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Climbing the Silver Tower (Magical Academy Quest)

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They say the shadow of the Silver Tower can be seen halfway across the world. Certainly it...
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    • Lexica

    Lexica

    Persevere
    Pronouns
    She/Her
    They say the shadow of the Silver Tower can be seen halfway across the world. Certainly it stretches all the way across the empire, casting entire provinces into darkness at a time as the sun moves across the sky. The Silver Tower, and the city of Steps at its base; most magical in all the world. Most perfect in the world, all the mages in the empire would say. Most profane denounce the savages ravening at the empire's gates. It is only in the empire that those with the blessing of magic may live free of the threat of slavery, and it is here, in the beautiful city of Steps that the most promising mages are brought every year to gain a place in the Academy.

    It is here where you will compete with the best and brightest to climb the Silver Tower. Whatever your reasons are, know this; the climb is perilous, but rise high enough and you will find what you seek.

    Who are you?

    [] The Successor-     Your mother is... The best. The most talented. Once in a generation they call her. You? You're barely above average. Your whole life, you've always fallen short. You remember the early days when everyone watched so closely, looking for that same spark of genius in you that your mother had. You remember how one by one the watchful eyes of the greatest powers in the empire turned their gazes away in disappointment. You just want to prove that you're worth something without your mother's name.
    • Advantages: Talented, A Name That Opens Doors, A Relic (Secondary vote)
    • Disadvantages: An Inescapable Shadow, Dismissed by the Powerful
    [] The Failure- That's what they call you. What your family calls you anyways. You still have to keep up appearances on the outside, show that the next generation is going to be even stronger than the last. It doesn't matter if that's all a lie. It doesn't matter if you're useless, if your title will go to one of your siblings the instant they show any spark of promise. This is your last chance. If you don't do well in the academy, you'll be nothing. You're only lucky disowning you would be a loss of face for your family, otherwise you're sure they would have done it already.
    • Advantages: A Friendly Face, A Charming Smile, Years of Training
    • Disadvantages: Painfully average, Hopeless
    [] The Scion- The Climb is everything. You've been told that your entire life. The Climb is everything. Your family is relatively new by the reckoning of the empire, founded only two hundred years ago. Founded for a singular purpose; to Climb the Silver Tower. Battles and duels were the primary method by which one climbed. To ascend, all you must do is tear down those above you. So your family has done for two centuries now. So you will do, in the name of your duty.
    • Advantages: Talented, Years of Training, Deadly in a fight, A Relic (Secondary vote)
    • Disadvantages: Old Grudges, Enemy of the Establishment, A Sinister Reputation
    [] The Street Rat- Honestly everything has been moving so fast you're not really sure how you got involved in all this. You guess learning some magic from a few pictures in old books was really impressive or something? You had been conning some people with illusions on the street and apparently a professor from the academy saw you and was really impressed. So yeah. That's how you ended up here you guess. On the plus side, free meals.
    • Advantages: Natural Born Genius
    • Disadvantages: What are Politics, Who are any of you People, Obviously from the streets, Only literate by much stretching of the word
    [] The Flame- You didn't mean for any of this to happen. Just- what that wizard was doing, it wasn't right. It didn't matter if he had magic and no one in your small town did. He shouldn't have been hurting people like that, lording it over everyone. And you didn't mean to kill him! But you hated him so much and then suddenly fire burned him to nothing. It was horrible. You thought you were done for. Killing a wizard was one of the worst crimes there was... Then the man from the Tower came and told you were special and that everything was going to be alright. And now you're here.
    • Advantages: Sorcery, Metamagic, 'Friends' in high places
    • Disadvantages: Enemy of the Establishment, 'Friends' in high places, What are Politics, Who are any of you People
    So yeah. New quest. Inspired by a number of things, but most recently by Forge of Destiny and wanting to get back to my magical academy quest. But I also wanted to start something new, with better mechanics. Which this quest has. But mechanics are for later, when that stuff matters.
     
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    • [X] The Flame

    This conflicted young person is gonna be hauuuunnnnteeeed by specters of fire. They got all the best parts of the Street Rat story while also displaying some stunning will! Besides the GUILT & RESOLUTION they must have, I'm interested in why sorcery & metamagic are specified, instead of the level of talent. A different branch of magic than the rest of the characters?

    Otherwise, I'd prefer the Successor (child of the most powerful woman in the world!) and the Failure (charming in the midst of anxiety and despair and desperation), respectively.
     
    R Besque said:
    [X] The Flame

    This conflicted young person is gonna be hauuuunnnnteeeed by specters of fire. They got all the best parts of the Street Rat story while also displaying some stunning will! Besides the GUILT & RESOLUTION they must have, I'm interested in why sorcery & metamagic are specified, instead of the level of talent. A different branch of magic than the rest of the characters?

