~IC Thread~
Well, I've decided to run an RP focused, relatively freeform game to test out a setting. It takes place in one of those pseudo-medieval fantasy worlds, except with much higher technological levels. Plus all of the deities are eldritch abominations. As for what actually happens, that will be up for the players to decide since this is more of a setting test than a gameplay test.
Also, terms that are specifically pertains to religion won't exist in this world since no one actually worships the deities. For example, the word "church" doesn't exist as it is a predominantly christian word while the concept of a succubus would still exist since it pertains more to an entity than its religious justification.
Magic is common, especially healing magic though military-grade magic is less proliferated. Healing spells read their target's DNA, so they can not heal something that is genetic.
Should combat actually happen, I'll update in the relevant stats, damage system and respawn system.
The subtle floral scents of mid-late spring slowly scatter through the air this early
Tetradius morning as a flock of
demons lazily glide across the city in a vague holding pattern, their sharp angular forms meaninglessly contrasting the elegantly curving underside of
Itova. The normally busy bridges were deserted, the connecting street segments desolate and the aerial paths abandoned. Cacophony of mechanical rumbles and clicking begins to echo through the city, as the peripheral modules of the floating structure slowly detach and gently drift away from the Itova's usual, broad holding pattern. Incrementally accelerating, the peripherals maneuvered into formation, at their currently relaxed pace, they shall descend unto the Agaean Sea within the next few hours.
Spire-like terminals erupt from wide silo-like structures, activating with near palpable pulses of energy. The familiar visual warping and the softly luminous colored light of ethereal magic gathers through the entities.
Souls capriciously fade in and out around their glowing edifices, casting a gentle glow around the surrounding area.
Link established.
Border travel is now active, doubtlessly it will be used quite frequently in the following months. Hopefully. The civil war in the few outer Agaea provinces hasn't quite finished yet, though the two involved factions have made the affair rather internecine plus the government has managed to keep it from spilling over too much. Of course, even if that matter was in its dying throes (and it almost definitely is), people are understandably cautious about loitering around the territorial waters of
Agaea lest Itova get attacked. Of course, getting attacked isn't a very likely risk,
Liburum is more or less neutral and has been for the past century or so. Unless someone has a deathwish and wants to test out Merrinae's patience, the chances of actual conflict is rather low. But just to be sure and keep confidence up,
Dragoons have been deployed around the descending modules.
Celtegar: The guardian of the innocents, Celtegar is the only deity to currently possess a religious institution dedicated to it, the aptly named Para-Governmental Association of Celtegar. It is associated with law, lightning, white camellias and deception.
Merrinae: The enigmatic creator of the afterlife, Merrinae is a relatively neutral entity that has had little to no direct involvement in human affairs, she is only aligned with neutral nations. She is associated with economics, mercury, red spider lilies and deterrence.
Sumizome: Undoubtedly the most malicious deity, Sumizome is both capricious and dangerous, whimsically annihilating random creatures and creating spectacular utilities on a regular basis. He is associated with love, shadows, cherry blossoms and localized omnicide.
Theurgy: By summoning the stored power of a deity, limited manipulation of reality becomes possible. Usually, the effects are related to the deity's affinity. These spells generally distort reality to an extent that is significantly greater than other magic types, often ignoring even some of the most fundamental principles of physics.
Tangible: Distortions to water creates ripples and waves, if the water is flash frozen, the wave structure is maintained allowing some of the initial distortion to be consolidated. Magic is essentially the distortion of reality itself. Thus, it can be consolidated into various physical manifestations. The physical properties of these manifestations affect the properties of the magic.
Ethereal: The fluctuations of life can generate distortions. By amplifying these fluctuations, the properties of souls can be utilized to achieve limited control over the border of life. The ethereal nature of such spells allows them to phase in and out of reality as well as allowing limited amounts of spell containment and dimensional distortion.
Recurrent: All magic leaves behind a temporary residue of the power and intent that generated it, similar to an echo. By focusing such "echoes" of intent similar to the caster's own motives, the energy distortions can constructively interfere into an observable force. As the characteristics of the magic leave no residue, the refocused energy has no specific category.
Swords: A relatively primitive yet balanced and reliable weapon. Swords act as conduits between enemies and the offensive systems of their user. With each strike, localized distortions ripple through the blade allowing it to slice through objects with its supernatural cutting power. The high density and low surface-area to volume ratio of these weapons make them excellent vessels for enchantments, resulting in the seemingly innocuous pieces of equipment gaining spectacular combat capabilities.
Knives: Similar to swords in design principle and purpose, military grade knives are designed with versatility in mind. All knives used by armed forces have integrated enchantments that allow them to be reliably thrown. Additionally, their relatively small size and simple composition allows them to generated via fabrication systems, thus allowing them to be thrown without disarming their user. Their smaller size makes them less efficient than swords at conducting offensive systems.
Bows: Bows are the only ranged weapons that are capable of utilizing and conducting offensive systems. They fire arrows, which have integrated enchantments to reduce weight and temporarily host offensive systems. Their ballistic trajectory and stealthy nature can be a valuable in certain situations that require such traits. They possess a decent enchantment capacity as well due to the relatively large size of their arrows.
Staves: Staves generate semi-directed electromagnetic pulses using powerful onboard generators, the actual impact of a staff strike deals minor damage but the main damage potential of these weapons originates from the intense electrical surges generated around the targets. The generators are quite efficient but still need time to recharge thus reducing the attack rate. Systems are disrupted with each hit, progressively reducing the combat efficiency of hostiles hit by these weapons thus making them excellent choices for attrition and guerrilla warfare.
