Fantasy 5 Students, 1 Deity Mentor (OOC)

[L4d7R3d]

This is where we can talk about the rp!

 

[phibglib]

First, can I ask what the setting is like?

 

[L4d7R3d]

What specifically do you want to know?

 

[phibglib]

Well, is it set in our world?

 

[L4d7R3d]

Geographically I would say yes, but obviously there would be a few key changes. For instance, there are now powers/magic, which in this case are going to be given to the students specifically by the deity

 

[phibglib]

OK. So would you say it's like our world except magic is known, or is it kept secret?

 

[Daylight Fantasy]

Weep Womp. I've arrived!

 

[EMIYAman]

Posted a mentor character sheet just decided to go ham with what I thought at the time if anything doesnt quite mesh with the RP in mind let me know and ill change some stuff.

 

[L4d7R3d]

Posted a mentor character sheet just decided to go ham with what I thought at the time if anything doesnt quite mesh with the RP in mind let me know and ill change some stuff.

Your character looks perfect! I can't wait to roleplay with him!

 

[L4d7R3d]

OK. So would you say it's like our world except magic is known, or is it kept secret?

I would say it's likely something of a myth in this world. Like, people believe it exists, but most haven't encountered it.

 

[phibglib]

I would say it's likely something of a myth in this world. Like, people believe it exists, but most haven't encountered it.

Sorry if I'm being nitpicky, but that still seems a little ambiguous. I feel like that could describe our world, but it could also describe more "classic" Low Fantasy, like Game of Thrones.

 

[EMIYAman]

Sorry if I'm being nitpicky, but that still seems a little ambiguous. I feel like that could describe our world, but it could also describe more "classic" Low Fantasy, like Game of Thrones.

They are saying its literally our world you know modern day and shit urban fantasy setting. Except here magic and myth are real if incredibly hidden and while its rumored in some places and spoke of many never see it so its merely hearsay save for those few likely hidden magical organizations or societies in the know. Pretty cut and dry imo ala American Gods, Dreseden Files maybe even Artemis Fowl.

 

[phibglib]

They are saying its literally our world you know modern day and shit urban fantasy setting. Except here magic and myth are real if incredibly hidden and while its rumored in some places and spoke of many never see it so its merely hearsay save for those few likely hidden magical organizations or societies in the know. Pretty cut and dry imo ala American Gods, Dreseden Files maybe even Artemis Fowl.

Okay, so closer to the option I said where it is kept hidden.

 

[EMIYAman]

Okay, so closer to the option I said where it is kept hidden.

Probably, though since L4d mentioned we'd essentially be making the RP setting and story together as a group we can likely say whatever we want if we agree on it. So in this case just believe in what I said and make it into reality.

 

[L4d7R3d]

Sorry for not being here to clear things up but yes, it would be closer to being kept hidden. But, remember, this is all just how I pictured it. Just because I've pictured it a certain way doesn't mean that's how it has to be. We might be using my idea, but this isn't just my roleplay, so I want us to work together to create a more concise story and world

 

[phibglib]

Sorry for not being here to clear things up but yes, it would be closer to being kept hidden. But, remember, this is all just how I pictured it. Just because I've pictured it a certain way doesn't mean that's how it has to be. We might be using my idea, but this isn't just my roleplay, so I want us to work together to create a more concise story and world

No, that's probably what I'd go with also.

 

[EMIYAman]

Glad to see we could come to peaceful resolution, it does this old man proud. Anyway make your characters! I wanna read em all~

 

[L4d7R3d]

It may take them a couple days to create characters as everyone has different schedules and attention spans. But while we wait we can always create more story and world building. Like, why is it that Damon needed to find people to protect this world? And what are they protecting it from? What are some minor conflicts we want to have arise? What will be the main conflict? What'll be the climax of the story? Do we want to have some characters die and the people playing them bring in new ones? Etc. Etc.

 

[phibglib]

Here's an idea I've been toying with integrating into my own personal mythos: the Night Shadows, from the works of Jordan S. Bassior. They're basic ally interdimensional predators and creatures of pure hate who feed on the life force of entire universes. They overthrew the ruling deities of their own universe, and seek to overcome entropy and heat death at all costs.

 

[EMIYAman]

It may take them a couple days to create characters as everyone has different schedules and attention spans. But while we wait we can always create more story and world building. Like, why is it that Damon needed to find people to protect this world? And what are they protecting it from? What are some minor conflicts we want to have arise? What will be the main conflict? What'll be the climax of the story? Do we want to have some characters die and the people playing them bring in new ones? Etc. Etc.

