searching Salem University III - OOC (Open)

Duality · April 27, 2020

IC thread is over here.

Salem University 2.0 (the first MLPF version) can be found here, for reference. Credit to @Canteen_the_unstable for creating the premise and the original iteration of the RP (here, if you're interested).

I will be playing using an adapted version of my character Dr. Duality Wave-Particle - specifically, a human version, with augmentations roughly as follows:

Spoiler

Her sole natural power is that of hydromancy, and as such she is dean of the hydromancy department. She is also the Vice Principal of Salem and a teacher of both hydromancy and glyph theory (the latter of which was the subject of her doctorate).
Her extensive history with and esteemed position in Salem is the result of her being Gabriel Lazel's favoured research assistant and later research partner for a few years before the University opened and for many years afterwards until he died. Their research primarily concerned the nature, properties and applications of runes, since one of his powers (he was a multipower) was rune manipulation, and he was intensely interested in the theoretical side of their use.
After his death, Gabriel beqeathed her an artifact of as-of-yet unexplored origin that he either made or discovered at some point during his career and the properties and nature of which tied into a significant portion of their research together. This object, called the Wand or Stylus (it changes form to suit the user), is equivalent to the concept of itself, which, since runes are made up of the combination of an object and a concept, makes it of obvious interest in that field. It grants her the ability to create and manipulate runes, although not the ability to imbue much power into them, meaning it is easy for her to make runes but hard to make them physically do anything without an external source of energy and significant concentration.
She is partially responsible for the maintenance and advancement of Salem's colossal and formidably complex runic network, and indeed helped Gabriel and several others create it. Her clothes, desk drawers, and other personal effects are almost without exception enchanted in various ways - she has had a very long and complicated career in which to gradually build up an array of all-circumstances conveniences, tools and failsafes.

My secondary character is named Dot Dash (aka Deedah), with bio given below:

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Dot Dash

Age: 11010

Magic: Ramen

Race: Human

Status: Student / Administration Intern

Backstory:

Dr. Duality's second cousin once removed - that is, her mother's cousin's granddaughter - has often been regarded as even more eccentric than the professor herself, if such a feat is possible. Having graduated a mundane university with a diploma in mixology despite her consistently mediocre grades, Dot Dash managed to secure a part-time job as a barista while proceeding to take a course in programming, which she left midway through due to the fact that they refused to teach computer languages in terms of binary processing operations, a certificate in drumming, which she was expelled from midway through after 'continually and incessantly generating unnecessary rhythms during lessons', a paper on Boolean logic, which she dropped out of midway through after her lecturer banned her from repetitively clicking her pen during tests, and several short classes on Morse code, which she passed with flying colours. After being kicked out of her third flatting arrangement in a month due to her intolerable finger-tapping, Dot frantically hunted for accommodations among her relatives and acquaintances, finally finding a roof to live under when Duality caught wind of her predicament and offered her rent-free housing and a modest salary in exchange for her services as a personal secretary - obsessive rhythmic habits acknowledged and accepted. With this financial boost and occasional gigs as an underground experimental artist under the pseudonym "-.-", Dot Dash was able to quit her minimum-wage coffee-shop job and start up a small from-home gourmet beverage business using absurdly exotic ingredients in surprisingly palatable ways.

Salem University's administration, however, quickly noticed the significant improvement in the timeliness of Duality's paperwork completion and approached Dot to ask if she would be interested in an internship position with them, potentially leading to full-time employment. She accepted the offer conditionally, adding several extra clauses to her contract to state that she not only had to be provided with a standard-issue enchantment that kept her safe from the sort of magic that gets thrown around at the University, but also had to be provided with a custom enchantment that suppressed the sound of her hands for all people except herself, and additionally these enchantments absolutely had to be 1) placed on bangles and 2) placed on brightly-coloured glow-in-the-dark bangles. The University accepted her terms with mild confusion, adding a memo to their records noting that Duality had offered to create such a soundproofing enchantment for Dot Dash in the past but was unable to design 'satisfactorily neon bangles'. Using these audio-suppressive magical accessories extensively to avoid any continuation of past issues with her new colleagues, Dot soon became a familiar face among the administrative department while still working closely with Duality on matters of schedule, running her one-person mixology company, and pursuing her eclectic interests - now including Boolean algebra, raw logic-gate coding, ever more intense experimental drumming, the mastering of a vast array of binary languages (Morse code and Braille being two of her long-time favourites), and even constructing rudimentary computing machines after the tradition of Charles Babbage.

This idyllic mostly-mundane lifestyle had continued comfortably for Dot Dash until a scant few months before this RP begins, when a long-professed affinity for ramen magically manifested itself in a violent event now known as the Noodle Incident, of which the most property-destructive outcome was the permanent filling of an entire lecture theatre to 65.7% capacity with boiled spaghetti. After several weeks spent cleaning up the mound of paperwork she'd created for the school, she applied as an adult student for the upcoming semester with the intent of mastering her unexpected ramen-centric powers and hopefully picking up a few bits of alchemy to incorporate into her eldritch brews along the way.

Personality:

The first thing most people notice upon meeting Dot Dash is the sheer innate rhythm that resonates through her life. Perpetually tapping her desk, snapping her fingers, and clicking her pen - often in time to a beat flowing through her well-worn purple headphones, but usually in time to a beat flowing only through her mind -, she even started keeping mints in her pocket after discovering the Tic-Tac brand simply because of how much enjoyment she takes from the name (and also, admittedly, from the sound of popping the plastic container lid open and closed). She has seemingly unlimited stocks of enthusiasm for almost any activity conceivable as long as she can do it to a beat, but adores beyond reason tasks that she perceives to have rhythm intrinsic to their nature, notably including scheduling ('it's like harmonising people's heartbeats except people usually don't have much of a heartbeat after a few days of full-time work') and programming ('so there's 1 and there's 0 and 1 is like the sound of someone bodyslamming a drumkit and 0 is like that utter silence between the buildup to a drop and the sound of someone bodyslamming a drumkit, and bodyslamming a drumkit kind of hurts so I don't recommend trying it but computers do it all the time and it makes these things called programs that do whatever you want and it's insane and definitely way more magical than just being able to throw snowballs with your mind not naming any names you shamefully tenured snow-fight cheater').

Dot Dash far prefers to be called by her nickname, Deedah, and almost invariably introduces herself to new acquaintances by that name. Her clothing and accessories often change radically from day to day based on a complex combination of her mood, the outcome of several coin flips, and the first items that fall out of her wardrobe, but nearly permanent to her appearance are her beloved bangles, her headphones, and a pair of lenseless glasses she wears, in her own words, 'to remind myself to look for more than I see'. She shares Duality's passion for helping others and enjoys spending time with her distant cousin, often in playing the ancient strategy game Go (Duality likes playing it because of its simple yet elegant rule system and the unconventional strategies it often involves, and Dot likes playing it because of its binary black-white counters and the rhythmic, logical turn-based alternation between the two). There are very few things that Deedah dislikes - not even people who actively display irritation with her energetic eccentricity can easily affect her upbeat attitude -, but people who mock others and make them feel bad for being 'too excited' over something hold a special place in her revenge fantasies, and she cannot stand arrhythmic sounds, particularly abstract new-age music. When Dot is in an exceptionally peaceful state of mind, her breathing pattern itself falls into rhythm with her speech and movements to imbue her every motion with fluidity reminiscent of a long-practised dance.

Introduction:

Spoiler

[Based in an alternate Earth.]

Throughout history, the use of magic has been looked down upon, most denying its very existence due to how rare it was for people to have the ability to wield it.

However, in an unprecedented incident several decades before this RP starts, the existence of magic became scientifically indisputable fact as an alternate set of dimensions began to intersect our own. This resulted in many 'glitches' in reality around the world over the course of several years, escalating in intensity to the point where they were even granting access into our universe to some of this alternate realm's inhabitants - referred to as 'daemons' by the press of the time, although the accuracy of this assessment is unknown. The exact nature of these dimensional flaws and all information relating to the denizens of the alternate dimensions is heavily classified even today, although few were exempt from the effects of the more everyday glitches.

When the governments of the world became unable to deny the otherworldly nature of these occurrences any longer, an international coalition of mages headed up by a powerful young man named Gabriel Lazel revealed themselves, claiming to have the ability to seal away the daemon realm for good - on the two conditions that mages were not to be feared or adulated as a result but simply recognised and respected as equal inhabitants of the planet, and that Gabriel's group of mages were to be negotiated with as the peaceful organisation that they were. Drawing on the latent impossibility of a mysterious and ancient island, the mages created one of the most powerful spells ever cast: a Seal for the entire planet, banishing the effects of the alternate realm and guarding the Earth from future dimensional instability.

In the aftermath of this incident, the world grappled with the revelations that had been made - only about one in every million people could use magic, but global population had grown to the point where thousands of magic users existed around the world, keeping their powers secret until now in fear of how others might react. Many of them were unable to properly control and direct their powers due to lack of training, and people were hurt or even killed in several magical accidents in the early days of integration. Sponsored by an international government initiative to give untrained mages the skills they needed to ease their transition into society, Gabriel Lazel founded a school for users of magic on the very island that held the Daemon Seal, hiring many of his own magic-wielding acquaintances and friends as staff and calling in favours from many others to establish contact with secretive magical communities around the world. The school's name? Salem University.

Years passed, and more and more magic-wielders of incredibly diverse abilities flocked to the school, eager to learn more about the control of their often-unstable powers and, in many cases, eager to escape the societal rejection that came with such singular abilities. Students from all cultures, nationalities, and ethnic backgrounds were accepted equally there, not all even entirely human, as in the case of the Pelajae - a race of human-like animals that have developed alongside humankind as allies for millennia.

