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[Flying Dice]

Edge of the Abyss

The countless spires of Ildhina glow orange in the light of Voror, the primary moon. They descend, widening and thickening, into the earth. Thin lines of polished stone dive into the depths of the Abyss, gradually fading into the rock of the cliffside. In the low-hanging clouds of the Middle Depths, buildings of brick, brass, and wood rise, vast, sprawling towers and roofs shrouded in water vapor. Still lower is the Hive, that vast network of shanties, narrow alleys, hidden courtyards. Level after level, each built with the last as its foundation, descending into the depths of the Abyss. At the very bottom, nearly a kilometer below the clouds, there is the Warren, an immense space formed by the massive support columns of the city above, filled with heaps of scrap and ancient cisterns with vaulted ceilings.

At every level there is life, from the solitary magos in a lofty spine of stone and steel to the feral, desperate scavenger scraping out a meager existence in the heart of the Warren. Ildhina is an old, old place, home to hundreds of generations and still ever-growing. Airships ply the skyways above the Abyss, carrying cargo to other, lesser cities. Small, darting windriders carried through the endless sands of the surface by light sails, bringing exotic spices and metals from lands far away.

Virtually everyone has some magical ability, but only the rare few manage to find the time and funds to train properly, and even fewer possess either enough inherent strength or enough dedication to study to truly master the art. Many have some small scrap of talent for day-to-day use. Rumors persist of some sort of magic cancelling ability found in those far across the great desert, but the average magos completely denies such foolish thoughts.

You are one of the millions that live in Ildhina, true, but who are you? An ambitious apprentice to a magos, hoping one day to rise to true power? A downtrodden worker in the vast hydroponic farms, skin pale after years with only artificial light? A member of the crew of a merchant vessel stopped over for a few days? A wild survivor of the Warren, clad in rags and armed only with your fraying wits? A member of the Watch, trying to avoid thinking about the rampant crime beneath the clouds? Choose, then, and cast yourself to the winds of fate.

Spoiler: Character Sheet (click to show/hide)

Name:
Health: Excellent
Skill: (This is one thing you’ll get a +1 to related rolls in.)
Inventory: One small object of some sort. Clothing is implied.
Age:
Gender:
Description:
Background:

So then. I think I’ve developed things to the point where I know exactly what I need to do to keep from being frustrated on every front. One RTD with lots of man-behind-the-curtain work is enough for me to run. There aren’t going to be many rules here, mainly just standard d6 for actions. I’d like things to work like this: every turn, everyone gets to do one or two cool things. So in other words, do a thing or maybe two if they could be reasonably chained together.

I’m not going to impose hard-and-fast restrictions or anything, but it would be greatly appreciated if people respected that. Nothing kills my interest in a game faster than continually having to deal with attempts to shoehorn ten minutes of pre-scripted action into a single turn, especially if people are doing things to other players and just assuming they’ll get away with it. Also, trying to do patently impossible things. Difficult, yes. Unlikely, yes. Improbable, possibly if you roll really well. Pulling a moon out of the sky from sheer force of will (without being supercharged with divine power or something), no. If you want to try BS like that, it’ll get shut down pretty fast. I like this world and I want people to enjoy playing in it, and I’m more than willing to make it fairly brutal if that’s what it takes to stop That Guying. Thanks ahead of time for not being That Guy.

I’m going to be taking a more descriptive stylistic approach (as opposed to a game-y one), so enjoying RP to some degree will probably be a plus. If you’re only in it for the chance to smash lots of faces in, you probably won’t enjoy this very much.

Spoiler: Rolls (click to show/hide)

1: Critical Failure: Everything that could possibly go wrong can and will.
2: Failure: You screwed up.
3: Minor Failure: Things didn’t quite work out.
4: Minor Success: You probably did okay, but not great.
5: Success: You achieved whatever you were trying to do.
6: Overshoot: You did so well that you screwed something else up.

Six players. I promise this one will keep going, both because it'll scratch a writing itch for me and (hopefully) because it will be fun to run.

Spoiler: Players (click to show/hide)

Greenstarfanatic (Alani Bourne)
Caellath (Eunh Aberdan)
CrimsonEon (Aldyn Glaedus)
kilakan (Jacob Wiles)
Flintus10 (Sarek Tel'Hal)
Tiruin (Tala Alipin)

[Greenstarfanatic]

I'm in. I have yet to successfully go anywhere in any RTD by you.

