In this game, you play as weak, inexperienced mages. Magic is cast through cards, which act as a sort of data-carrying medium to run hideously complicated "programs" for reality. Players will have to find cards as they travel to gain their spells. Cards are not consumables.
It will likely be a standard RTD adventure, unless the players decide to conquer their own empire or something.
? => 2025 CE - 1st Age, The Golden Age - Earth as we know it. In 2025 CE, an unknown disaster killed billions and shattered the laws of physics, never to be repaired.
2025 CE => 2130 CE - 2nd Age: The Fall - Technology was sent back to the Renaissance, with the most advanced technology still working being early printing presses. Conclusive studies were never performed, largely due to the absence of working equipment, no stable governments, and general anarchy associated with a large portion of the population suddenly dying.
Amongst the chaos, roughly 1-in-100,000 people were found to 'resonate' with the new reality, in such a way that they could cast magic. They tended to have god complexes. Many mutated humans into fantasy races, or races of their own creation.
During the next century, resources concentrated themselves into the hands of those with magic. Most of the remaining population could scarcely afford to eat. Many magic users became rulers, sought to become one, or were directly employed by one. Eventually, tensions broke. WWIII nearly destroyed the planet. In the end, magical power was significantly weakened, and the remaining wizards were those who considered themselves to be "good." In an attempt to prevent such a war from ever happening again, they cast a massive spell. The exact nature of this spell was never revealed, but no more Resonants were born, and magic was suspected to have been sealed away. The remaining wizards disappeared; many claim they finished their ascension to godhood, leaving this plane forever.
2130 CE => 0 PD - 3rd Age: The Darkening - The sentients, the few that survived, were left without magic, without technology, without their gods. Forced to resort to a hunter-gatherer life or subsistence farming in soil long rendered infertile, most forgot the Old Lore. The immortal races were unable to forget, and unable to forgive. They largely lived monastic lives in areas secluded from other races, their population kept stable by an unwillingness to leave and low crop yields. So it went.
0 PD => 327 PD, present - 4th Age: The Revival - Eventually, the Earth began to recover. Populations regrew, and cities began to once again proliferate. Old Lore was recovered, the most interesting of which was ancient cards. These cards allowed anyone to cast spells, using the magic present in the environment. They were greedily horded by those who could find them. Technology was rediscovered and re-engineered to work under new laws (It's steampunk). Wars were fought, for land, magic, racial dominance, and wealth. Not even the immortals that kept meticulous records could agree on the year; the calendar was set to have the discovery of the first card as 0 Post-Discovery.
Methods of casting spells without cards were eventually discovered by particularly powerful sorcerers with large card collections. They tended to take on apprentices, who in turn taught others. Card-less "magicians" are more common then card using "sorcerers," due to the rarity of cards, but card-less magic is usually weak and unreliable.
Using a non-instant card requires a full turn. Instants may be used at will and/or conditionally, even unsummoning.
As previously stated, cards are a conduit for turning magic into spells, and are not consumable. There will be two main types:
Creature cards: These are linked to a specific creature or band of creatures. They give the holder complete control of said creature(s), although a will check is allowed for uncharacteristic behavior (Farmer Joe! Kill your family. Now). Stronger creatures will be harder to give such orders to. If the will check is passed, the card will disintegrate and the creature will be most upset.
Creature cards may be used to summon or unsummon their creature(s). If their creature(s) die, the card is rendered useless, even if said creature is revived. The length of summoning is limited by practicality, rather then magic. You could easily keep a mercenary around for weeks, with provisions, but a fire elemental would constantly drain mana, and you're unlikely to be able to feed an army or dragon. Unsummoned creatures return to where they were summoned from, retaining their injuries.
Any living being may have a creature card created from them, using a simple spell (the only starting non-card 'spell' known by PCs), on the condition that they fully want the caster to be able to summon them at will and give them orders. This is most common for pets, but mercenaries are not unheard of, and it is a relatively common form of repayment for life-debts by people who have little. Mechanoids require a separate spell.
