Mongoosemg
New member
[X] [Cromwell] Doctor
[X] [Cromwell] Mage
[X] [Alexandria] Biologist
[X] [Alexandria] Wilderness/Survival
[X] [Cromwell] Mage
[X] [Alexandria] Biologist
[X] [Alexandria] Wilderness/Survival
Quest Dymphna Dell, a Webcomic Quest. (Original Sci-fi/Fantasy.)
Nightlord256
Member
[X] [Cromwell] Doctor
[X] [Cromwell] Mage
[X] [Alexandria] Zoologist
[X] [Alexandria] Wilderness/Survival
[X] [Cromwell] Mage
[X] [Alexandria] Zoologist
[X] [Alexandria] Wilderness/Survival
Page Eight.
LordsFire
Internet Wizard
Winning vote:
[X] [Cromwell] Doctor
[X] [Cromwell] Mage
[X] [Alexandria] Zoologist
[X] [Alexandria] Wilderness/Survival
So, Cromwell is going to be a Doctor and a Mage, Alexandria is going to be a full-depth wilderness specialist.
Subspecialization votes:
As Cromwell is a full-up doctor going on field deployment, I'm going to default him to specializing in trauma medicine, because you'd not hire a cancer specialist for field work. He's also trained (and experienced) in the kind of first-response work that EMTs and Paramedics do.
Cromwell's mage specializations will have enough stuff to vote for to make up for it.
Elements:
This system uses an 'element' system. The elements are Earth, Water, Air (Solid/Gas/Liquid), Fire, Ice (Hot/Cold), Light, Shadow, Lightning, and Life. For reasons that will be explained later, Lightning and Life are not options available to Cromwell.
The concepts behind Elemental magic use are very straightforward. An Earth Mage can use magic to push around and shape non-living solids. A fire mage can apply heat with no apparent source but his will and concentration. The more one practices, the more powerful and skilled they will become. As a rule of thumb for this setting's magic, magic applies the impetus (adding heat, kinetic energy, etc), then normal physics determines what happens thereafter. Elemental magic is not 'conceptual,' IE 'light' isn't associated with 'healing,' 'darkness' isn't associated with 'poison' or suchlike that you see in some other magical settings.
(As a note, I've been developing this setting for 20 years. So yes, I've thought of most of the weird interactions you are likely to, and they're largely accounted for, though I'm sure if this story lasts long, some more will turn up.)
The average person has access to two or three elements, and most people pick up a couple useful or entertaining tricks, such as lighting a fire or creating enough light to serve like a flashlight. These 'basic tricks' are about as hard as learning to ride a bike, or to drive a car. Much like how an eight year old might learn to ride a bike, and a 16/18 year old might learn to drive a car, but have nowhere near the skills of a professional dirt bike racer or stunt driver, professional mages are operating on a completely different level from the child learning the basics.
Vote for elements Cromwell can use; the fewer he uses, the better he will be with them, the more he has, the more versatile he will be, but the less fine control with each he will have. Minimum 1, maximum 5:
Cromwell's elements:
[] Write-in.
[] Write-in.
[] Write-in.
[] Write-in.
[] Write-in.
What he does with his magic:
[] Offensive specialist; throwing fireballs, lobbing spikes of earth, geysers of water, etc. This means Cromwell paid for his higher education with a stint in the military.
[] Defensive specialist; Ice walls, Earth shields, concealing things with illusions, etc. This means Cromwell worked part time as a prison guard at a maximum security prison to pay for his tuition.
[] Utility specialist; Air for flight spells, analyzing and purifying Water at inspections and disaster relief, construction work with Earth, things like that. This means that Cromwell learned via an apprentice-mentor relationship, and paid for his schooling doing odd jobs.
[] Enchanter. This is one of the rarest and most grueling skills to develop. Cromwell's father was an enchanter, and he learned the basics from the old man, then paid his way through school taking personal commission work. This is a very lucrative skill to possess, and means he has the most raw power of any option.
Whatever above wins (except for enchanter), he will have reasonable proficiency with the others (except for enchanter). When the tertiary skill vote rolls around, it will be possible to vote to have one of the above as a tertiary skillset at lesser, but still somewhat useful levels.
Alexandra:
Alexandra, as a combination zoologist and Wilderness/Survival specialist, Alexandra is a consummate outdoorswoman. But how did she become such a dedicated person of the forests and fields, and why did this motivate her to study zoology?
