Board Thread:Off-Topic/@comment-24108228-20150404090346

Yay! =Magic of Runes=

Introduction
It's been a long time since the wiki has been so inactive. Heck, I don't even remember anything of the sort, and I've been here about a year and a half. Frankly, we need to bring this wiki back to life. If you have the time, please post. If we can get an active and interesting forum game running, we could attract new contributors to join in, the likes of which that still have a creative urge and the will to help out, rather than the ones we have right now where page edits are once per week.

These last few threads are our last stand. Don't put it off. Help us.

The Backstory and Important Information
This is set in the first map, and there is no other islands in swimming, sailing, or flying distance. Keep to the 14 islands. As a side note, all islands are twice as large in both width and length, and structures such as desert mountain and spire's spire are also twice as tall. The sea is 3x as large in all three dimensions. Natural resources have scaled to this.

People and Tribes
There are five main factions: '''The Paradise Tribe '''The Magma Tribe '''The Mainland Tribe '''The Plateau Tribe '''The Pirates

The paradise tribe is a group of 30ish people, and home to a wide range of expert carpenters and cooks. You can find lots of people willing to sell you well made woodwork, including weapon parts if you can persuade them that you're only using it for self defence. Food is plentiful, and the island has masses of small animals and critters thanks to its newly created Life-Dojo, where young tribe members are taught to use life energy to heal people and animals, manipulate and supercharge plant growth, and as shown by the abundance of bunnies and birds, create living creatures (albeit only small ones). This all runs off the life node found at the centre of the island's orchard, which is able to give off an infinite supply of life energy, just not all at once.

The magma tribe is a secluded group of a bit less than 40 who work under the order of a group of five elders, as they have done for many centuries. The island is ore rich and the inhabitants use their node to refine ore using ritual magic, rather than cast magic as a weapon or tool. They also avoid selling runes to other islands or soloists, as it drains the fire energy they prefer to use on ore refinement. Despite their communist and somewhat greedy approach, the elders are appreciated by the magma tribe as a whole, and they make sure that food and various luxuries are in plentiful supply. The blades they create and sell are revered around the Archipelago.

The mainland tribe are the biggest of the lot, at a population of 130. They function similarly to a modern day society, their abundance of workers meaning there is no need for any particular leadership, and the capitalist roots of the city can simply guide the inhabitants to do everything the tribe needs to have to function well. A small, elected government takes care of large matters (such as alliances, wars, and laws), and other than the infamously high tax rates on the city, it could easily be considered the easiest place to live at. The Earth Node there is mostly untouched because magicians are few in number, and fairly secretive, thanks to the fact that being able to control the ground is a much more useful trait when you hold the monopoly on it. They will teach you how to cast magic, but you have to pay enough money for them to deem it a wise business choice.

The plateau tribe is the holder of the air node, with a population of 65ish, and are almost entirely magic based. They use their air magic to mine, build, and in some cases even move around. All children and newcomers of the tribe are taught to perform telekinesis using magic gathered from the node, and the many centuries of relying practically on a single spell has provided a deep insight into how it works, and how to cast it efficiently. As far as the governing of the island goes, they are ruled by the head magicians, and your place in power is deemed by your ability to cast magic; this derives from an ancient tradition where candidates for election were chosen through a magic duel; however the process inevitably changed after one duel left all candidates dead, and the island deprived of it's magicians.

The Pirates are the only civilisation that doesn't rule a node. They originate from a group of nomads who banded together in alliance, and began to enslave traders and capture cargo vessels, all of which was sent to Desert Isle. Since one of them was aware of the high mithril content in the desert sandstone, the captured traders were forced to mine for mithril, and roughly 50 years before the events of the Roleplay the four tribes banded together to reclaim their population and cargo. They succeeded, and the Pirates were almost wiped out, a handful surviving and slowly rebuilding the civilisation. They've recently started capturing ships again however, and the mining operation has restarted, albeit it's still a bit shaky. As far as the Roleplay goes, the Pirates are just a place to put your character should you want to continue the type of roleplaying as was done in Normkin (a loosely governed, uncomfortable, prison-like place), but out of the way enough that the rather powerful story driving power of a prison camp is tucked away, meaning that the magical aspect isn't overridden.

