Core Component: New Terms

[Ramsus]

Core Component: New Terms

Narrated by Ramsus

It has been 32 years since the events of Core Component. In that time Academia Ardensis has become the most famous (or infamous depending on your viewpoint) college of dark magic in all the lands. Lead by Archmage Ætheling and the Council members Sharalt Atan, Elliott Amoretto, and Erik Stanton, not only has the college changed, but so have the attitudes towards certain kinds of previous forbidden schools of magic. Where once witches and blood mages were oft hunted down and killed, now they enjoy a certain amount of freedom to do as they like and are even starting to become influential members of society in certain places. Not that that matters a whole lot to you. You are here to learn magic. You've already passed the initial exams to prove you have at least a measure of natural talent or significant drive to learn, as well as basic entry level studies. Now you will be taught the school's four pillars of magic study: Blood Magic, Witchcraft, Hydromancy, and Aeromancy. You will also receive supplementary lessons in other schools of magic

Little do you know that the faculty is engaged in constant political power struggles and you are to be the pawns in their games.

Rules and Guidelines


Roleplaying and Making Things Convenient for the Narrator

First off, I will say that roleplaying in every post is not required. It is however highly recommended and I make no promises as to what happens if you don't roleplay in at least one post each phase. It is also suggested that if you would normally do something by talking about the mechanics of the game, that you instead try and do so in character.

However for my ease it would be appreciate if you would put mechanical actions underneath the roleplaying part of your posts or if lacking a roleplaying segment still signify it in the following manner.

Example: "Hark, upon entering the lecture on pyromancy, lo do I subtly blast Ramsus with the mighty power of magic missile from my wand whilst they practice thine polymorph technique. I will, as asked, share my research with you McNamehere in exchange for 1 Gold, and I think you should perhaps try the Class President's hat on to see if it fits."

((Attending Pyromancy class, Ramsus for lynch, trading 1 Research with McNamehere for 1 Gold, McNamehere for Class President.))

When you sign up please include a name and description of your character (physical description at the least)

Private Communications

Don't do it! Unless I tell you to. Uh, ok yeah that's not really how I should go about this huh? You think I'd have learned that from last time. Ok so yeah, this is a No PM Game. That means you don't PM other players regarding this game. Or talk to them in quickchats. Or phone, text, or skype each other. Or snapchat (whateverthehellthatevenis) or other weird ways of conveying information that isn't in the thread where everybody can see it.

Oh, also please don't whitepost. By which I mean post in white or another nearly invisible color. If you wanted to RP whispering to another player, just imagine that you're in a group of nosy student wizards with probably very little sense of social graces who will just walk right up and crowd you to put their ears right up to your mouth. Or maybe something less awkward. Anyway, they can hear whatever you say if they feel like it.

Unless I say otherwise (which refers to both of the above).

This goes for players removed from the game too given the possibility there will be something(s) that affects those players in some way. So sorry, no "dead player's QT" for this game. For this reason I would ask players removed form the game to continue to pay attention to the game, the QT, and their PM box if absolutely necessary.

When the game starts you will each be PMed a link to a Quicktopic (QT) where you shall perform certain actions as dictated by what spells you know, be informed of things by me, and can talk to me about things like your favorite kind of baked goods. (Or yeah ok, game relevant things too. Not that baked goods aren't relevant to absolutely everything ever.)

Roles

There are only two roles in the game. Student (which most of you will be) and Teacher (which exactly four of you will be, Aventine, Rain Dragon, BourgeoisJerry, and ThePhantom to be precise unless any of them decline in which case I'll take volunteers and choose those who I think would be most reliable).

Teachers should try to roleplay and encourage others roleplaying when they can.

Calendar

The in game calendar is a lunar calendar consisting of twelve (12) months of five (5) weeks of six (6) days. The full moon always falls on the 15th of every month. The game will start during the first week of Advent becuse that's conveniently easy to remember.

