ooc Salem University OOC (Open)

[Duality 10,738]

14 hours ago, Denim&Venom said:

So when did this daemon invasion happen? And how have the world's religions not have a record increase in attendance considering that hell is now real? 

Gabriel Lazel was one of the mages responsible for sealing away the realm, but it was sealed away before the University was formed (while he was a 'young man', according to the intro), so it was between approximately 25 and 30 years before the events of the RP.

However, it wasn't an invasion, per se, but the daemon realm itself was starting to seep into this set of dimensions, causing dangerous spatiotemporal anomalies and letting various of the realm's inhabitants through at certain points (hence why the mages had to seal it away in its totality). The realm isn't hell, either, it's another plane of existence with some equally otherworldly occupants, named after what they were most reminiscent of to humanity - whether or not the name they've been given is accurate is not known. On that note, no major religious text actually refers to demons living in hell, Dante's Inferno just made the idea famous.

Bear in mind that the government still keeps a fair bit of information regarding the daemon-realm impingement under wraps due to its sensitive nature (for example, data about how some of the 'weak points' in our reality behaved could be implemented by mages to replicate such a weak point).

9 hours ago, Buck Testa said:

Also that is a good Question. What is the state of religion in the game?

Mainstream science calling daemons 'exotic forms of life' and the daemon realm 'at least some of the additional dimensions mandated by string theory', various new-age spiritualists calling them 'the transcended ones' and their realm 'a higher plane of existence', and theists calling the whole affair 'proof'. As with many great scientific discoveries, different people have different interpretations and few consider it reason to change their stance.

3 hours ago, Denim&Venom said:

How does the pelijae half of the populace react to Christianity and Islam, considering they have very human deities and the concept of mankind being the ones who were made in gods image? 

The Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek, and Arabic words for 'man', 'mankind', etc., used in the original texts can refer to either Pelajae or humans in this universe, due to the difference in historical contexts between our universe and the RP's one. The physiological status of Adam, Eve, Jesus, and other historical figures are not known, although there's always going to be the occasional racial-purity group who believes that they all belonged to the 'better' race.

Consider your question tactfully circumvented. 

[Passion 3,478]

Good, good. Set new social and religious limitations up so I can have Ley break all of them. Ha. Hahaha. AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

(You can say I'm not a fan of overcomplicating things in way they can become potential restrictions to creativity :x but have no issues with theoretizing stuff either so fire away. I'll just ignore stuff which is not handy and probably face issues with it later on :x )

[dragon4111 914]

@Duality

So you going to post now?

[Duality 10,738]

1 hour ago, dragon4111 said:

@Duality

So you going to post now?

I'm planning to post soonish, but my post is going to be Duality-centric and set just about exclusively in the infirmary, so it won't further the RP towards dinnertime or anything. The main people who the dinner bell is waiting on are @Denim&Venom, @reader8363, and @Passion, but their progress towards getting the hall sealed off seems to have stalled or something. Addressing those three, do you want me to handwave the hall sealed with an NPC so we can proceed to dinner or are you okay with arranging it IC?

[dragon4111 914]

@Duality

Ghalan is in the infirmary

[Denim&Venöm 16,517]

2 hours ago, Duality said:

I'm planning to post soonish, but my post is going to be Duality-centric and set just about exclusively in the infirmary, so it won't further the RP towards dinnertime or anything. The main people who the dinner bell is waiting on are @Denim&Venom, @reader8363, and @Passion, but their progress towards getting the hall sealed off seems to have stalled or something. Addressing those three, do you want me to handwave the hall sealed with an NPC so we can proceed to dinner or are you okay with arranging it IC?

I'd rather handle it RC, as it helps us explain the dangers of what just happened, which will play a role in the future,  who destroyed the hall and who might be to blame for the failure of defensive protocol. Lots of discuss in Salem's magical equivalent to chernoybl.  

[dragon4111 914]

@Denim&Venom

Lol this ill be fun I wonder who get's the blame

[dragon4111 914]

@Denim&Venom

If they shift the blame onto Ghalan he will pull out all the stops to lay the blame onto the kitsune.

