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[Terenos]

Gather round friends and newcomers! Take a seat and warm yourselves by the fire. Tonight you and I are going to tell a story. A tale of cunning, black magic, strength of arms and will. A tale where the diabolical cabal seizes power, and undoes the work of generations.

Taking lessons learned from Dark Magi, You Are King, Inquisition, and a few other sources I present to you, The Cabal. A fairly open-ended game about being the Bad Guys, seizing control, and in the end well...We'll see what happens eh?

Things you will need to vote on:

Time frame
Rise, Apex, or Fall.
Is this the Rise of the Cabal, wherein we tell the story of its fumbling first steps. This will offer greater control over the foundation of the Cabal, its strengths and weaknesses.
Is this the Apex of the Cabal? Are you about to strike? To test your mettle as commanders and planners, to snatch victory from the forces of the Light, or fall in infamy? Prepare yourself for a fight, you may be the only way for the Cabal to claim victory.
Is this After the Fall? You are on the run, hiding, rebuilding your strength to strike again, changing your focus and fleeing outright? Where will you end up?

Goals of the Cabal
Modest, Grand, Legendary
Modest goals, a safe place, no one to threaten you as you delve into the 'darker' arts. Not having to live in fear of the whole world and their revulsion of the black magic at your command.
Grand goals, a country...Nay! An empire must bend sway to your whims. You shall stand astride a colossus and dictate policy for centuries to come.

Legendary, Your names will go down in history for your deeds and even should you die those who speak of you will do so in hushed tones. Not just a country, not just an empire but the World will know you.
And they will tremble in fear.

Or I suppose if you have better ideas you may add them in.

Location of the players

It goes without saying that the Cabal has infiltrated much of the kingdom of Verania. However, our story will follow a select few members. It is of course your choice where these members begin their journey.
The Capital, the Interior, the Outskirts, the Wild Borderlands.

The Capital: And here we shift our focus to the twisted roots of the cabal, that have penetrated even the most zealously guarded city of them all, here within good king Veran's demense itself, the Capital. All walks of life are represented here, and the guards are alert if not especially adept at combat.

The Interior. Or perhaps we shall focus on the Interior, a land of peace and plenty, governed by fat nobles and wealthy merchants. Where the lands prosperity is truly on display. One could even call these people somewhat soft.

The Outskirts: Ah you wish to hear about The Outskirts, a land of farms and somewhat isolated communities, still tethered to the interior by a well maintained set of roads. There is little to say about the Outskirts, there are plentiful fields, vast forests, happy people, and a stable defensive perimeter between the kingdom and what lies beyond.

The Wild Borders: A mostly lawless place, the settlements are walled and fiercely defended. What resources come from here come under heavy guard. The people of this place are rugged survivors determined to push the borders of Verania even further into the uncharted wilderness. The light of civilization is faint here, and could be a good place for those who wish to go unnoticed.

Headquarters
Do choose 2 of the following things you wish the HQ to have.
Defensible Position, Unknown Location, Multiple Exits, Room for Expansion, A Certain History (Do detail this!), Untapped Resources, Special Fauna

And of course.. Who Are You?
Your character in this story is quite important, who they are, where they come from, how did the Cabal get their hooks into you (Or you can leave that up to me). Your backstory will influence starting skills, equipment and possibly any boons you might gain as a result of the life you lived. Do note that any path is available to you. You could be a mage, or a soldier. A smith or an innkeeper. Whatever you choose.

Things you may want to know for choosing your character:
The story takes place in Verania, so chosen because what some men build, others covet.

Wild Races are so deemed due to their decision to just tell humanity to essentially fuck off. With swords, sorcery, magical barriers. No contact, no trade.
Non wild races include Humans, Dwarves to an extent, gnomes. (More here later, potentially)
Semi-wild races include Wood and Ocean elves, lizardfolk, orcs, gnolls. (More here later, potentially)
Wild races include whats left. Ogres, Trolls. Goblins, Hobgoblins, the other Elven breeds.

While you can have a wild-race character, there needs to be a good reason for said character to be within Verania. And your presence may make things difficult, as you'd draw increased scrutiny simply because 'I've never seen one of your kind before'

[Terenos]

Post reserved for stuff.

Magic and Things
-----------------
Necromancy
The school of necromancy governs life, its ebb and flow. You can use it to give a twisted mockery of life to the dead, or possibly save others from death/revive them in time.