Calendar

01 -- Advent -- Spring begins in this month
02 -- Somber
03 -- Ardor
04 -- Welkin -- Summer begins in this month
05 -- Zenith -- The longest day of the year is in this month
06 -- Nova
07 -- Atropos -- Autumn begins in this month
08 -- Gault
09 -- Tumulus
10 -- Bastille -- Winter begins in this month
11 -- Nadir -- The shortest day of the year is in this month
12 -- Solace

Days of the Week

1-- Molkim
2-- Northwatch
3 -- Luna
4 -- Aethdar
5 -- Miresmoon
6 -- Krisdent

Phases

There are two main game phases, each accompanied by a narrator "Ok let's try and figured out what actually happened" phase. The former phases will be announced by "Start of X Day/Night #" and the later by "End of X Day/Night #". During the later phases, nothing you do in the thread or you QTs will have any effect and you should probably try and avoid posting at all (unless I'm taking forever) as it's just for me to crunch numbers and such.

Each full day/night phase cycle represents one week of in character time.
Each day phase rotates between five classes, two on each day. One for each teacher and a fifth random class or event.


Day Phase
Students
Students gain two (2) research points at the start of each day that go into a game-long pool of research points they expend to learn spells.

Students may vote in red for someone to have an unforunate spell miscasting accident. These accidents result in one (1) damage being dealt to the student with the most red votes. Only one student takes damage, even if there are ties. Each student has three (3) points of health, when they reach zero (0) health they are removed from the game. (Though perhaps not permanently.)

Students post in green for which class/event out of the two options they are attending.

In the regular four classes the teacher picks a new spell they're teaching that day. Students attending gain one (1) research towords that spell. Students can spend research points to research any spell taught in that class so far. Spells have research points costs in accordance with how strong they are. Research points are spent in secret by saying so in their QT. Any student who learns a spell from a teacher's class gets a symbol of that class. The appropriate teacher is notified who and when symbols are given to.

In the random classes students can secretly bid research points in their QT to attempt to learn the spell of that class. Highest bidder learns the spell, second highest gains one (1) gold. Everyone else has a random higher than 0% chance to gain one (1) gold or a consumable item based on how much they bid.

Events, if we have any, will have their rules posted at the time.

On the first day phase of each month the students will elect a Class President, by voting their name in blue. On the day they are elected to the position the Class President gains an extra research towords a random spell they haven't finished researching (or some other benefit). In the case of a tie, one (1) damage is dealt to the person the Class President voted for. If there is a tie and the Class President didn't red vote for anyone, they take one (1) damage.

Students may only use one consumable item that can be used during the day phase.

Students may give or trade research points or gold to other students, by posting they do so in bold. If it is a trade, both parties must agree to the transaction. (You also can't "give" people -1 gold or other silly things like that.)


Teachers
Each day the teacher's may make a recruiting attempt on one student who has at least one (1) of their symbols. Students who have not been recruited may accept or decline. Students who have already been recruited may decline or choose to be a real member in one group and a spy in the other. Students may only be in up to two teacher's camps at the same time. If they accept recruitment or wish to spy on further recruitment attempts, they must withdraw from another group. Students cannot be a spy if they are not a real member of any of the teacher's camps. Recruitment offers will be made known to students at the start of the night phase and their responses and withdrawls will be made know to teachers at the start of the next day phase, though the report from a spy will be reported to the teacher as an acceptance. At any time teachers may request a new QT for themselves and their recruits to talk to each other.


Night Phase
Students
During the night the students may cast one (1) spell. Spells have a decent miscast chance or other such non-optimal mechanics.

Students may only use one consumable item that can be used during the night phase.

Teachers
During the night the teachers may boost spellcasting (reduce miscast chance or other such) for one student or investigate one student. If they investigate and find a spy in their recruits' ranks, that student is removed from that camp and is suspended for one (1) day/night cycle.

Also the teachers who have an upcoming class must pick a new spell to be taught in that class and a bit of narration to go along with it. They can do this any time before their next class. (The earlier the better really.)

Goals & Game End Conditions

There are five student victory goals. One for having the most of each of the four classes' symbols, one for having the most gold.

