Post by Melody Leeas (Hotpocket) on Jan 1, 2012 20:48:13 GMT -5
This thread is optional reading. The section on how modern society though is highly recommended though so you know what the world is like.
Modern Society
Modern society is a mix of the late-Renaissance, and early-Victorian eras with a bit of Steampunk influence. Now when I mention steampunk I don't mean giant steam-powered mechas or airships or anything. They're not quite there... yet. Things like basic telephones, some very slow and noisy cars, and guns are considered to be the most technologically advanced... things, right now. Nothing modern like planes, submarines, ak-47's, etc. So, how do people dress? That's different. Imagine a mix of Victorian-era clothes and traditional Japanese clothes. That's how people dress. Or just one or the other is fine. In terms of guns... the most advanced non-magical guns available right now are huge Gatling guns. Anything more advanced than that is a no-no. Cities and architecture is generally of the Victorian-era while art and entertainment is more of the Renaissance period. Any questions? I'm sorry if I've made this confusing in any way, I tried explaining it as best I could without going into wayyyyyyyyyy too much detail about every single thing. If you have any questions feel free to ask<3. Same goes for suggestions, if you have any suggestions then feel free to... suggest.
Religion. The main religion – called “Tirn” - is like Christianity but that you don’t need to believe in the religion to go to “Heaven”. They believe that anybody who is bad/evil just ceases to exist instead of going to a place like “Hell” and everybody that is good gets to go to Heaven and then be reincarnated if they wish to be. They believe that the other planet which orbits their own is an “evil” planet that the abominations and magick come from. Of course, that’s just the most popular religion. There are many other religions just like there is in the real world. Of course there are people who don’t believe in religion too. What your character believes is up to you.
One last thing. Right now almost every human with no magical powers views sorcerers as menaces to society. Some religion extremists even try to kill them when nobody is looking. Even the sorcerers who defend and help the general population are looked down on.
Artcz
You may be wondering what I mean when I say there is another planet in orbit. So here, let me give you a good example:
Now, it's sorta like that except our planet - Terras - doesn't look so nice and green. And the planet in orbit is mostly black. See that second smaller planet in the background? Well, imagine that that's the moon.. and also a dark boring color like grey. So, just get rid of the bright green of the planet the picture is taken from, add some giant nightmarish creatures to it, make the first planet in the background pure black and the second planet grey and you've got a good idea of what the view is like in the RP.
History
This is only going to cover the last six-hundred years or so of history since almost everything before then has either been lost or forgotten. The world is currently in year 2633 according to the calendar, but nobody knows how old the world truly is. The calender system was created just over 500 years ago. The calender is the same as our own real one but with one difference - it started at 2000. Why 2000 you might ask? Well, because the ruler who was in charge at the time thought that the planet was 2000 years old so he decided that it should start at year 2000. Now of course the planet has really been around for millions if not billions of year, but what do you expect from people at the technological level of the dark ages? That same ruler was also a very cruel dictator. He had absolute control over everything and could force anybody to do whatever he wanted. Nobody dared to resist him. The world used to also only have a single continent at the time. There were three regions: Maetossa, Belissma, and Fedelle. The dictator originally came from the region of Fedelle and then created an army more powerful than ever before seen and was easily able to take over both Maetossa and Belissma.
He didn't care for anything or anybody in the countries - he just wanted the power over everything. He was a hated leader. Not even his own honor guard could stand him, yet they never tried killing him. He was just... horrifying. People only listened to him out of pure fear. If he demanded that the prettiest girl of every village in the land were to be brought to him - it would happen. And it did happen once a year. Nobody would ever see those girls again though - to this day their fate remains a mystery. So, how did the people break free from this evil dictator? Well, there wasn't always another planet in the sky. There was the moon, but not the planet which orbits extremely close to their own.