Due to the vast diversity of the student body, however, there were many occasions of conflict between those of contrasting culture, which sometimes even led to outright brawls. After a particularly savage incident involving a magic blast that severely injured twelve bystanders and killed both the fighting sophomores, it was decided that a duelling system be formally implemented, whereby students could fight to settle disputes, defend their honour, or simply test their combat prowess on each other. Such events took place in a specially-designed and -enchanted duelling ring, overseen by a select board of impartial teachers and students to prevent cheating and, in certain cases, provide protection from injuries in excess of what they considered reasonable given the circumstances of the duel in question.

It was just such a duel in which Principal Lazel was tragically killed, mere weeks after the twentieth anniversary of his founding of the school was celebrated with a grand gala. Police reported simply that he engaged with an unknown opponent in the master-sorcerer duelling ring, which resulted in his death. Nothing more was known. No culprit was identified.

One of Lazel's close friends, Lilith Plowse, was named his successor as principal. Under her wise leadership, the school expanded considerably over the next several years, requiring additional dorm blocks, classrooms, and even an on-site mall to be constructed. As a fresh school year comes upon the school, arriving students are becoming acquainted with their new environment and older students are preparing their minds for another year of study.

Notes (for reference if you want details about various aspects of the RP's various premises):

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Notes about Salem University and the island it is built on:

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The University is very extensive and essentially self-sufficient. Some of the core features include:

Over a dozen blocks of student dorms, distinguished by general class of magic,
Three blocks of living quarters for Salem's staff, not student-accessible,
Several large halls, one of which is used for duelling,
A few hundred classrooms grouped into blocks by subjects taught,
A library containing the largest collection of grimoires and books of magic in the world,
A full-scale shopping precinct and food court,
A looming central building housing the Administration,
The Embassy, where portals allowing travel between the island and various cities around the world are housed,
An R&D department where various probably-dangerous magical experiments may be set up,
A massive network of corridors connecting these areas,
An even more massive network of underground corridors and various storage areas beneath the University, not student-accessible
The grounds, which encompass the full extent of the island.

All dormitories have very powerful and equally thorough magical suppression runes built into them to prevent any injury occurring to mostly-defenceless sleeping students, with a personal pentagram inset in each room to allow limited spellcasting (restricted to within its two-meter-diameter sphere of influence). These suppression runes take the appearance of an intricate artistic mural on the walls, floor, and ceiling of all rooms and corridors within the dorms (much like the appearance of other miscellaneous runic networks set up across most of the University), and the pentagrams are traditional in appearance, detailed arcane inscriptions and all, but style-matched to the suppression runes for aesthetic reasons.

The library isn't very large in terms of floor area, but it goes up seven stories. Stock-standard bookcases are neatly arranged in a compact but not claustrophobic arrangement, and every second floor is a mezzanine, making three mezzanines in all with the top storey set aside without one (since the seventh floor is a secure archive). Travel between the floors is by several staircases. People don't usually go up to the sixth storey unless they have to, since from there you can hear the rattle of the seventh-storey books' chains.

The island that the University is built on holds a strange and powerful magic, harnessed by Lazel and his team of mages to seal the daemon realm. It has often been associated with ancient legends of a mysterious magical island that seems to drift across the world from one appearance to another, and is bordered around its coastline by a chaotic and seemingly natural array of complex spatiotemporal anomalies and mental obfuscation magicks layered to such an extent that travel in either direction is all but impossible. University tradition holds that the island is (at least currently) off the west coast of the US, but information about the nature of the island is generally kept carefully classified.

The University is thus highly isolated and effectively only accessible by large static portals installed around the world in various buildings bought, fitted, and staffed just for that purpose (although they often double as offices for a magical consultancy business managed indirectly by the University). Sunshine hours are consistent with the central US, and nobody's quite sure how the weather works. On the whole, it follows US coastal weather (which coast is another matter), but hurricanes have lashed the US while the university experienced summery sunshine and entire classrooms have flooded with rain while the coasts had unbroken beach weather - not to mention the now-legendary noon a decade or so ago when the university skies went a cloudless black and started hailing frozen tentacle fragments, with a lunar eclipse visible overhead that was predicted for midwestern Asia several months from then.

University policies around the safe use of magic:

It is generally frowned upon to use powerful magic outside a robust pentagram, although a reasonable measure of trust in your judgement is granted if you are Year 3 or above. The use of offensive or potentially harmful magic on others outside of a duelling ring, however, will result in immediate disciplinary action regardless of your year level - expulsion under serious circumstances. If you cannot control your potentially-harmful magic, do not use it outside a pentagram.

Notes about magic and its nature:

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There are many diverse theories in the magical community about magic, its definition, and its nature. If you asked working mages how they would define magic, many of them would mention the maxim popularised by Gabriel Lazel: magic is personality given power. This is not satisfactory from a technical viewpoint, of course, but it is often used as an introduction to the fundamentals of magic.

Probably the most influential theory of magic is what is now considered the first comprehensive investigation of the phenomenon, formulated in secret by Edison and Tesla (the latter a magical prodigy) long before mages revealed themselves to the world at large. This analysis holds the following as its fundamental definitions of magic:

Magic is the projection of one's will into the world through the faculties that aspects of one's self have with respect to the world, and
Magic is the projection of one's will into the world through the affinities that aspects of one's self have with aspects of the world.

The two scientists considered magic to have a dual aspect, the first involving faculties or abilities of the self (e.g., the ability to imagine things that don't exist, intuit knowledge that is not obvious, reason about cause and effect, comprehend language and the nature of objects) and the second involving affinities or connections that the self has with aspects of the world (e.g., an affinity with water or lightning or grass or certain animals or certain people). The magic of abilities is best shown in something like runemagic, which takes the logical and language abilities that most people have and extends them to the creation of logical cause-effect chains at will using a magical language. The magic of affinities is far more instinctive, and encompasses all of elemental control and familiars as well as powers with a close connection to the emotion of the user, each of which involve an emotional or psychological affinity with some living being or aspect of the world. Certain older grimoires also make this approximate distinction, calling the magic of abilities 'the subtle magicks' and the magic of affinities 'the deep magicks'. The difference between these two is often described as the difference between using a pen and using a paintbrush: one is precise and the other is vibrant. It is noteworthy that the magic of abilities includes all the ways that non-mages can project their will into the world, such as the ability to affect parts of the world by moving their bodies, the ability to selectively absorb information from the world through the senses, and the ability to use their creative faculties to make technologies to affect parts of the world.

Gabriel Lazel further developed this theory over the course of his career by defining what he considered to be the core aspects of the self and the world and analysing their relationships to each other. He considered the core aspects of both the self and the world to be three in number and in direct correspondence:

The base self (body, emotion, intuition), corresponding to the physical world
The middle self (mind, reason, intellect), corresponding to what he called 'the mental world'
The upper self (will, intent, conscience), corresponding to what he called 'the spiritual world'

The base self / physical world and the upper self / spiritual world were proposed to have a one-way connection to the middle self / mental world, such that the lower and upper aspects could easily affect the central aspect, but the opposite was much more difficult. Based on this framework, Lazel theorised that in normal humans, the three aspects of the self were only connected to the aspect of the world that they directly corresponded to, but for mages the aspects of the self could connect in reverse order: the base self could connect to the spiritual world and, through it, the mental world (a category similar to the magic of affinities which he called 'Empathy'), the middle self could connect to the mental world much more strongly than in non-mages (a category encompassing parts of the magic of abilities which he called 'Sympathy'), and the upper self could connect to the physical world and thus the mental world (a category closely resembling his conceptualisation of runemagic which he called 'Antipathy'). Gabriel himself never published anything specifically addressing his theories, despite his extensive personal work on the subject and a privately expressed intention to write about them 'when they're ready', but a selection of his notes were compiled and released after his death in hopes that it would contribute to future work on the theory of magic. Many interpretations and analyses of his work have subsequently been written, but few agree on the proper meaning of his terminology let alone his theories.

Some of Gabriel Lazel's most important work was his groundbreaking research on runemagic's nature and applications, with his views on the field being best summarised in the following excerpt from the introduction of a textbook for beginner mages:

"Runemagic, in its purest terms, is the imbuing of abstract thought into material form. This is a very broad definition, but runemagic is a very broad field. The term 'thought' may be subdivided into various aspects of higher mental activity such as belief, memory, and, what we deal with most commonly, intent. The term 'form' means much the same as how Plato used it: the set of properties of a material object, considered in relation to how they conform to a mental or metaphysical ideal of what the object is. We deal most commonly with the shape of an object, since it is often the single property most easily conceptualised in the mind, but it is possible to imbue thought into something of a certain colour, or a certain material, or even a certain taste - solely through the fact that it possesses that property. Often, though, multiple properties of the object are imbued with thought, or even the object in its entirety as subjectively seen through the eyes of the imbuer, rendering it difficult to separate the magic from the material. An interesting historical example of runemagic is the storytelling tradition of the indigenous tribes of Australia, which involved imbuing memory into their vast networks of ancient paintings and routes traversed in myth by the beings of the Dreamtime. More generally, various pagan religions of times past imbued belief into their idols and similar focal objects held to be sacred. In modern times, though, belief is frowned upon as a source of runemagic, since it only takes a bit of doubt to weaken the imbued thought - and let me tell you, people have far more doubt than thought nowadays."

Terms for users of magic are distinctly region-variant, as with most slang-type designators, but for the US (the university's general location) 'magus' is the conventional term. 'Mage' is the British term for magic-users (since the US/Britain dialectical divide is notorious for confusing differences), 'thaumaturgist' is the formal term, 'magician' is derogatory (implying merely sleight-of-hand/smoke-and-mirror powers), 'warper' and similar variants are heavily derogatory (implying that magic-users are abominations), and 'gramaryian' - one who practices gramarye - is an archaic term that is only found in very old tomes (in case anyone wants to implement that).

