The Six Seals - freeform fantasy

[Envious]

"Heed your Oracle." It was a hiss in your ear, waking you from your slumber. The hushed urgency made you feel alert and confused. The remnants of a terrible dream clung to the rim of consciousness, but were fading fast. You sit up, uneasy. What had awoken you? You take a look around to ensure that everything is as it ought to be; it is. You rest your head again, but cannot shake the feeling of desperation in the pit of your stomach. Unable to identify what is wrong, you remain awake for a long time before falling back into a fitful sleep.

When you wake in the morning, you feel displaced. Like you need to leave and head... where? You've had this feeling for months. The anxiety of the forgotten dream has become all-consuming. The pull to move is only getting stronger and you're not sure if you can ignore it any longer. A half-remembered image of a Vault shimmers into consciousness before fading away - it has haunted your dreams for months. You feel shackled like a prisoner and the chain that binds you is relentlessly pulling you towards that dangerous place.

You cannot resist any longer.











Fast Tidbits

New: Seeking a melee/nonmagical character

1. This is a freeform, quest-based adventure set in a generic fantasy landscape.
2. You can create almost any humanoid character that fits within that very broad definition for approval.
3. This is an action/adventure roleplay with opportunity for flirtation and smut, but I don't want an emphasis on romantic relationships.
4. There will be a large focus on combat.
5. Write in third person, past tense.
6. I love, love, love writing with people who are interested in discussing building the world in OOC.
7. You will need to post either OOC or IC at least once a week.


World Information is here in the IC Thread

Throughout this roleplay, your characters will fight their way through corrupted Vaults to retrieve the Six Seals, learn about the origin of the Beast, the true nature of the Godtouched, who the Oracle is, and how she plans to save the world. 

[Arcanist]

Definitely interested. Looking at a rogue type character. Good with exploration and traps. More lucky than skilful a lot of the time. Perhaps he hides his skill with ‘luck’’.

[Cold Heritage]

Hello. This is my declaration of interest. I'm drawn in by the intent to have a free-form fantasy adventure with a focus on the action/adventure elements primarily. It's appealing to me because I don't get that side of games satisfied very much lately.

As for a basic concept: at the basic core, the character is a large, physically powerful warrior. He is the sort of character who does not lack skill, but his primary virtues are in his physical potency and resilience coupled with fighting spirit and willpower. In more specific terms, I imagine him to be the son of two famous warriors who were among the greatest of the previous generation; he exists in the shadow of his parents' reputation and legends - burdened with expectations (real or imagined) born from the fame of sire and dam. Some angst, but not a lot.

[Brittlby]

I’d be interested!

Shooting from the hip in terms of a character, I’d like to play a goblin magician whose main focus is on illusion. She masquerades in the various cities by disguising herself as a child of the appropriate race. Essentially a charming orphan who plays upon the heart strings to get where she needs to be to steal money, trinkets and information.

[Envious]

@Arcanist: That seems like a useful character to have along!

@Cold Heritage: Me either! That's why I thought I'd give it a whirl. It's kind of a mixed bag opening a roleplay during this season - summer is ending, kids are going back to school, holidays are coming up - but I figured why not? It sounds like your character will be a powerhouse! Every group needs a good meat shield. You smash. Bad guy die!

@Brittlby: That concept is such a fun idea =D

@everyone interested: I've had some interest with excellent questions! Here is some more basic info.

Vaults
Everyone knows of the Vaults - they are what hold the Seals! They follow the premise of a classic dungeon. There are many rooms to explore, traps to avoid, puzzles to solve, and loot to gather! With the Seals weakening, monsters have begun to spawn and have been drawn to the Vaults, so our adventurers will need to fight their way through to get to the Seals! All Vaults will be different (probably themed) to add a little variety to the game.

Combat
Combat will be split into two categories: trash mobs, and boss mobs. All fighting will be freeform - you will be able to control your character and puppet the monsters along to write combat fluidly. Instead of ending a post at "I shoot my arrow at it" you can describe "and it pierces the beast in the heart, causing it to fall into a slump" or "and it jumps aside, snarling madly in search of a closer target to maul" or any other action that suits your whim and fancy. Trash mobs will not have a specified health - as a writer, you will determine when/how they die. Boss mobs will have a hit points and you will roll die to determine how much your attack does. You roll a 20, you deal 20 damage. You roll a 1, you deal 1 damage. Nothing fancy or special about it, but it makes things a little more interesting and allows players to know when combat is going to end. Your character takes the HP past 0, your character kills the monster.

