E
Esper
Guest
Original poster
"What is magic? That of course, is the very question that we have gathered to discuss, and well you are all highly esteemed scholars, I think an overview of the basics can be refreshing for the mind. Magic is energy, and can be altered with the correct tools just like heat, light, or gravity. However, in the case of magic the correct tool appears to be tied to sentience itself, with belief and willpower being the primary manipulators. Any of us could argue for hours about the definition of those three words, 'sentience', 'belief', 'willpower', and I do believe there is an entire panel scheduled for later to do exactly that.
*laughter from audience*
But that is not what I want to focus this opening speech on. No, what I want us all to do is to reflect on our first experiences with magic, what brought us into this parallel world. How that change happened, what it was like, the circumstances and context of that event. I firmly believe, to my very core, that the answer to the question 'what is magic' resides in those moments."
- Excerpt from the transcription of the 279th and last Convocation of Magi
Hello and thank you for taking interest in The Veil RP, a Paranormal Modern RP taking place in the city of New York.
The central concept of this world is the eponymous Veil, a barrier that keeps the eyes of mortals from seeing the truth that they share the world with the supernatural; Fae, Angels, Demons, Mages and others, all hidden away next to and inside normal human society.
RP Expectations:
While these rules are not hard and fast (because we understand real life is more important than RP) we are seeking players who can post 2 times a week at a length of 2 or 3 paragraphs. Conversations sometimes can be shorter and if you want to collaborate and post a conversation that is more than welcome.
This will be a dark, at times scary setting (think World of Darkness for a similar tone), but it will not be a 18+ RP, anything along those lines needs to be taken to private messages. Additionally, as we are going for a more close to ground tone, please keep character pictures of human forms fairly realistic.
If you're unable to post, but are still interested in the RP please let us (Sarnai or Esper) know so we can keep the RP moving.
If there is a few interests then myself and @Sarnai-Zaya will make an OoC and character creation can begin! Questions? Comments? Let us know!
*laughter from audience*
But that is not what I want to focus this opening speech on. No, what I want us all to do is to reflect on our first experiences with magic, what brought us into this parallel world. How that change happened, what it was like, the circumstances and context of that event. I firmly believe, to my very core, that the answer to the question 'what is magic' resides in those moments."
- Excerpt from the transcription of the 279th and last Convocation of Magi
Hello and thank you for taking interest in The Veil RP, a Paranormal Modern RP taking place in the city of New York.
The central concept of this world is the eponymous Veil, a barrier that keeps the eyes of mortals from seeing the truth that they share the world with the supernatural; Fae, Angels, Demons, Mages and others, all hidden away next to and inside normal human society.
RP Expectations:
While these rules are not hard and fast (because we understand real life is more important than RP) we are seeking players who can post 2 times a week at a length of 2 or 3 paragraphs. Conversations sometimes can be shorter and if you want to collaborate and post a conversation that is more than welcome.
This will be a dark, at times scary setting (think World of Darkness for a similar tone), but it will not be a 18+ RP, anything along those lines needs to be taken to private messages. Additionally, as we are going for a more close to ground tone, please keep character pictures of human forms fairly realistic.
If you're unable to post, but are still interested in the RP please let us (Sarnai or Esper) know so we can keep the RP moving.
Everything beyond the mundane in The Veil universe comes from magic, a raw and mysterious energy that when concentrated, reacts to a sentient beings' thoughts, creating a triangle of manipulation:
- Belief: The more you are absolutely sure something can happen, the more likely magic will let you make it happen.
- Willpower: Even if you don't believe something can happen, with enough raw focus and tenacity, you can still call on and channel magic to bend to your desires.
- Power: When in doubt, quantity over quality. The more magic concentrated in one place, the less willpower and belief you need to make things happen. Particularly skilled or powerful wielders of magic can even take the invisible force and concentrate it into material objects such as books, crystals, or other focuses for later use.
- Belief: The more you are absolutely sure something can happen, the more likely magic will let you make it happen.
- Willpower: Even if you don't believe something can happen, with enough raw focus and tenacity, you can still call on and channel magic to bend to your desires.
- Power: When in doubt, quantity over quality. The more magic concentrated in one place, the less willpower and belief you need to make things happen. Particularly skilled or powerful wielders of magic can even take the invisible force and concentrate it into material objects such as books, crystals, or other focuses for later use.
A magical construct of epic proportions, the Veil is an active magical overlay over the entirety of the Earth, intervening directly to draw the normal human population's attention away from paranormal creatures and activities. In most cases this simply smooths over the paranormal person, hiding their inhuman characteristics, but in the places of great concentration the Veil can make people miss entire buildings or potentially an entire block worth of structures. This lets a fully functioning entire society run in parallel to the obvious human one, with the plan being that the two should never meet. However, like most plans, this one failed almost immediately when it came into contact with reality.