Goal for teachers is to have the largest group of recruits at the end of the game. Ties result in a post game large recruits vs recruits match with teachers boosting spells each round. Win by total knock out of oppossing team. (I'll give more specific rules on this if it comes up.)

Players removed from the game are just not in school, not dead. Possibly they may not be out permanently, depending on what removed them from school, spells, events, etc. Removed students still count for number of recruits, but can't be targetted by anything. Same goes for suspended students.

Game ends when either all in play students have been recruited, one or more students has ten (10) symbols of a single class, or no students are in play. If at end of game there are students tied for the same victory condition, they have rounds of spell battling until one of them wins the match. Rounds in the match either are ties or give a point to less than all of the students in the match. Victory is the first to five (5) points, or the first to the highest points above five.

Teachers

Player	Character	Class
Thematthew	Howard Mors	Blood Magic
Rain Dragon	Zien Ashar	Witchcraft
BourgeoisJerry	Hollie Stainthorpe	Hydromancy
ThePhantom	Maxfield Tenou	Aeromancy

Students

Player	Character	Status	When?
Duck999	Bob	Attending
C'nor	Hunter Martell	Attending
cardrian	Leon Kuruth	Attending
Lex-Kat	Calissa de Monte	Not Attending	Night 10
Elenna	Julia Bailey	Attending
Bladescape	Faelyn of House Caldar	Dropped Out	Day 16
Xihirli	Xihirli the Malevolence	Not Attending	Night 11
Haruki-kun	Parry Hotter	Not Attending	Night 11
Deathslayer7	Robert Hammerstone	Attending
IamL	Adlai	Not Attending	Night 15
BasketOfPuppies	Tiny, Spot, Rex, & Bongo	Attending
Penguinator	Godric McDane	Attending
Flaming Eagle	Sweeney Snowstomper	Not Attending	Day 15
Sprig	Kira McDiarmid	Not Attending	Night 13
Helgraf	Rengraf Helfield	Dropped Out	Night 9
Queen of Thorns	Queen	Not Attending	Night 17

[Duck999]

I'll play again.

Bob:
Bob is a teenager (human male), but not a sullen one. He is short and skinny. He wears normal clothes, no cloaks or anything. He has blue eyes and blue (dyed) hair. He moves with a sort of smoothness, as if every action flows into the next. He is very energetic, and does a lot of bouncing around when excited. His prior knowledge of magic comes entirely from his parents, who passed knowledge onto him. Them being no longer alive, however, means he needs to find a new way to learn.

[ThePhantom]

Erik Stanton gazes at his orrey, one of the greatest in the world. Soon, term will start, and the teaching will begin.

"The movement of the stars rules everything."

(In.)

[Silent_Interim]

I should like to participate as Tim, the starry eyed enchanter with big dreams of participating in famous British comedy movies from 40 years ago.

Unfortunately, due to... unforeseen circumstances, I will be travelling and will not be able to devote enough time or attention to this. So, sadly, Little Tim fell down a well.

[TherianTheorist]

I'd like to play again.

Spoiler: Leon Kuruth

Show

"Can you see them? Beyond this horizon lies a star of promised victory, and a tightly coiled curse."

A teenager with clear green eyes and blonde hair. He often wears heavy jackets and decorative armor to cover them, but traces of scales are visible on his hands and around his neck. He is tall and lean.

His hobbies in his spare time include perching in high spots to watch people. He is fluent in draconian.

[Rain Dragon]

I'd like to play as well!
I'd also like to wait a little to figure out a character properly, if that is okay.

I know I don't want to play Sharalt again if possible.

[Ramsus]

I actually wasn't expecting people to have their teacher characters be their old council member characters. They can, it's fine, but it certainly wouldn't be the norm. So yeah it's 100% cool for you to make a new character.

[ThePhantom]

Well, I wasn't sure on how to play someone else. I could do that, I just would need to think of a new character.

[Ramsus]

Either way is acceptable.

[ThePhantom]

Well, I would have to do that, and see what Lex-kat has planned.

