figure, though nobody is certain which kingdom it came from. Their best guess is that it must have come from a kingdom that was once subjugated under the Old Imperium, ten thousand years ago. His blade has a royal seal on it, but there is little else to be known of it, for now.
Facts
- Unknown combat style. There has never been a recorded instance of a Speaker engaging in combat. It could be quite deadly, or entirely harmless, and there is simply no way of knowing without challenging it.
- This entity has utterly no sense of humour. Its attempts at it are often painfully macabre. It can, in fact, be best described as a puppet with only a minor level of self-awareness.
- If one counts The Choir? Thousands.
- Valetorias believes that the form he occupies was once a prince, however, due to his long time spent within The Choir, he is uncertain which memories are his, and which memories are those The Choir gave him.
- He always identities himself as "itself", and typically refers to himself as "us" or "we" when speaking from a personal perspective. He only addresses his physical form from the perspective of an object, and doesn't seem to truly identify with it.
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Name: Arduran Kenate.
Role: Valsharess (Queen) of the Drow.
Age: 894. (Elderly.)
Sex: Female.
Appearance
- Height: 5'8"
- Weight: 175 LBS.
- Hair colour: Silver-white.
- Hair style: Long and flowing, often well kept for purposes of seduction.
- Eye colour: Red.
- Skin colour: Black.
- Normal Dress: Often found in seductive looking dresses, embroidered with spider paraphernalia and symbolism. Even in combat, she typically remains unarmoured, as it tends to aid in her magic.
Facts
- In combat, the Valsharess uses her unnaturally attractive form and magic to hypnotize and seduce victims. Much like the spider queen she worships, she uses this to manipulate others in her webs of lies and false promises, before slaying them herself. She has been known to seduce assassins and then send them back to kill their masters in suicide-homicide pacts. Without this, she is quite vulnerable, and has little else to back her up.
- A vicious powermongering whore who ultimately seeks out power for her own craven ends. Having been abandoned by the Queen's Blades once, then forcibly barred from help by Queen Kouri on the second call for help, it's of no surprise that she's decided to try and help herself. She will likely do anything it takes to win, it's in the nature of the Drow to do so.
- She has three daughters, with three different husbands. They are all dead. It is best not to ask how.
- She gained complete control over the typically feuding Drow with promises of protecting them from being obliterated in the invasion by the Nine Hells. It is very possible that she could interpret that to mean allying them, atop declaring war on Renalta.
- It's not uncommon for her to keep warrior and assassin concubines with her at all times. They, too, are deceptive in their mannerisms, though most do not serve her of their own will.
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Name: Duncan of the Rocklover Clan.
Role: Champion of the Dwarven Meritocracy. (Ruler.)
Age: 224. (Adult-approaching middle aged.)
Sex: Male.
Appearance
- Height: 4'6"
- Weight: 340 LBS.
- Hair colour: Red-brown.
- Hair style: Long, braided, wild. His beard could house a bird's nest.
- Eye colour: Brown.
- Skin colour: White.
- Normal Dress: He is almost always dressed head to toe in some of the heaviest and highest quality metal plated armour that his people can forge. He is extremely proud of it. Outside of it, he "feels naked", even if he's wearing the soft silk of a nobleman.
Facts
- A violent, brutal front line fighter, who often laughs and enjoys himself while fighting. He wields a hammer made out of "enchanted rocks", a family heirloom of some sort which reportedly petrifies any targets it strikes. He's also incredibly, maddeningly strong. He once dead lifted a grizzly bear just to prove he could.
- A perfect ruler for the Dwarves, at present anyway. He has both diplomatic and military sense, and he knows how to have a good time with alcohol. This man isn't liable to lose his post anytime soon by natural means.
- His family is far, far too numerous to mention.
- Duncan has ruled for twenty years. Straight. This is highly unusual for the Dwarven Meritocracy, who normally go through rulers on a yearly basis. Some have contemplated whether any ruler deserves to rule for twenty years, though.
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Other important characters who are not affiliated with any major faction. They may hold preferences for some factions over others or exert political power, though they hold no official political position in any particular nation.
Name: Amanda. "The Archmage."
Role: Archmage of the Mage's Guild, the largest and most influential group of mages on the continent.
Age: ? (Unknown.)
Sex: Female.
Appearance
- Height: 5'8"
- Weight: 155 LBS.
- Hair colour: Blonde.
- Hair style: Long and flowing past her shoulders.
- Eye colour: Blue.
- Skin colour: White.
- Normal Dress: Simple if somewhat eloquent robes. Always in deep, dark hues of purple, with the symbol of the Mage's Guild embroidered onto her shoulders. She typically carries with her an enchanted mage's staff, though the staff changes from time to time.
Facts
- If one were to somehow actually end up in a battle with Amanda the Archmage, it would last all of about five seconds. She is one of, if not outright the most powerful mage on the entire continent. There are simply too many ways to list how she could do battle to feasibly leave it as a simple note, though they all involve magic.
- Enigmatic is the best descriptor for Amanda in the public view. Mages who are part of the Guild tend to find her a very trustworthy and supportive sort of person. People outside of it barely accrue her notice, and when they do, she only seems interested in discussing magic or finding ways to acquire more magical artifacts—from the weakest of trinkets to the strongest of weapons. The fact that she was recently thrown out of Kouri's court doesn't help matters.
- Her family are all long dead.
- This woman has appeared multiple times throughout history, which is immeasurably perplexing to all involved, even other mages, who cannot explain what it is she does. She simply appears in certain points in history, does something to force changes on the world—typically small ones, at that—then disappears, only to reappear at a new point in history. Some ponder if she is even truly human anymore, as all one can detect from her is a presence of magic.
- Amanda was the one to awaken magic into the world, to unleash it so that any mortal could learn how to wield it. The price was the destruction of the old Imperium, and the creation of the Blood Sea. She insists that it was an unintended consequence, something she never knew was possible at the time.
- Depictions of her in ancient tales often involve her wearing rather provocative and impractical clothing, such as mini-skirts and vests that only barely concealed her chest. Such rumours are often considered overblown, and she herself denies these things, though certain members of the Immortal Legion of the Imperium state that such things were true.
- Becomes politically motivated for magic, and little else.
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Name: Myria of Renalta.
Role: Archangel.
Age: 1,033.
Sex: Female.
Appearance
- Height: 6'2".
- Weight: 180 LBS.
- Hair colour: Blonde.
- Hair style: Long and flowing, unnaturally smooth.
- Eye colour: Gold.
- Skin colour: White.
- Normal Dress: Always found in plate armour, angelically imbued with blessings to strengthen it against corrupting forces. She carries no physical weapons as she simply summons golden, glowing equivalents into her hands when in combat. In rare occasions amongst only other angels, she can be found in nothing more than white robes.
Facts
- An ancient being that wields both magic and melee skill in equally high ability. She's a guardian at her core and always has been, being able to withstand hits and forces that would break every bone in a normal man's body, so long as she's blocking the blow. If nuclear devices were a thing in this universe, it's very possible she could survive one.
- An enigmatic soul known for being somewhat cold in spite of her chivalrous words. Myria perpetuates and embodies the stoic ideal of law and order before all other things, and has intentionally situated what shattered remnants of her people exist many miles away from any nation of mortals. She will protect the innocent, but beyond that, she seems to hold no love for her duties.
- Queen Kouri of Renalta is the only surviving member of her family. The two have disavowed any inheritance either way, else, Myria could claim the throne by legal right of being the older sibling of the family.
- A thousand years ago, only a few years prior to the fall of the Kingdom of Renalta, princess Myria disappeared. In truth, she was taken by the violent and abusive archangel, Typhon. She was trained to become an angel herself, and to serve Typhon's every wish or need, and soon became a guardian angel. A God, Merlin, took her into his own realm get her away from Typhon. A thousand years later, during Kouri's quest to banish the Gods, Archangel Myria was ordered by Merlin to take her side in the final conflict.
- This Archangel is the last remaining of what was once a council of seven. She gave up her immortality to bring her sister back to life. Though offered a place within the Kingdom of Renalta as a reward, she declined political power to maintain angelic stoicism. She then gathered what few angels remained, and brought them to their new home.
- Named after the foreign knight who became the first Queen of Renalta, four thousand years ago.
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Name: Sarah Darkhammer.
Role: Information dealer, legendary assassin.
Age: ? (Unknown.)
Sex: Female.
Appearance
- Height: 5'7"
- Weight: ? (Unknown.)
- Hair colour: White, brittle and often dead looking.
- Hair style: Short in most cases, though she sometimes wears it long. It seems entirely based on her mood.
- Eye colour: Pale, dead. They may have once been green.
- Skin colour: Pale, white, and dead. Yet, without any scent of rot.
- Normal Dress: Thick brown robes which never seem to inhibit her movement cover her from head to toe, with a cowl that keeps her entire face from view. Underneath this she wears a sort of leather armour, made from a creature that none can identify, which seems impenetrable to nearly any ranged weapon, save perhaps a cannon. She carries a bow and a quiver made out of shaped bones, which some rumour are those of people who once angered her.
Facts
- None have ever lived long enough to truly report what fighting her is like. Nonetheless, she wields a strange and ancient magic, that allows her to attach chains to her arrows or to anyone who comes into contact with her. These chains are then drawn to a person's soul, though they are ethereal and invisible unless she wills them to be seen by others. She can then pull on the chain and rip the soul out of someone's body, killing them instantly and optionally capturing this soul for her own uses if she so wishes. Only magic or distance in excess of a hundred feet can break the chains. Her bow and arrows are also enchanted with deadly poisons, that on simple contact, typically paralyse their victims. A few minutes without a cure causes the paralysis to creep into one's lungs, then turn into an acidic compound, melting away one's lungs from the inside out.
- Atop all of this, contact in excess of a couple seconds causes her to start draining life out of her victim. In mere seconds, her victim will die. The longest record of survival she reports is one minute, twenty six seconds. This means she can never touch anyone, nor be touched by anyone, for any reason, without death soon following if that contact is not immediately severed.
- She is undead, and makes effort of hiding this. She possesses her soul, and though she is unsettled near necromancers or other such undead-controlling magics, she rarely seems to be even remotely influenced by their attempts. Mainly because she instantly turns to killing them before they can be completed.
- Seriously, if you make it your objective to kill this woman, don't be surprised if you never succeed.
- This woman is seen by others as essentially being the incarnation of death. Whether or not she was ever once human is often disputed. She is many thousands of years old, possibly older than even the Old Imperium.
- Her father, a once legendary paladin, died thousands of years ago. Her mother is dead as well. Of her two siblings, only one survived: Malaki Duralus. The two have separate last names because of their family's way of naming children: Males took the father's surname, and females took the mother's surname.
- This woman is a legendary figure, and is often called the "Abomination's Wife." She is Malaki Duralus' lover, and makes no attempt at hiding it.
- There are rumours that this woman has been slain and utterly destroyed before, only to return some few years later. It is unclear if reports of her death were mistaken, or if she somehow cheats death on each occasion. Either way, it only feeds into the reputation she has of being an incarnation of death.
- It is unclear what, if any, long term goals this woman has. Yet, she offers sensitive information in exchange for political or personal favours on a regular basis, and enforces such deals with the penalty of death on each and every occasion.
- During Kouri's journey to banish the Gods, Sarah Darkhammer once gave her information in exchange for the assassination of the Warlord of Southblood. It is unclear why this happened, but some wonder if Sarah Darkhammer's recent, more public appearances, aren't due to the fact that the Gods are no longer present to stop her from spreading whatever disorderly sedition she pleases.
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Name: Malaki Duralus.
Role: The Abomination. (Mass murdering immortal.)
Age: ? (Unknown.)
Sex: Male.
Appearance
- Height: Varies in accounting. Claims in excess of eight feet can be discounted.
- Weight: Varies.
- Hair colour: Black.
- Hair style: Wild, long, and unkempt.
- Eye colour: Silver. He is a vampire.
- Skin colour: Pale.
- Normal Dress: Varies in accounting, but typically some leather armour much like that of Sarah Darkhammer. He's often described as being more animal than man.
Facts
- A vicious, berserker psychopath, who carves through men like butter. Accounts have told of him blowing apart stone walls, ripping through multiple lines of plate armour without pause, and taking blows that would end most people with a sadistic laugh instead. Hurting him only seems to make him stronger. He can bring about wings to fly at rapid speed, and his hands can turn into claws that can rip through blocking weapons, shields, and people. He also wields an ancient magic, one that allows him to control blood. If an opponent has even so much as a cut or a scrape, he can rip the blood out from them and turn that blood into armour piercing daggers, shields to block magic, or to simply feed himself.
- He is a Pure Blood: One of the original six vampires. His domain is over strength, and he has personally killed two of the other Pure Bloods.
- He destroyed a mountain once. If you're dreaming of killing him, you should stop that, for your own health. Though it is, technically, possible to kill him.
- Known as "The Abomination." He has personally seen to the downfall of kingdoms by slaughtering their leaders. Wherever he appears, mass destruction and genocide typically follow. He has exterminated entire races which he felt might threaten him before, though that was back in the era of the Dark Ages, when "kingdoms" were little more than overly large towns.
- Sarah Darkhammer is the only surviving member of his family, being his sister. The two are lovers, as well.
- He once spared Kouri on her journey to banish the Gods. The reasons for this are unknown.
- His activity in recent years has been limited, leading some to wonder if he's saving his strength for the coming invasion. It's quite possible he may simply be taking a break, and doesn't care for the plight of mortals. It's also possible that he's waiting for the mortal realm to exhaust itself fighting the Nine Hells before returning. Too many possibilities, truly, to know what it is he plans.
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Name: Molkar Zenistrad.
Role: Shaman of one of the Mountain Orcish Tribes.
Age: 29.
Sex: Male.
Appearance
- Height: 8'3"
- Weight: 325 LBS.
- Hair colour: None. He is bald.
- Hair style: None. He is bald.
- Eye colour: Red.
- Skin colour: Green-Brown.
- Normal Dress: Animal skins and hand-sewn mage's robes. Some of his older robes have the symbol of the Mage's Guild upon them.
Facts
- He uses telekinesis to pick up objects, such as boulders, and throw them at opponents. He can also slow and sometimes outright pick up targets with his telekinesis, and in his mountain home, this is typically all that is necessary to be deadly. After all, throw your opponent off a cliff, and he can never threaten your rule again.
- A reasonable sort, though prone to his more Orcish instincts and culture. It is unclear whether or not he is a friend to outsiders, though he's often willing to work with Queen's Blades. He retains a hatred of the Kingdom of Liveria, like the rest of his people.
- Family is generally not important to Orcs, and as such, Molkar has no idea where his family is, or if they're even alive.
- He was not always of the Orcish Tribes. At one point in his life he left his people to hone his magic talents at the Mage's Guild. A few years of this, and he returned to his people, quickly becoming a shaman of a tribe with his well educated background proving an edge against the brutish thugs who once controlled it. As such, he is also one of the only one of his people who is literate.
