Vorstallen Magic Preparatory. The third-best magic academy in the city of Vorstal for which it...
Vorstallen Magic Preparatory - The Third-Best School for Young Mages in the Nation! Enrol Today!
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Vorstallen Magic Preparatory. The third-best magic academy in the city of Vorstal for which it is named. One of the newer colleges, but one of the better ones. Started by a consortium of Vorstallen merchants who paid a great deal of money to set up many talented mages there, what it lacks in tradition and accumulated knowledge it makes up in teaching talent. Admittedly, in a city with seven of the top ten magical academies in the world, this is not an unimpressive feat. Still, it's disappointing. You'd been aiming for Greystone Academy, and hoping for the Imperial Collegium, but the Preparatory is still good. Just not as good as you'd hoped. Oh, well. At least you made it into a decent school.
As the cart rattles along the cobblestones of Vorstal, you turn your mind back to the road that brought you here...
Firstly, where do you hail from?
[ ] Vorstal, the city itself.
+ 5 to Commerce Skill, +5 to Artifact Identification, no Diplomacy bonuses or maluses.
[ ] Narubar, the greatest nation in the Six-Fox Pact.
+ 100 currency to start, +10 Spear Combat, +10 Shield Use, major diplomacy malus to characters with Undying Empire background, major diplomacy bonus to characters with Narubar background, minor diplomacy bonus to characters with other Six-Fox Pact backgrounds.
[X] The Undying Empire, greatest empire of the world, once covering the entire continent of Afakal, ruled by the eternal King of Bones. The Undying Empire does not love mages as Narubar does, as mages form its ruling class - those from the wrong background or the wrong family will quickly find themselves ostracised for reaching above their station. Indeed, the ability to seize immortality with magic is jealously guarded, and the King of Bones and his Rotting Court only pass it on to the most worthy and politically connected. However, the Empire is steeped in magical knowledge and artifacts, and its place as the greatest world power has not been usurped.
+ 5 to Magical Lore: Necromancy, major diplomacy malus to characters with Six-Fox Pact backgrounds.
[ ] Crakon, one of the minor nations in the Saint's Archipelago.
+ 15 to Swimming, +15 to Craft: Fishing, + 15 to Sailing.
Secondly, what is your background?
Vorstal Backgrounds:
[ ] The Five Families, Scion:
Stats - 3 Intelligence, 3 Channeling, 1 Willpower, 4 Charisma, 4 Physical Ability
+ 500 coins, major diplomacy bonus to all characters with Vorstal backgrounds. Gain Trait: Family Love (The Family pays your way. They're unlikely to ask you to do anything, you're too important to risk) Starting age 16.
[ ] The Five Families, Country Cousin: Wow, you made it in! Sure, you're technically a member of the Five Families, but only technically. You're smart, though, and you have significant magical talent. You spent your formative years learning accountancy for one of the Family's businesses, you're not all that strong. You have all the charisma of an accountant, too, but you're very smart. You're not so connected the Families would send you to the Collegium, but they'll pay for Vorstallen, especially with your solid exam results.
Stats - 4 Intelligence, 4 Channeling, 3 Willpower, 2 Charisma, 2 Physical Ability
+ 100 coins, + 20 to Accountancy, minor diplomacy bonus to all characters with Vorstal backgrounds. Gain Trait: Family Service (the Family pays your way. They may ask you do things from time to time. Refusal could see these payments revoked). Starting age 18.
[ ] Genius Student:
Stats - 5 Intelligence, 1 Channeling, 4 Willpower, 4 Charisma, 1 Physical Ability
+ 10 to Lore: Magical History, + 10 to Lore: Alchemy, + 10 to Lore: Famous Mages. Gain Trait: Scholarship (the Preparatory pays your way, failing subjects will see this revoked). Starting age 15.
Narubar Backgrounds:
[ ] Senator's Scion:
Stats - 2 Intelligence, 4 Channeling, 4 Willpower, 1 Charisma, 5 Physical Ability
+ 500 coins, gain Trait: Daddy Issues (-50 on all rolls opposing your father's requests or demands). Gain Trait Daddy's Money (your father pays for school. Piss him off too much and he might stop). Starting age 18. Narubar characters start at +10 opinion towards you - a Senator's scion working to serve as a mage in the military fits the story of what the Senatorial class should be like.
[ ] Famed Warrior: Fighting in the Archipelagian War against the Undying Empire, you singlehandledly defeated a mage in combat, though the spell he used against you sliced off your legs a moment before he died. As a hero of renown, they had you lecturing in the halls of the Wolven Academy for the new cadets, until you decided you had endured enough. Seeking something more, you studying hard and took the tests to enter the various magical academies. Your ability to grasp the theoretical was always weak, and has not strengthened with time. It took three rounds of testing before you had learned enough to enter, and The government paid for your tuition willingly, though your results were barely enough to gain you entrance. A commander of men, you are charismatic and well-known, though your physical abilities are lacking. The magical floatchair they have provided you gets you around well enough, but is slow and difficult to maneuver, and it drains a lot of your considerable magical power.
Stats - 2 Intelligence, 5 Channeling, 5 Willpower, 5 Charisma, 0 Physical Ability
+ 20 to Tactics, gain Trait: Government Payment (the government is paying for your education. Given your heroic status, there is very little you can do to forfeit this),
gain Trait: Crippled (cannot walk without the use of your floatchair), gain Trait: War Terrors (Willpower roll whenever a roll involves using or seeing powerful cutting magics. If you fail, fail any rolls associated with said magics) gain Item: Floatchair (Allows movement in all directions at walking speed, permanent -2 Channeling malus while equipped). Starting age 26.
[ ] Military Orphan: Your parents were both proud members of the military, fighting in the Archipelagian War. Their unit was ambushed by a powerful mage who cut them to pieces within seconds. You were raised in one of the Military Orphanages, taught to read and write, and to hate the enemy who took your parents from you. With no real influence to speak of, you managed to get into the Preparatory through your tremendous intelligence, and the great power you were found to have during magical testing was no small boon, either. You're scrawny and weak, part of a lifetime of underfeeding from a government that paid more attention to its mages than its orphans, and you were always defensive, snapping at people for no reason. You aimed to become a mage so you could find the man who killed your parents and take his life just as he took yours. Failing that, a few hundred Imperial soldiers would do just fine.
Stats - 4 Intelligence, 4 Channeling, 3 Willpower, 2 Charisma, 2 Physical Ability
Gain Trait: Imperial Hatred (gain +10 on all rolls opposing a character with an Undying Empire background, -50 on any roll taken for the purpose of helping a character with an Undying Empire background). Gain Trait: Scholarship (the Preparatory pays your way, failing subjects will see this revoked). Starting age 18.
Undying Empire Backgrounds:
[ ] Scion of a Fallen Lich:
Your bloodline ensures magical talent, and you're on the run. You're tentatively safe in Vorstal - nobody is going to kill you unless they can make it look like a complete accident. Any bloodline from the Empire who did would find themselves cut out of magical education to some degree, and while many people want you dead, none of them want you dead at the expense of their own power. You enrolled because, well, running forever would mean you'd be found eventually. You need power to survive, and this is the only place you can get it.
Stats - 4 Intelligence, 4 Channeling, 4 Willpower, 4 Charisma, 4 Physical Ability
+ 20 Lore: Necromancy (+25 total), + 10 Hiding, + 10 Disguise, Gain Trait: Hunted (major malus on diplomacy with Undying Empire characters. The King of Bones wanted your ancestor dead, and he wouldn't frown on you dying, either. People will try to kill you from time to time. If you start gaining power, your enemies will consider it a priority to kill you. The Six-Fox Pact has no real reason to want you alive either, so you can't count on help from anyone unless you make some really good friends. You do get 20 stat points total as opposed to the standard 15, but this is Hard Mode). Gain Trait: Scholarship (the Preparatory pays your way, failing subjects will see this revoked). Starting age 15.
[X] Necromancer's Bargain: Like many of the poorer members of the Empire, you served the upper classes in what capacity you could to help your family survive. Gifted with tremendous natural power, you agreed to sell a significant portion of your power to a necromancer in return for money, and a good life for your family. At first he just took a little, and then more, and then more, each time paying a significant sum of money. Eventually you had barely anything left, not even enough to make it worth his while to steal any more. To effect this transfer you had to spend a great deal of time near him, and you learned bits and pieces of the ritual. The only useful thing you learned was that if the necromancer died, the power would return to you. With the money you had, you chose to go to a magical academy - if you could find some other way to break the bond, you'd be able to become one of the greatest mages of all. The curse has left you somewhat drained in physical ability as well.
Stats - 4 Intelligence, 6 (!) Channeling, 5 Willpower, 2 Charisma, 3 Physical Ability
+ 10 Lore: Necromancy (+15 total), Gain Trait: Curse of Transferal (-5 Channeling, -1 Physical Ability. Only method you know to remove this is death of the necromancer who created it). Gain Trait: Paid Up-Front (you've used your money to pay your tuition, getting a large discount for paying for all four years. This has left you with no extra money, but no obligations in regards to tuition). Starting age 16.
Crakon Backgrounds:
[ ] Write-In:
Seriously, why is someone from a little fishing village on an island nation at the fifth greatest academy for magic in the world? Write some reasons, and distribute 15 stat points among the 5 stats.
Game System:
The game runs on a pretty standard 1D100 vs DC rolls to achieve something.
To add to this, there are two mechanics that help the main character succeed on these rolls.
The first is Stats. Stats are permanent, not improvable (except through either extraordinary effort or extraordinary magic, and this is very rare), and give a bonus of +5 per stat on any roll associated with that stat. The average stat is 3. The maximum is 10.
The first stat is Intelligence. Intelligence impacts how quickly you learn while learning, how well you plan, and is a general all-around boost to anything involving thinking. A stupid character will have difficulty learning more sophisticated magics. That being said, not all magics are complex and intelligence-based. Some spells just involve drawing on a shit-ton of magic, dumping it into an area, and igniting it.
The second stat is Channeling. Channeling is how much of the Primordial Ether you can filter through your body before you simply can't anymore. This is largely determined by your birth, and cannot really be improved (artifacts can store magic for later, but these are expensive and rare). Your Magic Pool, is Channeling*10+10*Channeling^2. Channeling doesn't make your spells more powerful as such, it just allows you to cast more of them. A character with Channeling 1 will have a Magic Pool of 30, which will make practising powerful spells nearly impossible, and casting them rare. A character with Channeling 2 will have 60, and one with Channeling 4 (the highest possible start) will have one of 200, almost seven times that of a character with Channeling 1. Channeling is largely not applied to rolls.
The third stat is Willpower. Willpower determines how likely your character is to skive off, get scared, etc. Willpower increases the chances of a training check being successful - Intelligence determines how much successful checks give. Most Willpower checks are not subject to skill usage, so having a low Willpower means you'll fail a lot more training checks. Willpower also applies when enemy mind-affecting magics are used against you.
The fourth stat is Charisma. Useful for getting people to help you, as well as conversing with Primordial Spirits of various kinds. Being able to bind and use Spirits is highly Charisma-reliant, as they tend to be fairly willful and serve people they like. Skill Training is a lot easier if you have knowledgeable people to help you as well. A highly Charismatic character might find themselves keeping up with an Intelligence-based on by charming their teachers, for instance.
The fifth stat is Physical Ability. Physical ability determines how strong, fast, etc, you are. It also determines how much magic you can flow through your body at any given time. Casting spells in quick succession is physically exhausting - low-level magic use merely feels irritating, using a huge torrent of power can have deleterious effects on the human body. In addition, since magic is limited, being able to move around, run, fight, and so on is highly valuable for a mage caught with his or her pants down.
Secondly, Skills.
Skills can be improved through Training, and are the primary method of character progression. Training a Skill takes time, and learning a new Skill takes time. A Skill ranges from 1 to a hypothetical infinity, though in practice a skilled Blacksmith might have Blacksmithing: 30, and a master Blacksmith might have Blacksmithing: 60. 100 in a given skill is sublime, and beyond that is beyond the sort of skill your average person could achieve in a lifetime. Of course, as a mage tapped into the Primordial Ether, theoretical human skill doesn't mean that much to you.
Skill ranks are added directly to Rolls. Multiple skills can be used on one roll, provided they're both directly applicable (For instance, you're fighting a reanimated demon corpse - Lore: Demons and Lore: Necromancy are both applicable). If you have no skills directly applicable, but one that's fairly close, you can add half of that skill on. (For instance, you're fighting a unarmed fighter with a sword, and you have no ranks in Sword Combat, you could apply Unarmed Combat because he's fighting unarmed, and your skill kind of helps). You can only add one skill in this manner.
The character does not have hit points as such, but can gain temporary maluses to their stats. If Intelligence, Willpower, or Physical Ability goes below 0, you have died. If Channeling goes below 0 you are permanently cut off from the Primordial Ether. Charisma cannot go below 0.
Lastly, there are Spells.
While Skills assist rolls, Spells do one specific thing (For instance, the Curse of Transferal allows you to drain the Channeling Stat from another player, and 1 Physical Ability point per 5 points of Channeling). You can both learn new spells (which go into the character sheet), or improve existing ones, both of which have three things.
Firstly, Cost. Spells cost a certain number of points from your Magic Pool, depending on size, effect, etc. Most spells are fairly variable - want to make your fireball twice the radius? Eight times the cost. You can lower cost by studying the spell and finding ways to make it more efficient.
Secondly, Difficulty. Casting a spell is not a matter of thinking things into reality. You need to use Spellforms, either by drawing them in the air precisely and quickly, on the ground precisely (though not as quickly as the marks will remain), or on a device designed to turn Primordial Ether into spells. Some spells are simple and easy, others are extraordinarily difficult and require a huge amount of precision. You can lower difficulty with practice.
Thirdly, Effect. A spell has a precise effect, in that a fireball spell creates a great amount of heat, consuming oxygen within a certain radius. A levitation spell might levitate something at a certain speed, or a certain distance. Modifying a spell on the fly is very difficult, so most mages learn small variants of their most powerful spells.
All spells also have a School, which has no real magical effect, but determines where you'll find information about it in the library and which teachers are most likely to know about it, and which Lore skills are applicable to identifying it. Necromancy spells tend to be categorised that way because they were invented by necromancers, there's no real method of definition.
Let the voting begin!
As the cart rattles along the cobblestones of Vorstal, you turn your mind back to the road that brought you here...
Firstly, where do you hail from?
+ 5 to Commerce Skill, +5 to Artifact Identification, no Diplomacy bonuses or maluses.
+ 100 currency to start, +10 Spear Combat, +10 Shield Use, major diplomacy malus to characters with Undying Empire background, major diplomacy bonus to characters with Narubar background, minor diplomacy bonus to characters with other Six-Fox Pact backgrounds.
[X] The Undying Empire, greatest empire of the world, once covering the entire continent of Afakal, ruled by the eternal King of Bones. The Undying Empire does not love mages as Narubar does, as mages form its ruling class - those from the wrong background or the wrong family will quickly find themselves ostracised for reaching above their station. Indeed, the ability to seize immortality with magic is jealously guarded, and the King of Bones and his Rotting Court only pass it on to the most worthy and politically connected. However, the Empire is steeped in magical knowledge and artifacts, and its place as the greatest world power has not been usurped.
+ 5 to Magical Lore: Necromancy, major diplomacy malus to characters with Six-Fox Pact backgrounds.
+ 15 to Swimming, +15 to Craft: Fishing, + 15 to Sailing.
Secondly, what is your background?
Stats - 3 Intelligence, 3 Channeling, 1 Willpower, 4 Charisma, 4 Physical Ability
+ 500 coins, major diplomacy bonus to all characters with Vorstal backgrounds. Gain Trait: Family Love (The Family pays your way. They're unlikely to ask you to do anything, you're too important to risk) Starting age 16.