[] She grew up a part of a family of hunters and trackers. This means she's also an excellent shot with a rifle.
[] Her early childhood was spent in sealed space environments, and she became incredibly enthusiastic about nature as soon as she was properly exposed to it at twelve years old. Alexandra will get 4 tertiary skills instead of 1, 1 of them must be a useful skill aboard ship.
[] Alexandra grew up on a planet that was wracked by war, and her family was surviving out in the wilds to try to stay away from it. This means Alexandra is somewhat (and only somewhat) socially warped due to being exposed to death and high-lethality lifestyles so early in life. She's also much hardier when it comes to dealing with emotional trauma (the main part of why she is socially warped), and familiar with both how to make wilderness a very nasty place for a hostile military to move through, and how to move through mined/booby trapped wilderness.
[] She just loved nature and animals so much that she became as familiar with them as possible. This will give her a particular facility for dealing non-aggressively with wild animals, like a more realistic version of the 'disney princess' trope.
Zoology is a very broad field, covering a large variety of creatures. While Alexandra has at least basic familiarity with the traits and peculiarities of all creatures in Kingdom Animalia, which group was she more personally fascinated with?
[] Mammals.
[] Reptiles.
[] Birds.
[] Arthropods.
[] Fish.
[] Amphibians.
[] Marsupials.
[] Life of non-terrestrial origin.
(If someone knows of a major Phylum/Class that is worth voting for, I'm not opposed to it being added in here.)
This ended up being way longer than I expected it to, hopefully I didn't forget anything.
Val the Moofia Boss
Well-known member
Cromwell
[X] [Earth]
[X] [Air]
Earth magic for creating pits to trap animals in or protective trenches and walls, creating stairs in the side of mountains so people can climb up, bunkers to hide in, etc.
Air could conceivably be used for purifying or deploying gasses, concealing scent, push a sailboat, etc.
Shadow could be cool, like absorbing light or something (could conceivably absorb radar waves?), but I'm struggling to think of how that would be really useful all of the time like Earth and Air.
[X] [Utility Specialist]
Combat skills seem to be very situational. They only make sense if we are going to be constantly running into violent encounters (ie, every animal on the planet is trying to kill us, or we enter a war later on). Utility skills can be useful is nearly every circumstance, all the time. So I'd go with either utility or enchanter. Dunno what enchanter does.
Alexandra
[X] She just loved nature and animals so much that she became as familiar with them as possible.
Maybe she can tame the wildlife here and we'll get cool alien pets out of this.
As for the zoology... if we're going to tame beasts, then fish are out of the picture because humans spend most of their time standing on something, not swimming in the water. So if she tames a fish it can't come with us. Everything else seems to be fair game. The "life of non-terrestrial origin" might make her better able to tame and perform veterinarian work on weird stuff like floating gasbag cows or something.
[X] Life of non-terrestrial origin.
[X] [Earth]
[X] [Air]
Earth magic for creating pits to trap animals in or protective trenches and walls, creating stairs in the side of mountains so people can climb up, bunkers to hide in, etc.
Air could conceivably be used for purifying or deploying gasses, concealing scent, push a sailboat, etc.
Shadow could be cool, like absorbing light or something (could conceivably absorb radar waves?), but I'm struggling to think of how that would be really useful all of the time like Earth and Air.
[X] [Utility Specialist]
Combat skills seem to be very situational. They only make sense if we are going to be constantly running into violent encounters (ie, every animal on the planet is trying to kill us, or we enter a war later on). Utility skills can be useful is nearly every circumstance, all the time. So I'd go with either utility or enchanter. Dunno what enchanter does.
Alexandra
[X] She just loved nature and animals so much that she became as familiar with them as possible.
Maybe she can tame the wildlife here and we'll get cool alien pets out of this.
As for the zoology... if we're going to tame beasts, then fish are out of the picture because humans spend most of their time standing on something, not swimming in the water. So if she tames a fish it can't come with us. Everything else seems to be fair game. The "life of non-terrestrial origin" might make her better able to tame and perform veterinarian work on weird stuff like floating gasbag cows or something.
[X] Life of non-terrestrial origin.
Last edited:
Speaker4thesilent
Crazed Deplorable
[X] Val
Not quite what I’d have voted for, but close enough to be interesting.
