Project CITYFIGHT Sign-up thread: You must defeat an entire city to win the game

[Arhra]

Our Story
A strange invasive thing is expanding across the land.

It is a city.

You are to invade it and berate, befriend or battle everyone you meet until the problem is fixed.


How We Got Here
Long ago, there was no earth and no sky. No Sun, or Moon or stars. The only thing known to have existed before the world was Nous, the Creator of the World.

With the world not yet finished, Nous vanished or died or fell asleep.

A lot of people were very upset and this caused a lot of trouble. They fell to warring about how the world should be, for its laws were still fluid. Most troublesome were the incomplete creatures, abandoned drafts and concepts not yet fully worked into the world as it was for they found common ground in their disparate, corrosive natures and banded together.

But, one person stumbled upon the Last Words, the unformed final decree of the Creator. This person was the Sun. Expending the Last Word, she asked for the strength to defeat the hordes of unfinished spirits.

She received it and it broke the world.

Some of the incomplete creatures crawled into the depths of the earth to escape the light of the newborn Sun and others fled into the Outer Darkness. They all are called darklings now, for the light of the Sun (and of the Moon) harms them.

The elements were disarrayed and the border between life and death thinned by Sol's atrocious power. Since she scorched the earth, Sol travelled into the sky and became the Sun, endlessly roving through the sky to keep danger away.

But someone had to patrol the night as well. The Sun's sister, the Moon, volunteered. Using black magic, she cast a powerful spell to draw upon the reflected power of the Sun.

This continued quite seriously for a time, but the skirmishes between the Sun, the Moon and the creatures of the Outer Darkness are largely a formality nowadays.


Where We Are
This is a world of dreams and fairytales: magical, dangerous and wonderful. It is a world that is alive, where no part of it can ever be fully dumb, or blind or insensate.

This is a world large enough to get lost in but cozy enough to find your way home. It is filled with terrain of all types: tall mountains, ancients forests, placid lakes, mysterious caverns, sparkling deserts and wide oceans.

This is a world populated by wandering knights and beautiful princesses, martial-artists and monks, thieves and beggars, priests and healers, witches and magician, gods and monsters, merchants and craftsmen.

This is a world where the fantastic constantly threatens to spill into the mundane. A castle might float in the sky, a ghost might show up to your party and a city grow from a peculiar seed.

Anyone who lives here is probably more than they seem.


Terrifying Development: Humanity
Humans are heroes.

It is the nature of humanity to do great things and dream great dreams. A human has immense integrity of self. A human is difficult to injure and highly resistant to spiritual attacks, although they are slow to heal. A human might march into dark places where gods and demons fear to tread and scatter the forces gathered there.

Luckily most humans are content with a quiet life and do not do such things.

Many humans are cunning while many spirits are not. A human accosted in the night by an unfriendly spirit of much greater strength will still often get away through trickery.

Humans get along with each other well and frequently band together in small villages. They are easy going but it is not wise to excessively provoke them.


Something for Everything: Spiritual Beings
Spirits are everywhere.

Broadly, a spirit is any supernatural being or creature and come in endless variety. They might be called gods, demons, ogres, fairies, or any number of other things. Animals and objects can gain personality and life, becoming a kind of spirit themselves. Even a human can become one.

Others are tied to more esoteric concepts and principles. You might have a spirit of dawn, or rust or travel.

Ghosts are also classed as spirits.

All spirits embody a principle. They are remnants of the spent thoughts and words which gave reality its shape. A fire elemental isn't just a burning thing, it's a representation of the specifications to which fire exists.

Spirits share a weakness to various faith based and spiritual attacks, charms, wards and so on. They are more easily affected by faith than humans and spiritual damage can be fatal wounds. They may have additional weaknesses.

Many are not especially intelligent and the ones that are tend to dislike the company of other spirits for this reason.


Magical
Everyone has some measure of spiritual power and it is possible to improve it with devoted effort.

A human might pick up strange and wondrous abilities through dedication to their professions and hobbies or even develop a narrow, yet powerful gift inherent to themselves.

A spirit has marvelous abilities as an expression of its nature.

A magician is a person who studies natural phenomena in order to invoke them. Their power is based on exterior forces, not internal.

A serious magician is a bookish sort, their homes crowded with books, notes and strange relics.

Black Magic is slightly different. In the same way darklings represent forbidden and incomplete principles, Black Magic is learning to invoke these principles. To become a Black Magician, a sacrifice is needed. The user must give up a part of themselves, for it will not answer to anything that is whole.

Black Magic draws on strange powers and exotic principles outside of the normal order of the world (be creative) but it takes a heavy toll upon its user.


Life
Society is somewhat fractured. An important fact to remember is large scale cooperation essentially does not exist, except in the loosest of senses. Viewed at a large scale, the place is an anarchy. It is difficult to organise a place where a small number of people can use truly amazing forces. Any organisation beyond a city-state is quite rare.

