Celtricia, World of Factions-First Look, Collegium Arcana Online Game

[LordVreeg]

Well, 160 sessions in the Steel Isle Game is nothing to be ashamed of.  And since then, I have been working on the eventual Collegium Arcana game.  This is probably set to start in Late June.  Here is the first taste. 

The Collegium Arcana game is set in the Islip level of the school of the same name, in Stenron, capital of the Grey March.  The players take the place of Dexdemitan (First cycle, or Cycle one) students, and will play out the campaign primarily as students in this school.  They will start as 11-12 year olds, or their racial equivalents.  The play centers around their coming to the school, and will include in-class time (bits and pieces of it), field trips and labs and study, as well as a number of sub-plots.  As the game goes on, there will be more actual drops into 'non-school' settings, with more quest-situations.  If you prefer a bit more flavor, this is the chance to play out the part of a student in the largest School of Magic in Celtricia, learning about magic, but also playing in a huge, ancient boarding school, making friends and enemies, choosing what types of magic to learn, later choosing fraternities and orders and networking with senior members of the school.

The game is set for bi-weekly sessions, and there will be between-game orders for players to respond to an myself to finish in many situations.  This will often include rolls for grades, private information searches, etc.


After deliberation and conversation with a few regular gamers, there will not be a set mechanic for making time pass quicker, though that option will come up far more than in most other GuildSchool games.  There will be time skips, but only when everyone has finished a section, though, if players miss a session, there may a skip as we won't make everyone else wait.  The in-between period will be used to cover some of that. Based on past campaign arcs, this system is best built for longer games, so we are embracing that. If it turns out to be yet another game that goes on and on, what is the negative in it? Also, due to the way we play our online games, this should to some degree allow for PC's to come in later or take a break if they wish.


[ooc]

Introduction...(also linked)


"Hierophant Warlock, Warlock, High Warden, Warden, Keeper, These are the upper ranks of the Collegium, " intoned the balding klaxik from his wide, low desk.  He is elderly, thickset, and more than a little paunchy in his grey, quilted teaching robe and ochre sash, covered in gold and silver emblems.  The hall is high, and  dark, lit by copper sonces avery 20 feet or so, and symbols of elements and other less settled images cover the left and right walls.  You and almost a hundred other First Year students sit in rows, on black mats.  By the amount of shuffling and the constant changing of position, you are also not the only one who cannot get comfortable.  By contrast, the Klaxik sitting behind the desk seems completely at ease.

The klaxik's wizened eyes slowly move across the room, filled with mainly young faces, perhaps slightly more female than male.  " You will learn quickly to see the color of the robe and the sash quickly, "  he laughs a bit, a dry, basso chuckle coming from just below his luxurient, brass and silver colored mustache.  "Very, very quickly.  It becomes second nature, fear not."


"Below those ranks, you have Senior Enchanters, Junior Enchanters, Neophye Enchanters, and then the student ranks."

He lifts his right arm, pointing to the crossed wands in bas-relief behind him.  There is a flare in the bas-relief... "Here, on your first day, it will appear that there is too much to possibly learn.  But as you see,  thousands of other students in the classes above you seem to negotiate the intricasies."   Behind the barrel-shaped educator, the crossed wanded heraldry, with the flame above it, shines a cold silver.

"Your early studies will be learning what you need to learn," he again chuckles, " You cannot learn until you understand what you do not know.  Before anything, you need to understand the basics of where each conduit leads, where the sources of power for our spells comes from.  Many of you feel some of it, but you don't undertand where it comes from.  This is why one of your first classes is this, the Sources of Magic"  A little murmur again from the students, in their students grey robes.  "Most of you that have done anything don't realize it, but what you have done is Wild Magic, which does not use a conduit, just the raw spirit energy from yourself.  This is, " he sniffs, "barely magic." 

He points to the walls,"Aeromancy, Pyromancy, Hydromancy and Geomancy, these will be some of your first studies."  As he says each word, a picture on the wall flares or rumbles, whistles and gurgles. "This will be followed by some study of the conduit to the Wells of Life and Death, then the Font of Entropy on the Eighth House and the Font of Logic on the First."  He draws a breath as symbols farther down the walls sizzle and flare, and notices a murmur through the flat-roofed chanber.  He stops his obviously well-rehearsed and probably well used speech, raking the room with a suddenly sharp gaze.  "Study begins now, boys and girls.  You are no longer waiting for classes to start., so listen well."

He clears his throat.  "Now then.  Your last areas of study will be on Animism, Mentalism, Necromancy, and Artifice."  His voice regains the pedantic flow it had possessed earlier, as he warms back into the subject.  "And," he chuckles, "One never knows   A new conduit may be discovered."