Stats - 4 Intelligence, 4 Channeling, 3 Willpower, 2 Charisma, 2 Physical Ability
+ 100 coins, + 20 to Accountancy, minor diplomacy bonus to all characters with Vorstal backgrounds. Gain Trait: Family Service (the Family pays your way. They may ask you do things from time to time. Refusal could see these payments revoked). Starting age 18.
Stats - 5 Intelligence, 1 Channeling, 4 Willpower, 4 Charisma, 1 Physical Ability
+ 10 to Lore: Magical History, + 10 to Lore: Alchemy, + 10 to Lore: Famous Mages. Gain Trait: Scholarship (the Preparatory pays your way, failing subjects will see this revoked). Starting age 15.
Stats - 2 Intelligence, 4 Channeling, 4 Willpower, 1 Charisma, 5 Physical Ability
+ 500 coins, gain Trait: Daddy Issues (-50 on all rolls opposing your father's requests or demands). Gain Trait Daddy's Money (your father pays for school. Piss him off too much and he might stop). Starting age 18. Narubar characters start at +10 opinion towards you - a Senator's scion working to serve as a mage in the military fits the story of what the Senatorial class should be like.
Stats - 2 Intelligence, 5 Channeling, 5 Willpower, 5 Charisma, 0 Physical Ability
+ 20 to Tactics, gain Trait: Government Payment (the government is paying for your education. Given your heroic status, there is very little you can do to forfeit this),
gain Trait: Crippled (cannot walk without the use of your floatchair), gain Trait: War Terrors (Willpower roll whenever a roll involves using or seeing powerful cutting magics. If you fail, fail any rolls associated with said magics) gain Item: Floatchair (Allows movement in all directions at walking speed, permanent -2 Channeling malus while equipped). Starting age 26.
Stats - 4 Intelligence, 4 Channeling, 3 Willpower, 2 Charisma, 2 Physical Ability
Gain Trait: Imperial Hatred (gain +10 on all rolls opposing a character with an Undying Empire background, -50 on any roll taken for the purpose of helping a character with an Undying Empire background). Gain Trait: Scholarship (the Preparatory pays your way, failing subjects will see this revoked). Starting age 18.
Undying Empire Backgrounds:
Your bloodline ensures magical talent, and you're on the run. You're tentatively safe in Vorstal - nobody is going to kill you unless they can make it look like a complete accident. Any bloodline from the Empire who did would find themselves cut out of magical education to some degree, and while many people want you dead, none of them want you dead at the expense of their own power. You enrolled because, well, running forever would mean you'd be found eventually. You need power to survive, and this is the only place you can get it.
Stats - 4 Intelligence, 4 Channeling, 4 Willpower, 4 Charisma, 4 Physical Ability
+ 20 Lore: Necromancy (+25 total), + 10 Hiding, + 10 Disguise, Gain Trait: Hunted (major malus on diplomacy with Undying Empire characters. The King of Bones wanted your ancestor dead, and he wouldn't frown on you dying, either. People will try to kill you from time to time. If you start gaining power, your enemies will consider it a priority to kill you. The Six-Fox Pact has no real reason to want you alive either, so you can't count on help from anyone unless you make some really good friends. You do get 20 stat points total as opposed to the standard 15, but this is Hard Mode). Gain Trait: Scholarship (the Preparatory pays your way, failing subjects will see this revoked). Starting age 15.
[X] Necromancer's Bargain: Like many of the poorer members of the Empire, you served the upper classes in what capacity you could to help your family survive. Gifted with tremendous natural power, you agreed to sell a significant portion of your power to a necromancer in return for money, and a good life for your family. At first he just took a little, and then more, and then more, each time paying a significant sum of money. Eventually you had barely anything left, not even enough to make it worth his while to steal any more. To effect this transfer you had to spend a great deal of time near him, and you learned bits and pieces of the ritual. The only useful thing you learned was that if the necromancer died, the power would return to you. With the money you had, you chose to go to a magical academy - if you could find some other way to break the bond, you'd be able to become one of the greatest mages of all. The curse has left you somewhat drained in physical ability as well.
Stats - 4 Intelligence, 6 (!) Channeling, 5 Willpower, 2 Charisma, 3 Physical Ability
+ 10 Lore: Necromancy (+15 total), Gain Trait: Curse of Transferal (-5 Channeling, -1 Physical Ability. Only method you know to remove this is death of the necromancer who created it). Gain Trait: Paid Up-Front (you've used your money to pay your tuition, getting a large discount for paying for all four years. This has left you with no extra money, but no obligations in regards to tuition). Starting age 16.
Seriously, why is someone from a little fishing village on an island nation at the fifth greatest academy for magic in the world? Write some reasons, and distribute 15 stat points among the 5 stats.
Game System:
The game runs on a pretty standard 1D100 vs DC rolls to achieve something.
To add to this, there are two mechanics that help the main character succeed on these rolls.
The first is Stats. Stats are permanent, not improvable (except through either extraordinary effort or extraordinary magic, and this is very rare), and give a bonus of +5 per stat on any roll associated with that stat. The average stat is 3. The maximum is 10.
The first stat is Intelligence. Intelligence impacts how quickly you learn while learning, how well you plan, and is a general all-around boost to anything involving thinking. A stupid character will have difficulty learning more sophisticated magics. That being said, not all magics are complex and intelligence-based. Some spells just involve drawing on a shit-ton of magic, dumping it into an area, and igniting it.
The second stat is Channeling. Channeling is how much of the Primordial Ether you can filter through your body before you simply can't anymore. This is largely determined by your birth, and cannot really be improved (artifacts can store magic for later, but these are expensive and rare). Your Magic Pool, is Channeling*10+10*Channeling^2. Channeling doesn't make your spells more powerful as such, it just allows you to cast more of them. A character with Channeling 1 will have a Magic Pool of 30, which will make practising powerful spells nearly impossible, and casting them rare. A character with Channeling 2 will have 60, and one with Channeling 4 (the highest possible start) will have one of 200, almost seven times that of a character with Channeling 1. Channeling is largely not applied to rolls.
The third stat is Willpower. Willpower determines how likely your character is to skive off, get scared, etc. Willpower increases the chances of a training check being successful - Intelligence determines how much successful checks give. Most Willpower checks are not subject to skill usage, so having a low Willpower means you'll fail a lot more training checks. Willpower also applies when enemy mind-affecting magics are used against you.
The fourth stat is Charisma. Useful for getting people to help you, as well as conversing with Primordial Spirits of various kinds. Being able to bind and use Spirits is highly Charisma-reliant, as they tend to be fairly willful and serve people they like. Skill Training is a lot easier if you have knowledgeable people to help you as well. A highly Charismatic character might find themselves keeping up with an Intelligence-based on by charming their teachers, for instance.
The fifth stat is Physical Ability. Physical ability determines how strong, fast, etc, you are. It also determines how much magic you can flow through your body at any given time. Casting spells in quick succession is physically exhausting - low-level magic use merely feels irritating, using a huge torrent of power can have deleterious effects on the human body. In addition, since magic is limited, being able to move around, run, fight, and so on is highly valuable for a mage caught with his or her pants down.
Secondly, Skills.
Skills can be improved through Training, and are the primary method of character progression. Training a Skill takes time, and learning a new Skill takes time. A Skill ranges from 1 to a hypothetical infinity, though in practice a skilled Blacksmith might have Blacksmithing: 30, and a master Blacksmith might have Blacksmithing: 60. 100 in a given skill is sublime, and beyond that is beyond the sort of skill your average person could achieve in a lifetime. Of course, as a mage tapped into the Primordial Ether, theoretical human skill doesn't mean that much to you.
Skill ranks are added directly to Rolls. Multiple skills can be used on one roll, provided they're both directly applicable (For instance, you're fighting a reanimated demon corpse - Lore: Demons and Lore: Necromancy are both applicable). If you have no skills directly applicable, but one that's fairly close, you can add half of that skill on. (For instance, you're fighting a unarmed fighter with a sword, and you have no ranks in Sword Combat, you could apply Unarmed Combat because he's fighting unarmed, and your skill kind of helps). You can only add one skill in this manner.
The character does not have hit points as such, but can gain temporary maluses to their stats. If Intelligence, Willpower, or Physical Ability goes below 0, you have died. If Channeling goes below 0 you are permanently cut off from the Primordial Ether. Charisma cannot go below 0.
Lastly, there are Spells.
While Skills assist rolls, Spells do one specific thing (For instance, the Curse of Transferal allows you to drain the Channeling Stat from another player, and 1 Physical Ability point per 5 points of Channeling). You can both learn new spells (which go into the character sheet), or improve existing ones, both of which have three things.
Firstly, Cost. Spells cost a certain number of points from your Magic Pool, depending on size, effect, etc. Most spells are fairly variable - want to make your fireball twice the radius? Eight times the cost. You can lower cost by studying the spell and finding ways to make it more efficient.
Secondly, Difficulty. Casting a spell is not a matter of thinking things into reality. You need to use Spellforms, either by drawing them in the air precisely and quickly, on the ground precisely (though not as quickly as the marks will remain), or on a device designed to turn Primordial Ether into spells. Some spells are simple and easy, others are extraordinarily difficult and require a huge amount of precision. You can lower difficulty with practice.
Thirdly, Effect. A spell has a precise effect, in that a fireball spell creates a great amount of heat, consuming oxygen within a certain radius. A levitation spell might levitate something at a certain speed, or a certain distance. Modifying a spell on the fly is very difficult, so most mages learn small variants of their most powerful spells.
All spells also have a School, which has no real magical effect, but determines where you'll find information about it in the library and which teachers are most likely to know about it, and which Lore skills are applicable to identifying it. Necromancy spells tend to be categorised that way because they were invented by necromancers, there's no real method of definition.
Let the voting begin!
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Tone of the quest
- Location
- Straya
This is an approval voting system. If I say the top two choices will be taken, you are not limited to vote for two options. Feel free to vote for one, or all (though functionally voting for all is the same as voting for none), or three, or six.
So, this is a pretty standard Magic Academy Quest. Well, I assume so. You play as a character of your choice, and go to school, partake in lessons, engage in political intrigue, and occasionally have a dangerous adventure.
That being said, just for an idea of the tone of the quest - magic is powerful and useful, but not all-powerful. The most powerful mages in the world are those who have cracked immortality and have had a few centuries to train. The majority of mages are going to have a few powerful spells they use regularly, and a bunch of useful situational tricks. They're a very long way from immortal and invincible, and even powerful mages can be stabbed to death unless they're actively maintaining some sort of powerful defense. The player isn't going to reach the heights of 'powerful mage' in 4 years unless they take some very risky decisions.
Magic is very political - falling in with the right crowd can get you on the fast-track to some spectacular spells and skills, and using those spells and skills against the wrong crowd can get you on the fast-track to a spectacular death. Whichever character you choose is going to be in the top 2-3% of human talent in some fashion, but all the same they're vying against people from that same 2-3%.
You can fail subjects (though I'll warn the thread if that's likely to happen), and if you do you might very well be expelled. That all being said, magic is cool, I think I've got a moderately interesting system set up, and I think it'll be a lot of fun.
Updates: Before I post an update, I'll put a Tally into the thread (which will also contain dice rolls for the update ahead as I write it). Once I put a vote-tally in (if other players want to do so to discuss winning options, tactical voting, etc, that's fine) that's generally the point at which voting has closed, unless I post otherwise.
So, this is a pretty standard Magic Academy Quest. Well, I assume so. You play as a character of your choice, and go to school, partake in lessons, engage in political intrigue, and occasionally have a dangerous adventure.
That being said, just for an idea of the tone of the quest - magic is powerful and useful, but not all-powerful. The most powerful mages in the world are those who have cracked immortality and have had a few centuries to train. The majority of mages are going to have a few powerful spells they use regularly, and a bunch of useful situational tricks. They're a very long way from immortal and invincible, and even powerful mages can be stabbed to death unless they're actively maintaining some sort of powerful defense. The player isn't going to reach the heights of 'powerful mage' in 4 years unless they take some very risky decisions.
Magic is very political - falling in with the right crowd can get you on the fast-track to some spectacular spells and skills, and using those spells and skills against the wrong crowd can get you on the fast-track to a spectacular death. Whichever character you choose is going to be in the top 2-3% of human talent in some fashion, but all the same they're vying against people from that same 2-3%.
You can fail subjects (though I'll warn the thread if that's likely to happen), and if you do you might very well be expelled. That all being said, magic is cool, I think I've got a moderately interesting system set up, and I think it'll be a lot of fun.
Updates: Before I post an update, I'll put a Tally into the thread (which will also contain dice rolls for the update ahead as I write it). Once I put a vote-tally in (if other players want to do so to discuss winning options, tactical voting, etc, that's fine) that's generally the point at which voting has closed, unless I post otherwise.
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Lore Post: The State of Magical Education - University Rankings
- Location
- Straya
I thought I'd write a few loreposts while voting continued, just to give a little more context to the world. I won't be adding anything the character couldn't realistically know at present - no magical theory, no secret histories, no trick to becoming a lich - but I hope it adds a little more information about the world the quest will be in.
Friends and parents. I write to you to let all good folk of Vorstal (who of course subscribe to our illustrious publication) the state of magical education at current. Where your children can expect to go, what sort of marks they will require, the tuition, and, of course, the outcomes. While there are many institutions of magical learning in the world, the majority of these merely teach repetition, the sort of an untalented combat-mage from Narubar might undergo. A few spellforms, the ability to use them quickly, but no understanding. No true learning, no ability to grasp the context in which a spell exists, to create, to modify, and to improve.
In the world today, I would say there are no more than ten institutions of worth for any family with bearing and wealth. Seven are here in fair Vorstal, one in the Empire, one in Narubar, and one in Fayut, otherwise the least of the Six-Fox Pact.
Firstly, of course, is the Imperial Collegium. Before the Undying Empire suffered such terrible losses and the Prince of Bones became the King of Bones, it was the centre of magical learning for the entire Empire, and of course the entire continent. A thousand years of domination over the the entire continent, and all the magical resources of the continent poured into that institution make it a place unlike any other. Oh, other colleges may boast of talented mages and cleverly-built laboratories. The Collegium has the Library of Slumber, allowing students to study in their dreams. The Egg of Time, where a student goes to trade a day for a week (though only once), traditionally used in the day before the final examinations.
The Collegium is without equal, and the quality of the training there is shown in its great mages. The King of Bones studied there when he was still a man of flesh, and six of Narubar's thirty Senators have studied there as well. Some colleges require both money or talent. The Collegium requires both, or one of an utterly exceptional level. If you are a merchant of wealth and your Scion is brilliant, perhaps you may be able to gain them entry there. The Collegium rarely gives out scholarships, though it can most certainly afford to do so. It aims to reject those who cannot bring great influence or great talent to its doors, to ensure its high reputation remains for another thousand years.
Secondly comes Greystone Academy. Named after the Grey Stone of Arkhas which it is built around (and we are told has some magical purpose, those the members of the Academy are remarkably tight-lipped about what that might be), the Academy is nearly eight hundred years old, and traditionally taught the arts of rhetoric, logic, grammar and politics, as well as economics and enchanting. Greystone has never educated the greatest combat mages, disdaining them as brutish, but rather turns its students towards invention and innovation. While its students are not so famous as those of the Collegium, Greystone may very well be a better choice for the discerning merchant - why not send your Scion to somewhere they can learn arts which will enhance the family business?
Thirdly is the College of Bones, aptly named after the ruler of the Empire. Situated in the capital of Borealis, the College of Bones is without equal in teaching necromancy and other such powers. However, it is open only to those with political influence within the Empire. As a proud Vorstallen, I urge you - do not even try to enter. Not only will the Empire deny you, but it will pretend that you are less than they while doing so. Keep your Scion at home, and educate them in Vorstal! Let the King of Bones have his necromancers, while we attain the wealth of the world!
