NeoN-HNCO Productions RP 3 - ERROR:409 (EWAR/Outgame)

[NejinOniwa]

SO
This is the outgame/world thread. Until we start the RP formally we can have most discussion in the to-be ingame thread, but once it starts we'll move that here. Also, all information on the world of EWAR will be accessible from here.

Now, first of all let's rip the first post of the ingame thread here, since it contains a lot of useful info.

This time we'll be using a stage of a very well known event - the Vassican covert assault on the Halderan Royal Hel family. It will involve lots of spying and sneaking and stuff, but of course also battling heavily armed, lightly armed and all-kinds of enemies - from all sides.

But now, let's hear it for our old heroes of COPYPASTA!!!

First of all, RULE OF SRS BIZNS: Be serious. You'll want your character to act accordingly to the situation, and for that you need a character that fits in (somewhat). Think of the setting - what kind of person is likely to be in this situation, interested in doing something about it? This is to filter away the "XD<3LOL SO RANDOM" entries from your mind, so you can get it right on the first try.

NAME: This one is pretty obvious. Make up one.
RACE: If you're a vampire, write that. If you're an old-school Elf, scribble it down. If you're a three-headed monster frog, punch it in.
CLASS: To go even further towards old-school DnD, the character class now represents your archetype - Fighter, Sailor, etc. Class can be anything between a job type (like cook or maid) and something entirely random (like Vagabond or Homeless guy) - it represents what you've been doing until now, and thus what skills you have gained from this. (see Class Skills)
ORIGIN: Just pick a random spot on the map if you're lazy. Since this can be a quite important part, please ask if you have any questions.
AGE: Once again, pretty simple. Brat or geezer?

APPEARANCE: The general looks of your character. Fatness, pink hair, peg leg or Super-Moe - anything that ways goes here. IMPORTANT: Make sure you write down your Weight/Height here.
PERSONALITY: All random personality traits and quirks go here. This section might be seen as important, since the quality of roleplay is largely based on how well one adapts to one's character. Much innovativeness and fun ideas encouraged!
BACKGROUND: So here you write a little something to make that random island or country your character comes from a little less random, and your character's appearance a little less shunkan idou plot device-ish. Once again, tap away at the keyboard as much as you like!

STATS SECTION: Here you have 120 points to spend away with as you like. The base stats will be:
Strength
Dexterity
Intelligence
Karma
Mind

With the last one being stuff like willpower and stress tolerance. You can have maximally 20 in a single stat (unless you have REALLY good reasons to do otherwise).
The rest will be spent on SKILLS and ABILITIES. Skills can be anything from Swordfighting and Navigation to Climbing or Singing. Most skills are pretty self-explanatory but if you have something that isn't all too obvious then write a short note about what it is.
Class Skills - While some characters will be off-the-road and old-school fighters or so, some will also have had some sort of employment or general work-ism. To make things as simple yet complex as possible these do all come with a few set necessary skills, which generally encompass the same things, you are allowed to compile all those skills into a single value. For example, a Sailor could have the following skills from his job:
Navigation
Swimming
Sailing
and so on. If you character was a Sailor, then, all these skills would be compiled into a single Class Set, sharing the same value. Important is that one character cannot have more than one Class Set at a time.
IMPORTANT! Weaponry skills aren't included in your Class Set - you must invest in those on their own. SP rule: The more you specify your preferred weapon type, the more boost you will gain with that weapon, but also become less and less skilled with other types - thus, being very unspecific gains you an overall equal skill with many weapons, while being quite weak in all styles. (example skills: Weaponry = Very unspecific; Close-Combat Weapons = Unspecific; Swordfighting = Specific; Zaro Usage = Weapon-specific, full boost.)

Abilities are special stuff, like inborn talents or special effects, and can be stuff like Resistance to poisons and alcohol, Natural armor or (!) Mikuru Beam - it's your choice. I won't dictate point costs much, but use these as guidelines:
Lesser 5p Lagom (moderate) 10p Greater 20p

EQUIPMENT: Here's this section again. It's pretty basic - use you own judgment and get yourself fitting weapons, items and stuff like that. I recommend not having too many weapons as well - the basic issue of carrying the stuff is still De Facto (no hoipoi capsules people ). Now three examples of stuff you DO NOT HAVE:
MOE SLAVE GIRLS.
NUKES.
MECHAS.

since the second two are just cheating, and the first one is just NOT ALLOWED. If you absolutely must, then kidnap another player (although I won't be responsible for the consequences! )

Now some advice on BALANCE:

BASE STATS
6 is bad, 10 is normal, 13 is good, 16 is extreme and 20 is way overkill.
SKILLS
1 is total newbie, 5 is beginner, 10 and you've got all basics down, 15 and you're starting to learn special stuff, 20 and you're good at special stuff, 25 and you've mastered almost everything, 30 and above and you're probably legendary and making up own techniques and teaching people.
Powergaming IS allowed, but i'd not say it's encouraged ; Also, a very low karma will make you eternally followed by misfortune and stuff. Karma is important (and lowering it a way of punishment ) and the only base stat which fluctuates rather heavily depending on your actions. One the other hand it might just also be that little thing you don't care scrap about, like Charisma in DnD - but it's also a way of determining who gets caught in the pitfall, and such; In other words, the DM's bully button. >:3

_______________________________
PART 2! GEOGRAPHY/HISTORY LESSON TIME!

Quarmote, a continent roughly the size of Australia. It is located on just north of the polar circle. Mostly consisting of deserts and with three big nations: Two kingdoms, Vassica in the southwest and Haldera in the east, and then the pseudo-democracy of Peltair all along the north. The Motim desert lies great in the middle of it all, separating the countries from each other - the only actual borders are on the eastern edge between the Halderan city Luthisport and the Peltairan Sandisdale mountain ridge, a border stretch of around 10 miles.
In the middle of the continent is the huge mountain chain The Fire Daggers, which splits the continent (and Peltair) in two distinct parts. (for more info read the 422 Outgame thread)


(bigger version)

Quarmote is a puzzling region. It is roughly on the same latitude as Alaska, but somehow maintains a tropical heat all the year - historians and scientists are all baffled as to why this is; the rest of the people just don't know.
Relations between countries are varying. Peltair is the largest of the countries on the continent, and keeps a tremendous economy, since it is largely trade-centered as a nation; Both Haldera and Vassica have somewhat good or neutral stances towards them. Between the two kingdoms themselves, though, exists an old blood-feud that has been there since the foundings a thousand years ago. They are both wielders of powerful military forces - however, their structures are greatly different.
The Vassican military is vast - much greater in numbers than the Halderan - and is a classical warfare machine driven by taxpayers' money commanded by the King himself.
The Halderan military, on the other hand, is an interesting and complex apparatus. It is ruled over by the Steel Council, a unit of specially appointed counselors with the highest one acting as a link and mediator between the King and Council. Thus, the army is quite independent - it has in historical perspective been called a "State Militia".
The Halderan military is big, but not as great as the Vassican in numbers - however what they lack in manpower they make up for in expertise and scientific advancement. While cavalry is difficult to use well in the desert, there is a small unit - something the Vassicans do not have - and the special intelligence operatives of the Halderan army, the Expers, even use experimental weaponry such as acidic and explosive chemicals in combat.

Currently it is year 1317 A.F.K. (after founding of the kingdom). It is only  a few days after Vassican spies assassinated Haldera's king Nikrus the First, and the country is in turmoil, forcing the military's supreme organ, the Steel Council, to take over all national matters. Moreover, the throne stands without an heir from the ancient Hel lineage - thus, the nobles of Haldera are plotting all they can in order to gain more power of their own.
Haldera is currently ruled by Haral Luchnir, the newly-appointed Blade Counselor - that is, the highest of the Counselors of the Steel Council - who anxiously seeks to calm the nation, and knows Vassicans well enough to see that this isn't all they've got in store for their hated enemies.
Vassica is entirely ruled by King Val-Som-Fecitis, 40 years old. Crown Prince Val-Dae-Mahyre, who is 15, is starting to become a force of his own, as his father verdicts - a perfect candidate for a next king, if things go well.
Peltair's rule is, as always, a conglomerate of power between the Mercantiles, a collective of the most influencing merchants in the nation, and the Electives, democratically appointed representatives of the people. The leader of the Mercantiles is currently Radjamhan Vite, newly appointed Elder, and water-merchant from Izcrath; and the Electives are currently lead by Bahartdyc Tal'Aum, a priest of Haelfyre.

There exists two major religions in Quarmote: the Church of Luthar, the god of light; And the "Old Way", dedicated to the god of fire, Haelfyre.
The Lutharians are only a few decades old in the region, but are a great force in other places; They are mostly active in the easternmost region, with Luthisport in Haldera as their regional center, and a few churches around Haldera and eastern Peltair. The Old Ways are spread everywhere, but Temples dedicated to Haelfyre exist in a few places around the continent. Once the temples were great of size and glamour, but some have been lost from man's knowledge. The bigger ones left are Virdui in Vassica, the Sandisdale temple in Peltair, and the main temple in Haelsport, Haldera, residence of the High Priestess. There is also the ruins of a once great temple-city known as Ost in Peltair, between the capital of Izcrath and the Milesvide fort.

