Omnibus Academy

[Luma]

It's really cool that you have a friend joining just for this. I hope they like it...well I hope we all do for that matter, but first impressions.

 

[AnimeLover_Princess]

It's really cool that you have a friend joining just for this. I hope they like it...well I hope we all do for that matter, but first impressions.

yeah, she actually introduced me to text-to-post role-playing to begin with but she hasn't had the opportunity to do it in a good long while and i thought she'd enjoy this so i asked her to join :)
she said she's interested

 

[Eru]

I just remembered that school starts in like a week.


...

I don't intend to drop any roleplays as a result, but just thought I should mention that fact.
I'M STILL HERE DON'T PANIC

 

[gamer5]

I just remembered that school starts in like a week.

... This reminds me that I am still on a permanent pause from collage due to ecnomical reasons... damn this corrupted and rotten backwatered country!!!

 

[Roose Hurro]

Gurgle.......

I know I'm a bit "full" at the moment, having just eaten, but... I can't help myself! Given all my characters are non-human alien/fantasy critters, I'd be perfect for this.

As for the location, yes, the island idea would work, though I'd suggest having said "island" move about, either randomly, or, perhaps better, deliberately. Meaning said "island" could move about the various realms.

I also vote no humans.

I also vote co-ed dorms. Though the question comes up: What about "romantic" entanglements?

And I also vote for random roomie pairings.

Thinking my Nism would fit this scenario really well, though, to be honest, any of my species would fit, even my namesake Roose. Only consideration would be: How young/old would the character have to be, equivalently? Given this is a "school" concept. My Nism, Peet, as well as his sister, Honalee, not to mention another young male named Kimba, are all "teenagers". Whereas Thoee and Deen are adults.

Heh... and this is only one of my critter-species-races.

 

[Neobullseye]

I guess the main problem with allowing 'magical' humans while banning normal ones would be that it assumes a flawless administration in addition to normal humans never stumbling upon the place by sheer random (bad) luck. Given this, I guess it's better to just not allow humans to get into the place period, or at the very least have no standard Earth-based portals. In other words, for a human to be allowed entry to the school, they would first need to deserve it vy finding it on their own.

If by 'location' you mean the surroundings of the place, I vote for at least some amounts of supernatural influences. A floating island, a pocket dimension, a giant castle; mostly anything is okay, really. On that note though, how damage-resistant will said environment be?

As for the dorms: I vote for co-ed dorms and mostly random allocation. That is to say, people would be divided randomly unless we all agree on a pairing that's just too perfect to pass up.

 

[Clownpiece]

As for the dorms: I vote for co-ed dorms and mostly random allocation. That is to say, people would be divided randomly unless we all agree on a pairing that's just too perfect to pass up.

I'll second this. Randomized groupings for the most part unless something's just ungodly fabulous.

 

[Kit-n-Kat]

1 - I say no. Don't entirely see too much of a point. Unless they're humans trying to learn and unlock their magical heritage or something along those lines.
2 - Earth should be pretty easy, remote island sounds good.
3 -
1 - Coed is good
2 - Random sounds pretty fun.
(god looking at that irritates the hell outta me)

 

[Kagayours]

Thinking my Nism would fit this scenario really well, though, to be honest, any of my species would fit, even my namesake Roose. Only consideration would be: How young/old would the character have to be, equivalently? Given this is a "school" concept. My Nism, Peet, as well as his sister, Honalee, not to mention another young male named Kimba, are all "teenagers". Whereas Thoee and Deen are adults.

Ehhh... good question... o_o

First I think we should clarify the distinction between "apparent age" and "actual age". It's totally possible to have characters who could be hundreds or thousands of years old but don't look a day over 20. Likewise, we could also have characters who are technically only a few years old but still look and act like teenagers/adults.

That being said -- for actual age, anything goes. For apparent age... ehhh... just keeping everything at least vaguely high-school age just feels... right. But, I emphasize the word "vaguely" because, well, I think TJA had some characters who were very young teenagers (perhaps even preteens) as well as others who would've probably counted as adults, but they still felt like they belonged there...

In fact, yeah, I'd say "high school or college" age, with some wiggle room.

Now, speaking from a meta perspective, I'm really only putting this in place because it just feels right for an academy setting. As for why this restriction needs to exist in the RP (or why it needs to be an academy setting at all, given the fact that classes are optional and we'll probably rarely make use of them), I've actually been thinking about this --

Perhaps Omnibus could be framed as a place where magical creatures not only just have a safe place to exist, but they also have the opportunity to learn more about how to control their powers, or blend in with human culture -- that could be just some of the things that the classes center around. It could also give me an in-universe reason to require all characters to have at least vaguely humanoid forms... as that just seems like it would also be easier from a meta perspective. I'm not sure I'm so keen on the idea of amorphous blobs or tentacle monsters or godzilla-looking things wandering the halls. I mean, I suppose all of those things are fine so long as they can transform themselves into something slightly more human-looking, but uh, yeah...