Fourth is the Spire of Cunning. Situated on the desolate Narubite coast, the Spire teaches combat magic and divination at levels unknown to other nations. While Vorstal is the centre of magical education, the Narubites are obsessed with war in a war that makes all other nations look peaceful. Their mages are taught magical theory, true, but they are primarily taught to do two things - find their enemy, and destroy them. The victories of the Pact in the Archipelagian War came from superior naval power, but this naval power in part came from mages who could detect the enemy, and offer a great deal of firepower when they closed to unsuspecting Imperial fleets. Despite being outnumbered four-to-one in hulls, the War ended status quo ante bellum, a resounding endorsement of Narubite training. Still, what sort of use does Vorstal have for combat mages? Even a genius at combat will not sell any more wine, will not forge any more saleable artifacts. While the Narubites might let you in, they most certainly would not let your Scion out with the knowledge they had garnered. No place for true Vorstallens.
Fifth is the Vorstallen Magic Preparatory. While Greystone and the Collegium are ancient, the Preparatory is only a hundred years old, a hundred years younger than Vorstal as an independent state. The Preparatory focuses on magical theory over all else. While the Collegium turns out archmagi of potent powers, and Greystone sends out sweet-talking enchanters who can forge webs of words as well as webs of wards, the Preparatory has the backing of the Five Families, and as such spends money in ways the others do not. The Preparatory tends to turn out mages of moderate repute, but rarely does a mage go through the Preparatory and embarrass themselves. Expensive tutors, rigorous hours, and many excursions to magical sites around Vorstal mean that Preparatory-trained mages are often the equal of their rivals when they graduate, and tend to be even more exceptional twenty years into the future. An excellent choice for all true Vorstallen patriots!
Sixth is the Six Colleges of Night and Day. Six minor magic schools in Vorstal, each over five hundred years old, that amalgamated sixty years ago. Excellent training in a wide variety of magics, though their combat magic is drastically lacking. The Colleges do offer a significant scholarship fund, so if you have a member of the family who is brilliant, but perhaps not important, the Colleges are an excellent choice.
Seventh is the Inner Ring College. Founded as a rival to the Imperium Collegium eight hundred years ago, the Inner Ring teaches magical theory and combat magics, though has no real focus on enchanting. The Inner Ring are expensive, and offer a quality education, but have lower entrance standards than other schools. If your Scion is unfortunately (through no fault of their own, no doubt) performing poorly in the Magisterium Examinations, this may be an excellent option.
Eighth is the Outer Ring College. Founded seven hundred years ago for poorer students in the Outer Ring, the entry standards are quite high, but the fees are low and the education standards are quite good. A good choice for less important members of the family.
Ninth is The Cloudy Peak, situated on the great mountain of Sinara in the Saint's Archipelago. Rumor has it this is where the Saint herself now lives, though nobody truly knows. The only academy in the Archipelago, it closed its doors eight years ago when the Archipelagian War started. Historically the only academy to exist outside of the Empire (though the Preparatory was also founded after the Empire dwindled) , nobody has been able to enter since.
Tenth is the Librarium Arcanum. Despite the name, it is an institute of learning nowadays. Founded as a library in the Imperial era a thousand years ago, the demand for education increased as the Imperial stranglehold on magic slowly tightened, the librarians (often talented mages themselves, taking up the position to gain access to the library archives) began offering magical lessons to cover their increasing expenses. Over the centuries this became slowly institutionalized, and a small number of dormitories were built around the library to house students. The Librarium is expensive, but offers the greatest potential knowledge of any institution. Of course, talented teachers tend to find themselves elsewhere, so unless your student is brilliant, the Librarium may not be for them.
That is it for the rankings of the various institutions. Remember, if you found use from this edition of our work, please donate to the Vorstal Mercantile Press. All the information a talented merchant needs, at half the price it should be!
Friends and parents. I write to you to let all good folk of Vorstal (who of course subscribe to our illustrious publication) the state of magical education at current. Where your children can expect to go, what sort of marks they will require, the tuition, and, of course, the outcomes. While there are many institutions of magical learning in the world, the majority of these merely teach repetition, the sort of an untalented combat-mage from Narubar might undergo. A few spellforms, the ability to use them quickly, but no understanding. No true learning, no ability to grasp the context in which a spell exists, to create, to modify, and to improve.
In the world today, I would say there are no more than ten institutions of worth for any family with bearing and wealth. Seven are here in fair Vorstal, one in the Empire, one in Narubar, and one in Fayut, otherwise the least of the Six-Fox Pact.
Firstly, of course, is the Imperial Collegium. Before the Undying Empire suffered such terrible losses and the Prince of Bones became the King of Bones, it was the centre of magical learning for the entire Empire, and of course the entire continent. A thousand years of domination over the the entire continent, and all the magical resources of the continent poured into that institution make it a place unlike any other. Oh, other colleges may boast of talented mages and cleverly-built laboratories. The Collegium has the Library of Slumber, allowing students to study in their dreams. The Egg of Time, where a student goes to trade a day for a week (though only once), traditionally used in the day before the final examinations.
The Collegium is without equal, and the quality of the training there is shown in its great mages. The King of Bones studied there when he was still a man of flesh, and six of Narubar's thirty Senators have studied there as well. Some colleges require both money or talent. The Collegium requires both, or one of an utterly exceptional level. If you are a merchant of wealth and your Scion is brilliant, perhaps you may be able to gain them entry there. The Collegium rarely gives out scholarships, though it can most certainly afford to do so. It aims to reject those who cannot bring great influence or great talent to its doors, to ensure its high reputation remains for another thousand years.
Secondly comes Greystone Academy. Named after the Grey Stone of Arkhas which it is built around (and we are told has some magical purpose, those the members of the Academy are remarkably tight-lipped about what that might be), the Academy is nearly eight hundred years old, and traditionally taught the arts of rhetoric, logic, grammar and politics, as well as economics and enchanting. Greystone has never educated the greatest combat mages, disdaining them as brutish, but rather turns its students towards invention and innovation. While its students are not so famous as those of the Collegium, Greystone may very well be a better choice for the discerning merchant - why not send your Scion to somewhere they can learn arts which will enhance the family business?
Thirdly is the College of Bones, aptly named after the ruler of the Empire. Situated in the capital of Borealis, the College of Bones is without equal in teaching necromancy and other such powers. However, it is open only to those with political influence within the Empire. As a proud Vorstallen, I urge you - do not even try to enter. Not only will the Empire deny you, but it will pretend that you are less than they while doing so. Keep your Scion at home, and educate them in Vorstal! Let the King of Bones have his necromancers, while we attain the wealth of the world!
Fourth is the Spire of Cunning. Situated on the desolate Narubite coast, the Spire teaches combat magic and divination at levels unknown to other nations. While Vorstal is the centre of magical education, the Narubites are obsessed with war in a war that makes all other nations look peaceful. Their mages are taught magical theory, true, but they are primarily taught to do two things - find their enemy, and destroy them. The victories of the Pact in the Archipelagian War came from superior naval power, but this naval power in part came from mages who could detect the enemy, and offer a great deal of firepower when they closed to unsuspecting Imperial fleets. Despite being outnumbered four-to-one in hulls, the War ended status quo ante bellum, a resounding endorsement of Narubite training. Still, what sort of use does Vorstal have for combat mages? Even a genius at combat will not sell any more wine, will not forge any more saleable artifacts. While the Narubites might let you in, they most certainly would not let your Scion out with the knowledge they had garnered. No place for true Vorstallens.
Fifth is the Vorstallen Magic Preparatory. While Greystone and the Collegium are ancient, the Preparatory is only a hundred years old, a hundred years younger than Vorstal as an independent state. The Preparatory focuses on magical theory over all else. While the Collegium turns out archmagi of potent powers, and Greystone sends out sweet-talking enchanters who can forge webs of words as well as webs of wards, the Preparatory has the backing of the Five Families, and as such spends money in ways the others do not. The Preparatory tends to turn out mages of moderate repute, but rarely does a mage go through the Preparatory and embarrass themselves. Expensive tutors, rigorous hours, and many excursions to magical sites around Vorstal mean that Preparatory-trained mages are often the equal of their rivals when they graduate, and tend to be even more exceptional twenty years into the future. An excellent choice for all true Vorstallen patriots!
Sixth is the Six Colleges of Night and Day. Six minor magic schools in Vorstal, each over five hundred years old, that amalgamated sixty years ago. Excellent training in a wide variety of magics, though their combat magic is drastically lacking. The Colleges do offer a significant scholarship fund, so if you have a member of the family who is brilliant, but perhaps not important, the Colleges are an excellent choice.
Seventh is the Inner Ring College. Founded as a rival to the Imperium Collegium eight hundred years ago, the Inner Ring teaches magical theory and combat magics, though has no real focus on enchanting. The Inner Ring are expensive, and offer a quality education, but have lower entrance standards than other schools. If your Scion is unfortunately (through no fault of their own, no doubt) performing poorly in the Magisterium Examinations, this may be an excellent option.
Eighth is the Outer Ring College. Founded seven hundred years ago for poorer students in the Outer Ring, the entry standards are quite high, but the fees are low and the education standards are quite good. A good choice for less important members of the family.
Ninth is The Cloudy Peak, situated on the great mountain of Sinara in the Saint's Archipelago. Rumor has it this is where the Saint herself now lives, though nobody truly knows. The only academy in the Archipelago, it closed its doors eight years ago when the Archipelagian War started. Historically the only academy to exist outside of the Empire (though the Preparatory was also founded after the Empire dwindled) , nobody has been able to enter since.
Tenth is the Librarium Arcanum. Despite the name, it is an institute of learning nowadays. Founded as a library in the Imperial era a thousand years ago, the demand for education increased as the Imperial stranglehold on magic slowly tightened, the librarians (often talented mages themselves, taking up the position to gain access to the library archives) began offering magical lessons to cover their increasing expenses. Over the centuries this became slowly institutionalized, and a small number of dormitories were built around the library to house students. The Librarium is expensive, but offers the greatest potential knowledge of any institution. Of course, talented teachers tend to find themselves elsewhere, so unless your student is brilliant, the Librarium may not be for them.
That is it for the rankings of the various institutions. Remember, if you found use from this edition of our work, please donate to the Vorstal Mercantile Press. All the information a talented merchant needs, at half the price it should be!
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Lore Post: Aginara Fountaindance & Melody Killwhisper
- Location
- Straya
I thought that with various options getting more votes than others, I'd write some smaller loreposts on each of the popular options at the moment. Country Cousin has 4 votes, Necromancer's Bargain has 3, Genius Student has 3, and Scion of a Fallen Lich has 2.
Also, I'm thinking of either doing 24 hours for character creation or 48. 24 means we get rolling sooner, 48 means we get more arguments and posts. If we do 48 I'll spend more time updating lore, so either way stuff gets added to the quest, but I'd like to hear everyone's thoughts as I haven't run a quest before.
Famous mages tend to take on names beyond those they were born with. Aginara Bronzesmith is not a particularly impressive name, we can all admit. If a mage accomplishes something particularly amazing, they tend to use that as their name, and if other mages agree (or are intimidated enough by said mage to not disagree) they'll use it as well. When a mage uses a name, it tends from there into common usage, so Aginara Bronzesmith becomes Aginara Fountaindance.
Fountaindance is famous as one of the premier runesmiths and water-mages of the current day. Eighty-five at present, she started her career on a ship, casting weather spells and using the elements to ensure her Family's (note: in Vorstal, one's family and one's Family are usually quite different. Your father and sister are your family, your Family is the one of the Five Families you've chosen to work for) trading ship outran others, helping them make a profit. After a decade of this, she retired, using her earnings to fund her research. Traditionally, pipes and plumbing were not subject to runework. After all, carving a rune to touch (and thus enchant) the water meant whatever was used was subject to the ravages of water, which wore away at the precise runework fairly quickly.
Fountaindance pioneered the invention of replacable small pipe-sections, each with individual pieces of runework upon them. If one failed, the local pipes could be closed and the necessary piece replaced. This did not seem like much of an achievement, but in a society where clean water and baths were still the province of the wealthy it was no small improvement. She convinced her Family to quietly buy up all the piping in the city they could, purchasing contracts to maintain the water supply at the costs mandated by the City Council. Historically this was a job that went to a promising youngster who needed to learn to manage something that was largely unimportant and also was worth so little money a failure was acceptable.
She then installed her new runework on the pipes all across the city in her Family's segment of the city, offering free clean water to people who worked for her family. The purification system worked well, and installing runework for heating made the heated bath and heated shower something people could expect rather than a luxury. Fountaindance and her Family proceeded to charge quite handsomely when it came to the other Families - all of whom paid. After all, the promise of clean water from a tap and hot water from a tap at will (though you'd need to have a mage sent round to replace the rune on occasion) was more than worth the cost.
This secret is guarded jealously, and much of the runework is done at the reservoir, where the runes for water motion and large-scale purification are set. As a consequence of this, Vorstal is the only city in the world where the entire population enjoys clean running water, and hot running water at will.
Melody Killwhisper is one of the younger mages to graduate from the Preparatory. She is famous not for her feats of engineering, but her dealing of death. Serving in the Archipelagian War as a mercenary for both sides, she is known for her invention (and practice) of several spells. The first one is one to seek human beings. Simple, but most spells of this kind leave a telltale mark, a sense in the mind that you are being watched. Killwhisper's spell is reputedly undetectable (at least until it is reverse-engineered). In addition, she is a master of using thin blades of air. Creating a blade of air capable of cutting is one of the most basic spells a mage can learn, and one of the easiest to defend against.
However, the energy spent on a spell tends to scale with both range and effect - so cutting down an enemy from fifty miles away is not possible unless you are a magi who can level mountains. Or, in Killwhisper's case, you invent a spell that does exactly that. Nobody knows precisely how it works, how she evaded the energy requirements, but Killwhisper was able to locate enemy troops, and slaughter them all quickly and quietly, from miles away. It is estimated she personally killed something in the vicinity of two thousand soldiers, perhaps as many as three. Given the average mage might be worth somewhere between twenty and a hundred men in combat, this is not unimpressive.
Her intervention in the Archipelagian War ended when she was captured by one of the Undying who had come to fight in the war personally. Her blades cut him, but the Undying do not bleed or die as other men do. A mage of considerable power and over five hundred years in age, he hunted her down in a famous battle lasting two days, and rather than kill her, captured her and returned her to the Empire, presumably to interrogate her for the secret of her spells.
She has not been seen since.
Also, I'm thinking of either doing 24 hours for character creation or 48. 24 means we get rolling sooner, 48 means we get more arguments and posts. If we do 48 I'll spend more time updating lore, so either way stuff gets added to the quest, but I'd like to hear everyone's thoughts as I haven't run a quest before.
Famous mages tend to take on names beyond those they were born with. Aginara Bronzesmith is not a particularly impressive name, we can all admit. If a mage accomplishes something particularly amazing, they tend to use that as their name, and if other mages agree (or are intimidated enough by said mage to not disagree) they'll use it as well. When a mage uses a name, it tends from there into common usage, so Aginara Bronzesmith becomes Aginara Fountaindance.
Fountaindance is famous as one of the premier runesmiths and water-mages of the current day. Eighty-five at present, she started her career on a ship, casting weather spells and using the elements to ensure her Family's (note: in Vorstal, one's family and one's Family are usually quite different. Your father and sister are your family, your Family is the one of the Five Families you've chosen to work for) trading ship outran others, helping them make a profit. After a decade of this, she retired, using her earnings to fund her research. Traditionally, pipes and plumbing were not subject to runework. After all, carving a rune to touch (and thus enchant) the water meant whatever was used was subject to the ravages of water, which wore away at the precise runework fairly quickly.