Notes about the alternative Earth and its history:

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Alternate timeline created by @Denim&Venöm:

Hannibal (rumoured mage) wins against Rome
Queen Buddicah (suspected mage) forces the Romans out of the British isles.
Viking colony established in North America.
Jean of Arc (suspected mage) leads France into Theocracy.
Merlin (known mage) aids Charlemagne in unification of Europe, crafting him the legendary magical weapon Excalibur.
War between Christians and Judaeo-Pagan groups devastates Europe in 17th century.
Sweden wins great northern war thanks to King Charles (rumoured mage). United Scandinavia becomes world power.
Japan doesn’t go isolationist. Expands colonies in South America.
Mayflower Pilgrims flee UK for North America to establish Puritan colony. Roanoke colony survives.
Town of Salem found deserted. Records of witch trials found. Disappearances suspected to be retaliation from unknown mage over witch trials.
Britain's 14 colonies declare independence and form the United States of Vesperia, after Italian cartographer Amerigo Vespucci, and the Latin 'Vesper' meaning everything.
Benjamin Franklin (known mage) forms the Freemasons as a front to house his and his associates' practice of magic, as well as to prevent further repeats of the Salem incident.
Napoleon flees to Quebec. Leads French conquest of Canada. Annexes French territory in North America and sells to the US, financing French-Canadian independence.
US wins War of 1812 after UK violates US neutrality to invade Quebec.
Mexican revolt against Spain fails. Spain remains colonial power in Americas.
US wins Spanish American war. Gains Florida territory.
Russia keeps Alaska and Hawaii colonies.
19th century US divided over issues of Pelajae-human equality, between Pelajae-influenced north and human-centric south. Secession of Roanoke and southern states sparks the civil war and conflicts between southern settlers and native tribes.
UK and Spain recognise confederacy. British and support stretches Civil War. Spain attempts to take back lost territory. Texas declares independance and joins Union in war. Various Native American tribes join on Union side in exchange for sovereign recognition. South faces harsher devastation and economic collapse. Spain loses California and Baja territories.
Thomas Edison becomes one of the first scientists to study magic with the aid of Nicola Tesla (known mage). Research would remain classified for over a century.
Great War of 1914 erupts. US maintains neutrality, trades with both sides. Germany doesn’t invade Belgium until the UK intervenes on behalf of France. UK attacks US shipments to the central powers. US enters war as a central power. Germany breaks through French defenses and march to Paris. Ireland uses conflict to declare independence from United Kingdom. Central powers win.
February revolution occurs. Romanovs flee with aid of Rasputin (suspected mage) to Alaska colony. Alaska-Hawaii split from Soviet Russia to form Russian Tsardom in exile. Later known as the Alaska Republic.
Leon Trotsky takes control of Soviet Union after Lenin. Deposes Stalin. Backs hostile expansion of communist influence.
Great Depression sparks collapse of Austrian, Hungarian and Ottoman Empires and Japanese attempt to regain disputed territory leads to second Great War in the early '30s. The Jewish state of Poland, Europe's Israel, is formed in the aftermath, with Albert Einstein as its Prime Minister.
Defeat in second Great War sparks communist uprisings in France and Spain backed by the USSR. Leads to third Great War against the German Kaiserreich, Scandinavian Empire and UK in mid ‘50s. Mexico splits from communist Spain. Soviet sinking of US & Canadian ships leads to North American involvement. France-Spain capitulate, Russia falls back, armistice called. Demilitarized zone known as the Iron Wall established in eastern Europe.
Rock icon Elvis Presley dies a war hero. Tributes from fellow musicians spark Woodstock counter culture movement and hard rock music in the '50s.
Threat of war over space race as many Pelajae consider the moon sacred, leading to the moon being declared off limits. All scientific exploration must be an internationally backed endeavor.
China joins Soviet Union. Soviet invasion of east Asia in '70s sparks fourth Great War. German and Alaskan republic involvement on side of Japan, Taiwan, Philippines, Korea after territorial invasions. US and Canada join after invasion of Alaska. Sino-Soviet collapse in late '80s.
Magical anomalies occurring in public leads to international cooperation in forming Salem University and the declassification of magic.
Present day: US is world superpower. Official languages are English & German. Alaska & Hawaii are now Russian Confederation. Nova Scotia, New Finland & New England are now the Republic of Vinnland. All of Canada is basically Quebec. The German Kaiserreich is a world power. Japan has colonies in western South America. Russia is a divided feudal war zone. China has been divided under regional allied rule. Spain and France are 'western bloc countries'.

If this seems like too much to fully absorb, let alone roleplay, don't stress too hard about perfect conformance: the University is isolated from most politics except whatever people bring with them. That said, you can chuck any questions you may have at me and Denim and we'll do our best to clarify and explain.

The Salem Speakeasy:

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The main reason behind me describing Deedah as a mixologist of all things is that she runs a very secret staff-exclusive bar behind the coffee machine in Salem's staffroom. The machine slides aside to reveal the entrance if you order a large black coffee with a shot of ginger beer - it dispenses the drink before letting you through, however, since it's Deedah's favourite beverage and she enjoys being brought a cup with every staff member that arrives. This bar is intended as a place where teachers and other staff can mix and mingle freely - in other words, an opportunity for staff characters to interact more frequently and more casually than they would otherwise be able to do. Deedah can mix up pretty much any drink or combination of drinks possible (coffee, fruit juice, whiskey, olive oil, crude oil, dewdrops gathered from Stonehenge at dawn on the summer solstice), but for obvious reasons the bar's opening hours are restricted as follows:

Mon-Thur: Midday to 1pm (lunchtime), 5pm to midnight (after classes)

Fri: Midday to 1pm, 5pm to late

Sat: Midday to late

Sun: Midday to midnight

Additionally, alcohol and other intoxicants are only served from 7pm to midnight, except on Friday and Saturday nights when she serves them deep into the AM hours. Party responsibly, folks, and don't let anything slip to the students.

Credit to @dragon4111 for suggesting the idea and to @Passion for checking with Jeric to make sure alcohol isn't a no-no in RPs (it's fine as long as it's not glorified)

Extra details:

[fair warning, there's too much for me to properly format so it's copy-pasted from various posts in SU 2.0 - if it's in quotes it's from expositional IC posts, otherwise it's explanations from the OOC thread]

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Details about magic and its variations:

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Instead of every character having their own individual and utterly distinct rules, I like to think that it's more along the lines that every character has their own individual and utterly distinct way of doing things. The habitual way they like to control their magic is the way that makes the most sense to them and the way that best fits their personality. Some magic lends itself better to being controlled in a certain way, but it all flexes to to fit the user and the way their mind works. As such, the role of the teacher isn't to bend the students' rules or to impose new ones, but simply to show them different ways to do things - ways that might work better with this or that type of magic, ways that help the user to flex to fit their magic rather than solely the other way around, ways to help the students to be able to use every part of themselves to control their magic - mind, soul, body, heart, gut, the works. You can flick pulses of energy at people with your mind, sure, but have you ever tried following through the mental motion with a twist of the wrist and an outflung arm? Have you ever considered focussing the energy through an object to centre the flow of your spell through something you can see? Have you ever thought of sketching your intent in the air so that the very matter around you resonates with your magic? Have you ever combined ingredients into a potion instead, painstakingly imbuing each arcane ingredient and crystal vial and swirl of the iron spoon with the magical energy that you know will be released all at once when you throw it at your target? There are many balances to be had when it comes to magic, and the teachers are there to encourage their students to try tweaking their balance rather than restricting themselves by leaving it where it naturally swings.

It has already been made canon that there are gibbering grimoires packing the secure section of the University library, that there is esoteric glyphwork coating most surfaces in the University, that there are vast fields of twisted spacetime surrounding the mysterious island upon which the University is founded, and that there are pentagrams and staffs and wands and myriad mystical manifestations of magic. This RP works on a ludicrously hazy overarching arcane system - if it makes sense and it wouldn't make you OP you can pretty much include features at will. Therefore, if you want mystical magical mechanisms to be more prominent, just focus on them with your characters. I focus on the formal, syntactical side of magic because that's what fits my character. Buck focusses on the animalistic, primal side of magic (I assume) because that's what fits his character. Passion focusses on the supernatural, otherworldly side of magic (I also assume) because that's what fits his character. You can round the cast out by focussing on the mystical, esoteric side of magic. Sure, not all magic will work by that rule, but plenty can - just as with formal magic, animalistic magic, and otherworldly magic. Much has already been made mysterious regarding different parts of the University - in fact, the only thing I can think of that you've mentioned that hasn't been made extensively canon in some form already is the hand gestures, and you can start one of your teachers running an applied interpretative dance class or something to amend that if you want. This RP's magic is not mystical as a theme, this is true, but it also isn't formal, animalistic, or otherworldly as a theme either. The prime theme of this RP is arcanodiversity - all of our characters and personal power-preferences share this same big world of magic, and the arcane paradigm of the RP must thus be balanced between them. :mlp_grin:

In short, you're entirely free to implement mystical magic wherever you like as long as you don't try to god-mod universal magical features into existence that would cramp the style of other RPers or try to god-mod local features into existence to max out your characters' power levels (neither of which I think you would ever try to do, of course).

The whole idea of the RP as I understand is to you US tell US how WE see everything work. Weave a story to tell which will entertain us and others as well by showing them our view of the setting we are in. It's all about unique approach each and every one of us has. I am perfectly fine with having your characters require trinkets, incantations, signs etc. But you cannot expect that I will have my character abide it. In fact, in one of past posts Ley already expressed her disdain to electrical/mechanical devices being used for encoding certain spells for example. And the reason I gave her is my own understanding of "magic" altogether. "Magic is fluid, it can be controlled in any way possible. Bounding it to items, like scrolls, or hard encoding its use through runes and technology might empower certain effects, but it basically means we lose control over it as it works in preestablished way. You cannot experiment with it anymore, you cannot have the spell altered anymore while it's being cast." - and since this is my view of magic I implanted into Ley, she is perfectly up for debate in RP. It gives me comfort in writing her magical abilities out once the time comes. Should mechanics of magic come into clash at any point of RP, we can all figure out a solution to the problem on the go.

