Aether Wings - Explorers' Guild

Welp, here we go a bit later then I promised, but hey, a place to world build that is not the signups. >.<

Neat.

So, I've actually been thinking about Zirconus's backstory and how he learned to talk despite you know not having a mouth or vocal cords. So, I figure what happens is he first got started with your standard gestures things and then went to written language, and after he got the hang of that, he got his hands on some anatomy books particularly related to the throat and mouth. He couldn't make himself a set of vocal chords like humans and other organics have, but I figure he could shapeshift a series of resonance chambers into himself that would work almost as well, giving him probably somewhat of a musical tone to his speech patterns. Obviously, it was a long arduous process of trial and error until he got things down.

And it also makes me think, that if I have him remember his life from the moment he well became alice, what would his memories of his thought processes be like before he discovered language? How does one think without words? In pure concepts? I dunno.

Okay, now that we have a proper place to discuss world building, I can put this idea here.

• Nightingale, Goddess of Nursing(usually romanticized to include mercy, hospitality and kindness)
  • Florence Nightingale was historically remembered by her pioneering modern nursing via implementing hygiene practices and modern procedures of nursing. She also helped the discovery of magic healing and and the invention of the Nightingale Lamp(though she died before giving it a proper patent and name, the name is from her family member), raising the reputation of nursing from a lowly, dirty job reserved for the low working class and prisoners to a well-regarded and caring career available for anyone who have the hearts for it. Currently, there are two main sect under her name, both of them teaches the basic of nursing but beyond that they differ:
    • The Night, focused mostly on medical statistics, medicine, research and development, they lean more towards theory-crafting and science rather than actual work. They do not see Nightingale as a Goddess but rather a patron saint and a role model for educated women. Indeed, some of the Night followers viewed her as a statistician than a nurse for her collection and detailed analysis of the hospitals and nursing.
    • The Lamp, focused more on magic, volunteering work, religion of mercy, love and care. They take up to more than half the percentage of the working staff nurses. They are very evangelical with an emphasis on care and second chances, most notably setting up a program where they take in prisoners to work in a medical environment, with varying degree of successes. They view Nightingale as a Goddess with beliefs that praying to her and putting up lamp effigies in her name will lead to a healthy life and ward away any disease from their house.
  • With that being said, there are outliers in the nursing communities, most recent, and infamous, are the space pirate nurses, a gang made up of said prisoner nurses serving pirates and outlaws on the outskirts of the planets. Their services may be expensive but it's worth it for the criminals as they are liable to get arrested in any officially recognized hospitals. With that being said, it is unpredictable whether they are violent or not, as there are reports of nursing pirates attacking cargo for supplies and money. In return, Geneva's convention does not recognize them as official nurses and as such, are not protected under their law, anything goes in the pirate nurse's conflict.

Is this okay? Should I build on it some more? Any questions?

Is my only real thing about gods, but since I am bad with developing relegious things, I kinda like that.

Yeah. I can tell you put a lot of work into it, good job on that. But it does sort of go against what Gods are supposed to be here.

Like there is some being that controls when trees grow and when they don't, but its more like a program within nature than an actual person that decides that.

I dunno. I'm just sort of spitballing an example here, feel free to veto that Imca.

As another suggestion. Maybe it could be like the collective kindness in people's hearts that empowers healers. But people call it Florence Nightengale because that's easier to understand. Something like that?

THE NIGHTINGALE FORCE is a phenomena drawn upon to foster the regeneration of organic matter in medical magic. While many healers do worship it as the deity Nightingale, scientific inquiry has proved inconclusive as to the actual willfulness or awareness of a healer's powersource. At the 29th Annual Medical Conference of Koulikanos, a semi-compromise was reached through a formalized thesis on the nature of The Nightingale Force for the purposes of tutoring new healers in the ways of Medical Thaumaturgy.

edited 31st May '15 1:53:54 PM by Taco

Maelstrom: Also known as The Storm Force among more scientific minds, Maelstrom is the drive behind storms and other events of sudden chaos. Maelstrom is often characterized as a roguish trickster that constantly seeks to throw the works of more orderly gods into disarray. Every natural hurricane, tornado, or other such storm possesses some spark of Maelstrom's drive. It has been theorized that such a spark also drives riots, revolts, and other anarchic events in civilized societies, but there has yet to be any conclusive evidence to prove this. Maelstrom's worshipers are few and far in between. Most live in areas untouched by urban developments and revere storms as demonstrations of their god's power. The few that do live in urban environments tend to be rebels that work to undermine order when they feel it has become too oppressive.