Rare Materials
Since we can't reveal mithril locations and the like, rare minerals will need alternate methods of obtaining. Mithril can be bought from mainland's miners, at a heavy cost. Bluesteel is bought from the magma tribe, who make it with a magic ritual. Mushrooms are just found in damp places. Most mushrooms are poisonous. Chromium can be bought from nomadic traders.

Magik
Magik is purple!

Magic is different from last time. Since the old system was highly flawed, and bound to shrivel up into a corner the moment it was looked at funny, I've redone the way it works, it now using "runes" as the main source of energy, which are merely clay tablets imbued with power, clay being easy to imbue and difficult to get the energy out of again, meaning it doesn't leak. As of such, clay is expensive and magic can only be cast by those with the money to buy it.

There are three forms of magic. The first is ritual magic, the second being runic magic, and the third being dark magik. You must spell dark magik with a "k", else it won't work.

Ritual magic is the most basic, and can be performed with anyone who knows what to put where; no skill required. It works through placing items in a certain arrangement, and subjecting it to enough magical energy to transmute or imbue that item. The energy can either come from runes or channelling sources, more on those later. Examples include subjecting a seed to high concentrations of life magic to make it grow instantly, applying air magic to an arrow to make it more lightweight, or adding fire magic to an ore to refine it instantly.

Runic magic is the type of magic most commonly accociated with magicians, and is the most difficult to perform, requiring years of training (expensive) to cast the better spells. Attempting to cast it without skill and training will result in the energies collapsing in on the caster, potentially killing them if they're weak. Assuming one has the required skill to cast the spell they wish to perform, they have to either tap energy from a node or rune, the latter requiring the rune to be broken to release the energy, but the former requiring close proximity to the node (as in, 10 meters kind of range); and then firing the energy at the target with the correct technique. Wands and staffs can be used to aid in channeling and temporary storage of the magic energies should one wish to cast extremely powerful spells, however they are expensive, requiring a mithril cap to conduct the energy, yew body to contain it and teraphyx dust to store it. The energy will also slowly leak out of the wand if not used within a couple minutes, so tapping a node for use later won't work.

Dark magik is the last form, and can be performed by anyone with sufficient willpower (sufficient being "you just killed my X i want you dead"). It taps directly from the user's life-force, and knowledge of runic magic determines how effectively the user can harness it. Even without magic experience however, it is fairly simple to just fire bolts of raw dark energies to kill or corrupt the mind of anyone who you wish to harm. Advanced dark magik consists of powerful telekinesis capable of creating hurricanes and tsunamis, or even summoning wraiths and other hellish beings. Needless to say, not only will this frequently result in the death of the user, but anyone who does use it and have any life-force left over will immediately be exiled from any form of civilisation, including that of bandits and pirates. Should you still have dark energy lingering (which is very likely), you will harm any living thing around you until it's gone, which can take decades.

Rules and Guidelines
My rules are less strict than Anna's, however this may be subject to change should I find people abusing this fact.

Basic Rules

 * 1) All wiki and wikia rules apply. I'm sure there will be no hesitation from our admins if you break any of them.
 * 2) I wont stand for profanity. As said by our admins: "Hell" is fine, as it is not really a "swear" word, but everything else is not allowed here. If you have a borderline word you'd like to use, bring it up with an admin, as stated earlier I'm not actually enforcing this one.
 * 3) No Godmodding. This is what ruined the first Roleplay. If your killing more than five people in a single post, you're almost certainly godmodding. I'm going to be very strict about this rule.
 * 4) When posting, try to keep your posts from becoming massive, as nobody wants huge page loading times. Short posts are fine (especially during dialog), however don't rush the story forwards.
 * 5) Nothing remarkably depressing and morbid. Similar to how I don't want to see the writhing and mangled body of a man subject to torture by burning oils and coals, I don't want to read a detailed ten paragraph long description about it either.
 * 6) The same goes for characters with extremely depressing pasts that are constantly referenced. It's just depressing to read.
 * 7) I wont allow constant bad grammar and spelling. If I struggle to figure out what your trying to say, I will take action.

