Fantasy Caravan - Kingdoms Of Thoris [OOC HUB]

[Dreamtique]

Okay, I'll edit in some info, I'll let you know when I am finished.

 

[Dreamtique]

Tex.Y I added some info.

 

[Dreamtique]

Gotto say it feels like I am creating Pokemon of my own for some reason. Those typings...those moves...

 

[Tex.Y]

You're gonna have to tone down your bird's immortality, and growing abilities. Near-invicibility is on par with Godlike entities and top tier Paladins. Summons vary in strength, usually. If you limit his healing, he can still be a pseudo-phoenix, though.

Byakko-Tiger is fine.

Genbu-Turtle's spell strength also needs some severe nerfs. He, on his own, sounds like a top-tier summon that one of the world's governments would immediately take into a position of power. There's no way he'd be working on a Caravan if he possessed such incredibly powerful summons.

Azure Dragon wields the elemental power of water and earth. The Azure Dragon is said to be one with nature. It is highly attuned with nature. It can bring about violent thunderstorm and natural disasters like hurricane, tsunami, earthquake when enraged, but it rarely happens, since the Azura Dragon is said to be a benevolent creature.

Nooooo.

Overall, his summons have a ridiculous power-creep. If I had to compare him to some of the more powerful figures in Thoris, Fall's summons could likely go head to head with three of them at once. I can't let him have access to them, as they are now.

The RP is very much, one of growth. Summons don't usually get stronger, but you are allowed to have them defy the natural laws of Mana.

 

[Dreamtique]

Most of them naturally wouldn't be as powerful as you imagined, and they will act in accord with your interpretation on their powers.
Sorry if I sound weird, I am really sleepy.

You're gonna have to tone down your bird's immortality, and growing abilities. Near-invicibility is on par with Godlike entities and top tier Paladins. Summons vary in strength, usually. If you limit his healing, he can still be a pseudo-phoenix, though.

Okay. As you said.

Genbu-Turtle's spell strength also needs some severe nerfs. He, on his own, sounds like a top-tier summon that one of the world's governments would immediately take into a position of power. There's no way he'd be working on a Caravan if he possessed such incredibly powerful summons.

Nerfs? Hm...but how though?

Well, its weakness is mainly the fact that it is immobile and is weak to water or water-based attacks. What else could I add? Any suggestions?
Actually, the nature of its power/spell isn't that terrifying, I just made it sound a little more intimidating(same applies to most of them).

So...maybe the area influenced by it's attacks is very limited, around a few km or so?


Azure Dragon wields the elemental power of water and earth. The Azure Dragon is said to be one with nature. It is highly attuned with nature. It can bring about violent thunderstorm and natural disasters like hurricane, tsunami, earthquakewhen enraged, but it rarely happens, since the Azura Dragon is said to be a benevolent creature.

Nooooo.

Well, think of it like a miniature... Earthquake, Hurricane, and thunderstorm.
Hm, ever see how the animated show Pokemon or the corresponding video game depicts some similar moves? That could help you to make it sounds less intimidating than you imagined.

Is everything okay now? Tex.Y

I will hit the hay for now.

 

[Tex.Y]

a few km

I was thinking more along the lines of several yards. A few Kilometers is reaching into Tiers of power that I am completely prohibiting. The mobility and elemental weakness is not really a factor. His titanic size alone is fairly questionable. Thinking it over again, if he's larger than.. Say, an eighteen-wheeler, I wouldn't be able to accept that if he also has abilities like wide-spread frost breath, a temperature modifying aura, and miniature black holes.

As far as 'miniature' natural disasters go, they should take scale into account as well. A single lightning bolt would already be considered top-tier magic. A small scale electrical bolt that only goes as far as several meters, is a more realistic middle-tier elemental spell.

If they're scaled similar to pokemon logic, I suppose that it might be ok? It really depends on the limits of their abilities. If you have four summons from the get go, they can't all be considerably powerful, or your character would, again, not be considered to be part of a caravan.

 

[Dreamtique]

That turtle and snake together is probably of the size of a huge statue placed in the middle of a town square or something like that. It's not that big, certainly only as big as a bug when compared to Godzilla.

I'll take all of the suggestions. So, is eveything okay now?

(Pss. I probably also wouldn't use all of them as often as you imagined to dominate the world...you know, like my early experience with Pokemon games[why do I keep bringing that franchise into this], only the starters will kill everything and anything for me, lol.)

 

[Tex.Y]

Yeah, I'll give you the benifit of the doubt for now. You're good to go

 

[Reinhardt]

That power scale seems out of place.

