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Finally... => Forum Games and Roleplaying => Topic started by: Lillipad on August 01, 2014, 06:28:39 pm

Title: Mana Shaper
Post by: Lillipad on August 01, 2014, 06:28:39 pm
The world of Herunal, where various layers of reality overlap and intertwine, a fantastic place where magic is a common sight, even among the lowest born. In the far past, when magic first began developing, the royalty was worried by the growth of weak, tainted, and uncivilized magic, and thus created the Magus Academy, bringing various organized classes of magic with it. Necromancy, transmutation, elemental control, hundreds of powerful curriculums were available, and the world went through a revolution in which magic has developed into a form incomparable to anything ever before it.

Fast forward to the present, and we come to you. A fresh student in the academy. On the day of the test, you caught a cold, walked under a ladder, walked by what had to be half the black cats in the world, and somehow broke every mirror on the way. Needless to say, you were late, and your performance was at its lowest due to the fatigue. Your hopes of entering the necromancy class so you could one day become a hard working public servant were smashed to pieces. Though your performance was low, you were thankfully not horrible enough to throw out.

Instead, you were shuffled into the least populated, most unstudied, and overall worst of the curriculums: Mana Shaping. Hated for the absurdly high internal reserves it requires to be used effectively, Mana Shaping is an unwieldy form of magic that utilizes mana in its raw form. Not only that, but it has little use to society as a whole. Thus, the only other students to be joining you are an actual statue, and a woman around your age who seems to be using magic from other curriculums. Not only that, in the week since you've arrived, you have not seen any trace of your teacher actually existing.

Though the situation is grim, and you're doubting that the school actually accepted you at this point, perseverance and hard work trump all. You'll find a way to turn this bad situation into a golden opportunity, or probably end up dying in poverty trying. You miraculously found the one textbook in the school on the subject, and have spent your week vigorously studying it and hammering the basics into your head.

You decide to check out your ID to get a feel for your current standing. To make measuring growth easier, the creators of the school attached "stats" "skills" and "levels" to student IDs that can be checked at any time. Obviously, as a scrub, your everything is low. A few things stick out. Some blessing you never knew you had. Your stats which seem to have some mysterious buff. And your weirdly high mana. For most students, it's 300, so you're nearly double the average. You won't be complaining about any of this though, this just fuels your ambition to not be cursed into poverty.

The Academy is split into seven different sections. The library, the lecture halls, the classes proper, the exercise halls, the dueling halls, the student shops, and the dorms. Each section is more of a city, really, especially the dorms, so you doubt there will ever be an end to the things you can do here. Off campus, you have the Great Forest, and the three Prime Dungeons designed as testing grounds for students of the combat divisions.
School goes every day of the week, but you have the freedom to do whatever you want since your teacher seems to be some sort of non-existent embezzling scam. It's currently Monday morning. What do you feel like doing? Actually, before that, who in the world are you?

[Acquired; Student ID, The Basics of Mana Shaping(book), Academy Uniform, Shaper's Gloves, Dorm Key, Ion Stone, Class: Mana Shaper]

{Morning}{Block 1/4}

Spoiler: Student ID (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: Inventory (click to show/hide)
Title: Re: Mana Shaper
Post by: Nirur Torir on August 01, 2014, 07:10:00 pm
We only have one teacher? Or not even that. This school's lame  :P

How does mana increase? If it's through use, we should be depleting it every hour.

We are Leon Evard.
We should look for more advanced mana shaping students, and see if our lack of a teacher is normal. Also, we should probably empty our mana reserves. Dump everything into making a giant sword.
Title: Re: Mana Shaper
Post by: Lillipad on August 01, 2014, 07:36:05 pm
The main way of increasing mana is intelligence and willpower. Health and stamina go up through endurance. You can increase any stat(including the 3 bars) or skill through high stress usage though, yes.
You are Leon Evard, the ambiguously gendered Shaper? [y/n]

You know for a fact that your teacher being nonexistent isn't usual. Most classes require each room to have 3 teachers and 6 aids minimum to handle the volume of students. You check the class registry, but there don't appear to be any students in the upperclass of the Shaper curriculum. In fact, the only students listed for it at all are you, the statue, and the one person who's practicing other classes.