Story Rules

 * 1) You cant smooth talk your way into being best friends with magma's leader, nor persuade an assassin to do your bidding. If you gave them something valuable maybe they would trust you more, but it becomes a problem when people just walk straight into the main superpower, and become co-leader.
 * 2) There are no admin tools/unobtainium, etc.
 * 3) The NPCs are not claimed by anyone, and the first person to start using the character can describe his/her personality.
 * 4) If you want to put something out of character, use italic formatting. Try not to use it excessively though.
 * 5) If there is a large event that will affect everyone in the roleplay (i.e demolishing a tribe), you must clear it with me first (on my message wall), and then a poll will be set up. It will be up until everyone that is part of the Roleplay has voted, or until over half vote for one option, then we can start preparing for the event.
 * 6) Although saying "Ooh look I found the Omni-Node" is a quick and easy way to create conflict, that conflict is revolved around your character, and everyone else's story is severely affected by it. Finding new nodes/moving existing nodes falls under the category of a large event that affects everyone.
 * 7) Only the creator of a certain character can decide to kill him/her off. This fits in with the "no god-modding" rule. This isn't an excuse to just swallow bolts and sit on bombs without a scratch however. No godmodding.
 * 8) You cannot pass days in your post. Days are measured in real-time, and you cannot speed them up. You can however, post twice or more in a day, and this is highly encouraged for if you are in a conversation, so as to not make it span 12 days of solid conversation.
 * 9) The other roleplays are not connected to this one. I'm putting this rule in bold so you don't miss it. I don't want you bringing your old character through, with all the knowledge of "what had happened", as it just means anyone new who wants to know the backstory has to read a full roleplay (that likely won't be linked), which also has another roleplay as its backstory, and so forth. It's too complicated, and it makes the whole roleplay revolve around your character, the guy who remembers the backstory.

Realism
This isn't a particularly strict rule, and one that can see a lot of manipulation owing to magik. Crafting should be logical and realistic however, and if I want to make a powerful invention, it cant just be "Ok, I stick a burning coal to the end of my crossbow, and now my bolts will be flaming bolts and burn entire war fleets to the ground."

Joining Information
If you want to join, you can go right ahead and do so, just stick the form to the top of your first post. That is, unless you're going to have any of the traits below. Then you need to apply in my message wall.
 * Your character has tools or weapons beyond iron (in the case of nomads or magma tribesmen, this you're allowed a couple steel items).
 * Your character is a magician, or practices/uses magic directly.
 * Your character has an extremely extensive backstory. I'd like to filter out people who wish to write the entire past of the islands by themself.
 * Your character is inhuman. This includes magical mishaps that have transfigured/altered your character.
 * You already have a character, who is not dead. Playing two characters is a tricky business.

Name: Age: Gender: Other: Please refrain from putting your backstory into your other section. Small items of importance only.

Current Characters
Name: Banana Age: 32 Gender: Male Other: Magician, studying the four nodes. Played By: NoBanana

Name: Shayden Age: 21 Gender: Male Other: N/A Played By: Nooblox

Name: Jebediah Age: 25 Gender: Male Other: Trained in stealth and mechanics, self confident. Played By: FredeyFly

Name: Invictus Age: 20 Gender: Male Other: N/A Played By: Potateyo

Name: Scorpion Age: 22 Gender: Male Other: Can cast basic magic to improve arrow speed. Played By: Skullcrusher

Name: Derek Age: 20 Gender: Male Other: Studying a rune from his father, adapted to harsh conditions. Played By: Brendankim

Name: Vadered Age: 25 Gender: Male Other: Does not believe in magic. Played By: I5-2500k

Name: Age: Gender: Other: Played By:

Name: Age: Gender: Other: Played By:

Name: Age: Gender: Other: Played By:

Name: Age: Gender: Other: Played By:

The blank ones are a reminder for me to finish adding the last four characters to the post. I'd do it now, but it's getting late and converting the post intros to the compact ones up here is tedious.

Current Events
''This list will be updated as the role-play progresses. Please alert me of incorrect information.''

Wars: None Characters in Tribes: Banana - Plateau Soloists: Shayden Recent Large Events: It's winter! Yay!

Time of Day
My day counter is currently completely bugged, and since it thinks we're at day -155, I decided to just let it die. New system is as follows: Time follows realtime, and your post can go all the way up to the end of the day, or you could split the day into multiple posts, so long as there's no double posting. A day where nobody posts is a day that didn't happen, however if someone posts but you didn't, the day did happen, and you get the wonderful luxury of having to make up for your absence in your next post, which can be difficult if you left your last post at a cliffhanger. 