But having to abide by someone else's understanding of how everything should work would only put me into uncomfortable zone of writing where I'd have to delve into things I don't believe in and try to fit into a setting which is completely hostile to me in terms of ease of writing.

Vagueness means freedom of creativity. If you have your characters lead regular classes because you are not sure how something works in this world, just tackle the OP and ask if it can work the way you want for you. I'm certain Duality's latest posts perfectly explain that we are all free to work the way we want around magic itself and our powers. I have no issues with anyone teaching actualy spells and use of scrolls, wands, whatever. It makes sense in terms of current RP setting and doesn't clash with anything, so it's good to be done imo.

Details about the University and its operations:

Spoiler

"That there's the Closet, one of my favourite rooms on campus. Nobody really uses it much, on account of it being a bit of a weak patch in spacetime - brooms and mops go missing, new ones appear out of nowhere, all that sort of thing." A lopsided smile crossed Duality's face in rueful reminiscence of bygone paperwork. "Someone even found a 16th-century Stave of Arcane Might in there once, which was a bit of a legal hassle. Students occasionally try to use it as a linchpin for their homebrew reality-distorting spells, but for some reason the Closet's effects appear to go dormant when magic-users or active magic is in its vicinity."

"This here is what we call the Salem Script," Duality waved the note briefly in front of the class before rapidly signing it and handing it to the clearly pained teenager, who exited the room almost at a run. "It - eyes over here, he's gone now - it is the language that the staff of this school use to communicate if we don't want students to know what we're saying. Makes it easy for us to have sensitive discussions without any of you lot trying to snoop us out for gossip. It's something of an unofficial and uncondoned university tradition for runemagic students of any year level to try and crack it without any of the faculty noticing, in fact, and I don't doubt your thoughts were beginning to turn that way too. If you do actually manage to figure out how to comprehend the Script, you get a ten-thousand-dollar research grant working with me on cutting-edge international runetheory projects, no questions asked. However, if any of the staff catch you listening in on our S.S. personal conversations, regardless of whether you understand a word, you get a month of duty rosters with your name on it. I helped design it, I keep it maintained, I improve and update it regularly. My advice is to try it only if you think you're a bona fide prodigy. That's Salem Script version 5.1.9, in case you want to scope out what the library has on it."

There are a few dozen large portals connecting Salem to various international locations. These portals are all fixed-location, meaning those who live an unwalkable distance away from the external end of a SU portal need to be able to park either near the external ends or on University grounds (and since most external ends of Salem portals are in major cities, the latter is far cheaper). Only a handful of senior teachers who don't live on campus have secure portals linking directly to their outside homes; most teachers either live on campus or live near one of the buildings housing the external end of a Salem portal. It's not much of an increase in risk if your portals are already code-locked and surrounded by a level of security appropriate for what basically equate to magical embassies.

Most students do live on campus, but the school is no prison. It's pretty well-recognised among the students that if they don't get a magic-control qualification from the University, people are going to be exceptionally uncomfortable with them using their powers and they certainly won't be able to get a job that involves them using magic, but if people want to strike it out on their own in the world regardless, the school won't stop them (and it also won't help them if they land themselves in hot water by causing problems with their magic). There are magic users without an SU qualification who can control their magic quite acceptably from their own self-learning; it's a perfectly valid path to just mind your own business in your part of the world with a mundane career and without messing with anyone.

Students have to sign in and out of the school if they want to use any of the portals (obviously not allowed during class times without an exceptionally robust Salem Script permission note) and, since there are portals going to most major cities across the world, students also have to have a suitable passport on hand to get through the school's in-house border control office. Every student absent from class without excuse is followed up on, and if you're absent without excuse too often you can get kicked out of the school (education costs money, kids). Properly dropping out, though, requires signing of suitable paperwork - and if you try to just ditch campus and scarper it's frankly a matter of whether the school or the government finds you first. Mages do not simply 'vanish'.

Only the most foolhardy of mages or non-mages alike would attempt to break into a place with top-of-the-line magical security plus the largest concentration of combat-magic users on earth. Kidnapping of students has occurred in the past, for ransoming to Salem or breaking into Salem using their ID, but the University has several diplomatic agreements in place with local governments for such circumstances that allow them to immediately retrieve their students using very close to any means necessary (generally regrettable for the kidnappers), and security is tight enough that nobody can take the place of a student without sharing nearly all of their biological characteristics (excessively heightened emotion is also taken into account as part of standard security procedures to protect against cases of blackmail). The risk of actual malicious murder of students is why in general they live on campus and don't go out much, although not many mundanes have enough of a grudge against mages to try and kill someone with even fledgling combat magic (especially given how hard it is for any outsider to determine which students have only fledgling combat magic). Protective amulets are always available from the school administration, too, for any student who feels they might need it.

There are dissipation runes installed throughout the school, but most of them are just generic commercial-grade runes designed to disperse only a middling-sized portion of normal magical fluctuations to prevent major damage to the school in most power-pulse incidents. This is why Druantia's aura can be felt at long distances and why her shockwave of magic passed through the ones on the corridor walls 'like they were nothing'. The runes in the student dormitories, on the other hand, are bona-fide multi-master-staff-member-imbued encrypted suppression runes draining active magic directly into the school's central magical power grid energy storage, designed to make students feel utterly and totally secure within their living quarters under any and all circumstances. They can suppress teacher-level magic, they can suppress daemon-level magic, and they can suppress Druantia-level magic; this school was designed for prodigies. The same lore also applies to the teacher dorms, for identical reasons (although the teachers have larger pentagrams). The dorms are quite literally antimagic fortresses, and the only people who can work magic within their walls are registered teachers with a live permission amulet, which are surrounded with such formidable levels of bureaucracy that most teachers never see one activated in their entire time employed at the school.

This lore wasn't just made as a response to your character, it was merely a result of the realisation that powerful and/or skilled students/teachers could simply take their rivals out as they slept if there were no secure protective enchantments in place around the dorms, and some thought around the psychological impact that such a possibility could have on anyone who stood out from the crowd in terms of ability or personality. There are personal pentagrams for people who want to practice magic in private, there are training grounds for people who want to practice magic too large for their pentagrams, and there are dorm rooms for those who want to rest easy in the knowledge that nobody - nobody - can harm them in their beds.

Details about the world and its history:

Spoiler

Mages generally lived hidden and in isolation, with only a few taking the risk of forming a group devoted to their shared magic. The fact that they're only one in a million meant that the extremely few of them who tried to use their magic to exert their will over others ended up dead/incarcerated and either covered up by the local authorities or forgotten in the constant streams of criminal events that characterise human history. A few higher-ups in various governments could've probably put the pieces together, but they had too much politicking going on to devote much time to hunches and rumours.

Then, of course, there was the much-lored daemon incursion that messed up bits of reality across the planet and in some places tore outright holes through it. Several of the most influential mage groups eventually made a collective decision to put an end to it (at the cost of irrevocably revealing themselves to the world at large) by doing a big flashy ritual to seal the whole daemon realm away. Gabriel Lazel stepped up to the PR plate and acted as an honorary worldwide diplomat between mages and mundanes, eventually succeeding in getting mages recognised as citizens of most of their respective countries and founding Salem on the same arcane island that they performed the daemon-sealing ritual on.

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 on the behaviour of some of the 'weak points' in our reality could be implemented by mages to replicate such a weak point).

The majority of information regarding daemon sightings was classified, since they were relatively rare and serious, but only the up-close information gathered by the people actually probing and testing the reality glitches was classified along with it (since the glitches were effectively impossible not to notice at their peak). Almost all the layman first-hand accounts and videos and media reports and so on regarding the glitches are still circulating. Glitch coverage escalated from urban legends to weekly sightings within about three or four years before the mages finally revealed themselves and sealed the realm away, and since it was a scant few decades ago, there are a lot of people and there is a lot of footage to attest to it.

Everyone knows a few people who saw the neighbour's cat jump off a windowsill and materialise on the roof of their house or who found the cheese that they'd bought yesterday in a near-fossilised state of decay or who even claim to have caught a glimpse of impossibility in the mirror out of the corner of their eye; everyone saw the home videos of people tossing a basketball through a stable spatial anomaly found in Manhattan or airwalking along the top of the massive anti-gravity field discovered in Tokyo or using an acceleration loop formed a few miles away from Stonehenge as a potato cannon; everyone knows it happened to the point where effectively nobody denies it and it is thus mundane.The fact that it's been and gone and is now so embedded into history that only forty-plus-year-olds reminisce about means that most people don't really care about it enough any more to let it interfere with their day-to-day life. It helps that the vast majority of the bleed-through was mild and passive and the worldwide death toll over the whole half-decade or so was a mere couple of thousand, due almost solely to a few now-classified serious incidents.

Mages did pull a historic stunt by creating the Seal. It may not have been an act of heroism amidst carnage, but it was heavily covered live by worldwide media, the resultant pulse of energy was felt as a tangible tingle across the planet, and many particularly astute observers noted a sort of 'blur-and-refocus' sensation as the stability of reality was effectively reset. The whole Incursion ended up being considered in public opinion a one-off act of nature that science doesn't yet understand being headed off by a new race of people called 'mages' instead of anything like wizards and witches saving the world from demon creatures. One must recall that having Pelajae and humans working towards a modern coexistence for so long would make the earth somewhat more hospitable to the peculiar among its inhabitants, especially given the inherent variety even amongst Pelajae.

Teaching people with potentially dangerous powers to have control is definitely the primary reason behind the University. There had been occasional accounts of rogue mages attacking people with their powers long before the Incursion, some of which had since been classified as particularly informed governments began to have suspicions, but the mages coming into the open gave governments no further reason to classify what had been openly confirmed as true. All subsequent incidents were diplomatically handled with the aid of Lazel's group of mages, but there were enough subsequent incidents to prompt Lazel to start lobbying for his school within a couple of years.

