Medieval, Fantasy, Sandbox world RP.

[Captain Illiterate]

(First, let me preface by saying I am looking for intermediate to advanced writers with an expected post length of 3+ paragraphs. I'm not the best writer but I'm looking for players dedicated to character development and writing a rich story)

In the beginning, there was only one god, the All-Father. Omnipotent and everlasting he searched for purpose. He looked into the void and believed existence should be shared and the purpose for one should be in another. He split himself in two and the brother gods Euros and Meros were born, as was something new: perspective. The brother gods could not see the universe in its entirety as their father had rather they saw the void in their owns views. They agreed the void should give way to something new, a kingdom for them both.

Meros wanted a kingdom of spirit, everlasting and a world of pure consciousness. Meros built the heavens. Euros, however, wanted something different. He desired a world of sight, touch, sound, sensations and material. He created the world, the stars, the sun, and the moon. The brothers agreed that to regain their omnipotence they would have to see existence through many eyes at once and so they began to fill their kingdoms with other creations in thier image.

Meros thought things should exist in absolutes and believed all things should exist as a force for creation or destruction. He filled his realm with beings to embody this philosophy, Angels to create and protect and demons to destroy and erase. Euros saw his brother's creations but believed things should be ever-changing, and wanted his creations to choose their own purpose. Euros made mankind and gave them free will so that they might be gods unto themselves. However, the free will of mankind was a threat to all creation. They held within their hearts the power to undo all the heavens and Earth.

Meros saw man as a threat to both kingdoms and struck out against them, taking their immortality so that they may die out and fade away. When Euros saw what his brother had done and pitied the plight of his creation. Euros created the animals of the forests for them to feed on, water for them to drink, and woman so that they may multiply and their kind may never fade. Then to protect humans against his brother the god sacrificed his own divinity to separate the physical world from the spiritual and he fell to Earth as a mortal.

When Meros saw his brothers sacrifice he recognized the wrong he had done and wept for his brother who was forever beyond his reach. Rather than watch his brother die and fade to dust as the men he had cursed, Meros threw away his own divinity to create a bridge between the realms and he gave every man a soul, a spiritual counterpart so that when the physical body dies it would live forever in the spirit. In this way, he would never truly lose his brother.

__________________________________________________________​

The realms of men are in chaos. In the western swamps a Kingdom has fallen, a royal lineage betrayed and usurped. To the south civil war ravages the land and a nation is at risk of fracture. In the far eastern deserts the supernatural is on the rise and the innocent are found slain in their homes, drained of blood and the dead are rumored to walk again. In the mountains to the north, a kingdom is buckling under the weight of being a bulwark against the savage nomads beyond the realms of civilization. These are dire times for men.

Kingdoms of Man Magic Character Sheet Rules Combat

• 
  
  

  Gorgon

  
  Deep in the marshlands of the west coast, the Kingdom of Gorgon sprawls its roots. These lands are harsh and near inhospitable. Man-eating gators stalk the swamps, witches practice their dark magic in the bayou, while disease and other supernatural forces thrive. Near all civilized settlements lay on the coastal regions where the harshness of the wild has bred a hardy breed of citizens. The economy of Gorgon is driven largely by fishing, shipwrights, lumber, and biodiversity prized for alchemical purposes. Faith in the All-Father, Euros, and Meros is the dominant religion but paganism holds strong roots among supernatural Gorgonites.
  
  House Blackwater had been the royal family for centuries until recently usurped by House Briar. While the bulk of the king's forces were campaigning overseas the Briar's staged a coup, claiming the throne as their own. When the Blackwater forces returned, the armies of the two noble families met on a narrow stretch of land known as the King's Pass, a landbridge which provided dry access to the capital. There, the Blackwater banners fell and the corpses of the fallen soldiers were strung from the trees. The head of Arthur Blackwater, the once king, was paraded through the streets of Zola, the capital of Gorgon. Sympathizers of the Blackwaters have named the land bridge 'Traitor's Pass' in spite of the Briar's misdeeds, and they have taken to calling the surrounding marsh The Swamp of Sorrows.
  