The World
I left it intentionally open because great things happen when people have creative licence! If we get a decent group of players, as a team we can discuss fleshing out aspects that will fill out the world. Nothing I say is set in stone. Already, I'm thinking that the Spawn of the beast should have been put into a slumber along with the Beast instead of being killed or going off into hiding. That way, when the Seals begin to weaken, the baddies wake up and start terrorizing people.

Even then, I'm not going to explain the mechanics of being "put into a deep slumber." It's just a convenient plot device and while I want to have a pinch of realism, I'm also okay with creating something with the explanation of "because it's magic."

[Cold Heritage]

I'm okay with "because it's magic." I'm also okay with having the odd "gotcha!" moment here and there because magic is weird and not fully understood, but so long as things are for the most part consistent I don't think it's a particular virtue to having a lot of realism.

[Brittlby]

One super creepy thing you could do for the “slumbering” beasts is that they masqueraded as normal beasts and creatures and “people” (elves, dwarves, goblins, humans) and now as the Beast returns (some quicker and more than others) the tainted descendants are beginning to become twisted and wicked as they awaken. So people in high and low places our characters knew before may be compromised. Heck, even a pc or two may have a little Beast in them.

[Arcanist]

Sounds more interesting by the moment. Does the general populace know about the missing Godtouched or is the knowledge hidden from them? That could open up other factors that could impact on the characters and world.

Will the characters be experienced and somehow linked to the god-touched?

[Envious]

@Brittlby: I like that idea. The evil just seeps into the bones of some people, turning them.

@Arcanist: I had two ideas on the matter of the Godtouched, but their role started to get a little too complex. While those events would definitely help shape our characters, there's a balance between too much and too little detail that I rarely get right  :P

Idea One: Some evil baddy wants the world to come to the brink of extinction via the Beast reawakening so they can pick up the pieces to reign supreme! In effort to do that, they have taken the firstborn Godtouched. Without the sacrifice, the seals weaken. The Beast awakens. It terrorizes the world. Then the evil baddy sacrifices the Godtouched to lock the beast away again. In this scenario, the Godtouched are NPCs/background characters.

Idea Two: We have members of our party who are Godtouched and tired of sacrificing their children and are looking for an alternative way to save the world. These people know that the Beast wasn't always a Beast and are hoping to purify the creature and right the wrongs of their ancestors. In this scenario, the Godtouched are playable characters.

Both have their merits in roleplay world. To be honest, I wasn't going to flesh it out further until we were nearing the halfway point of completing the first Vault and it looked like we were still going to be moving along strong. Those key details would be expanded on in six parts - one secret unlocked with each Vault completed.

I'm leaning towards the missing Godtouched being a secret to the general populace until mid-point in the roleplay. The Oracle will know that something is amiss and calls our characters together to enact idea one or two out.

I'm not sure if I answered your questions very well!

I'm hoping for a roleplay of 6-8 people and will recruit in hopes of hitting that mark.

[Vlexia]

I actually love your styles of games, Envious....as long as the pace feeds my muse I would like to keep stalking your game creations ;P

But yes, expressing interest.

[Brittlby]

Should we put together a background/sheet?

[Arcanist]

Yes it does Envious. Even more interested. Might need to speak to you with regards to bringing my character to life. But definately in

[Envious]

Brittlby, I won't have traditiinal profiles, but I will be posting some questions for you to answer about your characters that will help players to define their characters within the world.

Thank you, Vlexia  :-) I'd love to have you.

I'd be happy to discuss it with you, Arcanist!

[Cold Heritage]

A world element that I had kicking around in my mind was that some followers of the Beast might have the ability through magic to create followers that were not strictly of the Beast but still loyal to them. Through magic, they take a sentient, sapient being - like a human, or whatever species we might end up having like an elf or what have you - and some sort of predatory animal, and combine them into a humanoid amalgamation with traits of both and generally greater than human physical capabilities. In the main, there might be two general types of such creatures: ones that are dim-witted, wantonly destructive, relatively undisciplined, and fodder, made from when you take a dead sentient, sapient being and combine it with a predator animal, and then ones that made from a fully intelligent - at least, as intelligent as the sentient, sapient being used was - capable of reasoning, tactics, disciplined, and leaders, which are made when you take someone living and combine them with a predatory animal. The latter type I imagine would be folks who were seduced into the service of the Beast with promises of power and authority.