[Ramsus]

Well Lex needs a new character for this game pretty much no matter what. Katrina wouldn't really be in this group of students. And even if Aventine or BJ decided not to play, Katrina wouldn't make sense as a teacher for either of their magical schools.

[ThePhantom]

Fair enough. So, I'll get back to you on the character, but I am in.

[BourgeoisJerry]

Hollie Stainthorpe is a tall, slender woman with long blond hair and deep blue eyes. She has a large wardrobe of various styles and colors of dresses, almost all of which are adorned with siren feathers. She also has a pair of seashell earrings that she always wears; anybody who stands close enough to her can hear soft music coming from them. Hollie is a very beautiful woman, but she is starting to show signs of age.

The fact that she was once a siren is public knowledge. However, there has never been a public explanation for how she came to be human, and Hollie always dodges any questions about the subject. It's generally believed that Amoretto, the hydromancer on the council, had something to do with her transformation. There are many rumors about why he would transform a siren into a human, ranging from wilder theories involving a plot to fill the school with monsters in disguise in preparation for the bloodbath that will come when the monsters are returned to their monstrous forms, to relatively practical theories like one that he simply turned a siren into a human because he knew that a former siren would be good at teaching hydromancy.

[Lex-Kat]

In.

I shall play as Calissa de Monte, grand-daughter (yes, grand-daughter) of Katrina de Monte. For those of this realm, it took about five years to retrieve Katrina from the vault. But for her, it took fifteen to find her way from the Nexus, and she brought a surprise with her, Erika de Monte. Her daughter. Katrina doesn't speak about the child's father.

For Calissa's first twelve years, there was not even a hint of magical ability. But on her thirteenth birthday, as Calissa was blowing out the candles on her cake, fireworks begin exploding within the room. Luckily, grandma Katrina had learned a water spell years before.

((Question: At around what age are the students supposed to be? ))

[Ramsus]

There's no specific age really. People who develop magical talents don't develop them on any specific schedule and might only do so due to some catalyst. Those who don't have any natural talent but study also develop at a somewhat random rate, though on average it would take about ten years of study to reach this level. And magic is hardly a simple subject, so you can probably assume any studying before the mid teenage years would be more or less fruitless outside of geniuses or savants. So basically pretty much anything goes as far as ages are concerned.

If you'd have asked me how long it took to free Katrina I was going to say it took at least five years. In fact I could swear I said something similar in the Core Component thread. Since timey wimey stuff was clearly involved in this outcome (and apparently something called the Nexus), I don't suppose it'd be too much to ask you to adjust the time for when Katrina got freed?

And if it's not a huge "do not want!" for you, I'd say that Calissa shows some minor signs of demon in her bloodline. This would be from Katrina's side. Wouldn't have to be anything major. Might be tiny little horns, rather odd eyes or skin color, or perhaps tiny bat wings or a tail. Or something less obvious if you can think up anything interesting.

[Lex-Kat]

I'll think on the demon-part. Thinking maybe tiny horns, and/or perhaps glowing green eyes when she casts spells.

I changed the time to 5 years vs. 15 Nexus years. As for what the Nexus is, it's in the FreeForm RolePlaying section of the forums. I took her there after the game was over. Give her something after being placed in the Vault, and allows me to now play another character related to my first.

[Lady Serpentine]

Do we still need wands and such?

[Ramsus]

Well in character you would have them or some other spellcasting focus, but they don't need to be unique different ones and there's no mechanic involving them. You can describe yours if you want though.

[Lady Serpentine]

In that case... Hunter Martell, daughter of an old, but waning, noble house shall be attending this semester.

As for who that is, well... Rumors abound about the short blonde girl. The public story, however, is that she was part of a collateral branch of the family; when her parents died in a fire, she was adopted by the main line, and became the heir.

All that is true. It simply fails to mention that she was, shortly before being sent here, turned by a vampire. When combined with her pre-existing magical talents, the choice was fairly obvious, really - especially since she would also learn to handle politics.

