Garth Daniels
Human
One Star Bronze Soldier of the Inner Sphere
Apostle of Beladia
-Strength- 15
-Endurance- 14
-Speed- 17
-Intelligence- 30
-Memory- 24
-Senses- 23 +3
Blessings: Photosynthesis, Temperature resistance, Empowered Plant Magic, Pheremones, Hyper-fertility.
Class: Neophyte Phytomagus
Skills: Mana Boost, Mana Channel, Mana Wielding, Spell Theory, Delayed Spell, Recursive Spells
Spells: Control Plants, Force Armor, Forestwalk, Design Plant, Create Fire, Haste, Plant Growth, Teleport, Polymorph, Fly, Shrink, Summon Nature Spirit, Force Shield, Fireball, Telekinesis, Magic Jar
Evolutions: Mana Sight
Garth Daniels is the protagonist, an electrician put out of a job by the changing laws of physics. He lived in New York and worked for his fiancee Natalie’s father, who owned and operated a contracting company. When Garth’s parents fell on hard times due to their shady business practices, they defrauded Natalie’s parents out of some fifty thousand dollars to pay for his younger brother Jim’s tuition.
Jim was on the fast track to be rich and powerful, and sincerely believed that were he to come forward to clear his brother’s name, he would ruin his own life as well, and so the fallout mostly landed on Garth’s shoulders.
Since then, Garth moved to a little town in the middle of Oklahoma to get away from relatives. He was bumming around his apartment, still wallowing in self-pity when the Kipling came.
Since then, he has focused his effort on surviving and thriving in the post-apocalyptic world, increasing the options at his disposal with spells, and increasing their strength through mastery and raising his mental stats.
Leanne O’malley
Human
Two Star Copper Soldier of the Inner Sphere
Apostle of Kolath
-Strength- 35 +6
-Endurance- 16
-Speed- 25
-Intelligence- 14
-Memory- 25
-Senses- 15
Blessings: Debt of Kolath,
Class: Fury
Skills: Combat Adaptability, Leadership, Swords, Bows
Spells: Heal, Flame Blade, Clarion Call
Evolutions: Reinforcement, Intimidating Aura
Leanne O’malley is a 13 year old girl chosen by the king of the gods for her decision to go back inside her school and put down her classmates and teachers who were suffering through the transformation into Kipling.
Her home life left her jaded far younger than she should have been, with an abusive father and a mother who’d given up. For whatever reason, the man never struck his own daughter though, giving her no fear of him.
When she went back to her house, she found nothing but a bloody stain on the ground. She secretly hopes her mother ate her father.
The Debt of Kolath blessing allows her to see at a glance who owes her, or even feels they owe her a debt, and the strength of their allegiance toward her. The blessing is useful in army building and determining a person’s trustworthiness.
The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.
The Fury is a class of fighter that focuses on Strength, Speed, and Memory, allowing for the highest attack power of any class. People that choose the Fury tend to not live very long. Those that do become quite powerful.
Jim Daniels
Human
Two Star Copper Soldier of the Inner Sphere
Apostle of Elle and Markus
-Strength- 20
-Endurance- 20
-Speed- 24
-Intelligence- 24
-Memory- 20
-Senses- 24
Blessings: Weal and Woe
Class: Jack
Skills: Leadership, Swords, Spears, Stealth, Formation training, First aid, Mana Channel, Mana Wielding
Spells: Surge, Bog, Light
Evolutions: Expanded Awareness, Reflection, Skill boost.
The Twin gods of fate only give one Blessing, and that is Weal and Woe. If an apostle presents two options in their mind, they know instinctively which one will have the better outcome for them.
It is a very powerful blessing, but limited by its user. They can only present options they are aware of, and if both outcomes are poor, the user will not be aware of this.
The choice between sticking your hand in a deep fryer or a pot of boiling water would lean towards the water, but I don’t recommend doing either.
Jim compensates for this by habitually offering multiple choices in quick succession, in a tournament style elimination as quickly as he thinks of them. This allows him to pick very favorable outcomes for himself indeed.
The Jack class lowers skill learning and raises basic stats across the board, slightly favoring speed, intelligence and senses, making it a very flexible class, but poor at mastering skills and spells.
Jim used Weal and Woe to guide him to earn the Reflection and Skill boost Evolution to offset these penalties.
Attributes!
