Building onto a Fantasy theme, I want to take you to a world called Elaka. A place that resembles earth before the Dark Ages. A time when the Re'tatha Dominion was at its most influential, spreading across territories almost three times the size of the Roman Empire.
Guilds of Mages pretty much govern the state of affairs and are the economic powerhouses of the period, providing healthcare, logistics, education and a dispensary of magical equipment. The Government made up of a system of generals and politicians a product of some kind of meritocracy is underpinned by a regime of both the Guilds of Mages and brute force of the Dominion Military.
Yet while there is a lot of oppression, life for the common citizen is still often easy, most have enough money to put food on the table and for the most part are disease free. Even with a growing threat of monsters from the South.
Raids on outlying provinces have largely gone unnoticed, ignored and at worst surrendered as if they had never existed. Wars in the west have been growing more turbulent thanks to religious fervour of the Gran Wista seeking to 'liberate' the oppressed.
It is in this period a time where exploring and adventuring is still prominent even with the threats that are posed are still activities that can earn a lot of money. Guilds sell quests on the open market, particularly from the Mage Guilds who are always seeking new resources to exploit but with the growing threats of monsters, Mercenary Guilds are also on the rise.
Given this background, our characters have the opportunity to either save or destroy the Dominion, find the secrets behind the mage guilds, discover new peoples or, if they seek it, power, fame and riches. Anyone want to make any additions?
Posted: Thu Jun 02, 2016 1:07 am
What if you allow multiple themes? Where I could easily go with this theme, I also enjoy themes based in the real world A big favorite is like, serial killers. I love playing them, but it is very hard to find victims that aren't... what's the word... "victimized" I want victims that fight back and plan. Etc. Or like, asylum. Or things with a dark twist? Or even fairy tales, either happy or twisted. I mean the list goes on, you could make sub forums for each genre and one forum for people to search for a type they are looking for. Or something like that, that way you can gravitate towards a larger audience than just those seeking fantasy.
Well, that is something we would like to do later on as the guild grows. Create new projects that would all be self contained in different sub-forums. A number of sub forums will be shared but most will be for dedicated projects.
The main guild forum will probably be for the main project...that might be fantasy. The other forums may do sci-fi, modern, apocalyptic, steam-punk or whatever.
I covered this under guild organization to try to minimize the number of sub-forums we need.
Posted: Thu Jun 02, 2016 7:32 am
Tsenzori Yu
Building onto a Fantasy theme, I want to take you to a world called Elaka. A place that resembles earth before the Dark Ages. A time when the Re'tatha Dominion was at its most influential, spreading across territories almost three times the size of the Roman Empire.
Guilds of Mages pretty much govern the state of affairs and are the economic powerhouses of the period, providing healthcare, logistics, education and a dispensary of magical equipment. The Government made up of a system of generals and politicians a product of some kind of meritocracy is underpinned by a regime of both the Guilds of Mages and brute force of the Dominion Military.
Yet while there is a lot of oppression, life for the common citizen is still often easy, most have enough money to put food on the table and for the most part are disease free. Even with a growing threat of monsters from the South.
Raids on outlying provinces have largely gone unnoticed, ignored and at worst surrendered as if they had never existed. Wars in the west have been growing more turbulent thanks to religious fervour of the Gran Wista seeking to 'liberate' the oppressed.
It is in this period a time where exploring and adventuring is still prominent even with the threats that are posed are still activities that can earn a lot of money. Guilds sell quests on the open market, particularly from the Mage Guilds who are always seeking new resources to exploit but with the growing threats of monsters, Mercenary Guilds are also on the rise.
Given this background, our characters have the opportunity to either save or destroy the Dominion, find the secrets behind the mage guilds, discover new peoples or, if they seek it, power, fame and riches. Anyone want to make any additions?
This is really interesting. How about we add a few more factions like a Thieves' Guild, and Assassins' Guild, a Knights' Guild and etc.?
Already done, they might not be part of the main plot or have major influence but the establishment of guilds is much like the establishment of a business, completely possible. I would imagine there are a number of underground guilds too. Like assassins, thieves et al.
That being said, I'm looking for additions on what the story itself will be about, I was envisioning some kind of adventure story from a small band of non-affiliated adventurers who go on to do some pretty wild things. Or maybe it could be about a guild that is cast out or "disbanded" by the Dominion and how it seeks to set the story straight?
Plenty of potential. Could even have it be about the adventurers starting their own country or something.