    Otherwise, I'd prefer the Successor (child of the most powerful woman in the world!) and the Failure (charming in the midst of anxiety and despair and desperation), respectively.
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    In a world where for the most part being at your limit means you're at your limit and you've got no more magic, sorcery means you have the ability to always try and dig deep for that little bit more. Similarly, where for most people modifying a spell requires much careful work and study, someone with sorcery can make small changes on the fly. It's a much more emotional and less rigid kind of magic.
     
    [x] The Flame

    Gonna go with this option since it could provide an interesting take on the "chosen one" trope.

    If I might offer a write-in, maybe instead of burning him with fire we froze him in ice? So, if we do end up having trouble controlling our magic we won't be setting things on fire but more like making the temperature of the room drop several degrees or causing a minor blizzard.

    And that wizard we stopped? He's either dead from a terminal case of full-body frostbite (so at least his family has a body) or he's trapped in some kind of Hell Glacier that will never melt due to the wickedness of his deeds.

    So that guy's an ice sculpture, not a pile of ashes. Either dead as a frozen dinner or trapped in some kind of And I Must Scream situation where his fellows can either call it justice or divide up his fortune while dragging their feet on defrosting him.
     
    So the Successor at first glance seems to have the best goodies with the least downsides. You got influence, you got talent and you got big phat lewt. Looks like the easy mode that focuses more on character arc with the shadow of your mother leaning on you like the tower of Pisa.

    The Failure - aka disregard magic, acquire friends. And some say friendship is magic so, secret op option? It's the trope you see least on SV/SB in my experience anyhow. It's always the talented option with zero social that gets picked. For that reason I'm intrigued. It also carries the promise of biggest intrigue oriented path where the character isn't like a bull in a china shop. Intrigue and quests though... often they tend to fall short since it's hard to pull off well in the first place and quest format only makes it harder.

    The Scion, or Mr. Edge for short. Starts the most powerful in all likelihood as well as best prepared for the reality. However it sets the world against you and unlike in the next option these guys are gunning for blood much more likely. Probably sets the darkest tone for the quest.

    Street Rat vs Flame - the options of pure talent/bullshit innate gift are fairly similar at a glance. Street rat has the advantage of being an unknown. There's no one that's got an immediate eye on him and if he'll be noticed it's for either pissing off an important person or demonstrating his talent with magic and pissing off a noble right after. Very often seen set-up for quests on SV/SB.

    Flame on the other hand seems to be the Street Rat on HARD mode, with extra angst, free refills included! You start with some very interesting talents, but you got the Man against you from the offset. A constant uphill battle as you need to git gud in navigating the social networks of influential while simultaneously being gunned for by people who are adept at it and want to use you for their own goals. Probably will be roped into conflicts and factions before we've even learned to swim.

    Torn between the Successor and Flame. I can't resist the allure of the shiny and actual social capable character, but the Flame has the haxx power trait along with Trauma +1 buff.

    [X] The Successor
     
    Last edited:
    [X] The Successor

    Give me that sweet, sweet crushing legacy that we have to live up to and forever live in the shadow of! It'll be traumatizing, and we all know Trauma = !FUN!. :D
     
    Wander said:
    In a world where for the most part being at your limit means you're at your limit and you've got no more magic, sorcery means you have the ability to always try and dig deep for that little bit more. Similarly, where for most people modifying a spell requires much careful work and study, someone with sorcery can make small changes on the fly. It's a much more emotional and less rigid kind of magic.
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    Thanks for clarifying! Intriguing, the possibility of how the Flame's trauma would interact with their sorcery-- powered by will, but fluctuating magic due to EMOTIONS about what they did in the past.

    Gosh. I made myself sad thinking about them. I hope that all the characters will be part of the quest. I want to see the Flame metamorphose as they grow in the Silver Tower, and heal. That their hatred & moral compass are faced and engaged with. Grow purposeful, and just, and hopefully happy, Flame, whoever we end up following.

    (Successor, I got my eye on you. I'm looking for a complicated, primary mother-child relationship here!)
     
    [X] The Successor

    This should be interesting. I'm intrigued by the prospect of playing a character who is crushed not just under the weight of the expectations of others, but of their own, as the child of a genius can do. The Failure would also be something I'm interested in, as it's tinged with an edge of desperation we so rarely see in quests.
     
    SystemicHatter said:
    [X] The Successor

    This should be interesting. I'm intrigued by the prospect of playing a character who is crushed not just under the weight of the expectations of others, but of their own, as the child of a genius can do. The Failure would also be something I'm interested in, as it's tinged with an edge of desperation we so rarely see in quests.
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    It'll also give our MC Self-Esteem issues, and eventually, Crippling Anxiety and maybe even Depression. As we all know, those are the true hallmarks of a great character in Quests. :V
     
    [X] The Street Rat

    To be honest, all of these except the Scion look pretty interesting. I won't be too torn up if any of them win.
     
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