The Mortal Realm is a Play-by-Post Game that takes place in a 20 Minutes into the Future Urban Fantasy setting which can be found here but seems to be currently inactive
. Most of the population know nothing of the magic in the world but there is a secret society of Enlightened individuals who can wield Functional Magic, which is based in its own form of science. With The Omniscient Council of Vagueness as the unofficial authority over all the magic wielding populace. The plot basically centers on a cast (the players) who inadvertently get thrown into a series of adventures that range from murder investigations to possible apocalypse.
This game provides examples of:
- And I Must Scream: The fate of victims of Leeching is said to be worse than the most horrifyingly bad thing that could ever be imagined.
- Ban on Magic: NO GREEN MANA FOR YOU!
- Bishōnen Line: Played on both sides. The weakest demons are monsters but become more human like as they get stronger, and then their bodies become corrupted and monster like as they gain even more power, then finally the most powerful demons, archdemons, are able to switch between forms at will.
- Cursed with Awesome: Somewhat for Simón. Simón acknowledges that his powers are powerful, and uses them several times during his time against Amador, but he hates and fears what he can do with them, causing him to use them (mostly) sparingly.
- Dark Is Not Evil: Guile is a Necromancer, and the whole category of magic involving blood and bone, Onyx, is just a form of magic. No good or evil associated to it at all.
- Except it is considered the fan favorite of demons, but even still.
- Eldritch Location: The Sanctuary is said to be a magic laboratory in the Astral Realm, oh and speaking of the Sanctuary, did we mention Expy already?
- Expy: The Horadric Wanderer is a Horadrim, as in the race of mages from Diablo Its not too bad considering the world is supposed to be an alternate way of interpreting the Diablo Universe.
- Fantastic Racism: Lots, Most Enlightened look down upon unenlightened as being inferior.
- Many people dislike summoners for their ability to seemingly call upon what many consider gods or deities.
- Few people see demons as anything other than evil monsters out to kill humanity
- Zeches is a raging demon hater, made worse by that his job description is solving demon related crimes. Here's a hint, the demon is never the victim
- Which in turn makes the Lothian Guard racist for having an anti-demon division in the first place.
- Although not without reason, demons have tried to kill humanity before and many hate humans as much as humans hate them.
- Undead and Liches are also disliked, and definitely not considered human
- Werewolves vs humans
- Thankfully there is no werewolf vs vampire, as vampires are just humans who increase their lifespan by stealing others'
- Which may not seem much different than Leeches, but there is a distinct difference in what happens to the victim, see And I Must Scream above
- No one likes Leeches
- Fantastic Slurs: "Lowers" for non-enlightened, many demons also take offense at being called anything other than demon or DaeJal, especially devil
- Formulaic Magic: Colorless profession of mathematician can't get much closer to this.
- Giant Spider: There is a large one in the Cave Beyond the Echoes.
- Gratuitous Latin: Latin is the official language of the magic community, makes sense given that latin is used for scientific names and it’s something that all can learn. (The GM loves latin too, so there's that.)
- Grey-and-Gray Morality: Sure there are Angels, Demons, Crime Syndicates, totalitarian governments. But see it from their point of view and it makes sense. No one's perfect. Part of game play so that players will sometimes make contradicting decisions to other players.
- Hellgate: This quite literally is a giant gate that leads to the Inferno Realm.
- Highly-Conspicuous Uniform: Averted with the Lothian Guard whose standard uniform is desert garb, useful since Lothia in the middle of the Sahara. Played straight with Henzarlle's squire uniform which is bright baby blue.
- Although Henzarlle was outfitted for a diplomatic mission rather than a combat one, most militaries had formal wear as well which is basically what Henzarlle is wearing.
- I Just Want to Be Free: Genie's excuse for everything he does, but then again he's a bit insane
- Immortality Immorality: Leeching is bad
- Vampires are generally disliked as well.
- Jedi Mind Trick: Orange Mana, Illusions, can trick people in thinking almost anything. Powerful Orange Mages can even rewrite a persons memory entirely.
- Last of His Kind: The Horadric Wanderer is the only one who can cast Horadric spells.
- Love Goddess: Lilith is said to be this, but for demons. Depictions of her range from Ethical Slut to full blown super demon whore.
- It should be noted that it is supposed to be the same Lilith from Jewish and Sumerian lore so her reputation is less then admirable.
- Magic from Technology: Only a bit, this magic works with a rare element, Mana, that amplifies the "magic" in one’s mind to produce spells, rituals, etc
- Monochromatic Eyes: One of the tell tale signs of demonic possession is all black eyes, only appears when the demon is tapping into their power.
- The Omniscient Council of Vagueness : The Council is pretty much this 100%, not even their police force know the full story
- Operation: [Blank]: The first arc's primary quest is the Biggs' operation: Operation TRADE
- Our Demons Are Different: Demons are simply a different form of life native to the Inferno Realm.
- Emphasized in that their own language they call themselves something else, DaeJal.
- However, they do call their world the Inferno Realm and/or Hell because it matches the typical description of Hell. They also accept their name as Demons as according to Humans. They consider it just the names translated into human languages.
- Emphasized in that their own language they call themselves something else, DaeJal.
- Our Liches Are Different:Abdul, powerful but not godly.
- Our Werewolves Are Different: Its kinda like a magical disease, no cure, no communication. Only misunderstandings and death.
- Our Vampires Are Different: Vampires are just people who ritually kill others to steal their life, thus extending their own.
- Blood is still heavily involved in the ritual, hence the name
- The process is an exponential addiction, the required dose increases after each use.
- Physical Heaven: The Divine Realm is mentioned and Angels are known to exist in some way.
- Physical Hell: Pretty darn close, while not on Earth, the Inferno Realm is accessible.
- Psychoactive Powers: Its just how magic works,being mentally stressed makes it hard to cast magic, a property of the mind.
- Quest for Identity:This appears to be the demon in the Cave's goal
- [[Spoiler: And when he succeeded it turned out he was a legendary Archdemon, the party was spared on the account that he hadn't fully recovered and enlisted their help in finding the rest of his memory.]]
- Ragtag Bunch of Misfits: Played straight with Guile, Ashelin and a couple others, but averted with Verloren, Biggs, Zeches, and Adel considering they are all trained soldiers.
- Required Secondary Powers: Mostly averted, even skilled Fire Mages can burn themselves to a crisp if they aren't careful.
- A more common form can be seen in the "snap back" Evan gets from her illusions is they aren't done right.
- Sniff Sniff Nom: When Evangeline is drunk, she finds mysterious items and eats them after sniffing them. Once it was a piece of orange peel from her hair, the other was a... something chip-like she found on the ground.
- Sink or Swim Mentor: The Horadric Wander offers little to no help, if it wasn't his fault that some of the cast is sucked into the plot in the first place, he could be The Watcher.
- Shout-Out: All of the herbs Abdul uses are named after World of Warcraft herbs.
- Split Personality: Adel
- Starfish Language: Demon language, Tongues, sounds like they make up the sounds every time they speak.
- Technically they do, the language conveys feelings and emotions as sounds, few words have set meanings but there are some that do.
- DaeJal for example
- Technically they do, the language conveys feelings and emotions as sounds, few words have set meanings but there are some that do.
- Start of Darkness: Adel wasn't always a split personality.
- Summon Magic: Ashelin is a summoner, nuff said.
- Token Human: Completely avoided, all the players are human.
- Token Nonhuman: Abdul is a borderline case, being a lich.