Fountaindance pioneered the invention of replacable small pipe-sections, each with individual pieces of runework upon them. If one failed, the local pipes could be closed and the necessary piece replaced. This did not seem like much of an achievement, but in a society where clean water and baths were still the province of the wealthy it was no small improvement. She convinced her Family to quietly buy up all the piping in the city they could, purchasing contracts to maintain the water supply at the costs mandated by the City Council. Historically this was a job that went to a promising youngster who needed to learn to manage something that was largely unimportant and also was worth so little money a failure was acceptable.
She then installed her new runework on the pipes all across the city in her Family's segment of the city, offering free clean water to people who worked for her family. The purification system worked well, and installing runework for heating made the heated bath and heated shower something people could expect rather than a luxury. Fountaindance and her Family proceeded to charge quite handsomely when it came to the other Families - all of whom paid. After all, the promise of clean water from a tap and hot water from a tap at will (though you'd need to have a mage sent round to replace the rune on occasion) was more than worth the cost.
This secret is guarded jealously, and much of the runework is done at the reservoir, where the runes for water motion and large-scale purification are set. As a consequence of this, Vorstal is the only city in the world where the entire population enjoys clean running water, and hot running water at will.
Melody Killwhisper is one of the younger mages to graduate from the Preparatory. She is famous not for her feats of engineering, but her dealing of death. Serving in the Archipelagian War as a mercenary for both sides, she is known for her invention (and practice) of several spells. The first one is one to seek human beings. Simple, but most spells of this kind leave a telltale mark, a sense in the mind that you are being watched. Killwhisper's spell is reputedly undetectable (at least until it is reverse-engineered). In addition, she is a master of using thin blades of air. Creating a blade of air capable of cutting is one of the most basic spells a mage can learn, and one of the easiest to defend against.
However, the energy spent on a spell tends to scale with both range and effect - so cutting down an enemy from fifty miles away is not possible unless you are a magi who can level mountains. Or, in Killwhisper's case, you invent a spell that does exactly that. Nobody knows precisely how it works, how she evaded the energy requirements, but Killwhisper was able to locate enemy troops, and slaughter them all quickly and quietly, from miles away. It is estimated she personally killed something in the vicinity of two thousand soldiers, perhaps as many as three. Given the average mage might be worth somewhere between twenty and a hundred men in combat, this is not unimpressive.
Her intervention in the Archipelagian War ended when she was captured by one of the Undying who had come to fight in the war personally. Her blades cut him, but the Undying do not bleed or die as other men do. A mage of considerable power and over five hundred years in age, he hunted her down in a famous battle lasting two days, and rather than kill her, captured her and returned her to the Empire, presumably to interrogate her for the secret of her spells.
She has not been seen since.
Lore Post: The Imperial Class System
- Location
- Straya
Ok, so this is kind of lore for both of the Undying choices. The Undying Empire is weird and dysfunctional, and this gives a little background as to why both of the characters are in the position they're in.
The Undying Empire is best characterized as a society run by evil, power-hungry liches. Or perhaps a society that has almost thrust off the demands of scarcity, only to spend all of its efforts on near-worthless positional goods. Or perhaps a society that simply evolved as any society with unbounded magic power and education is want to do. Unusual and dysfunctional, the Empire subsists on the immense power of its mages, and the intelligence and learning of the Undying nobility who use their hundreds of years of wisdom and experience to snipe at each other and ceaselessly jockey for position.
In any case, there are traditionally three classes within the Empire.
The first, and by far the smallest, are the Lich Families, called the Undying Clans by the Empire and the Lich Families by others. They tend to be headed by one of the Empire's Undying (some are liches, others have bound their consciousnesses to their corpses which are merely still rotting), and are not dissimilar to a more authoritarian version of the Five Families of Vorstal. The Lich-paterfamilias (the term here is used, though there is no real predisposition of the Undying to be male) rule over their families with iron fists, hoarding magical knowledge and doling it out as rewards for good behaviour or to train more useful Scions. They have access to nearly-unlimited labour, equally massive wealth, and spend their days plotting against the other Lich Families. The 'flits', as they call those who are not Undying, are of little concern to them. To the Undying, even the rebellion of the Pact and the loss of half the continent is merely a temporary setback, one they will see remedied. If not in this century, perhaps the next. They have all the time in the world to accomplish their goals.
They retain the majority of the power in the empire. The uncogs (those who are granted a less... precise immortality, retaining their motive power and strength, but losing most of their intelligence and will) can only be animated by those who hold the secrets of life and death - only one of the Undying can raise an uncog. With near-human intelligence and perfect obedience, they are excellent workers, able to work sixteen hours a day before needing to recuperate, taking care of the menial tasks of the Clans entirely. They haul, draw water, plough, and do all tasks that are simple and repetitive. More complex or intellectual tasks still require human beings of the regular sort, however.
The second are the 'middle' class, those with enough intelligence and patience to write out new spellforms of various kinds. While new spells are invented every year by geniuses, the Undying prefer that their rising geniuses do not get ahead of themselves. With the majority of their menial labour taken care of, and the Undying owning the proceeds of this menial labour, they then use this to hire the educated members of society to try and invent new spells. Mages in the Pact and Vorstal invent through passion and fury, reaching deep into the bounds of human imagination to draw out something new. In the Empire, a citizen might spend eight hours a day creating minor variations on an existing spellform, allowing a lich or one of his trusted servants to imbue each with a burst of magic to see what comes. While this is a decidedly inefficient method of spell creation, it is also one that prevents any rivals to the power of the Undying from emerging. Each member of this class serves a certain Undying Clan, and attempting to defect to another Clan means certain death. Perhaps ten to fifteen percent of society are members of this class.
Other members of the middle class might sell their magical potential, or serve as a scribe of some sort, or a merchant. Hard labour has been extinguished from the Empire, and with it, only those who are directly useful to the Undying are permitted to do more than eke out a poor existence.
The third are the underclass. Those who cannot form spellforms have few choices. The uncogs take care of most manual labor, and while the Undying hand out bread and water to prevent riots, they are not considered worth expending more resources on. It was from these underclass that the rebellion for the Six-Fox Pact came, and while they tend to dislike their lives, they are not so foolish to think they can rebel with any success. While the success of the Six-Fox Pact meant that rumblings of rebellion come more often, it also meant an iron fist and vigilance from Liches who had once dedicated themselves to their magical studies alone. In times of war they might find themselves useful, or sometimes as spies, as the underclass are not regulated as the middle class are. They go where they will, and sometimes sell their bodies to become uncogs that their families might find a chance at a better life.
No new Liches have risen since the rebellion that resulted in the Six-Fox Pact two hundred years ago, and the Lich Families are now more concerned with hanging on to what they have got than they are at challenging this new and ascendant power. If a Lich dies, the others will rapidly squabble over its corpse and divide the spoils, ensuring all members of the Clan die - just in case there are any existing magical defenses or load-bearing switches that could be set off by a vengeful clan-member.
The Undying Empire is best characterized as a society run by evil, power-hungry liches. Or perhaps a society that has almost thrust off the demands of scarcity, only to spend all of its efforts on near-worthless positional goods. Or perhaps a society that simply evolved as any society with unbounded magic power and education is want to do. Unusual and dysfunctional, the Empire subsists on the immense power of its mages, and the intelligence and learning of the Undying nobility who use their hundreds of years of wisdom and experience to snipe at each other and ceaselessly jockey for position.
In any case, there are traditionally three classes within the Empire.
The first, and by far the smallest, are the Lich Families, called the Undying Clans by the Empire and the Lich Families by others. They tend to be headed by one of the Empire's Undying (some are liches, others have bound their consciousnesses to their corpses which are merely still rotting), and are not dissimilar to a more authoritarian version of the Five Families of Vorstal. The Lich-paterfamilias (the term here is used, though there is no real predisposition of the Undying to be male) rule over their families with iron fists, hoarding magical knowledge and doling it out as rewards for good behaviour or to train more useful Scions. They have access to nearly-unlimited labour, equally massive wealth, and spend their days plotting against the other Lich Families. The 'flits', as they call those who are not Undying, are of little concern to them. To the Undying, even the rebellion of the Pact and the loss of half the continent is merely a temporary setback, one they will see remedied. If not in this century, perhaps the next. They have all the time in the world to accomplish their goals.
They retain the majority of the power in the empire. The uncogs (those who are granted a less... precise immortality, retaining their motive power and strength, but losing most of their intelligence and will) can only be animated by those who hold the secrets of life and death - only one of the Undying can raise an uncog. With near-human intelligence and perfect obedience, they are excellent workers, able to work sixteen hours a day before needing to recuperate, taking care of the menial tasks of the Clans entirely. They haul, draw water, plough, and do all tasks that are simple and repetitive. More complex or intellectual tasks still require human beings of the regular sort, however.
The second are the 'middle' class, those with enough intelligence and patience to write out new spellforms of various kinds. While new spells are invented every year by geniuses, the Undying prefer that their rising geniuses do not get ahead of themselves. With the majority of their menial labour taken care of, and the Undying owning the proceeds of this menial labour, they then use this to hire the educated members of society to try and invent new spells. Mages in the Pact and Vorstal invent through passion and fury, reaching deep into the bounds of human imagination to draw out something new. In the Empire, a citizen might spend eight hours a day creating minor variations on an existing spellform, allowing a lich or one of his trusted servants to imbue each with a burst of magic to see what comes. While this is a decidedly inefficient method of spell creation, it is also one that prevents any rivals to the power of the Undying from emerging. Each member of this class serves a certain Undying Clan, and attempting to defect to another Clan means certain death. Perhaps ten to fifteen percent of society are members of this class.
Other members of the middle class might sell their magical potential, or serve as a scribe of some sort, or a merchant. Hard labour has been extinguished from the Empire, and with it, only those who are directly useful to the Undying are permitted to do more than eke out a poor existence.
The third are the underclass. Those who cannot form spellforms have few choices. The uncogs take care of most manual labor, and while the Undying hand out bread and water to prevent riots, they are not considered worth expending more resources on. It was from these underclass that the rebellion for the Six-Fox Pact came, and while they tend to dislike their lives, they are not so foolish to think they can rebel with any success. While the success of the Six-Fox Pact meant that rumblings of rebellion come more often, it also meant an iron fist and vigilance from Liches who had once dedicated themselves to their magical studies alone. In times of war they might find themselves useful, or sometimes as spies, as the underclass are not regulated as the middle class are. They go where they will, and sometimes sell their bodies to become uncogs that their families might find a chance at a better life.
No new Liches have risen since the rebellion that resulted in the Six-Fox Pact two hundred years ago, and the Lich Families are now more concerned with hanging on to what they have got than they are at challenging this new and ascendant power. If a Lich dies, the others will rapidly squabble over its corpse and divide the spoils, ensuring all members of the Clan die - just in case there are any existing magical defenses or load-bearing switches that could be set off by a vengeful clan-member.
0.1 : Prologue and Introduction
- Location
- Straya
The cart rattles beneath you, the constant clatter of wheels on cobblestones making it hard to focus on what had come before.
You remember the day you found out about your potential. You were only eleven, and the magical testing so common in the lands of the Pact and Vorstal had come to your city. Skarator was a small city by the standards of the Undying Empire, and a poor one as well. You had spent the day begging, and searching for coins on the side of the road where the merchants had passed through. Normally you didn't find anything, but two years ago you'd found a gold solidus, and that had kept your family in hearth and home for months.
Where the fruit stall normally sat is a small cast-iron cart, about three feet in length and one foot across. Carved into it are lines, barely perceptible to the naked eye, crisscrossing the flat top of the cart in all sorts of way. Behind it sits a man, old and wizened, who, upon seeing you, calls you over.
"Flitling! Come over here!"
You approach hesitantly.
"What?"
"You want to make some coin?"
You eye him cautiously. Nobody just offers money, not without something in return.
"Put your hand on this cart of mine, and you might just find an opportunity in return."
"You're not a wizard, are you?"
He laughs, a dry sound.
"Flit, if I were a wizard, I wouldn't need to call you over. If I was, you couldn't stop me doing what I wanted anyhow. No, this is a resonance tester, property of one of the Undying hisself. You put your hand on that, and we'll find out if you have magic. If you do... well, that might make you worth something, wouldn't you say?"
Still cautious, you approach. You put your hand on the cart. The old man grunts, and closes his eyes for a moment, tracing something in the air with his hands. A blue symbol flashes in the air briefly, and then is gone.
Then the cart begins to glow. First the lines on top. Then smaller lines on the sides, and finally you can even see light coming from underneath, reflecting onto the muddy pools of water below. The old man looks satisfied. Moments later, the glow intensifies, going from bright to blinding, and the iron begins to heat. With a yelp you snatch your hand away.
"Saint's tits! Flit, you're fit to bursting with magic. I think I've got someone you need to see..."
A particularly sharp bump brings you back to reality.
Ten minutes away is the Preparatory, the place you've pinned all your hopes and dreams on. If you'd known the power you had then, you would never have bargained it away the way you did. Still, the bargain brought money, and a stipend as well. Your brothers and sisters are well-cared for, and you have enough to enter a school of magic. The cart clatters along for a few minutes more, and stops. You peer over the high side of the cart.
Beyond you sits an squat brick building, topped with a pair of particularly ugly gargoyles, in front of a high fence, wreathed with blades and spikes at the top of each post.
"Out you get. Six nummus, if you please."
You pick six small bronze coins out of your moneybag and give them to the cartier. He cracks his whip, and the horses turn around, trotting off to another location along his route.
Past the gates lie a clustering of red brick buildings, clustered around a single tall tower. You draw breath sharply. That's where you're bound. That tower.
As you walk towards the gates, a voice calls out from the squat building.
"New student or delivery?"
You turn your head. An old woman sits in the building, with a large pile of paperwork in front of her.
"New student!"
She looks you up and down.
"Scholarship or payment?"
"Payment. I've brought a letter-of-credit from the Creaking Bank-"
"I deal with scholarships. Fill out this paperwork. Once you're done, head in the gates, first building on your left is the treasury. They'll take payment there and provide you with a receipt and a student badge. Here, I've got a copy of the forms you'll need there as well. Fill them out, get the damn things off my desk."
She hands you a pile of papers, as well as a quill and pot of ink. You sit down at a nearby desk provided and start to work through the paperwork.
It's mostly boring and just confirming details you've already sent ahead of you, but there are a few things you might want to change...
Firstly, we now vote on character gender.
[ ] Male
[ ] Female
This has no real impact on gameplay, but it's harder to write a character description without it.
Secondly, your name.
The default female name is Janka. The default male name is Ulos. The default last name is 'Flitter', referring to a member of the Imperial underclass. Lastname is locked. Feel free to write in if it doesn't tickle your fancy, otherwise we'll go with the default.
Thirdly, your accommodations. As a first-year student the Preparatory requires you reside on campus, but there are several options available for you. Keep in mind you have budgeted 100 coins for each year's accommodation. Spend more, and you'll need to make it up somehow in the coming months and years. Spend less, and you'll have more money available.
You currently have 100 coins available to spend on accommodation. This only has to be paid monthly - if you can find some way of making or borrowing money before then you should be fine.
[ ] The Smokestack - Accommodation above the laboratories. Mostly third and fourth-year alchemy students who want to be close to their experiments. Of course, you're close to said experiments, which make noise and smoke, often at peculiar hours through the night. Given the location, it's very cheap.
Lower Alchemy study DC. Late-night study DC increased for anything but alchemy due to the noise and smell. You gain Trait: Sleep Deprivation (-5 penalty on all rolls) for the first month of school. Harder to make friends as most third and fourth-years have no interest in you. 60 coins per year.
