A good ol' fashioned fantasy adventure RP!

[Jackalope]

I'm looking for a handful of RPers (depending on how many we have, I can play a few characters.) to go on one of those wonderful journeys through a fantasy world, fighting monsters, saving people, all that good stuff and for a change I'm not looking for grizzled mercs, ex soldiers and experienced killers.

Now, bear with me if some of this (Or a lot of it) seems familiar to you, I doubt I'll get away without at least one person catching on so I'll just say now that I there was a good deal of inspiration for this idea from an outside source...

As always, applicants will be accepted based on the quality of character sheets.

***

Excerpt from the journal of Maxwell Fawns.

I fear that, like many before me, I am simply not up to the task of recovering even a hint of reliable information about the world prior to the great calamity. Though many legends about the old world prove more and more credible the deeper I dig, it is as if any certain memory of the world has simply faded into obscurity. I have no evidence to support my findings and, although I feel like I'm on the verge of a breakthrough, I fear that I'm building myself up to be let down, once again. However, in the belief that everything I have discovered so far is the truth I have found happiness. Whether I can prove it or not, my findings have shown to me a world nobody knows for sure even existed. Soon I will know for sure, though I cannot say how. I will leave a final summary of my documentation in this journal. In the event that I do not make it back, my notes at least stand a chance of being found and perhaps shed a little more light, dim as it may be, on the rumors and legends of the old world.

Long ago, longer now than anyone can remember, there was a great towering spire of crystal reaching toward the heavens, larger than any structure and taller even than a mountain. It's presence in the world was a mystery and many believed it to be the work of higher beings, a symbol of their ubiquity in our world. A great city was built around it, developing from the most modest of homesteads built by our ancestors so many thousands of years ago. It was a place of peace where people from all over the world could come and visit the crystal and pay homage to whoever was responsible for bringing it's incredible and unimaginable beauty to the world. How I wish I could have seen it. Our own crystals pale in comparison to something so impossibly grand. Merely by reading about the way it cast the light of the sun over the land in a glittering spectrum of colour thrusts me into a world I can only dream about. But I digress... This land of peace which we have not seen in such a time that peace itself seems to have been totally forgotten was never to last. Everybody felt more entitled to the crystal than their neighbor. The city, once a neutral hub for all of the worlds people became a source of envy and greed and soon had to be divided among those who had once been content to share it. It wasn't long until war broke out, of course, although it wasn't a war like we have seen since. Back then, the world was a busy, bustling place, filled with people. According to what little I've read, the scale of the war that broke out bordered on the unfeasible.

It is what happened next that pushes my story into the realms of myth and legend and it is not an unfamiliar tale to many. The dark clouds parted to reveal a burning red sky and from the heavens there came a great and terrible force. As if a star were falling, a gargantuan mass, wreathed in flame streaked across the sky over the city, obliterating the crystal in it's wake and crashing in the ocean, miles from the shore on the other side of the country. With the crystal destroyed and scattered into pieces across the land, the soldiers had nothing to fight for. Many believed the meteor to be the work of the gods. Either they were taking away what we cherished most as a punishment... Or they were saving us from ourselves. Those who believed the second was the truth were soon sorely disappointed. Shortly after the crystals destruction, the air grew thick, crops withered and cattle died and soon people began to fall ill. It seemed that only those devoted and desperate few who had sought out the shards of the crystal and made their homes nearby were safe from the poison we all know today as the miasma.

While the world around them died and faded into obscurity, these people continued to pay tribute to the crystal in order to save themselves from succumbing to the same fate. It was soon discovered that, in order to maintain their power, the crystal's many shards had to be kept bright using a rare sap called 'myrrh'. It had always been a favourite of the wealthy to offer to the great crystal. As it turned out, without it the shards would grow dull and the miasma would eventually consume even them.

That great city lay west of the channel, in a place no one has seen for all too long. When the meteor hit, the shards were all flung east across what is now our entire world. But I must see more. I have to know what lies beyond the channel, what became of that city, if it even exists. Perhaps I'll be back. Hopefully with good news.

***

Those were the last writings of the man who was closest to discovering the truth. Decades have passed since his journal was found and his findings, his ancient tomes, his chronology have all been sifted through many times over by historians and are now widely believed to be the truth.

This RP will focus on a group of young men and women who, as tradition dictates in their village, are coming of age via their journey to retrieve myrrh for their village's crystal. They are to be given a small crystal to protect them from the miasma during their travels and sent out into the world to make their own memories, experience the world outside their homes and discover themselves as people.

I intend to throw the characters into an open world where they will experience beautiful landscapes, new and foreign creatures, the tragic past of a forgotten time, the horror that the meteor brought with it and much more. If you have any input, feedback or questions, go ahead and let me know.

