The world of Zinesta.
For hundreds of years, the inhabitants of this planet have been struggling to survive in a deadly world rife with powerful monsters. To combat these great abominations known as Mana Beasts, they first harnessed the power of steel, coal and steam. When swords broke against the natural predators, they discovered a miraculous black powder that possessed far more destructive power.
Fueled by the heat of burning coals and armed with the destructive arms of technology, the people of Zinesta designed great vehicles and machines to combat the Mana Beasts that dominated the wilds. Armed with the light of progress, they carved their place in the wilderness and built great lasting cities and nations, raising tall walls and fortifications that would keep the creatures at bay.
As the people of Zinesta grew in strength, so did their opponents however. Their hides hardened against steel pellets and their girth grew until the monsters became behemoths that could rival the power of the Zinesta's steam gladiators: fewer in number, but several times deadlier. Seeking to overcome this even greater foe, the leaders of the people -now turned Kings and Queens- sought another method to combat the Mana Beasts.
In the end... The answer would be found in the very heart of their enemies.
Using mysterious growths on the slain monsters that the Zinestans called 'Mana Crystals', the planet's greatest scientists discovered miraculous properties on the material that could allow them to power creations once only seen in dreams. Using these crystals they created new chariots to fight the beasts, not of steel and steam, but of bronze and magic.
With these constructs, the people of Zinesta finally drove the monsters from the civilized regions of man, sealing them within the inhospitable wastes where they could no longer take away their lives. The entire world celebrated the ultimate victory over an ancestral war, and the discovery of mana was praised as the greatest achievement of the century. They thought that finally no more blood would be spilled, that from then on Zinesta would find peace.
However... With time, those same people forgot. Years of peace grew into decades, and in the bliss of safety, the wariness of the citizens turned into decadence.
With no common enemy to turn against, the Zinestans eventually grew to resent each other as their world grew and their space began to become limited. With monsters quickly harvested for mana crystals and their growth being limited as the presence of natives became greater, kingdoms began to vye for the rights to own these crystals and make the most of their power.
It took a hundred years after the Great Peace for the wars to start once more... But this time, it was a war with Zinestans on both sides.
The planet fell into an era of strife and power struggles. The chariots that once destroyed monsters were turned against the common man, guided by greedy kings and presidents that desired more power for themselves under the excuse of progress and prosperity for their states. These bloody conflicts found no victor, as though sometimes a country became stronger, it bled crystals and ended up damaging the needs of its inhabitants, and even further caused the destruction of others.
However, like the sickly sweet scent that attracted vultures to carrion, the blood spilled by war drove the Zinestans to find more efficient, swifter ways of offing each other. It was on an era like this... That one of Zinesta's nations came upon a break through that would forever alter the fate of this planet.
'Mana Sword' they called it... A strange, rusted weapon that had been excavated from a mine deep within the mountains. By complete accident, they discovered that the sword appeared to process whatever Mana was channeled to it. When further experimented on, they discovered it was possible to have the sword convert Mana into a foreign substance that was extremely easy to manipulate and could completely revolutionize the world as they knew it. They dubbed this substance... 'Ether'.
Upon this breakthrough, the scientists rejoiced. If they could replicate this process, even guide it, they would be able to make their nation the strongest in the world and finally put an end to the terrible wars raging across the world.
Little did they know, that their little discovery...
...Would soon turn into the invitation for a nightmare.
It began shortly after the discovery of Ether. All around the planet, more of these 'Mana Swords' started to emerge. Those which appeared within a certain nation were quickly approppiated, while others were subject to experimentation. However, it was during this period that something strange happened.
Reports arose of certain people wielding 'Mana Swords' not as power sources, but as tools of war. At first succeeding in defeating monsters and driving back even Zinestan chariots with their mere weapons, which wielded powerful magic when used by these humanoids. However, the world quickly grew horrified when some of these people turned insane and turned into serial killers of calamitous scale.