[Denim&Venöm 16,517]

1 hour ago, dragon4111 said:

@Denim&Venom

If they shift the blame onto Ghalan he will pull out all the stops to lay the blame onto the kitsune.

And she will go all out to correct the blame back onto him. Ghalan seems just the type of person to draw Miko's ire. 

[dragon4111 914]

@Denim&Venom

Probably no wait definitely. Of course in his eyes the kitsune is unprofessional.

[Denim&Venöm 16,517]

Just now, dragon4111 said:

@Denim&Venom

Probably no wait definitely. Of course in his eyes the kitsune is unprofessional.

And in hers he's too much like the arrogant teachers she was forced to put up with. More interested in having students obey and conform, rather than actually learn and improve. 

[dragon4111 914]

Just now, Denim&Venom said:

And in hers he's too much like the arrogant teachers she was forced to put up with. More interested in having students obey and conform, rather than actually learn and improve. 

Except he's the janitor and he has had one hell of a bad day. So if she does pin the blame on him she better be ready for a trial by combat.

[reader8363 1,281]

@Duality
Okay, I'll quickly go and post

[Denim&Venöm 16,517]

2 hours ago, dragon4111 said:

Except he's the janitor and he has had one hell of a bad day. So if she does pin the blame on him she better be ready for a trial by combat.

Exactly, and if she starts to end up on the loosing end, it might be what drives her over the edge. 

@Duality @Buck Testa

I had the idea that Miko is actually far more powerful than even she realizes. That she maybe worse than Dru. Not that she can't control, but that due to the scope and status of her powers as a kid, they were misdiagnosed and she was given the completely wrong training. The only reason she's so in control is that she's been tacked with a limiter rune without her knowing. 

And Galhan could set everything in motion for disaster. 

[Passion 3,478]

We can handle the seal off within RP, but I need to answer to Denim. Issue is, I am currently in mountains and you can FORGET I will write out a post on my cellphone. I've tried, if you'd want to insist. It is a nightmare.

 

Also, @Duality, we might need some control over the staff. We're gonna have trigger lucky random people running around fighting everything that moves soon xD it's already nearly happening. That being said, where would supposedly Ghalan and Miko even fight if push came to shove? Not sure you remember but the arena is not exactly in working condition and Ira by no means would allow someone of Ghalan's power level near her range. Especially after what she believes he did with the current one.

[Denim&Venöm 16,517]

21 minutes ago, Passion said:

We can handle the seal off within RP, but I need to answer to Denim. Issue is, I am currently in mountains and you can FORGET I will write out a post on my cellphone. I've tried, if you'd want to insist. It is a nightmare.

 

Also, @Duality, we might need some control over the staff. We're gonna have trigger lucky random people running around fighting everything that moves soon xD it's already nearly happening. That being said, where would supposedly Ghalan and Miko even fight if push came to shove? Not sure you remember but the arena is not exactly in working condition and Ira by no means would allow someone of Ghalan's power level near her range. Especially after what she believes he did with the current one.

Maybe salvage the tech fro the gym and take a portal to an isolated area? Had the idea that certain doors could be magicaly equipped to lead to other doors. It'd be how teachers could just go home to their families and still have a quick commute to campus. 

I also imagine that there are government facilities available for the testing of magic. Probably have even stronger containment protocols. 

Or they just don't use magic, heck put on anti-magic runes and settle it the old fashioned way. 

[Duality 10,738]

13 hours ago, dragon4111 said:

@Duality

Ghalan is in the infirmary

Oh, yeah, sorry, should've been more clear. I meant that my post would be mostly based inside one of the wards of the infirmary. Closest Duality would get to Ghalan would perhaps be a little wave on the way out as she goes to her dorm to get some nurse-prescribed rest. 

8 hours ago, Denim&Venom said:

I had the idea that Miko is actually far more powerful than even she realizes. That she maybe worse than Dru. Not that she can't control, but that due to the scope and status of her powers as a kid, they were misdiagnosed and she was given the completely wrong training. The only reason she's so in control is that she's been tacked with a limiter rune without her knowing.