Character sheets -

Username: (This just makes it a little easier for me to keep track at the start.)
Name: (Your characters name!)
Sex: (What's going on downstairs..?)
Appearance: (Include your height and build, even if you're using a picture. No anime, please.)
Biography: (I don't expect you to get too much out of this, the characters will be pretty young.)
Equipment: (Your weapon(s), armour, any little trinkets your family have given you, stuff like that.)

Perhaps your character is friends with another character in the group. Feel free to discuss this with other players! Relationships prior to the journey could help speed certain things along.

Life in the village of Vohl:
It's a nice little place, built around a river, rich in fish, with it's crystal standing over the eastern bank. The rolling plains are completely unclaimed territory, ideal for farmland and even hunting grounds. It's people are mostly simple folk. Farmers, traders, fishermen. The smithy mostly makes farming tools and horseshoes, but for the purposes of collecting myrrh, he's quite adept at crafting weapons and armour, for a price. North of the village, within a day's walk is a port, able to ship goods and people to a small offshore island, enabling the village to prosper from trade overseas. Some folk from the island have migrated over as well and some have even chosen Vohl as their new home. Vohl is home to many people from many walks of life.

Magic in the world:
Magic is rare and valuable and although it has existed since the crystal was shattered it was not wielded by man for many years. It is an energy present in everything and can be called upon and used in a variety of different ways, the easiest of which are transferring it into different energies like kinetic force, fire and lightning. It is a young art and new magic is being discovered all the time. If you're a magic user, run your ideas by me!

[Rajah]

Username: Rajah
Name: Taemos Ralion
Sex: Male
Appearance: An unassuming young man, quite short - only about 5'2", though he doesn't seem to be terribly self-conscious about it. Perhaps this is because, beneath his exceedingly dramatic long-coat (a patchwork thing of cotton, silk, and leather, all in startlingly loud shades of red, blue, and green), his frame is toned and hardened by relentless regimen. Smiling eyes regard the world from beneath a tawdry mess of hair; one eye is brown, the other gray.
Biography: Son of the town's minstrel and librarian, Taemos' burgeoning illusionism has made for popular entertainment and helped his mother in her playing - his proudest achievement was the day a string of her guitar broke, and he was able to weave the appropriate tone into her melody just as if it hadn't.  He passes his time helping out where help is needed, and so has many friends and few enemies around town; of course that might be the case even without his simply charity, given the social implications of spiting a boy who can make retching noises follow you around for a week. As such, he is familiar with many trades although master of none...with one exception. Among the books his father keeps of the Old World, Taemos discovered a small stack of tomes detailing a strange combination of exercise and brawling referred to as martial arts. The idea of fighting - something mostly done by heroes in myth, as the reality of war has never touched his life nor the lives of anyone he's ever known - as an art form appealed to him, and from painstaking illustrations and long meditative passages he has begun to reconstruct these ancient ideas. It seemed a child's hobby when he began, but a decade later and he is more dangerous unarmed than half the militia with spears in hand - for unlike those men, called by necessity, he is driven by passion and lets not a day pass without his curious slow-motion dances becoming a little more fluid, steady, and powerful.
Equipment: Taemos' very theatrical cloak contains many pockets and many tools: simple things, mostly, suited to hunting and the repair of buildings and vehicles - things which he is passable at, when the need arises, and might prove handy in any number of ways. He has had fashioned for himself a simple iron breastplate and greaves, as well as a pair of heavy fighting gauntlets. The one on the right is inscribed with "good luck runes" from his elder sister, who spends most of HER time studying lore in their father's library, as well as a small and perhaps slightly confused drawing of a rose from a young lady to whom he recently said goodbye. His mother gave him a wooden flute, and his father a book of plants and wildlife discovered since the miasma. He carries, finally, the rose on which his gauntlet's inscription was based.

Magic: Taemos is an illusionist first and foremost, quite skilled in calling up light and sound to represent reality or fantasy as he chooses - although the scale tends to be somewhat limited, to his frustration, as anything more complex than a few people or a single object the size of a bear falls apart halfway through the creative process. Further, he has notable kinetic talent, and by imbuing his illusions with real force he can give fleeting impressions of actuality - although his control is not particularly subtle. An illusion of a person could be swept away like smoke with an errant hand, unable to emulate flesh, pick locks, or play a harp, but it might be able to strike blows or lift something heavy.

[Silk]

Putting down interest, character sheet up soon

[Jackalope]

Forgot to put ages in the character sheets. Minimum age is 16, the search for Myrrh is considered a 'coming of age' ritual, so generally the participants are quite young. Although it's not uncommon for people to make the trip twice, all of our characters will be on their first journey. Also, due to the medieval sort of time period, reading is not all that common.

