Author Topic: Islands of Infinity OOC  (Read 70120 times)

Dragyn

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Reply #75 on: July 13, 2010, 12:37:26 AM
This sounds like my kind of character.

Let me try my hand at a character write up:


Name:        Kyan Entierus
Affinity:    Luck
Age:         21
Occupation:  Street Magician/Gambler


Description:   
      Kyan usually represents himself as a humanoid cat, either a short furred tan with lots of
       jewelry, or a mid-length furred black with mismatched eyes, one yellow, one green. 
      He has only minor magical abilities, which are limited to basic cantrips and magic tricks,
       which he has augmented by use of sleight of hand and his own natural luck.
      
Affinity Details:
      Kyan's affinity allows him to take the forms of animals and elements oft associated with
       luck, both good and ill,  such as cats , Raccoons, coyote, rabbits, elephants, goldfish, water,
       and lightning, to some degree.  His aura is one of pure luck, however, this luck will usually
      come in streaks, and his form tends to change based on this, though usually only when he
       actively does so. (He will, for example, switch to the black cat form when he reads his luck
       as ill).  He can read his own luck reliably most of the time, since his income and survival
       relies on knowing when to fold, or when to run.
      
      He has almost no control over other people's luck, though some people think of him as a
      lucky charm.
      
Clothing:
      Kyan prefers loose fitting clothing, often wearing a long, open fronted jacket and loose
       fitting pants.   His fingerless red leather gloves, which are buckled on halfway to his elbow,
        and his wide brimmed, droopy hats tend to remain as anything even close to a constant,
       and he often loses hats.
      
Equipment:
      Kyan carries with him no less than three decks of cards at any time, each concealed in a
       pocket somewhere on his person.
       One is a standard deck of playing cards.   
      The second is a modified deck of cards, pre-prepared for stacking the deck for magic tricks.
      The third is a complete  deck of tarot cards, including the Major Arcana.  This deck he made
       and maintains himself, replacing lost cards as needed. 
      
      He also carries several sets of dice, with both standard and weighted/rigged versions of
      each.
      
      Should he get in a fight, Kyan's actions depend on his luck.  If his luck is ill, he tries
      to stay close to his opponent, fighting with the armored knuckles of his gloves, and any
       natural  weapons or abilities his form possesses.  In case of good luck, Kyan tries to keep
       his aura away from his opponent (and close to any allies he may have for the moment),
       mostly evading and harassing the enemy with (hopefully) luck-laden stones and bones,
       which generally absorb only trace amounts of his aura, thrown with a practiced hand.
      
      The stones and bones can also be used in fortune telling and dice games, though he usually
       only uses them when his own luck is leaning towards bad.

Location:
      Kyan is a wanderer.   He makes his living as a street magician, staying in one town while his
       luck is good, and either moving between towns or hovering at the outskirts should his luck
      turn.


Everything look good?



Stormkit

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Reply #76 on: July 13, 2010, 01:56:44 AM
Well there's a few points I may want to look over, but I think that's generally approved. Specifically I'm wondering about how accurate to make your tarot deck, whether to give you any pieces of magitech, if those two things previous will be related, and whether I'll let you retain such control over your own luck. You should probably know that the level of magic you mentioned is actually about average. Average by median that is, not by mean.

As for the tarot deck... this is what I'm thinking so far and I'll let you decide if you like this. The deck itself is a bunch of blank cards tuned to one master card which needs to be kept in the deck for it to work, but is almost never drawn itself. Tuning a blank card to the master card should be simple enough for your character to manage, so if you lose cards you can replace them. When a card is drawn and revealed, it takes on an image. It runs on aura of course, but it's picky and will only work right with certain auras that are related to it. Luck happens to be one of them. Precision and darkness are most definitely not. Images that appear will typically be what you'd find in a regular tarot deck with varying styles, but the occasional oddball will crop up every so often. You can pick the image and significance of the master card. This idea is sorta flexible and if you want to change anything make a suggestion and I'll see what works.

Of the four elements,
None is predominant.
Of the four seasons,
None lasts forever.


