INHERITANCE

[Grey]

You may enjoy this RP if you like: K6BD, WarFrame, the Firefall novels, Farscape.
This RP will be for 4-6 players; amnesiac warrior-mages permanently sealed into their cybernetic armour.
The mechanics are easy enough to learn, a dice-pool system that's simple to use but has mechanical depth if you want to engage with it.
No prior experience with this game or dice games required. All skill levels welcome.
One post a week is ideal, once a month is acceptable.
No set post length - just post what you feel is necessary to move things along.
If you want to discover and explore a unique space opera setting inspired by Warframe, starting with a near-blank slate of a character recovering their memories of the world they lost while learning about the new one and their place in it, you may enjoy this.
If you want to play a powerful space ninja wizard, you may also enjoy this.

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Once, there was an Empire.

It stretched from the temple-cities of the homeworld to the furthest stars. It was built upon wonders of magitech that bent physics to their whim and laughed at the interstellar gulf.

It was a time of peace and enlightenment. No one now remembers what it was really like, but we know it was glorious - and it was lost.

The Others came screaming out of Elsewhere, a dimension where reason and science failed, and tore apart the works of the Magi.

The war raged for a century or more, and the Magi could not prevail, barely able to fend off the Others no matter how many weapons of apocalyptic might they forged. Both they and their mysterious enemies are gone now, perhaps having destroyed each other.

The Palatial system is in chaos, and the colonies around distant stars are forgotten. No living Magi remain and their various inheritors squabble for power, with innocents descended from colonial settlers caught in the crossfire or eking out an existence amid the ruins.

And across the system, hidden in ancient stasis-vaults and armoury-temples, you sleep; the Bandi. the elite warrior caste of the Magi. Peerless fighters and sorcerous adepts, encaged in mystical armour.
Now you're waking up to a world you no longer recognize, your memories corroded and lost - to time, or to tampering? The Magi are gone. Your culture is lost. All that remains is the terrible fire of Will and sword-wisdom of your augmented body.

Will you take up the mantle of rule, as inheritor to the Magi?
Will you resume your role as protectors to the weak and innocent?
Or are you the killing strike to a universe sickly and faltering?

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Post interest and ask questions below!

Spoiler: Soulcages

Vala
The Flame of Justice
A solid all-round ‘cage, the Vala can project flames, heat the air, generate explosions, and increase their allies' resistance to mind-altering effects.
Vala are coloured in shades of fire and gold, and often the helmets invoke the Manticore of ancient times.


Sarda
The Icy Grasp
An agile ‘cage, the Sarda can slow and freeze enemies with ice, drown them, and inspire fear. Sarda is styled in emerald, white, and blue, helmets evoking sea serpents.


Nabi
The All-Seeing
A fast but fragile ‘cage, Nabi can see and manipulate Fate. Decorated in amber, silver, and clockwork motifs.

Chaya
Death’s Shadow
Chaya is the stealthiest Soulcage, able to manipulate darkness and shadow. Decorated in shades of black, often with something like a cloak attached at the shoulders.

Raksaka
The Glasswalker
Raksaka is a slow, tough ‘cage able to fold time and space. Decorated with components seemingly made of glass and sandstone.

Gaida
The Beacon of Hope
Gaida is a tough ‘cage that fires beams of light, can cloak itself, and inspire its allies. Decorated in gold and ivory, often with a mirrored helmet.

Separa
The Red Talon
A versatile, bestial ‘cage, Separa can reshape itself, delivers deadly killing blows, and can envenomate targets. Partially organic, Separa look quite distinct.

Prem
The Thief of Thoughts
A light ‘cage able to probe and distort the minds of enemies. Decorated in ruby and violet.

Jadugara
The Soultaker
Jadugara is a much feared ‘cage, able to raise the dead and sunder souls. Decorated in black and purple, with a skull motif.

Kampa
The Earthbreaker
Kampa is a very durable, strong ‘cage that can shape and shatter earth and metals. Decorated in bronze, brown, and motifs of earth.

Bijali
The Cleansing Storm
Bijali commands air, lightning, and magnetism. Decorated in blues and gunmetal.

 

[yutohase]

Ooh! Amnesiac warrior mages permanently sealed in cybernetic armor? Sign me up! I’d like to lay claim on a Vala, Flame of Justice, please.

 

[Grey]

Nice! Welcome aboard.
We'll delve into the necessaries of sketching out a character once we have a quorum, so as not to tax your reserves needlessly.

