Well now, I'm in the mood for an adventury suggestion game and quite confident in the potential of this plot. Let's see how you guys like it. ;3
To avoid that people have to search for it, here the "full" version of abilities, nebst published trivia.
Should new folk be interested, there is no need to read the spoilers beforehand. They pop up timely in the story, and are just there as an easy reminder of facts.
Active Skills:Sneeze of Flame -
Draconic -
5 MP
You spew a little flame of Dragon-Fire, up to a few breaths away.
The feared flames of dragons, mayhem incarnate. Despite being a magical product, it does not count as such - making it impossible to be dispelled or dampened. Obviously conjuring some water, or an elemental shield of such sorts does work - but then one will mostly not be able to sustain such means long enough to exert the magical beast. It goes without saying that your current pyromanic abilities are at most amusing but to uneducated hicks. Give it a couple hundred of years - provided you have retained the ability to grow - and the results ought to differ quite significantly!Small Illusions -
Illusionist -
3 MP
Allows you to decieve either the eyes of a single person with an object, or create sounds in the target area as you please.
Illusionary deception is one of the most tricky magics, especially if the victim is not aware of being under a spell. Even then, advanced Illusionists may cast them into multiple layers of illusion - true masters may even cause pain or the death of their victims. While you are far from it, you can do quite a lot of trickery with your current abilities.Passive:Gliding -
Draconic
Your wings enable you to glide down safely from elevation - if the later is at least 3 meters high.
By gliding you are able to break most falls into an undangerous landing. If you flap your wings frantically, you might even glide a bit further! For anything else you lack maturity and muscles. Give it a couple hundred of years - provided you have retained the ability to grow - and the results ought to differ quite significantly!Emotional Charging -
Demonic
The Emotions of intelligent beings recharge your mana. The higher the emotion and the more you are involved in it, the better.
You have the ability to gain mana through the emotions of others - the stronger those emotions are, the more mana is gained - obviously. The feelings do not abide in any way, and if you are the cause of them you gain way more than by being a stand-by only. There seems to be no catch involved, as far as Master could tell.High Profile
Your race and history makes you quite known in the upper magical circles. Dragons are also quite rare, so your sight is bound to be remembered even by common folk.
With your master taking you with him to several meetings, and even publishing much of the way you were "made", it is no wonder that you are actually quite well known in these societies. There was even a bet running how long it would take untill a grown dragon would see him having such a familiar as an affront, resulting in the man's untimely demise. Sadly for the betters, it seems that all of their estimates were wrong - the pot will likely wander back to its owners.
With so very few of your race - much less of your age - being on any terms with humanoid society at large, you better watch your actions, lest they come back to haunt you. Like in the form of one a two high mages making a bid for your body-parts - undoubtly usefull for a plethora of rituals.Extraplanar Soul -
Demonic
Without your trusty pendant, you are just not truly complete. Your flow of mana is messed up, resulting in possible miss-casts or out-of control spells. Luckily it is back with you, albeit it has imposed a new Condition on you. Curses.
There also is that thing where you would have the demon-soul ripped out of your body, and thrown back into the outer planes, should you be without it for too long a period of time. What that would entail, noone is really sure, for lack of research data. You are somehow not willing to close this gap in wisdom, fascinating as it may be for some. Abredas actually had quite a few offers to do just so, wich he obviously did not make true upon. He did some slight research on it thou, and the treshhold - depending on your true distance to the pendant and whatnot, should be around three months or so. Just reminding yourself is all.Enslaved Will -
Familiar
Currently your new Master - Elaine - holds a quite Iron Grip over your vessel. She dared to enchant your beloved pendant with one - or even multiple - spell that binds you to her. While she can not - yet, you fear - control your very soul, she certainly is able to make you do as she pleases.
Oh, the Joys of Serfdom. Are not a thing, as far as you are concerned. Still, there is not much you can actually do at the moment. Besides thinking up vulgarities that you are not able to spout, and think up violent plans that wont see any action either.Special Skills:Overflooding Spells -
Trollkind -
+20% / min. 2 MP
Your Spell has a far lesser chance of failure. Especially handy if multi-casting, or if something really should not go wrong.
This is – for many reasons – the key to your success. Instead of worrying over the small details, you just pump in some extra mana to make it work. While this normally would mess up the spell, you just seem to make it work somehow – definitely a talent, almost on par with actual skill. In Essence, It Enables you to give your enchantments that little extra edge, or to throw one-a-two fireballs more at once. A steep price, but more than worth the outcome. This “crude spellery” has barred you from achieving the official rank of Wizard, but you wear a pointy hat all-the-same, as if to spite those theoreticaly-minded fools.Regeneration -
Trollkind - Passive
You have incredible regeneration, maybe even able to replace body-parts.