Though I'm not 100% certain on this subject and I'm not sure on what the GM himself wanted this particular bits of lore to go, I think I get what you guys mean by gods being an abstract 'forces of nature', the main thing I'm confused about is how 'people treat them like sapients'. So do normies just casually refer the forces of nature as gods and they basically anthropomorphising them to sapient gods?

With that being said, I'm liking Azure's suggestion. I would go for Florence Nightingale being the first nurse to popularise a more efficient nursing and healing and people would just name it after her to explain things better, then over the years, Nightingale has gotten romanticised and glorified into a goddess representing both the brilliant, coldly efficient yet caring nurse AND a force of healing magic within them, with the Night lean towards the former and the Lamp leaning towards the latter.

I've decided to keep a copy/paste list of all of the races we describe. I'll edit it as more are added:
*

• Elves are strange pointy-eared humanoids that are more closely related to plants than they are to mammals. Elves have no need to eat plant, vegetable or mineral matter since they primarily use photosynthesis to gain nutrients. They have a curious natural ability to produce things such as seeds, fruits, leaves or spores from their bodies, many of which share a similar look to the kind of plants one might find on earth. Many of the elves that people are familiar with are stern and unyielding as a hundred year old oak tree, but there are just as many which are capricious and vicious or lackadaisical and calm. The only common traits elves share are a strange affinity with nature and an unwillingness to acknowledge artificial boundaries. They welcome other elves with open arms no matter what “species” of elf they may be. The word “Elf” itself merely signifies acknowledgment of another member of their species, like “comrade” or “brother”. Any elf that is no longer called an elf by either themselves or another is someone to be mistrusted. Perhaps it is due to their closeness to the planets they walk on, but they also have a very strong negative reaction when someone tries to introduce worship of “gods” into their life. Or it could be something else. That's not up to me to speculate.
• Moon Rabbit- Moon Rabbits were originally humanoids who were altered by their region's magic fields. They originated in a remote region of Athalenes, though have begun to migrate to the more populous cities. The magic field had a slight sentience, and the Moon Rabbits worshipped it as a goddess. They are mostly human, with rabbit-like ears and tails, advanced senses and bodily strength. Additionally, they tend to have paler coloring- with hair colors ranging from dark grey to white. In rare cases, an individual will be born with pure black or multi gradient hair. They age a little slowly, with a fully developed Moon Rabbit being about 30-40.
• Kitsune: Kitsune have a very well documented history amongst the various sentient races. Unlike most races, kitsune were created deliberately by a group of powerful mages as assistants - artificial humans made out of foxes. This was thousands of years ago. By now they have managed to form their own self-sufficient, although moderately small population clusters, and their creators no longer exist. Physically, kitsune have heightened regeneration compared to baseline humans, have a tendency to be conventionally attractive, and after a certain point don't display many physical effects of aging - after all, a good assistant is pleasing on the eyes. It is not entirely upsides, however - they tend to be slightly physically weaker than most races, and any mages have a very hard time concealing their power due to ethereal tails that appear behind them when they cast. The stronger the mage, the more tails.
• AI Mobile Humanoid Unit. In simple terms, this one is a “robot”. Mechanical beings made of metal and wire instead of flesh and bone. Each one is sustained by a magitech core known as a Riftheart. Their frame is made up of thick fibers covering a metal structural frame, with the fibers making what is not unlike a human muscular systems. The “skin” is made up of reinforced plates. Their Rifthearts are charged with a set amount of mana each day, meant to be enough to sustain an extensive variety of actions to be performed each day. As the day goes on the recycled mana starts to lose its power, at which point the unit will plug itself in and recycle the mana. They range from several different intelligence levels, from workers, to individuals with their own personalities and free will.
• Gnomes. They are a small offshoot of elves that tend to be be brightly colored and live in tropical climates and grow betwen two and three feet tall. They tend to be highly inventive with a large range of materials, and then to be overly fixated on certain topics
• Patchwork Man: ◦Pretty much, a Patchwork Man is Frankenstein's Monster in design — a sentient undead being created using the parts of other people and animated using high amounts of life magic. One side effect of this is that he can detract and control parts of his body. Reattaching the limb — or attaching a new one if the prior one got destroyed — consists of just sewing it back on (usually — due to crystal field mutations, there's one major exception for Victor, mentioned down in Bio). He also is rather hard to kill — he's been impaled, torn apart by wolves, and set aflame, and the only long-lasting effect is a fear of fire. Unfortunately, due to being Undead, spells targeting undead beings affect him too. And there's the simple fact that people get disturbed seeing someone's limb fall off...