I'm trying to strike a balance between people loving and embracing mages and everyone wanting to eradicate them from existence. Call the general vibe of the world 'serious and justified misgivings, tempered by complete lack of any form of organised hostility from the mages and intimidation as regards their power'. I don't want anything close to mainstream racism between the humans and the Pelajae or between Pelajae subraces and for the purposes of the planned plot I want nobody to know IC whether daemons as a whole want to destroy Earth and very few to want to risk it due to their extreme power and the actions of several that managed to get through during the Incursion. Mages did just enough in the Incursion to demonstrate beyond reasonable doubt that magic exists and exists within them and they fixed a problem severe enough to get governments signing off on relatively generous negotiation deals, but they didn't do enough to be lauded the world over as nigh-superheroes. The government set them up in their happy little magic island-school basically in exchange for them staying there and leaving everything alone except when needed to sort out rogue mages or things. Some people think they're up to something, others think that if they were up to something everyone would be dead already. The latter people are probably closer to the truth.

In short: nobody outright hates or wants to kill each other except for similar minorities of horrible people to those we get on this Earth, nobody knows what the deal with daemons is except people with security clearance, and the world has come to an uneasy acceptance of mages as long as they stay over there where they belong.

[Question: what is the state of religion in this RP?]

Mainstream science calling daemons 'exotic forms of life' and the daemon realm 'at least some of the additional dimensions demanded 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.

[Question: how does the Pelajae 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 God's image?]

In this universe, the Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek, and Arabic words for 'man', 'mankind', etc., used in the original texts can refer to either Pelajae or humans, 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. :please:

Main Rules:

Be respectful of others and their characters.
No one-liners (ideally at least a paragraph per character per post).
You must play at least one student character for every teacher character you play, although you can play student characters without playing any teachers. This is so we don't end up with situations where a single student is split between a dozen teachers and classes are basically empty of player characters.
All students start at first-year level, regardless of how powerful they are. 4th year students can stay 4th-year and continue their magical studies for as long as they like; graduation from the school isn't mandatory and there are no higher tiers of studenthood.
Magic as a whole has very few rules, but all mages have their own ways of doing things. This means that everyone can have their own interpretation and 'vibe' of magic existing side by side with everyone else's, but also that everyone's magic has to have a good power balance with everyone else's too. As such, your character's magic should have fairly well-defined ways that it can and can't behave (i.e., limits and internally self-consistent principles wherever relevant). Magic is not superpowers, although the distinction is often blurry - if in doubt, ask.

Example Classes of Magic:

Elemental (fire, earth, wind, water, ice, crystal, metal, light, life, etc.)
Mystical (enchanters, shamans, witch doctors, potion brewers, talisman crafters, etc.)
Other

Character Categories:

Students (1st years, 2nd years, 3rd years, and 4th years),
Teachers (either teaching about specific powers or general principles of magic),
Villainous accomplices (see following paragraph),
People from the past (see paragraph following following paragraph).

There is an overarching storyline to this RP involving a man named Shahal Blackrose and his accomplices, who are devoted to destroying the Seal of the Daemon Realm.
Several character positions may be applied for within Shahal's group of accomplices, although they will only be playable later on in the course of the RP. In addition, character fatalities may be incurred on either side, due to the violent nature of Blackrose's campaign, but not to the point where people will be excluded from the RP because all their characters were killed, not without extensive PM discussion with the people involved, and not because we have a grudge against you/your character; it's purely for plot-progression purposes.

There is also a secondary storyline involving people from Salem Island's past being pulled to the present day by an unknown and unprecedented magic, beginning after the commencement of the roleplay. Characters from the past may thus be applied for, subject to a moderate increase in lore-conformance scrutiny.

List of Extant Characters (may include some non-extant characters or exclude some extant ones, all rights to inaccuracy are reserved):

Spoiler

@Duality: Duality Wave-Particle.

Application Format:

Link to bio of character/s you want to apply with,
Description of their magic,
Description of their character role and race (teacher or student, human or Pelajae, etc.).

Please clearly describe all outstanding features of your character in your application, including above-average power, strength, size, intelligence, etc., as well as any sort of interesting features, abilities, or items that they may possess. This is so I can get a solid picture of your character in my mind and so other people's characters can react properly to your character's incredible amulet/cape/hairdo/polka shoes if they're meeting them for the first time. If you do not mention a significant feature in your application and attempt to introduce it at a later date it may be considered a retcon and disallowed accordingly.

Edited January 16, 2021 by Duality

reader8363 · April 27, 2020

I would like to put my twins in, if that's fine.
Eclipse

0

Advanced issue found

▲

Spoiler

https://mlpforums.com/roleplay-world/roleplay-characters-sheets/original-characters/eclipse-r122/

Magic: Dark

Pelajae 1st year student

Solstice

Spoiler

https://mlpforums.com/roleplay-world/roleplay-characters-sheets/original-characters/solstice-r123/

Magic: Light

Pelajae 1st year student

Duality · April 27, 2020

@Passion @Denim&Venöm @Buck Testa @dragon4111 @reader8363 @Loud Opinion @Mentis Soliloquy @Skylord Nexus @Lektra Bolt

Come one, come all, come whoever's interested! Salem University has been overhauled and upgraded, hopefully without most of the original flaws! Keep your original Salem character or jump in with a new one!

EDIT: Wow, that was quick. What race of Pelajae are they, and what sort of spells can they do?

Edited April 27, 2020 by Duality

dragon4111 · April 27, 2020

Spoiler

Name:Ghalan Chromwell

Personality:A kind man but always willing to give some form of advice. Can be quick to anger at times. He is willing to listen to people's advise. But can be alittle sarcastic to his boss and disrespectful staff members. But he is fierce when a fight breaks out only if it's as a last resort. He has a weakness for Swiss chocolates without alcohol.He also loves to drive his steam powered car.

Appearance: Ghalan Chromwell is a rather tall at around 6'0ft and well built man despite being able to lift other with his mind. He normally wears a nice trench coat but when he's at work he wears . He has golden hair combed back. Ghalan has heterochromia which means two different eye colors. One eye is red while the other is blue. A scar going from his right shoulder down to his left his on his chest when he is shirtless but even then he'll keep it covered up.

med.jpg?1480041477

Magical type: Gravity specialist, Telekinesis magic to make his work at the school easier. But knows afew healing magic for simple first aid. knows enough water magic to make clean water for his steam car.

Age:29

Backstory: Ghalan grew up within a fairly standard family. Father was a business man and his mother was stay at home. As he grew up though things began to get strange. When his first ever spell was revealed it was doing the dishes which was when the gravity around the plate lightened then turned heavier before shattering. Hurting his left eye causing his heterochromia. Now as he's 26 he has a job at Salem University as a janitor. you could usually find he walking through the halls with a check list. Either that or him driving around the school in his steam powered car which was handed down to him and renovated to be a little more modern but still kept the old timey aesthetic.

Other info: 1925 Doble E-20 Steam Car is what Ghalan drives to work. A few modern amenities like an anti theft alarm, seat belts, and a few other safety features like a car horn, rear view mirrors, and finally brakes. Steam train chugging along but it's utterly silent when he drives it.

The-Ancient-Magus-Bride-Elias-Ainsworth- His walking cane/magic focus.

So here he is the janitor.

Duality · April 27, 2020

4 minutes ago, dragon4111 said:

Reveal hidden contents

Name:Ghalan Chromwell

Personality:A kind man but always willing to give some form of advice. Can be quick to anger at times. He is willing to listen to people's advise. But can be alittle sarcastic to his boss and disrespectful staff members. But he is fierce when a fight breaks out only if it's as a last resort. He has a weakness for Swiss chocolates without alcohol.He also loves to drive his steam powered car.

Appearance: Ghalan Chromwell is a rather tall at around 6'0ft and well built man despite being able to lift other with his mind. He normally wears a nice trench coat but when he's at work he wears . He has golden hair combed back. Ghalan has heterochromia which means two different eye colors. One eye is red while the other is blue. A scar going from his right shoulder down to his left his on his chest when he is shirtless but even then he'll keep it covered up.

Magical type: Gravity specialist, Telekinesis magic to make his work at the school easier. But knows afew healing magic for simple first aid. knows enough water magic to make clean water for his steam car.

Age:29

Backstory: Ghalan grew up within a fairly standard family. Father was a business man and his mother was stay at home. As he grew up though things began to get strange. When his first ever spell was revealed it was doing the dishes which was when the gravity around the plate lightened then turned heavier before shattering. Hurting his left eye causing his heterochromia. Now as he's 26 he has a job at Salem University as a janitor. you could usually find he walking through the halls with a check list. Either that or him driving around the school in his steam powered car which was handed down to him and renovated to be a little more modern but still kept the old timey aesthetic.

Other info: 1925 Doble E-20 Steam Car is what Ghalan drives to work. A few modern amenities like an anti theft alarm, seat belts, and a few other safety features like a car horn, rear view mirrors, and finally brakes. Steam train chugging along but it's utterly silent when he drives it.

His walking cane/magic focus.

So here he is the janitor.

Very nice. I notice you've added a couple of details from the original application.

Approved, under the conditions from the original Salem that life force and sufficiently concentrated magic both disrupt his abilities (i.e., he can't rip people to shreds with black holes from the other side of a magical shield or anything like that).

dragon4111 · April 27, 2020

@Duality

Of course not He has to switch from being defensive to offensive.

reader8363 · April 27, 2020

sorry, was busy with exhaustion

Solstice uses protection light magic with some healing, while Eclipse works a bit with curses, and really minor other dark magic (blindness, sucking that lights out of stuff etc.)

for their race/appearance, maybe human based with a horn.

Duality · April 27, 2020

21 minutes ago, reader8363 said:

sorry, was busy with exhaustion

Solstice uses protection light magic with some healing, while Eclipse works a bit with curses, and really minor other dark magic (blindness, sucking that lights out of stuff etc.)

for their race/appearance, maybe human based with a horn.