Also, it occurs to me that I've been gone from this site a few years. I may be asking a lot here, alleging the existence of a setting to explore as we go.
So at the risk of perhaps spoiling a reveal or two for yourselves - or if you'd find it easier to figure out a fun amnesiac to play - you can find a public-facing setting writeup here.
I hope this indicates any player of mine is in capable hands.

 

[yutohase]

Ooh, this system looks really fun! I myself am partial to the Iron Crescent and will add my allegiance to theirs if possible in this campaign.

 

[Grey]

Very good. I can see the opportunity presenting itself, and I had always planned for them to be viable player characters at some point.
Not sure if that'll happen since I had to get a 9-5 and that sucks all the life out of me before I can even think about game design but maybe I'll get lucky and they'll fire me.

 

[myrkwise]

Interested. I'm partial to Prem or perhaps Nabi (Jadugara is also appealing).

 

[Grey]

Excellent. Three is enough to get started so if one more person decides to throw in I'll get some threads up.

 

[Grey]

Bumping to see if I can't snag one more player.
Join up and you too can:

• Parry bullets
• Rip a hole into the Underworld to go faster than light
• Grapple with revelations of deep time and civilisational collapse
• Portray a character who may no longer be human in any recognizable way
• Become the romantic obsession of a sentient virus

 

[Random Word]

I find your ideas intriguing, and would like to resubscribe to your newsletter. I admit I have no idea how to even begin to approach creating a character for this. Not mechanically, of course, I'm sure you can walk us through that. Narratively, though, we're to create amnesiacs whose personalities, foibles, phobias, insecurities, etc fit a rich culture in a vast world our characters played an important role in but we as players know nothing about?

Do we just come up with personalities, and you tell us slowly what events in the distant past explain who we are today? Or do we declare personality traits with little hazy snippets of half-remembered dream and you figure out how they fit into the universe you've built? Like:
Arrogant, dismissive, objectifying, and demanding towards mortals. Ten thousand fateful steps on to ten thousand worlds, each met with ten thousand prostrate figures chanting your name in prayer. You expect nothing less.
or
Compulsively obeys directives from authority figures bearing certain symbols of power, but is possessed by a murderous rage towards any who use this authority once the task is complete. There was no crack of the whip. No chains to bind you. That would be inelegant. Crude. They twisted your thoughts into a cage, tempered with your will, quenched in your fears. They set you as your jailor, and had you bury the key deep beneath that dark place of insecurities where you most fear to look. Then they put you in a palatial prison-body and set you upon their foes. You could never hate them - it would be easier to think a galaxy out of existence - but these pitiful deluded things parading about in the tattered trappings of your masters? They were afforded no such protection.

Not having any institutions, dynasties, cultural movements, secret societies, etc to play off makes this tricky. The power sets on offer are neat, but mostly about what flavour of magic missile we want to cast into the darkness, which is much less interesting to me than the social roles, expectations, and purviews of the priestesses in the previous game of yours I participated in.

 

[Grey]

Excellent question.
Declaring personality traits with half-remembered snippets would be the way to go, with the expectation we together will explore how you got here through flashbacks and revelations.
I'll reveal details of the past, you can decide if those resonate with your character and how they feel about them. Alternatively, I'm open to you guiding the process by hinting at things and letting me find ways to slot those in. You know me; I'll pick up the vibe you lay down and try to find ways to explore that together.
The Empire was vast; all manner of secret societies, cults, and shadow rebellions skittered across its underbelly, so if you slip in a call I'll find a response. Nothing has to be true until we decide it is, although as you might expect the so-called Golden Age wasn't so bright to all eyes.

Ultimately the emphasis is more on who you decide to be, and what social roles you choose to forge, but I would imagine discovering the past to recreate or reject it will be a facet of that. Also plenty of potential in the dramatic disconnect between who an awoken Bandi chooses to be, and the things they were. Is a better world still possible, and what does that look like, and do you have the right to decide? If you were made for violence, can you ever be more than a weapon?

The fragments here may be too abstracted but Cirno created a favourite example when I first tried to run this circa 2017 and refined the design over subsequent efforts.

 

[Grey]

Dice - INHERITANCE OOC

Chatter goes in here; plot, shitpost, query.

www.rpnation.com

 

[Grey]

Bumping because c'maan do I need to include the introductory fic to sell this idea?