Oh good idea I didn't consider that I admit I'm more used to having the RP organizer have all that but this is novel so I'll try. Well from the scenarios you gave it seemed there was some kind of threat against potentially the world. So I wouldn't mind keeping that. So I imagine thats Damons motivation for taking these five as apprentices. And I'd say that its something either he can't fight directly against or refuses to, instead allowing humans to decide their future. Any other ideas or thoughts on those basic trappings, then perhaps we can expand form there? Maybe leaving the more detailed character to character stuff like who dies or if they will when we have a foundation going and our players have an idea of what they want to do personally.

 

[EMIYAman]

Here's an idea I've been toying with integrating into my own personal mythos: the Night Shadows, from the works of Jordan S. Bassior. They're basic ally interdimensional predators and creatures of pure hate who feed on the life force of entire universes. They overthrew the ruling deities of their own universe, and seek to overcome entropy and heat death at all costs.

In regards to this I'm not fully against this idea thought I'd ask for more info. What are they like and would they be main antagonists or minor is it like one big one or like a collective of them threatening the world?

 

[L4d7R3d]

If we use Phi's idea, it could be something where Damon's specific power (whatever that may be) doesn't work against these creatures. So, instead he has to grant powers to humans, but he has no control over who gets what power

 

[phibglib]

Here's a passage describing them:

She read of the Greatest Shadows.

She learned of Skleros, the dark crystalline god-thing from whom Sombros had received his super-equine powers, whose dominion was over the angles of space and time, along which he did not so much move as grow, and whose ways were rigid but irresistible. There was a sketch here, of a vast complex crystal tower, much like a loathsome parody of the Crystal Palace -- from the vertices of whose angles peered out numerous yellow eyes.

Moon Dancer shuddered when she realized that it was far more likely that the Crystal Palace had been modeled after Skleros than the other way round, and wondered just how long Skleros had been affecting the Pony world; and she shuddered again when she learned later in the text that some of Skleros had grown already into the veins of crystal near the Crystal City, and in the Crystal Mountains to the north. Was this monster now one with the bones of the Earth itself?

She read of Skloia -- the "sister" of Skleros" (the text here warned that Night Shadow kinship relations were often very different than that of Ponies). Almost a morphological opposite of her brother, Skloia appeared to be a mass of mist or fog, within which twinkled the many eyes that seemed a hallmark of the Great Shadows. She was caustic and toxic both chemically and in some psychic fashion, yet (the Codex warned) had the art of "sweet-seeming" (glykofainimeniki, in the common Crystal-Imperial), the better to seduce the gullible.

Skloia too had a terrible power of infiltration, more horrid because it directly affected Ponies rather than geological formations. She could enter the soul of a vulnerable Pony and implant within her one of her own Eyes, through which she could view the Pony world, slowly corrupt and possibly even take control of her unfortunate victim. Skloia sought out powerful hosts for this spirtual infection, as she greatly valued her Eyes and would not waste them on just anypony.

There was Raknon, which was like unto a webwork of glistening fibers, which at points met and at those nodes manifested its own eyes. Raknon was strange even by the standards of the Shadows, for it appeared to somehow exist at an angle to the rest of spacetime, so that it could perceive pasts and futures with ease, but not so clearly comprehend the events of a more linear time. Raknon was some sort of oracle to the other Great Shadows, and they respected and even somewhat feared it, for they did not understand it very well.

There were some notes scribbled in the margin here: "Advantage over Sisters?" ... "Similar to Paradise Ont?" ... "Iolite might know."

Stigasklavon, the "Scourge of the Slaves," was described as some sort of very large and complex machine, but of frightening intellect and force of will, who traveled as a pattern of consciousness to its destination, where it assembled a new body out of whatever materials it found there, living or otherwise. All its forms were intricately jointed skeletal devices, from the ends of whose members depended numerous whips and other implements of torment.

Its task was to rule the many slave-races of the Night Shadows, of whom the most important were the Psychomekanoi or Automekanergoi (meaning, translated in in Equestrian "ensoulled machines" or "self-directed machine workers") who had been the final products of the great civilizations who had flourished in the youth of the Shadow Universe. These were machines, but so cunningly-wrought as to be able to think and feel and self-replicate, for they had long ago had incorporated within them the panspitha, the very Spark of Life.

