Vorstallen Magic Preparatory - The Third-Best School for Young Mages in the Nation! Enrol Today!

Those who can, do. Those who can't, teach. Even if the Genius choice has an abysmal Channeling stat, it doesn't mean that we can't excel in other fields, especially theoretical ones.

Maybe we could go down the path of a magical researcher, or a teacher, or a guy who creates spells though he could never use them personally.
 
Those who can, do. Those who can't, teach. Even if the Genius choice has an abysmal Channeling stat, it doesn't mean that we can't excel in other fields, especially theoretical ones.

Maybe we could go down the path of a magical researcher, or a teacher, or a guy who creates spells though he could never use them personally.

This is largely true - high Int means you can do a lot of theoretical spellwork. You can also devise and use really low-powered spells and apply them in interesting ways. If you manage to acquire a magical artifact that allows you to put magic into it, you can hire other wizards to charge it up and use that, though it's an expensive option (artifacts aren't cheap or easy to get gain).

That being said, the best way to practice spells is to cast them, so the Genius has to decide to either only practice very low-magic spells if he wants to be good at them, or sacrifice a lot of practice potential to get a few combat spells under his belt. The payoff is that with good Charisma and Intelligence you can get others to do a lot of the casting for you. It does make your personal power pretty low, though.

[X] Narubar, the greatest nation in the Six-Fox Pact.
[X] Famed Warrior


Interesting story, diplomacy bonus for being a hero, no teenage hormones and good potential.
It would be cool to play older wiser character for once, and if we cure our crippled status we could pull a hidden dragon.

The Famed Warrior is also a really strong choice, especially in the long run. While your low Phys stat means your combat is always going to be somewhat gimped, high Willpower and high Channeling mean you have both the means and the desire to practice spells all day long. Your grasp on theory may be average at best, but in terms of learning and repeating spells you'll be more-or-less without peer. Low Int means you're going to be using your Cha to get people to teach you neat spells, you're not going to be forging artifacts or creating new spells. The Warrior suffers (ironically) as a combat mage, but can be an extraordinary spellcaster otherwise.

I'm also going to try and figure out how the automated votecounter works, so if I post anything weird and numerical assume I'm just learning the ropes.
 
[X] Vorstal, the city itself.
[X] The Five Families, Country Cousin
 
One nice benefit i just noticed for 'Country Cousin'- in this system you can use a related skill at half the normal effect in substitution for the normal skill so long as it makes sense. That +20 to Accounting may or may not be great in itself depending on the situation, but it also means that the character would have a hefty bonus of +10 in a lot of situations where knowledge of business or math applies.

That cover a fair amount of surprisingly relevant ground. I wouldn't be surprised if it applies both to haggling with either a shopowner for magical supplies or a spirit for services, and to doing the math for some of the more complex spells and ritual circles.

Vorstal itself also seems a city obsessed with trade and wealth, so business concerns may come up quite often, even moreso if we push it- we could duel a hated rival for prestige, but if we want to ruin them investigating their family's business and sending a few anonymous letters to certain parties and arrange an audit might be much more devastatingly effective.
 
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Lore Post: Aginara Fountaindance & Melody Killwhisper
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.
 
[X] The Undying Empire, greatest empire of the world, once covering the entire continent of Afakal, ruled by the eternal King of Bones.

[X] Necromancer's Bargain
 
@occipitallobe Just curious, but I wondered if you took any inspiration for this setting from the game Academagia? It's been around for years but was re-released on Steam just a week or two ago, and it's also about a boarding school for mages, so I wondered if that prompted you somehow.
 
@occipitallobe Just curious, but I wondered if you took any inspiration for this setting from the game Academagia? It's been around for years but was re-released on Steam just a week or two ago, and it's also about a boarding school for mages, so I wondered if that prompted you somehow.

Yeah, I was a big fan of Academagia about, oh, four or five years ago. Got into it in a big way, though I'll admit I haven't played it for quite some time. I've been kicking something similar to this setting around for awhile, but I haven't been able to get it down on paper in any real way. It was actually Rihaku's new quest that prompted me - I was a big fan of the one before the last one (the one with Odyssial), registered this account to post in the Terrascape thread, and then I logged back for the first time in quite awhile in to post in the Simple Transaction. My use of colours and formatting is pretty much inspired by the way he does things.

When Academagia came out I thought that I'd love to play the game again (but to be honest going through the interface again sounds like hell, I recall it being absurdly clunky and opaque), but then I figured I could sort of merge my writer's block with my desire to do something magic-academy related. I noted all the cool quest-related features the forum had and figured I'd give it a shot.
 