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Name: Meryl Slothschild.
Role: Agent of Sloth.
Age: ? (Appears 12-14 years of age.)
Sex: Female.
Appearance
- Height: 5'4"
- Weight: 135 LBS.
- Hair colour: Brown.
- Hair style: Short and childish, wild and unkempt.
- Eye colour: Brown.
- Skin colour: White.
- Normal Dress: Common peasantry clothing, like leather pants and a cloth shirt. She looks like a normal, human girl, and would maintain this if not for her manic laughter and wild look in her eyes.
Facts
- She uses illusion magic and can make her illusions corporeal—physical. Thus, she can imagine a dragon, and make it real. She also seems uncannily able to weave biological material, such as turning hands into claws, though she needs physical tools in order to do so. Most of this magic is out of her control after she uses it.
- A strange and terrifying little girl by the standards of the peasantry, most of which want to see her imprisoned in the dungeon forever. The nobility, however, look upon her as something that can be civilized, and made into a perfect example of Renaltan culture.
- It is clear that she was once human, and kidnapped from her family. She has no idea who her human family is, and often refers to Sloth as her father.
- She was involved in the terrorist attack on Arian village, though she didn't appear to understand the consequences of her actions. It was only recently that she learned of how death is a finality for mortals, which is strange, seeing as how she herself is a mortal who can be easily slain with a blade or a fireball.
Companions
These are companions you can choose to take with you on missions. Only relevant after mission selection is complete. Think carefully about their nationalities before pulling them into a mission. Some will get along easier with the locals than others. They're always about on par to the strength of PC's, so never worry about them becoming too weak or too strong: They're there to help you, not solve your problems for you, nor be bystanders you need to save.
Base Sheet Nyla Valerius Listener Unamo Fahim Zoe Vasilios Otto Kästner Mikan Gabriel Quar Velathari Dirge Tyrven Aurora Noire-
This is just to show you what each field means, in case there is any confusion. Companions are agents sent from other nations to work within and alongside the Queen's Blades. They can fill the void left by groups of PC's. So if you have a lot of damage dealers, grab a tank. If you have a lot of tanks, grab a healer. So on and so forth.
Name: (Their name.)Appearance (Various physical characteristics. Nothing too detailed in general.)
Age: (Their age.)
Sex: (Their physical gender.)
Homeland: (Where they come from/from which nation they represent.)
- Height:
- Weight:
- Race:
- Hair colour:
- Hair style:
- Eye colour:
- Skin colour:
- Normal Dress:
Strengths (Their primary abilities and talents they bring to aid you.)- (Ex: "I hit things good", "I have a way with words", "I look attractive.")
- (Ex: "I hit things poorly", "I barely understand the common tongue", "my appearance causes people to fall into hysterical fits.")
- Ideology.
- How many missions have they completed with the Queen's Blades?
- Et cetera.
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Name: Nyla Valerius.
Age: 16.Appearance
Sex: Female.
Homeland: The Imperium.
- Height: 5'8"
- Weight: 210 LBS.
- Race: Human.
- Hair colour: Chocolate brown.
- Hair style: Kept short, as per military protocol.
- Eye colour: Brown.
- Skin colour: White, though heavily tanned from constant training under the sun.
- Normal Dress: Imperial regalia decorates her shield, and she carries with her to every mission a pair of pilum and a gladius. Her tower shield is made out of metal, and covers her entire body from harm if she leans behind it. She wears thick leather armour, from head to toe, and wears a metal breast plate over-top of her chest. She also wears metal pads around her ankles, thighs, wrists, and forearms.
Strengths- Tank. This character is a bread and butter tank, whose entire way of combat and tactical thinking revolves around her tower shield.
- While she only has room for two, her pilum are exceptional armour-piercing weapons and are short range throwables. They cannot be thrown back once they make contact with a target or the ground.
- She is militarily trained by the Imperium and has gained combat experience with the Queen's Blades from the very onset of the invasion. There are few tricks demons can wield that will surprise her now, especially since she has been trained in tactics by Florence Merryweather himself.
- Used to fighting in formation, she can make her way across battlefields to reach allies in need of protection with ease, so long as she isn't already locked down. This also makes her last a little longer against multiple opponents at once, especially if fighting in a closed corridor rather than out in the open.
- Being a soldier of the Imperium, expect her to react very poorly to the desecration of human beings or Imperial regalia. War is one thing, slavery is another.
- Being young does sometimes make her headstrong and unable to see the bigger picture, both in battle and in politics. If it doesn't involve a straightforward brawl, expect her experience to be limited.
- Nyla is dedicated and loyal to the Imperium's "Dream of Empire." She hopes to one day see the world united under a single government. In some cases, she would be glad to see it done at the end of a sword. Nonetheless, she tends to respect the cultures of others, so long as those cultures respect the value of the individual.
- She has completed two missions with the Queen's Blades, one as a companion. During that time she's grown closer to the cause and quite fond of its general set of ethics.
- While not always part of the Imperium, she was brought in at a young age. Questioning it often incites looks of disapproval unless the points made are so bluntly valid, that even the most faithful soldier would have to acknowledge it.
- "Imperial Lectionem." She can read, write, and speak in the ancient Imperial tongue, as well as the tongue of the commoner which she grew up with.
- She tends to be neutral towards mages, unlike some of the Imperials she grew up with, and views them as decent people just trying to make it through life like anyone else.
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Name: Listener Unamo. Outside of Amazonian society, she prefers to be called Unamo rather than Listener.
Age: 22.Appearance
Sex: Female.
Homeland: The Amazons. (Now the Imperium, though she has sworn no loyalty to them.)
- Height: 5'4"
- Weight: 115 LBS.
- Race: Human.
- Hair colour: Black.
- Hair style: Long, well kept.
- Eye colour: Blue.
- Skin colour: Heavily tanned, from generations of living in the hot, humid jungle environment. (Hispanic equivalent.)
- Normal Dress: Though she has left the Amazons, she continues to wear ceremonial furs and leather as part of her dress. It provides only minimal protection from outside threats however, as a serious set of armour might prevent her from moving about.
Strengths- Unamo is reasonably attractive and "exotic" thanks to her background and skin tone. She draws the eyes of many men and even a few women, and has learned a few tricks in how to be manipulative with it since coming to the world of outsiders.
- Her shamanistic magic allows her to summon spirits and hear their calls. This magic is quite versatile, and allows her to do things as varied as scouting ahead with spirits, setting up deadly traps that rip out a person's soul, and using them like projectiles.
- Part of her ceremonial practices involve knowing how to mix and match chemicals. She can detect and create poisons, and healing herbs if no healers are around in tight situations. Her healing herbs are no replacement for real healers.
- She can use her spirits to imbue animals and take control over them, allowing her to "recruit" and use animals of all stripes, shapes, and colours. This is especially powerful in forests, jungles, and other areas with a plethora of animals. It does cost her magic to maintain the control however, and possession of people is extremely taxing.
- She tends to use a lot of her energy rapidly in combat, meaning that in long engagements, she struggles to remain useful.
- Her Amazonian upbringing leaves a lot to be desired in terms of social etiquette, and this can offend and upset the upper classes of society.
- Ideologically, Unamo is a curious soul, compelled to seek the truth in all things. To her, knowledge is paramount and sacrosanct, above all other things.
- Unamo has completed one mission with the Queen's Blades. During that mission, she's come to have mixed feelings for the whole operation: Liking some aspects of it, and disliking others.
- Wears a Rat Skull Charm around her wrist. It doesn't particularly mean anything, and has no magical power, but some rumour that a powerful goblin magician once visited the Amazons, and left this to her at a younger age as a gift for her curiosity about the outside world.
- During the civil dispute in her homeland, between remaining independent or joining the Imperium, she was among those voices who wished to remain independent. Now that the Imperium has taken control against her wishes, she disavows any loyalty to the Imperium—irrelevant of the fact that she is now technically a citizen of it. She is, essentially, homeless.
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Name: Fahim.
Age: ???Appearance
Sex: Male.
Homeland: The Free Holds.
- Height: Varies based on form. Default: 6'3"
- Weight: Varies based on form. Default: 220 LBS.
- Race: Automaton. (Golem—Shapeshifter.)
- Hair colour: Varies based on form. Default: Black.
- Hair style: Varies based on form. Default: Short, well kept.
- Eye colour: Varies based on form. Default: Brown.
- Skin colour: Varies based on form. Default: Deeply tanned (middle eastern equivalent).
- Normal Dress: Varies based on form. Default: Wears loose fitting, brown and white robes. Something which typically doesn't draw attention in the Free Holds, and can be worn by many different sizes of people... Important for him.
Strengths- He is a shapeshifting automaton, and one of the only of his kind. He is his own greatest weapon, and can take many different forms, though he cannot gain or lose mass through shapeshifting. If he shrinks his height too much, he must put that extra mass somewhere. He can separate himself into smaller pieces, but he loses control of all but one piece if they're not in physical contact with one another.
- He is a skilled and well trained assassin, and knows how to look for trouble. He's been looking for it his entire life.
- He has connections with underground, unsavoury elements, and can often bring them to bare in cities or towns.
- In combat, he is extremely intimidating. Few opponents ever get to witness what it's like to face someone who can be the blade that impales you, the axe that cuts you through, the mace that breaks your bones, or the rope that constricts around you until your eyes pop out of their sockets.
- He cannot ever wield magic, nor magic immunity. Thus, he can be quite vulnerable to mages who catch him off guard. This proves doubly true for pyromancy, as fire damage is effectively permanent for Fahim during a mission.
- Changing out of human form, even partially, causes Fahim to start losing his mind. The longer he has to maintain it, the harder it is for him to maintain his psychological coherence. In other words, he can have psychotic episodes if he loses too much of his humanity.
- Ideologically, Fahim believes quite firmly in the way of life he "grew up" with. Slaves are free if they choose to resist, and thus there is nothing inherently wrong with slavery. The weak are trained to be strong by the way they live, and the strong decay into weakness. Thus ensuring that the strong survive and rule, that those who deserve power through their cunning, looks, or strength, get it. It is essentially laissez-faire Capitalism taken to an extreme.
- Two missions. He's come to greatly enjoy the organization he is part of, as it caused his liberation from slavery under Rashad. Not that Rashad ever treated him poorly.
- When Fahim loses human form for more than a few minutes at a time, he sustains severe, systematic memory loss throughout his entire person. He was found in the desert, by an oasis, disguised as a boulder by Rashad. It took many hours to encourage him back into a human form, and years to train him to be human-like again.
- Fahim has an instinct to mimic his environment. He "feels comfortable" doing so. Expect him to mimic the appearances of nobles at a ball, of savages in a jungle, or even soldiers in a column.
- He is a Mechanist construct, an advanced and eventually abandoned project by them to craft the perfect assassins. It turns out they performed their tasks too efficiently, and left many Mechanists dead before the majority of them could be destroyed. A few, however, escaped into the environment. Fahim is presumably one of them, even if he remembers nothing of his past.
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Name: Zoe Vasilios.
Age: 19.Appearance
Sex: Female.
Homeland: The Kingdom of Liveria.
- Height: 5'9"
- Weight: 165 LBS... Ish.
- Race: Human?
- Hair colour: Raven black.
- Hair style: Long and flowing down out of her helmet and mask.
- Eye colour: Blue.
- Skin colour: White.
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Normal Dress: Three layers.
- First Layer: High quality, sanguine silk shirt and pants with a lizardskin leather belt cinched around her waist. These offer little in the way of protection beyond against sunlight, but offer plenty of comfort. A pair of white socks, generally afforded only to nobility.
- Second Layer: A chain shirt which runs down to her waist and elbows which looks like it was sized specifically for her, made out of extremely high quality material that appears to help the user survive impacts. Plate breastplate, layered out of dragon scale that resists fire. Steel-plated pads for her thighs, knees, ankles, elbows, wrists, and forearms. Only her shoulders remain berift of protection beyond the chain shirt, because...
- Third Layer: ...Of a voluminous black cloak which starts around her shoulders and wraps itself all around her in a billowing fashion. It even has a hood, in case her steel open face helmet fails to protect her from sunlight. Finally, there is an intricate mask on her face. With a plain emotionless look to it, it manages to hide her eyes from view with thin slits that she seems fully capable of seeing through with ease. Perhaps she relies on other senses more than sight?
Overall, despite all of this, the average Rheinfeld Templar has more protection overall. It's mostly used to make it difficult to find a weak point.
Wears a large mechanical crossbow on her back, and keeps several intricate smoke grenades underneath her cloak to escape or cover the escape of others.
Strengths- An incredible assassin who, once on the path, is rarely ever stopped or dissuaded from killing her target. Her skill with a crossbow is incredible, and the mechanical components of it give her sufficient piercing power to blow through a plate mail target. Cleanly. No doubt this makes her effective at killing single targets.
- She has many escape and diversion tactics, which include things like smoke grenades, and using the environment against her enemy.
- Being a well educated, literate assassin, she often researches places, targets, and methods, before ever engaging in a contract. This is no different with the Queen's Blades: She never goes anywhere unprepared, and she willingly imparts this knowledge onto others when asked or when she feels it's most appropriate.
- She is highly acrobatic and is a natural three dimensional thinker, being able to find ways in and out of a location that nobody would normally think of. This also allows her to shoot in awkward positions, climb sheer walls, or otherwise manipulate environments so as to always give herself an advantage.
- She's an assassin. Do you think most people will be comfortable in her presence? The answer is generally "no." Leave her out of moralistic discussions unless you're going for the intimidation and threatening routes.
- Large groups give her a lot of trouble in fights. In most instances she will have to turn tail and run, as she doesn't have the training to engage several targets at once and win, unless she has people protecting her.
- The objective is always paramount before any ethical quandaries, especially in cases where doing the ethical thing in the short term might cause greater problems in the long term. She isn't completely heartless, but if she believes even momentarily that saving innocent lives would interfere with accomplishing a greater goal, expect her to be quite irritated with anyone who proposes saving a few innocent lives before accomplishing something greater. Killing and death mean little to this woman, and as such loss and tragedy mean equally little.
- One. She feels indifferent towards the Queen's Blades so far. As a contract killer, it would be surprising for her to become attached over the course of a single operation, even for something as inherently noble as "saving the world."
- There are rumours that Zoe is a vampire. She makes no effort to confirm such rumours, instead using it as a smokescreen to continue to hide her identity and most of her physical features. It could very well be true that she is a vampire, though.
- It is unknown why she is working for the Queen's Blades pro bono, when she could easily be charging them hefty fees to take out priority targets an assassin. There are rumours that she directly services the Kingdom of Liveria's royal family, and that she was once tasked with protecting the young princess, but that seems unlikely given her supposed age.