Sounds good - approval to the pair of them. :grin:

Also, just a note to all and sundry - I will put up the first in-character post once enough people have joined, so don't jump in just yet.

Edited April 27, 2020 by Duality

Buck Testa · April 27, 2020

1st Character:

Name: Snuffles

Spoiler

Race: Aberration, Mimic

Appearance: Snuffles is a small mimic, though he has grown over the years it has lived on campus. When it is not mimicing an object, Snuffles is a red, brown and gold colored fuzzball that can be seen zipping around the floor, walls and ceiling. When it is at rest it takes a wide variety of shapes from a row of books to a wall fixture, from a jewelry box to clothes. Regardless what shape Snuffles takes, it's always the same size and mass as it's original form, and it retains its original coloring. Mimics have a natural adhesive ability that allow it to trap prey that touches it, but Snuffles tends to use it to maneuver on the walls. Snuffles can alter his texture as well as appearance, taking on everything from fuzzy fur to smooth leather backing, to the rough texture of stone. This is not reflected in Snuffles durability however.

History: Experimenting with magic can lead to unexpected results. One of those results was the tiny mimic who took on the name of Snuffles by the staff. When Snuffles first accidentally came into existence it was quite small. It's body was able to mimic small things like coins or rings or similarly tiny objects. Due to it not being hostile and being rather cute in it's normal form, Salem tentatively adopted it as the campus's pet. They keep an eye on the aberration in case it goes feral and attacks people, but up till now it's been well behaved if not a bit mischievous. Nowadays Snuffles is bigger, about the size of a cat, and is well known for appearing in the strangest of places.

Magic: Snuffles appears to be able to control fire and heat magic. It is well known for using fire in its various disguises, like taking on the form of candles or wall hung torches. Salem staff have made sure to train it not to set things on fire. It is known to prank unsuspecting students into thinking they set something on fire by accident when it's just Snuffles in his object form.

Other: Snuffles cannot talk. He understands human speech but he typically communicates in charades, either making gestures or turning into objects that sound like the words he wants to use. Snuffles doesn't seem to be able to mimic animals, only objects, preferably man made ones. Snuffles likes to hang out on top of @Duality 's books and notes when she's trying to get work done, and it is well known to demand pets at the most inopportune moments.

Edited April 27, 2020 by Buck Testa

Buck Testa · April 27, 2020

bn_neko_atsume_cat_plush_toy_1527326227_
Snuffles would look something like this, but with the indicated coloring.

Denim&Venöm · April 27, 2020

@Duality I see were off to the races then.

Are we still doing the time travel and disappearences sub plot?

Passion · April 27, 2020

Currently not convinced. Over course I mentioned multiple times I do not enjoy meddling with too many factors, not to mention having to follow with unknown of altered timeline. If I get time, chance and motivation, I'll read through it and decide if it suits my needs or not, but for now it's a ~~"No."~~ "Maybe." from me.

My head hurts just reading through all of this tbh.

Ain't sure how much details I'd need to change about Ley, certainly not wishing to apply now until I can gauge the power people are trying to create with their characters so I can level her around the same plane as all the other characters.

Loud Opinion · April 28, 2020

@Duality, It's here! Bring out the mariachi band!

Limbo Dreams: Link in the description.

AU specific differences: She's a lamb-like humanoid with horns from London. She also has wool instead of hair (early-domestication wool. No permanent sweater for her). She's self taught in basic rune magic from a family grimoire but has only ever been able to craft a single rune for 'lite'. She is going to S.U. to master whatever makes her surroundings smolder in her sleep.

Edited April 28, 2020 by Loud Opinion
Fleshing out

Duality · May 2, 2020

On 4/27/2020 at 7:09 PM, Buck Testa said:

1st Character:

Name: Snuffles

Reveal hidden contents

Race: Aberration, Mimic

Appearance: Snuffles is a small mimic, though he has grown over the years it has lived on campus. When it is not mimicing an object, Snuffles is a red, brown and gold colored fuzzball that can be seen zipping around the floor, walls and ceiling. When it is at rest it takes a wide variety of shapes from a row of books to a wall fixture, from a jewelry box to clothes. Regardless what shape Snuffles takes, it's always the same size and mass as it's original form, and it retains its original coloring. Mimics have a natural adhesive ability that allow it to trap prey that touches it, but Snuffles tends to use it to maneuver on the walls. Snuffles can alter his texture as well as appearance, taking on everything from fuzzy fur to smooth leather backing, to the rough texture of stone. This is not reflected in Snuffles durability however.

History: Experimenting with magic can lead to unexpected results. One of those results was the tiny mimic who took on the name of Snuffles by the staff. When Snuffles first accidentally came into existence it was quite small. It's body was able to mimic small things like coins or rings or similarly tiny objects. Due to it not being hostile and being rather cute in it's normal form, Salem tentatively adopted it as the campus's pet. They keep an eye on the aberration in case it goes feral and attacks people, but up till now it's been well behaved if not a bit mischievous. Nowadays Snuffles is bigger, about the size of a cat, and is well known for appearing in the strangest of places.

Magic: Snuffles appears to be able to control fire and heat magic. It is well known for using fire in its various disguises, like taking on the form of candles or wall hung torches. Salem staff have made sure to train it not to set things on fire. It is known to prank unsuspecting students into thinking they set something on fire by accident when it's just Snuffles in his object form.

Other: Snuffles cannot talk. He understands human speech but he typically communicates in charades, either making gestures or turning into objects that sound like the words he wants to use. Snuffles doesn't seem to be able to mimic animals, only objects, preferably man made ones. Snuffles likes to hang out on top of @Duality 's books and notes when she's trying to get work done, and it is well known to demand pets at the most inopportune moments.

What an absolute cutie. Consider me sold. :squee:

Are you planning on going into any detail on the magical accident that created it?

On 4/28/2020 at 3:51 AM, Denim&Venöm said:

@Duality I see were off to the races then.

Are we still doing the time travel and disappearances sub plot?

I actually completely forgot about that. I'll have to add another paragraph to the OP.

On 4/28/2020 at 10:10 AM, Passion said:

Currently not convinced. Over course I mentioned multiple times I do not enjoy meddling with too many factors, not to mention having to follow with unknown of altered timeline. If I get time, chance and motivation, I'll read through it and decide if it suits my needs or not, but for now it's a ~~"No."~~ "Maybe." from me.

My head hurts just reading through all of this tbh.

Ain't sure how much details I'd need to change about Ley, certainly not wishing to apply now until I can gauge the power people are trying to create with their characters so I can level her around the same plane as all the other characters.

Aw, that's a shame. I kept Ley in mind while writing up all of this - the alternate timeline especially I thought would fix one of the main things I recall you objecting against: all the global government collaborations rendering it almost unfeasible for Ley to have had the sort of elitist noble origin found in your original backstory and forcing the University to have too many external dependencies. In the alternate timeline as I read it globalisation has been much impeded by various conflicts and different jurisdictions are far less politically interconnected than in this world, so there are plenty of gaps where isolated mountain enclaves could work on their own rules and the University is essentially independent from everywhere.

The vast majority of the stuff in the spoilers (everything except magic and timeline lore) is copied wholesale from posts in the last RP, tweaked and adjusted to hopefully streamline the whole thing better and clarify points that seemed to confuse people last time. The University itself is exactly the same place as it was, the world outside is just scrambled a bit more exotically - and as for magic, the new lore I wrote is designed to be just as flexible as before, but a bit less vague on the general nature of the stuff. My definitions are intended to be able to describe everything that can be called magic, insofar as this is possible, so nothing should be ruled out based on them.

On 4/28/2020 at 12:22 PM, Loud Opinion said:

@Duality, It's here! Bring out the mariachi band!

Limbo Dreams: Link.

AU specific differences: She's a lamb-like humanoid with horns from London. She also has wool instead of hair (early-domestication wool. No permanent sweater for her). She's self taught in basic rune magic from a family grimoire but has only ever been able to craft a single rune for 'lite'. She is going to S.U. to master whatever makes her surroundings smolder in her sleep.

She looks quite interesting - dream magic is a novel power, I gotta say. How does her backstory / power origin adapt to the setting, though? Curses powerful enough to make someone sleep for millennia (bonus immortality included) are out of the league of pretty much all mages in this universe.

Loud Opinion · May 2, 2020

@Duality,

I was going to reveal it in-game, but I suppose any staff member would have access to this, so I might as well explain now. If a member of staff were to ask for her records they would find a colorful history: Limbo was originally found during a geological expedition after a volcanic eruption in a British Caribbean territory The sole survivor among an undocumented village covered in ash.

After Limbo --still a sleeping baby-- was evacuated back to the motherland, an anthropologist was brought on to look through whatever records the village had. Within, a history of worship to something claimed to 'attack us that lack fear'. Another direct translation describes 'Our sacrifice won't be allowed to rise or the sea will turn black and the world will blink'. Evidence of runes along the entire lodge Limbo was found in suggests a massive project to loop time in the lodge every 6 hours so that their sleeping sacrifice should never wake up. To further support this theory, the lodge was noticeably far from the rest of the village and heavily insulated with large leaves all along the outside.

The foster care Limbo was sent to requested a name so the historian was given the honor. She didn't spend long in the foster care with such a fantastical story attached to her and was soon adopted by Mr. and Miss. Glover.

After searching through a grimoire found in the village, the aforementioned the historian claimed to have found nothing dangerous and a copy was sent to Limbo's residence (with the time loop ritual strangely absent) in case her birth family were the original owners. Limbo Dreams seemed to have a normal life after the adoption aside for very regular calls to the fire department and a court case for insurance fraud. Presto: we're up to the present.