Stigasklavon had somehow seized control of the panspitha, and thus rendered the Psychomekanoi its slaves from now until the unguessably-distant end of time. It was a terrible slavery, for only with great difficulty could the Psychomekanoi even die, at least permanently, so all they knew was unending labor in the vast machine worlds they built, the kybertronoi, which drifted from place to place throughout the Shadowverse, building great machines and structures for their lord and master.

There were some notes scribbled in a margin there. One about this being a good system of labor control, and at that Moon Dancer could not but reflect upon the deeds of the Imperator Sombros. Plainly, he had meant to use Ponies in like wise, and slowly transform the Earth into something like a kybertron. The other about some sort of prophecy that a "Goddess From Beyond" would restore to them the panspithaand their freedom.

There were other Greatest Shadows listed; a virtual catalogue of horrors and night-demons beyond Moon Dancer's previous imaginings. There was Parafrosynia, the "Mare of Madness," with whom a mere conversation could reputedly shatter one's sanity. Somehow she had the ability to infest in and breed in one's mind,producing lesser Spawn who would eventually grow to the point of being able to spread themselves in likewise.

There was Minymon, a genderless pattern of electromagnetism, which could infest any Turin-capable machine and reduce its information to random garbage (Moon Dancer was not sure what a "Turin-capable machine" was -- this might have been some of the lost lore of past ages kept in the Crystal Library, but it sounded dreadful). It may have had something to do with machines, for the Automekanergoi greatly feared it.

And, many many more, each in its own way uniquely horrible.

There were the vast hordes of Ordinary Night Shadows, who constantly struggled to rise by climbing over and crushing one another, in the vague hopes of themselves becoming Greater and perhaps even Greatest Shadows someday, or at least useful enough to them that they would have a greater chance of survival, slightly less horrible existences, and more power to harm their rivals. These were always athirst for life such as exists in our Universe, since the energy they could gain by draining it would increase their own status. Beyond that, they wanted to find hosts with whom they might merge and seek out even greater power. Moon Dancer wondered if the Ordinary Night Shadows had been what she had seen in her vision.

Beneath them were the Lesser and Least Night Shadows. The society of the Shadows seemed to Moon Dancer to be a great pyramidal hierarchy, with each level of Night Shadows standing atop many more their numbers in each lower level, and abusing them abominably. It looked to her very much like what Warrior Marks and Peacelord Angels had described as the 'final monopoly stage of investment,' though in no other way did the Shadows seem much like investment bankers and factory-owners, save in that they had the slave-kybertronoi. Each lower level was weaker and less intelligent: the very Least Night Shadows seemed more like trained beasts than Ponies. Probably because the higher levels constantly oppress and drain them, Moon Dancer thought.

Beneath all the Night Shadows, and even their numerous slave-races, were the Shadow Vices. These were to the Night Shadows like contagious diseases, each one amplifying the tendencies toward a particular depravity or sin to irrational levels, and using this behavior to transmit themselves to new hosts. Strangely, though these were mere parasites and despised by the Night Shadows themselves, they were descrbied in terms which made it obvious that they were intelligent, and some smarter than the Ordinary Night Shadows themselves, at least in their areas of expertise. Why, imagine a malicious, scheming cold or flu! thought Moon Dancer. That's what they must be like!

Then, above all the Night Shadows was something truly terrible, something which even the Greatest Shadows trembled before. That was Pan-vaster, the All-Destroyer -- the Shadow Universe's version of the All-Father Himself.

Moon Dancer had cast aside silly superstitions, taught her by her father, when she realized that he was corrupt and false to her mother. But still the thought of an evil All-Father caused her to shudder with dread at the blasphemous implications. According to the Codex, Pan-vaster had somehow slain or driven out or imprisoned the All-Father of the Shadow Universe countless aeons ago, when the stars had still shown brightly, and this had been the climax of a successful rebellion by the Night Shadows in which they had somehow consumed or driven out or replaced the Cosmic Concepts of that continuum. The text was unclear on exactly what had happened, and Moon Dancer suspected that Crimson Quartz himself had not clearly known.

Pan-vaster had somehow slain or imprisoned or raped one of the previous rulers of that Universe, a female entity who was known as the Great Dark, for she was the final darkness to which all which returned. And Moon Dancer shivered at this, for she had read inchoate legends of a similar creature in her own Universe, one whose attention it was not wise to attract, who was known as the Mother of Monsters and the Final Darkness and many other things besides, though the Ponies of the Age of Wonders had called her by a name taken from physics, though they did not imagine her sapient.