He stands from behind the desk.  "Now then, the void is the first idea you must understand, the nothingness that our Waking Dream swims in, and also where the Houses and Stations exist.  Celtricia, as well has her moons and suns, Tribin and Gerin, and the other planets and stars do not exist in it physically, but the whole of this existence is contained in the ether that is the void.  Think of the whole existence you can see and feel as one another construct in the void.  A Warlock named Gerol used to call the Waking Dream the Prime Station, and if that idea helps you understand it, use it."   

He gestures upwards, and in front of his desk a sparkling, huge panorama appears, pulsing, a strange orrery of moving lights in a field of grey, with a green globe in the center.  Maybe four arms across, you see a smaller white globe rotates around the top, and a black and grey one at the nadir.  other smaller spheres rotate around, and a few sparkling, ephemeral lines copnnect some of them.  The room gasps as it springs to vision, huge and beautiful.  Again, the basso chuckle.  "For your later knowlege, to connect some dots...this is a mentalist spell, a projection, but it uses a lot of Artifice, as this spell is being projected from another item."


"Now, this is just a representation, " he says as he nearly waddles forward.  "It makes it pretty clear of the relationships bewtween these different sources.  But the reality is actually far more complicated...which is the last thing we need today."  This gets a few chuckles from the students...nervous chuckles, from many quarters.

He steps into it, and touches the center globe, the largest one.  "Here is the Waking Dream, which, as I said, you can think of as the Prime Station.  It is, egotistically enough, where we are."  He chuckles, and then points to the white sphere slowly rotating at the top.  The projection being arms high, the House of Life is a few TwoHand over his finger.    "This, at the top,  is the House of Life, where the Well of life is the central power source, and the font of all souls that come back through the cycle.  Spells that use direct Life energy come from here"  He moves to the bottom.  " Here is the three-leveled House of Death, and on the bottom layer, called Zevashopal, is the Well of Death, the source of death magic."  There is some shudders, as everyone has heard of rumors of this foul type of magic.  He shakes his head, admonishingly " You have to learn it, as you can't fight it or confront it if you don't know it, understand it."  All eyes are glued to him now, "In this place, in this life you will be leading, the greatest sin is ignorance.  The investigative method is about that, the search for knowledge in a logical way with provable results."

He moves to the right side and points down, and a smaller, blue-green globe flares.  "This is the House of Water, an original source of the power of Hydromancy in the Void.  The Endless Ocean is found here, depth without end..."  He moves his hand upward, and most students can see a small smile through the projection magic he stands in.  " There is a brown and grey circle here that is hard to see, the House of Earth.  Here, when one is trained, they can pull energy from the Most Solid."  The Klaxik's voice starts to achieve a cadence; he has said these words before.  "Here, the slightly red sphere that moves around this Ruby one is the Third Station, which now houses the Perfect Flame, the Forge of Fire...in the Age of Legends, the House of Fire was destroyed, and while we know not how, the source of Pyromancy was found millenia later here.  Near it, but closer to the Waking Dream, this white and blue sphere is the Second Station.  Similat to the House of Fire...and some hypothesize it was part of the same incident...the Second Station now houses the Uttermost Infinite Sky, where we pull the power for Aeromancy."

He moves back out, and in the middle, pointing to the far left of the strange, projected orrery.  This ruby and black sphere, where the Third Station rotates around, is called the Eighth Station, though..." and he chuckes again, "certain forces have called the Eighth House in the past, even naming their organizations after that term.   It is here that the Well of Entropy lies, the force that pushes the void and all matter apart."

He walks  across to the other side of the magnificent projection.   "Now, this white and black sphere is the First Station, sometimes called the House of Order, not surprisingly near the opposite from the Eighth Station...this is where we access the Well of Order, powering spells that bind and remove random chance."

He steps back, out of the swimming, multidimensional projection, but it is still between him and the students.  The low, pedantic tone continues.  "You note, of course, that many of these power are in opposition, and in different quadrants on our representations...but the small lines moving from these opposites and through the Waking Dream.  This is because, through using certain 'sympathetic' mindsets, a caster can access some of this conduit."


"Now, we go through these sources first, as they make the most logical sense to those learning the Woo.  Elements, as well as Life and death, are somewhat normal concepts.  Order and Entropy are also not that hard to grasp.  But there are a few other conduits that have been discovered to interesting power sources, " he moves back to the projection, pointing up to the House of Life.  Then draws a direct, perfectly straight line to the Waking Dream.  "in the middle of this Conduit from the House of Life is a small construct we have found, that houses the Animal Oversoul, which is connected to the House of Life.  Some call this the Tenth Station, though, unlike the others we've spoken about today, no one really knows where exactly it is or what it looks like."

