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[Arhra]

A strange invasive thing is spreading across the land, hidden under an ominous cloud. It captures food and lumber and stone and people and other things to grow. It is called a city.

You are going to get to the bottom of this, so berate, befriend or battle everyone you meet until the problem is fixed.

This city is a little out of place (not that such anachronism uncommon). But such a huge gathering that distorts all the land around it to serve it is a terrible disruption to this cozy little fairytale world. The world is where the mundane and the fantastic mingle easily. A castle might float in the sky, a ghost might show up to your party and or a city might grow from a peculiar seed. It is an adventurous world populated by all sorts of people: wandering knights and beautiful princesses, martial-artists and monks, thieves and beggars, priests and healers, witches and magician, gods and monsters, shopkeepers and craftsmen.

Darklings
A constant trouble is that the world is half baked. The world was created by Nous, but halfway through he vanished. Perhaps he wandered off or fell asleep or died.

This left the world littered with drafts and abandoned concepts and unfinished things which in turn made a lot of people were very upset. During the Dark Days there was constant fighting as people argued about what the final shape of the world should be. Most troublesome were the incomplete creatures for their strange, buggy powers had odd interactions or were not easily countered and they found common ground in their mishmashed, corrosive natures.

The Dark Days ended when someone found an abandoned miracle and wished on it for the strength to defeat them. That person was the Sun. It broke the world. The elements were disarrayed and the border between life and death thinned by the Sun's atrocious power. 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 as they dislike the light of the Sun (and of the Moon).

The definition of a darkling is a complex thing. To give an idea, the strange creatures of the Outer Darkness are darklings. They are often the most bizarre of the darkling ranks - spirits embodying stillborn concepts and bizarre forces like phlogiston or aether. When they are outside of the Underworld, ghosts are darklings because 'They are not supposed to be here'. Some people think this is in poor taste, as it is the Sun's fault the border between life and death is so fragile. While the Underworld seems to be a dull place to the living, the ghosts seem to have a good time. Ghosts have a lot of parties so they don't often leave. Many attendants of the underworld are also darklings. Nous considered many ideas for an afterlife and didn't really clean up. 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 parties, so as to attract ghosts to their hells. As there are not many ghosts in the sky, angels tend to be more bored than demons. They are behind a lot of 'alien abductions'.

Technically the Sun and the Moon are also darklings by the original definition, but it is not a good idea to say that to their faces.

This perpetually cloud covered city is likely to be some darkling thing woken from its slumber.

A Lively World: Humans
It is the nature of humanity to do great things and dream great dreams. This fierce energy is invested into anything they do, it can be put into their bodies, their minds, their hopes, their dreams, their homes, their friends and their tools. They easily forge connection to the world around them. The grounded materialism a human possesses means they difficult to injure, highly resistant to spiritual attacks and not easily tricked. A human might march into places where gods and demons fear to tread and scatter the darkness gathered there.

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

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.

An Awakened Land: Spirits
Broadly, a spirit is any supernatural being or creature and come in endless variety. They are by nature a little less substantial than a human, since their bodies only really exist to help them fulfill their purpose. 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.

All spirits embody a principle. They are remnants of the thoughts and whimsies which gave reality its shape and are responsible for directing that their particular force. Unless they are lazy. Since their origin is conceptual, they are easily affected by immaterial things. Spirits share a weakness to various spiritual attacks, charms, wards and so on. They are more easily affected by faith than humans and gullible in general. They often have additional weaknesses.

Magical
Everyone has some measure of spiritual power and it is possible to improve it with devoted effort, with cleverness or by cheating.

A spirit's marvelous abilities are narrow, flowing out of their conceptual origin but these powers are very strong at the same time. A spirit of travel is hard to beat in a foot race!