We have an animal tamer, a novice mage, a bulky tauren (whose focus seems to be greater physique), a scout, and a learned mage.

All of which, are bound by the limitations of their abilities. Strago performs wells with animals, Elim barely knows spells, Bron sacrifices magic strength for greater physical power, Nei's niche is for surveillance and tracking, and Rowe's core relies on Arcane - the first branch of magic.

Then we have Fall. A man whose nearly the same age as Elim and Nei (who both have low-tier magic at the moment), and yet has the ability to call upon four extremely powerful creatures.

The caravan won't even need us, with his presence. If it gets in danger he can simply call upon any of the creatures and have them do their shit. I mean, come on, miniature black holes allone nullify the strength of our group's best mage.

Then there's the calamity-bringing dragon, who can easily wipe out hordes of enemies. The tiger overpowers Bron simply by being heavily resistant to physical attacks.

And the phoenix is an easy way out to almost any situation. Get wounded? Use the feather. Become ill? Use the feather. Incoming undodgeable/unblockable attack? Have the bird cover you, and nothing will happen to it.


Now, I'm not saying the character itself is bad, but it's heavily overpowered.

If such a character is with the Arcadia guard, then why are our characters needed at all? Why would the military accept our low to medium-scaled characters?

Not to mention there seems to be no sort of clarification as to how the contract between him and all these creatures was made. He played the flute. Now he has an immortal bird that can also summon three godlike creatures.

If this is fine, then maybe Rowe can conjure a city-large arcane explosion from the get-go? Nei can make her brid do some crazy shit like evolve into a more formiddable form, Bron can destroy shit in one punch, Elim can ultimately create his own kind of spells from scratch, and Strago will be able to control all animals as he wills it.

At first, I was expecting it to be a story where our characters get to grow in the world and further develop themseleves. But now, that seems impossible with Fall's existence. We can't go through difficult trials, simply because Fall can easily overcome them without putting any effort due to his summons. We can't experience struggle, the pain of defeat, the joy of victory, and a lot more that would better the story instead of watching one guy with a flute style on everything coming at them.

 

[Strago]

A good suggestion I make to players that are OP take back the clock to a weaker point in their lives make the phoenix an egglet(a baby chick) still has it's abilities but they are.. umm (bab-ified) and due to it's newly hatched form it has not yet gained the respect of the other three. Now you have to go on Caravan to get to the shrines/temples/dungeon/other sub-plot location. to commune and raise your phoenix.

 

[Reinhardt]

That'll make him useless though. He's basically just an egg carrier up to the point where the phoenix hatches from the egg. Then he just returns back to the problem of being overpowered with the 4 godlike summons.

 

[Tex.Y]

Summons are also otherworldly beings. And they are the ones who initiate contracts. A baby would not, and could not do that, not to mention they usually don't end up growing. Summons are meant to be a strong option with very little growth potential.

 

[Reinhardt]

Strong, not world-reshaping.

 

[Strago]

Not necessarily, the form of the summon could reflect the strength of the controller (the reason it is a chick is because he himself is not experienced enough to show the full force of the creature) as he grows in power so to will the phoenix and as for the other three and the godlike powers they represent well we can spend time to scale them back as we go so it is not to far ahead of the rest of the group, this is just me personally trying to give advice so we have someone playing what they want. The last thing I want to do is be like (No you can't do that) and then give no alternative than (Make something else or don't play). Not that anyone has said that so far but I feel it might lead to that if things continue on this particular path. I personally could not care less if he plays as is because it boils down to combat abilities and that in a RP is fine and all but not what I like most about it. Also don't forget to take into account the fact that hey a good writer can get around anything. I do mean anything, god-like powers ok your in a dream. oops your powers don't work hope you can use a sword buddy, ahh were under attack by mirror clones of ourselves ohh no.. duhh duh duh. I also get that individual summons might be (locked as is) then a different alternative is to treat it more like a Eidolon (spirit manifestation of ones self) a spirit beast if you will. If you need more idea's just lemme know I got plenty.

 

[Reinhardt]

Not necessarily, the form of the summon could reflect the strength of the controller (the reason it is a chick is because he himself is not experienced enough to show the full force of the creature) as he grows in power so to will the phoenix and as for the other three and the godlike powers they represent well we can spend time to scale them back as we go so it is not to far ahead of the rest of the group

This is exactly what I said at discord.

 

[Strago]

heh you did.. too bad I was not in dischord at the time.. great minds think alike.

 

[Tex.Y]

Dreamtique I've written up some specific limitations for your summons to address all concerns.

