The Wanderer (discussion thread)

[Deon]

Hmmmmmm I have a better idea the next time the three of us are we'll trail run and I'll put all your worries to rest cause thats still isn't the elemental Sorcery I'm thinking of using . Think something like this my friend:

Fire, Water, wind, earth, lightning, Ice , Light and Darkness... These are the eight elemental foundations of Sorcery. In the past Humans with a afinity for this kind of sorcery would commune with monsters whom has the gift of using such elements at will and form pacts in which the human would have to prove themselves worthy of such a power by slaying them in battle in which their souls shall form a crystal for the sorcerer to add to their salves and use such powers as spells. Now how ever due to the rise of those who use dark sorcery and the ever growing fear and hatred of them by the churches of the three kingdom there are only a rare few who has the will to wait and search around from these mythical creatures.Even more so there are few Sorcerers with the talents of understanding the old languages of the monsters in order to form the pact to begin with.

[Deon]

OK gather around boys and girls and i shall explain the Three Progressions of magic ^^

Sorcery by Enchanting- This course is an obvious one this is the stage where a sorcerer must preform an Enchantation in order to cast the spell he or she wants.

Sorcery by Hand: this is the fun one my friends at this stage a sorcerer now has the ability to preform sorcery by mere gesture of his or her hands no more need for enchantments just simply preform the proper hand movements and call out the name of the spell thus allowing him or her to move around freely while building up the proper energy no longer do the sorcerer has to stay in one place their training has tought them how focus while moving around.

Now this the stage our frind Andy moist worries about .

Sorcery by thought: as the name states a sorcer is now powerful enough simply cast the spell by thought.

But alas my friends I say the first and second stage should be quite enough for this rp yes?

[CEPHEUS !]

...Am I the only one who thinks that magic only being "evil" is bloody awesome? And I squeed at the semi-dystopian government.

I wholeheartedly support it. ;] Especially if the non-magical folks around it take a very Salem-esque view on it: it's bad, immoral, and the world would be better off without it. (The whole "magic is bad, church is good!" idea reminds me a lot of Dragon Age's Chantry. Ceph Approves +13. ;D)

Furthermore, I don't believe the morality of a sorceror should be constrained simply by the brand of magic he likes to practice. Someone can be a necromancer and be a nice guy--to take a leaf out of Garth Nix's Abhorsen trilogy, what about necromancers who make it their business to put down any undead uprisings? Or a blood mage sorcerer who has a martyr complex and wanders about using his own blood to heal the ailing? There's a whole hoard of ideas to be had--all that needs to be done is to say, "HEY! How can I take this and make a character out of it?"

Of course, this might just be the ramblings of the part of me that wishes people would stop idolizing Tolkien and Gygax and try something original. Anyway, I'd vastly prefer the original over introducing a buttload of magics. IMO, the more elements of other fantasies you incorporate, the less original it becomes. Depending on how it turns out, I'd be likely to join in on this one. ;]

tl;dr: That was my long-and-tedious way of saying that I think the first version was best. <.<; But it would also appear that I'm in the minority.

[Andy]

Thank you, Cepheus, my faith in this idea has just been restored. I didn't really want to take magic in a Tolkienist or Gygaxian direction either.

Also, good call on the seperation of magic and morality.

I'm playing with the idea that, for simplicity's sake, the setting takes place within a single Kingdom similar to Victorian England (but with an absolute rather than constitutional monarchy) instead of a continent with three nations on it. This would be more cohesive with the steampunk style as well and allow the setting to be further distanced from LOTR or D&D.

EDIT: I came up with this as a possible alternate background story. Tell me what you all think:

'The Wanderer' takes place in a kingdom following a devastating civil war between Royalists, who supported the absolute monarchy and the established Church, and Magocrats, who supported instead a society governed by sorcerers. An industrial revolution sparked in the Royalist south gave them a powerful military edge over their opponents in the form of advanced steam-powered technology. As morale lowered amongst Magocrat ranks, their cause was crippled further by a schism between totalitarian and liberal sorcerers. This resulted in a decisive Royalist victory.

The Church then began a series of ruthless and mostly indiscriminate purges, executing anyone suspected of sorcery, or being magocrat sympathisers. These executions combined with the destruction of sorcerer literature made sorcery a rare and presumably dying art. The land, particularly in the north, is ravaged by war and teeming with monsters, created by irresponsible sorcerers. The Kingdom is attempting to re-inhabit these nigh-inhospitable areas, but progress has been slow. The wastelands, as a result, are virtually lawless.

True sorcerers have gone into hiding from a society paranoid and hateful of magic in general. Magocrats are a divided front. Some sorcerers seek to reunite the old movement to overthrow the monarchy, but others only act in self interest, either living as reclusive and subsistent hermits, or actively seeking to eliminate non-magical folk, seeing them as lesser creatures.

The player characters could be anything from sorcerers, to magocrat sympathisers, or even non-partisans simply out for themselves, either living to survive or seeking to rebel.

[CEPHEUS !]

Me gusta. ;]

Out of curiosity, are there any "physical indications" that a person is a sorceror? I don't mean something universal to mages in general, but... well, kind of a way to "identify" sorceror. I think the easiest thing to compare it to would be something like this eye chart that was used to determine whose eye color was most Aryan, and everyone tried to compare their kids' eyes to it for bragging rights. Blue and grey eyes didn't make the child superior, but the parents believed it did--what about the reverse? Perhaps certain eye colors could be taken as warning signs?

[Andy]

It's not something I really thought about, I envisioned there being no real way to distinguish a sorcerer besides watching them perform sorcery. Any kind of distinctions would probably be stereotypes by the Church or locals - people might say a sorcerer would never look you in the eye, or be unable to cross a stream due to an aversion to running water, or have a crippling weakness to silver (something a savvy conman would profit greatly from).