A lot of people have asked how the attributes work exactly, so I’d like to lay down what we’ve come up with so far.
First of all, Attributes are multipliers, each point being equal to .1, therefore a strength of 15 would multiply the character’s strength by 1.5
This also implies that Attributes are not the end-all, be-all in a conflict. Arnold Schwartznegger with 10 strength can outlift a child with 30.
This also means that Leanne is at a huge disadvantage, being both female, and underaged, since her output is measured in Little Girls. Her strength is about on par with Garth, a full grown man fifty percent above average, but not even close to Jim, who has the output of two football players.
She’s working out, drinking a lot of milk, and researching other magical ways to bulk up.
Mental stats are also multipliers. A man who was highly gifted before the Kipling came has that same brilliance multiplied. Like Strength, someone who studies and applies their brain more diligently than another can beat someone with a higher Intelligence.
Garth was naturally gifted with an I.Q. of 135, but didn’t bother to apply himself, instead choosing an uneventful life as an electrician, as there were no disciplines he particularly cared for.
This is no longer the case. He always plays a wizard.
Garth’s eyesight and hearing weren’t the best before the Kipling came, and he uses the Senses boosting Status Band to compensate somewhat, but he’ll never match someone who started with hawk-eyes or bat-ears.
Attributes:
Strength
Raises strength. I don’t think we need to go much further into that. Oh, it also provides enough reinforcement to the body to use said strength without damage.
Endurance
Dictates both how long physical activity can be sustained, and how much damage the body can take. A high enough endurance can even stop bullets. Provides a slight boost to emotional stability.
Speed
Dexterity, reflexes, coordination, and the ability to get from point A to point B in as little time as possible. Good to have in a one-on-one fight. Doesn’t require a high Senses or intelligence to process information in a high-speed fight, but don’t expect to write a Phd paper.
Mental stats combine to dictate the power of spells and how they can be used.
Senses
The ability to see, hear, feel, taste, along with how in tune the body is with mana. Senses acts as a sort of flow control, dictating how quickly and easily mana can be used.
Memory
The ability to remember. High levels give eidetic memory and manipulation of said memories. Memory also is the primary defence against Mental magic and hostile shape-changing magic. It supplements Endurance by raising the body’s resilience a little, and healing by a fair amount. Boosts skill acquisition and spell learning.
Memory dictates how much Mana per square inch can be packed into a single spell. This is the attribute that most obviously demonstrates a magician’s strength.
Intelligence
The speed and depth of thought. Answers come easier, people find themselves thinking about things they never thought about before. Boosts creativity and talent along with the speed of Skill acquisition and spell learning. Can have a negative effect on emotional stability.
Intelligence dictates the sum total, or max volume of mana that can be pulled out of the environment for use by the character.
Magic:
To illustrate Senses, Memory and Intelligence, let’s put numbers to a hypothetical situation. Garth shoots a fireball.
Garth uses his Intelligence to gather as much mana as he can, scraping together 100 mana for use.
His Memory allows him to pack 30 of that mana into a single fireball, meaning 70 mana is left over to cast again.
But, his Senses are good enough to flow 90 mana, so Garth splits it into 3, making three 30 mana fireballs at the same time. Only 10 mana is left over.
Garth could change the distribution, make nine fireballs at 10, or six at 15, as long as he doesn’t violate one of these maximums,
Memory=Mana per spell
Senses= Mana at one time
Intelligence= Total Mana
After total mana is spent, Garth has to pause and scrounge some up again, and it would be harder since he's already taken the low hanging fruit.
Evolutions!
Evolutions are kind of a Perk Tree system that people unlock as they survive dangerous situations, or eat strange things. Everyone is different, so don’t ask me what Garth’s is, I don’t know yet, he hasn’t told me. But there are a couple basic ones that almost everyone gets.
Mana sight. A must have for magic users, allows a person to see the mana in the environment, and makes it easier to control. Magic can be used without it, but the person will be groping around for the mana blind.
Reinforcement. A physical evolution favored by fighters, allows the character to reinforce anything they’re touching with their strength multiplier, and prevents people from having to bare knuckle brawl like idiots once their strength and endurance becomes higher than that of steel. Usually used to reinforce armor and weapons, but occasionally used for comic-book physics, like lifting a heavily laden wagon by one wheel.
And that’s all she wrote! Time to get back to work!