- She never takes off her mask...
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Name: Otto Kästner.
Age: 29.Appearance
Sex: Male.
Homeland: The Kingdom of Rheinfeld.
- Height: 6'4"
- Weight: 260 LBS.
- Race: Human.
- Hair colour: Blonde.
- Hair style: Extremely short. Sometimes mistaken for being bald at a long distance.
- Eye colour: Blue.
- Skin colour: White.
- Normal Dress: Plate mail armour of high quality, as is usual for Rheinfelder Templar, atop a chain mail vestment. Beyond that, he carries a large, two handed blade, which has his family's crest cast into the handle. At his waist is a smaller arming sword, and a throwing axe.
Strengths- He is a juggernaut of the battlefield, capable of going toe to toe even with mountain orcs in terms of physical strength. He could cleave three armoured men in one, solid swing with his blade. Needless to say, he's an incredible front line fighter.
- He's well versed in poetry, and is literate. He is easily fascinated by books and knowledge, and seeks it out, though he disdains books on magic that speak on it in any other light than how to defeat it. He's highly intelligent in spite of his brutish ways and can think his way out of problems as often as he can brute force his way out of problems.
- Being a templar, he is immune to magic. Outright. Go ahead, throw a giant wall of fire at him, he won't care. He can also detect magic in use nearby, friend or foe, and sometimes even discern what kind of magic it is.
- He berserks on the battlefield, but retains some measure of control. This berserk fighting style lets him resist pain and stay on his feet longer than he normally could, and is quite intimidating to enemies in his war path.
- To be courteous, he looks like he fell down the ugly tree and hit every single branch on the way down. Don't expect his toothy grin, dented skull, and scarred body to win anyone over in a game of first impressions.
- He has health issues, genetic health issues. He sometimes coughs up blood and looks ghastlier than usual.
- Dead loyal to the Templar Order, as his family raised him with a zealous loyalty to The Father. He comes from a noble family, and believes in the old way of doing things: That those with the money and education should take care of the illiterate savages beneath them. He fights, bleeds, and will someday probably die fighting for his cause, which is whatever the Templar Order tells him is right.
- One. He loved every minute of it, though regrets the high number of losses he has so far borne witness to.
- He truly is fascinated by books. He has funded the construction of a personal library in his family's estate just for his own personal collection of hundreds of books, most of which he has read. He is fluent in several tongues, including the old Imperial tongue, the language of the Drow, his native tongue of Rheinfelder, the common tongue, and even knows bits and pieces of the Druid's secret language.
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Name: Mikan. (No surname.)
Age: 26.Appearance
Sex: Female.
Homeland: Was born and grew up in Rheinfeld. Her homeland now, however, is the Kingdom of Renalta.
- Height: 6'2" (Mechanist bloodline makes her taller than usual.)
- Weight: 155 LBS. (Naturally lithe. Again, Mechanist bloodline.)
- Race: Human, 1/6th Mechanist.
- Hair colour: Green.
- Hair style: Ponytail, down to her upper back.
- Eye colour: Green.
- Skin colour: White.
- Normal Dress: Often shows skin with simple leather shorts and a cloth t-shirt, providing minimal defence in the event of combat, but sometimes being quite distracting to an enemy. She wears hard leather wrist, elbow, ankle, and knee pads, to protect herself from injuries when performing acrobatics. A pair of short blades remain sheathed at her hips, ready to be pulled out at a moment's notice to be duel wielded in a flurry of blows.
Strengths- Is naturally attractive and takes advantage of it to full effect, having used her more... Private skills to excellent effect as young as fourteen years old. It's not uncommon for her to be able to distract guards, cause opponents to hesitate in combat, and so on, simply by virtue of her looks and how she uses them.
- Has been a thief since childhood, and knows how to find the best ins and outs of any place. She's also naturally acrobatic and slippery, being difficult to catch and hard to predict in fights.
- In her later years, she was trained in the art of assassination and duelling. She's an extremely effective one on one combatant, and can dispatch most opponents with due haste and little trouble.
- She was once the spymaster of Renalta, and thus she knows plenty of secrets. Enough so, that she can weaponize them in conversation. This is especially potent against nobles. This also makes her naturally keen to notice things that others might miss, and point out weaknesses where none could otherwise be found.
- She's got quite the reputation for being an especially thrilling minx. So much so, in fact, that it's not uncommon for her to meet men and women who don't take no for an answer politely, and will keep pushing the matter. Some to such points as to induce momentary bloodshed in order to cease with their less than savoury thoughts.
- She has two short blades and no armour. Putting her into a fight with an especially destructive mage is generally a mistake if the mage has range to their advantage, especially if she's already dealing with other opponents.
- Mikan is a free spirit by nature, though loyal to her friends and associates. She tends to look fondly upon petty thieves and vagabonds, when they're simply attempting to make it in day to day life. She seeks to protect the meek and the helpless, to give to those who have nothing, to seek safety for those who have none. While her goal in life is to enjoy each and every day, to play in banter and word games, ultimately, it isn't uncommon to see her down by local orphanages, teaching them how to read, giving them food via money out of her own pockets.
- Two so far. She's loyal to Queen Kouri and the Kingdom of Renalta, and thus, she has no other motives than to see the Queen's Blades succeed.
- She grew up in an orphanage in Rheinfeld, not learning how to read and write until she was sixteen years old. It was there that she learned how to use her body to get things, both in the art of stealing and in the art of the bedroom. It should be no surprise that she has a soft spot for thieves—she was one for several years.
- She is still technically wanted for several charges of theft and a few charges of assault in Rheinfeld, but due to her status within the Kingdom of Renalta, she's granted diplomatic immunity whenever she visits. She often rubs this fact in by the local garrison commander whenever he's around.
- Since she was the spymaster up until recently, she read every single report filed about every single Queen's Blade both current and in the past, and has access to the files on future Queen's Blades. In short, she probably knows most of your deepest, darkest secrets. She probably won't tell anyone, so long as she has no good reason to.
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Name: Gabriel. "Angel of Vengeance." (No surname.)
Age: ? (Unknown.)Appearance
Sex: Male.
Homeland: Kingdom of Liveria. (Recent—declared. He has not yet been accepted as a representative of the nation, but there are few doubts about them accepting him.)
- Height: 6'2"
- Weight: 210 LBS.
- Race: Angel.
- Hair colour: Blonde.
- Hair style: Short, as though it has only started growing in the past couple of weeks.
- Eye colour: Gold.
- Skin colour: White.
- Normal Dress: Outside of battle, he tends to wear heavenly, white robes that loosely drape his figure, though he can also be found wearing the clothes of Liverian nobility. In combat, he wears a plate mail chest piece and shoulder pads, though the rest of him is protected by chain mail, save for his head, which he leaves unveiled so he can properly intimidate his enemies by simply glaring at them.
Strengths- Gabriel is an angel, and thus, by nature, he is extraordinarily attractive and possesses a naturally commanding presence. He can be equal parts intimidating and charming, and even incorporates it into his battle tactics. He has managed to intimidate orcs. Recently, his intimidation has been more powerful than his charms.
- He is a powerful warrior, and his angelic calling was always towards being a dealer of justice. As such, it should surprise nobody that he's an effective sword-and-shield front line tank. He also summons his weapons to his side, meaning that he can't lose them in battle.
- He possess magic that is specifically and explicitly made to fight demons and corruption. He has recently lost his capacity to heal people, but has gained the ability to project rays of light that burn demonic flesh.
- Being an angel, he has large, feathery wings that allow him to fly. He also has the ability to detect corruption and malevolence around himself, and can find hidden demons in mortal crowds if he's brought close enough to them.
- His code of ethics and stoicism prevent him from breaking laws. Any laws. Even laws about slavery in the Free Holds. Don't ask him to commit a crime; he physically can't unless there is good reason to believe that such laws were created by a demonic hand.
- Gabriel's skills are spread across multiple useful skill sets. As such, one shouldn't rely on him to complete any one task perfectly. He can tank, but not as well as Nyla can. He can cast magic, but not as well as Quar can. He's a hybrid character, best utilized in situations that call for all of his skills, rather than any one particular quality.
- Gabriel follows the angelic code of stoicism; he keeps law and order above all other values. However, due to recent events, his faith has been completely shaken in Archangel Myria's leadership. As such, he has decided to take a political side in mortal affairs—something that is normally considered a heretical action by their code of stoicism. He has joined the Kingdom of Liveria, where he has already been nicknamed the "Angel of Vengeance." Some wonder aloud if he plans on turning on Archangel Myria when the war against the Nine Hells is over.
- Two. Both shook his faith in the way Archangel Myria runs things, as he witnessed horrible atrocities committed that he was technically supposed to do nothing about.
- Gabriel was only recently discovered, trapped within Arian lake. He was freed by Queen Kouri at the behest of a Queen's Blade using her strange, Royal Bloodline. He was banished there after protesting the Gods action of destroying the Kingdom of Renalta.
- Recently, Gabriel has become a sort of violent vigilante in the capital of Liveria. He specifically keeps watch for law breakers, and mercilessly assaults them. He still shows mercy to petty criminals, but those with more vile intentions than simple thievery tend to find themselves at the hilt of his blade before long. While the Kingdom of Renalta and Archangel Myria have expressed concern at his actions, the Kingdom of Liveria has adored this.
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Name: Quar Velathari.
Age: 67 (Young adult).Appearance
Sex: Male.
Homeland: The Elves of the Dark Forest, though his present homeland which he represents politically is The Imperium.
- Height: 5'5"
- Weight: 140 LBS.
- Race: Elf.
- Hair colour: Black.
- Hair style: Long, kept as a pony tail.
- Eye colour: Green.
- Skin colour: Tanned, from many hours spent out in the sun, with nature. Trees n' stuff. Elves.
- Normal Dress: Is often found in Imperial iconography, wearing leather armour uniforms given to him during his service in their military. He is still technically part of their military.
Strengths- Quar wields druidic magic, allowing him to create and manipulate nature. This is obviously strongest wherever green things can be found, though he can wield it without a single plant being present by simply creating the plants himself. This also allows him to converse with animals and make them obey basic commands, depending on their intelligence.
- This elf has spent some time focusing on healing magics after his last mission. While he was already able to heal before, it drained him severely to be able to do so. Now, he is both a dedicated healer, and a manipulator of nature.
- His staff is special, crafted and given to him by his people before he left them. It's made out of a fine, though strange quality wood, and it appears to have a mind of its own. It glows whenever it wants to get his attention, or when he uses it as a conduit of energy for his spells. Using it, he can supercharge nearly any spell, turning a simple roots spell into an extremely violent shredding spell that rips apart stone columns and tears men in half.
- He's a fairly agile sort, and being older than he appears, he is actually extraordinarily intelligent. He can think his way through nearly any problem, if given enough time and information to figure it out. Puzzles, mazes, deciphering things, gauging situations—all of this, he can do.
- He is terribly awful at fighting in melee combat. If he somehow ends up in melee combat and doesn't have a spell charged, he will probably die. Don't let him end up there.
- His spells are a little on the slow side, especially if he's using his staff to supercharge a spell. It's better to use him in a predictive fashion, rather than as a quick reaction to an ambush or something similar.
- He fervently believes in the Imperium's overall cause and ideology, and works to further it however he can. Beyond this, he does appear to have ulterior motives, which he largely keeps to himself. None of them seem particularly malicious, though.
- One. It was a hard fought mission, and it only strengthened his determination not to allow a repeat of such carnage.
- Quar once lived with his people in the Dark Forest. For reasons unknown, he has left them. Based on what limited information is available about the Elven people in the outside world, his mere contact with the outside world for such a prolonged period has guaranteed his banishment from his own people.
- Other mages have detected that Quar's staff is far, far more powerful than it appears. It seems to grow with his own abilities, never being too much for him, but never needing to be discarded for more powerful things. Such growing artifacts are extraordinarily rare, though he has repeatedly refused the Mage's Guild's requests to study it.
- He has a thing for Aëyr. A big time thing for her. Like, leaving secret love poetry and flowers kind of thing for her. It'd be almost cute if it wasn't so sadly awkward.
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Name: Sir Dirge Tyrven. (Self-proclaimed knight.)
Age: 36.Appearance
Sex: Male.
Homeland: Kingdom of Renalta.
- Height: 7'8"
- Weight: 430 LBS.
- Race: Orc.
- Hair colour: Bald.
- Hair style: Bald.
- Eye colour: Brown.
- Skin colour: Green-Brown.
- Normal Dress: Plate mail. Lots and lots of plate mail. Thick, extraordinarily strong plate mail, that now carries the crest of the Kingdom of Renalta on the chest piece.
Strengths- He carries a two handed warhammer large enough that the head of which is larger than most small human children. He hits something with that, and he will generally break something. Armoured or not. He's also big enough that it's not a slow weapon in his hands by any means. If he hits something, it will hurt. A lot.
- He's an orc in plate mail. He can take as much of a dishing as he can deal out, and in melee, he is utterly terrifying.
- Dirge is tactically competent and a combat veteran, and he can easily figure out where his attention is needed most in a fight. He will fight to protect his friends, and can easily bowl through multiple enemies to reach a friend in need in a single charge.
- Dirge does not get tired. Not practically, anyway. He could probably fight for hours and still be ready for more. This also applies to pain: Pain just seems to make him fight all the more determined.
- He has no shield, he is an extremely large target, and he fights in melee only. Ranged, armour piercing weapons can and will hurt him if they aren't taken out first.
- He participated in James the Illusionist's terrorist schemes that involved planting bombs that would have murdered an entire village. While his loyalty is commendable, expect a lot of people far and wide to look upon him with a mixture of fear and hatred—especially commoners.
- Dirge is a knight, who follows the classic knight's code. He swears loyalty to a cause and follows it to the bitter end, no matter where it leads. For a long time, this was to serve James the Illusionist—an infamous terrorist in Renalta. He couldn't break away from his oath, but was recently released from it as a result of Queen's Blades actions. As such, he has sworn allegiance to the Queen's Blades.
- None. He is a recent addition, as a result of Queen's Blades actions. Their mercy to his former master inspired him to ultimately join their cause.
- Only recently did he shave himself completely bald, as a sign of starting his life anew. He typically wears a helmet though, so it's not that noticeable.
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tiefling, female, pyromancer-healer.
Name: Aurora Noire.Appearance
Age: 19.
Sex: Female.
Homeland: The Kingdom of Tuleria.
- Height: 5'6"
- Weight: 155 LBS.
- Race: Tiefling.
- Hair colour: Deep, Blood Red.
- Hair style: Long, draped around her shoulders. Her bangs remain unkempt and sometimes get into her eyes.
- Eye colour: Red.
- Skin colour: Red.
- Normal Dress: Brown and grey robes, though she keeps old uniforms from the Mage's Tower around. On her shoulders, embroidered on, are symbols of the Mage's Tower.