Healing
The school of Healing governs life, its ebb and flow. You can use it to heal the sick, mend bones and close wounds. Perhaps with great strength you could revive the dead.

Elementalism
The school of Elemental magic is the use of the elements for various purposes. Fire, Air, Earth and Water (though mostly in the form of ice.). Fireballs, cone of cold, levitation and farsight, so forth. Elemental magic is often used for combat purposes.

Wards
Wards are a subset of magical fields that govern your ability to use that field to lay traps and defenses (Generally against that energy or its direct opposition). For example one could ward against necromancy and be somewhat proof against its effects and the effects of (DATA REDACTED!).

Game Mechanics and Suchwise.
-----------------
Favor is a currency within the Cabal. Its effects will be detailed as time goes on. Its most passive effect is asking for resources to complete a task or mission, and getting them.

Wealth Tokens An abstract form of currency which can be used for basically anything money can be used for. It is generally large scales of wealth. So you wont find too many times where you're buying a loaf of bread for 1 wealth token, rather you'd be outfitting a team of 20 for 2 weeks sort of thing.

[Azthor]

Time frame: Rise.

Ambition: Legendary.

Location: Capital.
- A Certain History: Catacombs.
- A Place Unknown.

Character: William 'Maldarion' Fenick Ovendvhrall

Background: William is a renowned scholar of the Cair, a mage of some recognition among his peers for his extensive research on the theoretical trappings of the arcane, and, most of all, a man of peerless curiosity; unhealthily so, some would say. Born to lesser nobility, though William's childhood was not one of boundless wealth, tutors and tomes were in no shortage, and ever present part of it; it came as little surprise to his father that, years later, William would choose to join the Cair rather than manage the small lot of which consisted the family lands; given his background, and no small measure of talent, it was with equally little surprise that new of his successful entrance were received.

Applying himself first to the general arts and further incursions into mathematics, history and other mundane scholarly fields, as is usual with an initiate, it was, however, the craft - or, as others would insist on, art - of magic that came to intrigue and perplex him first and foremost, vaguely introduced to its formal practice as he had been at the time. Interested, as he advanced within the Cair, his focus shifted more and more towards the arcane, until the time came he could truly and genuinely be called a mage.

Pouring over tome after tome, exploring the odd, halfway raided, ruin in the kingdom's outskirts, William slowly came to the realization that magic as was studied seemed incomplete; there was always a gap between a practice and another that made any and every attempt at an unified theory impossible; a particularly fortunate haul from the outskirts, however, bought from a digger that did not know any better, revealed a clue as to the missing links; other schools of magic, only vaguely referenced in the Cair's tomes, and yet, it was clear, as much a part of magic as any of the formally accepted practices.

Those practices piled together under the forbidden knowledge, and those he had studied to date, they were one and the same in their fundamental nature. Resolving to learn more (...).

[IronyOwl]

Time frame
1 Rise
Apex
Fall

Goals of the Cabal
Modest
Grand
1 Legendary

Location of the players
1 The Capital
The Interior
The Outskirts
The Wild Borderlands

Headquarters
Defensible Position
1 Unknown Location
1 Multiple Exits
Room for Expansion
A Certain History (Do detail this!)
Untapped Resources
Special Fauna

Veila Plumbranch is a thin, somewhat sinister-looking young human woman with long black hair and green eyes. She's a minor noble, the daughter of a brutal inquisitor and a corrupting witch, and managed to acquire the arrogance and cruelty of both. The Cabal found her easy and convenient to recruit, as she was already dead set on wielding her status and influence as a cudgel, yet lacked any particular mission with said power. She still doesn't have a particular goal, but that's because now she knows she can have everything.

[Patrick Hunt]

Reserved.

+1 Rise.
+1 Legendary.
+1 Capital.
+1 Unknown Location.
+1 room to expand.

Harvold Stormdran is a lean handsome elfen male with bright blond hair and a fair complexion.

Harvold grew up rough bouncing around abandoned buildings and the occasional home of people who were away, he survived on his ability to read people and persuade, bluff or trick them into supporting him as well as a keen mind for details and investigation allowing him to pick the right people and the right jobs identifying the obstacles and the skill needed to overcome them.
As he got older and more experienced he used this skill to pick up people with useful talents to carry out jobs for him before splitting up to avoid any law enforcement who may have been hunting for them and occasionally took jobs as a middle man organizing jobs and recruiting the crews to pull off whatever his employer hired him to accomplish.
These particular skill led to his recruiting into the Cabal as a talent scout and planning consultant devoting his skills to finding the more skilled members of the shadowier side of society to recruit into the Cabal, organizing jobs to bring in funding or further the Cabal's goals and carrying out negotiations on it's behalf under the guise of a hired middle man.