A human, on the other hand, develops their abilities through their experiences. In addition to learning interesting talents they might be gifted with some strange item or power through their journeys. The large reservoir of energy a human possesses makes those work very well

A magician is a person who studies natural phenomena in order to invoke them. To find out the traceries of the words and thoughts left behind by Nous to understand their origin and how to call them forth from that place once again. Humans are very good at this. A serious magician tends to be 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 the magic will not answer to anything that is whole.

Another form of magic is theurgy: loaning your energy to a spirit. Such a magician seeks spirits who might be weak but who have interesting abilities and makes a pact to supply them with power in exchange for the spirit serving them. Alternatively one might might seek out a god (a powerful spirit) and offer one's services to it in exchange some of their own spiritual power for miracles.

Profile
To be perfectly honest this is largely inspired by the Touhou method of problem solving: run in the direction of the problem, beat suspicious looking people up until you get to the mastermind and then have a tea party with everyone. This is going to be more than a little silly and battles don't usually end with anything worse than unconsciousness. I've been pretty vague in a lot of areas so if you have any questions just ask!

Name: A first name. Possibly even a second name.
Gender: Man, woman, robot, etc.
Race: Sprint or Marathon
Profession: Optional!
Description: Physical description, outfit and personality. A little about your history.
Abilities: What you can do.

Sample character:

Name: Lia Kiparen
Gender: Female
Race: Spirit of Lost Things
Profession: Investigator First Class (self appointed), 'Unguided Detective Missile'

Description: Wide 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 short black dress as the base layer, and various pocket bearing clothes, sashes and pouches over it. A long scarf is wrapped around her neck and goggles are perched on her head. Her stockings are different lengths.

Lia is curious and excitable. Things tend to vanish in her presence, so she's often called a thief. She is prone to wild speculation and even wilder accusations. Lia has declared herself as an investigator, looking for lost treasures, checking about strange happenings and generally getting involved with other people's business.

Her advice should probably not be followed, but even a broken clock is right twice a day?

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. Lia is sensitive to hidden and misplaced things.

Bermuda Sign: Curses things to become lost. You might never be seen again. A rather terrifying power but not usually very useful for fighting. She can use it to banish small projectiles or weak enemies.

Loose Change: Lia's stockpile of lost coins gives her an endless supply of projectile weapons. She can also use them to buy meals and other inexpensive items.

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. This is probably why so many archaeological digs find broken pottery...

Forgotten Armament: There are many fine weapons thought lost forever. By investing a lot of her power, Lia can temporarily call upon one. It's a bit of a gamble?

Lose Your Way: In an emergency, Lia can close her eyes, spin wildly and run in a random direction. No-one knows where she will end up, not even her.

[batgirl]

Ooooh! I remember this from the last time! After a bit of searching, I even found my old character.

Name: Magnolia Grey
Gender: Female
Race: Human
Profession: Brewmaster
Appearance: Average sized, Magnolia doesn't exude intimidation by any means. She wears a black suit with orange and purple pinstripes, a white blouse, suspenders and black boots. Her eyes are green and her hair black and kept pin strait down to the middle of her back. She usually wears a black top hat to go with her ensemble and a long black trench coat with many pockets where she keeps many vials and ingredients. She carries with her a brown faded messenger bag that holds her brewing kit, and some stock ingredients. On her thighs and in her boots are holsters that contain knives used for cutting ingredients/defending herself.

Personality: Happy enough, giddy when making a brew. Social to most people unless they give off a bad "vibe," or le gasp, don't like tea.

Background: In a world where spirits and people alike know the measure of a good party, someone needs to be able to craft the teas and brews that make parties things of legend. Magnolia was born into a long line of brewmasters who wander the world in their suits and top hats and use the world itself around them to create magically flavored teas for parties. Magnolia learned the family business, and when she came of age, began wandering and creating teas for humans and spirits alike.
Abilities:
Brewmaster: Devoted to her craft, Magnolia has studied night and day the various herbs, plants and ingredients to make teas and potions. As such, she has an innate knowledge of all things leafy, fungusy and tasty. Want to know if that mushroom will kill you or cure the latest bout of plague? Ask away because she knows.