Strengths- Aurora is a healer of some renown, who used her talents to mend injured soldiers. Now, due to the soldiers not trusting her, she's taking her several years of experience to heal the Queen's Blades instead. She also knows non-magical healing techniques. Out of all the Companions, she is probably the strongest healer.
- Pyromancer. An innate talent from her demonic ancestry, she honed it, and now uses it to burn her enemies, and keep her allies warm at night. Unlike what some lunatics like to say, demons are just as susceptible to fire as they are to anything else, so long as they're susceptible to magic at all.
- Her Tiefling blood gives her an edge in both detecting and resisting corruption. Given only a few moments with a person, she can discern if they've been influenced by demons whatsoever.
- Naturally acrobatic thanks to dexterous use of her tail, she can easily avoid sword blows or get to hard to reach places each respectively.
- Systemic racism and the current war with her great grandfather (or great grandmother?) makes it difficult for people to trust her at face value. In fact, depending on whether or not guards are nearby, it may outright cause people to attempt to mug her. Or, perhaps worse. She is, after all, quite exotic.
- Her healing has less of an effect on herself than it does on others, due to her Tiefling blood. In essence, if she does actually get hurt, it'll take more power to heal herself, than it comparatively would take to heal someone else. Don't let her get hurt much.
- Aurora was a merchant who used to sell her doctoral services to the military, more specifically the navy. She's served aboard multiple ships, both on the Eastern Ocean coast, and in the Blood Sea. Her motto is generally that if everyone can provide more than they take, than there will be no more poverty that way. Otherwise, she's a fairly reasonable person, who hasn't entirely decided on what her future is going to be like. One constant is that she hopes to end the current discrimination against herself, and by extension, her people.
- Zero. After Veira left due to complications with the Mage's Guild, the Kingdom of Tuleria offered the services of one of their better healers to the Queen's Blades. She seems eager to belong somewhere where she won't have to watch for a knife in her back.
- Grew up fairly poor and with no parents, though her magical talents for pyromancy at a young age caught the attention of the Mage's Tower. Thus, in a way, mages are her family, and books are her parents.
- Prone to doing mischievous deeds from time to time, as for some reason, she feels a compulsion to do such things. She often blames it on her bloodline, though it could be something else entirely.
- She has a magical familiar, bound to a simple stone which she keeps in her pocket. It doesn't actually do anything of merit. It's a green, ethereal kitten, named Compassion. She grew attached to it in her youth and kept it instead of giving it back to the Mage's Tower.
That's all for now. -
Friendly
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Below, you can find a copy-paste sheet to work on for this RP.
[b]Name:[/b] (Your character's name.)
[b]Age:[/b] (Your character's age. Keep in mind that the Kingdom of Renalta, the Goblin Holds, and the Imperium, are both only about ten years old.)
[b]Race:[/b] (Humans are the most common race in the world, but there are many others. While you can create your own custom race, you may want to check the "Races of LoR 2" lore entry in Master Archives.)
[b]Sex:[/b] (Male? Female?... Tentacles?)
[b]Appearance:[/b] (Either a picture or text description will do here.)
[b]Rank:[/b] (If this is a new character, put "recruit" here. If this is an old character reformatted to the new system, part of the re-approval process is giving your character their rank.)
[b]Homeland:[/b] (Where your character comes from. This may affect their interactions with NPC's in the world. It would be best to pick a nation that is listed in the nations list, under "Nations" in the "Intelligence Centre.")
[b]Biography:[/b] (Personality/History. I need at least one paragraph from this to determine your writing level.)
[b]Motivation:[/b] (Why is your character joining the Queen's Blades? What are they hoping to achieve by doing this?)
(Find out how stats & traits work by looking in the Resources Centre. You start with [b]400 points[/b] to spend in any of the skills below, and can only spend up to [b]80 points[/b] in each skill at present.)
[b][COLOR=#ff0000]Heavy Stat:[/COLOR][/b] 0. (Every 10 points in a Heavy Skill gives 1 point to the Heavy Stat. Use decimal points if the stat total is not divisible by 10. IE: If you spend 47 on Defender, you have 4.7 in the Heavy Stat. This applies to the Light Stat and Magic Stat as well.)
[LIST][*][b]Perseverance[/b]: 0.
[*][b]Defender:[/b] 0.
[*][b]Heavy Hitter:[/b] 0.
[*][b]Combat Senses:[/b] 0.
[*][b]Repositioning:[/b] 0.[/LIST]
[b][COLOR=#00ff00]Light Stat:[/COLOR][/b] 0.
[LIST][*][b]Reflexes:[/b] 0.
[*][b]Cloak of Innocence:[/b] 0.
[*][b]Rapid Blows:[/b] 0.
[*][b]Sharp:[/b] 0.
[*][b]Dancer:[/b] 0.[/LIST]
[b][COLOR=#00ccff]Magic Stat:[/COLOR][/b]
[LIST][*][b]Raw Talent:[/b] 0.
[*][b]Mastery:[/b] 0.
[*][b]Wells of Power:[/b] 0.
[*][b]Pattern Weaving:[/b] 0.
[*][b]Fortitude:[/b] 0.[/LIST]
[b]Custom Traits:[/b] (Your custom traits. You create these! You start with [b]ten custom trait points[/b] to spend on creating and upgrading custom traits.)
[LIST][*]Ex 1: Racial?
[*]Ex 2: Special power?
[*]Ex 3: Unique skill?
[*]Ex 4: Magical heirloom?
[*]Ex 5: Et cetera.[/LIST]
[b]Story Traits:[/b] (Stuff your character has earned through participation in the story in some way. Typically items or pets. These can be lost as easily as they can be gained over the procession of the story. They're GM-assigned, so if this is a new character, leave this blank.)
[b]Equipment List:[/b] (List your equipment below. You can list as many items as you like, though if they have magical effects, you will need to spend custom traits on them.)
[b]Romance:[/b] (Do you want your character to be involved in romantic arcs with other characters? Note, this will only affect NPC's. I can't control the behaviour of PC's, you'll have to ask them to stop yourself.)
[b]Does the Kouri Plushie Exist?:[/b] (...)
[b]Signature:[/b] (Type your username here if you agree to the rules of the RP, and give me permission to kill off your character at any time. Don't worry, I don't murder without reason—I just want to make sure I have your permission beforehand, so there's no misconceptions. ) -
Stats & Traits below.
Stats
Skills range from 0-100, and fall under three stats: Heavy, light, and magic. You cannot spend custom traits giving yourself stat points or skill points. You invest points into each of the skills underneath each stat, which directly affects dice rolls in those tasks. Every 10 points spent in one skill equates to 1 point in the parent stat. So if you spend 50 points in a heavy skill, your heavy stat will have 5 points in it. Use decimal points: If you spend 47 points in a heavy skill, you will have 4.7 points in the heavy stat.
0 Points represents absolute, bumbling incompetency. 20 Points represents only a most basic, rudimentary knowledge of the task. 40 Points represents someone who is mediocre at a task. 50 Points represents absolute average at a task. 60 Points represents someone who is above average at a task. 80 Points represents someone who is an expert at a task. 100 Points represents someone who is a master at a task. Enemies also follow his general curve: Stronger enemies will be better at more skills, and weaker enemies will generally struggle to kill you unless you catch you off guard or with some of their friends.
Stats are visible markers on your character, and are generally perceptible to NPC's. A character who invests a lot in heavy skills will have a high heavy stat, and NPC's will generally notice this. This also applies to the light stat, but not to the magic stat unless they have a way of detecting you. Heavy stats tend to make your character look more muscular, while light stats tend to make them look more lithe. A mix of both can be achieved, but never to any extreme.
There are in-story ways of breaking the 100 point limit, but naturally, they tend to be exceedingly dangerous.
To start with, you can only have up to 80 points invested in a skill. As further mission cycles are completed, this will unlock to 90, then 100 with the ability to use story content to attempt to break physical limitations and go beyond it if you should so choose. This is basically just to prevent horribly lopsided min-maxing from happening until it's appropriate.
You may save points to spend later, but it's not recommended. It will intentionally make you weaker in a role play that gives you no plot armour. Basically the equivalent of putting slabs of meat on yourself before walking into a pit full of bears.
You start with 400 points to spend.
Stats
These are descriptions of the physical stats, along with a few other interactions you should know about. All skills can be used together unless otherwise noted. You can combine Heavy Hitter and Rapid Blows in attacks, or Defender and Fortitude in defence. In fact, for magic skills, combining and weaving skills together is absolutely necessary for success.
Speed versus Dexterity: Increasing heavy stats makes you faster in a charge or pursuit, whereas light stats make you better able to navigate uneven or difficult terrain, hit precise points, and evade. A thief won't outrun a knight—au contraire, the knight will easily catch up to the thief on flat, even ground! However, a thief can evade a knight's attacks and attempt to hit a weak point, or escape with acrobatics should the terrain favour it.
Heavy Stat: Improving this stat causes other characters to note your character's physical strength more often, typically. This also affects non-combat tasks, such as attempting to brute force locked doors.
- Perseverance: This skill judges how much pain your character can fight through, and how long they can last in a fight before fatigue starts to set in. The higher this skill gets, the less likely this character will be affected negatively by their wounds in combat and the more likely they are to survive any wounds they do take.
- Defender: This skill judges how well your character can wield defensive items such as armour or shields, and how likely they are to stop an attack from causing them damage. The higher this skill gets, the more likely this character will be able to add additional effects atop their blocking, such as knocking enemies away, or resisting heavier blows.
- Heavy Hitter: This skill judges how effectively your character can resist recoil on firearms. This also affects draw strength on bows and crossbows, and how much force they can throw behind melee hits. The higher this skill gets, the less defensive penalties and fatigue penalties heavy hits give to the user and the more damage they simply, straight up do. It can also include bonus effects, like knocking an enemy to the ground even if the attack is blocked.
- Combat Senses: This skill judges how efficiently your character can keep track of multiple opponents. As a result, this gives them bonuses in attacking multiple targets and reduces the bonuses of enemies who attack your character in groups. The higher this skill gets, the greater their comprehension of the battlefield becomes, and the less enemies will benefit at all in engaging you in groups.
- Repositioning: This skill judges how quickly your character can get around the battlefield freely without being interrupted or stopped by enemies. This grants bonuses to charges, moving quickly from one point of cover to another, moving to defend an ally, moving to take a position, and so on. Useful for getting closer to ranged opponents quicker, or getting to a more advantageous point. The higher this skill gets, the faster your character's dashes across the battlefield become, and the more effective their charges become. It also increases the likelihood of them avoiding interception or damage, and affects how many opponents they can get past without interruption.
Light Stat: Improving this stat causes other characters to note your character's quicker reaction times and more alert look. This also affects non-combat tasks, such as attempting to climb things.
- Reflexes: This skill judges how effectively your character can react to situations around them, most prominently in dodging attacks or evading traps. As a result, this can also affect their ability to escape pins. The higher this skill gets, the quicker your character's reaction times become—which truly has self-explanatory benefits.
- Cloak of Innocence: This skill judges how naturally your character can blend in with shadows and use other stealth techniques such as pickpocketing. It also causes enemies to take less interest in your character, as they'll underestimate their abilities until this character causes injury or death to an enemy. This also affects how well your character can escape enemy attention and escape terrible situations. The higher this skill gets, the better your character becomes at all of these feats.
- Rapid Blows: This skill judges how quickly your character can dole out punishment to enemies. This affects how much quicker your character can attack with melee weapons and how much faster they can reload ranged weapons. The higher this skill gets, the faster your character's attacks become, and the less likely they are to offer an opening to enemies, and the lower the fatigue penalty becomes for rushing through attacks.
- Sharp: This skill judges how likely your character is to notice chinks in enemy defences and notice things out of place. Naturally, this increases your character's ability to pierce through enemy armour and defences. This also affects how your character perceives things in conversations, such as lie detection, and how likely your character is to notice unusual patterns. The higher this skill gets, the better these effects become, and the more perceptive your character becomes in general.
- Dancer: This skill judges how efficient your character is at one on one combat and reduces penalties when fighting on anything other than flat, solid ground. This reduced penalty also applies to fighting while pinned, or against enemies who have classic advantages like height bonuses. The higher this skill gets, the better the duellist your character becomes, and the more environments they can fight in without fear of penalty.
Magic Stat: Improving this stat has no physical effect on your character, though other mages generally can pick up on how much time your character has spent mastering the arts of the arcane. A higher magic stat also affects some non-combat related tasks, though in more abstract and strange ways than with heavy or light, such as moments of intuition or powerful gut feelings.
- Raw Talent: This skill judges how well your character can manage to control high amounts of power. This translates to how much magic your character can put into a spell without hurting themselves. This also affects how likely your character is to hurt themselves if they overcharge a spell. The higher this skill gets, the more power your character can unleash in a single spell, and the less likely they are to hurt themselves for overcharging a spell.
- Mastery: This skill judges how much your character understands about magic, and affects how likely they are to recognize enemy spells, enchantments, and so on. This increases their control over their own magic, allowing them to cast more powerful spells accurately, and increases the odds of your character evading spells, dispelling spells, interfering with enemies casting spells, or even stealing spells. The higher this skill gets, the more knowledge your character will have amassed about magic as a whole and the greater the odds of them understanding and evading an enemy spell.
- Wells of Power: This skill judges how quickly your character can recover magic spent in spells and how likely they are to detect the presence of magic—subtle or significant—in the first place. This also sometimes grants momentary bouts of visions or powerful though often vague gut feelings about the world around them. The higher this skill gets, the more likely they are to detect magic, and the faster they'll regenerate it for use themselves.
- Pattern Weaving: This skill judges how quickly your character can wield spells, and how quickly they can amass power for spells. This also allows your character to detonate raw magic by gathering it and simply not using it—though this has a very short range and typically hurts your character along with their opponent. Higher ranks do reduce the amount of self-harm sustained. The higher this skill gets, the quicker your character can cast spells and draw power, and the more power they can draw for an explosive detonation.
- Fortitude: This skill judges how effectively your character can resist all magic of all kinds. If this skill is maxed out, your character will have achieved absolute immunity to all magic, which can itself manifest in supernatural ways. This however affects all magic indiscriminately, and prevents your character from casting anything beyond basic magic. It also stops friendly spells as effectively as enemy spells. This does not interfere with the detection part of Wells of Power, and if you spend at least 50 in this stat, Wells of Power becomes half the normal cost. (Ex: Spending 50 points in Wells of Power would give you an effective score of 100, if you had at least 50 points in Fortitude.) You can take a total of 20 points in this before it will start to interfere with your own ability to cast magic.