Another murmur comes up.  You see students start looking side to side, seeking the same puzzlement they feel themselves.  The klaxik teacher stops, and cocks his balding head.  "Yes, from the school of magic we call Animism...spells and charms that affect and communicate with animals and birds, and also they allow the caster to take on abilities of the...", he stops and notes the reaction to his explanation, and purses his lips.

"Well", he says in a softer voice, "that wasn't it."  He steps through and in front of the blue and black projection, then looks side to side for a second, as a little tension seems to build.  He turns to the front row of mainly young faces, then to the second row.  Settling in front of a  tiny, brown-haired Hobyt lass of maybe eleven seasons (and sadly enough you note, maybe some orcash blood as well), he starts gently, " And what do they call you?"

The small girl looks at first as if she might be choosing between running and vomiting.  You can understand the feeling, though.  "Sarabee, Sir"...she blurts out softly.  Her hair is cut very short, and she pulls it out of her face as she tries to formulate words.

"No, no...I am a Warden...Call me Warden Frimak, Sarabee" he interrupts, trying to be gentle.  "If you do not know a name or rank of a member of the Collegium, it is always safest to call them 'Maester'."  He looks around, then back down, his shaggy eyebrows not hiding the active, seraching eyes.  " Now, can you enlighten this poor, ignorant professor as to where I might have already started confusing my new students?  Just because confusion is bound to happen does not mean we have to start with it."

"The students wonder, " says a thin, high voice, ...male, though...from the center front, slightly behind the round Warden. "if you do not know how this Tenth Station looks like...do you actually know how the others look?"  The class looks to the source of bravery , at a small goblic boy, thin and fairly swimming in his robe, who sits in the front.  Nodding heads around, so it seems this was at least some source of the consternation.  The boy stops, then continues, "...Or so I see it, Warden Frimak."

The wide, balding klaxik nods.  "Hurrrm...yes, well, that is a question, and no doubt."  He moves back out of the rows of students, and makes towards the huge, projected orrery.  "I understand that many of you, maybe all of you, know some bits and pieces of this from your churches and temples."   He sighs, looks up at the ceiling and turns, right in front of the projection, "We have conduits to these power sources, and there have powerful casters that have been to some of these places.  Some few who study here have seen the House of Life, or the House of Earth, or the Eighth Station.  this, too, is in front of you.  Magical research, applying the rigors of research and testing to your studies, can bring you to this level, if you work at it."  He looks at the students slowly, locking eyes with as many faces as he can. 


"You can see what you could only dream about before, if you can learn."

Then he turns back and walks into the projected orrery again.  " Now then, we have a few more sources to go over in today's introductory overview.  And we did go over the easier, logical ones first.  Now, it gets a bit more interesting."  He smiles through the beard and mustache as he says the last.

"Mentalist magic, spells that affect the mind, or spells that control." He stops and points to a thin, pulsing segment.  "On this line, between the Third Station and the House of Entropy, is the Sixth Station.  This is another very small, barely understood void-location, where we have found the Collective Mind, which the Vicorians called the "Uwis", or, "Overmind".  Many, many spells use a component of Mentalist Woo, so pay very careful attention to your classes in this type of Magic."

He points up again, towards the top of the projections, and shakes his head.  "You know, it is obvious some fool Omwo~ or human made this projection."  He snaps his fingers, and a silver pointer, almost a span long, appears in his hand.   He uses the silver length, as it sparkles and reflects the strange orrery, to point back up to point back up at the House of Life, Pulsing White and Silver.  "Also on the House of Life, at a higher level of this Tiered Source, is a strange edifice...yes, it has been seen...where all the spirits that fly from the Well of Life seem to stream through, and where the source of all Restorative magic flows." 

He points back down to the House of Death, at the bottom, not hard for the klaxik.  "Note this black and green sphere, it actually rotates closely around the House of Death, always between the Waking Dream and the Well of Death.  Here we have found what could be technically considered the Soul Filter.  In earlier times, it was considered to be part of the Well of Death."  He stops and looks out at the nearly silent, hundred pairs of eyes.  " I speak here of the source of Necromancy, one of the more dangerous branches of magic."  an audibly indrawing of breath from the students here, as he continues.  "Many historical creatures of nightmare get their grains of truth here, and some of the greatest enemies of civilizations used their as their primary source of terrible power." His voice is lower, and the lights in the room seem to dim a bit.  "But," the warden says as he cocks his head slightly, "almost all spells that try to raise the dead and certainly, all the spells that shrive the spirit use some necromancy.  So you must learn this discipline, if you wish to protect those souls that pass on to the House of Death."

"The last source of major magic comes from the Fifth Station, here", he says pointing to a gleaming silver and yellow orb, very close to the Waking Dream in the center.  "The Fifth Station lies on a direct line at all times between the House of Earth and the Third Station.  As far as current theories can deduce, and this is an area of current study, hotly discoursed, somehow, ancient energy from the creation of the Void and the Waking Dream, is collected here, and can be sourced for the magic of Artifice."