In the middle of the night during a failed uprising in one of the villages in Maetossa (the village was burned, by the way) a black vortex appeared in the sky in between the moon and Terras (Terras is the name of their planet). The vortex swirled in the black sky and slowly got bigger and bigger - everybody thought it'd keep on getting bigger until it devoured their own planet and the moon. After an hour of just slowly getting bigger though - it stopped. Then as soon as it stopped it shrunk to an extremely small size and disappeared, but in that very instant it disappeared a large black planet appeared. So, a giant black planet appears in the sky and enters an orbit with Terras. Then everything goes back to normal, right? Wrong. Nobody knows how or why but the entire region of Maetossa broke off from the main continent and by the time the sun rose in the morning it had practically been moved to the other side of the planet. Nobody knows what happened to the rest of the main continent. July 24th, 2012.
Both horrified and happy about what happened, the people of Maetossa decided to form a new and good government immediately. They decided that a government with elected officials would be best. And so came the first President and House. The House is a group of 13 people - usually the mayors of villages. The House's duty is to oversee laws and do all the basic governing of the land. The President is more like a king. The President's duty involves creating or getting rid of laws and making an appearance at lots of events. The President and House both resided in the capital city of Maetossa - Resheniya. Resheniya was a beautiful city with large white walls surrounding it. The walls were filled with dents still from when the old dictator's armies had invaded. Resheniya put up the biggest defense of all. Their walls never fell. The only reason they lost the battle was because they were outnumbered and exhausted. The people of Maetossa would be happy for several hundred years under the new-found freedom - and authority - that they achieved from breaking off of the mainland. Nobody even cared about the new planet in the sky - named "Artcz".
September 19th, 2338. The day that has been called the "Dawn". When everything would change. This is where the beginning of the history of magick takes place, so we'll just steal some info from that thread instead of writing the same thing twice in two different ways.
Magick was first introduced into the world approximately three-hundred years ago - the same time that abominations, horrors, and demons arrived. It just randomly happened one day. People were doing the normal daily chores when suddenly they could manipulate fire, air, earth, and water. At first, those were the only things people could control. Some of the sorcerers these days refer to those 4 affinities as the "first generation" or "originals". They are usually treated with more respect than sorcerers who have other affinities. They also tend to act elitist. Nobody has ever mastered the abilities of all four first generation affinities. Now then, we got off track - back to where we were. When the people of Maetossa discovered their abilities they were frightened and had no idea how to control their new-found abilities. What was the government's response? Kill them all. Everybody who was found with magical abilities was publicly executed for witchcraft. They had been doing that before actual magical abilities - but nobody was actually capable of performing magick until then.
Most of the people who received magical powers immediately went into hiding after word of the public executions got around. They were afraid. They wanted to turn to the government for help but they couldn't. The government had always been a respected and kind one up until then. Or maybe they had always been that way but the people just didn't realize until it was their lives being put on the stake. Rumors also started to spread of nightmarish fiends roaming the country side and brutally killing anybody they came across. Nobody had any proof though... until approximately half a year after the "Dawn". What is the "Dawn"? The "Dawn" is the official name given to the day that humans were blessed... or maybe cursed, with their magical powers.
On the nineteenth day of March, year 2339, the day that has been called "Arrival" in the history books took place. A massive six headed beast besieged the capital city of Maetossa - Resheniya - and completely obliterated it. After the main defensive walls were broken down by just a single blow from one of the heads of the beast a legion of horrific looking abominations poured into the city and began to kill and devour every single living thing they came across. It only took 20 minutes for 90% of the population to be killed. The population was around 70,000 at the time. By the time the entire siege was over less than 500 were left.
After that day, nobody saw the beast that became a legend again and nobody has been within 50 miles of Resheniya either. Anybody who goes near that place.... well, they won't be coming back. Let's just say that it's rather popular among all things evil now. Back to the story. That was the last day that a human just randomly received magical powers. No longer would somebody wake up with the ability to conjure flames in the palm of their hand. From that day forward - only newborns would be able to gain magical powers. Not just the newborns of parents with magick either. Just any newborn, although, the children born from parents with magical powers did have a higher chance of also having powers. After the government was utterly destroyed during Arrival, the people of Maetossa recognized the new threat as more than just rumors floating around and instead began to prepare defense against them. One of the most important defenses was the complete stop of all executing of humans with magick and instead employing them against the legions of those that would seek to destroy them.