Having done so, Pan-vaster styled himself "The Lord of the Great Dark," to emphasize his ability to defeat even the final fate of his Universe. And having done so, he had the power to freeze the ultimate heat death of his Universe at a point short of its completion, a "false entropic maximum" in which the entropic tendency was arrested by means of -- Moon Dancer could not understand the mathematics here -- somehow crystallizing space-time, but in a manner which someow tormented the souls of everything that touched it, including those of the Night Shadows themselves, with this ceaseless torment the price of continued existence. The physics were beyond her.

 

[EMIYAman]

If we use Phi's idea, it could be something where Damon's specific power (whatever that may be) doesn't work against these creatures. So, instead he has to grant powers to humans, but he has no control over who gets what power

I see, in regards to this I wanted to keep my gods name secret from even the players so the potential pay off is better but do you think I should at least share it with you so we can maybe iron that idea out? You might have insight into ways we can handle this I wouldnt.

 

[EMIYAman]

Here's a passage describing them:

She read of the Greatest Shadows.

She learned of Skleros, the dark crystalline god-thing from whom Sombros had received his super-equine powers, whose dominion was over the angles of space and time, along which he did not so much move as grow, and whose ways were rigid but irresistible. There was a sketch here, of a vast complex crystal tower, much like a loathsome parody of the Crystal Palace -- from the vertices of whose angles peered out numerous yellow eyes.

Moon Dancer shuddered when she realized that it was far more likely that the Crystal Palace had been modeled after Skleros than the other way round, and wondered just how long Skleros had been affecting the Pony world; and she shuddered again when she learned later in the text that some of Skleros had grown already into the veins of crystal near the Crystal City, and in the Crystal Mountains to the north. Was this monster now one with the bones of the Earth itself?

She read of Skloia -- the "sister" of Skleros" (the text here warned that Night Shadow kinship relations were often very different than that of Ponies). Almost a morphological opposite of her brother, Skloia appeared to be a mass of mist or fog, within which twinkled the many eyes that seemed a hallmark of the Great Shadows. She was caustic and toxic both chemically and in some psychic fashion, yet (the Codex warned) had the art of "sweet-seeming" (glykofainimeniki, in the common Crystal-Imperial), the better to seduce the gullible.

Skloia too had a terrible power of infiltration, more horrid because it directly affected Ponies rather than geological formations. She could enter the soul of a vulnerable Pony and implant within her one of her own Eyes, through which she could view the Pony world, slowly corrupt and possibly even take control of her unfortunate victim. Skloia sought out powerful hosts for this spirtual infection, as she greatly valued her Eyes and would not waste them on just anypony.

There was Raknon, which was like unto a webwork of glistening fibers, which at points met and at those nodes manifested its own eyes. Raknon was strange even by the standards of the Shadows, for it appeared to somehow exist at an angle to the rest of spacetime, so that it could perceive pasts and futures with ease, but not so clearly comprehend the events of a more linear time. Raknon was some sort of oracle to the other Great Shadows, and they respected and even somewhat feared it, for they did not understand it very well.

There were some notes scribbled in the margin here: "Advantage over Sisters?" ... "Similar to Paradise Ont?" ... "Iolite might know."

Stigasklavon, the "Scourge of the Slaves," was described as some sort of very large and complex machine, but of frightening intellect and force of will, who traveled as a pattern of consciousness to its destination, where it assembled a new body out of whatever materials it found there, living or otherwise. All its forms were intricately jointed skeletal devices, from the ends of whose members depended numerous whips and other implements of torment.

Its task was to rule the many slave-races of the Night Shadows, of whom the most important were the Psychomekanoi or Automekanergoi (meaning, translated in in Equestrian "ensoulled machines" or "self-directed machine workers") who had been the final products of the great civilizations who had flourished in the youth of the Shadow Universe. These were machines, but so cunningly-wrought as to be able to think and feel and self-replicate, for they had long ago had incorporated within them the panspitha, the very Spark of Life.

Stigasklavon had somehow seized control of the panspitha, and thus rendered the Psychomekanoi its slaves from now until the unguessably-distant end of time. It was a terrible slavery, for only with great difficulty could the Psychomekanoi even die, at least permanently, so all they knew was unending labor in the vast machine worlds they built, the kybertronoi, which drifted from place to place throughout the Shadowverse, building great machines and structures for their lord and master.

There were some notes scribbled in a margin there. One about this being a good system of labor control, and at that Moon Dancer could not but reflect upon the deeds of the Imperator Sombros. Plainly, he had meant to use Ponies in like wise, and slowly transform the Earth into something like a kybertron. The other about some sort of prophecy that a "Goddess From Beyond" would restore to them the panspithaand their freedom.