While you wander around aimlessly, you work on making a basic sword shape. It takes a while to grasp, Shaping requires a clear mental image of the object you want, and then the concentration to put it into your mana. Once you've learned the shape, though, forming it again becomes almost trivial. Through repeated practice you can now call forth an unwieldy glowing blue sword the size of a teenager, your Valiantium Blade will cut through any GEATHJE-I mean, your mana sword will cut through all your foes. Maybe. It's kind of dull right now, almost like a spoon. You may need to learn more about swords...
After you meditate back to peak condition, you realize that much of the morning has gone by, but there should still be plenty of time to do something before noon.

[Acquired Shape; Sword]

{Morning}{Block 1.6/4}

Spoiler: Student ID (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: Known Shapes (click to show/hide)
Title: Re: Mana Shaper
Post by: Nirur Torir on August 01, 2014, 07:47:02 pm
((Right now, our mana seems to be 30xINT+20xWIL, then. If a normal academy student has 300, and 10s are average for new student stats, I'd guess mana to be 20xINT+10xWIL without the blessing.))

No, we are clearly male.

Go find someone who can tell us about this blessing. It's probably a plot hook.
Title: Re: Mana Shaper
Post by: Lillipad on August 01, 2014, 08:11:22 pm
Alright then, Leo. You're destined to never get an Oscar, even when you really deserve it, but you press on anyway. You have no idea what a "plot hook" is supposed to mean, but you decide to track down a teacher in the Holy curriculum to identify this blessing. It's not that difficult a task. Being a priest or cleric is somewhat of a status symbol amongst students, as the two are popular professions outside the Academy. They're the jocks, if you would. Within five minutes of wandering around the classrooms, you discover a fairly low ranking teacher. He's able to identify the blessing on you right away, without even being asked, as a Blessing of Mana, a fairly rare blessing you have to receive at birth. He takes some time to explain the effects, and it seems to be perfect for a Mana Shaper.
The megalomaniac in you starts jumping for glee, and you wander off in the middle of his explanation, trying not to let your mouth foam. In an effort to calm down, you frantically practice your sword shape, eventually coming to when the noon bells toll. You check your ID to ogle your blessing, when you notice the experience of your sword shape shot way up in your absentminded practice, and now seems to hold an edge.

[Acquired: Blessing of Mana]

{Noon}{Block 2/4}

Spoiler: Student ID (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: Known Shapes (click to show/hide)
Title: Re: Mana Shaper
Post by: Evergod41 on August 01, 2014, 08:47:43 pm
Forget the sward. Shape a fist, fists are more powerful than swards, and also an object we should be fairly acquainted with.
Title: Re: Mana Shaper
Post by: Nirur Torir on August 01, 2014, 09:27:43 pm
Library time! We must learn about the Mana Affinity skill. We should also look up the most effective ways to train our endurance with 1-2 hours a day, as well as how to improve our willpower. While we're there, we may as well look for any stories of past mana shapers who have used their skills to good effect, to try to get some ideas.

We should probably also speak with the other student at some point, to see why she's learning mana shaping. I don't know what to do about the statue .. Is it a golem, or just some classroom feature that's somehow listed as taking the class?

Quote from: Evergod41 on August 01, 2014, 08:47:43 pm
Forget the sward. Shape a fist, fists are more powerful than swards, and also an object we should be fairly acquainted with.
-1.
Title: Re: Mana Shaper
Post by: Lillipad on August 01, 2014, 10:19:18 pm
You head to the library and pick up a book on affinities. You aren't sure why. It's really quite basic. Each element, and certain non-elementals have affinities that bolster your power and ability to work the subject, mana being an important one to aim for from all spells using it. Usually difficult to acquire, the book says your blessing gives you basically a free pass. Once you've grown a certain amount, it should unlock on its own.
You search a short while for other books on Mana Shapers, but nothing important or revealing comes up.