Well Traveled: Magnolia, well into her wandering years, has traveled far and wide all over the world, retaining an excellent sense of direction.

Something from Nothing: Magnolia can make a tasty brew from even the most rudimentary ingredients. What may just look like grass to some can be infused into a hot delicious brew with just a sprinkling of this or that from her coat or bag.

Magnolia has a few ability enhancing teas at her disposal:

Pepper Spice Tea: This red spicy tea made with essence of Bhut Jolokia will enhance Magnolia's fire magic far beyond what she is normally capable of, giving her the power to create and throw fireballs and shoot flames. Hopefully there will be some milk nearby.

Cooling Silver Needle Tea: A cold and refreshing tea will increase the senses and speed up cellular tissue regeneration, healing broken bones and sealing wounds.

Spirit Blooming Tea: Want some pep in your step? This one will do it. A tea that enhances strength, speed and agility to superhuman levels for a period of time, just be prepared for the adrenaline crash afterwards. Usually used in conjunction with the African Super Blue Tea.

African Super Blue Tea: A tea with an extra jolt of energy thrown in. Wakes you up and gets you moving, usually used after the crash from Spirit Blooming Tea.

Wolf's Delight: A simple tea made with an exact amount of the toxic Wolfsbane. The drinker will turn into a human/wolf hybrid with incredible strength, speed, and agility along with razor sharp fangs and claws. There's no crash like with Spirit Blooming, but once the tea does wear off, the drinker shrinks down to the size of a large husky dog and remains in wolf form for 2 hours.

A+ Starling Tea: The apex of Magnolia's work, this tea has a 50% chance of granting the drinker amazing abilities that would likely turn the tide of any battle in her favor. However, the double edged sword is that there is a 50% chance of the tea not succeeding and making Magnolia violently ill and practically useless in a fight. Drink with caution.

Teas can be used in conjunction with each other, but will then become less effective.

Agility: Sneaking around areas and climbing mountains and large trees just to get certain ingredients have made Magnolia naturally very agile and quick.

Knife Play: Her sampling knives are usually just used for that, taking samples of ingredients for use. However, don't be fooled, Magnolia can use her knives to defend herself, and use them well. She has two longer knives that she can use to flourish and cut with the best of them, and two smaller knives that are mostly sample knives, but can be used in a pinch as throwing knives.

Minor Fire Magic: A brewmaster might not always have a ready flame, and as such are taught the most rudimentary of fire magic. Magnolia knows enough to create a flame to start a fire, even on wet wood, and also create enough heat in her hands to boil the brew in her vials just by holding them.

Involvement: New city = New Tea ingredients!

[Overcast]

Name: Roland Vandenberg and Arrogance
Gender: Man
Race: Human
Profession: Theurgic Busybody
Description: Tall, thin, with blond hair often combed to the side and blue piercing eyes, and high cheekbones. He is often in a fine black Victorian suit, with grey vest, white dress shirt, and wide blue tie. In inclimate weather he’ll throw on a large black double-breasted coat and on both sunny and rainy days he doffs a wide brimmed top hat. Otherwise he keeps his coat and spare clothes in side bag.

Roland is a very prideful and argumentative man, and yet all at once is a bit of a posh and dainty fop. He is frequently consumed by the state of his appearance and while he does not abhor violence, he is prone to trying to talk someone into submission if at all possible.

He was at one time a local politician and educator of a reasonably sized town. He lived his life with argument and conversation and believed a few well placed words could solve any problem, so when he took all he owned to try to move to a larger venue he was surprised that the bandits that robbed him weren’t responding to his totally valid arguments.

Angry at the world for stating he was wrong he attracted a spirit of arrogance, who claimed for just a few motes of his energy he could add a bit more BITE to his words. Roland being both petty and bitter accepted without any hesitation, and has since been corrupted by his power and intruding into anything that happens to cross his path.