At first they called them 'Devils', later 'Witches' and finally simple 'Spirits', due to the way they simply faded to thin air when destroyed. Though mentally unstable, it was found out that these spirits could be indocrinated from birth to follow commands and quickly became an efficient, cheaper alternative to raising machines powered by Mana Crystals.
With those petty lords who were lacking in Mana Crystals resorting to raising these spirits as tools of war and the wealthier nations starting to spearhead the new branch of science involving the mysterious Ether, the curtain was being set for a new, more terrible form of war.
-Even so.
The war which everyone feared...
...Was not one that they could have ever expected.
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Far above the world, in a realm that was and yet was not part of it, something stirred. The fabric that bound the skies together shifted, as if unsettled by the ripples that had started to spread in the recent years.
Slowly but surely, a hole began to open in that space. A twisting portal of magic beyond the fathom of mortals, to look upon it was to look on a form of reality incompatible with their minds- And yet...
Yet, from that gap in space... A single form watched. They looked down upon the world, teeming with mana, with countless lights heading through other holes in the space- Attracted like moths to a flame. They saw this. They saw all this, and...
...They hungered.
They smiled.
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Ain Soph Aur
-The Spirit of Eternity Sword- RP
Welcome, Eternal.
In this RP, you will be taking part in a war. It will not be a simple war, but rather, it is the only war that matters. One where the ultimate price is wagered, where the prize held for the victors is the fate of an entire world, one which has a history and culture as deep as anyone else, with innocent people that live and breathe in it just as anyone does. Countless millions, living day by day as they struggle to see another day with the cloud of war looming over their heads...
...They are but ants compared to your existence.
Would you like to know more? Then, if you are interested in this RP, please read this rulebook.
In this RP, you are a God, or at least the closest thing to it in the planet. You can be the big hero, or the monster of the story. Though you might have to face against others your equal, you have no real betters. Your decisions will alter the fate of countries, continents or even the entire world depending on their depth.
As a GM, I wanted to try doing something like this because before anything else, a play by post Roleplay such as this tries to tell a story. I want to see what kind of story players can craft when given this power, whether it all falls apart or they can manage to weave an interesting theme without falling into the vices of RPing.
This will be an RP with PvP. While getting kicked out of the RP due to your PC being unable to act is pretty much impossible, I will do my best to act as a neutral judge when such fights inevitably break out, and while there might at times be the need for some inconsistencies I'll apologize beforehand and state that I hope we can all have a fun experience.
I still don't get what's going on in the story!
People live in steampunk, magical world. After an era of not fucking things up, people naturally become asshats and start fighting wars against each other. During the war a bunch of scientists unearth a forbidden secret that ends up inviting things foreign to the world inside it, by weakening the fabric of space-time. You are the biggest fish among those things, using some god-like divine sword whose origins can be found from some form of ancient, kind of anime multiversal cosmological theory.
Saying it in one paragraph doesn't make it any easier to understand, jeez. Basically you're an immortal warrior with a dumb anime weapon whose powerlevels are out of whack. You're involved in a cosmic war between two factions, Law and Chaos (which aren't 'Evil' and 'Good' per se), and those few neutrals caught in between. You can either try to save the world from the Laws, protect it by helping Chaos, or just wait for things to go tits up and claim as many waifus as you can.
Will there be dumb powerlevel shenanigans?
Yes. That said, Eternals can't actually use their full power while inside the space-time axis of a world so they won't actually end up destroying the world with one spell, but scale doesn't affect how bullshit they are and I'm expecting the salt mines to start rolling anyways. Hopefully I'll be able to bullshit my way out of situations without having anyone ragequit.
Sounds like my kind of thing! When do we start?
I don't have any real plans for this. I guess I'll wait for two to three weeks, and after I've gotten sheets from people I'll pick the ones I like and roll with them. I'll be accepting up to 6 players, but that doesn't mean I'll definitely take six sheets. If I get only 4 good sheets and 10 retarded stuff, expect only 4 players.
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List of Eternals:
Chaos:
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Law:
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Independent:
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