As she's still in mourning, the only clothing anyone has seen her in so far has been black, and even her wand (a slender bone rod with a diamond sphere at either end, almost a baton) has long black ribbons trailing from it.

[Lex-Kat]

You know what I think would be cool, if EmeraldRose could play this time. She could use her previous character, stating that somehow she was able to, for a brief time, appear in the past history in an attempt to influence and change events in that time. Or something like that.

[Ramsus]

Well, her reason for dropping out last time was that she felt she didn't really have the time. You could shoot her a PM and ask if that's still the case though.

[ThePhantom]

I have a character now.

Maxfield Tenou
A tall man, who’s most distinct feature is his long, flowing red hair. He often wears light blue and yellow robes. Maxfield is a former student of Erik Stanton, which is why he was asked to teach the subject in which Erik is master of. Perhaps he is on a mission from his former teacher, or just out to teach the art of Aeromancy.

[Rain Dragon]

Name - Zien Ashar
Age - Unknown
Gender - Male
Race - Human-Fey Hybrid

When most people think of witches, they picture ancient wise women wickedly laughing with glee as they stir their cauldrons. Zien Ashar, teacher of Witchcraft of the Academia Ardensis and former apprentice to Sharalt Atan however is a seemingly youthful man who could only be described as pretty. Half fey, half human, his straight silver hair and pale skin don't hint at his fey heritage. His eyes however are a stunning purple which clearly show his age. It is rumoured Zien has lived beyond his natural lifespan thanks to powerful dark magic which has long been kept a secret among the witches. Perhaps one day, aspiring students shall learn these secrets for themselves...

Zien is almost always seen wearing a black kimono tied with a dark red cloth belt. He always seems to be complaining that the weather is too hot and often carries a traditional Japanese fan with him. His casting focus is a raven's skull etched with strange letters in the fey language. Set between its eye sockets is a small black gem which sometimes glows blue or white when Zien is casting a spell.

[Lex-Kat]

{{Update}}

Name: Calissa de Monte

History: Grand-daughter (yes, grand-daughter) of Katrina de Monte. For those of this realm, it took about five years to retrieve Katrina from the vault. But for her, it took fifteen to find her way from the Nexus, and she brought a surprise with her, Erika de Monte. Her daughter. Katrina doesn't speak about the child's father.

For Calissa's first twelve years, there was not even a hint of magical ability, aside from the two small horns that had appeared at the age of two. Luckily, they grew no further, and could easily be hidden under a hat. But on her thirteenth birthday, as she was blowing out the candles on her cake, her eyes began to glow green and fireworks exploded within the room. Luckily, grandma Katrina had learned a water spell years before.

Calissa was soon after enlisted into Academia Ardensis.

Description: 5'2". Just turned 13. Long blonde hair that she likes to wear in pigtails, green eyes, and fair white skin with freckles. She is quite petite. She always wears a silk top hat, no veil attached.

Clothes: She prefers bright clothes. Almost all her dresses are pastel colors, with a few darker hued ones for special occasions.

Wand: She was gifted her wand from her grandmother. The same ¹/₄ inch thick obsidian shaft, topped with a white crystal that has a slight pink glow near the base that Katrina used some thirty years before.

[Aventine]

Oh yeah, I am playing of course.

Completely forgot to actually come here and say that.

[Lex-Kat]

I had been wondering if I should PM you. I was worried you were still worried we'd kill you immediately.

[Aventine]

Yeah, Ramsus beat you to it. And lucky for me it looks like teachers can't be killed.

[Ramsus]

Hurray! Well, I look forward to whatever character you make Aventine.

@Lex: Mmmmmm, delicious details.

Well, now I just need at least 14 more players. Guess I'm going to have to start sending out PMs... Though probably not today as I'm a bit busy. So if.. y'know, anyone else feels like PMing some people feel free?

[Elenna]

I'll play, unless by some miracle I don't get lynched in Classic.

I'll think of a character sometime when it's not 1AM.

[Lady Serpentine]

Hey, not like you can only be in one game at a time. Stick around either way!