After that everything has been downhill. With the collapse of the government a new one took it's place. And instead of having a democracy like the old one - a Monarchy took it's place. King Leeas promised all sorts of things to the people of Maetossa. He promised to create defenses that are capable of beating the abominations, he promised to militarize all sorcerers, he even promised everybody to be equally fed and treated fairly. Only the first two promises were kept though. Almost every village was forced into testing experiments to further technology and the ones that weren't were forced to be farming-only villages. While the women were all busy farming and randomly experimenting on things - the men were forced to help construct the new capital city of Maetossa, aptly named Maetossa. It was constructed over the course of 40 years - finished right before the king's death. It was at least two times bigger than Resheniya was. It's walls were three times thicker and taller too. Nothing would be able to penetrate the new city except maybe that legendary creature that had destroyed Resheniya.
After the king's death, his son Rin Leeas took the crown. His first order of business was to name the currency system after himself: The "Rin". One Rin is equal to one dollar. King Rin Leeas was also a fairly smart man after you got past how self-absorbed he was. He is not only famous for the introduction of the new currency but also for the discovery of steam power. Using the power of steam lots of new discoveries and devices have been made. Then, just several years after discovering steam energy - he discovered gunpowder. Civilization started to advance extremely fast at that point. They practically jumped from the dark ages to what is now a mixture of late-Renaissance/early-Victorian era in just two hundred or so years. Impressive. Once King Rin Leeas died his much more unimpressive son took charge for quite some time before also passing on - then that cycle repeated once more. Now the current leader is King Rin II Leeas. He is a fairly good king. What he doesn't have in terms of general intelligence he makes up for in terms of war strategy. He's commanded several military expeditions against areas known to be home to large groups of abominations and horrors - all victorious. Some people even think he's going to be the king to get rid of all the abominations and horrors. The king to truly save the country of Maetossa. But not even he is stupid enough to send troops anywhere near Resheniya. This leaves us at the current year of 2633.
This is only going to cover the last six-hundred years or so of history since almost everything before then has either been lost or forgotten. The world is currently in year 2633 according to the calendar, but nobody knows how old the world truly is. The calender system was created just over 500 years ago. The calender is the same as our own real one but with one difference - it started at 2000. Why 2000 you might ask? Well, because the ruler who was in charge at the time thought that the planet was 2000 years old so he decided that it should start at year 2000. Now of course the planet has really been around for millions if not billions of year, but what do you expect from people at the technological level of the dark ages? That same ruler was also a very cruel dictator. He had absolute control over everything and could force anybody to do whatever he wanted. Nobody dared to resist him. The world used to also only have a single continent at the time. There were three regions: Maetossa, Belissma, and Fedelle. The dictator originally came from the region of Fedelle and then created an army more powerful than ever before seen and was easily able to take over both Maetossa and Belissma.
He didn't care for anything or anybody in the countries - he just wanted the power over everything. He was a hated leader. Not even his own honor guard could stand him, yet they never tried killing him. He was just... horrifying. People only listened to him out of pure fear. If he demanded that the prettiest girl of every village in the land were to be brought to him - it would happen. And it did happen once a year. Nobody would ever see those girls again though - to this day their fate remains a mystery. So, how did the people break free from this evil dictator? Well, there wasn't always another planet in the sky. There was the moon, but not the planet which orbits extremely close to their own.
In the middle of the night during a failed uprising in one of the villages in Maetossa (the village was burned, by the way) a black vortex appeared in the sky in between the moon and Terras (Terras is the name of their planet). The vortex swirled in the black sky and slowly got bigger and bigger - everybody thought it'd keep on getting bigger until it devoured their own planet and the moon. After an hour of just slowly getting bigger though - it stopped. Then as soon as it stopped it shrunk to an extremely small size and disappeared, but in that very instant it disappeared a large black planet appeared. So, a giant black planet appears in the sky and enters an orbit with Terras. Then everything goes back to normal, right? Wrong. Nobody knows how or why but the entire region of Maetossa broke off from the main continent and by the time the sun rose in the morning it had practically been moved to the other side of the planet. Nobody knows what happened to the rest of the main continent. July 24th, 2012.