Done with that, you attempt to forget the ability to use the sword shape, but sadly your imagination is not that colorful yet. On a scale of one to moist towelette, your imagination is a beige dish rag right now, you should work on that. Moving past the silly attempts to weaken yourself, you decide to Unite Han-shape a fist, which ends up the size of a medium dog. It's surprisingly durable, though you'd hope your ability to shape your own hand would be top notch. The utility of this shape is pretty endless, but needs a lot of moderation. At least it's cheap and... Handy.
Cringing in the wake of my pun, you pour the remaining mana into making something you're familiar with, and end up making a rather large sphere. It's close in size to a person. When you lose focus and it touches the ground, a small crater is formed. You decide to book it before any witnesses spot you, and end up in a corner of the exercise halls training your shapes. The difference between knowing you have a blessing to milk and not knowing truly shines.
Through continued and concentrated practice, your sword, fist shapes achieve level 6. Endless shaping has raised your Basic Shaping skill up to level 3. Frequently bringing yourself to the brink of exhaustion has increased your willpower and endurance by 3 and 2 respectively.

{Afternoon}{Block 3/4}

Spoiler: Student ID (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: Known Shapes (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: Inventory (click to show/hide)
Title: Re: Mana Shaper
Post by: Harbingerjm on August 01, 2014, 10:49:41 pm
Pour the rest of our mana into a floppy hat. Spend the evening meditating and having dinner.
Title: Re: Mana Shaper
Post by: Evergod41 on August 01, 2014, 10:52:54 pm
Obviously it's harder to master more complex/abstract shapes, so in order to easily master every simple/useful shape, we first must master the most complex/useless ones.

Spend rest of day attempting to shape the most complex shape in the universe... A cursive letter Q.
Title: Re: Mana Shaper
Post by: Lillipad on August 02, 2014, 12:16:24 am
You spend quite a bit of time practicing your shaping even longer. Some sort of "cursive" you have no clue about, and a silly, oversize hat. The difficulty of both is surprisingly high, and you end up combining the two shapes on accident. Somehow. You get neither of the original, but instead gain a new one. A glowing blue top hat with some strange object coming out of the top. You check your ID, and discover this to be a unique shape! You have discovered the Quiz Master's Secret Hat! Through the discovery of a unique shape, your Basic Mana Shaping ascends three levels for some reason! Your blessing has become stronger! All stats increase by three, you lucky dog! This stupid looking hat has made you stronger by an absurd amount!
You knew your growth would be quickened but this seems a bit much. Not that you're complaining. It's night now, so the exercise and dueling halls have been closed off. What to do with this idiotic hat that would probably hurt to wear...

[Acquired Shape; Quiz Master's Secret Hat]

{Night}{Block 4/4}

Spoiler: Student ID (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: Known Shapes (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: Inventory (click to show/hide)
Title: Re: Mana Shaper
Post by: Harbingerjm on August 02, 2014, 12:38:18 am
Identify Hat.
Title: Re: Mana Shaper
Post by: Evergod41 on August 02, 2014, 07:57:24 am
The night is young. Shape a bood and bood in it.
Title: Re: Mana Shaper
Post by: The Froggy Ninja on August 02, 2014, 09:31:21 am
Too bad! You're a nerd and nerds have to do stupid and sometimes painful things in the name of science magic! Wear the hat!
Title: Re: Mana Shaper
Post by: Lillipad on August 02, 2014, 02:18:31 pm
Using your head, you attempt to identify your ugly new hat, not entirely sure if it will work seeing as it's non-permanent and originates from a spell. Against all odds, however, you succeed at unlocking the mysteries of the Quiz Master's Secret Hat. For successfully identifying a magic effect without the Analyze Spell skill, your Identify skill now carries those abilities, and has gone up 4 levels.
The Quiz Master's Secret Ensemble, an illusive set of strange looking garments that bestow the power of the Quiz Master upon the wearer. There are 6 pieces in total. You currently have the hat. When worn, you can access your own small pocket dimension for storage and fast travel. This dimension can be grown up to the size of a medium sized house. Upon completion of the Ensemble, you will no longer need mana to summon any piece of the set, and can grow your pocket dimension out to the size of a mansion.
Well, that's actually more useful than its appearance would suggest.