Harvold is completely unaware of the fact that his seemingly natural ability to deal with people is in fact the first sign of an innate ability to infiltrate the minds of those around him and bend them to his will either through subtle means leaving them believing they made the choice for themselves or to simply force them to obey him.

[Nirur Torir]

+1 Rise
+1 Legendary
+1 Interior
+1 Room for Expansion
+1 Special Fauna

Time frame
1 Rise
Apex
Fall

Goals of the Cabal
Modest
Grand
2 Legendary

Location of the players
1 The Capital
1 The Interior
The Outskirts
The Wild Borderlands

Headquarters
Defensible Position
1 Unknown Location
1 Multiple Exits
1 Room for Expansion
A Certain History (Do detail this!)
Untapped Resources
1 Special Fauna

Gerl Lightshade (formerly Lightshine) is a disinherited human noble. His father, the duke of Stonesmith's Hold, is pious and righteous, with a good head for military matters, but otherwise mildly incompetent. Gerl was always interested in magic, particularly long term enchantments and alchemy, and from a young age had a wizard tutor. When his mentor claimed that dark magic was banned because of a corrupting influence on the mind, Gerl took it as a personal challenge, and soon made contact with a black market dealer working for the cult. When his darker dabbling was discovered, he was cast out and sent to join the army, under close watch.

With the cult's help, he escaped before reaching the front. He sees himself as a scholar and a pro-humanist. His goals are to continue studying any magic he wants, and to gain access to forbidden knowledge and artifacts. He'd kinda like to hold lands again, too - living like a commoner is distinctly unpleasant. He is chivalrous towards humans, but disdains the "lower races."

[Tomcost]

+1 Rise.
+1 Legendary.
+1 Capital.
+1 Unknown location.
+1 Room for expansion.

Grash Peebleram has an odd story for a gnoll. A thirst for knowledge leaded him to make contact with the wood elves when he was but a teenager. Oddly enough, and despite the incipient racism of Grash's tribe, the elves proved to be friendly, and soon Grash found himself visiting them frequently. He wanted to learn many things. The secrets to magic were some of them. His tribe eventually found of his visits to the elves, an incident from which he managed to escape alive, but at the cost of banishment from his tribe. The elves welcomed him, considering him not as foolish as his relatives. But the incident had changed him. He insisted to be instructed into the darker aspects of magic. The negatives from the elves only encouraged him to try to research things on his own. And the cycle repeated itself again, this time banishment coming from those who sheltered him in his worse moments.

Fools. All of them were fools. He will show them, all of them at some point. His new friends at the Cabal helped his to learn the secrets that others thought to be forbidden. The world is full of ignorant and petty people. Grash is not one of them. They had banished him twice. Now he will be the one to banish them from existence. Or better, enslave their souls for all eternity.

((What kinds of magic are in the game?))

[Deep Waters]

+1 Rise
+1 Legendary
+1 Capital
+1 Unknown Location
+1 Room for Expansion

<As Finished As It's Ever Going To Be>

Name: Muirgen Frostbrand
Description: A human woman of approximately thirty years of age, Muirgen is a tall, statuesque woman, with a distinctly feminine shape despite her athletic musculature. She has heavily-tanned skin, shaggy hair the color of vine charcoal, and heterochromatic eyes that gleam like two pieces of rough, discolored jade. Webbed across the left side of her face is a white scar, spreading in a branched pattern like winter frost on a window from her temple, over her cheek, and down her neck.

Spoiler: Childhood (click to show/hide)

Muirgen was born in a remote settlement in the frontier borderlands named Dintagel, to a poor farmer, Uthyr Pegnon, and his wife, Eigyr Pegnon. She and her twin brother, Artgur, were the latest of seven children-- and the last, as her mother died in their birth. Her father and oldest siblings were always busy in the fields; thus, the task of raising most of the youths was left to her uncle, Merrdyn.