  There are whispers a few Blackwaters live on, and while the Briar's struggle to cement their rule over their fledgling kingdom there is rumors of rebellion. The noble houses are picking sides and the realm is engulfed in a cold war. Assassination and sabotage are rampant as the minor Houses quietly pick their sides, and no one trusts their neighbor. Gorgon is on the verge of civil war.
  

  Valeal / Rhinefeld

  
  The western reaches of these lands are characterized by lush green hills which flatten to green prairies the further inland. Farmland worked by slave labor sprawls the countrside which then gives way to dense urban metroplaisises. The idyllic nature of these lands have attracted migrants from the world over, which has become a point of contention in the current politicol climate. Xenophobia has spread its wicked roots and militant zealots who persecute those of other faiths or cultures is becoming far more commonplace. Reigning in the Capital of Oslo, the crown has done little to nothing to stop the militant faithful, for the crown is currently engaged in a bitter civil war on the eastern edge of the kingdom.
  
  To the east, where the green farmlands give way to dense temperate forests the people of this region have taken up arms against their King. Separated from the rule of the capital by many thousand miles of uninhabited land these people long cherished their relative independence and entertained the idea of self-rule. To further complicate things, the wealth of the kingdom seldom found its way this far east resulting in a grotesque imbalance of prosperity. Additionally, the cultures and religions in this region are ar more diverse because those immigrants shunned by Valean society find their ways here, where the vast swathes of empty forest allow them to live simple, albeit unperturbed lives. In recent years the Crown has increased its cultural pressure in attempts to bring these folk to heel, but those attempts only resulted in spotted resistance which surely gave way to a full-blown rebellion.
  
  The rebels have taken to calling their nestling country Rhinefeld, named after the first Martyr to die to the crowns 'justice'. They've recently laid claim to the second largest trade port in the county, Vespar, and have since named it their capital.
  

  Ferros

  
  Northeast of Valeal and Rhinefeld, temperate forests transition to coniferous trees. High levels of yearly rainfall keep these lands soaked and the poor fertility keeps them wild. Deep in these forested lowlands, a mighty mountain range breaks the sky's horizon with snow-capped peaks which stretch to the heavens. Then beyond the first mountain range, there is a second, with a deep valley presiding between the two filled with a sea of purple-leafed crops. The people of Ferros named it the Violet Valley named after the purple leaves of a hardy food they grow in their terraced farms. Here is where a vast majority of Ferronians call home.
  
  They live in homes on the face of the mountains or within the mountains themselves. Giants used to call these mountains home long before the first men ever set foot on this continent. They built their cities in the hearts of mountains and connected them with a network of colossal tunnels. The giants are long gone but the Ferronians have built their homes out of the ruins. Other than the tunnels, little remains of what the Giants had built. What does remain however are marvels of the modern world. First, an ancient and colossal bridge named Heaven's Pass spans the two mountain ranges. A bridge so wide it's rumored that it's width breaks the horizon, and constructed by some long forgotten means of magic and masonry it stands as pristine as the day the giants built it. Second, at the tallest mountain of either range, a mountain molded of blackened stone, the peak is sheared off and flattened. Here the Ferronians built their capital, Blackheart, around the ebony head of a titanic statue. Indeed of the statue, only the head remains. It is so large it can be spotted from the lowlands by a vigilant eye. Constructed by the same inexplicable means of magic and masonry Heaven's Pass, the magic of the statue's head wards the mountaintop from cold and snow, resulting in a rather odd display of greenery at such a high altitude.
  
  To the North of Ferros the lands are cold and inhospitable. Wild barbaric tribes of monstrous beastfolk and primal men threaten to scale the cliffs and lay waste to the world. Only the mountains and the armies of Ferros stand between this inhuman horde and complete destruction of the realms of man, or so the Ferronians believe. Though, inexplicably, in recent years the number of beastfolk has grown rampant. Perhaps the Ferronians are right and they truly are all that stands between the civilized world and utter anhiliation.
  