IMPORTANT NOTICE FOR CHARACTER DESIGNING!!!
The various magical arts are unknown to the people of Quarmote. The only magic-like thing they have are the Knights of Luthar, who have some lesser paladin-like abilities; and people in the greater levels of priesthood, who sometimes possess some odd abilities.
THEREFORE!
If you design a mage or otherwise magical character, be sure to make him or her good at concealing it - otherwise they'll go BURN THE WITCH! or something.

Now, a word of wisdom from your old wizened Demonmaster. Below posts are from RP2 Outgame thread, and thus may contain character references you don't recognize - if you must know, check the RP2 threads.

Hey, hey, hey...
We've barely started and we're losing confidence? Ah well. Bound to happen. But fear not - now that my compulsory social time is over (I was forced to watch the Eurovision Song Contest national qualifiers with my family ; ) the demon's here to halp! >:3
First off, remember a few words of wisdom from our friend 4chan/b/ - EVERYTHING IS A REPOST OF A REPOST. Simply, you don't have to be thinking in original ways to pull something good off - a good ripoff can do the trick just fine as well, while people trying too hard at originality might just fall into the enormous pitfall of FAIL.
Thus, my tip is to find characters with similar characteristics and in similar situations, and then see what you can use for your own. And while it might sound depressing to say, the fact that there are limits to man's logic simply tells us that most things we may just realize all by ourselves and think of as the greatest idea ever, most likely have been realized and thought before. 4chan/b/ may be the worst place on the internet, an ocean of piss and a radioactive pit filled with scum, camwhores, oldfags, newfags and total stupidity, but just the fact that it allows the more prominent sides of humanity to be openly represented allows it to yield some of the more impressing wisdoms available to its userbase. You just have to realize it.

Anyway. Back on the subject, if you haven't read much fantasy stuff I realize you're pretty hard out, so as another example of a small, tricksy character that still manages to be pretty damn useful would be the Kender Tasslehoff Burrfoot of the Dragonlance series. Read up on it, and perhaps get yourself a copy of the first Dragonlance book (or the newly-released animation) and you might understand what I mean. And while the natures of your characters' structures may be different, I still believe it would match pretty well with the situation.
Other things to look for would be, naturally, similar anime characters; Currently I'm not getting any perfect matches for ideas, though. I can allow you to change some of the elements of your character, though, since you've posted nothing yet - that might enable you to add in one of the classic plot-device transformation-to-bigger-form abilities, like that of Natsume Maya from Tenjou Tenge, Nel from Bleach, and others. This also fits in pretty well with the "moe-powar" element you've put into it - despite it being somewhat of an alien element in most RP situations.