You try to shape a bood, but have no idea what that means, and end up whiffing the shaping, losing a bit of mana, and at one point creating something truly horrifying you never wish to see again. Instead of that, you decide to use your head in a more literal fashion, and place your new hat on your head like a naive moron. To your surprise, it doesn't burn. Or at least, it burns, but not enough to singe your head, or cause any real pain. You might even be able to build a tolerance over time.


{Night}{Block 4.4/4}

Spoiler: Student ID (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: Known Shapes (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: Inventory (click to show/hide)
Title: Re: Mana Shaper
Post by: Evergod41 on August 02, 2014, 02:24:54 pm
It's obvious what must be done.

Shape a Trench-coat combined with a Cursive Q.
Title: Re: Mana Shaper
Post by: InZane on August 02, 2014, 02:44:39 pm
PTW
Title: Re: Mana Shaper
Post by: Lillipad on August 02, 2014, 03:00:08 pm
You try shaping a trenchcoat and another "cursive" Q, but to no avail. Just more abominations.


{Night}{Block 4.5/4}

Spoiler: Student ID (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: Known Shapes (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: Inventory (click to show/hide)
[/quote]
Title: Re: Mana Shaper
Post by: The Froggy Ninja on August 02, 2014, 03:30:35 pm
Try a tuxedo and cursive Q. Also, fast travel you say? Access the pocket dimension and get inside.
Title: Re: Mana Shaper
Post by: Lillipad on August 03, 2014, 02:10:51 pm
You attempt to shape a tuxedo in hopes of unlocking another of the Ensemble, but the closer you come to figuring the shape out, the more mana it seems to consume. After a while you become almost completely incapable of completing the shape, and unlock a twisted and corrupted shape from the failures. It seems to be some kind of Familiar you can summon, but as with all shapes, it has a theoretically unlimited summon time, unlike its regular counterpart.
You decide to put off testing the little guy out until tomorrow, and enter your pocket dimension to test out the travel option. The range seems to be a few hundred meters at the moment. Not much faster than your average movement type magic. But it should be able to grow with the size of the dimension. The dimension itself is not very impressive. Only about the size of a tool shack, with little standing room, and bare walls. Perhaps you can fill it up later. For now, though, it's morning.

[Shape acquired; Corrupt Imp]

Through intense physical labor and extraordinary growth over the course of less than 24 hours, you have reached level 10, and acquired 45 points to distribute to your stats as you see fit.

{Night}{Block 4.5/4}

Spoiler: Student ID (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: Known Shapes (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: Inventory (click to show/hide)
Title: Re: Mana Shaper
Post by: The Froggy Ninja on August 03, 2014, 02:20:10 pm
What stats do what?
Title: Re: Mana Shaper
Post by: aattss on August 03, 2014, 02:43:38 pm
So, sleeping is automatic?

Also, which stats affect the growth rate of our mana-shaping skills?
Title: Re: Mana Shaper
Post by: The Froggy Ninja on August 03, 2014, 02:51:29 pm
Quote from: aattss on August 03, 2014, 02:43:38 pm
So, sleeping is automatic?

Also, which stats affect the growth rate of our manna-shaping skills?
Having high manna would be good and high endurance would be most efficient as it effects both health and stamina which add to manna.
Title: Re: Mana Shaper
Post by: Nirur Torir on August 03, 2014, 03:02:22 pm
I say throw everything into willpower, since we have a permanent blessing that gives 30% of willpower to all stats, and it's a caster stat in its own right.