The fabled Regeneration of Trolls – if one is a bit patient, it is really possible to see the wound closing before ones own eyes. Even limbs can be regenerated, and if the tissue in question is removed, even burns pose no problem. Well, for full-blooded trolls that is. You certainly do not wish to test how far your abilities in this regard go, but you do not keep any kind of scars, and any wound heals at an inhumanly quick rate.Quick Learner -
Humankind - Passive
You have a chance to gain additional experience.
Just as it says. Since Humans are among the shorter-lived races, they do have to make up for this flaw. Quicker maturing of body and spirit is a result from that, a trait that has carried over to you. Certainly, one of the more enjoyable parts of your mixed heritage.Bound Familiar
Allows you to controll your familiar, in all sorts of ways. This connection is still a bit flawed thou...
Yes! Your very own dragon-familiar. This will be certain to mark down your name in history, and without all the odd-ness that surrounded Abredas. It certainly will give the civilized parts of "This World" another reason to write and keep tabs on you. Here is hope that it will be positive, but you have not much doubt about that. As for the familiar, you can give it orders as long as you are not extremely far from it, but the transfer of mana is only possible in somewhat close quarters.Enchantment-Skills:Permanent Enchantment -
Enchantment -
Ritual; vastly differing costs
Allows you to enchant items with additional abilities.
Ah, your bread and butter, as far as magic goes. The Art of weaving enchantments can be as straightforward as it can be tricky, and while you mostly kept to the former, it has served you well. The same can be said about your party, seeing as your enchantments are definitely high-tier and thus more than suited to improve the strength of your comrades. Well, limited to the Beastman - the Priest's God forbids such “trickery”.Physical Boost -
Enchantment -
5-20 MP
Temporary increases a single chosen Physical Ability, but from a very broad board of possibilities. Needs physical contact, or a severe Malus will be applied.
Not a Spell that you use on yourself very often, but certainly often enough on the Vulpine. Anything physical can be boosted, be it just raw strength, body-size (careful with the armour thou!) and even senses. There are stories that true masters of this school can do the same for the spiritual attributes, but while you have used the theory on permanent enchantments, it is far beyond you to cast something such highly advanced in real-time. Like, really far beyond you. Not that you would ever tell, but hey – you can be honest here, right?Add Properties -
Enchantment -
5-50 MP
Allows additional abilities or properties to be added towards an object. Needs physical contact, or a severe Malus will be applied.
Certainly one of the more abstract spells that you possess – the higher the desired change, the higher the chance of failure – and obviously the mana-investment. To put it into simple terms, making a rock into ore does not need to add that much, and is straightforward. To make a rock fly, you have to completely drench it in mana, because that is just very opposite from its original nature. Druids actually use a similar tequnique to turn themselves into beasts, but so far you only managed an enchantment that makes the wearer look more human. Still quite handy.Elemental Abilities:
Call forth Elements -
Elemental -
4 MP per projectile
Allows you to summon forth an elemental projectile - Fire, Earth, Electricity, Water / Ice. You can summon +1 Projectile without Malus each 10 Willpower. Can also be used in a Ritual, for a devestating onslaught of magic - Preparation time is at least half an hour.
Huhu, the real fun stuff. There are not many things as satisfying like throwing around dozens of fireballs. Sure, you could do with rocks, lightning or – mostly frozen – water, but there is just something about fire that makes it the most fun. Obviously it is not always first-choice material, with rocks coming to a close second with lightning. Eh, each has its merits and de-merits, but with your style you mostly just pack a few extra projectiles and the result does not change. Oh, right – you obviously can also partake in a ritual, if you really want to hand out doom for a certain area, but that takes quite some time, and most certainly most of your resources. Do you need to mention that such rituals are normally held by groups, and that as such yours is not all-that-impressive? Well, you certainly did not use it often (yet).
Elemental Armour -
Elemental -
30 MP
Encloses the caster in an elemental armour.
Have you ever tried to hack away at an armour made out of rock? Or even worse, one out of highly-votialate electric currency? One fool did so once, you cried tears of laughter at his fate - It was a very good day. You only would use fire in some kind of bar-fight, and solid ice is obviously a bit below rocks in defensiveness, but each might come in useful in certain situations. Well, normally you can trust your team to keep you out of melee-range, so you did not have any use for it recently.Elemental Scrying -
Elemental -
10 MP
Enables you to see something that is surrounded or near the specific element, in the area you specified for the spell. More chance of success if done as a ritual of half an hour.