Summoning sickness exists.
Spell cards:
Spell cards turn mana into spells. Normally, there is no cooldown aside from mana costs, but I may add cooldown to certain cards if I feel it's needed for balance (I'm looking at you, Black Lotus). Additionally, counterspells will usually induce a cooldown.
Enchantment duration will be based on my whim/common sense, but each card will only be able to enchant one creature.
Spell cards will be fairly rare, but not impossible to find. Of course, you could just kill people for their card(s), but getting too much infamy as card-hunting assassins might not be wise in the long run.
Each player starts out with one 'land' bound to them. The bound land will be linked to a trinket of their choice. The player must be in contact with their trinket to draw the land's mana, but stolen trinkets will not rebind themselves to the thieves or unbind themselves. To replace a trinket, the player must use a turn, while in their 'land,' and have a trinket to link.
Single-color land gives +1/turn, with a max of 5.
Double-color land gives +0.33 of each/turn, with a max of 2 of each.
Players may give their stored mana to another player, but this is inefficient: One mana will transfer the mana given by one land.
Try not to think too hard about lands. Two examples are a city or a cleared dungeon. Obviously, there must be multiple sorcerers drawing from each land, else they'd be tiny and boringly easy to get, or nearly impossible to get. I'm only letting one player link themselves to each land, and it won't be happening every three turns.
Slight variation from the norm: 6's won't generally be harmful, although overdoing things won't necessarily be beneficial.
I'll be varying the amount of dice rolled, and picking the best (5 > 4 > 6 > 3 > 2 > 1). Amount rolled is mostly based on skill. "Common" skills, like cooking or looting, will be 2d6. If the character doesn't have a standard level of competency with a learned skill, such as driving a zeppelin, it's 1d6. Each level of a skill adds another die throw, and reduces bad events/increases good events. That farmer isn't going to make a masterpiece golem.
Combat rolls are different.
Combat skill is a direct bonus to 1d6, opposed by the opponent's combat skill + 1d6. The difference is dealt as damage to whoever rolls lower.
Light damage is restored from resting after combat, heavier damage needs specialized healing. Creatures/players go unconscious at 0 HP, catatonic at -1 HP, and die if they ever hit -3 HP.
Players without combat training start as 1/5 creatures. Training and/or equipment may raise this.
Name: Optional. If used, please pick something very similar to your forum name.
Race: Make something up. If it's not a common fantasy, explain it well enough that someone who knows nothing of its origin can easily create advantages and disadvantages for it.
Favored Cards: Pick three common cards, any set, from
this site. Link them. Define what you want them to do if needed. I'll be choosing one of them.
Starting Land: Single or split two ways. May set conditionals regarding the starting card.
Useful skill/hobby: One skill that will likely be useful on an adventure. Might be combat.
Profession: What your character used to do to live. A minor skill, like blacksmithing, merchant, engineer, or janitor. Might affect starting gear. Optional.
Disadvantage: What is your character's biggest flaw? (If you pick something that can't possibly come up during their adventure, because it can't possibly come up during their adventurer, it
will come up at the worst possible times. Unless it's funny enough. Then it'll just come up whenever I feel like chuckling at your character's misfortune.)
Backstory: Who are you, and why do you have a highly sought-after magic card?
Additionally, feel free to submit requests for the starting area, local government type, nearby foreign government types, goals, and potential antagonists. Here's your chance to shape new lore, before it solidifies into a semi-war against aristocratic werewolves or somesuch nonsense.
The world will be trying to kill you. The waiting list will be trying to kill you (once I think of suitable mechanics). You have been warned.
I'll be taking five players to start, though not necessarily the first five to sign-up. Criteria for chosen characters will be left unstated.
Game starts in roughly 24 hours, sign-ups permitting.
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Topic: MTG Adventures RTD - End. (Read 10885 times)