Dragyn

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Reply #77 on: July 13, 2010, 05:52:59 AM
I am aware that his magic is average.  My intention was to have him not reliant on magic, not to have him not use it at all.

I had assumed that the tarot deck was a handmade deck with no magic at all, but your idea works, too.  If I get to choose, I think I'd assign the master card to the Fool of Fortune, the luck card.  I suspect that the image on it would be himself, stylized like the rest of the deck.

The only thing I had given him that was magitech at all was the bag of luck-aura-soaked bones, but even that is optional.



Jonas

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Reply #78 on: July 13, 2010, 09:13:59 AM
Speaking of magic, what kind of forms would someone with a magic affinity be associated with, anyway? Not that big a deal, but the whole magic/magical/spelltouched/feytouched thing got me curious.

"Technically speaking, phoenixes are actually pretty flammable." --Donnie


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Reply #79 on: July 13, 2010, 12:43:35 PM
I am shocked I didn't pick up on the fact that you had set up the bag of bones to be like your magitech. The tarot will essentially serve the same purpose but will be (IMO) infinitely cooler. You can still flip lucky coins at intersections though.

Right, and back to the magic question. I don't know about Spelltouched, but Magic itself would probably be a bit different from Wizard, but not too much. Basically the emphasis would be on animals associated with magic instead of just Wizards and of course different flavor. An example would be that wizard's wood golem form would probably look a lot like his staff with no leaves on it while a magic's wood golem form would look more like an ent. Actually in general the wizard's element forms would look like himself while the magic's would look like the element came to life somehow. Similarly animal forms would generally look more wild and untamed for magic than for wizard. A prime example of differing forms would be the fox, which by japanese lore are pretty darned magical, but aren't actually associated with wizards all that much at all. On the counter, wizards like having small birds of prey such as merlins as familiars sometimes, but aside from that they are hardly magical. Does this sufficiently answer your question?
« Last Edit: July 13, 2010, 12:52:33 PM by Stormkit »

Of the four elements,
None is predominant.
Of the four seasons,
None lasts forever.


Jonas

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Reply #80 on: July 13, 2010, 01:22:32 PM
Oh, and about maps, even though there wouldn't be anything like road maps outside of those for specific islands, wouldn't there be a way to know the relative positions of where the islands are? It just seems that it would be very awkward for, say, a delivery ship, not to have a way of finding out if their destination has moved.
« Last Edit: July 13, 2010, 02:01:24 PM by Jonas »

"Technically speaking, phoenixes are actually pretty flammable." --Donnie


Dragyn

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Reply #81 on: July 13, 2010, 03:43:34 PM
So wait, just to be sure I'm reading your commentary right:

You were under the impression that the tarot cards were also his ranged weapon?  While I don't doubt he could, I hadn't really considered that.

Actually, I might do that.  He's still gonna' carry a bag of bones, though, whether they're magitech or not.



Jonas

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Reply #82 on: July 13, 2010, 04:00:00 PM
Could always just club someone with them too *tailwags*

"Technically speaking, phoenixes are actually pretty flammable." --Donnie


Dragyn

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Reply #83 on: July 13, 2010, 04:03:14 PM
Yup.  Wouldn't be the first time a bag full of bones was used as a makeshift sap.



Stormkit

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Reply #84 on: July 13, 2010, 05:05:41 PM
Oh heavens no! One does not toss cards around as a weapon. Not unless you're Gambit or have some other really good reason to be doing so. I'll accept stones and bones as a ranged weapon, but keep in mind that even with a lot of luck they won't do much damage.

Andd..... update!

Geary brought this up in the chat room, and it led to a whole new line of thought, so here goes. Air is everywhere, so that's not a problem. Fire can pretty much do whatever the heck it wants, though I don't really know how environment temperature will work out. Earth is of course already accounted for in form of the islands. But water just kinda goes down hill and thus will probably never stay on any island for long, so I've had to move things around a bit.