There were other Greatest Shadows listed; a virtual catalogue of horrors and night-demons beyond Moon Dancer's previous imaginings. There was Parafrosynia, the "Mare of Madness," with whom a mere conversation could reputedly shatter one's sanity. Somehow she had the ability to infest in and breed in one's mind,producing lesser Spawn who would eventually grow to the point of being able to spread themselves in likewise.

There was Minymon, a genderless pattern of electromagnetism, which could infest any Turin-capable machine and reduce its information to random garbage (Moon Dancer was not sure what a "Turin-capable machine" was -- this might have been some of the lost lore of past ages kept in the Crystal Library, but it sounded dreadful). It may have had something to do with machines, for the Automekanergoi greatly feared it.

And, many many more, each in its own way uniquely horrible.

There were the vast hordes of Ordinary Night Shadows, who constantly struggled to rise by climbing over and crushing one another, in the vague hopes of themselves becoming Greater and perhaps even Greatest Shadows someday, or at least useful enough to them that they would have a greater chance of survival, slightly less horrible existences, and more power to harm their rivals. These were always athirst for life such as exists in our Universe, since the energy they could gain by draining it would increase their own status. Beyond that, they wanted to find hosts with whom they might merge and seek out even greater power. Moon Dancer wondered if the Ordinary Night Shadows had been what she had seen in her vision.

Beneath them were the Lesser and Least Night Shadows. The society of the Shadows seemed to Moon Dancer to be a great pyramidal hierarchy, with each level of Night Shadows standing atop many more their numbers in each lower level, and abusing them abominably. It looked to her very much like what Warrior Marks and Peacelord Angels had described as the 'final monopoly stage of investment,' though in no other way did the Shadows seem much like investment bankers and factory-owners, save in that they had the slave-kybertronoi. Each lower level was weaker and less intelligent: the very Least Night Shadows seemed more like trained beasts than Ponies. Probably because the higher levels constantly oppress and drain them, Moon Dancer thought.

Beneath all the Night Shadows, and even their numerous slave-races, were the Shadow Vices. These were to the Night Shadows like contagious diseases, each one amplifying the tendencies toward a particular depravity or sin to irrational levels, and using this behavior to transmit themselves to new hosts. Strangely, though these were mere parasites and despised by the Night Shadows themselves, they were descrbied in terms which made it obvious that they were intelligent, and some smarter than the Ordinary Night Shadows themselves, at least in their areas of expertise. Why, imagine a malicious, scheming cold or flu! thought Moon Dancer. That's what they must be like!

Then, above all the Night Shadows was something truly terrible, something which even the Greatest Shadows trembled before. That was Pan-vaster, the All-Destroyer -- the Shadow Universe's version of the All-Father Himself.

Moon Dancer had cast aside silly superstitions, taught her by her father, when she realized that he was corrupt and false to her mother. But still the thought of an evil All-Father caused her to shudder with dread at the blasphemous implications. According to the Codex, Pan-vaster had somehow slain or driven out or imprisoned the All-Father of the Shadow Universe countless aeons ago, when the stars had still shown brightly, and this had been the climax of a successful rebellion by the Night Shadows in which they had somehow consumed or driven out or replaced the Cosmic Concepts of that continuum. The text was unclear on exactly what had happened, and Moon Dancer suspected that Crimson Quartz himself had not clearly known.

Pan-vaster had somehow slain or imprisoned or raped one of the previous rulers of that Universe, a female entity who was known as the Great Dark, for she was the final darkness to which all which returned. And Moon Dancer shivered at this, for she had read inchoate legends of a similar creature in her own Universe, one whose attention it was not wise to attract, who was known as the Mother of Monsters and the Final Darkness and many other things besides, though the Ponies of the Age of Wonders had called her by a name taken from physics, though they did not imagine her sapient.

Having done so, Pan-vaster styled himself "The Lord of the Great Dark," to emphasize his ability to defeat even the final fate of his Universe. And having done so, he had the power to freeze the ultimate heat death of his Universe at a point short of its completion, a "false entropic maximum" in which the entropic tendency was arrested by means of -- Moon Dancer could not understand the mathematics here -- somehow crystallizing space-time, but in a manner which someow tormented the souls of everything that touched it, including those of the Night Shadows themselves, with this ceaseless torment the price of continued existence. The physics were beyond her.

holy shit bro thats a lot. I mean thanks its what I aske for but can I get like a paraphrase maybe a 3 to 6 paragraphs at most.