Traits
Traits are created by players for their characters. You may have noticed on your character sheet however, two different trait sections, with one being ambiguously called "story", and the other "custom." Custom traits are your own, created abilities for your character. These can be anything you can imagine, though they're first vetted and approved or denied by myself. Story traits are in-universe things your characters have earned or sustained on their travels, and are GM-assigned. Think magical items from grateful allies, or pets you encounter and tame. You can usually lose such traits as well: A pet can die, an item can be damaged or lost, et cetera. Story traits are controlled by players—if you have pets, you control them. Magical items, you control them. Et cetera.
Keep in mind the following for custom traits.
- You start with ten custom trait points to spend on creating and upgrading custom traits!
- The more effects a custom trait has, the less overall effect the trait will have. If you have a trait that specifically and explicitly helps you only to block attacks with a shield, that is one effect and so it will be 100% effective. If you have a trait that helps you block with a shield and block magic with that shield, that will be less effective because it does two things at the same time instead of one.
- You can invest multiple custom trait points into a single trait to upgrade it. So if you make a trait that helps you block things, you can invest 2, 3, 4, or even 5 points into it to make it better. Heck, even all of your points, if you want to hyper specialize like that. If you're struggling to come up with more custom traits, try investing in what you already have.
- The sky is the limit on custom traits. Use them on anything you can imagine, and I'll vet them to see if they will fit in the universe. Just don't ask for anything that godmodes—like an instant kill button.
Where it concerns story traits, don't worry about writing those up. Those are awarded to players who role play and participate in the story, do character development, et cetera. They're bonuses I give you when you earn things in the role play where it wouldn't be fair to ask you to spend a custom trait point on it. -
Here you can find additional information about the world. This information is ultimately non-essential, but useful reference material if you want to properly immerse yourself in parts of the universe. Use it like you would a library: Take out the book you need, don't read the entire library if it seems overwhelming.
Since Amazons no longer exist as an independent nation, you can learn more about them here. Some of this will overlay with the history entry in the Imperium.
Amazons are a matriarchal, tribal society. Each tribe appoints a leader—often shaman. These shaman, in turn, hold the power to guide their tribes through the jungles. There is a heredity monarchy that keeps the Amazons all connected together, though should this monarchy ever prove too weak or too corrupt to hold her position, the tribal leaders can vote her out of power and replace her with one of their own.
Amazonian warriors generally come in two forms. The regular Amazonian warrior is a woman who drinks from the river of blood through highly secretive rituals (as it is normally poisonous otherwise), granting them special powers. They gain unnatural strength, uncanny boons to hunting-related skills, and the ability to control their own blood flow. That is, so long as they maintain consciousness, open wounds simply do not bleed. They can also use this control over their own blood to purge themselves of poisons or venom, so long as they are aware of its presence. This makes them powerful individual warriors, but it comes at a cost.
Amazons who drink from the river of blood have their average lifespan cut in half. They end up ageing themselves much faster than normal people. 40 year old Amazons are the equivalent of 70 year old elderly women. It is very rare for them to live to see 50, and 60 is considered a once in a century occasion. Atop this, hostile spirits often tend to be more effective when fighting them, for reasons they do not fully understand.
Their shaman are the other kind of warrior, using their unique brand of spiritual magic to summon and manipulate spirits. These shaman do not drink from the river of blood and thus maintain their natural lifespan, which explains why they tend to end up gaining political power more often than the other Amazonian warriors.
Amazonian naming nomenclature often confuses outsiders, but it's truly simple once it's understood. There are no surnames among the Amazons, only one's role, and one's first name. Therefore, if you are a hunter, your name is literally "Hunter [First Name]." So for example: Hunter Evelyn, Caretaker Davis, Shaman Rebecca, et cetera.
The tales of Amazonians being a sexually liberated people are not exaggerated. They live short, often very brutal lives, and thus whatever moments of pleasure they can ascertain, they acquire. It is not uncommon for entire tribes to celebrate extremely successful hunts with mass orgies. Note, however, that while foreigner women are often invited to such occasions, foreigner men are typically pushed away. Not only because men are obviously the inferior sex, but because knocking up half of the tribe with a male who won't even stick around to father his children is a troubling proposition that cannot be tolerated in most instances.
The Amazonian civilization has existed for many thousands of years, but has tended to be reclusive towards outsiders due to their primary contact with foreigners being that of slavers from the Free Holds trying to gain "exotic merchandise." It has only been recently that they have feigned even a modicum of interest in world politics. There are ancient tales of Amazonians being part of the old Imperium, and of terrifying Amazonian auxiliary armies that were considered small but elite, regimented forces. Much unlike the present Amazonian mindset, where individual strength is valued above fancy formations. This works well within the jungles, but not outside of them.
At any one time, only a few thousand Amazonians live and breath. Twenty thousand was the population limit for their jungle before the environment lashed out and cut them back down, but with the Imperium now supporting them, it's fully possible that Amazonian Armies may one day be seen again, in all of their terrifying glory.
Angels were created as a result of souls being imbued into mortal bodies. Souls, being indestructible, needed to be re-purposed by the Gods. The Gods, thus, made them into their own personal soldiers and agents—angels. These angels, having once had mortal lives, at first often succumbed to corruption or power mongering.
Thus, the more stalwart angels created a creed that they enforced upon themselves: Stoicism in the name of law and order. Essentially, that emotions were secondary, that morality is subjective, but law and order is without interpretation. At first, this meant following the will of the Gods, however some angels became disillusioned with this after a time, and assisted in seditious activities. After the banishment of the Gods, what few thousand remaining angels in the mortal realm came together under Archangel Myria.
For the past ten years, these angels have attempted to hold the line against the Nine Hells. It was a deal between Myria and Kouri, one which slowly came to light over the years. Archangel Myria would lead the angels to hold the line against the Nine Hells while Queen Kouri would rebuild her kingdom and create a task force to try and bind the mortal nations together. The angels were too few to ever defeat the Nine Hells alone, but with the mortal world behind them, they could feasibly achieve a victory akin to the one against the Gods: Banishment. Possibly even destruction, if other, more secretive parties could pull through.
Over the past year however, Archangel Myria has recalled what remaining angels there are—only a few hundred now—to conserve what strength is left for the final battle. Having given so much to the mortal realm and still facing certain elements of discrimination for the part they played in serving the Gods, or blind adulation from worshippers who mistakenly believe that they can bring the second coming of the Gods, the angels do not feel welcome in the mortal realm. Archangel Myria often looks down with pity at mortals, and her official, written statements and responses to nations, often use cold, blunt language.
Angels are generally taller than their human counterparts, and come in many ethnicities, and both sexes. Strangely, they're exclusively modelled after humans. There is no such thing as an "elven" angel or an "orcish" angel, though angels have been known to change their physical appearance to look more akin to the race they once were before becoming angels.
The blood of angels is known to have inexplicable healing properties when treated with raw magic. This healing property is in itself non-magical, meaning it can heal even those with magic immunity. It can mend any wound, restore lost limbs, restore lost blood, and so on. Thus, angel's blood is a hotly sought after commodity. Even if the blood doesn't come willingly.
Thus, it should be no surprise that angels have chosen to seclude away from mortal affairs, in the mountains north of Liveria, where the orcs provide a natural barrier against slavers and bandits and assassins. The orcs and the angels rarely communicate, and typically do so only to remind one another not to interfere in the affairs of the opposite party.
It is possible for mortals to become angels, though the process is long and difficult. First, mortals must become aasimar—a state which one is typically born into through having angelic ancestry. Such a state can be achieved through magical means, though. Secondly, one must understand and obey the tenets of all angels—their stoicism and devotion to law and order above all other things. Thirdly, one must pass a series of trials, some of which are deadly, in order to become an angel. It is only then that a highly secretive and mysterious potion, imbued with the blood of an Archangel, is given to an aasimar. Prior to the banishment of the gods, it was once simply "to service the Gods and be called upon for higher callings."
Archangels can also be created, though Myria keeps that secret to herself. It is rumoured she also keeps it in a diary, to be released to a select few angels in the event of her death, but none have access to it save for her, as it is kept in a lock box, safe from all but the most powerful of magicians.
Both sexes of angels can breed, though not with each other. There is no such thing as a "pure blooded" angel, and from all appearances, there never can be, as an angel first requires a mortal soul. Therefore, angels can only produce aasimar.
Over a thousand years ago, the Kingdom of Renalta was destroyed in a moment of great anger by the Gods. Most of the population was slaughtered, though a few survived—including princess Kouri. She was frozen in time and hidden away with powerful magic, with her planned awakening to be only a few years after, when the Gods would be weakened and the remnants of the kingdom could attempt to banish them.
Instead, a thousand years passed, and princess Kouri awoke without any of her old allies. She was forced to recruit new allies from those willing to follow her to banish the Gods—a motley collection of people from all walks of life. The Gods, in a weakened state and feuding among themselves, were unable to stop princess Kouri from accomplishing her task of banishing them from the world. Some even say that the timing of the Gods fighting amongst themselves was rather peculiar. It would imply that some of them must have desired to see justice for the mortal realm, and decided their own banishment was worth the price of taking the other, crueler Gods with them.
Either way, for ten years, the Gods have had no influence on the world. As a result of Kouri's adventures, the Kingdom of Renalta and the Imperium were rebuilt, and people have found themselves with unprecedented freedom to do as they please—no Gods would slay them out of envy or wrath, after all. However, the Nine Hells were also freed to start working against the barriers preventing them from a full out invasion of the mortal realm. There are those who blame Kouri for the impending war, and from some points of view, they could be right. It is unclear whether Kouri knew if the Nine Hells would be freed to attempt an invasion without the presence of the Gods.
There are those who seek to find a way to bring the Gods back, or at least find a way to communicate with them. These people are generally seen as unsavoury cultists, though the Templar Order from the Kingdom of Rheinfeld tends to look fondly on their efforts—so long as it has nothing to do with magic.
(Biology 101. Complete fluff. Use it only if you want to.)
A brief but important note about certain species. It is possible to have disproportionate bloodlines, as some are considered more "potent" than others. That is, they tend to promulgate further in generations. For example: If a Mechanist and a Human have a child, the child will be 3/4 Mechanist, and 1/4 Human. If that child has a child with another human, that child will be 1/2 Mechanist, 1/2 Human. This means that some bloodlines will last longer through progressive generations than others.
Mechanists, Demons, and Angels have such potent bloodlines. The descendents of angels are called Aasimar, and are often considered a race in and of themselves. The descendents of demons are called Tieflings, and are often considered a race in and of themselves. There is no special title for those of Mechanist descent, though if even a shred of Mechanist bloodline is present, the person will have naturally green hair. Beyond 1/128th, the bloodline is too weak to further promulgate, assuming no further offspring are produced with the potent bloodline in question.
- Half-blood: 3/4 potent (replace potent with angel/mechanist/demon/et cetera), 1/4 other.
- First generation: 1/2 potent, 1/2 other.
- Second generation: 1/4 potent, 3/4 other.
- Third generation: 1/6 potent, 5/6 other.
- Fourth generation: 1/10 potent, 9/10 other.
- Fifth generation: 1/15 potent, 14/15 other.
- Sixth generation: 1/21 potent, 20/21 other.
- Seventh generation: 1/32 potent, 31/32 other.
- Eighth generation: 1/50 potent, 49/50 other.
- Ninth generation: 1/85 potent, 84/85 other.
- Tenth generation: 1/120 potent, 119/120 other.
Beyond the tenth generation, there is no point keeping track.
(Note: This is only the myth of how the world was created. Characters can hold views independent of this. Some of this is true, and some of it might not be true. It's up to you to decide that for yourself.)
In the beginning, there was only two forces within an empty universe: Fate, and Destiny. These were not gods, nor living beings as one could feasibly understand them. Fate was simply the incarnation of all the order in the universe, and destiny was the incarnation of all the chaos in the universe. Lacking anything, they ultimately came together to create the Gods. Fate took charge at this point, and created a realm with beings that had great power, immortality, and an inability to die. They could be beaten, repeatedly, endlessly, but they could never be slain. These beings are known as the Gods.
The Gods existed for many millennial. They had their wars and spats, their bouts of madness and redemption. Eventually, it all became stale. They were repeating the same cycle in perpetuity. So the Gods, united under a King of Gods, banded together to create their own world. Only, they decided to make it different from their own realm. They sacrificed all of their power and immortality, their indestructible properties even, to create the mortal realm. They did not imbue their original creations with souls, nor did they imbue them with the capacity for immortality: Beings were simply born, lived their lives, and died without any longevity or eternity. Mere momentary blips, that would do as commanded.
Thus, the power of the Gods became inexorably tied to that of the mortals. As the mortals worshipped the Gods, the Gods gained power. Their original intent was to use this power to destroy Fate and Destiny, though it would take them time to gather such immense power. Fate and Destiny, meanwhile, conspired together to prevent this from happening. Fate created souls for mortals, and Fate's Web. Fate's Web is simply that every soul has an ultimate destiny, and though such a destiny can be rejected by the mortal in question and avoided, most mortals blissfully fall into Fate's plans without having a chance to even be aware of how manipulated their lives truly are.
As Fate went about empowering mortals with indestructible pieces of themselves that the Gods could never manipulate, Destiny went about in a more confrontational manner. He created a realm of his own, more to his tastes than the Heavens ever were. This realm became known as the Nine Hells, and its entire purpose was to constantly attempt to corrupt and assault the mortal realm—the source of power for the Gods. Thus, this would tie up most of the power of the Gods constantly fending off attacks by the Nine Hells, preventing them from destroying Fate & Destiny. More importantly, it prevented them from interfering in the lives of mortals save in the most extreme of circumstances or minor of ways.
The Gods retaliated by giving mortals the possibility of becoming immortal guardians—angels, who were mainly used to prevent demon incursions, but occasionally were used to enact the will of the Gods upon the mortal realm. These angels, however, possessed the souls of mortals—the indestructible, impossible to manipulate or change souls, that empowered the angels to think with their own will. Renegades came, disorder came, the Gods began to fight among themselves. The final straw came with the destruction of the Kingdom of Renalta, which resulted in the banishment of the Gods a thousand years later.
Whilst history is a long and fuzzy affair, it is a generally accepted fact among all the nations of the continent that there were four, distinct eras of the past, separate and distinct from the present era. They are as follows.
The First Era: The Old Imperium
(10,000+ Years ago.)
During this time, magic was not available for mortal use, and supremely powerful creatures ravaged the land. The petty kingdoms of old which used to rise and fall based solely on the mercy of such creatures, became united by a single man, who rather than conquering them all, got them all to agree to unite under an Imperium. The man was a brilliant strategist, though his name has been lost to history. For approximately a few hundred years, this Old Imperium stood and held the line against the powerful monsters at their borders by mass conscripting soldiers from each and every culture and nation under its rule. The fatality rate was staggering, estimates ranged around 30% of the army's forces being "depleted" every single year, sometimes more.
