Man is surely a most wicked creature. Lusts, lies, adulteries, debaucheries, and abominations proceed from the depths of his wicked heart, and all the while he sings the praises of his goodness to a universe deaf to his arrogance. Why then are they not destroyed? Is it for the sake of those few whose hearts are a little less depraved, whose thoughts do not wholly yield themselves to the whims of vanity and pride? Were it not for these few, the lot of their race should have been swept into oblivion. Yet even the remnant will carry the banner of men, daring to extol the virtues of mercy for the wicked over some laughable potential for good.
If their foreign enemies do not first destroy them, then by their own folly shall they perish from the earth.
~Hierarch of the Shroud
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Rules
READ THEM CAREFULLY. Even if you've been paying attention to the discussion thread, I've changed a few game elements without first describing them there, including the world map and character images.
Let's get the ground rules out of the way first. No powergaming, metagaming, power playing, or god modding. If you wish to post out-of-character (OOC) comments in the main story thread, which is this thread, bookend it with double-parentheses ((like so)). Every post to the main story thread must contain a story part; if I find any OOC-only posts on the story thread, I will deduct points from your running score (to be discussed in a moment).
When you post, you must put in the subject line the number of the post you are replying to, a letter grade of how well you liked it (from A to F), and a short summary on what the author could have done better. I will then use the letter grades to guide how I allocate points, which you can use as currency to purchase upgrades or trade with other players for goods or services.
In this story, you can play as either one of the seven predefined Captains of the Seven Legions or as a subordinate unit of your own creation. Captains are extremely powerful alchemists who are essentially one-person armies in their own right. They command vast armies about a million strong that the player can customize at will, and they control wide swaths of territory. Their subordinates have no such benefits, and any original characters you create are likewise limited.
If you choose to create an original character, you are responsible for telling me everything I need to know about that character; no character sheet outlines will be provided to you. If you choose one of the seven Captains, you must select one of seven Wrongs (to be outlined shortly) that the character's faction must struggle with. You may not choose a Wrong that someone else has also chosen. Your Captain does not necessarily have to be a guilty party in your selected Wrong, but then you will have find an alternate explanation for your Captain's participation in the conflict.
Every faction has a stock of key weapons called "Magical-Alchemical Deconstructors," or "MADs," which use a combination of dark demonic magic and multi-elemental alchemy to perform staggeringly huge detonations that you can customize to deal their damage any way you want. You can tweak one to turn your opponent's army into zombie unicorns, break them down into peanut butter chocolate, or straight-up blow everything sky-high. You can do whatever the heck you want with them (so long as it's destructive), but you only get 3, and everyone has them, so choose wisely how you use them (if at all!).
List of Wrongs
- Power Hungry - You have been expanding the power of your government. You think your reasons are wholly justified, but it's royally angering the other factions.
- Slavery - Your economy depends entirely on the use of unpaid workers. Since they are inferior, you feel that there is nothing wrong with using them. Maybe they're robots, work animals, lower-class citizens, or something else. Even so, the other factions think you're committing a grave sin by forcing them to work for you.
- Land Grab - You've been taking over neighboring lands or jobs, making them and their allies very angry with you. But you believe you have no other choice, since maybe your resources are depleted, the neighbors provoked you, or you just randomly decided their faces would look better with your fist in them.
- Religion - The other nations around you have fallen into immorality and wickedness. You are called to be their judge, jury, and executioner. Show them the error of their ways. Make them pay for the evil they have wrought.
- Intrigue - You've been spying on your neighbors for far too long. The assassination attempt was the last straw, and you are now drawn into all-out war over it.
- Racism - You have created the ultimate race. You spent countless decades of your precious life perfecting the human genome, and you will NOT have it screwed-up because some dimwit got laid by a prostitute one night.
- Nationalism - Your country right or wrong. God Bless Your Country. Land of the Free Handouts and Home of the Brave Idiots. You stuck your nose into everyone else's business because you're so much better than they are, and now they despise you for it. Oops.