I guess the main problem with allowing 'magical' humans while banning normal ones would be that it assumes a flawless administration in addition to normal humans never stumbling upon the place by sheer random (bad) luck. Given this, I guess it's better to just not allow humans to get into the place period, or at the very least have no standard Earth-based portals. In other words, for a human to be allowed entry to the school, they would first need to deserve it vy finding it on their own.

o_o Uhh... if you look at it that way, then, I could plausibly allow non-magical humans that wound up there by mistake, but like, what I was referring to is just whether or not this is a school where normal humans are supposed to be there.

Like, early incarnations of TJA made it so that normal humans still attend the school and think that it's just a normal school. The existence of magic was a (poorly-kept) secret. It should be obvious why we eventually changed it and just made it a magical-creatures-only school. Like I said, I was already fairly certain we would go that route. I just wanted to bring it up in case anyone had any objections.

I certainly wouldn't want to completely ban anyone who could potentially count as a human. I feel like that would just alienate too many possible 'races'. I mean, not only is there the whole thing about wizards, but, like, what about cyborgs? You could easily have a cyborg whose biological parts are all fully human. I'm sure if we really sat here and thought about it, we could think of lots of Omnibus-worthy things that could technically count as human. Hell, I'd even allow a human character who's been surrounded my magic their entire lives -- for whatever reason -- even if they themselves don't have anything magical or otherwise noteworthy about them.

Plus, if we put the school in a secluded location, then I'm not sure how ordinary humans could accidentally stumble across it, anyway. It sounds like this would have to be a thing where creatures are invited to it -- or, at the very least, existence of the place is just sort of spread by word of mouth in the, uh... magical community, for lack of a better term. And while, even then, I suppose it's still possible for ordinary humans to arrive there by accident... it's not at all the same situation as regular humans being totally welcome as magic is (sort of) kept secret.

As for the dorms: I vote for co-ed dorms and mostly random allocation. That is to say, people would be divided randomly unless we all agree on a pairing that's just too perfect to pass up.

I like this idea.

(god looking at that irritates the hell outta me)

...Looking at what? o_o

 

[Kit-n-Kat]

1 2 3 1 2
That's what I meant by irritating >.>

 

[Roose Hurro]

Ehhh... good question... o_o

First I think we should clarify the distinction between "apparent age" and "actual age". It's totally possible to have characters who could be hundreds or thousands of years old but don't look a day over 20. Likewise, we could also have characters who are technically only a few years old but still look and act like teenagers/adults.

That being said -- for actual age, anything goes. For apparent age... ehhh... just keeping everything at least vaguely high-school age just feels... right. But, I emphasize the word "vaguely" because, well, I think TJA had some characters who were very young teenagers (perhaps even preteens) as well as others who would've probably counted as adults, but they still felt like they belonged there...

In fact, yeah, I'd say "high school or college" age, with some wiggle room.

Now, speaking from a meta perspective, I'm really only putting this in place because it just feels right for an academy setting. As for why this restriction needs to exist in the RP (or why it needs to be an academy setting at all, given the fact that classes are optional and we'll probably rarely make use of them), I've actually been thinking about this --

Perhaps Omnibus could be framed as a place where magical creatures not only just have a safe place to exist, but they also have the opportunity to learn more about how to control their powers, or blend in with human culture -- that could be just some of the things that the classes center around. It could also give me an in-universe reason to require all characters to have at least vaguely humanoid forms... as that just seems like it would also be easier from a meta perspective. I'm not sure I'm so keen on the idea of amorphous blobs or tentacle monsters or godzilla-looking things wandering the halls. I mean, I suppose all of those things are fine so long as they can transform themselves into something slightly more human-looking, but uh, yeah...

Well, to first deal with the age thing, Peet is somewhere in his early/mid 170's, perhaps pushing 180, depending on just where I'd put this story in his timeline. And given that Nism live ten times longer than humans... mature ten times slower... physically, he's 17-18 years old. As for his parents, Thoee and Deen were in their early 230's when he was born, so, if I went back in their timeline, Thoee and Deen could be considered college age... in their early 20's. Of course, I could take Deen back to his "teenage" years, before him and Thoee became mates. Or, like I said, I could dig up any other character in my roster.