Abilities: Arrogance is a spirit of well arrogance, using Roland’s own as fuel it adds a bit of force to his arguments and accusations allowing him to use words to parry, block and strike like weapons of their own.

Wall of Arrogance: Roland suffers no creature ignore his criticism, with a few well placed words about why he is better than someone else it creates a visible gap between the two of them made up from Arrogance’s power and Roland's will. He needs to criticize someone to make it happen, so a wall made for one person won’t work on another unless he is able to figure out a statement that sweeps over them both. It is also not indestructable, and tends to be weaker if his statement isn't true.

Sometimes Words Hurt: Roland attacks with his words, throwing insults at the enemy that are shaped and empowered by their own emotive response. A blunt truth that is practically all Roland hits like a fist, a remark that actually hurts someone’s feelings cuts like a blade, and a statement that genuinely hits the heart of someone emotionally pierces like a spear.

Gods of Fashion and Haircare: Arrogance can naturally repair, clean, and manipulate Roland’s outfit and hairstyle as necessary to allow him to maintain the appearance that he considers pivotal to maintaining his fragile sense of superiority.

Roland’s power thus works best against people who he can easily be critical about, and whom are used to responding to insults with a hot head. His greatest weakness is a well dressed and socially capable opponent, but then perhaps they might be willing to have a REAL debate.

[Arhra]

Originally Posted by batgirl

black suit with orange and purple pinstripes, a white blouse, suspenders and black boots. [...] She usually wears a black top hat to go with her ensemble and a long black trench coat with many pockets where she keeps many vials and ingredients.

Originally Posted by Overcast

a fine black Victorian suit, with grey vest, white dress shirt, and wide blue tie. In inclimate weather he’ll throw on a large black double-breasted coat and on both sunny and rainy days he doffs a wide brimmed top hat.

Magnificent.

[Red Mage Black]

Name: Cecil Rhodes
Gender: Male
Race: Human
Profession: Magic Theorist and Accidental Shop Owner

Description: 5'8", with short purple hair, matching eyes hidden behind two circular spectacles and pale skin associated with librarians. Normally attired in a cashmere robe, silk undershirt, pants and sandals. The robe has runes sewn into it with gold thread.

Personality: Apathetic at first, secretly opining his current fate as a shop owner. The bookish and studious type, he's often the first to point out certain facts about a type of magic, with the air of a know it all when he wants to be. He's often silent when it comes to mundane conversation, but turns into a college professor when the subject is more in his field.

Background: In another place not this world, there was a prestigious magic college. You see, magic was practiced by those that had talent, but you had to be especially gifted to get inside. In their great library, scholars studied day and night on theories pertaining to the arcane arts. Which included finding mundane uses to benefit the rest of mankind, attempting to imitate divine miracles or exploring its origin and emergence millennia ago.

One such scholar was Cecil, whom had been sent on an errand to a book and sundry store in the city to retrieve an artifact rumored to be there. Such rumors indicated it would help the college make great strides in all their studies and he had been the 'lucky' chosen sent to retrieve it.

When he arrived, there was something strange about it. It wasn't the name, "Into The Beyond Books & Sundries," that got him, but he couldn't for the life of him remember this being here before... or wait, its always been here. He must have been reading into the night again, that's what it was.

The musty smell of old tomes filled his lungs as he stepped inside. It smelled of the old archives, filled with with outdated magic practices and old theories. It was an open two story building, the first level filled with various objects of a curious nature. Magical, but nothing special. Along with some rather mundane ones used regularly in magic practices, so he picked up a new box of chalk for runecrafting while he was here.

The second level was a small library, with shelves filled to the brim. It was pretty untidy up there. Only one person seemed to occupy the shop though. A short balding man with closed eyes and a reassuring smile. As he searched the shelves for the mysterious artifact he was sent to retrieve, he had asked the old man if he had seen it. The man simply nodded and walked into what Cecil assumed was a back room.