Again a murmur comes up, and the portly Warden nods from a profile position, holding the silver rod behind him with both hands.  "Oh, yes, children.  Depending on what particular Douhis you were raised in or with, your version of the Song Of Creation will be very different, but all agree that there was such a Song and event, and this Woo of Artifice, as far as research can tell, is powered from the distant echoes of the Song.  Much as I mentioned with Mentalist magic, Artifice is used to place magic into items, and as such is used constantly."


He clears his throat, and turns. He taps his desk with the rod, and suddenly, the huge, projected blue and black orb winks out.  "The reading you need to do for tonight on today's lecture is in Beaumont's 'Guide to the Spheres', read chapter's one and two.  It's a bit dated, but most of it agrees with this cursory overview we started today.  Do make sure you read this, Dexies, since your head will be filled with other knowledge later on and this might keep it fresh.  Now, The green schedule, you are going to Ponce Hall, Room 2, for Spellcasting Basics.  The yellow schedule is going to Penult Hall, in the basement, for the Overview of the History of Magic, and the Grey Schedule is going to Dilvish Hall, for Mathematics."

As the sound of a hundred-odd robes scraping off mats ensues, he bellows, "And I will see you all tomorrow, where we start with the Well of Life.!!!  Dismissed!"

[/ooc]

[LordVreeg]

and this is an intro thread, so anyone can post if there are any remarks or questions. 

[BasnetI]

How do the gartier looks like?

[LordVreeg]

How do the gartier looks like?

They are bugbears, but they are slightly more intelligent that humans on average and given to irony and sarcasm.  Covered in a coarse, short hair, though they can grow beards, with long ears and on top of their heads the hair is even thicker and spikey.  brown, red, blonde bugbears all exist.
they average 6.5-8' tall, with long, thick canine fangs that protrude a bit, though somehow, very few of them lisp.  Very muscular, they do run slightly to fat. Female bugbears have much less body hair, though a pretty thorough fuzz, and less spikey on top.

[Lmns Crn]

Rockin'.

[limetom]

I am getting a PhD; perhaps this game is going to be too painfully familiar for me to actually play, lol.

I remember this being described as "Hogwarts Goes to Hell" at one point, but knowing how these games go, I think the similarities will start and end with the setting--a school for magic-users. I'm starting to get an idea for my character, but really, as I've learned before in Celtricia games, at lot of it will have to wait until my stats (especially my social rolls) have been done.

It is kind of ironic, though; my plan for what to do if anything happened to Moss in the Steel Isle game was to make a magic user, as I've never done a proper one before in Celtricia.

I think I've said it before, but I really do like that magical power is called "woo".

[LordVreeg]

Yes.  JoMalley called it, "Hogwarts goes to Hell". 
Most of the EXPmods are pretty mediocre at first, but you have the chance to improve them as you take classes.

[Numinous]

Posting to declare my interest.  I am notoriously poor with numbers, but I've been watching Celtricia shenanigans for quite a while with interest.

[LordVreeg]

Hmm.
Next question...how many people is maximum?  This is partially online, partially play by post.

[Tangential]

Fascinating. Is there a way I could be involved from a purely PbP perspective?

[LordVreeg]

Fascinating. Is there a way I could be involved from a purely PbP perspective?

Let me think...it may be possible...the more I work at this, the more I am seeing the importance of the PbP side.   Sort of like the PbP sets up the live stuff.

[LordVreeg]

Still working along on this tangent online campaign.  Pretty much set up the first and some of the second 'semester' (which lasts 3 goesi, 180 days)' as well as a lot of the game structure stuff and the longer term plot lines.

Also working on drill down for the other dexdemit classes, right now involved with spell casting basics.  I like how this is a game vehicle, but also an exercise in verbalizing and sharing and continued formalizing of the way spells really work.  Especially as the fluff and crunch synergize.

Still need to do History of Magic, to go along with the Spellcasting basics and Sources of The Woo, for semester one.

We have also worked it out for Exp Mods, so that since all guilds are supposed to teach their abilities, all the beginning characters have very poor exp mods, but they won' t just gain raw exp in the game, they will also increase their exp mods based on their classes chosen and performance over the semesters.

[LordVreeg]

Link to WIP first day of 'Spellcasting Basics' class.

[LordVreeg]

Still a WIP, but Limetom wanted me to get the Social ACQ chart up, so here it is...this is the skeleton and place holder of the character creation page for the game.

[LordVreeg]

Ok, cor some reason, that was a failure.  Formatting blew up in my face.

This page is also a WIP, but is moving along nicely.  The Soc AQ and base race charts are already up.

http://celtricia.pbworks.com/w/page/66960599/Collegium%20Arcana%20Base%20Character%20Creation