My sheet will come tonight, though.

EDIT: Here it is!

Spoiler: Character Sheet (click to show/hide)

Name: Alani Bourne
Health: Excellent
Skill: Precision/Accuracy
Inventory: A Golden Stopwatch/Pocketwatch. One device on each side.
Age: 33
Gender: Female
Description: A Time-Keeper for the Middle Depths, Alani looks incredibly old for her age. She has been driven slightly insane by the constant Tick, Tock, Tick of the main clock. She wears dull-coloured clothes and ties her hair back in a bun. 
Background:Alani's father, the previous Time-Keeper, disappeared when she was six years old, and, there being nobody else willing to take the job, little Alani was taught the ropes. She spent years reading up on the different types of clocks, practicing her timing, and even trying out a couple Time Manipulation spells, to no exciting result. One spell made her appear much older than she is, and she is still trying to figure out how to reverse it.
Being in a clock for most of her life, Alani has a mild case of severe insanity, going off on tangents and getting spooked whenever an alarm goes off. She hopes to one day find out what happened to her father, Eric.

[Flying Dice]

Yeah, just a word of warning: I'm generally a nice person, but if I feel that I need to drop some rocks to keep things from being derailed into ALL CAPS FREEFORM RTD LOLOLOL antics, I won't hesitate. I've got a degree of investment in this setting (it was one of several I'd assembled in bare-bones form as potential novel settings), and I am primarily hoping for semi-serious roleplaying rather than powergaming. The funniest and most emotionally moving things tend to happen because of someone playing their character, not because "I push dood off cliff.". 

[Caellath]

Sheet coming. When the heat stops trying to murder me and boil my brain.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Name: Eunh Aberdan
Health: Excellent
Skill: Marksmanship
Inventory: Skinning knife
Age: 20
Gender: Male
Description: 5'10'', with a body built with sleek muscles of someone who values mobility over strength. Short and shaggy brown hair, with light brown eyes and a discreet scar crossing the underline of his cheek, with two larger ones running across the top portion of his nose's bridge.
He wears brown leather pants and a longcoat, with a gray button-up shirt with a hood and leather boots.
Background: Brought to Ildhina aboard a ship from a far away land when he was but an infant, Eunh lived most of his life in the Hive. Since his childhood, his curiousness and propensity to searching for new places started to steer him to a path up to the point he turned into a hunter, taking down animals that competed with humans for the scarce food in the lower reaches.

His last hunt was less than perfect, as he lost his weapon when he was ambushed by one of the larger game. As a result, he also received fresh scars before killing the animal, skinning it and wearing part of its fur on his clothing.

[CrimsonEon]

I'm game, give me a minute to get a sheet up

EDIT: And here it is

Spoiler: Charsheet (click to show/hide)

Name: Aldyn Glaedus
Health: Excellent
Skill: Perception
Inventory: Small Knife
Age: 22
Gender: Male
Description: Standing at an average 5'10", Aldyn is well built from his years spent working in physical labor. His face is fair with plain brown eyes, and his hair short and cropped, colored black.

Background: Having spent most of his life in the Middle Depths of Ildhina working the hydroponic farms with his father and younger brother, Aldyn has built a strong sense of pride and esteem in the struggle of the common man. However, his family ran a very stressful alliance with a group of criminals, allowing them to extend their operations higher into Ildhina.

After years of tension, Aldyn's father had grown tired of the criminals and threatened to sever ties. In a panic, Aldyn's younger brother sided with the criminals and killed their father. Aldyn was invited to the group, but ultimately his consience held out and he fled to seek sanctuary in the Watch. Fortunately he found protection, at the cost of serving as a guard for the watch. His work now takes a day-to-day toll on him, both from the risk that he may run into his brother again, and stress from his constant wonderings if he had made the right choice.

Let me know if that fits alright into your setting

[anailater]

Reserve, sheet tomorrow.