As for my first bolded: Meta perspective? Hmmm... second bolded: None of my characters/species are humanoid. To put in my own perspective, I think part of the fun would be having "critters" of all kinds, humanoid and not. Especially with everyone seeming to like the "random roomie" idea, I've always thought how much character development could come out of having creatures with not only different forms, but different habits, all living together.

As an example:

This is my Nism, Deen. As you may have noted, he can get about on all fours, has fur, feathers and scales, and doesn't wear shoes, shirt... or pants. You may also note he's smiling. So if I had his son, or him in his younger years, part of this RP, whoever he roomied with would have to get used to his odd/alien habits, as well as to his appearance (and lack of pants). Of course, this doesn't even get into the differences in personality. It would be great fun to just let everything mix naturally. To not restrict characters/species/races to humanoid. Humanoids just have too many things in common. And this RP, from the sound of past editions, seemed to thrive on character interactions. On all the things that make life fun and interesting. Like the whole idea of co-ed dorms. It opens up doors of creative opportunity.

And no, none of my characters/species are shapeshifters in any way.

Really, I see "Omnibus" being a story that fits the definition: "... a book containing reprints of a number of works..." With the "works" being our species/races/characters, all come together in one place. No matter where they originally came from. With the addition that our story will allow all these works to interact, rather than keeping them apart, all alone and self-contained.

 

[Kagayours]

As for my first bolded: Meta perspective? Hmmm...

o.o Yes... speaking from an OOC perspective and not an in-universe one, it just feels weird to have an "academy" setting in which some of the "students" could be old men, or very young children... or, actually, I might be ok with these odd age groups (especially since I said "college age" and some people do attend college much later in life), but it would still feel weird to have them be anything more than a minority... So, in general, I'd like to shoot for an age that sounds about right for the average high school or college student (at least in apparent age).

And I emphasized that I was speaking from a meta perspective in that case, because I really didn't have a good in-universe justification for it at the time. o3o

In any case -- opening up the doors for non-humanoids would be... a departure from what I'm used to, but, I suppose it would make more sense.

Really, I see "Omnibus" being a story that fits the definition: "... a book containing reprints of a number of works..." With the "works" being our species/races/characters, all come together in one place. No matter where they originally came from. With the addition that our story will allow all these works to interact, rather than keeping them apart, all alone and self-contained.

^^" Really I just used the word "omnibus" because it's the Latin word for "all" -- I mean, your point still stands, in that case, but uh, it's a bit less of a stretch that way. XD

Yeah, I could actually get fairly creative with the possibilities for non-humanoids. I'd just have to put a bit more thought into it.


Edit: ALSO inb4 other characters start constantly referring to the Nism as "dragons" no matter how many times they're corrected about it. :P

 

[Luma]

Well, to first deal with the age thing, Peet is somewhere in his early/mid 170's, perhaps pushing 180, depending on just where I'd put this story in his timeline. And given that Nism live ten times longer than humans... mature ten times slower... physically, he's 17-18 years old. As for his parents, Thoee and Deen were in their early 230's when he was born, so, if I went back in their timeline, Thoee and Deen could be considered college age... in their early 20's. Of course, I could take Deen back to his "teenage" years, before him and Thoee became mates. Or, like I said, I could dig up any other character in my roster.

As for my first bolded: Meta perspective? Hmmm... second bolded: None of my characters/species are humanoid. To put in my own perspective, I think part of the fun would be having "critters" of all kinds, humanoid and not. Especially with everyone seeming to like the "random roomie" idea, I've always thought how much character development could come out of having creatures with not only different forms, but different habits, all living together.

As an example:

This is my Nism, Deen. As you may have noted, he can get about on all fours, has fur, feathers and scales, and doesn't wear shoes, shirt... or pants. You may also note he's smiling. So if I had his son, or him in his younger years, part of this RP, whoever he roomied with would have to get used to his odd/alien habits, as well as to his appearance (and lack of pants). Of course, this doesn't even get into the differences in personality. It would be great fun to just let everything mix naturally. To not restrict characters/species/races to humanoid. Humanoids just have too many things in common. And this RP, from the sound of past editions, seemed to thrive on character interactions. On all the things that make life fun and interesting. Like the whole idea of co-ed dorms. It opens up doors of creative opportunity.

And no, none of my characters/species are shapeshifters in any way.

Really, I see "Omnibus" being a story that fits the definition: "... a book containing reprints of a number of works..." With the "works" being our species/races/characters, all come together in one place. No matter where they originally came from. With the addition that our story will allow all these works to interact, rather than keeping them apart, all alone and self-contained.

I agree this could be interesting, especially if your race is as well-thought-out as it looks. Most non-humanoids would probably ignore "Blending into Earth Society" classes, but I'm sure there'd be plenty more to take.