Captains of the Seven Legions:
- Serris Lengsk, Captain of the Polar Legion
- Winter Grey, Captain of the Rage Legion
- Darian Reflet, Captain of the Storm Legion
- Desna Conroy, Captain of the Iron Legion
- Evaria Sintaris, Captain of the Gold Legion
- Cecilia Barlowe, Captain of the Rose Legion
- Solomon Trent, Captain of the Azure Legion
Serris Lengsk is an ice alchemist. His legion is stationed at the Polar caps.
Winter Grey is a nature alchemist. Her legion is stationed in the jungles.
Darian Reflet is a thunder alchemist. His legion is stationed in the plains.
Desna Conroy is a flame alchemist. Her legion is stationed in the tundras.
Evaria Sintaris is a light alchemist. Her legion is stationed in the deserts.
Solomon Trent is a metal alchemist. His legion is stationed in the capital.
Cecilia Barlowe is a dark alchemist. Her legion is stationed in the catacombs.
You are free to customize your Captains' abilities as fit their alchemical affinities. There are a few loose guidelines on how alchemy works that I would prefer you adhere to, though. First off, while its mechanics take inspiration from Fullmetal Alchemist, do not rely on that source for info on how things work in this game. Alchemy is powered by the natural flow of energy through the world, and alchemic runes tap into that energy to change how it flows. To actually start alchemy, one must perform a "weave," a special sequence that channels your body's energy into the rune in order to overcome the activation barrier for the reaction. For things like firebolts, a simple snap weave usually does the job, but for more complicated reactions like creating dimensional portals, a veritable dance is required to get it going.
For story purposes, feel free to get creative with your alchemy abilities and their activation sequences. If you wanna make it look like magic and read things out of a book to do alchemy, go ahead, but make sure to have a plausible explanation. If you need another example, Lady Grey scrapes her boot on the ground to activate her nature alchemy.
One final warning: NO LONE MERCENARIES. Being a gruff lone mercenary is cool and all, but it has no place in this story. With the looming threat of the M.A.D.s and the oft-intrusive policies of the various factions, staying uninvolved is an unrealistic ideal at best. Do not attempt it. I will be very cross with you if you try.
With all that fun stuff out of the way, let the real fun begin!
Serris Lengsk, in his years living in the harshest of conditions in a place where nothing but the impersonal wildlife provides company alongside an implacable cold, had silently watched the world from afar. He laughed at the folly of the rabble as the poor rose against the rich. The nobles, the soft-bodied flesh bags he was supposed to protect called out to all his forces in vain, a savior among the soldiers that were assigned to a life of unreasonable hardship would not be found here.
The sheep, had they grown horns, would've marked themselves as his flock. He'd have an obligation then.
However, when they could provide little else for the ram that already lived on nothing, they were unnecessary - a burden wanted only by those capable of protecting life and limb for a false emotion called affection.
So Serris continued to observe, not batting a single lash at his soldiers. There came about other captains, of supposedly equal skill, strengths, etc.
Even in refuse, six other gems had been found in the rough. But much to his dismay, they began to plot against one another, over silly things like politics, religion, resources. Instead of fixing the problem at its root, these so-called Captains, his equals, were fighting because they could not survive with nothing.
Because they were too inferior to live without as much needs. Serris needed not to cull anybody; years of arctic conditions had already achieved that for his army.
His only real qualm with them, however, was because they were led by worthy individuals. Smart individuals with an annoying penchant for killing. Too bad they weren't smart enough to condition their men for what Serris was about to bring down upon them.
The warm-bloods were probably fighting for their own reasons : families, resources, something stupid called nationalism or curiosity...but in the end, all those faltered when simple biology and ecology came into play : those who were most fit survived; those who were not fit...competed and die.
Serris grinned as he stared off south. Thy were not fit for this world...the world that offered so much already. How unfortunate for those monkeys to be born drinking fatty milk; they'd get their second filling in the next life.