[Vash]

Okay now for Vash's imput.
I agree with both parties. the nature magic idea is great Andy, cause with the nature magic you might be able to involk the elements deon mentioned.

Ceph and Andy make a decent point because it does twist the story in new direction, lets says there is different kinds of sorcery. everyone and there grandma will want to use. Now you limit the options and you see what a true role player can do. Cause Bone, Death, Blood and Nature magic sound like enough.

Now Deon also makes a good point, you cant have only evil magic but magic can be morally evil. I say just add the last option and lets limit the acceptance of sorcerers

[Jinx]

I am for magic being totally evil and people of non magic being against it. But I can kinda understand that there could be people out there trying to use magic for the greater good of the people. Like one type of sorcery being used to heal the sick by killing off animals and using them to help the people.

[CEPHEUS !]

Dec 11, 2010 12:58:28 GMT -5 Andy said:

It's not something I really thought about, I envisioned there being no real way to distinguish a sorcerer besides watching them perform sorcery. Any kind of distinctions would probably be stereotypes by the Church or locals - people might say a sorcerer would never look you in the eye, or be unable to cross a stream due to an aversion to running water, or have a crippling weakness to silver (something a savvy conman would profit greatly from).

Actually, these are the sorts of things I was looking for. ;] Basically something that people would watch out for--and pounce on--regardless of whether it's definitive proof or not. I'm character-building, so don't mind me and my random questions.

As far as magics go, I won't object if more magics are added--my objection was more to the idea that "good" magics needed to be added to counterbalance the "bad" magics. AFAIC, the morality of any magic should be a question posed to every character, not a predefined attribute à la D&D.

[Andy]

I don't plan to add more schools of magic than blood, bone, death and nature - I'm not even sure if I want to keep nature. My reason being its incongruence with the original three disciplines, which focus on specific aspects of the human form (flesh, bone, the soul).

I edited the main post to be up-to-date with what we've discussed.

[Andy]

Put up character sheets and the profile for my character, Arthur Kingsley.

[CEPHEUS !]

NOTE: I'm not actually done with this. ;] This is the sketch of ideas so far...

Velai Meihnim
Cepheus

Biography: Velai was aware from a young age that she had talents beyond the norm. The earliest known manifestation of her magic was at age six: while playing with her fellow children, she stumbled and scraped her knee. To her surprise, the pain seemed to respond to her will; raising her scraped palm to her face, she watched in amazement as the wound slowly scabbed until it seemed an old, healing wound, rather than the product of moments ago. Even as a child, she had heard tales of witchhunts and magocrats and was not so foolish as to advertise this. Rather, she simply kept her hands tucked firmly in her pockets as she insisted she had caught herself before she fell.

And so life continued on; though Velai tripped and fell many more times throughout her life, she spent the next four years blissfully free of any more "incidents." Shortly after turning eleven, however, Velai was treated to her first glimpse of what society held in store for her: as Velai was returning home for lunch, she saw a crowd gathered around the midwife's cottage. As the woman was forcibly dragged from her home, the crowd jeered and shouted at the woman--"witch" being among the kindest slurs. Velai was never privy to the exact details of the woman's death--such being deemed too graphic for young ears--she had no need to ask. Terrified, Velai holed herself up in the attic of her house for almost two days; the adults in the village waved her strange behavior off as shock over the midwife's magic, but Velai's time was not spent

Appearance: Velai could be considered attractive to many eyes, though her less-than-sparkling personality and perpetually cold expression do much to reverse this impression. She is petite, slim, standing just over five feet and two inches. Possessed of dark auburn hair and brilliantly blue eyes, set beneath arched, expressive brows, hers is a face that naturally lends itself to hauteur.

Velai's clothing is an obvious mixture, pieces cobbled together through years of living on the outskirts of society. She has a greatcoat several sizes too large; in one of the inner pockets, she keeps her two weapons concealed: an old revolver (she doesn't actually know if it fires, having never been given reason to use it--bullets are too expensive for her to waste them on practice) and a small, worn dagger. The dagger has seen extensive use and is carefully maintained, even though it would serve no purpose in a fight; though Velai would never admit to its true purpose, it can be assumed that this knife is responsible for the latticework of scars across both palms.

Her tunic (in actuality, a repurposed child's dress) was once a shade of deep green, but has since become faded and stained. While she's made every effort to find fabrics of the same color, the tunic is an obvious mix of many shades of green. Her pants--made of softened leather--are perhaps the nicest articles in her wardrobe; although the knees are beginning to show signs of wear, she managed to snatch these from the sack of a drunken traveler, passed out on the street from too much ale.

Strength: Velai is a calculating, pragmatic creature. More focused on the facts of a problem, rather than the idealotry and morality behind it, she has a talent for cutting right to the heart of a problem. This allows her to avoid becoming bogged down in what she views as petty morality and ethics. Velai is a firm believer that "ends justify means," for cynicism knows that, in the end, posterity will only care that the problem was solved, not if a few cattle are slaughtered along the way.

Flaw: Arguably, Velai's pragmatism could very well be considered her worst flaw. While she is by no means what one could call a sociopath, she often seems to view her fellows as pawns in a grander game (there is some level of truth, for Velai is not above some level of cruelty if she feels there is a greater goal to be achieved). Though it is not entirely factual, true to her practical nature, Velai has not yet seen fit to dispel this illusion: after all, there may yet be some use to allowing everyone see her as an uncaring, ruthless monster.

[Andy]

I like it so far. Be sure to PM me your final draft when you're satisfied with it.