Interest Check: Old Hands

[ChaoticSky]

My second attempt at a group, last one fell apart due to a unexpected vacation >_<.

This is a idea I've had kicking around in my head for a while now. Abit deeper and darker than most, when I originally conceived it, it wasnt meant as a ERP, but the potential is there, especially if anyone else gets tired of playing couples of super easy, idealized 20-somethings.

The basic concept is of a group of retired heroes in a fantasy setting. Thats right, Re-Tie-Erd. Maybe they are just getting too old for the whole adventuring and dragonslaying business... Maybe too many friends have died. Maybe it was their fault. All  the praise and renown naught but ash in their mouths... the pain too much to bear.

Maybe they arnt as happy with their newly found life of peace and quiet as they are trying to convince themselves.

The scenario will be something suitably worldendingy, and will call them back to action... one more time. Their history would be largely up to you, the player; adventurers, soldiers, mages, heros, champions, exiled warrior castes, any and all who once chose greatness and strife over normality and happiness are fair game.

-- Minimum age would be around 35. Might let you go lower with my approval, but it'll have to be more awesome than Warhammer 40K. (so basically impossible :P)
-This will be a relatively 'high powered' game. Remember, these are veterans, the best of the best, the ones that made a career of slaying the dragons and demons and whatever else, the ones who inspire the bards and woe the princess, the future and once kings of the world and the forgotten heroes of the great revolution. The ones who survived everything such a life could throw at them, to retire in relative luxury (Or maybe drink it all away). But Time dozen halt, even for them and they are no longer as young as they used to be, not quite as fast, or as strong. They are still more than enough to pound the stuffing out of most of these young whippersnappers, their heads so full of dreams of untold riches and everlasting glory... if only they knew better, the poor fools.

-Definitely Freeform.
-Small Group.
-No drizzts (dont even think about it!).
-Probably limited to Human racewise,
-There will be a minimum post length... though it will be reasonable. 1000-ish characters probably.
-For those who have yet to understand the full implications, this will be a RP which include sex. Not about sex or for sex. In general it would be preferable if any relationship be of a deeper and more romantic nature, hopefully developing along with the progression of the RP itself. I feel it would be an
Danakir Odeiron: interesting counterpoint to the usual casual clusterfuckbuddy RP groups we usually see around here Probably stuff it into the NC board as 'the worst that could ever possibly happen'


The Later Days By Danakir (PM him and tell him how awesome he is!)

Standing before me is a field at dusk
The sky walks without ever pause
Unhesitant and grim, I watch listlessly
For even with the duty of a guardian

I grow old and bold
I grow cold all told
In fact, my bones are weary
And my memory a flight of fancy

So many faces all gone
So many dreams silenced
I stood proud at the edge
Never to know defeat

But eternity cannot be
My glory cannot last
The sandcastle on the beach
Will be swallowed by dark ocean

And so I close my eyes
And I see her face perfect
And I know regret and pain
And I understand my ways

Did bring peace
Did bring prosperity
Did bring justice
Did bring truth

But never happiness

The hardest quest of them all
Harder than to slay the Demon King
Much harder than to climb the fell mountain
So much harder than to best the King of Games
So impossibly harder than to join the ranks of heroes in their hall
So incredibly harder than to sit in eternity as a breathing legend
That quest is the one for happiness
Few heroes can say theirs was crowned with success
And so is the tragedy of every hero

anywho. You probably want some hard setting info. So lets have a look shall we?

-Magic; magic comes from other planes... realms of pure energy, channelled through the soul of people born with a gift for such things. A mage gets one type, and only that one type, determined by their powersource. The number of these realms is infinite, and a mage's line of power could be any kind of traditional element (wind, stone, water,  fire, light, dark) or more obscure arcane variations on them (such as lifegiving fire, ice, land, and so on) as well as more abstract ideas (like illusion). 'Spells', words of power, and so on are generally not needed unless your pulling major mojo, just will and intent.

-Divinity: there are three Patheons of gods, first their are the Astral Gods... these gods live in a realm called 'The Court of the Holy' (as well as Heaven, the Astral, The Higher Planes, Nirvana, The Light, and whatever names their faithful have made up over the years) generally represent pure motive drives, Honour, Valour, Duty and so on, they are all aligned together and are generally worshipped as a whole, or as aspects of a single greater being, their collective worship is done in churches, is rigidly ordered, and their ordained warriors are what comes to mind when you think 'paladin'. They dont really play well with others, and its not uncommon for other faiths to be outright banned in cities/nations where The Church holds sway. And while they are generally considered 'goodly' this is not universal, or in many cases... especially accurate, Hate (ie 'Rightious Fury')is also included among their number for example, and anyone whos been on the wrong side of the Inquisition will tell you... theres something dark in The Light (though, dont mention this to one of their faithful... they take offense to that kinda thinking). These gods are, as a rule, very interested in the mortal plane, and spend alot of time meddling. Their ordained warriors, as long as they follow the rules, are pretty much guaranteed to have their prayers for miracles answered. The middle gods, the Planar Gods as they are known by scholars, or Powers as they are usually called by their followers are neutral, they are generally representative of forces of nature, storms, sun, earth, etc. These gods are highly individualistic, and hold to no overreaching unity, but are the most powerful individually of any of the Patheons, being related to untamed forces of nature means they are also less reliant on worshippers for power and existence, but the flipside of that is that they pay alot less attention to mortal goings on, and thus, are less likely to answer a prayer by one of their ordained for miracles. The Lower Gods, ala; The Fallen, The Dark Gods, The Betrayed Ones, etc, inhabit the Lower Planes, (The Inferno, The Pit, The Abyss, etc) and are more or less the mirror of the astral gods, 'bad' in the same way they are 'good', generally representing impure emotive drives, but also include Love among them. Due to very exuberant persecution by the followers of the Astral gods, the faithful of these gods stay to the shadows, meeting in secret covens. The only places you will occasionally find proper temples to the Lower Gods (but only the more wholesome of these) are in places where the worship of Planar Gods dominates, the Higher God's church is ever eager to stick its nose in, and make local chapters, even when they are definitely not wanted and some of these places will encourage followers of the Lower Gods to make their own temples public, for balance. (and so theyll squabble with each other and leave everyone else alone). They have few worshippers, and as a result, are all the more keen on keeping them, as a result, Ordained warriors of the Lower Gods tend to be more powerful on average than those of the Higher Gods.