A decorated war hero of the King's Army rumored to have mastered both spell and blade through secret elven techniques, Merrdyn was sent back to his home village after an unspecified scandal. He was a warm, quiet man, who only seemed to come alive whenever he told stories. Although Muirgen was a girl, he allowed her to attend the swordsmanship lessons he gave her brothers to pass the time, and the tales of war and valor (both his own and others') Merrdyn told at their bedside. Though they all eventually joined their father in helping around the farm, Muirgen and Artgur were the most determined to continue learning under Merrdyn. Eventually, he also started teaching them rudimentary magic. While Artgur was mostly uninterested in these lessons, Muirgen was just as eager to learn the spell as she was the blade.

As time went on, Muirgen's father took notice of her interests, and tried to discourage her from continuing her tutelage under Merrdyn, going so far as to ban him from visiting. By this time, however, Muirgen was well into her rebellious teen years, and had no intention of following the orders of a father who had never once paid attention to her before. However, before the situation could come to a head, bandits attacked her father's farm while she and her brother had been away practicing their skills against each other. They returned just in time to pull their dying uncle from the rubble. However, before he passed, Merrdyn confessed to Muirgen a dark and terrible secret: he had been lying to her and her siblings all throughout their lives. Merrdyn was no decorated war hero-- in fact, he had never even become an officer.

As a young boy, Merrdyn ran away from home to find fame and fortune in the Capital. He had starry-eyed dreams about becoming an archmage, but had barely managed to qualify for the mage academy. He'd dropped out a scant two years later due to too little talent for too little money, and, with no other options but either begging on the streets or going back home in shame, ended up joining the King's Army. Despite his rare magical abilities for a soldier, his mediocre swordsmanship meant that he never managed to amount to any more than a mere footsoldier. Instead, over the years he became close friends with his superior, a talented and beautiful commander named Nimue.

Unfortunately, this relationship drew the jealousy and ire of his fellow soldiers, and soon rumors spread of an affair between the two. Rather than risk Nimue being court-martialed and losing her career, Merrdyn deserted, returning home to his family after almost twenty years away. Unwilling to face the shame and disappointment of his failures, he fabricated tales about his exploits in the King's Army, and his love of storytelling resulted in the lies becoming more and more elaborate over the years. Only their father had known the truth-- after all, Uthyr was Merrdyn's best friend and former comrade, who came with him when he deserted and ended up falling in love with his sister.

Spoiler: Adolescence (click to show/hide)

Though shocked and aghast, the twins quickly pulled together, burying their family and putting them to rest as best as they could. As they tried to figure out what to do next, a small group of travelers happened to pass by. Muirgen and Artgur, wary and angry in the wake of their family's death, attacked them. Unfortunately, their targets were quickly revealed to be slightly more unique than the standard bedraggled wayfarers that usually wandered by their family's home-- they were seasoned adventurers.

To their surprise, Muirgen and Artgur were not killed on sight. Perhaps the adventurers were more merciful toward their attackers than most, or perhaps Muirgen and Artgur had simply managed to surrender faster than their other victims. In any case, one of the adventurers, a half-human, half-wild elf spellblade named Medraut, was impressed with the skill they had exhibited in both magic and melee combat. He decided to take them in, correcting their haphazard forms, amending their amateur sorcery, and teaching them the art of dynamically combining spellwork with bladework.

The twins traveled with the adventurers for six years. During that time, they quickly discovered that the widespread image of adventurers as daring, intrepid explorers and luxurious spendthrifts was only partially true-- adventurers spent most of their time chasing rumors, researching ancient legends, and casting divinations rather than raiding tombs and destroying the economies of local towns with their extravagant expenditures. That said, that reputation wasn't entirely false, either. In fact, the particular group they joined was unusually successful, raiding four locations and coming away fantastically wealthy each time. They were also extremely talented in the other part of being adventurers, and each squandered away most of their share within months.

On one of those downturns of fortunes, the party gathered together to take a fateful journey. Lamhcalad, a warrior who fancied himself something of a knight-paladin, had found the location of an ancient tomb, filled with treasure and priceless artifacts. The party prepared to loot and pillage like they had so many other times. When they entered the catacombs, however, the entrance sealed behind them, and they were beset by dozens and dozens of undead warriors and abominations.

While the mages casted spells and the warriors fought, Lamhcalad hung back, using his great strength to try and lift the boulder-like door. As he slowly heaved it up, he called over the closest of his comrades, Muirgen. He told her to slip under the door and use her body to help him hold it up. Instead, as her comrades were overwhelmed by skeletal horrors, Muirgen crawled across to the other side. The door slammed down, sending a tremor through the ground, and everything went silent.