[ ] The Dorms - Traditional choice for a first year. Most of the first years stay here. Cheap, relatively quiet, though is the furthest of the dorms from the library. You have to share a room. You can also opt to pay another 25 coins and get a room to yourself.
No bonuses or maluses to study. 75 coins per year for shared room, 100 coins per year for own room. Own room has no stat advantages, but if your roommate is too loud it could impact you and if they're too nosy it could make it hard to keep anything you're doing a secret.
[ ] The Tower Dungeon - Yes, somewhat stereotypical, though much less damp than might be expected. The rooms are quite nice and mostly taken by the upperclassmen. Expensive, however, as access to the library without having to walk half an hour home (and there), which amounts to almost an hour every day of time savings.
Lower study action DC. Hard to make friends among the upperclassmen. 140 coins per year.
[ ] The Tower Rooms - Typically the province of the well-connected, the Tower Rooms are a few levels down from the lodgings of the teachers. Luxury and close access to your mentors , running hot water and easy access to the library.
Lower study action DC, minor diplomacy bonus to all actions involving your teachers. People will assume you are rich or well-connected and act accordingly. 200 coins per year.
This will be a relatively quick vote. If we get a few votes in quick succession that agree, or one option takes a clear majority, I'll just go in that direction. Important votes I'll leave up for longer, but I'd rather keep the story rolling where possible.
You remember the day you found out about your potential. You were only eleven, and the magical testing so common in the lands of the Pact and Vorstal had come to your city. Skarator was a small city by the standards of the Undying Empire, and a poor one as well. You had spent the day begging, and searching for coins on the side of the road where the merchants had passed through. Normally you didn't find anything, but two years ago you'd found a gold solidus, and that had kept your family in hearth and home for months.
Where the fruit stall normally sat is a small cast-iron cart, about three feet in length and one foot across. Carved into it are lines, barely perceptible to the naked eye, crisscrossing the flat top of the cart in all sorts of way. Behind it sits a man, old and wizened, who, upon seeing you, calls you over.
"Flitling! Come over here!"
You approach hesitantly.
"What?"
"You want to make some coin?"
You eye him cautiously. Nobody just offers money, not without something in return.
"Put your hand on this cart of mine, and you might just find an opportunity in return."
"You're not a wizard, are you?"
He laughs, a dry sound.
"Flit, if I were a wizard, I wouldn't need to call you over. If I was, you couldn't stop me doing what I wanted anyhow. No, this is a resonance tester, property of one of the Undying hisself. You put your hand on that, and we'll find out if you have magic. If you do... well, that might make you worth something, wouldn't you say?"
Still cautious, you approach. You put your hand on the cart. The old man grunts, and closes his eyes for a moment, tracing something in the air with his hands. A blue symbol flashes in the air briefly, and then is gone.
Then the cart begins to glow. First the lines on top. Then smaller lines on the sides, and finally you can even see light coming from underneath, reflecting onto the muddy pools of water below. The old man looks satisfied. Moments later, the glow intensifies, going from bright to blinding, and the iron begins to heat. With a yelp you snatch your hand away.
"Saint's tits! Flit, you're fit to bursting with magic. I think I've got someone you need to see..."
A particularly sharp bump brings you back to reality.
Ten minutes away is the Preparatory, the place you've pinned all your hopes and dreams on. If you'd known the power you had then, you would never have bargained it away the way you did. Still, the bargain brought money, and a stipend as well. Your brothers and sisters are well-cared for, and you have enough to enter a school of magic. The cart clatters along for a few minutes more, and stops. You peer over the high side of the cart.
Beyond you sits an squat brick building, topped with a pair of particularly ugly gargoyles, in front of a high fence, wreathed with blades and spikes at the top of each post.
"Out you get. Six nummus, if you please."
You pick six small bronze coins out of your moneybag and give them to the cartier. He cracks his whip, and the horses turn around, trotting off to another location along his route.
Past the gates lie a clustering of red brick buildings, clustered around a single tall tower. You draw breath sharply. That's where you're bound. That tower.
As you walk towards the gates, a voice calls out from the squat building.
"New student or delivery?"
You turn your head. An old woman sits in the building, with a large pile of paperwork in front of her.
"New student!"
She looks you up and down.
"Scholarship or payment?"
"Payment. I've brought a letter-of-credit from the Creaking Bank-"
"I deal with scholarships. Fill out this paperwork. Once you're done, head in the gates, first building on your left is the treasury. They'll take payment there and provide you with a receipt and a student badge. Here, I've got a copy of the forms you'll need there as well. Fill them out, get the damn things off my desk."
She hands you a pile of papers, as well as a quill and pot of ink. You sit down at a nearby desk provided and start to work through the paperwork.
It's mostly boring and just confirming details you've already sent ahead of you, but there are a few things you might want to change...
Firstly, we now vote on character gender.
[ ] Male
[ ] Female
This has no real impact on gameplay, but it's harder to write a character description without it.
Secondly, your name.
The default female name is Janka. The default male name is Ulos. The default last name is 'Flitter', referring to a member of the Imperial underclass. Lastname is locked. Feel free to write in if it doesn't tickle your fancy, otherwise we'll go with the default.
Thirdly, your accommodations. As a first-year student the Preparatory requires you reside on campus, but there are several options available for you. Keep in mind you have budgeted 100 coins for each year's accommodation. Spend more, and you'll need to make it up somehow in the coming months and years. Spend less, and you'll have more money available.
You currently have 100 coins available to spend on accommodation. This only has to be paid monthly - if you can find some way of making or borrowing money before then you should be fine.
[ ] The Smokestack - Accommodation above the laboratories. Mostly third and fourth-year alchemy students who want to be close to their experiments. Of course, you're close to said experiments, which make noise and smoke, often at peculiar hours through the night. Given the location, it's very cheap.
Lower Alchemy study DC. Late-night study DC increased for anything but alchemy due to the noise and smell. You gain Trait: Sleep Deprivation (-5 penalty on all rolls) for the first month of school. Harder to make friends as most third and fourth-years have no interest in you. 60 coins per year.
[ ] The Dorms - Traditional choice for a first year. Most of the first years stay here. Cheap, relatively quiet, though is the furthest of the dorms from the library. You have to share a room. You can also opt to pay another 25 coins and get a room to yourself.
No bonuses or maluses to study. 75 coins per year for shared room, 100 coins per year for own room. Own room has no stat advantages, but if your roommate is too loud it could impact you and if they're too nosy it could make it hard to keep anything you're doing a secret.
[ ] The Tower Dungeon - Yes, somewhat stereotypical, though much less damp than might be expected. The rooms are quite nice and mostly taken by the upperclassmen. Expensive, however, as access to the library without having to walk half an hour home (and there), which amounts to almost an hour every day of time savings.
Lower study action DC. Hard to make friends among the upperclassmen. 140 coins per year.
[ ] The Tower Rooms - Typically the province of the well-connected, the Tower Rooms are a few levels down from the lodgings of the teachers. Luxury and close access to your mentors , running hot water and easy access to the library.
Lower study action DC, minor diplomacy bonus to all actions involving your teachers. People will assume you are rich or well-connected and act accordingly. 200 coins per year.
This will be a relatively quick vote. If we get a few votes in quick succession that agree, or one option takes a clear majority, I'll just go in that direction. Important votes I'll leave up for longer, but I'd rather keep the story rolling where possible.
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0.2 : Getting Settled In
- Location
- Straya
As a result of the vote we are Male, and are going to live in the Dorms with a Roommate.
After this update I'll get our character sheet up and running as well.
Ulos scratched his knee. Finishing up the paperwork, he gave it to the old woman who sniffed, handed a third of it back, and pointed up the road.
"Treasury. First on your left."
She then ignored him completely.
Ulos walked along. If he had been in a different college, he would perhaps be marvelling at the grand spires and ancient constructions. Vorstallen, on the other hand, seemed to be all the same. Squat brick buildings that looked as though they were constructed to survive a war, not students, and the occasional statue of a famous mage here and there. The paths, on the other hand, were some sort of smooth blue material, unlike anything Ulos had ever seen before on a road.
He walked up to the Treasury, opening the door and peering inside. A dusty building filled with reams of paper (which so far was every building he had seen) lay inside. He walked up the counter, and offered the note of credit to the man there. A few minutes later, he was walking out with twenty-five silver numismata, jingling comfortably in his money-pouch. The Treasury had offered to cash the remainder of the note of credit for him (well, the remainder not used for accommodation), though he had left three hundred on credit at the Treasury for his future years needs, and a room key. 22-B
Gained Twenty-Five Coins.
He then walked to the dormitories, almost a full kilometre away. This campus was big. As expected, the dormitories were a bunch of squat brick buildings, though in this case they were decorated with vines running up and down the walls, and there were a few small statues dotting the walls. The windows were small, made out of cheap cloudy glass that one couldn't see through from either side. Several two-story buildings surrounded a slightly larger three-story one, labelled "Building A".
"Building B.", he muttered.
He looked up. This was A, so B had to be nearby. He walked to his left, and found C. On the other side of A was D, and behind A was E. Where was B?
"Urgh..."
"Hi, hi, hi!"
[Roommate Roll (Friendliness 71 vs 50 DC, +20 over DC means roommate is extra friendly), (Usefulness: 81 vs 80 DC, bare pass. Roommate has some obvious benefit to room with)]
Ulos looked over.
"Hi. Um, you wouldn't happen to know how to get to Building B, would you?"
"The Parrot's Perch? Aw, man, you got into the Parrot's Perch! Same here! We can be unlucky together!"
The young man talking to him smiled widely. Long curled locks dyed a brilliant pink framed a guileless face wearing a large pair of spectacles. Watery blue eyes were wide open, as if taking in the world for the first time.
"The Parrot's Perch?"
"Well, my father went here, and he said all the buildings had names. Sure, the guys over in Collegiate Governance like to call everything by names and numbers, but this is a place of magic, y'know. If spirits have names, why shouldn't buildings?"
Ulos blinked at this odd chain of logic.
"So, why the Parrot's Perch?"
"Oh, right. Building B is the top of Building A. Basically all the dorms are two-story, but when they started out they decided to go three-story for some reason. So instead of doing the smart thing and just labelling more A rooms, they decided to rename the top of A. Don't know why. You can see off the top of the Perch if you decide to climb up on the roof, but when they built it they sort of... well, let's just say the plumbing is pretty average and the rooms are tiny."
"I see. I'm Ulos. Nice to meet you, thanks for the advice. I appreciate you helping me out."
"I'm Madavian Junotrin."
The other boy waited for a second, as if waiting for some recognition to spark. When nothing came, he spoke again.
"Junotrin, like the Five Families Junotrin. My father is Alasas, you know."
[Diplomacy Roll - 41 + 10 (CHA) vs 50 DC, bare pass)
"Ah, of course. My apologies. I'm from the Empire, so sometimes it takes us a little while to recognise the Families of Vortral. Forgive me."
Stilted and awkward as his words felt coming out, the boy took no offense.
"Well, let's go up and get settled in. A change is as good as a holiday, my father always said, and he should know. He never takes holidays. I'm in room 22, by the way. Where are you?"
"Room 22."
"Hah! What an excellent sign, the two of us meeting like this. I want the bottom bunk, by the way. No objections, you're from the Empire. Are you nameless? Like a flit?"
"Yes, I'm Ulos. Ulos Flitter, I suppose. I've got no objection to taking the top bunk."
They strode up the stairs together, climbing up a tiny stairwell up into an equally tiny corridor. When Madavian had said the Parrot's Perch was tiny, he had not been exaggerating. The Perch hallways were skinny, and two people walking past each other shoulder-to-shoulder simply would not fit. Madavian put his key in the lock, turned, and with a small flash of light the door opened. Runes, Ulos thought. A regular lock wouldn't do that, though why students needed magical locks was beyond him. Maybe it was just to reassure the parents of people like Madavian.
The room inside was a little bigger than he'd expected, a pair of bunk beds sitting at the end of the room, a cupboard built into the wall, and two desks on either side with a small chair. They each had an inkpot and quill sitting ready, which was a blessing. Ulos hadn't thought to bring one. He put his small bag down, containing only a few precious empty books he had scavenged before leaving, invaluable for notes, a little food, and
"Well, let's lock our things away. Father gave me a few hundred numismata for spending money, but I'd hate to see it stolen."
Madavian brought a little chest out of his bag, and used the same key for the room on the cupboard. It had two doors, and was split into two. Ulos opened his half (the lower half) and put his bag inside. He closed and locked it, and Madavian did the same.
"Alright, well, we're settled in. We've got a few hours before they serve dinner in the Dinnerhall, and I know Father would want me to go to one of the lectures early. 'Madavian, my boy, if you become a great enchanter or spellsmith, House Junotrin will rise to even greater heights than before!'. That sort of thing. He gave me the schedules for the second-year lectures, though that was mainly so I could find out where my cousin was if I had to. He's Junotrin too, but not really Junotrin, you know? Anyway, they started two weeks before us. If we run in we might be able to sneak a peek at which subjects are the most boring and which might be worth doing."
Ulos thought for a second. What did he want to do?
[ ] Go with Madavian - Drop in one of the classes. You might learn something useful. As they're taught at a second-year level you won't be learning any spells, but you might pick up a useful bit of Lore. If you choose Go With Madavian, vote for one of the classes. You'll be able to drop in on the top two classes (as you have a few hours before dinner). Improves relationship with Madavian.
The five options below need to be taken with "Go With Madavian" only. If you vote for Go with Madavian, please also vote for one of these sub-options. If the thread decides to do this, the top two options will be taken.
[ ] Hang around the Building - You haven't really met anyone else yet. While you're not super sociable, it might be the right time to meet people before they get a chance to look down on you for being a worthless flit, right? Roll 1D100 + CHA vs 20 DC. If you succeed, Ulos meets one person. For every 15 points above 20, he meets another.
[ ] Go Exploring - It's a big campus, and you haven't seen the half of it. Who knows what you could find? Roll 1D100 vs ???. Success offers ???, failure offers ???.
The Parrot's Perch rooms are a little inferior to standard. The bathrooms don't work sometimes (so you need to go downstairs) and the rooms are smaller, meaning instead of a large cupboard apiece the roommates share a single cupboard. Storage space will be somewhat limited, though this isn't really reflected in any rolls unless you decide to start stockpiling something. However, direct access to the roof is always useful, especially from the highest vantage point around. If you need to spy on someone or pull some sort of a prank, the Perch is the best place to do it from.
After this update I'll get our character sheet up and running as well.
Ulos scratched his knee. Finishing up the paperwork, he gave it to the old woman who sniffed, handed a third of it back, and pointed up the road.
"Treasury. First on your left."
She then ignored him completely.
Ulos walked along. If he had been in a different college, he would perhaps be marvelling at the grand spires and ancient constructions. Vorstallen, on the other hand, seemed to be all the same. Squat brick buildings that looked as though they were constructed to survive a war, not students, and the occasional statue of a famous mage here and there. The paths, on the other hand, were some sort of smooth blue material, unlike anything Ulos had ever seen before on a road.
He walked up to the Treasury, opening the door and peering inside. A dusty building filled with reams of paper (which so far was every building he had seen) lay inside. He walked up the counter, and offered the note of credit to the man there. A few minutes later, he was walking out with twenty-five silver numismata, jingling comfortably in his money-pouch. The Treasury had offered to cash the remainder of the note of credit for him (well, the remainder not used for accommodation), though he had left three hundred on credit at the Treasury for his future years needs, and a room key. 22-B
Gained Twenty-Five Coins.
He then walked to the dormitories, almost a full kilometre away. This campus was big. As expected, the dormitories were a bunch of squat brick buildings, though in this case they were decorated with vines running up and down the walls, and there were a few small statues dotting the walls. The windows were small, made out of cheap cloudy glass that one couldn't see through from either side. Several two-story buildings surrounded a slightly larger three-story one, labelled "Building A".