And since they are creations of magic and not purely spawn of the Beast, they did not fade away when the Beast was set to slumber. Instead, they fled to the deep forests and high mountains. And there, they multiplied and every so often they would surge from the wildest places to raid and pillage civilized folk.

That might conflict too much with the element of the Seals making the Beast and spawn of the Beast slumber/fade away. Not sure if it's compatible.

[Brittlby]

I don’t know how creepy we’re going in terms of the tone. The seals could be on top of actual “gates” where the Beasts power comes from. The area around two “open” seals in particular could be almost uninhabitable at this point ala Stephen King’s “The Mist” or some other lovecraftian horrorscape. It would make those particularly frightening when we finally had all of the pieces to the puzzle later in the game. Stray “blight towns” may be a more frequent occurrence once the corrupted kill, scare away or convert more of the people in smaller villages.

[Envious]

I love what you guys are thinking!

I hope to have time for a proper response tonight.

[Doomglazer]

Also very intrested in this idea. Would love to play a necromancer he who can control dead and plague and the dark arts of magic. He would be a normal average man. Looking like your everyday guy. But when fighting needs to be done he drains his own soul and with that power he can do horrific stuff.
Or i can play some sort of paladin using the light to bash and to heal people.

[Vlexia]

Tied between a big orcish warrior or a sweet little foreign witch.

[Brittlby]

n_n I’m a sweet witch! ...sort of. n_n we could be besties! Actually that would work with the big Orc too...

[Vlexia]

n_n I’m a sweet witch! ...sort of. n_n we could be besties! Actually that would work with the big Orc too...

Kinda that odd companionship that’s kinda perfect?

[Captain Whitebread]

As soon as I read the premise I was struck with one thought.

With the events that spawned the ritual so far in the past, the sacrifice of the first born is now seen as evil (or the Godtouched could have turned to evil).  It would certainly be seen as distasteful.

Also what happens if the first born dies before being sacrificed?  Or were they killed fresh from the womb?

Is the rank of Godtouched passed down through the female line (easier to convince the mother to allow the sacrifice) or is it the second born who takes the title?

Anyway, my character idea.

A member of a traveling circus.  Firespinner, knife thrower, acrobat and juggler.  Occasional fortune teller (using a candle flame)  NOT a Godtouched.  Has a wandering spirit to begin with but didn't recognize the pull until the circus wanted to go in another direction.

[ff]

Freeform fantasy is my jam, yay. Would probably play a sorceress.

[Envious]

Welcome, Doomglazer, Captain Whitebread, and ff.

I thought I'd have time for a proper reply tonight, but I don't. I hope to respond to character thoughts and story questions tomorrow. I have started creating the main thread and relevant beginning information for the roleplay. I changed some things to streamline and simplify, but nothing that affects what you guys may be thinking for your characters.

[Captain Whitebread]

<rubs hands together>

Excellent.....

[Envious]

Do the godborn represent a particular group of people? So we have a godborn for elves, one for the humans etc?

The Godtouched represent all people, but serve as a religious figure more than a political authority. They are living proof of the Goddess' divine intervention and are revered. Intermarriage is not uncommon, so the Godtouched could be of any race. While their is the direct line, there is also the extended family. Cousins that made more cousins that made more cousins. The further your branch extends, the less prestige there is in being part of the Godtouched line.

Also what happens if the first born dies before being sacrificed?  Or were they killed fresh from the womb?
For the purposes of this roleplay, there has not been a case of this happening.

Is the rank of Godtouched passed down through the female line (easier to convince the mother to allow the sacrifice) or is it the second born who takes the title?
The title of Godtouched is passed down to the second born, as the first is sacrificed. The second born can be male or female - it does not matter. Their firstborn child becomes the next sacrifice and their second born child becomes the next officially titled Godtouched. It is considered an honor to marry into the Godtouched line and sire a sacrifice because you are considered to be the reason the world does not end.

I hope those answers help!

@Doomglazer, could you expand a bit on how you envision the necromancer abilities working in combat? Like, if you release a plague on one of the monsters and the monster attacks one of the party members, does that person now have the plague? You say plague and I think burn it with fire before it spreads.  :P  How do you envision controlling the dead to look? I have no problem with you playing a necromancer. I just want to make sure I know what you mean.

Character "profiles" are inc - starting that next!