Both horrified and happy about what happened, the people of Maetossa decided to form a new and good government immediately. They decided that a government with elected officials would be best. And so came the first President and House. The House is a group of 13 people - usually the mayors of villages. The House's duty is to oversee laws and do all the basic governing of the land. The President is more like a king. The President's duty involves creating or getting rid of laws and making an appearance at lots of events. The President and House both resided in the capital city of Maetossa - Resheniya. Resheniya was a beautiful city with large white walls surrounding it. The walls were filled with dents still from when the old dictator's armies had invaded. Resheniya put up the biggest defense of all. Their walls never fell. The only reason they lost the battle was because they were outnumbered and exhausted. The people of Maetossa would be happy for several hundred years under the new-found freedom - and authority - that they achieved from breaking off of the mainland. Nobody even cared about the new planet in the sky - named "Artcz".
September 19th, 2338. The day that has been called the "Dawn". When everything would change. This is where the beginning of the history of magick takes place, so we'll just steal some info from that thread instead of writing the same thing twice in two different ways.
Magick was first introduced into the world approximately three-hundred years ago - the same time that abominations, horrors, and demons arrived. It just randomly happened one day. People were doing the normal daily chores when suddenly they could manipulate fire, air, earth, and water. At first, those were the only things people could control. Some of the sorcerers these days refer to those 4 affinities as the "first generation" or "originals". They are usually treated with more respect than sorcerers who have other affinities. They also tend to act elitist. Nobody has ever mastered the abilities of all four first generation affinities. Now then, we got off track - back to where we were. When the people of Maetossa discovered their abilities they were frightened and had no idea how to control their new-found abilities. What was the government's response? Kill them all. Everybody who was found with magical abilities was publicly executed for witchcraft. They had been doing that before actual magical abilities - but nobody was actually capable of performing magick until then.
Most of the people who received magical powers immediately went into hiding after word of the public executions got around. They were afraid. They wanted to turn to the government for help but they couldn't. The government had always been a respected and kind one up until then. Or maybe they had always been that way but the people just didn't realize until it was their lives being put on the stake. Rumors also started to spread of nightmarish fiends roaming the country side and brutally killing anybody they came across. Nobody had any proof though... until approximately half a year after the "Dawn". What is the "Dawn"? The "Dawn" is the official name given to the day that humans were blessed... or maybe cursed, with their magical powers.
On the nineteenth day of March, year 2339, the day that has been called "Arrival" in the history books took place. A massive six headed beast besieged the capital city of Maetossa - Resheniya - and completely obliterated it. After the main defensive walls were broken down by just a single blow from one of the heads of the beast a legion of horrific looking abominations poured into the city and began to kill and devour every single living thing they came across. It only took 20 minutes for 90% of the population to be killed. The population was around 70,000 at the time. By the time the entire siege was over less than 500 were left.
After that day, nobody saw the beast that became a legend again and nobody has been within 50 miles of Resheniya either. Anybody who goes near that place.... well, they won't be coming back. Let's just say that it's rather popular among all things evil now. Back to the story. That was the last day that a human just randomly received magical powers. No longer would somebody wake up with the ability to conjure flames in the palm of their hand. From that day forward - only newborns would be able to gain magical powers. Not just the newborns of parents with magick either. Just any newborn, although, the children born from parents with magical powers did have a higher chance of also having powers. After the government was utterly destroyed during Arrival, the people of Maetossa recognized the new threat as more than just rumors floating around and instead began to prepare defense against them. One of the most important defenses was the complete stop of all executing of humans with magick and instead employing them against the legions of those that would seek to destroy them.