What sort of powers are you thinking of? While I am relatively open for possible future power-up plot twists, another person as powerful as Dru is a probable no-go; one's quite sufficient. 

10 hours ago, dragon4111 said:

So if she does pin the blame on him she better be ready for a trial by combat.

8 hours ago, Denim&Venom said:

Exactly, and if she starts to end up on the loosing end, it might be what drives her over the edge. 

6 hours ago, Passion said:

Also, @Duality, we might need some control over the staff. We're gonna have trigger lucky random people running around fighting everything that moves soon xD it's already nearly happening. That being said, where would supposedly Ghalan and Miko even fight if push came to shove? Not sure you remember but the arena is not exactly in working condition and Ira by no means would allow someone of Ghalan's power level near her range. Especially after what she believes he did with the current one.

Cool your guns, y'all, you're forgetting that admin has to sign off on all duels because they're the ones with veto.

No way they're signing off on any duel involving Ghalan this soon after his involvement with the decimation of the last one, even if it wasn't specifically his fault. In fact, they're not likely to let anyone duel anyone else until the hall has been at least partially rebuilt, except perhaps under exceptional circumstances (to be specified when and if they ever come about). And if someone tries to fight someone else without admin approval, it'll be treated like what it is - staff/students physically attacking people on school grounds.

5 hours ago, Denim&Venom said:

Or they just don't use magic, just put on anti-magic runes and settle it the old fashioned way. 

The main plus side of using magic for duelling is that one can defend oneself without necessarily getting injured in the process (blocking hand-on-hand attacks causes bruising at very minimum). The university wants its staff/students intact and in good health, hence why they have a panel of staff on hand to make sure nobody is truly hurt during their sanctioned duels. 

6 hours ago, Passion said:

We can handle the seal off within RP, but I need to answer to Denim. Issue is, I am currently in mountains and you can FORGET I will write out a post on my cellphone. I've tried, if you'd want to insist. It is a nightmare.

Duly noted. I wouldn't wish cellphone RPing on anyone. 

5 hours ago, Denim&Venom said:

Had the idea that certain doors could be magicaly equipped to lead to other doors. It'd be how teachers could just go home to their families and still have a quick commute to campus.

That's a good idea. Inside each teacher's dorm there's a door that's linked directly to a corresponding door within their own home, so it's just like another room added to their house. I might just nick that off you for implementation, albeit with a proportionate dose of security spells. 

5 hours ago, Denim&Venom said:

I also imagine that there are government facilities available for the testing of magic. Probably have even stronger containment protocols. 

Why leave it to the government? Universities engage in that sort of research quite often themselves, so I wouldn't put it past the place to have its own world-class R&D magic-testing wing. I know Duality for one would have plenty to keep herself occupied with in a place like that.

Edited August 14, 2018 by Duality

[Denim&Venöm 16,517]

1 minute ago, Duality said:

What sort of powers are you thinking of? While I am relatively open for possible future power-up plot twists, another person as powerful as Dru is a probable no-go; one's quite sufficient. 

Well it won't be right away, but as it stands Miko has:

Spoiler

• Sonic scream (think Black Canary)
• Sound projection/ creation
• Sound amplification/ reduction
• Shock waves (think Shriek from Batman Beyond)
• Mach 1 speed (strikes faster than sound or running full on into a foe with over 3 tons of force. Probably her best attack in terms of raw impact)
• Sonar
• Mild hypnosis (using sound and motion to slowly ease an opponent into a trance and follow simple suggestions)
• Disorientation (effecting the inner ear to cause dizziness and nausea while disrupting balance and spacial awareness)
• Sensory overload (drive a person crazy with a continuous onslaught of sound that only they hear)

Her powers may say audiomancer but really her skill is control over vibration, which is what all sound is. So she can also:

• vibrate fast enough to phase through objects
• transfer vibrations through the ground to cause earthquakes or liquefaction IE quicksand.
• transfer vibrations into people, which won't feel good. 
• Find an objects resonance frequency to destroy it (how singers are able to break glass) 

Downside is that as far as Miko knows, she has only average power generation. As a teen, she was deemed a low magical output. So she got trained to use her magic efficiently and sparingly. She'll lack the raw force & scope of Ghalan or Mindy, but excels in versatility, creativity and cunning.  So no, she won't be knocking down any brick walls or compacting cars.