Not quite what I’d have voted for, but close enough to be interesting.
Nightlord256
Member
[X] Air
[X] Water
[X] Fire
[X] Enchanter
[X] She just loved nature and animals so much that she became as familiar with them as possible.
[X] Life of non-terrestrial origin.
[X] Water
[X] Fire
[X] Enchanter
[X] She just loved nature and animals so much that she became as familiar with them as possible.
[X] Life of non-terrestrial origin.
[X] Water
[X] Ice
[X] Light
[X] Enchanter
[X] She grew up a part of a family of hunters and trackers. This means she's also an excellent shot with a rifle.
[X] Birds.
Water, ice, and light seems like a good combination. I was tempted to pick "Utility because there's not a lot of information on what enchanters can do, but the options indicate that it's strong or valuable enough that it alone is equal to a specialization and tertiary talents in other magic disciplines. So yeah, let's go all in.
[X] Ice
[X] Light
[X] Enchanter
[X] She grew up a part of a family of hunters and trackers. This means she's also an excellent shot with a rifle.
[X] Birds.
Water, ice, and light seems like a good combination. I was tempted to pick "Utility because there's not a lot of information on what enchanters can do, but the options indicate that it's strong or valuable enough that it alone is equal to a specialization and tertiary talents in other magic disciplines. So yeah, let's go all in.
LivingWater
New member
hey everyone, the update will be later. It's my fault. I had a technical issue that caused me to get behind on homework. I'll definitely be done by Wednesday night.
Page Nine.
LordsFire
Internet Wizard
So, regular vote this time! What does the team do next?
[] Descend the cliff and start searching the valley.
[] Stay on the clifftop and use the commanding view to try and spot wildlife.
[] Follow the cliff edge. As a natural barrier game trails should naturally run into it sooner or later.
[] Zig-zag between the cliff and the coast to see what wildlife is in that stretch.
You may split the team once, to fulfill two tasks. If you do, members are:
[] Jim (red armor), team leader, jack of all trades, extremely well-read scholar and combat veteran.
[] Jerry (green armor), designated security, cook, and reasonably competent outdoorsman. Also combat veteran, served alongside Jim.
[] Jill (light blue armor), Pilot and mechanic. Her skills don't much directly apply to field work, but she can remote-summon the ship if need be.
[] Alexandra (darker blue armor), Zoologist and outdoorswoman.
[] Cromwell (also darker blue armor), Doctor and Mage.
If the group is split, Alexandra and Cromwell must be split up, as they're the biology specialists. When it comes from dealing with threats, they're all in power armor and carrying side-arms, and Jerry has a fairly powerful rifle. Anything short of a charging rhino has no meaningful chance of hurting them, unless it gets them in the head without helmets on.
Jarow
Well-known member
Okay, if we split, I like Jim, Jill, and Cromwell for team 1 and Jerry and Alexandra for team 2, with the former team being somewhere more air accessible and the latter deeper in nature. So I think I'm going for:
[X] Plan Cliff and Valley
-[X] Follow the cliff edge. As a natural barrier game trails should naturally run into it sooner or later.
--[X] Jim
--[X] Jill
--[X] Cromwell
-[X] Descend the cliff and start searching the valley.
--[X] Jerry
--[X] Alexandra
Current belief is non-terrestrial (does it count as extra-terrestrial if it's on it's own planet?) migrated out of the valleys. Following cliff's edge helps us see that migration, while going into the valley helps us see their original habitat, most likely where density of native life is higher.
[X] Plan Cliff and Valley
-[X] Follow the cliff edge. As a natural barrier game trails should naturally run into it sooner or later.
--[X] Jim
--[X] Jill
--[X] Cromwell
-[X] Descend the cliff and start searching the valley.
--[X] Jerry
--[X] Alexandra
Current belief is non-terrestrial (does it count as extra-terrestrial if it's on it's own planet?) migrated out of the valleys. Following cliff's edge helps us see that migration, while going into the valley helps us see their original habitat, most likely where density of native life is higher.
Val the Moofia Boss
Well-known member
[X] Jarow
Last edited:
bintananth
behind a desk
[x] Follow the cliff edge. As a natural barrier game trails should naturally run into it sooner or later.
Jarow
Well-known member
Quick note: only one r in my name, so it's not going to properly tally the vote you want