Lore Post: The Imperial Class System
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.
 
So.. it's possible for Necromancer's Bargain to suddenly and inexplicably get 5 Channeling cause their master died?

That would be hilarious.
 
@occipitallobe
Would this be okay? (I know it's pretty late for a new write-in, but eh)

[X] Crakon, one of the minor nations in the Saint's Archipelago
[X] Cultist

Dunnsmouth is a remote little fishing town with a dark secret. The kind of place where the locals look just a little...off, and it's few visitors always seem to disappear into the mist, never to be seen again.
The people of this town worship ancient things, monsters from the deeps that have been long-forgotten elsewhere.
Your mother was the leader of one of these cults, and she received the honour of being impregnated with her patron's seed (according to her he was "quite handsome, despite the mouths and the tentacles").
The cult raised you since birth, teaching you about maddening secrets and rituals, and generally trying to raise you into the ideal pawn of your Father's. Even if your mother's influence gave you a bit more freedom than most.
Now it seems your Mother can teach you no more. And because the Old One's Heir must expand his magical power. (and because nepotism is a thing even in ancient doom-cults) they have decided to send you to Vorstal. The whole cult has skimped and saved for years to get you enrolled in the college. And they have told you in no uncertain terms that they expect you to be worth the investment. Or else the results might be...unpleasant.

Stats - 4 Intelligence, 3 Channeling, 5 Willpower, 2 Charisma, 1 Physical Ability
+ 10 Lore: Demonology, all spells involving water cost slightly less

Gain Trait: Not Quite Human (Something's...off about you. Maybe it's the webbed hands, or maybe it's the slight greenish tinge on your skin. Or maybe it's the tiny changes that seem to appear and disappear from your body whenever they aren't looking. Whatever it is, it's a constant reminder of your Father's influence, and it freaks people out. Apart from the Undying Empire. for some reason they just seem to think you're a really clever zombie. -5 to all relations except those with Cult members the Undying Empire. Random chance of benefitial mutations.)
Gain Trait: Cult Service (The Cult pays your way. They may ask you do things from time to time. Refusal could see these payments revoked and could lead to uncertain consequences).
Starting age 16.
 
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@PotentialPlateau

Sure thing! I'll put it in a threadmark for the moment so people can see it as an additional voting option.

So.. it's possible for Necromancer's Bargain to suddenly and inexplicably get 5 Channeling cause their master died?

That would be hilarious.

Technically, yes. But any necromancer who can absorb that sort of power is likely to hole up in their laboratory surrounded by defensive runes, wearing a brace of protective artifacts and generally trying to leverage their newfound power into eternal life. There's a very small chance each month he dies, but paranoia is the Empire's national trait. Without player intervention of some sort (not necessarily direct), they'll remain at 1 Channeling for the entirety of the quest.
 
Technically, yes. But any necromancer who can absorb that sort of power is likely to hole up in their laboratory surrounded by defensive runes, wearing a brace of protective artifacts and generally trying to leverage their newfound power into eternal life. There's a very small chance each month he dies, but paranoia is the Empire's national trait. Without player intervention of some sort (not necessarily direct), they'll remain at 1 Channeling for the entirety of the quest.
This is an interesting objective we could go for. Gives direction on the actions we'll take.

Also, 20 Attribute Array. Hmm. Conflicted.

[X] The Undying Empire, greatest empire of the world, once covering the entire continent of Afakal, ruled by the eternal King of Bones.
[X] Necromancer's Bargain
 
[X] Crakon, one of the minor nations in the Saint's Archipelago
[X] Cultist

Demon cult. Excellent.
 
Inserted tally
Adhoc vote count started by occipitallobe on May 5, 2017 at 2:39 AM, finished with 44 posts and 21 votes.
 
So here's the current tally - cultist and Scion of a Fallen Lich are a bit behind, while Necromancer's Bargain and Country Cousin are neck-and-neck, with Genius Student breathing down said necks. Rather than draw the vote out indefinitely, it'll finish in two hours (twenty four since the opening of the thread), so any votes now are pretty pivotal!
 
So we're tied between Country Cousin and Necromancer's Bargain. As such, the first of these two to six votes will win (or if something else somehow gets to six votes). Essentially, the next person to cast a vote between these two has the casting vote.
 
0.1 : Prologue and Introduction
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.
 
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