After that everything has been downhill. With the collapse of the government a new one took it's place. And instead of having a democracy like the old one - a Monarchy took it's place. King Leeas promised all sorts of things to the people of Maetossa. He promised to create defenses that are capable of beating the abominations, he promised to militarize all sorcerers, he even promised everybody to be equally fed and treated fairly. Only the first two promises were kept though. Almost every village was forced into testing experiments to further technology and the ones that weren't were forced to be farming-only villages. While the women were all busy farming and randomly experimenting on things - the men were forced to help construct the new capital city of Maetossa, aptly named Maetossa. It was constructed over the course of 40 years - finished right before the king's death. It was at least two times bigger than Resheniya was. It's walls were three times thicker and taller too. Nothing would be able to penetrate the new city except maybe that legendary creature that had destroyed Resheniya.
After the king's death, his son Rin Leeas took the crown. His first order of business was to name the currency system after himself: The "Rin". One Rin is equal to one dollar. King Rin Leeas was also a fairly smart man after you got past how self-absorbed he was. He is not only famous for the introduction of the new currency but also for the discovery of steam power. Using the power of steam lots of new discoveries and devices have been made. Then, just several years after discovering steam energy - he discovered gunpowder. Civilization started to advance extremely fast at that point. They practically jumped from the dark ages to what is now a mixture of late-Renaissance/early-Victorian era in just two hundred or so years. Impressive. Once King Rin Leeas died his much more unimpressive son took charge for quite some time before also passing on - then that cycle repeated once more. Now the current leader is King Rin II Leeas. He is a fairly good king. What he doesn't have in terms of general intelligence he makes up for in terms of war strategy. He's commanded several military expeditions against areas known to be home to large groups of abominations and horrors - all victorious. Some people even think he's going to be the king to get rid of all the abominations and horrors. The king to truly save the country of Maetossa. But not even he is stupid enough to send troops anywhere near Resheniya. This leaves us at the current year of 2633.
Modern Society
Modern society is a mix of the late-Renaissance, and early-Victorian eras with a bit of Steampunk influence. Now when I mention steampunk I don't mean giant steam-powered mechas or airships or anything. They're not quite there... yet. Things like basic telephones, some very slow and noisy cars, and guns are considered to be the most technologically advanced... things, right now. Nothing modern like planes, submarines, ak-47's, etc. So, how do people dress? That's different. Imagine a mix of Victorian-era clothes and traditional Japanese clothes. That's how people dress. Or just one or the other is fine. In terms of guns... the most advanced non-magical guns available right now are huge Gatling guns. Anything more advanced than that is a no-no. Cities and architecture is generally of the Victorian-era while art and entertainment is more of the Renaissance period. Any questions? I'm sorry if I've made this confusing in any way, I tried explaining it as best I could without going into wayyyyyyyyyy too much detail about every single thing. If you have any questions feel free to ask<3. Same goes for suggestions, if you have any suggestions then feel free to... suggest.
Religion. The main religion – called “Tirn” - is like Christianity but that you don’t need to believe in the religion to go to “Heaven”. They believe that anybody who is bad/evil just ceases to exist instead of going to a place like “Hell” and everybody that is good gets to go to Heaven and then be reincarnated if they wish to be. They believe that the other planet which orbits their own is an “evil” planet that the abominations and magick come from. Of course, that’s just the most popular religion. There are many other religions just like there is in the real world. Of course there are people who don’t believe in religion too. What your character believes is up to you.
One last thing. Right now almost every human with no magical powers views sorcerers as menaces to society. Some religion extremists even try to kill them when nobody is looking. Even the sorcerers who defend and help the general population are looked down on.
Artcz
You may be wondering what I mean when I say there is another planet in orbit. So here, let me give you a good example:
Now, it's sorta like that except our planet - Terras - doesn't look so nice and green. And the planet in orbit is mostly black. See that second smaller planet in the background? Well, imagine that that's the moon.. and also a dark boring color like grey. So, just get rid of the bright green of the planet the picture is taken from, add some giant nightmarish creatures to it, make the first planet in the background pure black and the second planet grey and you've got a good idea of what the view is like in the RP.