[kilakan]

This seems incredibly cool and full of opportunity, IN

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Name: Jacob Wiles
Health: Excellent
Skill: Skulduggery
Inventory: Multi-Tool (serves as basic screw-driver, knife, scissors, lockpick, ect, worse then any one item but multi-functional)
Age:19
Gender: Male
Description: A fairly unnoticeable man, plain face with dark blue eyes and shocks of curled blond hair and short beard.  Slightly larger then the normal person a mixture of muscle and fat overlaps his body but neither impedes him nor excessively adds noticeable strength.  Perhaps the only discerning feature of him is his behavior, seeking to always sit in corners of public places and tending to watch people and doors intently.  While he seems to avoid any direct conversations with people he is completely capable of carrying on normal conversations and always has a smile and cheerful yet guarded behavior.
Background: Growing up in an excessively crowded place is problem enough without the combined issues of having paranoia and guarded attitudes drilled into you by a emotionally detached father.  His only evidence of love in his family growing up came from the apparent efforts of his father and older brother's constant training and teaching about the darker ways of the world.  Seeking solace from their depressing and often aggressive lessons he withdrew from many people and cultivated a great love of being alone.  This emotionally devoid upbringing taught him that no matter how bad you currently are, it could be worse and as such Jacob is eternally optimistic about his prospects and at the least, content even in the worse situations.  Yet one could not achieve anything by themselves in such a populated world so after finishing his father and brothers impromptu 'school' in the common knowledge and ways of the not-quite-lawful, he has set out to carve a path in this world for himself and as of his current demeanor himself only.

[mesor]

Name : Lucian Wang.
Health : Excellent.
Skill : Electrical based magic ( Shock , Lightning and such ).
Inventory : Small book of electrical based spells.
Age : 27
Gender : Male
Description : 6 Ft tall and very broad. Wiry muscles deceptively strong. Long red hair. Dark red eyes. He was a quiet child and became a quiet man always more interested in he's work and honing hes skills then in socializing with people.
Background : As a young child he was shocked many times over by electric currents and as he grew he came to find that he had a higher then average ability to control spells using this kind of energy. He served a magos for a time hoping to learn and for a while he did but he found the magos had disturbing views of hes place in the world and so fled from him and joint the watch hoping to put what he knew to good use protecting the people below and to this day still believes in that cause.

[CrimsonEon]

Character sheet done, edited into my first post.

[Maxinum McDreich]

PTW, since by the time I can get my act together (daaays), the slots would have all been taken. I always enjoy a more serious RTD

[Flying Dice]

Let me know if that fits alright into your setting

Looks great. 

PTW, since by the time I can get my act together (daaays), the slots would have all been taken. I always enjoy a more serious RTD

There's still a slot open if you want to reserve it. 

(People who end up on my ignore list are going to have trouble playing, for obvious reasons.)

[Maxinum McDreich]

Nah. Someone will come along and get it done quicker. I could be days with both rl taking a little more time right now. I can't even get my head straight to read the premise properly, and the next time I'll read it will be 14 hours, since it's half 11 pm where I am right now.

[Flying Dice]

Heh, there're only two actual sheets in. I'm perfectly willing to let it be first-come first-served. But if you really don't want to. :|

[mesor]

I did try to send you a message to say sorry for how i was acting a few times but meh ok your call.

[Flintus10]

Done, if anything doesn't make sense lore-wise feel free to mention it.

Spoiler: Character (click to show/hide)

Name: Sarek Tel'Hal
Health: Excellent
Skill: Charismatic
Inventory: Smoke bombs (How ever many you deem appropriate.)
Age: 25
Gender: Male

Description: Standing tall at about 6'3 Sarek makes sure that he is constantly kept looking clean and in expensive flamboyant clothing. His blond hair is always slicked back and crowds can always see his shiny green eyes. Sarek is rarely seen without a wide grin across his face.

Background:Sarek was born wealthy and was often given whatever material goods he wanted as a child, however there was one thing he desired more than anything else that his family could not provide him and that was excellent magical ability. Of course as he grew up with training and a number of tutors Sarek's magic is still better than the majority of citizens (especially in the lower reaches of Ildhina) but he was never going to reach the levels he aspired to.

This was a source of great depression for a teenage Sarek in particular as he saw his friends become better than him and apprentice to magos who merely laughed at his attempts. As he became more and more disinterested in life Sarek found himself spending more time in the Hive and other lower reaches of Ildihna. It was here he  met a strange man who interested the young teenager. This man was no more talented in magic than Sarek but had discovered a way to use his ability along with showmanship and cheap tricks to gather great audiences and captivate citizens of poorer areas.

After a few days of pestering the man Sarek was finally taken on as an apprentice and though his parents greatly disapproved to the point where they cut his access to the family's vast wealth, he had learned all the tricks he needed to con the lower citizens out of their hard earned money. Though this money was secondary to Sarek as he reveled in the attention and admiration of his audiences.