Technology is very fragmented. There are some true wonders but anything beyond quite basic devices in most areas is essentially the work of dedicated hobbyists. An area might have telephones, but the people with telephones probably had to lay the phone lines themselves.

Getting resources for such things is tricky, but there are places that mine and trade. Mining towns tend to be technological oases, as enthusiasts are drawn to them.

Most places are mostly at peace with the spirits around them. It is typically the job of a priest or shrine maiden to keep them happy and they are given offerings to make them smile on the village and keep from causing too much mischief. The wilderness can be a very dangerous place however.


Death
A human that dies becomes a ghost. They typically dwell in the Underworld, although some may wander the earth until laid to rest. They can be very dangerous, because they are almost indistinguishable from humans.

While the Underworld seems to be a dull place to the living, the dead seem to have a good time. Ghosts have a lot of parties. When they eventually get tired of it, they depart to be reborn.

An afterlife other than the cycle of reincarnation that the Underworld uses is one of those darkling concepts that Nous flirted with. As a result there are hells in the underworld and heavens in the sky.

Ghosts do not naturally end up there, so angels and demons tend to be very bored.

Demons try to host very enjoyable parties, so as to attract ghosts to their hells.

Angelic creatures do not live in close proximity to ghosts and so they host less parties.

They are probably behind a lot of alien abductions.

Both angels and demons are darklings by the way.

A spirit that dies does something strange. Some become something like a ghost, others seem to transform, split or grow into something else if slain. The simpler creatures in particular often simply reform if no measures are taken.

Of course, people usually do not fight to the death. A robust surrender policy is in effect.


Who You Are
Name: A first name. Possibly even a second name.
Gender: Man, woman, child, robot, etc.
Race: Human or a class of spirit
Profession: Optional!
Appearance: Physical description and outfit.
Personality: How your character behaves. Unsociable assholes will receive free beatings!
Background: A little more about you.
Abilities: What you can do. A generalised ability is quite weak - people generally have practiced applications of their talents that are fairly specific.
Involvement: Why are you getting involved?


Who I am:

Name: Lia Kiparen
Gender: Female
Race: Spirit of Lost Things
Profession: Investigator First Class (self appointed)

Appearance: Golden eyes, sharp, delicate features and a lanky build. A propensity for warbling and whistling. Descended from magpies. Lia's hair is a patterned mix of black and white, with feathers scattered through it. Her clothes are a wild mixture, tending to give the impression she dressed inside a tornado. She wears a tight, tunic like skirt as the base layer, a pouch laden belt cinched around her waist and more pouches on a sort of sash. Over that she wears a loose vest and on top of this top of that she wears a bulky overcoat, giving her even more pockets. A long scarf is wrapped around her neck and goggles are perched on her head. Her stockings are different lengths and she wears mismatched bracers.

Personality: Lia is inquisitive to a fault, adventurous and social. She is prone to wild speculation and even wilder accusations. Also shouting and picking fights. She loves sticking her nose into things that are not her business. She has made it her business by declaring herself as an investigator.

Background: Lia is descended from several generations of spirits and her magpie ancestry is watered down. She keeps their inquisitive nature and attraction to shiny things however. The tendency of things vanishing in her proximity sometimes gets her branded a thief, something she hates. To keep herself busy, she has appointed herself an official investigator, looking for lost treasures, checking about strange happenings and generally getting involved with other people's business.

Abilities: Lia is a spirit with an affinity for lost things. She can pull things that are well and truly lost out of a strange place called the Super-Sargasso Sea. Lia also calls it her Nondimensional Ocean. Items have a tendency of going missing and being unexpectedly found around her. She is not a thief.

Bermuda Sign: Curses things to become lost. You might never be seen again. Not very useful for fighting. Better for payback.

Forgotten Armament: There are many fine weapons thought lost forever. Lia can temporarily call upon them, although she has trouble with picking the exact weapon she wants outside of a general type.

Grand Discovery: A powerful move. It relies upon two facts. 1) Some very large objects have been lost over the years and 2) Most people are vulnerable to massive blunt trauma.

Hidden Sense: Lia is sensitive to hidden and misplaced things. She can smell your secrets!

Getting Lost: In an emergency, Lia can close her eyes and spin wildly. No-one knows where she will end up, not even her.

Condensing Spirit Method: A very basic trick for manipulating spiritual energy. It lets Lia hit people very hard and turn her shed feathers, loose change and other flung objects into effective weapons.

Lost Art - Gap Vortex: In her foraging through the Nondimensional Ocean, Lia discovered this secret technique. The last person to know it died over a thousand years ago. She is reluctant to use it because if someone else learns it she will be unable to use the technique. Summoning a vortex of her own spiritual energy about her, she can spot flaws where her vortex touches and penetrate enemy's defences or turn their own techniques back on them. It is a very energy intensive technique to use.

Involvement: Lia (Investigator First Class!) will get to the bottom of this mystery!


Soooo, any questions?