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[qwertyuiopas]

This is actually slightly based off an idea I had for a PC game...

Basically, there are a few characters, and they can do practically anything. The overall goal(and part of this that came from the game idea) is to start a successfull guild/clan/whatever, basically a group of people that often do things for paying customers(sort of like a ffta/ffta2 clan, but the focus being on overall accomplishment rather than building a game around the hero).

Players can join any time there is an applicant, and the overall goal is to do whatever you feel like. However, I intend, though player actions could change it, for the goal to be generally along the lines of establishing a presence and self-improvement. That includes things ike gaining popularity, or researching magic, or anything else you or I can think of.

It will start off slow, but later on a turn may be an in-game week or something, to prevent it from getting too boring if it starts to take too long for simple things.

‼~~~~~~~~~~‼~~~~~~~~~~‼~~~~~~~~~~‼~~~~~~~~~~‼



You are one of five friends who recently decided to go out into the world and actually accomplish something. After months of travel towards the capital of the known world, you unanimously stop, merely 38% of the way there. It is just taking too long, and you couldn't really accomplish anything there anyway, at least not without a reputation to build on.

So, you construct a very small building, and set out to make a presence for yourselves. There is a small village a day to the east by foot, and mountains two days to the south. You are in a lightly wooded forest.

What is your name?

‼~~~~~~~~~~‼~~~~~~~~~~‼~~~~~~~~~~‼~~~~~~~~~~‼

In-character knowledge:
Magic exists, and anyone can use it, but it takes decades of training and you must show great talent for one of the main academies to let you in. Nonetheless, some people try to learn it on their own. This often fails, sometimes catastrophically, but occasionally succeeds. Sometimes, one such person may even discover, by accident, a previously unexplored branch of magic, and other times two or more have joined together and started their own guild, though they can't do very much compared to a properly educated mage.
Another occupation often only found in officiial students, although sometimes atempted by trial and error is alchemy. In fact, almost every major skill-based trade has organized into a guild of some sort or other, and few have the time to educate students wiith less potential. All of them have imitatators who couldn't get in but tried to learn on their own. Often, one could become practiced enough to be allowed in for true education.

‼~~~~~~~~~~‼~~~~~~~~~~‼~~~~~~~~~~‼~~~~~~~~~~‼

Your characters have no particular skill in anything(except walking, I guess?) although you can give them an intrest in anything (no actual bonus, but it indicates a possible goal)

Your character needs a name, even if it's your forum name. NPCs will just assume it's something normal, so don't bother trying to come up with something if you don't feel like it.

If you really wanted to, you could go off and play this like DF adventure mode, or turn it into a RTS, but to start, it's the described situation.

[Nirur Torir]

This sounds fun, I want in.

Name: Frederick XV
Goal: To learn magic, and torch his home village.
Backstory: While he was growing up, Frederick was often mocked by the other children in his village for his clumsiness. He was one of those people who are always picked last for games like kick-the-can. One day he vowed to become a powerful mage and torch the lot of them, or die trying.
The academies laughed at his feeble application.

[Criptfeind]

My name is Ranar, me and my four friends shall start a world class guild of explorers. (adventure, travel, exploitation of the land ect.)

But for now we need money, To The Town!

[Cheddarius]

Watching.

[dwarfguy2]

name: schaudy
interest: necromancy/ seeing things through the eyes of others

also, can i bring an undead butterfly with me?

[qwertyuiopas]

(Wow, 3 posts since I started writing this post)

Well, due to the freeform nature of the game, it will start as soon as some player has an idea of what they want to do.

Currently, you would need supplies to reasonably develop any sort of skill, and you can either get those supplies yourself or buy them. The best supplies are only available for gathering, however. IF you want to make a poition of eternal youth, it would probably take some 10 ingredients only available to the most powerful players in other clasifications. Teamwork between careers is essential to progress in any direction(Although players can become any combination of jobs/classes/careers that they want, and you could eventually be owerful enough to outsource your gathering, I guess. That *is* how all the biggest guilds do it, constant inter-guild relations guided from their main branches in the known-world capital.)

Magic in this will be very broad, more like DF's goal than a roguelike or some novels imagine it, but it would also have some structure. Objects can help but wands are merely an aid, some magic might need a source of power or something, I don't know. Just nothing especially close to Eragon, HP, WoT, or any game (FF*, roguelikes, anything else). LotR sounds closer, but it doesn't go into much depth. Example: plenty of mystical, controlable, but not explicitly structured things. On the one hand, you have Gandalf's fireworks, but on the other you have, well, other things.

So, do whatever you want, and NPC characters(potential future player NPCs, basically the other four guys in the image right now, and any accepted applicants) will take general orders, if they are reasonable.

also, can i bring an undead butterfly with me?

If you can come up with a reasonable background for it. I don't want you to have created it, since it would imply you already being skilled, although if you can find some excuse (character was trying really hard for days to do something magical. Passed out from exhaustion as it finally succeeded, but due to not sleeping for days during the attempt(stubborn to succeed...), can not remember the process) you can.

Will start writing what happens in a while(that may turn into a day if I don't get back to it qickly)

[dwarfguy2]

my character used to be an abstract artist. after completing one of his most difficult paintings, he discovered he had done the EXACT movements to turn a butterfly undead. he can't remember how to do a copy of his work, so it's the only thing he's going to have for a while. if he concentrated really, really hard on it, he could see things through it's eyes.   

[Nirur Torir]

Roughly how many turns would you expect it to take to learn the most basic of spells?
For my action, I'll search the nearby wilderness for a source of fresh water.

[dwarfguy2]

so do i get my butterfly?