Duality · May 7, 2020

On 5/2/2020 at 3:49 PM, Loud Opinion said:

@Duality,

I was going to reveal it in-game, but I suppose any staff member would have access to this, so I might as well explain now. If a member of staff were to ask for her records they would find a colorful history: Limbo was originally found during a geological expedition after a volcanic eruption in a British Caribbean territory The sole survivor among an undocumented village covered in ash.

After Limbo --still a sleeping baby-- was evacuated back to the motherland, an anthropologist was brought on to look through whatever records the village had. Within, a history of worship to something claimed to 'attack us that lack fear'. Another direct translation describes 'Our sacrifice won't be allowed to rise or the sea will turn black and the world will blink'. Evidence of runes along the entire lodge Limbo was found in suggests a massive project to loop time in the lodge every 6 hours so that their sleeping sacrifice should never wake up. To further support this theory, the lodge was noticeably far from the rest of the village and heavily insulated with large leaves all along the outside.

The foster care Limbo was sent to requested a name so the historian was given the honor. She didn't spend long in the foster care with such a fantastical story attached to her and was soon adopted by Mr. and Miss. Glover.

After searching through a grimoire found in the village, the aforementioned the historian claimed to have found nothing dangerous and a copy was sent to Limbo's residence (with the time loop ritual strangely absent) in case her birth family were the original owners. Limbo Dreams seemed to have a normal life after the adoption aside for very regular calls to the fire department and a court case for insurance fraud. Presto: we're up to the present.

Time magic is beyond the abilities of pretty much all mages in this setting, but this is otherwise a sound backstory - maybe it could be changed to a sleep spell or consciousness-suspension enchantment of some sort? Also, if you have plans to bring up the entity worshipped in more detail could I get an idea of what you envisioned that to be too?

Loud Opinion · May 8, 2020

@Duality,

Excellent points. I'll say that the runes were actually a signal for the entity, (which I will refer to as an 'Hour') to take the marked person into their dreams for as long as the mark remains. The marked person is given youth so that they may serve the Hour as an unknowing surveyor in the dream world for longer than humanly possible.

If one were to find the Hour, they would find him in their dreams as a long, pale, gold-dripping arm reaching out of a bee infested tree. What exists within the tree is up to you or the imagination. It could once be found in the 'real' world in a forest of Limbo's island home, but that forest did not survive the eruption. A single, unpleasant story of a pale arm reaching all the way out of the forest and into a villagers home survived the eruption and seems to predate the ritual.

Thanks to Cultist Simulator for the inspiration/source material.

Spoiler

411px.png.d99e2c50f5539a308b8f37f63b0ef075.png

Let me know if it's still out of scale?

Duality · May 19, 2020

Update to the OP: Characters from the past are now open for play, and a paragraph has been added about the time subplot. @Denim&Venöm lemme know if I've missed anything we've discussed.

On 5/8/2020 at 7:11 PM, Loud Opinion said:

@Duality,

Excellent points. I'll say that the runes were actually a signal for the entity, (which I will refer to as an 'Hour') to take the marked person into their dreams for as long as the mark remains. The marked person is given youth so that they may serve the Hour as an unknowing surveyor in the dream world for longer than humanly possible.

If one were to find the Hour, they would find him in their dreams as a long, pale, gold-dripping arm reaching out of a bee infested tree. What exists within the tree is up to you or the imagination. It could once be found in the 'real' world in a forest of Limbo's island home, but that forest did not survive the eruption. A single, unpleasant story of a pale arm reaching all the way out of the forest and into a villagers home survived the eruption and seems to predate the ritual.

Thanks to Cultist Simulator for the inspiration/source material.

Reveal hidden contents

Let me know if it's still out of scale?

This seems quite satisfactory from a lore point of view, and certainly intriguing otherwise. We haven't had any true-eldritch magic in the RP before now, as far as I'm aware, so this is fresh meat. :ticking:

Edited May 19, 2020 by Duality

Denim&Venöm · May 19, 2020

1 hour ago, Duality said:

Update to the OP: Characters from the past are now open for play, and a paragraph has been added about the time subplot. @Denim&Venöm lemme know if I've missed anything we've discussed.

Where exactly is it? I'm having trouble finding it.

Duality · May 19, 2020

8 hours ago, Denim&Venöm said:

Where exactly is it? I'm having trouble finding it.

It's near the end of the post, just after the paragraph about Blackrose's storyline and the list of playable character types.

Denim&Venöm · May 19, 2020

2 hours ago, Duality said:

It's near the end of the post, just after the paragraph about Blackrose's storyline and the list of playable character types.

Oh I see. I was checking the tabbed away portions and not the end of the post.

Well with the time travel plot underway, need me to write a cliff notes on Miko's life story to see what meshes and what doesn't or will we let that be unveiled as the campaign rolls on?

Duality · May 20, 2020

10 hours ago, Denim&Venöm said:

Well with the time travel plot underway, need me to write a cliff notes on Miko's life story to see what meshes and what doesn't or will we let that be unveiled as the campaign rolls on?

Could you chuck her into an application format instead? Cliff notes would be redundant if there's already a full backstory being written for the application anyway. :adorkable:

Duality · May 29, 2020

@Denim&Venöm @Buck Testa

You two still good to go? Just waiting on an application and a response, respectively.

dragon4111 · May 29, 2020

@Duality

Oh also to add into Ghalan's vehicles he also drives a Harley Davidson chopper.

Denim&Venöm · May 31, 2020

The Biography of Tachibana Miko

Spoiler

Name: Tachibana Miko

Race: Kitsune

Birthdate: June 25th, 1905

Birthplace: Japanese colonies in South America.

Backstory: most young adults would take solace and pride in being called a supergenius. But for Miko, it just meant that the gig was up. Tried as she may to hide it and appear normal for her overbearing parents, it was clear that there was more to their daughter than cunning and wit. That she was extraordinarily intelligent. A young adult would've taken pride. But early twenties Miko was the kitsune equivalent to a preteen. She and her race aging at half the rate of humans. And she only wanted to do decently enough to sate her parents' pride and be free to do whatever. Too many straight A's. Too many times correcting the teacher. Too many brilliant art pieces and musical performances. Too bored with most puzzles and games. Try as she may, she was beyond average.

After many a psychologist and professor told them their daughter was gifted, Miko would be forced to bear the brunt of her family's high expectations, and by extension, the world's. perfection was the baseline.

Ballet. Violin and cello. Latin and every other romance language. Mountains of classical literature. Majority of her time spent in prestigious universities. Miko was less daughter and more pet project, gaining no less than four bachelors degrees in finance, business, law and economics. With such a tight curriculum, it was clear her parents saw use for her in their "family businesses."

But if her family was known for anything else, it was also their tenacity, brutal honesty and stubborn pride. Miko might've played along but she didn't do so easily, always wanting to partake in more commoner activities like acting, drawing, athletics and the martial arts, the last one in particular they demanded be left to her "less gifted" siblings as they practiced the hip and new jiu-jitsu variant from neighboring Brazil. The martial art of the upper class.

Seeing as she was smarter than her folks, Miko worked on a long term plan of independence. Observe the servants on how they did tasks. Read about travel and customs abroad. Practice cleaning, cooking, sowing and household repairs. And secretly travel and learn Capoeira. The fighting style disguised as dance. With each new skill, Miko's confidence and cockiness grew. Seeing that she was growing into an independent woman, her parents decided to cut her in on the "business" making her an accountant and errand girl. With this, Miko could gain some power and leverage it as a , she shouldn't have taken the bait.

The authorities were tipped off and Miko was arrested along with quite a few of the families clients that had been working around the law. Miko wouldn't cave and out her family. They weren't quick to do the same, playing the victim about their daughter not listening to them and getting involved with the wrong crowd, the only saving grace being that this exposed how corrupt their business partners were. Any of the criminals caught would say that the Tachibana's were in on the act, but the authorities saw that as merely them trying to slander a reputable, well paying family's name.

Miko knew that this was an attempt to humble her by her folks. That their will was to be done. Smarts can't outdo power. The only saving grace for her was that she had some new friends in her family's shafted partners, some new respect for not being a snitch and a lot more time to learn less reputable skills. Con jobs. Forgery. The art of the hustle. Courier for messages and contraband. And of course, the street fighting arts of muay Thai and luta livre, rivals to the upper class disciplines. After a few years, she was given a few options out of her sentence. House arrest and supervision were one. That she rejected. The other was military service. Help the empire take back lost territory in the now waging third great war. She opted for this. Freed from controlling parents. A chance to earnest more public respect. And a way to escape abroad.

So off she worked in the Pacific theater, aiding the japanese in trying to retake territory lost to the kaiserreich. Going through boot camp, working as on base labor, to mechanic, to engineer, before being recruited for the fighting when disposable bodies were low and getting field promotions for both her skill and suicidal bravery. All it did for her was land her from one prison to another before she was made POW.

She would have plenty of time to reflect on this, as when the war ended and Japan was again on the losing side, they disowned the colonial forces as only volunteers. They weren't made to go. And her colony back home made up the same excuse. That while yes, they were all now pardoned, they weren't welcomed back for fighting in a "foreign war.'' So while stuck in a game of bureaucratic hot potato, Miko and her POW posse were given work visas by the KR and settled in German owned Hong Kong. Not the fresh new start Miko wanted, but one she would take. Working odd jobs, putting her smarts to use to stay afloat and making connections and earning favors. Doing as much as a vagabond vet could, before another opportunity presented itself in the form of another great war, with the Soviet Union launching an all out attack on war ravaged Europe. And that opportunity was with the USV joining the war, and offering citizenship to those who enlisted. And thus began Miko's journey as a borderline soldier of fortune. Fighting less for patriotic or ideological purposes, and more for profit and freedom.

Being re-trained in boot camp. Joining the armored cavalry corps (aka tanks). Rapidly climbing the chain of command through a combination of skill, bravery and not dying, Miko went from ex con vet to Lt.colonel, proving her mettle in many a tank battle.