If we just wanted to min-max for mana, endurance would be more efficient, but I'm against min-maxing to focus on mana and HP.

All stat points into willpower.
Title: Re: Mana Shaper
Post by: Lillipad on August 03, 2014, 03:04:38 pm
Will adds 20, Int adds 10 and has an impact on your shaping, your blessing makes Endurance give 20.
Title: Re: Mana Shaper
Post by: The Froggy Ninja on August 03, 2014, 03:15:46 pm
Add thirty to will and 15 to int.
Title: Re: Mana Shaper
Post by: Lillipad on August 03, 2014, 07:46:22 pm
After you rest and stretch, you notice you feel almost invincible. Checking your stats, you've got about the power of a student who's passed a Semester Final. That's a little unreasonable. Your skyrocketed stats are definitely unusual, but you won't question being more powerful. Your mana has more than doubled overnight, so it may be a good idea to test out your new limits.

{Morning}{Block 1/4}

Spoiler: Student ID (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: Known Shapes (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: Inventory (click to show/hide)
Title: Re: Mana Shaper
Post by: Nirur Torir on August 03, 2014, 07:52:27 pm
Show them all! Pour 1950 mana into a large golden statue of ourselves.
Title: Re: Mana Shaper
Post by: Lillipad on August 03, 2014, 08:06:50 pm
Power! Unlimited poweeeeeeerrrr! (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e_DqV1xdf-Y) You create a glowing, blue statue of yourself that is also gold because you say it is. Despite the huge amount of mana poured into it, the high level of detail you strove for only ended up creating some sort of dwarf version of you. You've decided to name him Mini Me.

{Morning}{Block 1/4}

Spoiler: Student ID (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: Known Shapes (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: Inventory (click to show/hide)
[/quote]
Title: Re: Mana Shaper
Post by: The Froggy Ninja on August 03, 2014, 08:53:14 pm
Try for the tuxedo Q thing.
Title: Re: Mana Shaper
Post by: aattss on August 03, 2014, 09:26:08 pm
Practice our ability shape mana onto the physical plane by creating our own shape

After we learn how to animate them, we'll be able to create an army.
Title: Re: Mana Shaper
Post by: Lillipad on August 04, 2014, 11:14:52 pm
As a general speed up to days, I'm just going to have you guys do random training so I can move the time blocks when there aren't many actions.
You manage to successfully combine a tuxedo and a Q, but no unique shape. Instead, you learned two probably useless shapes, and one potentially great skill. You have unlocked the secrets of Shape Combine, a skill that does exactly what it sounds like. It's quite expensive, but the right shapes combined could be incredibly powerful. As a synergy bonus, Mini Me's ability to create shapes is done at a lower cost.
You contemplate making another you, but you already have Mini Me, who's adorable, so you decide against it. So instead you practice him until the noon bells toll.

{Noon}{Block 2/4}

Spoiler: Student ID (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: Known Shapes (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: Known Valueless Shapes (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: Inventory (click to show/hide)
Title: Re: Mana Shaper
Post by: 3man75 on August 04, 2014, 11:29:56 pm
Read a book about basic pyromancy and then quiz another student.