Magic Vs Miracles:
Magic comes from a place, where as Miracles come from a being. Miracles come from a god, and do not create the same stresses on the body of the caster that Magic does, making it easier to use more powerful miracles more often.... if their god is willing, but are much less varied, the miracle worker has to beg their god for the power, and there is no guarantee of getting a answer, they also have to follow the rules of their faith and be properly devote and faithful.

Char-sheet
Name: (duh)
Titles: (titles they have earned from their antics, and by which they may be more widely known, these could be gained any where from a royal knighting, to bards tales. For example, someone whos killed a king would sport 'Kingkiller' among their titles)
Age: (duh)
Class: (just the general idea... no need to be typical)
Appearance: (pictures are best, but given the age of our characters, description is more than sufficient)
Gear: (stuff your character carries about. Their adventuring gear. Keep in mind, they probably wont have most of this stuff on their person initially, they are retired after all. Its probably at home on the mantel or somthing. You may have two items of real Power, after a lifetime of adventure, you could probably have a large collection of minor odds and ends, thats fine, but only two Epic power items. If you are a mage or some manner of ordained warrior, then the magic/miracleworking counts off one 'item of power' for balance sake. You might want to name those items and write a little blurb on their providence, ie, what they do, where you found them, etc. And can include anything and everything from magical swords, to amulets, armour, rings, etc)
Bio: (characters personality and origin, a general overview of their life)
Deeds: (especially note worthy things youve done, probably why you are well known, and almost certainly the source of the above Titles)
Retirement: (your current state and arrangements, attitude towards your retirement, and so on)

If your interested, please PM me your character idea... ill be looking them over and deciding who to include if we get too many apps.. you get bonus points if you have a potential love interest to apply with you (if so just make a note of it). Im taken. And so far we have a astral-gods themed paladin, and a mage of dubious usefulness. So, we are looking for a more 'typical' mage, and three warriorish sorts, maybe a planar-god paladin or ranger if you wanna get creative.

If you have questions, feel free to ask here, and they shall be answered.

[LIAR]

This idea sounds very interesting!

[BenedictWolfe]

This does sound pretty interesting, but it lacks background to go by. Who are the gods? What races exist? What nations? A map would be helpful and it doesn't even need to be anything fancy: Any of a thousand maps found with Google and some text written on it would suffice. Technological level?

[ChaoticSky]

This does sound pretty interesting, but it lacks background to go by. Who are the gods? What races exist? What nations? A map would be helpful and it doesn't even need to be anything fancy: Any of a thousand maps found with Google and some text written on it would suffice. Technological level?

godwise i left open, i only referred to them by alignment for a reason... to allow players to think up their own, even nonholy-warrior sorts can still have a faith, and what god you follow is up to yourself.

ive already had someone get the astral gods, which together act as a chrisitan divinity expy. the only possible paladian/priestly sort ill accept now would be a servant of the Planar gods, which are aligned to natural forces.

Humans are the only playable races. Dwarves and Elves *might* exist... or not, there are tales and legends, ruins, but no one has ever seen one, or any modern evidence for their existence, those who seek them out tend not to return. so they might be 'around', but they will not be involved in any way with the story.

the world, like the gods, i left open for a reason, to allow people creative licence when designing their characters, where your from, what customs they observe, these are major influences, and i decided i would rather leave it open for people to include such things in their characters history if they wanted, rather than railroading everyone into a specific set of nations and cultures. though, too be fair, i shall elaborate on our current position (and because i should have done it up there!);

The story will begin in Darudo, a wealthy merchant city, set into the mouth of a lake, which feeds into a inland sea to the south-west. It was built at the meeting of several trade routes, and eventually expanded to meet the nearby lake, giving it access not only to much of the trade moving across land between the south, west and north, but to oceanfaring trade as well. From a mere stopover post with a single inn, Darudo has expanded into a trader's paradise, where almost anything can be bought or sold, princes can run broke and alley rats can forge trade empires. It is ruled by a loose coalition of merchants, investors and stakeholders, who basically can only be counted on to protect their own interests. Tropical climate, religion is tolerated as little as they can get away with, crime is basically run by assassin and thief guilds, which if anything, act as stabilizing factors, essentially legislating and controlling the city's crime. Our heros could wind up there any number of ways, maybe they wanted to live the highlife that Darudo offers the wealthy, maybe had rare and valuable artifacts to sell, maybe they signed on as caravan guards, and just kinda reached the end of the line here, maybe they just wanted to live somewhere nice and warm all year around. Imagination is encouraged

in general, the land is mostly dotted with citystates and coalitions of townships, there are no real 'empires' to speak of, as its damn near impossible to control the monster studded wilderness, even the roads between major cities are often of dubious safety. as this is a time of legends, there are no world maps, maps, at best have a few cities or towns on them, and cover a certain region, such as the area immediacy around a certain city.