[qwertyuiopas]

my character used to be an abstract artist. after completing one of his most difficult paintings, he discovered he had done the EXACT movements to turn a butterfly undead. he can't remember how to do a copy of his work, so it's the only thing he's going to have for a while. if he concentrated really, really hard on it, he could see things through it's eyes.   

I guess, but on one condition: Part of the steps involved one of the ingredients in the paint. It was just generic paint, but that particular batch had some experimentations in ingredients to develop a better colour. Neither you nor the person who created the paint knows what it was anymore, since back then it was an irrelevant detail.

However, that specific ingredient wouldn't be nessecary, only one of the properties of it, I guess.

Roughly how many turns would you expect it to take to learn the most basic of spells?

I don't really know, but it would be more along the lines of some chance encounter or thought leads to a realization about the nature of magic. It wouldn't nessecarily be correct, but just like the Real Life progression of the concept of the atom, it would be increasingly detailed theories, each of them generally correct, but for more advanced actions you would need a better understanding of why it worked so that you could manipulate it more finely.

Take the previous explaination of how an abstract painter could accidentally preform necromancy: Just stumbled on a set of runes and components within the lines of the art(assuming that the irrelevant bits were ignored, it was certain lines together that had magical power or something). If it was known to be magic, it could be studied to develop an understanding of it.

Or maybe it would be like complex algebra, you know what you want, and where to start, but not how to get to the result, and then one day, while doing something irrelevant, inspiration strikes.


Actually, I'll create a rule for it.
Every day trying, the probability of success goes up. Every day, you have that probability to succeed. The increase would be something small like 1%, but since turns can range in length, it could take forever, or came instantly. Arbitrary decisions, plus the fact that you know someone who accidentally used magic(and has come to the conclusion that it involved, somehow, the symbols and/or the colours(doesn't realise that it was the ingredient in the colours) and/or the actions/time of day/painting/devotion/anything, really, and I will say it is a 5+d% chance each day, with d increasing by one at the end of each day.

I'll post this and then write the turn, in case someone else replis as well.

(one new reply)

Answer: Yes.

[RAM]

Might try

name: RAM
 Interested in magic but has yet to find a discipline they like.

Do we know a few of the most famous magic guilds?

[qwertyuiopas]

6 hour pass.

Ranar(Criptfeind) leaves for the town.
(1 day distance = 10 hours walking)
(1 map square = 1 hour walking)


Frederick XV(Nirur Torir) seeks fresh water. He finds a small stream about half an hour north.
(Roll for magic: 91. had to be <=5. Next day will be <=6.)

Days shall be 10 hours long, and count from sunrise. Sunset at 12.
The game started at (arbitrarily) 1.

Roughly how many turns would you expect it to take to learn the most basic of spells?

Realised I didn't answer your question.
I gave the time to just being able to vaguely use magic.

As for a spell? Well, in this game, magic is both structured and freeform. A spell would be a carefully mapped out set of precise steps that causes a consistant result. A scroll is a sheet of paper with the magic cast but not activated. If the paper is damaged, the spell is too, and when it is used, the paper either blanks or disintegrates depending on the power behind it. An object can also have magic in it, but without the ability to draw it on the paper, it is inscribed in the essence of the object itself, in an entirely unrelated form from the paper runes, although it can be converted easily by a learned wizard. A wand would be enchanted with a more general spell, and take the specifics more from the will of the user, a staff is usually used for practically anything, although specific spells and magical focal points are common.

Back on track:
Discovering a spell might involve anything. More, it wouldn't be a spell. I don't know what to call it, but depending on what it is, it could be an incantation, a ritual, or any other slightly specific vague word I can think of.

For now, just know that vaguely understanding magic means that you can slightly tap into it's power, although not use it. With it in use, it might react to your thoughts, producing very faint changes in the world, especially nearby. I guess I should start classifying mage types? I don't know what to call them, but there would be general focuses on casting methods, from enchantments, to runes, to thoughts, to ingredients, or any combination. Most of the more powerful magic either requires a combination, or it uses a spell of one method to help define another, in a chain or tree culminating in the final effect. Such multi-stage magics would likely be more common in enchantment based magic.

So, as a summary, you will likely learn something with time, faster if you actively try.

(new post):

Might try

name: RAM
 Interested in magic but has yet to find a discipline they like.

Do we know a few of the most famous magic guilds?

(Not all guilds are magic-based, magic is just the concept that needs the most definition, as it varies the most between games/movies/books)

There are a few main guilds on each general subject, so just one for magic. However, there are plenty of smaller ones, and a few equally-sized guilds that try to do many things, though only the main profession guilds have reached the highest level of skill.

So, there may be 40 huge guilds, ranging from magic to smithing, with, say, 15 of them more broadly focused across all areas of development, there are hundreds of major guilds in all areas, thousands of notable ones, and tens of thousands of small, local guilds.
The larger ones generally have branches.
Many of the more focused ones tend to be like a university, although with longer education times, and accepting both skilled and wealthy students.

[Dyjeccu]

Dyjeccu had a troubled childhood: through the elements of nature, and the cruelty and greed of mankind, he understands suffering. He longs to protect and ease the burdens of those troubled.
While they stopped at his birth village for the night, Dyjeccu recognized Ranar, Frederick, Schaudy and RAM as a chance to cast his fate.

Intrest: Healer or guardian

Dyjeccu follows after Ranar- to the town!

[Criptfeind]

Walk walk walk to the town, set up camp if you don't get there in time. I am going to bed now. No posts for a bit.

[RAM]

Scout to the south while practising magical hand gestures.
Return to the shack before nightfall.