I don't want too many characters in the party, but I need one person to be a guide of sorts, to tell the other characters (or for me to tell players) about the world as we go through it.

Username: Jackalope
Name: Ivan Vox (Jr)
Age: 18
Sex: Male
Appearance: Ivan is the spitting image of his father, a tallish (5'10), broad chested man with a strong jaw, a thick neck, brown hair and eyes to match. Although his mutton chops haven't grown in and he doesn't have his old man's broken nose scar. His powerful physique is very deliberately honed in preparation for his journey, his hands bear the callouses and scars of a working man. His skin is a little pale, but he'll tan well during the spring. He generally wears whatever outfit is appropriate for the work he's helping out with, but when he's not busy he's usually wearing his brown leather boots, patched up trousers made from tough, resistant fabric and often an old shirt he doesn't mind ruining.
Biography: Ivan's family don't really have a constant profession in Vohl. His father has been on the village council for several years and his main source of income is accompanying merchant caravans on their journeys through the miasma, though in between trade seasons he tends to help everyone out or hunt to feed his family. Ivan grew up with his greatest aspiration being to do as his father did all those years ago and bring myrrh back to the village, along with a wealth of stories, memories and experiences to tell to his own kids and inspire them to do as he has spent his young life doing - Training to fight against the monsters of the miasma. He has felt ready for his journey since he was fourteen, but of course his father wouldn't allow him to go until he also felt he was ready. Ivan has been helping his father guard caravans for two years now and although his actual combat experience is very limited, he has taken life and is prepared to do it again to protect his home.
Equipment: He has been extensively trained to use a spear, a sword and his bare hands to fight. He carries with him a sword with a 28 inch blade and a spear with a curved blade at one end and a simple sharpened metal tip at the other. His armour was designed for maneuverability, leather and chain mail. Ideal for movement and not too heavy for long distance walking. He has a red bandana rolled up and tied around his left upper arm, embroidered by a rather fetching young woman he is involved with. It features a few bars of a song she'd sing to him from time to time. His parents have no trinkets to give him. He is to find his own sentimental items in his travels.

Ivan will be the group leader as it were. He will have the final word in any decisions made and will carry a small shard of crystal on a pendant, able to create a miasma free zone big enough for the group. Ivan cannot read or write.

Username: Also Jackalope
Name: Wallace Waters
Age: 20
Sex: Male
Appearance: He has the thin, pale, untrained body of a man who has spent too much time indoors... He's fairly tall at 6'1", but he's of a narrow build and has never done a day's manual work in his life and it shows. He has dark rings under his eyes, black hair and piercing green eyes. He's clean shaven and takes good care of himself, but he's a little fragile looking. What with his wealthy parents, he's able to dress well, always in long sleeves and often a hat to keep the sun off him when he ventures outdoors. He has well defined facial features, high cheek bones and smooth skin, not the sort of person who should be setting off to travel the world.
Biography: His wealthy merchant parents used to tell him stories about the old world when he was child and he was soon fascinated by the writings of Maxwell Faun, spending his young life in the library, learning everything he possibly could about miasma and the outside world, the monsters in it, the meteorite, even leads that suggest that certain myths may in fact be true. On his journey into the unknown, he has every intention of seeing all of this wonderful stuff first hand. Books are pretty much his entire life, he was taught at home by his parents to read and write and has spent very little time working or socialising in the village. He has never had alcohol, he has only kissed a girl once and overall is a bit of an awkward shut in.
Equipment: He has a long, leather duster on over a white shirt, a shoulder bag, a small backpack and a pair of plain black trousers on, dressing more for the journey than for fighting. His weapons are a rapier and a crossbow, designed in the capital city where four very large chunks of crystal landed. He has his glasses, plus a spare pair and all of his equipment for reading maps, identifying artifacts, his journals and handbooks as well as a blank tome and plenty of ink.
Magic: He has studied magic religiously for several years and although his knowledge is great, his own natural talent for it is not so. He has become capable of some simple spells, creating light for example, and has even begun to grasp turning his magic energy into something destructive. He is still developing, but is currently able to light fires and repel things with blasts of force, though it requires great concentration. He is more than capable of teaching the arts, but his magic ability appears to be stunted.

A lot of goods and equipment will be inside a wagon, pulled by a horse. Any simple things like rope, food etc will be in there so you don;t have to list them.

[AribethAmkiir]

I'm interested but I have a question.  What level of technology are we talking about here?  There's been talk about vehicles, and I understand that it is a post-apocalyptic world, but a little more information would be helpful.   Thanks

[Jackalope]

Talk about vehicles..? I mentioned a horse drawn wagon if that's what you mean. It's high fantasy medieval sort of technology. Swords, bows, that kinda thing. Black powder hasn't been discovered yet.