  Kaine

  
  Far East of Gorgon, Valeal, Rhinefeld, and Ferros, far beyond the great plains where elephants and lions roam, beyond even the scorching desert, rests the kingdom of Kaine along the floodplains of a great river. Here giant crocodiles and hippos stalk the waters, and a host of animals found nowhere else in the world thrive. The people of Kaine thrive in trade of exotic goods such as dyes, slaves, sugars, drugs, fabrics, gems and other rarities. The wealthiest nation in the world they build giant monuments to rival that built by giants, pyramids and sphinxes line the river as trade barges sail the gentle waters. Bulwarked by the desert and ocean Kaine can only be invaded by sea, which that itself may be impossible for Kaine boasts the largest fleet of any known kingdom.
  
  Religions and cultures from all walks of life here thrive, and living among humans there is an abundance of other races from the world over, the diversity of which is unrivaled anywhere else. The people here are ruled by a god-king, an immortal presiding in his forbidden court at the top of a golden pyramid in the capital of Able.
  
  Kain has been blessed by a prolonged period of peace and prosperity under the eternal rule of their god-king, but recent events have appeared to put that at risk. People are are going missing at an alarming rate, corpses are sometimes found lying in the street drained of blood, and there are rumors that the dead are rising again to wander the desert sands.
  

  
  
  
• 
  When Meros sacrificed his divinity and gave every human a soul, he created a bridge of sorts between our human bodies here in the physical world and our spiritual counterparts. Mages can use this bridge to draw energy from the nether, and those who know how to wield this energy in a meaningful way can turn it into powerful spells and incantations.
  
  Magic requires a great deal of concentration to cast and the weaving of magical energies into a useful spell is not only a learned skill but a dangerous one as well, since losing concentration could result in a spell backfiring on the caster. Currently, there are three recognized branches of magic and these branches are broken down further into schools.
  
  

  Destros

  Airmancy is the school of control over wind magic.
  
  Pyromancy is the school of control over fire magic.
  
  Hyrdomancy is the school of control over water magic.
  
  Geomancy is the school of control over earth magic.

  Restos

  Fortos is the school of protective and augmentative magic, ranging from magical barriers, anti-magic shells, or blessings such as night-vision or water-breathing.
  
  Puras is the school of expulsion and healing. Practitioners can heal wounds and expel unwanted magics and even substances from the body, ranging from poison to demon possession. Masters in the art of Purification can even 'seal the bridge' of an unfortunate target, effectively rendering them unable to use magic. The duration of this seal depends on the skill of the user and can range from a few seconds to the targets entire life.

  Mystos

  Illios: allows the caster to alter a targets perception of reality, and powerful mages can even trap a target within a false fantasy, much like a dream, and much to the Mages of the Tower's chagrin, sometimes a target is so entranced by this fantasy they refuse to leave, and eventually die from starvation or dehydration if not looked after for the remainder of their life. Effectively Illusion gives the caster control over a targets mind.
  
  Necros: Magic dealing with disease, blight, reanimation, or other magic associated with death.
  
  Hexas: enables the caster to place hexes on an unfortunate victim. Hexes can range from turning a victim into an animal, fusing their body with objects around them and leaving them forever immobile, placing a hex which causes the victim to swell and explode, or simply giving them a string of bad luck. The imagination is the limit with curses, however curses more so then any other magic have a high likelihood to backfire. Curses are similar to alchemy in many ways, but whereas Alchemy allows the alteration of objects or ones own body, curses allow a caster to alter someone elses body in a negative manner.
  
  Alchos: allows the caster to alter the physical properties of an object, such as turning iron to gold (temporarily), or even altering their own forms such as turning themselves into animals or the exact image of another person, shape shifting as it's called

  
  
• 
  
  Name:
  [What is their given name, also include any nicknames they may have]
  
  Gender:
  [Male, Female, etc]
  
  Age:
  [Your age]
  
  Race:
  [Upon approval, you may play any race. Just be mindful that the setting takes place in the human kingdoms and nonhuman characters will likely face prejudice in certain regions]
  
  Appearance:
  [Picture, written description, or a combination of the two]
  
  Nationality:
  [Gorgon, Valeal, Rhinefeld, Ferros, Kaine, or Outsider]
  
  Magic:
  [Does your character know magic? If so list a single school of magic here. If there's some magic you want to use but don't see it on the list just ask. If you don't want your character to know magic that's fine too and I promise they wont be underpowered compared to any other character]
  