"Building B.", he muttered.
He looked up. This was A, so B had to be nearby. He walked to his left, and found C. On the other side of A was D, and behind A was E. Where was B?
"Urgh..."
"Hi, hi, hi!"
[Roommate Roll (Friendliness 71 vs 50 DC, +20 over DC means roommate is extra friendly), (Usefulness: 81 vs 80 DC, bare pass. Roommate has some obvious benefit to room with)]
Ulos looked over.
"Hi. Um, you wouldn't happen to know how to get to Building B, would you?"
"The Parrot's Perch? Aw, man, you got into the Parrot's Perch! Same here! We can be unlucky together!"
The young man talking to him smiled widely. Long curled locks dyed a brilliant pink framed a guileless face wearing a large pair of spectacles. Watery blue eyes were wide open, as if taking in the world for the first time.
"The Parrot's Perch?"
"Well, my father went here, and he said all the buildings had names. Sure, the guys over in Collegiate Governance like to call everything by names and numbers, but this is a place of magic, y'know. If spirits have names, why shouldn't buildings?"
Ulos blinked at this odd chain of logic.
"So, why the Parrot's Perch?"
"Oh, right. Building B is the top of Building A. Basically all the dorms are two-story, but when they started out they decided to go three-story for some reason. So instead of doing the smart thing and just labelling more A rooms, they decided to rename the top of A. Don't know why. You can see off the top of the Perch if you decide to climb up on the roof, but when they built it they sort of... well, let's just say the plumbing is pretty average and the rooms are tiny."
"I see. I'm Ulos. Nice to meet you, thanks for the advice. I appreciate you helping me out."
"I'm Madavian Junotrin."
The other boy waited for a second, as if waiting for some recognition to spark. When nothing came, he spoke again.
"Junotrin, like the Five Families Junotrin. My father is Alasas, you know."
[Diplomacy Roll - 41 + 10 (CHA) vs 50 DC, bare pass)
"Ah, of course. My apologies. I'm from the Empire, so sometimes it takes us a little while to recognise the Families of Vortral. Forgive me."
Stilted and awkward as his words felt coming out, the boy took no offense.
"Well, let's go up and get settled in. A change is as good as a holiday, my father always said, and he should know. He never takes holidays. I'm in room 22, by the way. Where are you?"
"Room 22."
"Hah! What an excellent sign, the two of us meeting like this. I want the bottom bunk, by the way. No objections, you're from the Empire. Are you nameless? Like a flit?"
"Yes, I'm Ulos. Ulos Flitter, I suppose. I've got no objection to taking the top bunk."
They strode up the stairs together, climbing up a tiny stairwell up into an equally tiny corridor. When Madavian had said the Parrot's Perch was tiny, he had not been exaggerating. The Perch hallways were skinny, and two people walking past each other shoulder-to-shoulder simply would not fit. Madavian put his key in the lock, turned, and with a small flash of light the door opened. Runes, Ulos thought. A regular lock wouldn't do that, though why students needed magical locks was beyond him. Maybe it was just to reassure the parents of people like Madavian.
The room inside was a little bigger than he'd expected, a pair of bunk beds sitting at the end of the room, a cupboard built into the wall, and two desks on either side with a small chair. They each had an inkpot and quill sitting ready, which was a blessing. Ulos hadn't thought to bring one. He put his small bag down, containing only a few precious empty books he had scavenged before leaving, invaluable for notes, a little food, and
"Well, let's lock our things away. Father gave me a few hundred numismata for spending money, but I'd hate to see it stolen."
Madavian brought a little chest out of his bag, and used the same key for the room on the cupboard. It had two doors, and was split into two. Ulos opened his half (the lower half) and put his bag inside. He closed and locked it, and Madavian did the same.
"Alright, well, we're settled in. We've got a few hours before they serve dinner in the Dinnerhall, and I know Father would want me to go to one of the lectures early. 'Madavian, my boy, if you become a great enchanter or spellsmith, House Junotrin will rise to even greater heights than before!'. That sort of thing. He gave me the schedules for the second-year lectures, though that was mainly so I could find out where my cousin was if I had to. He's Junotrin too, but not really Junotrin, you know? Anyway, they started two weeks before us. If we run in we might be able to sneak a peek at which subjects are the most boring and which might be worth doing."
Ulos thought for a second. What did he want to do?
[ ] Go with Madavian - Drop in one of the classes. You might learn something useful. As they're taught at a second-year level you won't be learning any spells, but you might pick up a useful bit of Lore. If you choose Go With Madavian, vote for one of the classes. You'll be able to drop in on the top two classes (as you have a few hours before dinner). Improves relationship with Madavian.
The five options below need to be taken with "Go With Madavian" only. If you vote for Go with Madavian, please also vote for one of these sub-options. If the thread decides to do this, the top two options will be taken.
[ ] Magical Inheritance - How does magic get inherited? What sorts of things can a mage pass along to his or her children. Not really applicable to you right now, but still, it might shed some light on how you have (well, had) such a tremendous Magic Pool. Gain a (very hard) Training Roll for Lore: Magical Biology
[ ] Theory and Practice of Runes - Making a rune is easy enough, it's just a spell you inscribe that can be used time and time again. But what's the theory behind that? How do you actually do it? Gain a (hard) Training Roll for Lore: Runes, and a (extraordinarily hard) Training Roll for Craft: Runes.
[ ] Alchemical Theory - Unfortunately for you, sneaking into an alchemy lab would be hard. A lecture hall with as many as a hundred students? The theory of Alchemy is dry, boring, mathematical and full of minute details that require memorization. Still, learning a few theoretical bits and bobs couldn't hurt. Gain a (medium) Training Roll for Lore: Alchemy.
[ ] Intermediate Soul-Binding - You might get to see a spirit bound! Of course, without basic Soul-Binding you might not learn very much at all. Still cool, though. Not to mention this could have some relevance to your Curse? I mean, maybe. Gain a (hard) Training Roll for Lore: Souls and Spirits, gain a (nearly impossible) Training Roll for Spell: Bind Spirit
[ ] Just Hang Out - Madavian chooses which class you go to. Get one bonus from the four above (as Madavian isn't going to push you to go to two classes, he's a bit lazy), but letting Madavian call the shots will also give you time to observe him and figure out what his deal is. Gain one of the benefits above, gain insights about Madavian.
The below two options are alternates to Go with Madavian.[ ] Theory and Practice of Runes - Making a rune is easy enough, it's just a spell you inscribe that can be used time and time again. But what's the theory behind that? How do you actually do it? Gain a (hard) Training Roll for Lore: Runes, and a (extraordinarily hard) Training Roll for Craft: Runes.
[ ] Alchemical Theory - Unfortunately for you, sneaking into an alchemy lab would be hard. A lecture hall with as many as a hundred students? The theory of Alchemy is dry, boring, mathematical and full of minute details that require memorization. Still, learning a few theoretical bits and bobs couldn't hurt. Gain a (medium) Training Roll for Lore: Alchemy.
[ ] Intermediate Soul-Binding - You might get to see a spirit bound! Of course, without basic Soul-Binding you might not learn very much at all. Still cool, though. Not to mention this could have some relevance to your Curse? I mean, maybe. Gain a (hard) Training Roll for Lore: Souls and Spirits, gain a (nearly impossible) Training Roll for Spell: Bind Spirit
[ ] Just Hang Out - Madavian chooses which class you go to. Get one bonus from the four above (as Madavian isn't going to push you to go to two classes, he's a bit lazy), but letting Madavian call the shots will also give you time to observe him and figure out what his deal is. Gain one of the benefits above, gain insights about Madavian.
[ ] Hang around the Building - You haven't really met anyone else yet. While you're not super sociable, it might be the right time to meet people before they get a chance to look down on you for being a worthless flit, right? Roll 1D100 + CHA vs 20 DC. If you succeed, Ulos meets one person. For every 15 points above 20, he meets another.
[ ] Go Exploring - It's a big campus, and you haven't seen the half of it. Who knows what you could find? Roll 1D100 vs ???. Success offers ???, failure offers ???.
The Parrot's Perch rooms are a little inferior to standard. The bathrooms don't work sometimes (so you need to go downstairs) and the rooms are smaller, meaning instead of a large cupboard apiece the roommates share a single cupboard. Storage space will be somewhat limited, though this isn't really reflected in any rolls unless you decide to start stockpiling something. However, direct access to the roof is always useful, especially from the highest vantage point around. If you need to spy on someone or pull some sort of a prank, the Perch is the best place to do it from.
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Character Sheet
- Location
- Straya
Name: Ulos Flitter
Background: Undying Empire, Necromancer's Bargain.
Stats:
4 Intelligence - You are one of the brightest people around. While not a genius, you can keep up with geniuses when they talk most of the time.
6 Channeling - Magic bursts from your skin like a god incarnated in the flesh, flowing outwards at your very whem. Your magic pool is near-limitless, regenerating quickly and your potential is almost unbounded.
1 Channeling - Merely tapping into the Primordial Ether is a difficult task for you, and shaping magic to your desires is even moreso. Practicing spells requires great concentration, and you are not able to practice for very long, inferior to almost all of your classmates. You are the very weakest a mage can be and still truly be called a mage.
5 Willpower - Indomitable in will, you find it easy to veer away from the pleasures of the flesh and submit yourself to the pain of learning. Fear does not strike you easily and while other men give up, you find failure undaunting entirely.
2 Charisma - You are shy, and find talking to others unpleasant and difficult. You do not find it terrifying, and while you sometimes insult people, you have mostly learned to get around this through silence.
3 Physical Ability - You are average human strength, able to run for a distance, lift a reasonable amount of weight, and are fairly fast.
2 Physical Ability - While not decrepit, you are weak. Lifting a great deal is difficult for you, and your endurance leaves much to be desired. You are a little slow, and your reflexes are not always what they could be.
Skills:
Knowledge:
+12 Lore: Souls and Spirits (10/20 next level)
+31 Magical Theory (25/40 next level)
+15 Lore: Necromancy (0/25 next level)
+11 Lore: Runes (12/20 next level)
+10 Lore: History (17/20 next level)
+10 Lore: Six-Fox Pact (14/20)
Crafting and Casting:
+10 Craft: Runes (0/20 next level)
+8 Spellweaving (8/10 next level)
+6 Arcane Meditation (0/10 next level)
Magic Pool: 25/25 (395 points locked behind Curse of Transferal)
Traits:
Curse of Transferal (-5 Channeling, -1 Physical Ability. Only method you know to remove this is death of the necromancer who created it)
Ether Manipulation (Mana pool increased by 25%, currently +5. Through the consumption of Ghost Lotus Tea he can lose a little less Ether to the Curse of Transferal, akin to a prisoner managing to move his manacles to be a little more comfortable. The curse is not weakened in the slightest, but there he is able to exploit the small amount of flexibility it does have. His Mana Pool increases by 25% while under the effects of the Curse of Transferal.)
Paid Up-Front (you've used your money to pay your tuition, getting a large discount for paying for all four years.This has left you with no extra money, but no obligations in regards to tuition).
Trait: True Friend or No Friend (Only those who are willing to help when things are bad are worth having as friends. Ulos gains +30 to all Relationship rolls for characters of Friend status or above, but if his friends do not stand by him when he asks them to, the Relationship will immediately downgrade to Acquaintance.)
Trait: Forging Onwards (Ulos is more willing to take risks. He gains a bonus to learning new spells, runes, and Alchemy, but has a doubled risk of disaster when learning new dangerous magic. He will be more decisive generally.)
Relationships:
Madavian Junotrin (I3, Cn3, W1, Ch5, P3) , (Close Friend: Whirlwind Friendship) - Madavian seems to like you. You insulted him once, but apologised quickly after, so he forgave you. You've spent most of your time together so far, even accounting for being roommates. He's charming and easygoing, though his dyed-pink hair does draw a lot of eyes. He wears glasses and has big watery blue eyes. He's lazy, but maybe you'd expect that from the Scion of one of the Five Families. Fighting together against an unexpected rival has made you fast friends, bonding quickly in just a few weeks. He's your closest friend so far.
Bonuses and Additional Actions: Madavian's Close Friendship offers Action: Family Money. Ulos may ask Madavian to send home for money. The amount will largely be determined contextually (Madavian will not give Ulos money for no reason, but will be willing to invest in opportunities or help pay for emergencies), and will require Madavian to pass a Cha check. Madavian will also help Ulos in his attempts to meet people, permanently upgrading the Action for as long as Madavian is a Close Friend to Ulos.
Abraham Mazhov (I2, Cn4, W3, Ch2, P5), (Close Friend: Devotedly Loyal) - Abraham is a flit, just like you. He stands six foot seven, over a foot taller than Ulos. Short blonde hair, blue eyes, and a powerful mage as a great-aunt. She sponsored him coming to Vorstal when he was younger when he tested high in magical talent. The two of you bonded over your shared experiences as flits in the Empire, and the way you've been treated by people from the Pact while here. Having saved him, supported him, and tutored him, the two of you have become very close. He looks up to you and obeys you, believing that you look out for his best interests invariable.
Bonuses and Additional Actions: Abraham's Close Friendship offers Action: Combat Training. Abraham's massive Physical Ability coupled with an excellent Magic Pool makes him the perfect combat mage. Already standing near the top of his class, he will be more than willing to undertake combat training with Ulos to upgrade his Combat-related skills as well as his Spellweaving skills. Abraham will also intercede in any combat-related option unless Ulos specifically asks him not to, allowing him to undertake Combat for Ulos if he engages in it while Abraham is nearby.
Henrietta Aufstadt (I5, Cn3, W3, Ch2, P2), (Friend: Intellectual Rival) - Henrietta was introduced to you by Madavian as a member of Family Aufstadt, though a minor member. She is brilliant in her own right - perhaps smarter than you though less driven. Thomas had her suspended as part of an attack on Madavian, and as such you inducted her into your study group and helped her with her school work. She has a fierce desire to be her own person, more than just her family name.
Sunette Kerek (I3, Cn3, W4, Ch3, P2) (Acquaintance: Failed Me) - Sunette is ambitious. The first time you met her, she organised you and Abraham into a study group to 'dominate the year'. She's fat, has short hair, and purple eyes, which are unusual. She's not a member of Family Kerek the way Madavian is of Junotrin, she's just taken the name because her parents work for the Family, which is pretty common. She is no longer part of the Study Group - after Sunette failed to assist Abraham when he was being bullied by Thomas, she drifted away from the rest of the group.
Laila Cartier (Rival: Dislike) - You met her, insulted her by accident, and got into a shouting match in the middle of a bunch of older students. She thinks you're an brainwashed Empire peasant, you think she's a stuck-up Narubite. She has long brown hair that she wears pulled back, brown eyes, and her skin is pale white, which is unusual for a Narubite.
Thomas Aleivas (Rival: Hatred) - You met him while he was trying to bully Abraham out of school. You proceeded to blackmail him, steal his stuff, and move Abraham out. After stealing the majority of his alchemy equipment, an Artifact, and a ton of money from him, he hates you and wants you gone. Blue-haired, and the son of a Narubite Senator, he is a powerful enemy to have.
Current Enrollment (Classes):
Magical Practice and Awareness (Mandatory)
Magical Theory (Mandatory)
Theory of Souls and Spirits (Elective)
Continental History (Elective)
Background: Undying Empire, Necromancer's Bargain.
Stats:
4 Intelligence - You are one of the brightest people around. While not a genius, you can keep up with geniuses when they talk most of the time.