This ancient rule came to a cascading end approximately ten thousand years ago. Amanda the Archmage, a young woman at the time, struck out to give all mortals access to magic. That magic could be used to defeat the supreme creatures, instead of having a massive fatality rate every year. Though the Old Imperium attempted to stop her out of fear that such change might breed monsters in their own ranks faster than they could ever destroy them, they proved unable to do so, in spite of burning and killing every hint of the Mage's Guild that trained her for the task. With the Imperium stretched thin defending against monsters and fighting with a runaway colony where Rheinfeld is now, this left them with nothing to truly stop the self-proclaimed Archmage.
This awakening of magic came at a terrible price however. As Amanda lit up each well of power in the world, the overall level of magic in the world increased. With the last well of power, Amanda found herself unable to control it, and unfathomable waves of magic came crashing down onto what are now known as the northern countries. The once illustrious grasslands and farms of the north became the terrible deserts, and the bountiful sea became filled with terrifying monsters as it turned to blood. Approximately 98% of the population was wiped out in a mere hour. The Old Imperium, in the blink of an eye, was vaporized. Luckily, this also seemed to weaken all the super-powerful beasts: They recovered their magical abilities much slower than they had before, almost as though distributing magic to all mortals somehow drew away from their own.
Nonetheless, this marked the beginning of...
The Second Era: The Dark Ages
(10,000-4,000 Years ago.)
History during this time is fuzzy, but it's understood that what few survivors of the north banded together into wandering towns, crossing the deserts to find what few natural oasis and springs of life there were to try and settle down and rebuild, ever so slowly. Monsters still roamed the land, though small adventuring groups and self-taught mages were able to combat them much more effectively than before, when coupled with the fact that such great monsters were much weaker than they had been before. In the southern countries, the colony known as "Gault" schismed into extremely brutal and violent warfare, as many declared that the event had been the wrath of the Gods against the hubris of the Imperium, with several supposed prophets appearing claiming to speak the words of the Gods. Perhaps they were all truthful, perhaps they were all liars, perhaps they were all simply mad, but this inspired many to flee Gault and travel further south.
Across the harsh mountains, fertile land was found, and people began to spread out anew and create small villas and hamlets, surrounded by miles of farms. Yet, such an idyllic place also brought a new kind of monster, one more frightening than in the tales of old: Vampire lords, bandit gangs, orc raids, and so many, terrible things as these took possession over each and every hamlet. For thousands of years, it seemed as though there would be no escape: The northern countries were a hellish landscape that inspired constant, murderous fighting over scraps of food. The southern countries were constantly under assault by immortal tyrants and murderous mercenary bands that were typically stronger than the "armies" of peasants they mercilessly slaughtered.
This all changed approximately four thousand years ago, with two events.
First, Gault finally stabilized as a nation, and found two deities to worship above all others: The Father, and The Mother. This allowed their once disparate factions to unite under a single nationality, and pull together a large enough standing army to push back the mercenaries that traditionally ravaged their towns in the name of various political factions.
Second, and more importantly to the overall state of the world, a little village managed to take nothing more than a foreign knight, and a peasant, to defeat a powerful vampire lord. This little village became the Kingdom of Renalta, and for the first time in the history of the world, an openly tolerant nation erupted with the power to defend itself from outside threats. Civilization had finally been restored.
This led to...
The Third Era: Renalta's Golden Age
(4,000-1,000 Years ago.)
Over a three thousand year period, the Kingdom of Renalta advanced the understanding of magic many hundreds of times more-so than any other era combined. Countless schools were mapped out, experiments conducted, and powers tested. The tolerant nation of Renalta grew rapidly, becoming a world superpower that could only be contained by its own ideological values: Renaltan society desired peace above all else, and only accepted defensive wars without territorial acquisitions. The kingdom of Gault, wary of magic and believing it to be the cause of the apocalyptic mass destruction of the northern countries, often fought bloody wars with Renalta, but never won any of them. There were times where Gault was stronger, and times where Renalta was stronger: The two were ever entwined as ideological opposites, battling for cultural supremacy over the southern countries.
Meanwhile, in the northern countries, the squabbling oasis-towns slowly became the loosely affiliated Free Holds. Unfettered with the constant warfare between Gault and Renalta, and with a complete and utter focus on economic power above all other things, they became the supreme super power of the north.
These three countries continued to exist with one another, squabbling and fighting, until one day, the Kingdom of Renalta made a terrible mistake: They rejected something that the Gods demanded of them. Specifically, Archangel Typhon wished to take Kouri to become his arranged wife in the Heavens. The royal family, having already lost their eldest daughter, allowed Kouri to reject the proposition, though offered anything else of value or merit to the Gods as penance. It was rejected, and the Kingdom was burned to the ground.
This started the next era, known as...
The Fourth Era: The Second Dark Age
(1,000-10 Years ago.)
The Kingdom of Gault was shaken at seeing Renalta become wiped off the face of the planet by the Gods. Once again they devolved into infighting, and the kingdom would ultimately not survive it, as the theocratic, knowledge-phobic reign of Rheinfeld took its place. The Free Holds lost a grasp over some of its territorial holdings, as the Kingdom of Tuleria rose up. Though Tuleria continued the traditions that Renalta had once set out to do, it was under constant threat and pressure from the xenophobic Rheinfeld and slave superpower of the Free Holds to limit its potential, lest it face their wrath.
The Free Holds became the unquestioned super power of the continent, selling slaves and ultimately degrading some of the progress that Renalta had made in the past. If one were born into this time period, they had a good chance of either being born a slave, or born related to someone who is a slave. If not that, then one would be born and die young, an illiterate member of the mob in Rheinfeld, living off of what scraps the military happened to leave its people. If one weren't born there, perhaps they would be lucky to be born in Tuleria: A kingdom with three dictators who constantly deadlocked the nation into stagnation, under constant threat by its neighbours.
Nonetheless, time went on, and between the two dark ages, this one was less severe, as nations continued to exist at least. Towns rebuilt themselves where the old Kingdom of Renalta once was, though they were too scared to unite into one nation, which brought back the vampire lords, bandit marauders, orcish raiders, and other such plagues.
Finally, ten years ago, Kouri returned from an unknown slumber while the Gods were weak and fighting among themselves. She set forth quickly with only a small group of people, and banished the Gods from the mortal realm. When she returned to her old homeland, she quickly began rebuilding her home in spite of the Kingdom of Liveria's discomfort.
This resulted in the current era, that everyone now lives in today.
The Fifth Era: Post-Banishment Invasion
(Started 10 Years ago; current era.)
Rheinfeld fell into a civil war between three factions: The Papacy, the Templar Order, and the Rheinfeld Republic movement. The Imperium rose from ashes and rebuilt away from its old homeland. The Amazons finally came out of political seclusion to become a minor world power. The Free Holds slowly started to lose their super power status, as the Goblin Holds rose up from within it as a rebellion force. The Kingdom of Renalta was officially rebuilt and christened, becoming a new nation. A discovery was made quickly and early on in this era that the Nine Hells were starting to mobilize to invade the mortal realm, which resulted in the Kingdom of Renalta forming the Queen's Blades to attempt to unite the world together against the coming fight.
As for everything else, that has yet to be seen. When it is though, one can only wonder what historians will write about: Saviours, or the apocalypse...
Over the past few hundred years, the secrets of gunpowder have slowly slipped away from the hands of the Mechanists and into the hands of individuals all over the world. For most of that time, guns could only be forged and sold by Mechanists to the outside powers, as attempts to replicate it failed time and time again. As well, the firearms sold had spirits imbued in them, which often granted additional effects that locally produced weapons couldn't mimic even if they worked. However, of all the nations in the world attempting to unlock the secrets of firearms, the Kingdom of Tuleria has the lead in the search.
With their imports from distant, untold nations, they were the first on the continent to unlock the secrets of black powder. They used this "black powder" to forge cannons and mortars—devastating siege weapons that gave them total naval supremacy. They learned how to produce grenades shortly thereafter, and sold it to the world for a tidy profit. A few years ago, they began to make crude but functional facsimiles to the firearms the Mechanists produced without the need to imbue spirits into them.
As a technology, gunpowder has always seen limited success in the battlefield due to the potential of mages to totally ruin weapons. The purpose of Mechanists imbuing their rifles with spirits was to prevent magic from having any negative effects on them. However, regular weapons can be imbued with magic immunity, and friendly mages can protect those who use regular rifles. As such, it should come as no surprise that if one wants to acquire firearms or artillery, they should look no further than the Kingdom of Tuleria.
Grenades are widespread enough of an innovation that most nations have their own variety and purposes for them.
There are no automatic rifles, nor does the industrial machinery needed to create them exist. All gunpowder weapons are inherently one shot-one reload type devices. It should also be noted that high quality plate armour can resist the impact effect of bullets at a long range, and entirely ignores pistols. It takes a rifle or a blunderbuss at close range to pierce plate mail.
Still, gunpowder is on the cusp of becoming a refined enough technology to spur a revolution in the way warfare is done. It is not unfeasible at all to be able to acquire and use black powder rifles, pistols, and primitive shotguns, and such weapons are extraordinarily deadly in close range. It's not uncommon for their victims to die of lead poisoning if they should prove stalwart enough to survive the gunshot.
The Immortal Legion of the Imperium is famous for being perhaps the greatest fighting force in the world. Centuries of practice in immortal battle-games have honed these men into near immortal levels of both individual and group fighting power. However, they can never be replenished, and they have no survival sense: They will happily give their lives away to take an enemy out with them.
Those who compose the Immortal Legion rarely speak outside of their own. Thanks to the alliance between Renalta and the Imperium, forged by the actions of the Queen's Blades, they are at the disposal of the Queen's Blades as much as they are the Imperium.
Florence Merryweather is a member of the Immortal Legion. He would technically be their battle commander if not for his other responsibilities first and foremost.
As a quick understanding of various locations outside of national boundaries...
Swamps of Time: Located south of Renalta, became as such due to experiments conducted during Renalta's golden age. These experiments were seeking to take control over time, to allow one to go forward or backward in time. Unfortunately, what resulted was a tear in the veil of reality itself, as a terrible discovery was made: There are an infinite number of other timelines, and thus attempting to control "time" is attempting to exert a force over infinity. Before the mages conducting the experiment could realize what they had done, they ended up permanently destabilizing the area. They came out horribly deformed: Body parts and organs were randomly aged. Some mages came out with the bodies of infants and the organs of old men, or the arm of a fifty year old with the torso of a twelve year old. Needless to say, most of them died within hours. Those that survived, lived in agony.
Now, invisible bubbles of time constantly appear and disappear in the swamps. Only a few animals can detect these points in time, and they are otherwise impossible to manipulate. Walking into them has random and extremely chaotic effects, which can range from taking someone to another timeline at a random point in that timeline, to rapidly ageing them or making them younger, to spewing out creatures that rightfully shouldn't exist. Even dinosaurs have been found here, and they have been extinct for many thousands of years!
Nonetheless, a few tribes of lizardmen have found a way to make it home, and often avoid contact with the other races.
The Dark Forest: Stretching out to the west of Renalta and the Imperium each respectively is the Dark Forest. It goes onward for seemingly hundreds of miles, perhaps thousands. It is named as such because after traversing only a few hundred yards into the forest, the temperature within drops suddenly. Only a few occasional shafts of light manage to pierce the thick canopies of trees that span hundreds of feet into the sky, and the woods are otherwise eerily silent in most places. Deep within the Dark Forest is where the Elves make their home, secluded from the other races. There are also strange things in this place, with men entering and often never returning. Those that do, often return... Changed, in ways that nobody can discern or explain, with gaps in their memory. Even Elves sometimes vanish if they stray too far from their own people.
Oceans of the East: The coasts of kingdoms of Liveria and Tuleria each respectively sit alongside the coast to the vast eastern oceans. Somewhere out there are other nations, and other lands, and aside from the occasional trading vessel, little is known of them. The oceans are a tumultuous and dangerous place, still home to the extremely dangerous monsters that the continent otherwise defeated thousands of years ago. Ships have simply not developed sufficiently to be able to consistently tackle these monsters, and so, anyone who sails out, often doesn't come home. Those few that do, however, are often rich in gold. Sometimes, ships from other places bring people who stay in on the continent, making it their home.
The Northern Barrier: Along the northern border of the Free Holds is a magical barrier, that separates the northern countries from a frozen wasteland. This barrier is visible—purple in colour, though transparent, as though made out of some sort of super-metal or glass. This barrier may have appeared only after the Old Imperium fell, as monsters were often recorded coming from the north to attack the Old Imperium. Whatever lies beyond, however, is a frozen, hellish tundra. Mysterious people can occasionally be seen on the other side, and though there is occasional interest to make contact on both sides, it never succeeds.
Strangely enough, there are occasional weaknesses in the barrier, which allow small groups of people to traverse to each side. Unfortunately, these weaknesses are impossible to predict, and due to the insanely harsh weather on the other side, it is impossible to survive for more than a few hours. This means that while Free Hold expeditions have gone out into such frigid lands, they have never returned. Still, it may one day be explored, if one could figure out how to consistently penetrate the barrier...
A distant land, far to the south, beyond the swamps of time at Renalta's southern border, lies another kingdom. This kingdom is split into three factions, each in an eternal struggle for dominance. This is the land of the katana, of the butterfly sword, of mystical creatures like kitsune. Such a land has many great fables, legends, heroes, and villains in its own right, and though such a place may one day see a tale spun of its own, it is merely a footnote in this one.
(This is the land of the Asian kingdoms, the fantasy-Asia to Renalta's fantasy-Europe. Though they're not involved in this tale, wanderers do still sometimes stray from these lands, as do unique inventions and weapons sometimes find their way out from this place. Note, however, that one still has to explain how and why a person or item from this land somehow wound up many miles away, on what is an extremely deadly journey, to the lands of Renalta. )
Ten thousand years ago, during the age of the old Imperial Empire, magic was unleashed upon the world by Amanda the Archmage. Since that point it has been used by mortal men of all stripes and walks of life, though never with any certainty. There are five wells of power that funnel magic into the world, and none can be reached through ordinary, physical means. Only Amanda is certain of their locations, and she keeps their location a secret.
Magic is somewhat confusing. One can never be totally certain of their limitations, as all spells can vary in cost upon the wielder. It is no wonder that many youthful mages do not make it to see their powerful, elderly years. In addition, though magic has unlimited potential, the mortals who wield it do not, and thus there are certain schools of magic and feats with magic that are simply impossible for mortals to achieve or control. At least, not without great cost.
Impossible: Types of magic which cannot be wielded by mortals in any capacity.
- Chronomancy: Power over time, in any shape or form, only results in horrible backfires on their users. Thousands of years ago, a group of powerful mages attempted to gain mastery over time in the swamps south of Renalta. All they managed to achieve was their own, grotesque deaths, and turning the swamps into a hellish zone where things, people, and animals, randomly appear from different time lines and different points in time. It is possible to navigate the swamps safely, though it takes specialized tools or well trained animals to do so.