  Backstory:
  [How did your character become who they are? You could write an exposition or you could write a specific scene from your characters life. Please 3+ paragraphs. I will be using this to judge if you would be a good fit for this RP or not]
  
  Strengths:
  [What is your character good at? Keep it to physical attributes or skills, not personality traits]
  
  Weaknesses:
  [What does your character struggle with? Again keep it to physical skills or attributes]
  
  Personality:
  [This doesn't have to be long, just give us an idea of how your character's brain ticks]
  
  Equipment:
  [Include weapons and armor here along with anything else that could be found on your person]
  
• 
  1. All the standard Iwaku rules apply
  
  2. Your characters are not invincible. Death is a very real possibility for your characters and play with that fact in mind.
  
  3. You may have two characters
  
  4. Don't be a dick
  
  5. Adult themes will be portrayed within this RP, within the Iwaku rules of course.
  
  6. The posting pace will be weekly, perhaps bi-weekly dependent on everyone's schedules. However, if you are holding up the story I will not hesitate to continue without you.
  
  7. All rules and game mechanics are subject to change as I see fit, but if I make any changes I will notify all players.
  
• 
  At the start of combat, I will roll initiative for all parties involved. This will determine the order in which combatants will act, and the rolls will be done in the OOC so you may know when you can go. Combat will be taken to a private message with everyone involved in a particular scenario and at the conclusion of an engagement the story will be posted in IC. I want to take it to Private Message to avoid a spur of short choppy posts in the IC.
  
  When I introduce a hostile creature I will highlight their name in either Green, Yellow, Orange, or Red. The color of their name will determine how difficult the engagement will be and will be used to determine how easy or difficult they are for your character to hit. When it is your turn, throw a 20 sided dice in the OOC. Then, use that dice roll to determine whether you hit or not and write your post accordingly. Use the chart below:
  
  Green:
  0 - 3 No Hit
  4 - 8 Hit
  9 - 15 Mortal Blow (the creature will be dead at the end of their next turn)
  16 - 20 Finishing Strike (You kill the creature and may write accordingly)
  
  Yellow:
  0 - 9 No Hit
  10 - 15 Hit
  16 - 18 Mortal Blow
  19 - 20 Finishing Strike
  
  Orange:
  0 - 12 No Hit
  13 - 17 Hit
  18 - 20 Mortal Blow
  
  Red:
  0 - 12 No hit
  13 - 20 Hit
  
  All creatures will take multiple hits to kill (short of a Mortal Blow or Death Strike). So if you hit a creature keep that in mind when you're writing. So, for instance, don't say you stab a creature through the throat on a normal hit because that would be more akin to a Mortal Blow. On the creatures turns, I will be rolling off screen to allow myself as GM some creative liberties. A player character may forfeit their turn and instead choose to assist another character. This will allow the assisted character to roll twice on their turn. Remember this is a story so write things out. Tell me how you worked together. When a creature is near death I will tell you as much so that you may treat the next hit as a Death Strike. If you take too long on your turn I will forfeit your turn for you. Again, the pacing will be determined by everyone's schedules so if for any reason you won't be able to post for a while please tell me. I will also give you a warning before I forfeit your turn.
  
  For any questions please ask.
  

*******
​

I'm still working on the lore of the world, but I want this to be a character-driven large group RP. You will be participating in political espionage, civil war, monster hunting, and everything in between. Later tonight I'll write up more about the history of the world, the rules, and other general world building things. However, I thought it wouldn't hurt to start a thread now to get a head start on interest generation. If you have questions about anything feel free to ask but like I said, more will be fleshed out soon.[/tab]

 

[Dark_Psycho]

Ooo ooo pick me *raises hand* me pick me

 

[Captain Illiterate]

Added two new sections. Explained a bit about the world we will be playing in as well as how the magic system will work. Will try to get the rest of the stuff up tomorrows such as the CS and anything else that may be needed.

If anyone finds typos or grammar errors please let me know. I just did a shit ton of writing and am pretty tired.

 

[Captain Illiterate]

Added three new sections: Rules, Magic, and Combat.

OOC is up as well.