Also, that is a fantastic drawing, I find it curious that the wings are on his neck.

 

[Roose Hurro]

I agree this could be interesting, especially if your race is as well-thought-out as it looks. Most non-humanoids would probably ignore "Blending into Earth Society" classes, but I'm sure there'd be plenty more to take.

Also, that is a fantastic drawing, I find it curious that the wings are on his neck.

They aren't wings:

Male Nism have what is called a "shroudruff"... like a peacock's fan. And just like for a male peacock, it attracts the ladies (also functions as a handy "baby blanket" for Little Ones to snuggle under). And yes, the artist who did these pics for me was fantastic. Wish I knew where she vanished to.

 

[Luma]

They aren't wings:

Male Nism have what is called a "shroudruff"... like a peacock's fan. And just like for a male peacock, it attracts the ladies (also functions as a handy "baby blanket" for Little Ones to snuggle under). And yes, the artist who did these pics for me was fantastic. Wish I knew where she vanished to.

Oh nice, that makes way more sense.

 

[Roose Hurro]

Oh nice, that makes way more sense.

"Yes, it does make sense."

"Hey! That means I'm not a total goofball!"

... *tail just got pulled*...

 

[AnimeLover_Princess]

I'll be out of town for the next couple days
Just so you guys know

 

[Yorika]

Hi there! I just read through all the pages (cause I'm a dork and REALLY like to know whats going on). This sounds a lot like an rp I was in, well lets just say along time ago.... Though this idea has a much wider realm than the one I was in before.

But! None the less, I would really love to join. Being that, I will say that it has been some time since the last time I rped, so I might be a little rusty, but I would love to get back into with an idea that intrigues me so! As for the question put to us a couple pages ago:

I would say no for the most part, but agree with you on the possibility of having humans with non-human powers. As far as regular humans not getting in, an isolated place would be good or an area that is seal off with some kind of barrier that only allows those that at to attend the "school". That could still allow the idea of portals to other realms to be possible and keep out unwanted guests. On a side note, for non-humanoid creatures, it could be that while they attend classes, they need to be in a humanoid form, and in their free time they can do what ever they want. If and only if, you wanted to still go with the theme that they could be learning to control their powers/learning about how to function in human society.

As for dorms, I totally like the co-ed idea (much more drama and fun!) as well as the randomized assignments. I think if someone is vehemently bent on rooming with this other said person, they should have that option.

If any of what I'm saying goes against anything you wanted for this rp, just let me know! But for now I'm super juiced to join this rp, as long as it's alright with you~

 

[Eon]

-generic grand entrance, probably some sort of decent from the heavens, shrouded in heavenly light and bringing some sort of royalty-free heavenly chorus-

So, after reading the last few pages, I've got to say: this looks like some cool-ass shit, and I want in.

As for the running questions:

1) No humans, unless there's some really good reason for it. While the outsider character in a magical world could be interesting, there are other ways to do it. Plus, humans are rather boring, and they seem to defeat the purpose of the RP, which was having crazy misadventures with insane beings and incredible powers.

2) Yes Co-ed dorms.

3) Randomization seems like a good, easy way to do it, but I do think that if there are two characters who could be really fun/interesting together, we should room 'em up, regardless of what the Random Number God has to say about it. So what if this makes us Heretics? What man has built, let no god tear asunder!

And now for a few questions of my own. Maybe these were answered elsewhere, but I didn't see anything that would answer these when I read over the stuff, so I'm asking.

1) How are we going to deal with beings that have abilities that are way up there on the power scale? It seems to me that this is kinda' supposed to be a high-power RP, but if someone comes from, let's say, a race of sentient grandfather clocks with control over the passage of time, how are we going to balance that in a way that's fun for everyone?

2) It was mentioned that something is only made canon when a player's species or character makes it so, but what if two characters have conflicting canons? If one player states that their race of eldritch, lovecraftian monsters are the biggest, baddest motherfuckers around, with terrible power unrivaled in all the universe, and one person is playing a race of angels that serve an omnipotent creator, what happens? Does somebody have to change? Is there a retcon, allowing for forces equally omnipotent to co-exist? Something else entirely?

 

[Roose Hurro]

On a side note, for non-humanoid creatures, it could be that while they attend classes, they need to be in a humanoid form...

This would count me out, since none of my characters have humanoid forms. To paraphrase Popeye: "They am what they am!" And nothing says a non-humanoid critter can't learn about humanity, just for the sake of knowing. After all, human colleges don't require students to use their knowledge. So long as the student fees are paid, they don't care what you do with your degree.