- Magic Resistance: Specifically, using a "school" of magic resistance. A person can train themselves to resist magic. Locations, items, and so on, can still be enchanted to resist magic or confer the benefits of such to people using them. Outright magic immunity is also possible... However, you cannot immunize yourself to magic whilst using magic. You can use magic to fight other forms of magic, but never to make yourself outright, flatly immune to it. If you wear magic resistance items while trying to use magic, they will interfere with each other.
Caveats: Types of magic which mortals can wield, but which have grave consequences on their users.
- Future Telling: The future is not set in stone. Instead, there are many potential futures—some more likely than others—and thus future telling is more akin to reading statistics. There might be a chance that the future you saw was indeed the one you are heading to, or it might be a future that has already been sealed off for you. It takes great practice to truly master this art into something useful for the long term as well. The further in time you attempt to tell the future, the more variables can change, and thus, the less accurate it can be.
- Mind Control: While possible, it can be resisted by people with a sufficient level of willpower or intelligence. The longer it's exerted, the more likely someone will realize what's going on and resist you as well. Naturally, total mind control is also very difficult to achieve even under ideal circumstances.
- Shapeshifting: While possible, total bodily manipulation into other forms is exceedingly difficult. It's also extremely deadly: It's completely possible to be interrupted mid-shapeshifting, and if that has anything to do with rearranging your internal organs, you will likely die instantly.
- Immortality: Achievable through a number of means, though all of them require life for life and are a bit of a misnomer. There is no such thing as "infinite immortality"--only a way to defer the ageing process. Unless you are in a hibernating state of some sort, you will eventually run out of energy, and the spell which keeps you from dying by old age will fail, as all magic dissipates in time. Therefore, to keep yourself going, you have to take life force from others. In some cases, this is a simple and often repeated process—like a vampire drinking blood. In other cases, this is a vicious and violent process—like a lich forcibly taking someone's life to prolong their own.
- Reincarnation: The dead can be brought back to life at an exceedingly high cost. It usually involves the sacrifice of other lives in order to bring back one person who is dead. In addition, if someone died of old age, and you reincarnate them, all that will happen is they will instantly die of old age again. You can take someone's soul and mind and transpose it into another form, or bring them back as undead—but both of these forms are generally unsavoury, and each still has their own costs, and goes back to immortality rather than reincarnation. It should also be noted that those who have been dead for an extended period of time are more difficult to reincarnate—sometimes, it's outright impossible: They have to want to come back for an attempt to even have a chance of succeeding at that point.
- Speed: Anything that artificially increases your character's speed in some way. The faster you get, the harder it is for you to perceive what is going on around you accurately. If you move as fast as a blur, odds are pretty good that you also perceive everything as a blur and this will harm your accuracy accordingly. While it is possible to achieve accurate, supernatural levels of speed, it's extraordinarily difficult because it's not just a matter of achieving greater speed—it's also a matter of making that extra speed useful.
- Telekinesis: While it is possible to use this magic, and some do, it is nearly impossible to hone it to the level of being able to pinpoint specific human body parts. It tends to be more generalized: Exerting force to throw something in a general direction, or to lift oneself in a general direction. It should also be noted that sentient, animated targets are harder to influence than non-sentient, inanimate objects. People can flail in unexpected directions and break the spell, or at least inhibit the speed with which it is cast. Boulders on the other hand are perfectly predictable.
- Teleportation: Short range teleportation causes debilitating though momentary nausea and disorientation that makes it impractical in combat, except as an escape measure. Long range teleportation requires that the user know the location he or she is teleporting to. In addition, it is possible to teleport inside someone with long range teleportation and cause both parties to die in a rather grotesque fashion. If the other party has magic resistance of any kind, instead of both being combined in a grotesque nightmare corpse, the person attempting long range teleportation explodes violently upon reaching their destination.
- Undead: Specifically, to create or control undead. Undead that have no will of their own are simply corpse puppets, capable of only simple tasks, and possessing no soul of their own. Undead which do possess a soul can resist the controlling influences of necromancers and other spell casters. The more powerful and/or intelligent the undead, the harder it is to control them. Undead also tend to be weaker to possessions by wandering spirits than normal mortals. Vampires are auspiciously exempt from the possession rule.
Magic immunity is distinct and separate as a topic from magic altogether, because this describes the interactions magic immunity has with magic. Only the Templar Order holds the secret to obtaining total and absolute immunity to magic, though many near-perfect facsimiles exist. Magic immunity acts as an aura that dispels magic on contact, making it extremely effective in rendering the magic of mages a rather moot point. Summoned creatures simply cease to exist if they attempt to strike a magic immune target, elements created as a result of magic have no effect on magic immune targets, magically created defences crumble when merely touched by a magic immune target, and so on.
The price to pay can be heavy, however. Magic immunity prevents the target from using magic, or being affected by friendly spells as well as hostile ones.
Still, even powerful mages tend to fear magic immune warriors... For obvious reasons.
It should also be noted that locations can be rendered immune to magic, or at least a blanket area of suppression that makes it more difficult to cast spells. The larger the area, the less effective it typically is. Such magic suppression can also be eroded or even destroyed by sufficiently powerful mages.
Nations and factions have their own symbols, which they place upon flags, embroider into uniforms, and use as their national seals. These are called insignia. The following are brief, simple descriptions of each, broken down into groupings for the sake of categorization. Note, though, that this doesn't explain what they mean—only what they look like.
Nations: Self-explanatory, one should hope.
Kingdom of Renalta: A large, blooming tree, full of leaves, with a plain, decoration-less shield leaning against its base.
Kingdom of Liveria: A raven, holding onto a crossbow bolt in its beak. Among nobility, the symbol takes a subtle meaning with a single variation. If the raven stands alone, that noble is unmarried. If it stands with another in a pair, that noble is in wedlock with another. Among peasantry, the raven always stands alone, regardless of whether they are married or not.
Kingdom of Rheinfeld: A cross made out of two pieces. The base, horizontal piece is a large warhammer, standing upright. The vertical piece differs in two instances. If one services the Father, it is a shining sword. If one services the Mother, it is a bloody bandage. Either symbol is acceptable on flags. The Templar Order has adopted the symbol of the Father, and the Rheinfeld Republic has adopted the symbol of the Mother.
Kingdom of Tuleria: The Mage's Tower uses the image of a stone tower with a lightning bolt striking down the middle of it. The Monarchy uses the symbol of a spyglass, looking out into the stars. The Military uses the symbol of a burning fist, though the hand remains uninjured by the flame. All three remain in use in spite of the triumvirate being disbanded.
Free Holds: Many, myriad symbols represent this place. Each Warlord adopts their own. In general, common themes involve money, masters beating slaves, and images of power. Thrones are especially popular.
The Imperium: An eagle atop a miniature map of the northern countries, with the words "Imperial Mundi" inscribed at the base of the map. The Immortal Legion's insignia replace the words with "Perpetuo Servaturum" instead. The Amazonian people never used insignia prior to joining the Imperium, but now use a simple spear insignia to represent them in auxilia cohorts.
Blood Sea: The Blood Sea has no use for such things at present. They're only noted here so one needn't ask if they were forgotten.
Drow Empire: Spiders. So many spiders. Spiders of all shapes, colours, and sizes, for each politically influential family or group. However, only the reigning ruler may use one with the title "Llolth's Chosen" written at the bottom of it.
Dwarven Meritocracy: Two mountains standing side by side, with a dwarf standing over-top of them both. In one of his hands, a hammer. In the other, a bag of coins.
Factions: Independent of nations, but still collective groups in and of themselves.
Mage's Guild: A dark book, with a hand upon it. Though the hand partially obscures the title, it still clearly reads "knowledge."
Mountain Orcs: Each tribe has its own variation on what is otherwise the same symbol. This symbol is a droplet of blood, cut in two pieces.
The races of the world come in all shapes and sizes, with new races appearing and vanishing all the time thanks to the constant presence of magic all across the world. They can come from distant lands, from alternate dimensions or time lines, from magical experiments, and so on. There are, however, a few more dominant races on the world. Before one proceeds, it should be noted that most races have individuals that suffer mutations which exempt them from certain attributes that the rest of their race possesses. In short: Characters do not need to be defined by racial traits, and can typically ignore them of their own free will, if they so wish. Also, if you wish to use beneficial racial traits, you will need to spend custom trait points on them. Aesthetic effects cost nothing.
It should, however, be noted that any race which lives in excess of six hundred years, typically has odd genetic weaknesses. Excess over a thousand years tends to make such weaknesses exceedingly dangerous. Therefore, if using a less common race or a race from a distant land (custom races), keep in mind that longevity never comes without a price that keeps that race from world domination.
Aasimar: Descendents of angel-mortal hybrids. These mortals typically have the lifespan of whichever mortal race is most prominent in their bloodline. IE: If you have an angel-human hybrid, the average lifespan will be between 40-120 years depending on environmental and health circumstances. Since angelic blood is more potent than mortal blood, it stands to reason that it has a few extra effects. These effects can vary wildly, with some possessing more traits than others and entire traits skipping generations. This is, however, affected by how much of their angelic bloodline remains, which is affected by how many generations down the line they are from their first angelic ancestor.
Aasimar typically have blonde or golden hair, and golden eyes. They also tend to be a little taller than human counterparts, but not significantly.
They have no homeland of their own, and can be found anywhere that humans can be found. The Kingdom of Rheinfeld tends to look upon them in a friendly manner, though the lower classes of other nations sometimes discriminate against them for being related to angels.
Drow: In spite of their appearances, there is no historical connection between the Elves of the surface and the Drow of the Underdark. Both parties are often offended when the comparison is even drawn in the first place. Drow are often self-centered, deceitful, and distrustful by nature. They don't live as long as Elves, instead living between 500-800 years. Some few live to be almost a thousand years old. Elderly Drow overwhelmingly begin to go insane, committing suicide due to "the compelling whispers in their head" which makes this the most common way for elderly Drow to die of old age. Drow owe their existence to Llolth, their living Goddess, who keeps herself hidden away in the Underdark.
Drow have green blood, akin to that of the spiders they worship.
Dwarves: A short, stocky people, known to live between 200-400 years. They are known to have an unusual tolerance for alcoholic drinks. They also seem to have a penchant for collecting things. For some dwarves, it could be buttons. For others, gold. For most however, there is a great interest in acquiring magical artifacts. The older and more powerful they are, the more one improves the state of all dwarves. Beyond that, there is little about them that is substantially different from humans, as several half-breeds over the years have shown.
Elves: This long lived, fair skinned people often hail from deep within the Dark Forest, west of the Kingdom of Renalta. They are extremely xenophobic to outsiders, often maintaining nomadic outposts to keep an eye out for intruders to their territory. This isn't for paranoid reasons either: The other mortal races are a dirty lot. Elven children take 50-60 years to mature into adults, and have severely compromised immune systems. One common cold can wipe out every infant in a single village in a period as short as twenty four hours. This has often led to elves being called "the tragedy race" by those who know of their terrible curse. Even without disease, infant mortality is higher than it is in other populations, as the long period of time between childhood and maturity presents them far more opportunities for death than in other populations.
When elves reach adulthood, their immune systems toughen up, becoming able to fight off the diseases of other mortals. However, elven adults can still infect their children with diseases. Therefore, immense precautions are taken in dealing with other races. Speaking at a long distance is common, and any elf that comes into physical contact with another race is quarantined for a period no less than three weeks. Elves who consort commonly with the other races are outcast from their people. Not out of wrath, but out of a sorrowful necessity: Thousands of children are worth more than one elf's social independence.
Attempts to use magic to alleviate this terrible curse have always failed. There is something about elven biology that even magic seems unable to repair. Diseases can be cured, but by the time a disease shows symptoms in their children, it is often too late to save them.
Elves who do manage to survive a tumultuous childhood can live to be as old as 2,000 years. However, only a few elves ever unlock the total potential of that lifetime, and it typically takes them hundreds of years to do so. Most elves go through "lifetimes", periods that last between 100-200 years. Each lifetime, an elf's old memories start to degrade to the point that they can no longer remember how to do old tasks or remember the faces of old friends and family. Thus an elf goes through multiple personality shifts and social roles in a single lifetime. Those few elves who do unlock their total potential cease to forget old memories, and become greater than the average mortal could even dream of: These few elves are what keep the race going, against all odds, until they can find a better way of life than what they have now.
Goblins: A short race of green skinned people, thought to share distant ancestry with orcs. Goblins are naturally scheming and inventive, though physically weak. It's not uncommon for them to scavenge technology and inventions from others for their own uses. Especially intelligent goblins master ancient magics. Most make their home in the deserts of the nothern countries, and under Xixis Madheart, have made a homeland for themselves, carved out of the slaver superstate of the Free Holds. They typically live between 40-60 years, and physically mature as young as 10 years old.
Humans: Humans are one of the oldest races in the known world. They existed before recorded history, and were some of the first empire-makers. In most nations, they tend to be the most visible population. Humans live in nearly every environment on the planet, and though they may not be as physically hardy as orcs, or as mechanically versatile as the mechanists, they've proven time and time again to wield the best overall attributes for survival. Humans breed quickly, and live to be between 40-120 years of life, dependent heavily on their quality of life. It should also be noted that humans are one of the only races capable of interbreeding with all other humanoid races, and even some non-humanoid ones. Some hypothesize that humans were the originator species for most others, but this is heavily debated, as ancient history is often obscured by propaganda.
Mechanists: (Not playable, though characters can have mechanist bloodlines, such as a mechanist grandparent.) Mechanists are an extremely reclusive and mysterious race. It is not known how long they have existed, though they have particular talents with their own technology that mystify even old wizards. They're tall, slender humanoids, with bright green hair. Their legs are longer than most other races. Mechanists and those with mechanist bloodlines can simply touch mechanist technology to awaken it and use it. No inherent skill is required to use it—it simply works as intended. This means mechanist rifles and the like always work in the hands of those with mechanist bloodlines, even if they're untrained.
This does seem to come with a tradeoff. Spirits—especially those which have been trapped in mechanist technology—become extremely aggressive toward mechanists if freed. Even if one freed a spirit, it would often immediately turn on the mechanist and attempt to destroy it in any way it can. Only the most peaceful or powerful of spirits can resist the bloodthirsty urge. Spirits from the Blood Sea's Choir seem inherently immune to this odd quirk as well.
Orcs: A large and powerful race, but also prone to bouts of extreme aggression or sexual promiscuity. Orcs live to be between 30-100 years, dependent on quality of life. The natural, bestial compulsions of humans are amplified greatly in orcs, making even the most stalwart of them struggle to maintain control in the face of great battles, or extraordinarily attractive persons. On the other hand, when in a bestial rage of one sort or another, orcs tend to be even stronger than they normally are, and immune to most pain or shock tactics.