1 Channeling - Merely tapping into the Primordial Ether is a difficult task for you, and shaping magic to your desires is even moreso. Practicing spells requires great concentration, and you are not able to practice for very long, inferior to almost all of your classmates. You are the very weakest a mage can be and still truly be called a mage.
5 Willpower - Indomitable in will, you find it easy to veer away from the pleasures of the flesh and submit yourself to the pain of learning. Fear does not strike you easily and while other men give up, you find failure undaunting entirely.
2 Charisma - You are shy, and find talking to others unpleasant and difficult. You do not find it terrifying, and while you sometimes insult people, you have mostly learned to get around this through silence.
2 Physical Ability - While not decrepit, you are weak. Lifting a great deal is difficult for you, and your endurance leaves much to be desired. You are a little slow, and your reflexes are not always what they could be.
Skills:
Knowledge:
+12 Lore: Souls and Spirits (10/20 next level)
+31 Magical Theory (25/40 next level)
+15 Lore: Necromancy (0/25 next level)
+11 Lore: Runes (12/20 next level)
+10 Lore: History (17/20 next level)
+10 Lore: Six-Fox Pact (14/20)
Crafting and Casting:
+10 Craft: Runes (0/20 next level)
+8 Spellweaving (8/10 next level)
+6 Arcane Meditation (0/10 next level)
Magic Pool: 25/25 (395 points locked behind Curse of Transferal)
Traits:
Curse of Transferal (-5 Channeling, -1 Physical Ability. Only method you know to remove this is death of the necromancer who created it)
Ether Manipulation (Mana pool increased by 25%, currently +5. Through the consumption of Ghost Lotus Tea he can lose a little less Ether to the Curse of Transferal, akin to a prisoner managing to move his manacles to be a little more comfortable. The curse is not weakened in the slightest, but there he is able to exploit the small amount of flexibility it does have. His Mana Pool increases by 25% while under the effects of the Curse of Transferal.)
Paid Up-Front (you've used your money to pay your tuition, getting a large discount for paying for all four years.This has left you with no extra money, but no obligations in regards to tuition).
Trait: True Friend or No Friend (Only those who are willing to help when things are bad are worth having as friends. Ulos gains +30 to all Relationship rolls for characters of Friend status or above, but if his friends do not stand by him when he asks them to, the Relationship will immediately downgrade to Acquaintance.)
Trait: Forging Onwards (Ulos is more willing to take risks. He gains a bonus to learning new spells, runes, and Alchemy, but has a doubled risk of disaster when learning new dangerous magic. He will be more decisive generally.)
Relationships:
Madavian Junotrin (I3, Cn3, W1, Ch5, P3) , (Close Friend: Whirlwind Friendship) - Madavian seems to like you. You insulted him once, but apologised quickly after, so he forgave you. You've spent most of your time together so far, even accounting for being roommates. He's charming and easygoing, though his dyed-pink hair does draw a lot of eyes. He wears glasses and has big watery blue eyes. He's lazy, but maybe you'd expect that from the Scion of one of the Five Families. Fighting together against an unexpected rival has made you fast friends, bonding quickly in just a few weeks. He's your closest friend so far.
Bonuses and Additional Actions: Madavian's Close Friendship offers Action: Family Money. Ulos may ask Madavian to send home for money. The amount will largely be determined contextually (Madavian will not give Ulos money for no reason, but will be willing to invest in opportunities or help pay for emergencies), and will require Madavian to pass a Cha check. Madavian will also help Ulos in his attempts to meet people, permanently upgrading the Action for as long as Madavian is a Close Friend to Ulos.
Abraham Mazhov (I2, Cn4, W3, Ch2, P5), (Close Friend: Devotedly Loyal) - Abraham is a flit, just like you. He stands six foot seven, over a foot taller than Ulos. Short blonde hair, blue eyes, and a powerful mage as a great-aunt. She sponsored him coming to Vorstal when he was younger when he tested high in magical talent. The two of you bonded over your shared experiences as flits in the Empire, and the way you've been treated by people from the Pact while here. Having saved him, supported him, and tutored him, the two of you have become very close. He looks up to you and obeys you, believing that you look out for his best interests invariable.
Bonuses and Additional Actions: Abraham's Close Friendship offers Action: Combat Training. Abraham's massive Physical Ability coupled with an excellent Magic Pool makes him the perfect combat mage. Already standing near the top of his class, he will be more than willing to undertake combat training with Ulos to upgrade his Combat-related skills as well as his Spellweaving skills. Abraham will also intercede in any combat-related option unless Ulos specifically asks him not to, allowing him to undertake Combat for Ulos if he engages in it while Abraham is nearby.
Henrietta Aufstadt (I5, Cn3, W3, Ch2, P2), (Friend: Intellectual Rival) - Henrietta was introduced to you by Madavian as a member of Family Aufstadt, though a minor member. She is brilliant in her own right - perhaps smarter than you though less driven. Thomas had her suspended as part of an attack on Madavian, and as such you inducted her into your study group and helped her with her school work. She has a fierce desire to be her own person, more than just her family name.
Sunette Kerek (I3, Cn3, W4, Ch3, P2) (Acquaintance: Failed Me) - Sunette is ambitious. The first time you met her, she organised you and Abraham into a study group to 'dominate the year'. She's fat, has short hair, and purple eyes, which are unusual. She's not a member of Family Kerek the way Madavian is of Junotrin, she's just taken the name because her parents work for the Family, which is pretty common. She is no longer part of the Study Group - after Sunette failed to assist Abraham when he was being bullied by Thomas, she drifted away from the rest of the group.
Laila Cartier (Rival: Dislike) - You met her, insulted her by accident, and got into a shouting match in the middle of a bunch of older students. She thinks you're an brainwashed Empire peasant, you think she's a stuck-up Narubite. She has long brown hair that she wears pulled back, brown eyes, and her skin is pale white, which is unusual for a Narubite.
Thomas Aleivas (Rival: Hatred) - You met him while he was trying to bully Abraham out of school. You proceeded to blackmail him, steal his stuff, and move Abraham out. After stealing the majority of his alchemy equipment, an Artifact, and a ton of money from him, he hates you and wants you gone. Blue-haired, and the son of a Narubite Senator, he is a powerful enemy to have.
Current Enrollment (Classes):
Magical Practice and Awareness (Mandatory)
Magical Theory (Mandatory)
Theory of Souls and Spirits (Elective)
Continental History (Elective)
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0.3 - Night School
- Location
- Straya
"Theory and Practice of Runes. Sounds interesting, right?"
Madavian shrugged.
"Look, I think they're all pretty boring, but my father said this was a good way to be seen by the teachers. If you show up at extra classes, they think you're more interested, they help you. That sort of a thing. I mean, I don't think I need to, but it's not like I have anything better to do anyway. Sneaking in sounds fun, too!"
Ulos followed Madavian along, walking for half an hour down to a squat, brick building. At least, at first. As they got closer, each brick was traced with intricate, glowing lines, connecting one to another, and as they came even closer, the building faded, replaced with the vision of a tremendous human skull with two doors made from pure gold in the mouth, and streams of purple viscous liquid flowing from the eyes.
"Wow."
Magic in the Empire was practical, and hoarded jealously by the upper classes. Illusions existed, but not for purposes like these. The tremendous skull faded from view as they got even closer, replaced again with the brick building.
They opened the door and slipped inside. Two doors down, a small hall sat, with a teacher lecturing, drawing runes in chalk on a massive blackboard. They quietly opened the door, and sat on the stairs up the back. While sneaking into lectures was officially frowned upon, they'd certainly get kicked out if they made a ruckus.
Training Roll - 88 + 25(WILL) = 113 vs 70 DC. Major success! Gained 3 points (1 from success, 1 from 20+ points over required DC, 1 from 40+ points over required DC) in Lore: Runes.
"A rune is fundamentally a spell, some say. After all, a rune is shaped like a spell, takes power like a spell, and is even drawn like a spell. Yet if you forge a spell in iron, it does not become a rune. Indeed, activating that spell destroys it, just as activating any other spell does. The public calls these single-use spells 'runes', but they could not be more incorrect. If you draw a rune on something, you must make it permanent. In addition, a rune is not like a spell in that a spell does not care what it is inscribed on, provided the inscription is accurate. Chalk on a blackboard will work, though the required accuracy is difficult. Your hand in the air will work, provided the spell is inscribed quickly enough, and the strokes are made in the correct casting order, and empowered and held as they are made. A finely-ground pencil nib on paper will work, though if you fold or bend the paper you may find your spell not working. You must still know, however, how to put your magic into the spell. A spell cares whether you empower the top of the sigil first, and changing the order changes the spell."
The instructor suddenly shouted, banging his hand on the blackboard for emphasis.
"Runes are not spells! Runes are not spells! Inscribe a rune for water into iron, and nothing will happen. Inscribe a rune for water on flesh, and yes, it will work, as flesh is mostly water. However, it will command the water in the flesh only, leading to disastrous consequences. Empower a rune, and it remains, and is only damaged by the passage of time and physical effects. The flow of Ether through a rune does not harm a rune. Moreover, a rune does not care how you put the magic in, meaning any village idiot who can channel the Primordial Ether can use a rune. What does this mean in practice for runecraft? Well, as we all remember Alessor's Third Theorem, it is provable..."
Training Roll - 85 + 25 (WILL) = 110 vs 105 DC. Bare success! +1 to Craft: Rune
The instructor proceeded to draw thirty complex symbols on the blackboard, raising his hand and making them glow, as the students in the back took notes. Hundreds of lines in precise order, Ulos did not have his notebooks with him (and would have had no ink besides), and was not confident in memorizing this. Still, he looked at one of them, running his mind over how it was shaped, drawn, and how it glowed. Intent on learning, he pushed all other distractions aside and concentrated.
Almost forty minutes later, he hadn't picked up everything in the lesson, but he was sure he knew that specific rune. The instructor had mentioned something about it being one of the Runes of Water, though he'd need to look into that more later.
He looked over at Madavian, who had brought one of his notebooks (and a self-inking pen, an expensive treasure), and was busy... scribbling a caricature of the professor, complete with extra nose hair.
"Hey, Madavian. I think they're getting ready to go. We should leave."
Madavian stood up, and together they snuck back out, taking a moment to appreciate the illusion before moving on.
Next on their list was Intermediate Soul-Binding. Madavian had thought it sounded 'jingles', whatever that meant, and Ulos thought he might find some clue to his Curse there. Being able to mitigate it, even the tiniest amount, would be worth so much to him here.
The Faculty of Spirits and Souls was housed in buildings unlike others on campus. Instead of brick buildings, they looked like they had been grown from living rock, curling around itself and braiding itself around doorways, twisting as it rose into small towers above each small building. One of the buildings towards the centre was some sort of shrub, branches grown together so tightly the wind itself could not make it through, a berry-laden archway showing the only way in.
"This one. The plant."
"You're sure? It's dark in there."
"Trust me, cmon!"
The two walked in. The building was dark, and did not get any lighter. They heard voices, though, and through the pitch dark they stumbled towards them. Why was it so dark?
As the light from the doorway faded, they heard one voice talking above the rest.
"Let's stay here", Madavian whispered. "If we go any closer we won't be able to see at all!"
Ulos nodded, and then realised his mistake. "Ok."
They strained, but could hear the voice speaking.
Training Roll - 46 + 25(WILL) + 7 Lore: Necromancy = 78 vs 70 DC. Minor success. +1 to Lore: Souls and Spirits
"As you can see on the board, Tarnamack's Third and Fourth Epistles to the Unclean show the moderate, moderate influence on the Six Voyagers and how they interact when Minerva is declined..."
He focused again. Sitting in the dark for an hour, not able to see the board was difficult, but instead of letting the noise drown out his thoughts, he was able to pick ideas out of the esoteric wording coming his way. As he focused,
"I'm so boooored."
"Shh, Madavian, I'm trying to listen. Let's wait till the end of class, and then we can leave. Maybe they'll turn the lights on and we'll get to see the place."
"Ok, fine."
Training Roll - 76 + 25 (WILL) + 7 Lore: Necromancy = 106 vs 105 DC. Bare success! Gained Spell: Bind Spirit! First spell gained!
"You now need to inscribe these six marks. Drawing the Forms of the Voyagers is the only to way to know to Bind one, and so..."
He focused, and learned. The class was held in the dark, perhaps, because it was important to visualise what was being done without seeing anything yourself. Yes, the teacher was talking about the "inability of most Binders to access the Primordial Sight", that made sense. As he talked, he understood the fundamentals of what he was saying. Binding a spirit was not like casting a normal spell, where the forms were predefined as to what action they took on the natural world. The spell was fluid, in response to the actions of the spirit itself, and somewhat intuitive.
Dinner Roll - 3 vs DC 20. Critical failure. Miss out on dinner! Miss out on chances to meet people at dinner! Relationship with Madavian decreased.
As they got back, it was quite dark, and they noticed a distinct lack of lights outside the hall.
"Madavian, when was dinner?"
"Eight, didn't I tell you?"
"Any idea what the time is now?"
"Nine or so, I... oh."
Madavian laughed. "Don't worry, breakfast is at six, so we won't be hungry for long."
"You idiot!"
"What? What in the Ether, Ulos? I'm new here as well! Don't blame me for our mistake."
"Damnit, Madavian."
Ulos ground his teeth. Madavian was an idiot. He hadn't eaten all day while getting here, and he was hungry enough as it is. They returned to the Parrot's Perch, and went to sleep fairly quickly - eating the small nonperishables he had packed struck him as foolish. He might want them later if he needed to go on a trip, and food from the Preparatory was already paid-for. Upon waking, they hurried downstairs to go to breakfast. They did so in silence, Ulos unwilling to apologise and Madavian unwilling to demand one. An uneasy silence sat between the two until they reached the dining hall.
When they did, Madavian looked at him, suddenly eager to please.
"Tomorrow's orientation, but today we can do as we like. What should we do? I could tell you about Vorstal, if you'd like. Learn a bit about the city."
How does Ulos spend his day? You have 2 free Actions to spend. Feel free to vote for two.
[ ] Meet and Greet - Not really Ulos's cup of tea, but a good idea all the same. Stay after breakfast and chat with people for a few hours. Roll vs DC 20 to meet people, every 20 points over, meet another person. Make Diplomacy rolls versus said people to determine initial relationships. Diplomacy rolls will depend on the person themselves, their mood, and their background (good luck making friends with Narubites).
[ ] Go Exploring - It's a big campus, and you haven't seen the half of it. Who knows what you could find? Roll 1D100 vs ???. Success offers ???, failure offers ???.
[ ] Sneak into More Classes - Not really ideal, and since Madavian doesn't want to you won't have access to who's who in each class. Gain one free Lore: ??? roll. Critical success on the Lore roll will open a Craft: ??? roll or a Spell: ??? roll, depending on the subject.
[ ] Hang Out With Madavian - Not really that useful, but Madavian would like you to. While he's friendly, he doesn't know anyone else yet beyond his family, and who wants to hang out with their family?. Improve relationship with Madavian, gain Training Roll vs DC 90 (Madavian is a very poor teacher) for Lore: Vorstal
[ ] Craft an Apology - You were kind of a dick last night, even if Madavian did make a mistake. Spend a few hours thinking about what to say, and then say it. Improve relationship with Madavian. On roll DC 60 vs CHA, Improve Relationship with Madavian (so 2 step improvement total).
[ ] Check out the Class List - Madavian said you'll need to head down to Enrolments soon enough, though you don't need to formally enrol in your electives until the end of Orientation. Enrolment doesn't even open till tomorrow, in fact. Still, some electives are more popular than others, and talking to the people who run Enrolments will give you a good idea of which electives are more popular, and maybe which ones. Grants idea of which classes are popular/good/etc. (Gives a list of First-Year Electives, and the Skills and Spells they grant). If you wait till tomorrow, you'll be able to check it out and enroll in one action, but the extra time it takes you means you won't get first pick of the electives.