Rapiers: Essentially portable constructs, rapiers consist of a hilt and blade pieces, normally, the blade pieces arrange themselves into a sword but when required, the pieces can reassemble themselves into a shield unit. In order to prevent the pieces from flying off, magical power must be used to lock in the pieces when attacking or defending. These weapons can quickly contort their form to help bypass defensive measures. However, the shards used by these weapons exist as independent entities, hence they are less efficient at conducting offensive systems and carrying enchantments compared to swords.
Garroting Wire: A weapon popular with intelligence and black-operations units. A gauntlet unit generates and deploys a razor-sharp, enchanted monofilament. Although inert by itself, even the slightest amount of force applied to it will cause it to contract. The wires can be used to ensnare enemies or to set up traps. The wires can be easily modified with Tangible-grade magic and the gauntlet with Ethereal magic. Theurgy may be used to enhance the weapon's overall function and the wire can be linked to throwing knives.
Rail-guns: These weapons utilize electromagnetic forces to accelerate bullets with high masses. Such systems have immense recoil, as a result, high rates of fire would be pointless. Instead, manufacturers design them to be more compact while maintain the capability to fire projectiles at velocities that armor enchantments cannot stop. This is the principle virtually all modern rail-guns utilize, they are compact enough to be aimed quickly and fire dense, high-velocity projectiles. They tend to be single shot and use some of their recoil open their breach thus allowing quicker reloads. Bullets only have a small fraction of the enchantment payloads arrows have, as they are significantly smaller, however, they have much higher velocities and negligible bullet drop.
Dissolution Spears: Initially existing as heavy modifications to rail-guns, dissolution spears have recently mass production for their unique traits. They use a "starter unit" to extract souls from the afterlife by opening a polarized rift. The electrified rails force the immaterial rift forwards through whatever is in its path. Although the rift itself is harmless, the implosion that occurs when the released souls rush back into the closing rift is quite devastating. Despite far being inferior in projectile speed and range when compared to other equivalent weapon systems, the lance of energy can go straight through anything within range without any performance loss as well. Additionally, the souls released give the entire beam an area of effect ensuring that a direct hit is absolutely devastating.
Amplifier Rifles: Unlike any other form of directed energy weapon, amplifier rifles do not fire any lethal projectiles at all. Instead, it sends out series of echoes that rebound inside a cylindrical area to form a beam. These echoes constructively interfere with any spell signatures in the aperture of the beam, any magic recently used in the region will be amplified beyond the point of control thus causing explosions at the epicenters of each echo. This weapon does not require much magic power to fire at all, as it does not cause any tangible effects unless it interacts with other spells. It has the widest aperture of any directed energy weapon.
Pulse Blades: Developed very early in the past, thermonuclear weapons have never been used in combat until recently. While they possess incredible destructive power, this raw, undirected power was too indiscriminate to be practical and thus they would leave the areas they were used in devoid of resources. As this would not result in any real gain regardless of what context they were used in, there has not been much progress in this field of study. However, recent advances in magic have resulted in the invention of shield generators that can redirect extremely low yield explosions into a lance of shearing heat. Pulse-blades harness these devices as their primary firing mechanism to devastating effect. Studies have shown that objects with high heat and stress tolerance can be propelled by the pulse thus increasing the system's effective range.
Dragonslayers: These portable artillery pieces are large railcannons designed to be used to destroy heavily armored constructs, they fire via their super-conducting rails in three-round bursts, emptying their entire magazine in a single burst with extreme accuracy. Most of the weapon is manifested from the border of life upon activation, this allows the weapon to be lightweight and compact when not used, additionally, this property allows the weapon to lock itself when firing to mitigate the otherwise colossal recoil across the entire border of life. Usually they deactivate after each volley for a period of time to recharge their recoil-suppression systems. These weapons deal massive damage upon impact but have very slow rates of fire when not overloaded. Magic regeneration is reduced while the weapon is deployed as the anti-gravity mechanisms and form continuation constantly sap power.
Automatics: Automatic firearms are relatively unconventional weapons due to the nature of their operation. The low mass of their bullets severely hamper their ability to even hit armored units due to the standard armor enchantments that rapidly decelerate such projectiles. In order to counteract this glaring issue, automatics fire specialized bullets that act as conduits between the armor and the external environment, causing the protective systems to leak out and affect the surrounding air for a split second. The surrounding air will be decelerated and rapidly cooled thus mitigating the enchantment, the integrated enchantments then allow the bullet to deal minor damage to the target. Automatic weapons have significantly larger magazines than any other weapon and are all equipped with under-barrel field projection units that can project a distortion blade for melee combat. These weapons have high rates of fire and are stealthier than most other options, however they are the weakest ranged weapon in terms of damage per shot.
Armor is generally only used by military units and hosts the various systems used by their wearers.
Offensive Systems: Without an offensive system, weapons such as swords or bows would be about as effective against another target as a butterknife. Actually, on second thought, a butterknife is probably more useful since you could always plead insanity when you get inevitably detained.
Defensive Systems: The shielding and countermeasure systems of the armor. Shielding automatically mitigates damage as long as it has enough magic in the system, countermeasures are user activated components used to avoid getting hit.
Medical Systems: When an offensive system breaches an armor's defensive system. The person hit will invariably die. Medical systems don't stop that. Instead They revive their user before their consciousness is ejected for their body. As long as it has enough input, it will prevent its user from dying for more than a split second.
Fabricators: Armor mounted units that magically synthesize ammunition used by the wearer's weapons. They work in tandem with weapon systems, utilizing a propulsive pulse to launch ammunition into place as soon as the spent ammunition is purged.
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Topic: Bloodlines - OOC/Signup Thread (Read 4570 times)