Lies, Deception, & Deceit

(feel free to edit, Chelsea!)


First thing, "Ives" is pronounced "eve"

Now, we do not want bios in the campfire itself, but we still want you to make one, for your own reference, and for ours. Post your char here in this forum and prepare to write a description in your first post.

People in our world are nominally humans; however, if (and this is a big if) you can give us a good case for another kind of race, we will let you play it. Keep in mind, please, that, up until 30 years ago, non-humans were highly prejudiced against and that kind of feeling doesn't disappear overnight. Riordan (the current king) got rid of the unfair strictures against non-humans, so it's now legal to live within Ives if you're a non-human, but it won't have been easy.

All characters must be from Ives originally. If you left, you need to have a reason for coming back.

Magic

Magic in Ives is dictated by the symbol of our pantheon, an 8-sided pentagram. Think of two squares, the first one tilted on a point so it's in a diamond shape. In the points of the compass are the manifest elements: Fire, Air, Water, and Earth, each opposite its reverse (fire & water, earth and air). The second set of points are for the virtual elements, one at the NE, the SE, SW, and NW. These are Death & Chance, and Time & Love.

Priests of Ives worship the whole pantheon, but a priest is especially attuned to one of the elements in particular. Priests do not have magic, but many of them can sense it, and, if they're atuned to that particular element, they'd be able, upon closer study, say what spell had been cast upon the object or person.

Elementaries are places where spells are cast. Conjurers are what sorcerors/mages are called in Ives. Like priests, each conjurer is attuned to a particular element and a conjurer of each element is required for any spell.

Spells are cast with varying degrees of ritual and formality, depending on the difficulty of the spell cast. The object or person to be imbued with the spell must be placed within a pentagram in order for the spell to take effect. If the spell goes awry, the conjurer of the element that is being drawn upon heaviest will take the brunt of the misfire.

For example, healing magic requires a heavy pull on Death and Time. If the spell were to fail, either of those two conjurers could, as a result, be killed, maimed, or have his life accelerated. The harder the spell, the more likely it is to fail.

Before you do any magic, be sure you contact either Chelsea or myself to get our okay. We don't want a whole bunch of super-bad-asses running around, k?

Geography

We're only going to describe in a limited way the lay-out, so there's plenty of room for interpretation and your own spin.

Roughly, heavily-forested mountains form the North and Western border of Ives. The Great Eastern Desert is to the North-East, and there's rolling plains and mostly farmlands and lakes to the East and South-East. To the South and somewhat South-West are the marshes and swamps along the flood-plain next to a large lake that forms the Southern border.

Everyone within Ives speaks a common language, although you can add an accent if you like for your region. Outside of Ives, the currency, culture, language, etc, all change, within reason, of course. We trust you to be sensible about this.


Let's see, I think that's all for now. Post any questions you like in this forum. One of us will get back to you as soon as we can!