Bird - Healing limitations. Cannot revive the dead. Expends a large amount of energy to restore major wounds, let's imagine that it must rest if it attempts to heal a near fatal wound, immediately. Cannot cure physical poisons. Fire abilities cannot exceed a certain scale. No massive scale attacks. No immediate regeneration, and the summon must rest is injured too much.

Tiger - Only slightly larger than a normal Tiger. Considerably Vulnerable to magic.

Turtle/snake - No black holes. Frost breath cannot immediately freeze anything. Vulnerable to magic.

Dragon - Half the size of the turtle, at least. Medium scale elemental magical control with long cool-downs.

Beyond that, since your character is bound to so many summons, he cannot have more than one out at a time. Furthermore, the stress that these contracts put on your character's soul, will disallow him to perform summons consecutively.

Furthermore, Fall's physical limitations will be must more restrictive due to his soul being stressed so severely. His life-span will also be shortened slightly.

I don't think you're going to abuse anything, but I just want to make sure everything is clear. If I see anything a little too strong, I'll ask you to tone it down. This RP will have strong themes growth. Summons do not usually grow, so you may eventually learn to summon more than one of your avatars at once, or swap them out faster, later in the RP.

 

[Dreamtique]

It's a little too long for discord, so I'll post some answers to the questions here.


So, I noticed some of you wonder why I copied the Four Symbols and called them my summons?

It's because, yes! It's my inspiration, so of course I'll have to 'copy' them!
It's my inspiration, so why change them when you are inspired by them, then I'll be completely pointless don't you think so? Oh, and believe it or not, their ability...are not all accurate if you check the original myth, that, I'll explain later, down the wall of text we go.

Actually, using mythology as an direct inspiration is actually not that uncommon right? I find such inspiration and direct reference to mythology interesting?

I like to take inspiration from concepts like this when I make a character, so that I'll have a general direction and vibe for that particular character, that's what makes a character unique after all. I find it fun and enjoyably to create something based around a inspiration and concept like the Four Symbols, Four Season and make them the ambassador of such concept to evoke a specific vibe to tell a story.

Heh, I know that I am going to be off topic.

With that question aside, I noticed some questions about why he joined the caravan, and how exactly, or why the Vermilion Bird is interested in making a contract with him.

That'll all be explained along with my concept and inspiration for that character.

So why the Four Symbols? Why the four season? Why the name 'Fall"? Why do this guy even exist? What is he doing at the Caravan? I'll try to explain as much as I could.
Just ask, if you have any more questions.
Because I believe you deserved to be answered, except for some of the spoilers regarding this character, his backstory mainly.

So, if you can recall, I listed out some characters that I am planning to make before I actually make one.
Namely:
The quirky doctor.
The, ex-arsonist, gunslinger.
The mysterious minstrel.

And all three of them are very different from my finale product, which is this character, Fall.
If you are observant enough, you should noticed that, the character, Fall, actually contained little elements from all three character concepts that I mentioned earlier.
This is because Fall is a result of me trying to combine some bits and ideas from all three of the character into one, some of the elements from the said three characters is apparent , and some of them are only noticeable for me.



So, back to the character concept, Fall is inspired by the four season, and the transition of seasons.

Fall, particularly represented Autumn(Fall), as suggested by his name.
The season autumn represents melancholy, the season before Winter, representing downfall and utter despair. His situation is described by the analogy of an autumn leaf drifting all around, dying, away from the branches it was always holding on, his home.

Hm, and I wonder what else represent the four season?
Well, it's the Four Symbol, you are right Sherlock.

So after he fell into a deep state of grief and remorse, he began to express his emotions through the flute. And that's when the Vermilion Bird, happened to hear his music through a 'rift of the fabric of reality', which is based on Tex's lore.

The Vermilion Bird, as well as the all of the Four Symbols, generally were all captivated by his music. Mainly because they never experienced and didn't understand complicated emotions like remorse, or even some simple emotions like the sadness and hatred towards oneself, so of course, when they heard his music, they were instantly intrigued and curious. They sympathized with this man, but at the same time not, mainly because of the fact that they didn't understand what this man was experiencing at all, but nonetheless felt the resonation from his music.

The music and his flute here represented complicated hidden feelings and emotions, as well as the universal language for expressing emotions. It symbolizes his remorse and his sadness.

The Vermilion bird, happened to be the one who directly make contract with Fall after that, as well as the other three of them after that, mainly because they were curious, and some of them simply enjoy Fall's music, wanting to hear more from him. All four of them wanted to understand Fall's emotions, mainly, remorse and sadness.

But after binding with his soul and saw his past, they began to discriminate Fall for his past actions, and consider Fall a sinner, and of course, because of that reason, most of them don't respect Fall one bit.