The usual: paranoia, politics, secret meetings in backrooms, disasters and chaos, but mostly just a lot of people trying to get through today so that they can get through tomorrow. The overall setting of The Veil is a world pretty similar to ours, but subtly different in details, famous faces changing, some events happening, some not. The year is somewhere around present day, and as a player you are a paranormal creature. The general level of play will be "Street Tier", players being relatively unimportant people just trying to survive in the face of uncaring power structures or malevolent individuals with more political clout than you.
The paranormal side of things isn't drastically different from the human one in terms of people's day to day lives. People still have jobs or things they do to get through the day, families, friends, hobbies. It is just that on this side of the Veil, all those things can also involve magic, demonic contracts, and having to jump through the intricate series of hoops known as Fae logic.
You can be a newcomer to this part of the world, a freshly turned Vampire or Shifter, a newly arrived Fae or Celestial, a just awoken Mage, or you can be someone experienced in that realm: an established member of one of the Fae Courts, a Mage who has been running a new age magic shop as a cover, a member of a Shifter clan or Vampire house, a Demon who has been tempting mortals for some time.
However, if you pick to have an established character, they still must be a relatively small fish in the big pond of Paranormal New York, as The Veil will be focused more on low to the ground stories. You are the everyday citizen of the paranormal world, just trying to not get noticed by the actual power players.
You can be a newcomer to this part of the world, a freshly turned Vampire or Shifter, a newly arrived Fae or Celestial, a just awoken Mage, or you can be someone experienced in that realm: an established member of one of the Fae Courts, a Mage who has been running a new age magic shop as a cover, a member of a Shifter clan or Vampire house, a Demon who has been tempting mortals for some time.
However, if you pick to have an established character, they still must be a relatively small fish in the big pond of Paranormal New York, as The Veil will be focused more on low to the ground stories. You are the everyday citizen of the paranormal world, just trying to not get noticed by the actual power players.
As mentioned, it is pretty similar to ours, same levels and dispersal of technology, generally the same geopolitical situation, but minus the pandemic and no recognizable faces on the political stage. We are running a Paranormal slice-of-life/drama RP, not a "Is X real life political figure secretly a vampire taking over the world?" RP.
The creators and maintainers of the Veil and thus the people who make up most of the de facto government of the paranormal world. Fae originate from The Wild, a plane made from pure magic that shifts and weaves through the human dimension, allowing them passage over into the Middle Plane.
Known for being as tempestuous as they are strange, they are however keepers of their word, whatever that may be, which is often seen as one of their key weaknesses, as Fae find it hard to resist a good game or contract, though things found on Earth that are not found in The Wild such as pure metals or specific plants are known to be extremely painful for them to interact with.
Inherent Ability: Wild Magic
Fae are the oldest and most powerful of the races, having mastered magic many millennia ago. This means that even Fae children are taught basic spellwork, and adults often can be seen using magic as easily as they breathe, having long ago found ways to make it safe to use, particularly since well away from The Wild, they must draw on the reserves of power that make up their life force to cast magic. However, this safety puts limitations on them that others do not share.
Known for being as tempestuous as they are strange, they are however keepers of their word, whatever that may be, which is often seen as one of their key weaknesses, as Fae find it hard to resist a good game or contract, though things found on Earth that are not found in The Wild such as pure metals or specific plants are known to be extremely painful for them to interact with.
Inherent Ability: Wild Magic
Fae are the oldest and most powerful of the races, having mastered magic many millennia ago. This means that even Fae children are taught basic spellwork, and adults often can be seen using magic as easily as they breathe, having long ago found ways to make it safe to use, particularly since well away from The Wild, they must draw on the reserves of power that make up their life force to cast magic. However, this safety puts limitations on them that others do not share.
Creatures who are magically composed of and devoted to concepts such as Lust, Patience, Wrath, or Justice, formed one of two ways: Either a Celestial gives up a portion of themself and breathes life into it, fundamentally altering the creator, or a group of Celestials come together and through careful meditation and work, weave together a new concept. Once a singular group from a plane similar to the Fae's, a series of wars broke out over what concepts were and were not acceptable to embody, which eventually spilled over into The Wild. Unappreciative of this, the Fae split their dimension in two, forcing the warring parties apart where they then slowly morphed into what are now known as Angels and Demons.
Celestials strengths and weaknesses both come from their state as beings of purity. They literally are the thing they are made of, and can not violate the tenets of their construction without difficulty or pain, well also having to feed off others experiencing the same thing they are when away from their home planes. To capitalize on this, a number of rituals and spells have been created by Fae and Mages that can directly banish or damage them by forcing opposing concepts upon them.
Inherent Ability: Formless, Shapeless
Ideas have no true shape, altering themselves to fit in with the time and context they find themselves in, and Celestials are no exception. Well most are only capable of two or three forms, with time and practice, they can be capable of an incredible variety of shapes. This is most often used to infiltrate, but also for self expression or artistic purposes depending on the concepts the Celestial in question is tied to.
However, in opposition to Shifters who are empowered by their changes, Celestials are limited by the forms they take, as anything that physically exists by necessity constrains the almost unlimited potential of the purity of their True Names, in the same way that communicating an idea is limited by the vocabulary you use. This means Celestials must be cautious with how they represent themselves, as too long in one shape risks binding them to that narrow interpretation of themself.