• Angel- Legend says that angels are born from the souls of innocent humans killed before their time. Whether or not this is true is unknown, even to the angels. Angels have the appearance of normal humans with a pair of semi-ethereal wings. Despite their similar appearance, angels possess speed, strength, and durability that borders on superhuman. Angels spend their time fighting for righteous causes and just individuals. Angels are theoretically immortal, the violent lifestyle that angels tend to lead cuts this short. Angels give themselves titles based on what they perceive to be their greatest defining attribute such as “The Angel of Righteous Fury” or “The Angel of Honorable Retribution.” Angels also often take human names to better interact with other races. Angels have no shared culture or settlements and are so few in number that they rarely encounter another of their kind. An angel’s birth is accompanied by a sudden, violent storm and a brilliant flash of light in the same color as the angel’s wings. They are born fully mature with basic knowledge about the world. Other angels are drawn to these birthing events and act as mentors until the newborn angel is properly prepared. Rumors of fallen angels that pursue evil ends are unfounded and completely false. At least, that’s what the angels say.
• Avis, These are a race of humans that are said to be descendant from the "God" Anshar, who governs the sky. In truth they are from a group of humans that mutated to gain avian features but it was inevitable that a tale like that would form, and indeed a large number of Avis are devotees of Anshar. They're appearance are usually that of a winged humanoid but there are a select few born without them, trading flight for more durability and speed on the ground. These individuals are said to be forsaken by Anshar and generally not liked by the ones calling themselves "Pious". They all have bird-like reflexes, and senses, but flying Avis aren't as durable as a human, due to their generally lighter frames. They also seem to have an affinity for wind and velocity magic.
• Wyrmlings are somewhat close relatives of regular full-sized dragons, but aside from being fun-sized, there are quite a few differences between Wyrmlings and their much larger, much scarier cousins. Wyrmlings have strong pack mentalities and usually seek the company of their own kin, or other sapient species you can have an intellectual conversation with. While there are a lot of subspecies of Wyrmlings that have adapted to certain environments, the vast majority of them are quadrupedal and have a pair of wings on their back. Furthermore, Wyrmlings lack the bigger dragons' natural affinity for magic, meaning they are not much more powerful than your regular humanoid mage. But good luck getting a Wyrmling to actually admit that.
• Shifter is a race of being who can change their form at will. Not much is known about them because they seem to hiding among race with high levels of magic. Though what is none about them is that they tend to have high amount magic. They do seem to have preferred Sex and genders. Also some people and shifter seem to theories that they might have been a race of spirit that got banished here long ago.
• Kosmimians are an incredibly rare some say unique species that are sentient magical crystals with their own mobility. There are very few records of their existence and even fewer confirmed records that aren't just rumor or hearsay. What little is known about them is that they appear to be 'born' from the giant magical crystal formations and by their very origin are highly attuned to magic and quite capable of wielding it. They barely qualify for humanoid in appearance and there are some reports that suggest that not all of them even have the standard humanoid arrangement of limbs. Kósmi̱mians' lack anything resembling organs or a circulatory system or the like giving them greater resistance to slashing and piercing type weapons. Unfortunately their brittle crystalline structure makes them significantly more vulnerable to blunt force trauma. They've also got a limited natural ability to reflect and refract energy based attacks particularly those of a light-like nature.
• Dragons, or at least their ancestors, are native to the Rift. Because of that, almost all dragons have a strong affinity to magic, granting them spellpower far beyond what almost any humanoid could ever hope to achieve. Most dragons are solitary and very territorial. They see the borders of the land they claim as their own as practically sacred, and tend to have big disputes with "neighbouring" Dragons about which lands are part of whose front lawn and goddammit Dinkleberg I put that massive wall up there for a reason you can't just fly over and steal from my peach orchard you green-scaled son of a bitch. >:| In a similar vein, Dragons not only like owning lots of land, they also love owning lots of valuables. "Valuables", however, is a term with a definition that varies depending on which Dragon you ask. Most of them would agree that gold and other objects of monetary value are the best things to hoard, but there are quite a few dragons who instead consider knowledge far more valuable and thus hoard books and scriptures, or dragons that just like having fun and therefore have a hoard of video games and consoles (including copies of the elusive and fabled game Fight Frogs). Touching or even approaching a Dragon's hoard without explicit permission is the single most suicidal thing a person can do short of flying straight into Heracles. The role of any individual dragon in a given society can vary greatly. There's Dragons that act as respected rulers of entire countries, Dragons that protect villages and small towns from external threats, Dragons who enslave communities and force them to do their bidding, Dragons who cooperate with Universities and act as renowned scientists, Dragons that just like staying in their cave all year watching Space Netflix, and so on.