Cause you know quizmaster.
Title: Re: Mana Shaper
Post by: Lillipad on August 08, 2014, 06:05:01 pm
Sorry for the long delay, I've been busy preparing for an upcoming move.
You hit the library and start reading up on pyromancy. It's quite informative really. Pyromancy used to be a purely attack based class, but grew unpopular as wars and fighting became less of a necessity. The book details its rise back to popularity as pyromancy became one of the ultimate public servant types of magic, as it revolutionized metal work, and the energy industry. You debate a while just making an appeal to switch classes, but you doubt that would ever go through. Regardless, you manage to pick up a few things that would be handy for your shaping.
Armed with knowledge, you don your ridiculous hat, and seek out your fellow students. You decide to only target first year students like yourself, seeing as you don't have access to any higher year libraries. Your first mark is a pyromancer student. You expect good things from him, and quiz him on the basic history and theory of old pyromancy, but your hopes are crushed when he fails miserably at these things. Clearly not a good learner. With each question he gets wrong, a number appears or grows on your hand, each question he answers correctly taking a point from you. Out of 10 questions you prepared, 2 were correct, and the number now sits at eight.
You cast identify on the numbers and discover that these are "quiz points." According to your identification, Quiz Points are used to unlock hidden powers of the Ensemble, or to give you a clue on where to find or craft other pieces of the set. Nifty. There was also something about being able to use them to cast the ignorant into eternal damnation, but you decide to avoid looking into that too far...

[Acquired; Quiz Points x 8]

{Afternoon}{Block 3/4}

Spoiler: Student ID (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: Known Shapes (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: Known Valueless Shapes (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: Inventory (click to show/hide)
Title: Re: Mana Shaper
Post by: The Froggy Ninja on August 08, 2014, 06:18:19 pm
Quiz some random kid on manna shaping.
Title: Re: Mana Shaper
Post by: Lillipad on August 08, 2014, 06:40:15 pm
A fiendish grin scars your face as an evil idea roots itself into your mind. You find some random chump who looks stronger than you, and propose the quiz to him. He naively accepts, and you begin interrogating him on the mana shaping skills you've learned. Being most likely the first in centuries to unlock this stuff, he easily loses the 20 questions. You repeat this a few times until you're sick of it. You notice, however, that the more wrong answers there are, the fewer Quiz Points you acquire. These diminishing returns could be troubling. Either way, you're up to 150 QP, so you honestly don't care that much at the moment.
In the meantime, you train up a bit, bringing your imp up to level 2, and your sword and fist up to level 7, and it is now night time.

{Night}{Block 4/4}

Spoiler: Student ID (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: Known Shapes (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: Known Valueless Shapes (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: Inventory (click to show/hide)
[/quote]
Title: Re: Mana Shaper
Post by: The Froggy Ninja on August 08, 2014, 06:51:04 pm
Spend fifty quiz points on figuring out the Quizmaster's Secret chest item. Spend another fifty to unlock a power.
Title: Re: Mana Shaper
Post by: Lillipad on August 10, 2014, 03:41:51 pm
You pour 100 Quiz Points in total into your hat, and a few seconds later hear an odd dinging noise, like a cash register. Nothing happens for a short while after that, and you fear you may have wasted precious currency, but then your head starts throbbing in pain. This pain lasts a solid hour, and the entire time you're unable to move and feel like you're dying, but at the end, your head is filled with knowledge you didn't have before.
The Quiz Master's Secret Ensemble seems to take a new form once it's complete. The actual ingredients used don't seem to matter, but becoming a piece of the Ensemble can slightly warp its appearance. Furthermore, each piece seems to have its own letter assigned to it, except the gloves and shoes, but you haven't learned anything else on that front. Knowing how to craft a piece is only a part of the puzzle, luck and knowledge also play an important role.
You check your hat's descriptor in your ID, and sure enough, there's a new power to it. The hat can now be sharpened and thrown like some sort of demented hat frisbee of death. You feel like you're on the path to becoming a Bond villain, whatever that means. You spend the rest of the night practicing your new skill, and hit the sack.

Through dumb luck and random experimentation, you have ascended to level 12, and acquired 10 points to distribute as you see fit.

{Late Night}{Block -/4}

Spoiler: Student ID (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: Known Shapes (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: Known Valueless Shapes (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: Inventory (click to show/hide)
[/quote]
[/quote]
Title: Re: Mana Shaper
Post by: The Froggy Ninja on August 10, 2014, 03:52:10 pm
After assigning your points combine a "U" with a tuxedo.