Though her finally having her full magical might unleashed would have her go Marvel's Black Bolt levels of sonic destruction. How much she could do depends on what it will take to brute force cripple a dueling rune containment matrix.                    

 I also had the idea that certain pelijae had species centric powers. Like anyone wanting to run a pegasus or earth pony character would have mild mezzomancy and flora/faunamancy respectively. For the Kitsune, this would be being an artificer, one who could transfer magic into people places and things or weave objects out of raw magic.

In Miko's case, it's oragami, the art of folding and animating paper by embedding magic into it. Think Kubo and the two strings. Downside is that she can only use one power or the other and her origami is only as good as the amount of paper she has and how fast she can enchant it. She could be in a library, but it'll take hours for her to enchant those books for use, and event hen she'll probably pass out from doing it. 

 

 

 

46 minutes ago, Duality said:

Cool your guns, y'all, you're forgetting that admin has to sign off on all duels because they're the ones with veto.

No way they're signing off on any duel involving Ghalan this soon after his involvement with the decimation of the last one, even if it wasn't specifically his fault. In fact, they're not likely to let anyone duel anyone else until the hall has been at least partially rebuilt, except perhaps under exceptional circumstances (to be specified when and if they ever come about). And if someone tries to fight someone else without admin approval, it'll be treated like what it is - staff/students physically attacking people on school grounds.

Guess it'll have to be settled the even older fashioned way:

Trial by committee! Bureaucracy for the win! 

49 minutes ago, Duality said:

Why leave it to the government? Universities engage in that sort of research quite often themselves, so I wouldn't put it past the place to have its own world-class R&D magic-testing wing. I know Duality for one would have plenty to keep herself occupied with in a place like that.

So we'll eventually go to R&D and break that place in half then. 

 

[Buck Testa 5,503]

I like how much of an aftermath that fight caused. Especially considering in universe it didn't last for more than a few minutes. 

I'm also wondering if I should have dru wake up, or keep using flashbacks/mob skits

[dragon4111 914]

@Buck Testa

Hmm well you can wake her up. And have the mob skits for when she's asleep.

[Duality 10,738]

On 8/15/2018 at 12:09 PM, Denim&Venom said:

• Sonic scream (think Black Canary)
• Sound projection/ creation
• Sound amplification/ reduction
• Shock waves (think Shriek from Batman Beyond)
• Mach 1 speed (strikes faster than sound or running full on into a foe with over 3 tons of force. Probably her best attack in terms of raw impact)
• Sonar
• Mild hypnosis (using sound and motion to slowly ease an opponent into a trance and follow simple suggestions)
• Disorientation (effecting the inner ear to cause dizziness and nausea while disrupting balance and spacial awareness)
• Sensory overload (drive a person crazy with a continuous onslaught of sound that only they hear)

Her powers may say audiomancer but really her skill is control over vibration, which is what all sound is. So she can also:

• vibrate fast enough to phase through objects
• transfer vibrations through the ground to cause earthquakes or liquefaction IE quicksand.
• transfer vibrations into people, which won't feel good. 
• Find an objects resonance frequency to destroy it (how singers are able to break glass) 

Downside is that as far as Miko knows, she has only average power generation. As a teen, she was deemed a low magical output. So she got trained to use her magic efficiently and sparingly. She'll lack the raw force & scope of Ghalan or Mindy, but excels in versatility, creativity and cunning.  So no, she won't be knocking down any brick walls or compacting cars.

Though her finally having her full magical might unleashed would have her go Marvel's Black Bolt levels of sonic destruction. How much she could do depends on what it will take to brute force cripple a dueling rune containment matrix.                    