You actually never had that much interest in this one, seeing as you either need to scan the whole area, or very specifically. After your first failures to find a lost party-member you more or less gave up on it. A few years later, you have found it to be most successful, mostly because of a focus for the searched thing. Still, a very fickle spell under normal conditions.Warlock Abilities:Permanent Curse -
Warlock -
Ritual; vastly differing costs
Allows you to curse an item with negative abilities.
Oh my, the darker side of your magically knowledge. Actually, the basic theory, and all the ones advancing from there are pretty close to enchantment. Well, only that it goes into the completely opposite direction, and at the end often enough branches off a bit. You did not create many cursed items yet, but the one the priest holds certainly was inspiring – in some sorts at least. Damned Priest.Physical Drain -
Warlock -
5-20 MP
Temporary decreases a single chosen Physical Ability, but from a very broad board of possibilities. Needs physical contact, or a severe Malus will be applied.
This spell is actually pretty handy in some situations – you have used it on yourself to make the stench of the undead more bearable, or on the priest to make him lighter when he fell unconscious. Obviously you could also use it to lower the capabilities of enemies, but since they have an aversion to getting touched by you in the midst of combat, it is somewhat impractical. You have certainly thought about training yourself a bit in the ranged appliance of this spell, but it remains a hit-and-miss job for now.
Remove Properties -
Warlock -
5-50 MP
Allows the removing of abilities or properties from an object. Needs physical contact, or a severe Malus will be applied.
The circle of abstractacy – is that a word? You think it is – eh.. right. The circle of abstractacy is not complete without this spell. To take the previous example, to make a rock into ore, you would have to remove any rocky-ness from it, leaving behind the ory-ness of it. On the other hand, it is far easier to remove it's weight, making it fly as a result. The specific properties are quite the mess, and you had no time to sort out the theories behind the whole process, but anyways. It works just like adding properties – only that it removes them. Duh.Druidic Abilities:Healing Touch -
Druidic -
4 MP for
1 HP
Allows you to heal wounds, but for now only outside of combat.
Had someone told you that you would learn druidic spells a few years prior, you certainly would have laughed at them. But since that damned priest will not heal any wounds except those that really, really do need healing, you took to the matter by yourself. Luckily, you heal your scars, else he certainly would have regretted the policies of his god in short order. The vulpine did take the whole matter somewhat more easy, but he has a fur to hide those scars under. And you suspect he also shares that thought about scars being manly. Then again, why would he care about that.. Oh, the spell? Oh, right. You can heal simple wounds with it, but it is very ill-designed for combat use. You do not need to use it that often, seeing as you are in the back, the beastman is in his armour, and the priest is not satisfied if there are no new scars on him after a fight. Damned Priest.
Plant-Growth -
Druidic -
2-15 MP
Allows you to accelerate the growth of a seed or plant. Since you need to conjur the real deal, it certainly is a draining effort.
Having a green thumb is actually somewhat fun. You mostly learned this spell because it implores on some druidic theories needed for healing, but it came in handy for a prank as well. You certainly would not be able to bind anything but a drunkard to his chair with some vines, but under certain circumstances it might be able to do more than comedic relief.
Since they distance themselves from the affairs of the mortal races in general, not much is known about dragons. They are feared for their magical abilities, with a full grown dragon more than able to wipe one a two kingdoms from the map by himself. Luckily for the mortal races, the dragon race sports some sense of honour, thou it seems to vary by the specific individual or is simply too hard to grasp for non-dragons. If insulted or attacked, they seem to be on the vengeful side, but since not many dare to do so the cases are very rare. While in history there is no record of them saying so, they are thought to be immortal - in the sense that they won't die of old age. The truth of the matter just might be that their lives are so extremely long, that none of them has died yet. A very popular theory in the higher magic circles believes the dragons to be too unfit for this world, seeing as they have no peers and are the most outstandingly different race from all. Thus some believe them to be exiles from another plane, or maybe even survivors from the previous cycle.
Supporting this is one rare insightful remark of Zh'vhkur, "No Gods hold sway over us". In its several millennia of lordship over the beastmen of the far north, this and another dozen sentences are the only records of its teachings in history. The first sentence - "Bring me food or burn" bound the beastmen to its rule - wich enjoy almost five-thousand years of peace by now, after the first war under the rule of their guardian was settled in half a day by it truly. It does wake up from its slumber from time to time, but rarely more than a full year, with the slumber ranging from an aftermeal-nap to dozens of decades.