One in particular came near the war's end when her light tank company were the closest to aid resistance fighters and Soviet defectors in defending a castle housing political prisoners from in coming death squads. It was during this fight that she met a kitsune named Alexander Przewalski, a member of an affluent Polish family turned Soviet Conscript. Together they held off soviet forces for nearly three weeks before the allies arrived in the nic of time. It was during this battle that she learned Alex was no ordinary fox, when she witnessed him do the impossible and kill a breaching team with a lightning strike. The first time she met a mage, even though neither of them knew it. And she wasn't the only one discovering mages. When things were looking desperate, Miko ordered Alex to strike down The castle invaders, even though she was in the line of fire. Honoring her noble sacrifice for the greater good, Alex struck Miko and the band of Russians down. But instead of, yknow, dying, Miko sparked and buzzed and twitched and asked for him to do it again. It was thanks to him that Miko also had an apparent affinity for lightning magic, as she would be regularly used as a walking, electrical bomb a few times. And yet this wasn't the only limit to her power. When the invaders tried to burn the castle and smoke out it's defenders, Miko then learned she was not only immune to flame throwers, but could throw the flames right back at the attackers. Later magical scholars would credit this as one of the first documented uses of magic in contemporary warfare and one of the primary factors in the allied force being triumphant in what should've been an unwinnable battle.

After serving another 8 years and all the awards, all the medals, the promotion to colonel and all the puff pieces were written, Miko took her promised pension and lifetime payouts from the US government and walked. Being very frank on her years of service as little more than being means to an end. That she didn't do it for the Vesperian people or for capitalist democracy. She wanted her place in a new Frontier and a chance for reinvention and a new life. And the chance to drive a tank. Her frankness didn't ingratiate her to the more patriotic and only furthered the polarizing opinions on her, especially when she opted out of partaking in the 5th great war only a few years later.

The connections she forged in Hong Kong proved useful, as her old dance instructor offered her a job at his studio in Seattle. It is there that she reconnected with Alex, now a refugee and immigrant looking to make something out of his pre war dream of dance, theatre, dress making, costume design and even architecture that wasn't of the state sponsored brutalist kind. Alex was one of the few friends Miko made that stuck with her after her service. He knew what it was like to have the world's expectations on you. He knew what it was like to want your own Destiny. He was one of the few that got her. Didn't care for the genius, the celebrity or the warrior. The fox behind all that was what he found kinship in and Miko finally found someone where the feeling was mutual. They would have a military wedding on Mike's last day of service.

It was also thanks to her instructor and his recommendations she got her paw into the door of martial arts acting and stunt work. That man was Bruce Lee. Making waves as one of the early leading ladies of action films and parlaying her military career into instant credibility, got plenty of opportunities in the Kung fu genre and grind house action flicks of the 70s and 80s. Many saw her talents and said that she was wasting her time on such low brow action fodder when more artistic and serious drama would get her more respect.

It wasn't just acting that suited her fancy. She was passionate about music, appreciating the emotion of blues, the skill of jazz, the energy of rock. So she tried out the solo experience and got a few albums out in the mid to late 70s, doing decently well until she was kicked from the record deal due to creative differences, mostly due to her not being poppy enough and her subject matter being a tad mature. To pissthem off more, she went the punk route, generating some buzz in that scene until she started getting flak for her success, so she left due to punk rocks 'conformist nature'. So as the 5th great war was waging, Miko went underground, found like minded musicians and formed her own band to capitalize on the burgeoning speed metal genre, further sticking it to her critics who egged her on and bemoaned her wasted ability, associating with gangs and punks and the youth counter culture, playing in bars and clubs and basements and bingo halls instead of arenas and stadiums, only selling gold records when she should be going platinum.

They further bemoaned this fact And her choice to continue acting after she had her first kit, Ryuko Przewalski-Tachibana. "Be a stay at home mom." they said. "Let your husband bring home the bacon, even if he's an effeminate, dress making pretty boy." They said. "Obey your wife duties. Set a good example for your daughter. You've failed to reach your full potential at everything else you've done. So do right by this and be a responsible parent." To which she responded. "Gomenasai, but I can't hear you over the sound of my pyrotechnics, my wall of Marshall stacks and my newly built tank museum! I'm on top of the world! What are you gonna do about it?"

It was about that time that Miko and Alex got an invitation from the Salem Institute of thaumaturgy, set up in the wake of the transdimensional wackiness and weirdos in weird robes doing weird stuff to seal away the weirder stuff and calling it all "magic". Apparently the 'mages' knew about the couple and their powers. They offered them to be part of the first class of Salem's students, setting an example for the rest of the world's enchanted to learn how to use their powers for the betterment of the world.

Alex was all for the idea of learning more about his gifts and wished to help do the same. He would graduate as part of Salem's first class of '92 and further his studies to becoming one of Salem's first magical instructors of the post reveal era.

Miko however, declined the invite, seeing her gifts as nothing special, opting to focus on her film and music careers as well as be a parent to their newborn. She was happy in life. Why walk away from that? Well fate and a bit of her hubris had other plans.

Martial Arts cinema in Asia would tank from recessions and regulation on " violent media ". Interest in that as well as gritty action would tank in favor of disaster movies, romantic comedies and comic book fare. The speed metal subgenre and all of its contemporaries and rivals would all be taken off the air by the disenfranchised post war youth and their more rudimentary, introspective fair like alt. Rock, post punk and grunge. Even Miko's fall back plan of doing actual sports was shot due to new regulations on the enchanted being barred from competition. In fact, she couldn't hold another job in most of the world due to the enchanted needing proof of certification that they've mastered their powers. From where else? Salem U.

Now Alex would've loved to have had his wife as a classmate/ student. But suspects that whoever leaked his wife's enchanted status worked at Salem and wanted some celebrity credibility to boost the perception of Salem to the outside world. Well it kind of worked. With few avenues, Miko enrolled, deciding to get this magic thing over with so she could resume her life. Neither her nor Salem would realize how hard it would actually be.

Right off the bat, she clashed with Salem's teaching staff. Her free spirited, anti-authroitarian, stubborn and brazen personality clashed with the elitist and borderline aristocratic teaching staff who had an unflinching idea of what magic and it's use were supposed to be. Some wanted her gone, refusing to have someone like her be among their ranks and give the mage community a bad name. Some just didn't care and didn't want her to be their problem. Others saw potential and pushed her hard, only to have Miko push back. Most frustrating to them all was that despite her behavior and personality, she was getting great grades. All her school work and projects being done with ease. Except for one specific facet: magic itself.

New skills come naturally to Miko. Learning has rarely been a challenge. So to have something that she couldn't quite get at first was exciting. "Finally, a worthy challenge!" But excitement turned to mild intrigue. Intrigue became annoyance. Annoyance became frustration. And frustration became ire.

Miko's magic was far below par compared to her peers. Her spells were reactive to other electro and pyromancers. Her ability to cast them at will was inconsistent. When they were cast, they were either pitifully weak or woefully destructive. Even affinity neutral magic was strenuous for her to cast. And of course she lost 90% of all the magic duels she was in, of which there were many. Research done into the matter determined that Miko had a lower output of magic than the average mage. Meaning she was effectively magically handicapped, and thus unable to pursue a career in a field that made use of magic, nor be certified to get a normal job. She'd be stuck at some dead end field where her weak and unstable magic wouldn't be a threat to others. Instead of granting her freedom, Salem's path of magic was set to constrain her and lock her down into what they thought was best. And try as hard as he might, not even Alex could give her a passing grade.

Miko had one more year left and was becoming increasingly jaded at her prospects. She made it clear that she would drop out of Salem kept hindering her goals in life. She would strike out on her own if need be and find a way around Salem and whatever ruling they had for her. Maybe she can't be a good mage. Maybe she can't follow her dreams anymore. But the least she can do is be a good parent to Ryuko. Do the thing no one else has for her. Give her the freedom to be herself and follow her own dreams. She had her family and she had the will to keep fighting on for the life she wanted. Regardless of what Salem decided, she was gonna be okay. It would not be okay.

In the spring of 2003, just over a week before finals, Miko went out for a smoke. And never came back. It was thought she just dropped out. Until there was no evidence of her ever leaving. Perhaps the stress got to her and she decided to end it all. But no body was found and it didn't fit her stubborn personality to quit like that. Some thought she may have had a vendetta against the school and was planning something before she got stopped. Or someone in the school had a grudge, of which there were many. Regardless of the cause, Miko was gone. Some thought 'good riddance'. Some mourned for what could've been. But no one took it harder than her husband, who had put his faith into the school to help her, and in his eyes, let her down. He would resign soon after to take care of his grieving daughter, vowing never to send her to Salem.

After all the investigations were done, the reporters left and the case went cold, Salem's founder Gabe Lanzel saw that his school had to improve. The world had changed, and the approach to teaching magic had to change with it. What happened to Miko couldn't be allowed to happen again. Restructuring took place. Instructors were let go. Disciplinary lectures were given. A new, more liberating approach to magic and it's place in the world was introduced. Teachers were there to help the young mages of the world grasp their gifts. What they did next was up to them.

Shame that couldn't have been the case for the one student who needed it most.

Magic: diagnosed as pyro/electromancer, reevaluated as kinetomancer (energy manipulation and conversion. Can turn heat, electricity and kinetic force into physical stat boosts like super speed, strength, durability and healing or redirect/ convert energy from one form to another (electricity to raw magic and vice versa, allowing her to potentially fuel high yield spells off of conventional energy, IE using a car battery to fuel a portal spell).

Resistant to fire, electricity and impact damage. Weak to ice and cold, causing a lack of energy to use. Being thrown or hit with a less tangible force like water and wind circumvents her defenses. May lose control of power in consistently hot environments, having too much heat energy to draw from. Fundamental misunderstanding of her own powers due to being misdiagnosed and improperly taught. Fighting style of throws and submissions working in tandem with dodging and deflecting works counterintuitive to her own magic.

Species: Kitsune (meta-fox).

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