After all, if you turn yourself into a hammer, soon everything looks like nails.
Celestials strengths and weaknesses both come from their state as beings of purity. They literally are the thing they are made of, and can not violate the tenets of their construction without difficulty or pain, well also having to feed off others experiencing the same thing they are when away from their home planes. To capitalize on this, a number of rituals and spells have been created by Fae and Mages that can directly banish or damage them by forcing opposing concepts upon them.
Inherent Ability: Formless, Shapeless
Ideas have no true shape, altering themselves to fit in with the time and context they find themselves in, and Celestials are no exception. Well most are only capable of two or three forms, with time and practice, they can be capable of an incredible variety of shapes. This is most often used to infiltrate, but also for self expression or artistic purposes depending on the concepts the Celestial in question is tied to.
However, in opposition to Shifters who are empowered by their changes, Celestials are limited by the forms they take, as anything that physically exists by necessity constrains the almost unlimited potential of the purity of their True Names, in the same way that communicating an idea is limited by the vocabulary you use. This means Celestials must be cautious with how they represent themselves, as too long in one shape risks binding them to that narrow interpretation of themself.
After all, if you turn yourself into a hammer, soon everything looks like nails.
Shifters are people who got connected to the Middle Plane utterly, which empowers but also binds them. They can feel the Earth and the places they live in, pull on its power to become animals or to empower themselves with attributes of the natural world (wood, fire, water, etc), but this also leads them vulnerable to things coming from the natural world, putting truth to the folktales stories about things like silver or specific plants hurting them.
Older more experienced Shifters have shown far greater control over their body, turning into part human and part animal forms, with campfire stories even regenerating limbs or stopping aging.
While many Shifters are born from others, some are able to "turn" others, via bite or other form of infection.
Inherent Ability: Shifting
The ability to change all or part of your body into a different form. Most shift between human and animal forms, but some are able to shift into other representations of the natural world, such as elemental forms.
Older more experienced Shifters have shown far greater control over their body, turning into part human and part animal forms, with campfire stories even regenerating limbs or stopping aging.
While many Shifters are born from others, some are able to "turn" others, via bite or other form of infection.
Inherent Ability: Shifting
The ability to change all or part of your body into a different form. Most shift between human and animal forms, but some are able to shift into other representations of the natural world, such as elemental forms.
Created when early humans were killed near high magical concentrations, vampires are undead, immortal beings who are forced to take things precious to the life of others in order to survive. Well the classic blood feeding vampires are by far the most common, there also exist more exotic varieties such as those who feed on things such as emotions, willpower, memories, or even dreams. A vampire arising purely from happenstance has not been seen in centuries, now most are turned via being fed on and then feeding on the vampire before their death.
Vampires are in many ways the opposite of Shifters, cut off from the Middle Plane and stuck inside their now frozen, unchanging body, leaving them weak to things inimical to the world they came from: sunlight, food, drink, the things necessary for humanity.
Inherent Ability: Stalker
In order to maintain their undead existence, Vampires must steal what others do not want to give up, turning their life into an endless hunt for sustenance. To this end, every Vampire finds themselves equipped with what they need to be predators: Enhanced hearing, sight, fangs, psychic abilities, whatever they need to fulfill the new niche they find themselves in.
Vampires are in many ways the opposite of Shifters, cut off from the Middle Plane and stuck inside their now frozen, unchanging body, leaving them weak to things inimical to the world they came from: sunlight, food, drink, the things necessary for humanity.
Inherent Ability: Stalker
In order to maintain their undead existence, Vampires must steal what others do not want to give up, turning their life into an endless hunt for sustenance. To this end, every Vampire finds themselves equipped with what they need to be predators: Enhanced hearing, sight, fangs, psychic abilities, whatever they need to fulfill the new niche they find themselves in.
Humans who were either born with or learned by accident how to sense and manipulate magic. The least predictable and potentially most powerful of the magical groups, as being brought up primarily in the mundane world means their minds are much more malleable in the beliefs and ideas they will accept as possible. This also means that they lack restraint and a certain sense of scale, making many mage's lives explosively short and the ones who survive find themselves drifting farther and farther from the rest of humanity; increasingly isolated and bizarre.
Inherent Ability: Indomitable Will
Human magic users have no training, just raw power, and the overwhelming power of will to use it. This makes their minds almost impenetrable to being affected by others, easily piercing through glamors and illusions, throwing off spells affecting them unless woven by a master.
Inherent Ability: Indomitable Will
Human magic users have no training, just raw power, and the overwhelming power of will to use it. This makes their minds almost impenetrable to being affected by others, easily piercing through glamors and illusions, throwing off spells affecting them unless woven by a master.
A number of other paranormal races exist in the world, but tend towards being less common than those listed both in number and how often they interact with others. If you have an idea for a classic type of storybook creature or monster you want to play, feel free to bring it up with the GMs.
If there is a few interests then myself and @Sarnai-Zaya will make an OoC and character creation can begin! Questions? Comments? Let us know!