Nebst to nothing is known of their culture, and while a legend from the The Age of the Gods speaks of infighting between them, the individuals in question still seem to be alive and well. No reports of "Draconic Brawls" have reached the mortal realm, but with their longlivety it just might be a momentary truce. Neither the way their offspring is recieved, nor the amount of care they give towards it is known - but in old legends the notion of adolescent dragons is far more common than in these times, with some reasoning that they loose interest in mortals after what very well might be their puberty. Some even go as far as to prophecy their second coming, seeing as these young dragons of legends ought to have hit maturity by now.
It is also of note that - while surely not the talkactive sort - the draconic language is actually quite easily attainable, having not changed since it was first deciphered and written down in The Age of the Gods. While the Beastman of the far north take pride in speaking it, there is not much practical use for it outside of their lands, except the odd crazy that believes to have dragon blood in his veins. There are also quite a lot of magical books written in this language, but as most rather read it in common than "the elite way" there are generally more translated than draconic versions available.
While there undoubtly exist many planes quite similiar to this one - commonly called "The World" by its inhabitants - it is actually no easy matter to gain access to them. Because of the many rules and limitations that are enacted upon these planes, one must bend too many of them as to make a viable summon from them. As it stands, magical theory deems even dragons unable to do so on their own, and the few dozen organized experiments, done every couple of decades by a prominent leader of some magic guild, have all ended as failures. To be correct, it still stands to discussion if Luronow's try - some hundred years ago - managed to summon that weird fly-like being, or if the magic imposed on the area just mutated one into such.
For these reasons, one may only call upon "The Outer Planes", where such concepts as mass, body, time and distance may or may not hold sway - sometimes even depending on the specific area the inhabitants currently dwell. Most beings in these planes with sufficient intelligence and power can choose to guard themself against summons, and that is where the real problem beginns. If one succeeds in breaching the planes and gathering their essence into "The World", one can safely assume that the being summoned is either too dumb to care, or out for their own gain. While their behaviour is as different as the planes they stem from, the underlying greed is often enough a case for problems. With the threat of your own live being taken by your summon, it is no wonder that one of the golden rules of demonologes is "Just bind the damm thing to your will". It is also by far the most practiced rule, with other gems like "Don't show the damm thing to others" or "Never sacrifice others in the ritual - and if you do never admit to it" being the follow-ups, but not as ardently followed.
While normaly a major annoyance at most, the case of the extraplanar entity now know as "Hirzklavar", proves some of these beings capable of unlimited growth. Since the later succeeded "Halarion" as the prefered god of implications and misguided irony, the existing churches bear somewhat of a grudge against demonologes, with the almost mandatory extraplanar amassing an army bent on conquest of "The World" certainly not helping in the matter. While it largely depends on the local laws - or rather, how influental the magic guild is in comparison to the churches and or the lawgivers sanity - the practice of summoning may or may not be outlawed as a consequence.
For that matter, the summoning of energy from these planes is also very questionable if not hazardable to ones own health - even if great precautions are taken, the plane and thus the released energy and effect might have changed since the last summon. The many happenings that occured in these ways, have prompet the "Demonologe goes x" jokes - casually enjoyed by magic apprentices - whereas x can pertain to any kind of thinkable effect, derived from said energies.
Abredas the Younger
Having grown up in the shadow of a famous magician for a father - even sporting the same name as him to boot - had left Abredas with somewhat of a peciluar personality. What he tried to do and achieve always needed to be a few cuts above the common rable. His choice of the school of illusion is quite a good example of his obsession, but even then he dabbled in most of the legal arts for some time.
He actually had a very succsessful stipend with teaching illusions at some point in time, but when his interest in uncommon research grew he was forced to give up the job. That his teaching methods - albeit quite effective once taken root - often enough were akin to harassment was also a reason for the distance that most liked to keep from him.
Even after the death of his father, his obsession with creativity and uniqueness did not stop, in the face of not having overcome the father before his death it even went stronger. At some point the results mattered more to Abredas than the means, but not much was ever proven - nor will there be a need to do so now.
His peers were few because of his odd notions, but his colleages in general grudingly accepted him because of his success. The narcistic streak that developed in his later years nebst to his already sickly pride caused him to loose favor with the higher tiers of his society. If not for that, the local authorities would have had quite a lot of more trouble apprehending him - or his fortunes, for that matter.
The crowing achievements of his long streak of oddness were clearly the taming of a unicorn for riding purposes and keeping a dragon-welp as his familiar. The former was also bound heavily with mind-controling magic, wich resulted in her untimely demise. The dragon however....
Wallon - 30 Coins are one Silver
Heare - 10 Coins are one Gold
Zuntne - Worth it's weight in Gold. Yeah, fancy that.