edited 4th Jun '15 9:50:26 PM by Elyzian

4 & 3 I like those, perfect. :D

2 There VERY VERY powerful magical forces, pretty much laws of the universe, the God of War for instance could very well be a feild that compels any one in it to try and fight each-other, they exist, they move, and they produce definitive, observable effects.

This gives them the illusion of life, people pray to them and worship them, but there not actually alive. (Most people would not realize this though)

edited 31st May '15 5:48:04 PM by Imca

Ah, ok, I see, thanks for clarifying.

No problem, I am also very tempted to make them run on god needs prayer badly and clap your hands if you believe, with them basically getting as powerful as they are in the first place due to the collective thoughts of the populations, basicly a kind of latent group casting.

But I dunno if any one else likes that idea. >.<

I sure do! :D

Also hi, thinking about joining this RP.

That sounds good, Imca. Also we've got a lot of accepted applicants on this RP, how would you split them up? I would personally go for making them groups of 5 and send them on the same planet at a vastly different location.

I was going to TRY single group at first actualy, I plan on doing a lot of interaction, and I think I can handle a large group s long as people stick to one post per GM post once action starts. :)

X4 I suppose that could make sense as some kind of force or field that developed as life grew and became more complex. Though I think that only really makes sense for gods like The Nightingale Force that are more specialized for life. I'm not entirely clear on how it would work for more primal gods like Maelstrom.

edited 31st May '15 6:34:50 PM by Elyzian

I'm just not entirely sure that a single 16-man team would be manageable, a 16-man team would be more practical as a platoon than a squad. Would also be hard to establish meaningful relationship between each members other than simply team mates. Maybe mix them up every once in a while?

Back on the god subject, I don't think Maelstrom needs the approval of the people. For something like the Nightingale that are directly relating and benefiting towards humans, it would need to be at least acknowledged and practice, the more people that does that, the stronger it will be due to increase of faith and understanding of said force of nature. Maelstrom doesn't need such approval for something so chaotic.

edited 31st May '15 7:57:58 PM by sgtpendulum

Imca, from experience. 16 people is a massive cast. I get the whole interaction thing, but it gets unwieldy very fast, especially if you have a GMPC.

Yeah, I am really uncertain about whether I should suggest my character if we've already got 16 players accepted...

Exactly, what I'm suggesting is that the whole cast will be in a platoon, the leader will be picked based on experience and personality(or at random, whichever be more fun), then split into 4 squads of 4, much more manageable that way while all of the characters can also interact each other in some ways. Theoretically, I think your tactic might run the risk of slowing down the RP unnecessarily with a single point of failure, what if something happens IRL and you need to attend to it? Regardless, we listed out the pros and cons and if you still want to go ahead with that strategy, go for it, we'll follow. My apologies if we sound too demanding.

edited 1st Jun '15 7:20:03 AM by sgtpendulum

I dunno. I've gm'd bigger casts, even as chaotic as the end result was (which was in itself kind of fun at times). And if the GM and their co-GM/s have to leave, it wouldn't really matter how many guys were playing, we'd be stuck regardless considering the single point of failure for a pnp rpg is almost always "GM can't play" barring a player revolt. That's kinda how games of pretend with one person as the primary storyteller usually go.

'sides, Insano hasn't finished his character sheet, and several people have expressed interest but haven't yet actually submitted a character. Let's see what they actually have before we start sorting everyone into tiny little platoons or whatnot.

edited 1st Jun '15 7:55:37 AM by Raidouthe21st

Its true that R Ps with larger casts than this often work out just fine.

And Imca's not exactly a noob at this either. For now we should just relax and see what comes of just playing the game.

I would be hesitant considering if everyone who says they'll make a character does make a character we'll have over twenty people running around. Perhaps we could start out as one big group, and if it gets too unwieldy the story could contrive some way to separate us into groups.

That is easy enough, but I already actually run some high player-count RPs, and my time in ones with set groups have left me very... turned off to the idea.

They make it way to hard to interact with people you may want too who are not part of your fixed group.

If you think you can handle it, I say we do it that way.