Spoiler: Adulthood (click to show/hide)

Muirgen spent the next years of her life as a sellsword. Though at first she attempted a modicum of the honor she'd been unable to exhibit beforehand, she found herself taking dirtier and dirtier jobs in order to pay for the expensive tastes that her time as an adventurer had instilled in her, until she went from taking only protection jobs to ruthlessly beating down shopkeepers near-death at the behest of arrogant young aristocrats.

Eventually, Muirgen grew so jaded that all the exotic cuisine in Verania tasted like ashes in her mouth, its finest spirits like water in her blood. Realizing what she had become and disgusted by it, Muirgen gave away all her fineries, and swore only to eat the simplest of meals and to drink only water and diluted mead or wine. Nevertheless, she still felt as if she had left something unfinished, and found herself drawn back to the incident that had led to this downward spiral-- but not, to her surprise, purely out of guilt or regret.

Once, Muirgen had been frightened by dark magic, and had cowardly left her companions to die in her terror. Now, however, in the epoch of her cynicism, she found herself fascinated by it. Subtly, she began to ferret out information about forbidden branches of magic, trying to find out what she had encountered in the tomb and how to destroy it-- or control it. No matter how subtle she tried to be, however, someone must've noticed, because she was soon after contacted by a member of the Dark Cabal.

The rest, as they say, is history.

[Shootandrun]

Votes: The Rise, Legendary, The Outskirts, HQ (Unknown Location, Room for Expansion)

Name: Maekar Stormhold
Race: Human

Appearance: In the olden days they said that giant's blood ran in the Stormhold Dynasty, and Maekar looks the part, standing at six and ten feet and looming over most he meets. He has a face that looks like it was carved from iron and spite, his jaw (scarred by burns) mostly hidden by a short, unruly brown beard. His hair is cut short and is almost always disorderly, and deep blue eyes, warm but utterly soulless, stare at the world harshly from sunken pits below a powerful brow. Broad shoulders and powerful muscles, complemented with a booming voice, finish the portrait of a titan amongst men.

Backstory: Distant relative to a famous and once-powerful dynasty, Maekar Stormhold was born in lands far further north than those where he can now be found, amongst men who attempted to build a kingdom in the likeness of those of an age long past. Their efforts failed, perhaps due to misfortune, perhaps due to greed, perhaps due to war - most likely due to all of these things together. When it grew clear that there was no future amongst his folk, Maekar left them and went wandering south.

Although he was already a fair smith in his youth, during these years of traveling he honed and perfected his trade, growing into a wandering craftsman of some small renown. His skill increased and his life's quality went up as well, until eventually he grew to be talented enough that he might have settled anywhere and lived fairly well off - but it was not to be so. Perhaps touched by the mad ambition that made his dynasty's legacy and his close kin's downfall, or perhaps simply insane after too much time on the road, he decided that before the end of his lifetime he would master his art further than anyone had done in this age, to eventually equal and even surpass those of the great smiths of ages past.

His ambition only grew with time, for when years after choosing this goal he was offered the chance to join a Dark Cabal, where he would be able to learn magic - black, foul magic, but magic all the same. He accepted this offer, and where he had once desired only to master his own craft, soon he wished to join the ranks of the greatest mages of his era.

EDIT: Dropped the idea of a dwarf... Decided I wanted something a little more imposing.

[Terenos]

To begin with the Cabal will lean on Necromancy to suit its purposes. In time you will likely manipulate minds, call upon the dead, scour the world with the elements...Anything can be turned to an evil purpose.

Also i'm starting to wonder why I bothered putting anything other than Legendary goals.

[Patrick Hunt]

So am I. When have people on this forum ever done things by half's?

[Tomcost]

Well, I edited my post to say that I will focs on necromancy. But mainly soul manipulation. Because there is nothing than can beat that in evilness.

[flame99]

This sounds really, really cool. Unfortunately, I have too many things to do right now to make a character at the moment, so reserved. Also pretty sure that there's no way I won't be in the waitlist, but eh.

[Patrick Hunt]

I'll recruit personnel, organize them to do jobs, carry out negotiations and generally work to further whatever goal's the rest of you come up with. Manipulating minds will be useful though and I can work it in as an innate gift he's unaware of to explain why he's talented in persuasion and manipulation and he can develop it properly at some later stage.

[Terenos]

So far we are practically guaranteed Rise of the Cabal. /me worldbuilds that.