Orcs tend to be between 7-10 feet tall. Humans are one of the only races that can interbreed with orcs, as most other races simply prove infertile for their offspring. Orcs have existed for thousands of years, and the orcs that live in the Goblin Holds are usually a little smaller and less aggressive than their more tribal cousins, who live in mountain ranges. In spite of the increased difficulty, orc mages and orc knights have been known to obtain a great measure of self-control over themselves in most situations, given years of training.
Tieflings: Those whose ancestry includes demonic blood in some fashion. Identical to Aasimar in every way, though Tieflings tend to be discriminated against a little more for what they are. As well, instead of gaining holy traits and effects, they gain demonic ones. Tieflings, however, are treated very poorly by the Nine Hells, and thus it is a fairly safe bet that most Tieflings will side with the other mortal races in the coming invasion.
Tieflings typically find themselves most welcomed within the Free Holds, which cares not whatsoever for one's bloodlines—only one's capacity to accomplish tasks. Nonetheless, Renalta tends to be fairly welcoming to them as well. Everywhere else is truly hit and miss—even some nobility, otherwise educated individuals, fall prey to disgust towards Tieflings.
Telepaths can occur in a very small segment of any given population naturally—that is, without the need for magic. If this should occur, then the telepath doesn't need to use magic to use their in-born talent, and can't be detected as a mage with it—since they aren't one, unless they invest into magic otherwise. Magic resistance can still stop the effects of non-magic telepathy, however.
The population overall is largely ignorant of the existence of non-magic telepaths. If a telepath is discovered, it's simply assumed they're a mage in most cases.
Though the land is technically connected by land, the far shorter route is across the Blood Sea. When nations are referred to as "northern" or "southern" countries, it refers to older terms by older, generally dead empires—save for the Free Holds and Tuleria, who can still be caught using such terms from time to time.
The northern countries are generally known for being geographically less hospitable for most mortal races, but being richer in certain other resources, such as spices, and saltpetre. The southern countries are generally known for being geographically temperate, largely unaffected by the magic that has so badly scarred and distorted the biomes of the northern countries—making them typically better for farming. As such, trade caravans heading to the northern countries usually transport food and medicine, and caravans heading to the southern countries usually transport exotic goods, metals, and refined products. In the case of trade from the Free Holds, it can also include the illegal slave trade.
The Underdark is a vast area of underground tunnels, caverns, and chasms that exist underneath the world. They constantly change in shape, making it difficult for any empire to exist both in the overworld and the Underdark at the same time, as no consistent trade or supply routes can ever be established. It is home to the Dwarves near the surface, and the Drow within some of the larger, more permanent caverns. Mechanists also sometimes call this location home, though always far away from the other civilizations so as to ensure their secrecy and isolation. There are mind flayers and other horrible creatures, though some of them could be called "minor civilizations" in how they operate.
Though it is underground, there is typically an abundant amount of light to be found thanks to most of the underground plant life exhibiting a tendency to glow. Certain, small creatures also glow, such as cave worms.
This is a cutthroat land in general, and difficult to live in even for its denizens.
Beyond ten thousand years ago, six people performed an ancient, forgotten ritual and became the first six vampires—the pure bloods. Each pure blood reigned over a set of abilities or powers. Pure bloods bit people, who became infected and became vampires. Those vampires became known as the first generation. Those they bite become the second, and those they bite become the third, and so on and so forth. Each generation has less severe weaknesses, but less potent strengths to start with, though they can grow their vampiric powers up over time. Eventually, after a certain number of generations, the virus is no longer potent enough to spawn more kin.
There used to be many vampires in the dark ages, thousands of years ago, though the numbers of vampires have dwindled over the years thanks to systemic racism and violent uprisings against "vampire lords"--vampires who ruled over commoners like cattle for the slaughter.
There remains only three breeds of vampire, three pure bloods: Malaki, Diana, and Garroth. Depending on which pure blood line a vampire is from, changes what abilities they gain as a result. Malaki's Brood gain superior strength and survival ability, though sunlight agitates them. Diana's Brood gain superior social manipulation and supernatural speed, though sunlight can kill them if exposed for more than a couple minutes. Garroth's Brood gain bonuses with magic, and control over the undead, though sentient undead such as other vampires, and lycanthropes, have an instinctive loathing for vampires of Garroth's Brood.
All vampires have silver-coloured irises. It's the primary marker for them, as some are capable of retracting their fangs, but the only thing that can cover up the silver in their eyes is magic, or contacts—either of which can be seen through.
They are tolerated in most societies, though they suffer widespread racism in the Kingdom of Liveria. The Kingdom of Renalta is the only place that vampires are truly welcome to call home, without shame or fear, at any echelon of society.
Vampires are strictly undead. Vampires can feed without passing the disease onto others, though vampires which are out of control from thirst rarely remember how. The disease gestates for only a few hours, then takes the life of the victim. The victim then awakens a few seconds later, an undead creature that does not rot. Male vampires are sterile, while female vampires can breed up until what is considered old age for their race. In the event that such a birth takes place, the baby will be born without the disease. -
Q. Can I join?!
A. If there are available spots, then yes you can join. Just beware the fact that this RP has been going on for over a year, so there's a lot of stuff you'll have to catch up on. Don't be afraid to ask questions.
Q. I was in Legend of Renalta 2 before, but then I died. Can I rejoin even if the RP is full?
A. Yes, you can. Your slot is guaranteed once you've been approved once, though you have to go through the approval process again to ensure your character fits in the world and isn't overpowered.
Q. I'm presently in Legend of Renalta 2 and I want to create a new character to replace one I currently have. Can I do that?
A. Yes, you can. Atop that, your spot is secured—since you're just switching out one character for another, you're not occupying a "new" spot.
Q. I'm a veteran from the glory days of the Kouri Plushie, barely legal Mikan, and Ishcar's stupid sunglasses. I demand to be allowed access to this RP after my hiatus from it!
A. A spot should already be reserved for you, just PM me or send me a message over IM so I know you're interested.
Q. I want to create multiple characters.
A. New players can only create and use one character. Old players can create and use two at a time. Maybe three, if I'm feeling generous—but don't count on it.
Q. When can I join?
A. You can join between missions, or if at the top of the post it says I'm recruiting new players. If a new wave of missions are currently on-going, then nobody can join. If the RP is full, then you can't join.
Q. What if the RP becomes overly full?
A. I've intentionally low balled the character limit so we can handle excess. If, for some reason, we hit the hard limit, I'll close the gates and prevent new entries by anyone.
Q. Can I use a diamond katana, blessed by the glorious Nippon?
A. Leave.
Q. How fast are posts/what are expectations?
A. You can post once per round. A round is defined as each time I (the GM) post. Therefore, if I post once, you can reply once. If I post again, you can reply again, and so on. This is mostly to keep order and is a soft rule—you can post multiple times in one round if it's appropriate, but it can negatively impact your odds of success in actions you take for doing so. I only ask for one paragraph per post, nothing more. Some posts will be longer, others shorter—that's just the nature of proper pacing for you. Length is irrelevant to quality—what matters is that I can understand your intentions, nothing more! LoR is welcoming to role players both experienced and new alike.
Q. (Current Players) How do I account for the changes in the stat system IC-wise?
A. There shouldn't be many changes at all IC-wise. If you've seriously changed your character's stats around, then maybe your character went through a personal epiphany? This is your job, not mine!
Q. Seriously this OOC is insanely humongous. What do I do with all of this crap?
A. Read only what you need to. A piece of advice is to start with your character sheet. Every time you reach something you don't know, refer to the info sheet at the top of the OOC to find what you're looking for. In general, you'll likely not need to read much beyond your character's homeland, and the stats & traits descriptions.
Q. I'm Chrononaut, and I'm going to read all of this because I'm insane.
A. I know you are. Enjoy.
Q. I'm not sure I know what to do with my custom traits.
A. Think about aspects of your character and remember that custom traits can be upgraded. You can (and probably should) invest multiple points into a single trait to boost its effectiveness or give it additional effects atop what it already does without penalty. If you still can't think of anything, it's very possible that your character's history might need expanding to derive additional traits: Were they born with any powers or talents? What did they do for a living? What was their childhood dream? Et cetera.
Q. I'm scared I'll get rejected.
A. Almost everyone gets rejected on their first attempt. I always explain what's wrong with your sheet if it's rejected and typically give advice on how to fix it. Don't be shy of rejection—take it as a learning experience. Grow from it. I'm your friend in the character-creation, not your enemy.
Q. I can die?
A. Yes. This role play features death, and it can be very sudden and brutal at that. Keep in mind that the blade of death cuts both ways: The major antagonist can kill you dead, but you can do the same to them. Use teamwork to lower your odds of death and fight smart. Communicate with your allies. Don't take needless risks, and measure the risks and rewards of every action in combat. Also remember that if you die, you can remake a new character... Usually.
Q. Can I betray my friends?
A. No. You would have nothing to gain in betraying them, so creating a character who is not only willing, but outright plans on murdering their allies is obscenely foolish. The enemy is a destructive force of nature that only seeks to wipe out everything on the surface, and what it doesn't kill, it corrupts absolutely. You'd have been filtered out of the Queen's Blades long before having the chance to betray them. There is no PvP allowed in this RP during missions unless that becomes part of the mission text. Outside of missions, you can orchestrate friendly duels, but nothing lethal.
Q. There are lots and lots of NPC's and nations in this world...
A. It's a big world, you don't need to know them all and it's very likely your character doesn't know them all beyond simple name recognition.
Q. I want to steal your system.
A. Go ahead, steal whatever you like. I don't get mad about that sort of thing. If you do, though, please send me a PM telling me what you're using in.
Q. Hey, isn't the Underdark a D&D thing?
A. Renalta was originally made as a D&D setting, so yes. Over time it evolved into its own beast. The Underdark is one of the last remaining pieces of the old D&D stuff.
Q. Where is the Artifacts/Manpower system stuff on my character sheet?! I lost achievements for this!
A. Artifacts/Manpower applies during mission assignment. Characters pick a mission and request resources at the same time. All of that information is then kept in the same post, linked in the first post, at the very top, so everyone can see the total sum of resources called in.
Q. Do you have a physical map I can look at for the world?
A. Right here. It's linked at the very beginning of this post as well.
Q. I didn't find my question answered here. Can I ask in the OOC?
A. Go ahead, please!
Total Dead: 25.
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The Queen's Blades are no longer international agents, but are now direct servants of the crown with a chain of command akin to that of their King's Rangers counterparts. They'll be vetted accordingly, with ineffective agents being dismissed and effective agents being promoted. As such, the entire system has been updated to fit the theme of war. Below, you can find a history of influences the Queen's Blades have had up to this point, as well as the chain of command.
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UPDATED TO PAGE 65!
Maximum: 20. Current: 22. Reserved: 0. Free: -2.
Double-Ups available: -2/5.
Laenaia. Rank: Veteran. Author: Alphakoka.
Kasim Amibilus. Rank: Veteran. Author: Jorick.
Esyllt Boudica. Rank: Veteran. Author: Kestrel.
Aëyr. Rank: Veteran. Author: Holmishire.
Murderok. Rank: Veteran. Author: Kadaeux.
Aslo. Rank: Not Yet Retrofitted! Author: Orion.
Sheriff Cennick "Cen" Greenborough. Rank: Veteran. Author: Snaketoof.
Abjaar 'Bastille' Korsair. Rank: Veteran. Author: Limeypanda.
Yuri Elrivvin. Rank: Veteran. Author: Herzinth.
Armerza Gilkak. Rank: Veteran. Author: Goldmarble.
Toorg. Rank: Regular. Author: Darog.
Mars. Rank: Regular. Author: Atlas Child.
Katinka (Tinka) Nivi. Rank: Recruit. Author: Seba.
Kria'lotl Abothanys Pholarthagg (Kria). Rank: Recruit. Author: Jorick.
Kattalin Skorri. Rank: Recruit. Author: HerziQuerzi.
Bronwyn DeShand. Rank: Recruit. Author: Goldmarble.
Praxis Madheart. Rank: Recruit. Author: Kadaeux.
Kirina Hasterly-Umber. Rank: Recruit. Author: Limeypanda.
Doomfist the Unslayable. Rank: Recruit. Author: Chrononaut.
Franco Polska. Rank: Recruit. Author:Sisera's GhostSlade.
Bartholomew Umber. Rank: Recruit. Author: Snakey.
Sebastian Gentrase. Rank: Recruit. Author: Maxim.
Ceann. Author: Andrea/Selvi.
Draza. Author: Elendra.
Xerois Pallas. Author:FoxxieDrifter.
Rayvon Krayvitch. Author: Tempest.
Maeven Lucre. Author: Tempest.
Andrea Llolth'Allin. Author: Andrea.
Child. Author: Hellis.
Sonia. Rank: Not Yet Retrofitted! Author: Atlas Child.
Doctor Steven Adian Gremlock. Rank: Not Yet Retrofitted! Author: Maxim.
In previous incarnation: 'Child' (crushed by Dirge's Warhammer), Dread Fang (crushed by Dirge's warhammer), Thailen Vicarris (Incorrect colour picked: Bomb ending selected), Raen Delaeseris Elvarasi (Wilhelm'd).
Current incarnation:
Abida Qisaf. Author: Herzinth. Death: Impalement on a tail.
Alicia Le'Roux. Author: LimeyPanda. Death: Shanked repeatedly by multiple skeletons.
Gryff. Author: Kadaeux. Death: Power Word: Kill.
Naream Baenre. Author: Sarzu. Death: Sparky got him!
Elrithos "Sand Runner". Author: Rain of the Night. Death: It's a trap!
Filomena "Yoloyaotl" "Frankañaño" Peláez. Author: Elendra. Death: Cut down by insect-scissors.
Môrgæn 'Crooked Bitch' Minstrol. Author: Chrononaut. Death: Neck broken.
Elrbetrt Westfeld. Author: Fubuki. Death: Blood loss.
Valkyujra. Author: Fijoli. Death: Got lost in the Swamps of Time.
Daevon van de Scathis Venderland. Author: Kadaeux. Death: Ripped to shreds.
Zinnarath 'Zin' Corsys. Author: Jorick. Death: Karma's a bitch.
Arkos Cernunnos. Author: Tempest. Death: A lack of patience.
Trom (young Imperial soldier), slain by a Skuva.
Durlon (slave-mercenary), slain by Child.
Angel (name unknown) (papal faction), slain by Kasim with an arrow to the throat.
Natalia (angel faction), found dead.
Deimos (nine hells faction), knife to the heart, and it's too late, Mikan gives love, a bad name.
Tasha (amazons faction), ripped apart by jaguars.
Succubi (nine hells faction) (Amazons - The Greatest Hunt), headshot.
Eric Vadlegarf, chest cavity blown out.
Mas'ud Campos, died in glorious battle.
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