One of the reasons why the summons reacted such a way, being how Fall hates himself and struggles to forgive himself, so the same will happen to his summons when they bind to his soul, they will naturally started to hate Fall too.

But regardless, the appearance and the contract offered by the Four Symbols helped Fall to give himself a chance, to use his newly obtained power offered by the Four symbols to serve a greater purpose, to become a real and proper doctor, to save life, to repent his sin.
(Fun fact: Fall's original name is Shin, a word play of sin. Shin also sound similar to 'new' in Chinese.)
And yeah, I just noticed I kinda entered the spoiler zone, but whatever at this point, lol.

Anyway, that's basically the reason he joined the Caravan, hoping that he could help the world with his power, and 'offer the land with heat and light like a Sun(Vermilion Bird)'.
In this case the Vermilion bird represented Summer, mainly the polar opposite to Autumn(melancholy) , followed by Winter(downfall), it also symbolizes the sun itself, the sun that keeps the cold away, to bring upon Spring(hope).

Vermilion Bird symbolizes the power of healing, what Fall wishes to have to begin with.
Vermilion Bird also indirectly symbolizes an ideal version of Fall himself, that in someway, has trouble believing 'the real Fall' would be as 'perfect' as itself.
There's where the conflict between Fall and his summons comes into play. All of them generally doubt Fall, and are actually disobedient at times, some of them straight away disrespect and discriminate him.
This conflict actually reflected his internal struggle with his past self and his struggle to completely forgive himself.

 

[Tex.Y]

The first In-character post has been set. If it wasn't clear, your characters are members of Caravan Centaurus. Looking forward to all your lovely posts.

 

[Strago]

Yea a hill-billy dwarf was a char I ran in a different game, I think that mentality works well with strago when combined with a small town vet and beast handler. lolz

 

[Tex.Y]

Reinhardt SilverFlight We await your contribution to the main thread.

 

[SilverFlight]

Thanks for the tag, I was getting no notifications at all. I am getting so tired of this no notes thing, seriously. I'll get on it as soon as I can ^^

 

[Tex.Y]

Updated Summoning magic briefly. This will not change much that has already been established, IIRC.

• Summoning

• A divine classification, harnessed only by 'Summoners' with a natural affinity with worlds beyond Thoris. This divine classification is unique, in the sense that a Summoner does not ally themselves with a god that exists beyond the mortal realm, but rather with a creature who can exist on Thoris' plain of reality by binding themselves to the soul of a caster. Summons vary dramatically, and their abilities can defy the natural laws of magic, but they cannot be controlled by a caster. As far as otherworldly creatures are concerned, they exist only for themselves. The personality of a summon can vary just as violently as their magic, from kind and benevolent, with only a purpose for peace, to destructive and evil, with hopes of destroying life for arbitrary reasons.
  
  Summoners are always contacted by their adjacent summon in their dreams, or through a rift in the fabric of reality, at which point a pact is often created at the behest of the summon's host, allowing the act of summoning. The only control a Caster has over their contracted summon, is that they may choose to seal them back in their realm of origin at any time by ending the spell that binds them in reality. Likewise, they may summon them once again whenever able. If a summoner is killed, their summon is immediately ejected from reality, and loses all contact with Thoris.
  
  Signing a pact with a summon has adverse on summoners as well. For one, allowing another entity to form a union with one's soul affects a person's life span, reducing life expectancy by a set amount of years, solely dependant on the strength of the summon. Physical strength also suffers, making it rather difficult, and occasionally, impossible to build muscle, or maintain an above-average level of fitness. Soul magic becomes impossible to use, as well. Lastly, a summoner's Mana is directly drawn upon while their summon exists in Thoris' reality, effectively placing a time limit on stronger entities. Weaker summons usually require a negligible amount of Mana to sustain their form, making it seem as if they could exist without any danger to the summoner, whatsoever.
  
  Some summoners have access to multiple summons. In this case, each summon cuts their lifespan even further than the last. Additionally, having more than one summon out at a time has a drastic effect on the summoner's Mana, making the practice extremely dangerous. Lastly, having one's soul bound to multiple summons at once is a dangerous act, threatening to outright tear it apart in the worst case scenarios. This makes it difficult to maintain summons, increasing the innate Mana drain significantly.
  
  A few summoners with extensively powerful otherworldly beings as their partners, are considered to be one of the most powerful classifications of casters in the entire world of Thoris, and act as a deterrent to war.
  

 

[Reinhardt]

I'll be posting within the day, I'm just swarmed with tasks right now.

 

[Halycon]

Hey, is this still open to new members or has it been closed?