I don't know anything much about Black Canary, Shriek, or Black Bolt, but I think I get the picture. 

This seems like a fairly reasonable portfolio of abilities, given that her power levels aren't particularly high overall, but the Mach 1 attack thing doesn't seem to make much sense - her abilities otherwise pertain to vibrations as opposed to moving things at speeds comparable to that of sound. Additionally, on the subject of making sense, the whole 'passing through things by vibrating really fast' is the sort of patent nonsense that only mainstream comic franchises and new-age spiritualism can make people believe. With those two abilities trimmed, I'll be quite happy to approve the character amendment, providing you save her powering-up sequence only for times of direst need as you have already implied. 

As regards the duelling-rune-containment-matrix crippling power threshold, though, let it suffice to say 'plenty'.

On 8/15/2018 at 12:09 PM, Denim&Venom said:

 I also had the idea that certain pelijae had species centric powers. Like anyone wanting to run a pegasus or earth pony character would have mild mezzomancy and flora/faunamancy respectively. For the Kitsune, this would be being an artificer, one who could transfer magic into people places and things or weave objects out of raw magic.

In Miko's case, it's oragami, the art of folding and animating paper by embedding magic into it. Think Kubo and the two strings. Downside is that she can only use one power or the other and her origami is only as good as the amount of paper she has and how fast she can enchant it. She could be in a library, but it'll take hours for her to enchant those books for use, and event hen she'll probably pass out from doing it. 

I had a similar idea in mind, but I scrapped it because I didn't like the idea of either humans or Pelajae having bonus species-based magic. It's too easy for that to turn into a weird balancing issue, plus Pelajae already arguably have an edge on humans in combat due to their teeth and claws and so forth.

On 8/15/2018 at 12:09 PM, Denim&Venom said:

Guess it'll have to be settled the even older fashioned way:

Trial by committee! Bureaucracy for the win! 

Or the way that predates even paperwork: dealing with interpersonal problems without fighting someone. 

Don't worry, though, the school is pretty resourceful; they should have things sorted out soonish.

On 8/15/2018 at 12:09 PM, Denim&Venom said:

So we'll eventually go to R&D and break that place in half then. 

It will be slightly more robust than that, I hope. The place was designed to accommodate prodigious master mages inadvertently detonating the structure of reality, after all.

It's well-secured too, due to the critical discoveries that are often made within its walls; barring extenuating circumstances, the main facility isn't accessible to anyone lower than Year 3 (with even them mostly employed as lab assistants), and only university graduates (post-Year 4) and teachers following promising lines of research get to use the equipment in the High Energy Magic Building for their experiments (so if you want any of your teachers to have free access to the HEMB you'll have to think up a convincing reason for it).

Poor Druantia and Ley are likely only to see the inside by way of 'field trip' or one-off visit by invitation for a good few years yet. 

[Passion 3,478]

Ley's mechanics in far, far future once she masters her portal control. I very much doubt anything of this scale will be available to her in this RP however. Although I am planning to use this type of defense if necessary, but only to absorb the attacks, not redirect them. Redirection would be too complicated just yet and could backfire easily.

 

https://ytcropper.com/cropped/rr5b7693852bce2

[Duality 10,738]

@Passion @Buck Testa @Denim&Venom @dragon4111 @reader8363 @Mentis Soliloquy @Arid_Blitz 

Just an update: I am actually working on my post, despite what all outward signs may indicate. It's a fairly deep one lore-wise, though, so it might not be up for a few days yet. Trying to hop on the flashback bandwagon without plagiarising Buck's snazzy style too much. 

Also, I added a list of all characters and users currently in this roleplay to the OP. It might prove useful to anyone else who's starting to lose track of a few of the less prolific players. 

Edited August 20, 2018 by Duality

[Buck Testa 5,503]

Aw, thank you @Duality

I'm actually a writer working through some writers block, using this rp to do it. Nice to hear you like them so much. 

[dragon4111 914]

@Duality

I'd like to think of Ghalan as the guard dog type of person as the janitor you know