Basically I tied it into how islands get formed. A fundamental property of rock and dirt in this universe is that it has a linear gravity. Earth is sort of generic, so maybe I'll choose a certain element in particular that is abundant and spread pretty evenly through dirt, but meh. So this dirt has gravity, and when pieces of dirt with alligned gravity (same direction) come near each other, they tend to stick together. In this manner an island will grow. Now after a while... no one's quite sure what determines it though it's theorized it has to do with the inner structure of the island and where the dirt falls in respect to itself (like the difference between graphite and diamonds), the island will deem itself complete and will stop attracting new pieces and somehow its nature will change to retain what it has. Part of this process also involves the properties of the island. Is it constantly on fire? A jungle? A desert? Does its gravity periodically flip? Is it just a hunk of rock? Stuff like that.

Part of these properties also determine things like general temperature and whether or not there is water. Water might be repelled from the island or it might somehow float on the sides like an actual ocean on the shores. Maybe it cascades in an endless waterfall off the side and looping to above the form an endless cycle. This is basically me handwaving the need to explain why water doesn't just flow off the edge and never come back. Another note I came up with is that islands with similar properties will draw each other close, though due to the same reason they don't continue to collect dirt they won't actually bind to each other. (usually, there are always exceptions) As for how islands retain their mass, anything that gets kicked off an island will inevitably be drawn back to that island. Things can be moved around on the same island, placed on top, such things as that (it's how houses are made!) but you usually can't take anything of the island off the island without having trouble.

On a plus note, this means an island can be shattered into pieces and still be drawn back together. Plus it's usual for a person to navigate by means of a rock collection of pebbles from different islands. It's also common for people to carry a pebble on a string around their neck from their home island. The bigger the chunk, the harder it's drawn back to the center where it came from. It is worth noting that the central island doesn't try to collect its pieces so people with pebbles on their necks don't randomly get hit by large chunks of rocks. In cases of island breakage, the pieces will converge at the center of mass. It gets a little complicated when you try to figure out which pieces count as island and which ones don't, but trust me that it works.

Of the four elements,
None is predominant.
Of the four seasons,
None lasts forever.


Jonas

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Reply #85 on: July 13, 2010, 06:35:45 PM
Sounds good. These "rogue" pieces of fire/water/earth, are they like motes or are they just free-floating pieces of that element?

"Technically speaking, phoenixes are actually pretty flammable." --Donnie


Dragyn

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Reply #86 on: July 13, 2010, 07:55:35 PM
I don't expect the bones/dice to do a lot of damage, anyway.  Maybe I'll pick up a slingshot.

Still, I'd prefer throwing dice to cards.

I'd prefer to fight close, but I want to keep my good luck away from those fighting me, so a ranged attack, even if only for harassing, is necessary sometimes.


So...as a traveler, I suppose Kyan needs at least a few of these homing rocks to carry.  Could some of his dice serve such a purpose, as well?  'Cuz that would seem to be one way to weight a die...



Stormkit

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Reply #87 on: July 14, 2010, 12:11:54 AM
I have no idea what you're asking about 'rogue' whatever, but it certainly has nothing to do with motes. That's for lite and dark only.

Homing spells to guide aim should be just a quick cantrip and you can get a slingshot that does that for free. You'll just need to let it know what the target is. I wouldn't recommend throwing dice at people as they're harder to come by than regular rocks. Aside from that, if you don't really want the tarot deck let me know and maybe we can come up with something else.

Of the four elements,
None is predominant.
Of the four seasons,
None lasts forever.


Dragyn

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Reply #88 on: July 14, 2010, 02:48:40 AM
No, no, I quite like the tarot deck.

I think he'll keep a simple magical slingshot on hand for ranged attacking, yes.  What I meant by "homing" was that some of his dice might be part of some islands, and so he could use them to navigate back to those islands.



Stormkit

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Reply #89 on: July 14, 2010, 03:45:17 AM
OH! Yes, that is a nifty touch. A bit bigger than your typical 'home guide' (or whatever you wanna call it) so it'll probably not lie flat on you unless they're hollow or really small or something. Most of these are pretty small and will only actually indicate a direction in zero g. Typical dice would be heavy enough to lift an arc of maybe 5 degrees or so. (I will assume I worded this clearly enough to make sense even though I'm fairly certain I did not.)

Of the four elements,
None is predominant.
Of the four seasons,
None lasts forever.