Examples
All-Inclusive in a Good Inn: 15 Wallon
Night in the Stables: 2 Wallon
Cultural Entertainment: Starting at 10 Wallon, Up to 2 Heare
A simple meal: 1-3 Wallon
Local spices: 2-5 Wallon per spoonfull
Foreign spices: 10 Wallon for basic ones, Up to 5 Heare for exotic ones
Wooden Ring: 7-20 Wallon
Metalic Ring: 2-4 Heare for the work, plus metal used
Set of Leather Armour: 1 Zuntne 5 Heare
Set of Plate Armour: 7 Zuntne
Set of Chainmail: At least 15 Zuntne
Set of Cloth: 4 Heare 15 Wallon
Basic Iron Sword: 8 Heare
Basic Steel Sword: 1 Zuntne 3 Heare
Basic Mana Potion: 2 Heare
Basic Health Potion: 1 Heare, 15 Wallon
Prices depend strongly on availability of materials and directives of local Guilds.
Familiars
Normally the Master of it will be held responsible - in his absence "direct" action against the familiar is really not unheard of. They are also mostly executed alongside their masters, seeing as an animal that was magically tinkered with, is mostly unable to function properly without the aid of a mage. A mercy killing, really. As some people with softer souls think otherwise, there are actually quite a few familiar animal-homes that take care of them during their often enough short and miserable life. The later practise is actually far more controversial than the former.
Demons
Except the magical guild has pressed the local authority into laws that say otherwise - wich is not as rare an occurence as one might hope to think - they are fair game. In practice you most probably get the ire of some mage or even of a whole cult, but by the laws you enjoy immunity for it. Humanoid beings with extraplanar blood do not count into this category, unless specified by law. There are actually so few of them that a seperate ruling is made for most of them, to make clear as what they will be counted. Those that do not make the "humanoid"-cut are frequently purged from this plane. There are also singular reports of them being summoned back into this plane, this time obviously fully demon, so it might not be as bad as it sounds. Or those reports are rumours geared at this reaction, who are we to know.
Dragons
There is exactly one precedence of a juvenile "rogue" dragon being killed. Well, after it burned down over 3 kingdoms - often enough with hit and run tactics - not even the dragons seemed to care about it. The beastmen did make a point to send a few elite troops to support the effort, having it deemed unfit to bear the honour of being a dragon. There is a persistent rumour among scholars that they also boar the message "You really had it coming" from Zh'vhkur, but it is a rumour at most.
Are they... gone? It.. would seem that way, wouldn't it? You can't feel any disturbance of mana in the air, and the clanging of armour has also vanquished upstairs. Well, it at least seems safe to open your eyes for now - with what intuition some people have, even a glance can alarm their senses.
Hmm.. yeah. Woah. They really did a number in here - none of the painfully enchanted statues have survived, and even part of the staircase has taken damage. Those adventurers did also not check extensively for magical traps, seeing as your location hasn't blown up - Master is truly not your run-off-the-mill magician, his ploy works as he intended. With a grin you look down onto the bookcase, because one thing did not go according to his carefully crafted plan.
A normal familiar would have not faltered a second, and activated this hidden rune of explosion without a second thought. Thing is, seems like putting shard of a demon-soul into a critter also gives it a will of its own - at least if not under the magic resonance that magician and familiar normaly keep at all times. Said resonance broke when Master hid you and the rune from magical notice in an anti-magical field, the later obviously vanishing as soon as you would activate the more violate one.
Now, you very much like having your own will, much more so than blowing up - thus this cunning ploy of sacrifcing his familiar to wipe out the intruders will turn into his demise instead. After providing and even hiding such a devastating rune, "Master" is pretty spent. Combined with the fact that the rest of the tower only has about half the number of statues than what was in the foyer, it would be nothing short of a wonder if he survived. Freedom is a wonderful thing, is it not?
Seeing as the integrated invisibility spell begins to dwindle, it is only moments before everything becomes visible again - Obviously including you. While you will need to spend pretty much your last supplies of mana to reactivate the rune when those guys come back down, that will be a matter for then.
Most importantly, what shape is hiding in these runes?
Animal:
Appearance:
Only critters up to the size of a cat or a small dog is pretty much the only limitation - the animal you guys choose will obviously effect the further game immensly. I will hint that our squishy
mage critter probably won't survive any kind of open fights, so more subtle tactics might be in order. As I plan on having a fitting skill or bonus that is provided by the form we take, it could also be a magical animal - but anything too powerfull will obviously be toned down.
Poll
Author
Topic: (ISG) You are a bound familiar (Read 44045 times)