Don't be a jerk, please don't derail the thread, etc. etc. Stats and skills are based around a d100 system this time around, in the style of RPGs like Dark Heresy and Warhammer Fantasy, wherein every stat ranges from 1 to 100, representing a percentage chance of success in a given endeavor, and various skill ranks, difficulties and applicable traits further influence one's chance of success for a given roll. Intro copy-pasted and mildly edited from my original attempt at this concept - you control a soon-to-be Shaper from a heavily-altered version of the Geneforge-verse. This time around, though, I'll be doing my best to avoid bogging things down by depicting your guys' Shaper education on a day-by-day basis.
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The Shapers rule the known world.
The Shapers are the most powerful magical sect, masters of magic with the power to create life from raw materials. With this power, the Shapers have dominated every other society in the known world - all the cultures populating two vast continents, and the few islands surrounding and linking them. Every scrap of earth known to the peoples of Terrestria has known the control of the Shapers for two centuries.
When the Shapers require servants, they create Serviles, the humanoid slave race they brought about to take care of their need for servants and manual labor, and when they require a foe brought to waste, they can conjure into being one of the many deadly creatures they have designed to kill and lay waste to their enemies. When they need information recorded and Serviles organized, they call into being the living, immobile, organic computers they call Servant Minds, and when they desire something as simple as a sliding door, they make fungal beasts to move their doors from the inside.
Shaper rule is harsh, but fair. And whether or not one thinks the Shapers are fair, the prosperity the Shapers have brought to Terrestria is undeniable. Harsh labor need never be performed by human hands, when there are Serviles to fulfill such roles in society. Nor are human supervisors needed when a single servant mind can instruct a host of Serviles more efficiently than any number of human overseers. Neither famine nor disease are of much concern, when the Shapers can use their abilities to create new and better plants, as well as cure disease. Humans no longer live in poverty - instead, every man or woman is a merchant or craftsmen of some kind, or helps the Shapers in their work - either joining the Shaper army, and helping maintain order in Shaper society, or aiding the Shapers in feeding and maintaining their creations. Or even learning magic themselves - although even normal magic is strictly controlled and monitored by the Shapers, lest dangerous arts such as necromancy cause instability and disorder, a dedicated, loyal and focused Outsider - a non-Shaper - can easily learn magic and use it in service to the Shapers. Shapers have opened public schools all throughout Terrestria - lack of education is no longer an obstacle for anyone. And of course, in each settlement, governing, bringing forth new Creations as needed, and maintaining order, is a Shaper.
And you are a Shaper prospective
When you were but a toddler, you were tested, for your intellect, focus and loyalty to the Shapers, and over the years tested again and again throughout your education in the general curriculum everyone citizen in whatever province you belong to goes through, and again and again you were proven smart enough, focused enough and loyal enough to have Shaper potential time and time again. Two years ago, you were taken aside by a special tutor after school one day, and he explained to you that you were specifically chosen to learn how to hold the special, semi-living magical energy used only in shaping, Essence, within yourself, a skill you would need to Shape later on in life. Ever since then, you have attended private classes with said tutor - a Shaper himself - and a group of other young prospectives the same age as you, fellow classmates who have shown the necessary traits, just as you have.
But now, you have learned to hold Essence within yourself, night and day, without even thinking of it, and you have grown old enough to move on to the next step, with the rest of your peers. Today, a week after your twelve birthday, you are finally being sent to a special school, to learn the skills you will need as a Shaper.
Today your journey begins.
What is your name?What is your gender?Which school are you being sent to?- Barstow Academy - A facility located in the countryside near the capital city and province of Perikalia, in the middle of Eastern Terrestia, where the Shaper council meets to deliberate, Barstow Academy is a state of the art facility that produces top notch Shapers. Their standards are especially harsh, and nothing is allowed to occur that is not planned for - some might see that as a good thing, some as a bad thing. However, a Shaper that manages to graduate from Barstow and get an apprenticeship is sure to be prepared for a life of Shaper politics, but might find themselves less able to improvise and deal with Outsiders than normal.
- Ithlum College - An experimental research facility slash Shaper school, Ithlum college is located on the southern coast of Western Terrestia, in the middle of the Dera Reaches, an inhospitable wasteland even the Shapers have found difficult to cultivate. Isolated both physically and culturally, and used for dangerous experimentation and research, Ithlum College is extremely strict in it's safety procedures, but rather lax in how it teaches it's Shaper prospectives. Most of the teachers there are... Eccentric by Shaper standards, and willing to look over similar eccentricities in their students, as well as actively involving their students in their rather dangerous experiments. Not to mention the host of Outsider soldiers the students will inevitably interact with. A Shaper who graduates from Ithlum will end up with a much greater wealth of practical knowledge than the average Apprentice, and be far more used to interacting with Outsiders, but will no doubt be considered eccentric by Shaper standards, and find themselves rather inept in matters of Shaper politics.
- Caburh Academy - Located on the northwestern coast of Eastern Terrestria, in Lethia Province, Caburh Academy is considered a perfectly normal Shaper academy, that produces mostly average Shapers. Of course, even the most boring Shaper academy is bound to be far more interesting than any sort of Outsider education, but you've literally heard nothing of Caburh other than the fact that it is average. Surely nothing at all odd is going on there. Nope, certainly not.
What is your choice of sect?- Shaper - You have chosen to become a true Shaper, one who deals directly in matters of moulding life anew, one who dedicates themself to further uncovering the secrets of life, as well as the wielders of true power in the Shaper Order.
- Guardian - You have chosen to become a member of the militant branch of the Shaper order, a Guardian, one who goes forth to strike down the foes of the Shaper Empire in open combat, masters of warfare and command, and those who guide the Shaper Order's deadliest Creations into battle.
- Agent - You have chosen to become a member of the espionage branch of the Shaper order, an Agent, one who seeks out problems and ends them before they truly come into being, and one who holds knowledge of the secrets of the Empire.
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Topic: You Are a Shaper! (Second Try) (Read 5050 times)