Posted: Thu Jun 02, 2016 8:01 am
Tsenzori Yu
I'm imagining something along the lines of the Dominion having some deep, dark secret that no can has to know about. Yeah, the whole secret thing is an overused plot point, but if we can think of an insanely good one that'd be awesome.
Another idea is this: We could make the mages band together and overthrow the Dominion (assuming that the Dominion is composed of relatively benevolent people) and then abuse their power for the sake of gaining knowledge. Once the Dominion's out of the way, the mages begin with human experimentation, using non-mages as slaves, killing off anyone who might oppose them, etc. At first, the mages say that they do this so they can learn how to better the human race, but the non-mages slowly realize that they're doing this for their own sake.
Assuming the the Guild of Mages has been in any way a force for good wink. Given that the Guild of Mages already holds pretty much all the power I'm not sure why they would want a coup d'etat.
Still that seems awfully meta that we could bring in much later. First I think we need to decide how to get some characters together and what they're going to be doing for the first few chapters wink. We can fill in the whys as we go. ^-^
Edit: Assuming everyone is happy with the main project being Fantasy... we've had no other ideas yet so...
Posted: Fri Jun 03, 2016 8:54 pm
Tsenzori Yu
Would the roleplay be contained in a single, linear topic? Or would it function as a sort of forum theme with several topics/storylines running simultaneously?
If it's the first, I think something more like the 'small band of non-affiliated adventurers who go on to do some pretty wild things' thing you described would be easier to roleplay with several participants.
On the other hand, if it's the second, I think it would be cool if we could have a topic tackling heavier stuff (like something similar to rafieraf1232's idea where a guild/party overthrows the current rulers who they believe to be corrupt, only to slowly become corrupt themselves and realize they've become what they hated, etc), and other topics with more light-hearted plots (such as one where a party made up of typical RPG stereotypes, completely oblivious to the political storm brewing, have ridiculous shenanigans, the likes of which you usually see in RPGs but with a twist)(and maybe merging those two topics together in a topic where the party eventually go back to their hometowns after they've separated ways, only to re-band together after realizing how much worse things have gotten and aiming to 'make things right again'?)
A little bit of both, multiple storylines that cross over from time to time taking place in the same universe would not be unheard of and it would be interesting. I am certainly open to this idea.
I'd rather we build up to the meta stuff, gently let it into the stories that there are stronger forces involved in whatever befalls our adventurers (or whatever), this enables us to bring in the writers slowly build up the characters.
Though to do multiple storylines I think we need a lot more writers. Until we get three or four writers for the first story line I'm not sure opening up for multiple storylines would be such a good idea *yet*. Of course, after that point they might want to do something different like a sci-fi anyway, so can I put a "we'll see" on that one? It's certainly something I'd like to work towards.
(Also. Welcome biggrin)
Posted: Sat Jun 04, 2016 2:47 am
Tsenzori Yu
Ah, good point on the not enough writers bit. My last long-term roleplaying group contained a lot of people, so I'm used to brainstorming plotlines with the mindset that it should be easy for multiple people to keep track of and navigate.
In that case, I vote we go with the 'group of adventurers/etc' route then. It should be easy enough with only a few writers, right? And it'd be easy enough to introduce any further plot that way.
(And, thanks! I hope you don't mind that I just jumped straight into the discussion like that.)
Ah, good point on the not enough writers bit. My last long-term roleplaying group contained a lot of people, so I'm used to brainstorming plotlines with the mindset that it should be easy for multiple people to keep track of and navigate.
In that case, I vote we go with the 'group of adventurers/etc' route then. It should be easy enough with only a few writers, right? And it'd be easy enough to introduce any further plot that way.
(And, thanks! I hope you don't mind that I just jumped straight into the discussion like that.)
Absolutely not a problem I wouldn't have made the guild public if I didn't want to attract people with their own views.
So far it seems everyone is on board with the fantasy idea with the proposed background more or less.
So...what's the first story going to be about? o.o
We have our adventurers, but what are they going to do?
Posted: Sat Jun 04, 2016 3:08 am
Tsenzori Yu
Perhaps we could start the story with the the typical "a band of friends venture forth in search of fame and riches!" type of thing and then slowly incorporate the more serious plot elements? Like, our heroes take a job from some semi-famous/powerful person and then learn something about the main enemy (be it the Dominion or the Guild of Mages) that doesn't exactly fit with their benevolent front.
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