It was only moments before the whole store started to shake and the light had started to dim. Objects shook and books fell off their shelves. Then suddenly there was a flash and the whole store had ceased rumbling. As he reoriented himself, Cecil had noticed something odd. Everything was back in its rightful place, as if the whole thing never happened. Problem was, all the "sundries" had suddenly changed. There was a strange light coming from the outside as well. When he took a peek, he could definitely tell he wasn't in the city he knew anymore. Where was he?

A little research yielded some information. For one, the old man had left through the back door. Second, this place wasn't from his world... or any other. The store had a habit of shifting planes of existence at its own whim, to which Cecil later theorized that when business was too slow, the shop packed bags and left for greener pastures. Next was how it worked, changing its stock to match the world of which it inhabited and the fact that there were so many worlds, you could spend your lifetime here and never see the one you came from again.

He never thought he'd see so many places in his life and while business was slow, he was glad for the stock of books the shop had. Some of which he never thought he'd find.

Then one day he ended up in the modern now. Something felt weird about this place. It wasn't natural or anything he recognized. Yet he spent a whole month with hardly any customers and the shop didn't budge. Something was keeping it here? Either way, he figured it might help further his magical studies and practice runecrafting formulae in the meantime if he tried to figure out what it was.

Abilities:
Building Blocks - "Ehem, I'll explain this. You see, runecrafting is a valuable tool used in the research of magic. While you may be able to say, wave your hand and throw fire, runecrafting makes it possible to imitate the effect while understanding the fundamental building blocks used to create it. With that in mind, there is the very distinct chance that you may also be able to disassemble the spell mid-flight if you understand the formula involved. There is also*a possibility, that with this knowledge, you can mimic creation itself. An example, if you will. We'll take raw clay and the runes for water, fire and air, since earth is already represented by clay...." (I think you get the gist. I made it too complex to explain in one paragraph... but explaining things away like this is in character for him)

Pure Magician - Sometimes its simply easier to wave your hand and throw fire, lightning or ice at people without a long winded lecture involved. Including the ability to ward yourself from other magic or even physical attacks. Expecting a man who researches magic for a living not to be able to cast even the most basic of spells is ridiculous.

Tome Attack - There are simply too many books in the store to put up with. Big, small, abridged, etc. Cecil uses them as projectiles from time to time since they take up a lot of space. Talk of breaking the spines and he might throw one at you.

[Arhra]

Originally Posted by Red Mage Black

(Hope its not too dark for you, Arhra. I spent some time visualizing this character, but it didn't exactly come out as planned.)

Sorry to say it after all the work I can see you've put in but I'm afraid Errol would be out of place. This is a fantasy land where a menace would tend to be mischievous rather than malevolent. This city is a very, very new thing, perhaps weeks old, plonked down in the middle of a pastoral wilderness. It's more of an imitation of a modern city. As if someone's seen pictures of one but doesn't have the details down. I am certain that power lines are not normally spun by lightning spiders and that the Underworld isn't supposed to be a stop on the train line.

[Red Mage Black]

I'm pretty sure I have a new idea that fits in a sort of 2hu sense.

Edit: I believe that does it. My inspiration for abilities wasn't as strong this time around.

[Arhra]

The old man was conning him to take his place, wasn't he? Or Cecil from the future! Devious!

Looks good, but could you expand a little on Building Blocks a little? I'm having some trouble sorting out what it's capable of doing.

[Red Mage Black]

Sorry, I got a little carried away when I tried to write it. Its essentially copying/creating spells, dispelling them and repairing/creating objects using base components all rolled into one. If I had to use D&D as a comparison here, it'd be like Shadow Evocation, Dispel, Creation and Make Whole all rolled up into one. Only in the form of script writing.

[Arhra]

Alright, thanks for clearing that up.

I should be able to put up the opening post within the next few days.