Madavian shrugged.
"Look, I think they're all pretty boring, but my father said this was a good way to be seen by the teachers. If you show up at extra classes, they think you're more interested, they help you. That sort of a thing. I mean, I don't think I need to, but it's not like I have anything better to do anyway. Sneaking in sounds fun, too!"
Ulos followed Madavian along, walking for half an hour down to a squat, brick building. At least, at first. As they got closer, each brick was traced with intricate, glowing lines, connecting one to another, and as they came even closer, the building faded, replaced with the vision of a tremendous human skull with two doors made from pure gold in the mouth, and streams of purple viscous liquid flowing from the eyes.
"Wow."
Magic in the Empire was practical, and hoarded jealously by the upper classes. Illusions existed, but not for purposes like these. The tremendous skull faded from view as they got even closer, replaced again with the brick building.
They opened the door and slipped inside. Two doors down, a small hall sat, with a teacher lecturing, drawing runes in chalk on a massive blackboard. They quietly opened the door, and sat on the stairs up the back. While sneaking into lectures was officially frowned upon, they'd certainly get kicked out if they made a ruckus.
Training Roll - 88 + 25(WILL) = 113 vs 70 DC. Major success! Gained 3 points (1 from success, 1 from 20+ points over required DC, 1 from 40+ points over required DC) in Lore: Runes.
"A rune is fundamentally a spell, some say. After all, a rune is shaped like a spell, takes power like a spell, and is even drawn like a spell. Yet if you forge a spell in iron, it does not become a rune. Indeed, activating that spell destroys it, just as activating any other spell does. The public calls these single-use spells 'runes', but they could not be more incorrect. If you draw a rune on something, you must make it permanent. In addition, a rune is not like a spell in that a spell does not care what it is inscribed on, provided the inscription is accurate. Chalk on a blackboard will work, though the required accuracy is difficult. Your hand in the air will work, provided the spell is inscribed quickly enough, and the strokes are made in the correct casting order, and empowered and held as they are made. A finely-ground pencil nib on paper will work, though if you fold or bend the paper you may find your spell not working. You must still know, however, how to put your magic into the spell. A spell cares whether you empower the top of the sigil first, and changing the order changes the spell."
The instructor suddenly shouted, banging his hand on the blackboard for emphasis.
"Runes are not spells! Runes are not spells! Inscribe a rune for water into iron, and nothing will happen. Inscribe a rune for water on flesh, and yes, it will work, as flesh is mostly water. However, it will command the water in the flesh only, leading to disastrous consequences. Empower a rune, and it remains, and is only damaged by the passage of time and physical effects. The flow of Ether through a rune does not harm a rune. Moreover, a rune does not care how you put the magic in, meaning any village idiot who can channel the Primordial Ether can use a rune. What does this mean in practice for runecraft? Well, as we all remember Alessor's Third Theorem, it is provable..."
Training Roll - 85 + 25 (WILL) = 110 vs 105 DC. Bare success! +1 to Craft: Rune
The instructor proceeded to draw thirty complex symbols on the blackboard, raising his hand and making them glow, as the students in the back took notes. Hundreds of lines in precise order, Ulos did not have his notebooks with him (and would have had no ink besides), and was not confident in memorizing this. Still, he looked at one of them, running his mind over how it was shaped, drawn, and how it glowed. Intent on learning, he pushed all other distractions aside and concentrated.
Almost forty minutes later, he hadn't picked up everything in the lesson, but he was sure he knew that specific rune. The instructor had mentioned something about it being one of the Runes of Water, though he'd need to look into that more later.
He looked over at Madavian, who had brought one of his notebooks (and a self-inking pen, an expensive treasure), and was busy... scribbling a caricature of the professor, complete with extra nose hair.
"Hey, Madavian. I think they're getting ready to go. We should leave."
Madavian stood up, and together they snuck back out, taking a moment to appreciate the illusion before moving on.
Next on their list was Intermediate Soul-Binding. Madavian had thought it sounded 'jingles', whatever that meant, and Ulos thought he might find some clue to his Curse there. Being able to mitigate it, even the tiniest amount, would be worth so much to him here.
The Faculty of Spirits and Souls was housed in buildings unlike others on campus. Instead of brick buildings, they looked like they had been grown from living rock, curling around itself and braiding itself around doorways, twisting as it rose into small towers above each small building. One of the buildings towards the centre was some sort of shrub, branches grown together so tightly the wind itself could not make it through, a berry-laden archway showing the only way in.
"This one. The plant."
"You're sure? It's dark in there."
"Trust me, cmon!"
The two walked in. The building was dark, and did not get any lighter. They heard voices, though, and through the pitch dark they stumbled towards them. Why was it so dark?
As the light from the doorway faded, they heard one voice talking above the rest.
"Let's stay here", Madavian whispered. "If we go any closer we won't be able to see at all!"
Ulos nodded, and then realised his mistake. "Ok."
They strained, but could hear the voice speaking.
Training Roll - 46 + 25(WILL) + 7 Lore: Necromancy = 78 vs 70 DC. Minor success. +1 to Lore: Souls and Spirits
"As you can see on the board, Tarnamack's Third and Fourth Epistles to the Unclean show the moderate, moderate influence on the Six Voyagers and how they interact when Minerva is declined..."
He focused again. Sitting in the dark for an hour, not able to see the board was difficult, but instead of letting the noise drown out his thoughts, he was able to pick ideas out of the esoteric wording coming his way. As he focused,
"I'm so boooored."
"Shh, Madavian, I'm trying to listen. Let's wait till the end of class, and then we can leave. Maybe they'll turn the lights on and we'll get to see the place."
"Ok, fine."
Training Roll - 76 + 25 (WILL) + 7 Lore: Necromancy = 106 vs 105 DC. Bare success! Gained Spell: Bind Spirit! First spell gained!
"You now need to inscribe these six marks. Drawing the Forms of the Voyagers is the only to way to know to Bind one, and so..."
He focused, and learned. The class was held in the dark, perhaps, because it was important to visualise what was being done without seeing anything yourself. Yes, the teacher was talking about the "inability of most Binders to access the Primordial Sight", that made sense. As he talked, he understood the fundamentals of what he was saying. Binding a spirit was not like casting a normal spell, where the forms were predefined as to what action they took on the natural world. The spell was fluid, in response to the actions of the spirit itself, and somewhat intuitive.
Dinner Roll - 3 vs DC 20. Critical failure. Miss out on dinner! Miss out on chances to meet people at dinner! Relationship with Madavian decreased.
As they got back, it was quite dark, and they noticed a distinct lack of lights outside the hall.
"Madavian, when was dinner?"
"Eight, didn't I tell you?"
"Any idea what the time is now?"
"Nine or so, I... oh."
Madavian laughed. "Don't worry, breakfast is at six, so we won't be hungry for long."
"You idiot!"
"What? What in the Ether, Ulos? I'm new here as well! Don't blame me for our mistake."
"Damnit, Madavian."
Ulos ground his teeth. Madavian was an idiot. He hadn't eaten all day while getting here, and he was hungry enough as it is. They returned to the Parrot's Perch, and went to sleep fairly quickly - eating the small nonperishables he had packed struck him as foolish. He might want them later if he needed to go on a trip, and food from the Preparatory was already paid-for. Upon waking, they hurried downstairs to go to breakfast. They did so in silence, Ulos unwilling to apologise and Madavian unwilling to demand one. An uneasy silence sat between the two until they reached the dining hall.
When they did, Madavian looked at him, suddenly eager to please.
"Tomorrow's orientation, but today we can do as we like. What should we do? I could tell you about Vorstal, if you'd like. Learn a bit about the city."
How does Ulos spend his day? You have 2 free Actions to spend. Feel free to vote for two.
[ ] Meet and Greet - Not really Ulos's cup of tea, but a good idea all the same. Stay after breakfast and chat with people for a few hours. Roll vs DC 20 to meet people, every 20 points over, meet another person. Make Diplomacy rolls versus said people to determine initial relationships. Diplomacy rolls will depend on the person themselves, their mood, and their background (good luck making friends with Narubites).
[ ] Go Exploring - It's a big campus, and you haven't seen the half of it. Who knows what you could find? Roll 1D100 vs ???. Success offers ???, failure offers ???.
[ ] Sneak into More Classes - Not really ideal, and since Madavian doesn't want to you won't have access to who's who in each class. Gain one free Lore: ??? roll. Critical success on the Lore roll will open a Craft: ??? roll or a Spell: ??? roll, depending on the subject.
[ ] Hang Out With Madavian - Not really that useful, but Madavian would like you to. While he's friendly, he doesn't know anyone else yet beyond his family, and who wants to hang out with their family?. Improve relationship with Madavian, gain Training Roll vs DC 90 (Madavian is a very poor teacher) for Lore: Vorstal
[ ] Craft an Apology - You were kind of a dick last night, even if Madavian did make a mistake. Spend a few hours thinking about what to say, and then say it. Improve relationship with Madavian. On roll DC 60 vs CHA, Improve Relationship with Madavian (so 2 step improvement total).
[ ] Check out the Class List - Madavian said you'll need to head down to Enrolments soon enough, though you don't need to formally enrol in your electives until the end of Orientation. Enrolment doesn't even open till tomorrow, in fact. Still, some electives are more popular than others, and talking to the people who run Enrolments will give you a good idea of which electives are more popular, and maybe which ones. Grants idea of which classes are popular/good/etc. (Gives a list of First-Year Electives, and the Skills and Spells they grant). If you wait till tomorrow, you'll be able to check it out and enroll in one action, but the extra time it takes you means you won't get first pick of the electives.
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Spellbook
- Location
- Straya
Rather than have it be part of our character sheet, I thought I'd situate it in a secondary post to make for easier access.
Spells:
Spell: Bind Spirit:
Cost: Variable. For a very minor Spirit, costs 5. For one of the Firstborn, costs 10,000. Most Spirits cost around 50-100 to bind. A Spirit that is bound willingly can reduce that cost by up to half.
Difficulty: Variable. A Spirit that is saddened or weakened has a lower DC, as do lesser Spirits. Binding one of the Firstborn might have a DC in the thousands. An angry Firstborn might be in the tens of thousands. If you can convince the Spirit to be bound, the DC is lowered significantly.
Effects: Bind a spirit to a place or an item. Major successes can bind a Spirit permanently, lesser successes might bind a Spirit for a few weeks, and a minor failure might bind one for a minute or two. Useful if you need to bring a Spirit under control. Does not grant you access to Spirits still in the Primordial Ether, only those who have manifested into the world in some way.
School: Souls and Spirits
Spell: Shatter Illusions:
Cost: Variable. Minimum 1. Flooding an illusion with magic can shatter it - if the weakpoint is found it requires less power.
Difficulty: Variable. Depends on the illusion.
Effects: Shatter an illusion being used on you personally. Can shatter more than one illusion.
School: Mind Magic
Spell: Burst of Light
Cost: 1
Difficulty: Very low (10 DC)
Effects: Creates a blinding burst of light. Can be modified to gain variable costs or directionality. At present creates a unidirectional bright burst of light, not blind enough to blind for more than a second.
School: Directed Energy
Spell: Kinetic Detection
Cost: 2
Difficulty: Moderate (25 DC)
Effects: Detects all kinetic energy below a certain sharpness and above a certain threshold (usually anything with the sharpness of a knife, or anything that is moving above the speed of a sprinting man). Grants perfect awareness of these things in a thirty-metre radius around the caster for ten minutes.
School: Directed Energy
Spell: Thermal Detection
Cost: 2
Difficulty: Moderate (25 DC)
Effects: Detects all thermal energy above a certain threshold and above a certain temperature (usually anything capable of harming a human being). Grants perfect awareness of these things in a two hundred-metre radius around the caster for thirty minutes.
School: Directed Energy
Runes:
[ ] Slumbering Brick (Clay) - Unseen and inactive until the command word is spoken. The rune is engraved on a brick left nearby, and when the word spoken, the brick shatters into a cloud of dust and particulate matter, clouding the air for the better part of a minute. Useful for ambushing enemies or escaping from an unfortunate encounter. Takes 4 Magic Points to charge, requires recharging weekly. DC 40 to craft.
Recipes:
Philter of Awareness: 6 Alyssum flowers grown in magical soil. 1 Rabbit's ear, the fresher the better (dried will reduce duration of effect). Heat rapidly to boiling and allow to cool 23 times. Cooling can be done by Alchemist. Ensure For best results, cook recipe in a copper pan or pot. Duration is approximately 1 minute per 10ml of Philter. Variations: Cook in a bronze pot to reduce potency to 1/5th normal. Cook in an iron (not steel, this will cancel the effect entirely) to increase the effect massively and make it last 1/100th the normal duration.
Spells:
Spell: Bind Spirit:
Cost: Variable. For a very minor Spirit, costs 5. For one of the Firstborn, costs 10,000. Most Spirits cost around 50-100 to bind. A Spirit that is bound willingly can reduce that cost by up to half.
Difficulty: Variable. A Spirit that is saddened or weakened has a lower DC, as do lesser Spirits. Binding one of the Firstborn might have a DC in the thousands. An angry Firstborn might be in the tens of thousands. If you can convince the Spirit to be bound, the DC is lowered significantly.
Effects: Bind a spirit to a place or an item. Major successes can bind a Spirit permanently, lesser successes might bind a Spirit for a few weeks, and a minor failure might bind one for a minute or two. Useful if you need to bring a Spirit under control. Does not grant you access to Spirits still in the Primordial Ether, only those who have manifested into the world in some way.
School: Souls and Spirits
Spell: Shatter Illusions:
Cost: Variable. Minimum 1. Flooding an illusion with magic can shatter it - if the weakpoint is found it requires less power.
Difficulty: Variable. Depends on the illusion.
Effects: Shatter an illusion being used on you personally. Can shatter more than one illusion.
School: Mind Magic
Spell: Burst of Light
Cost: 1
Difficulty: Very low (10 DC)
Effects: Creates a blinding burst of light. Can be modified to gain variable costs or directionality. At present creates a unidirectional bright burst of light, not blind enough to blind for more than a second.
School: Directed Energy
Spell: Kinetic Detection
Cost: 2
Difficulty: Moderate (25 DC)
Effects: Detects all kinetic energy below a certain sharpness and above a certain threshold (usually anything with the sharpness of a knife, or anything that is moving above the speed of a sprinting man). Grants perfect awareness of these things in a thirty-metre radius around the caster for ten minutes.
School: Directed Energy
Spell: Thermal Detection
Cost: 2
Difficulty: Moderate (25 DC)
Effects: Detects all thermal energy above a certain threshold and above a certain temperature (usually anything capable of harming a human being). Grants perfect awareness of these things in a two hundred-metre radius around the caster for thirty minutes.
School: Directed Energy
Runes:
[ ] Slumbering Brick (Clay) - Unseen and inactive until the command word is spoken. The rune is engraved on a brick left nearby, and when the word spoken, the brick shatters into a cloud of dust and particulate matter, clouding the air for the better part of a minute. Useful for ambushing enemies or escaping from an unfortunate encounter. Takes 4 Magic Points to charge, requires recharging weekly. DC 40 to craft.
Recipes:
Philter of Awareness: 6 Alyssum flowers grown in magical soil. 1 Rabbit's ear, the fresher the better (dried will reduce duration of effect). Heat rapidly to boiling and allow to cool 23 times. Cooling can be done by Alchemist. Ensure For best results, cook recipe in a copper pan or pot. Duration is approximately 1 minute per 10ml of Philter. Variations: Cook in a bronze pot to reduce potency to 1/5th normal. Cook in an iron (not steel, this will cancel the effect entirely) to increase the effect massively and make it last 1/100th the normal duration.
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