Unfortunately, guys, today I also have some Seriose Business for you. Cue, loads of criticism that i hope to be constructive and not bash you away from this project.
Crucial thing #1: The style and flow of the RP is really, really important. Sorry to say this, smokey-kun, but your first RP post is a typical example of an RP's No Can Do's, especially in a situation as this where you've gotten far far ahead while some of the players might not even have gotten the opportunity to read in on the setting. Also, summarizing events can be really annoying for other players, since it doesn't give them the ability to react - that's why I prefer sort of a "step-by-step"-mode when RPing.
And the second crucial thing I'd like to say here - PLEASE REFRAIN FROM META-ROLEPLAYING.
Yes, it's true that you, as players, know what's going to happen. You know there's going to be a quest, and that a possibility for rewards exist - otherwise there wouldn't be much of a reason for an RP. But think in the mindsets of your characters! That's the most important thing there is when RPing - For example, to take Smokey-kun as an example, what is Crazy Ox most likely to do in the situation he's in? First of all, think of the character. He's a nomad, a shaman, a desert traveler, with a murky and somewhat blooded past. How is he likely to be as a person? Is he likely to be trusting, witty and opportunistic constantly, or is he likely to be somewhat suspicious against everything, with not much knowledge of how things go in the cities? Is the travelling mage Techno likely to be a outward person with a happy smile on his face showing his magic to his companions just because 'hey, they're my companions', or is he likely to be somewhat cautious to everyone since he knows that if his secrets are discovered they might even put him to the torch and set an army after him for being dangerous, and like Fai of Tsubasa Chronicle, never use his magic unless nothing else possibly can work?
Secondly, consider the situation. Crazy Ox is, while not as totally stoned as Eliano, still pretty drunk, and not very likely to be thinking with his clearest head. Is he likely to even care about his companion to the left? And if he would, wouldn't he rather shove him up again, and give him another mug of booze? Would he really act suspicious by drawing a heavily drunk man he's never heard of or seen before up to his room and attempt to extort his secrets from him? Frankly, the only person I can see doing that is Haruhi Suzumiya, and if she was in a world like that she'd have other things to do anyway.
Lastly, consider their knowledge of things. Yes, you know most things about the others' characters - but the important thing is that YOUR characters themselves, DON'T, unless so specified. You as a player know that VonDaab's Imp is flying around under the roof, but your characters haven't even seen her once - and in fact, the only character that could even at first sight recognize that as a possible reality would be Inuchi, and perhaps Techno - neither Ox nor Lenoria-san, or my Eliano for that matter, has any knowledge whatsoever of magic and the such, and at first sight a flying midget wouldn't be anything but a really bizarre hallucination. Just like that, a random drunkard rambling about a stolen boat could with no great amount of cynicism be taken for just that - a rambling drunkard. "Oh, another of those people," you'd think, and just go on with your dinner, perhaps sparing a thought to get him off the floor.
When RPing you put yourself in the role of someone else than yourself, embracing every aspect of that being at your best. You can allow your own personality to flow through - and that always will happen, since nobody is perfect - but you can't let your knowledge do that. I mean, if Luke Skywalker said, "Look here, Obi-Wan, I know you're supposed to be an old friend of my father, but since you're going to die at the end of this movie anyway I can't spend too much time learning stuff from you, so just give me my lightsaber already, ok?" or, "Man the Deathstar wouldn't even be a challenge if I had Strike Freedom Gundam instead of this damn X-Wing!", sure, that would be pretty funny as a parody, but if you saw that in the actual movie you'd go, "Wtf?" and wonder what the hell was going on. Those mistakes can't be allowed to happen.

TL;DR - You ARE your character, not yourself in another world. And slow down - neither Auto-pilot nor CRUISE CONTROL will help you if you don't even know where the road is.


Man, what a rant.

Added after 12 minutes:

Oh, oh. Forgot a few things.

In light of the "Slow Things Down" policy, please refrain from doing too much slapstick-style one-on-one action. It might be okay from time to time, but remember to give the whole group an opportunity to read through and react before you go on. No plan is perfect, and improvisation is crucial to RPing as well. ^^

Also some Syntax-related business: To get some nice Order into the whole business, while writing posts try keeping to the following guidelines:
Punctuate and format. Seriously, bad grammar is such a turnoff. And long, long posts from side to side for rows and rows over and over have little charm, while the same post divided by space and paragraph will be much easier to read.
Individualization by Color. Last year we had the procedure of using color to identify expressions of our characters - for example, dialogue would be formatted as "Character-specific color and citation marks!" and the same characters internal thoughts would be Lettering in the same color, and italics... . This worked pretty well, from what I saw, and is also a way to flesh out our characters more. Therefore, the first and every time you post, pick a color for your char's dialogue and thoughts, and stick with it.

Here comes some info on races and era.

VDB's Question:
Btw, how's the so called "fantasy races" avaible in this world. I mean, is there like elves and dwarwes, etc..?

Oh, there's so many questions now.

How much has gunpowder(or something similar) technology been researched?
And what would the time-era be if compared to this world?

Demon's answer:
First off, the "Fantasy Races".
Answer is as follows: YES, they exist. NO, they are not available. I know, I'm sully, but to explain the situation more in detail, ever since the Xenocide Wars many, many millenia ago, the non-human races have secluded themselves from the outer face of the world by different means. I won't go into it since that's a major spoiler point, but over the world there exist Enclaves of the more prominent races such as elvenkind hidden by powerful mechanisms, while other races were entirely wiped out or pushed to the brink of extinction.
Thus, the nonhuman sentients left to this world are living for themselves - and none at all, or diminutively few, are ever seen outside the enclaves; let alone among humans. Thus it is a disturbingly small chance to encounter one of these beings, wherefore I see it as inappropriate to RP one without the proper knowledge. (Which I and I alone would be having.)

The second and third questions are a bit tricky.
EWAR is a world that is divided. That means other parts of the world have different progress. Also, some parts of the world know of and use Ra, thus greatly differing in their scientific progress as they not use much of traditional science but rather magitechnology.
Because of this I won't go much into the parts of the world off the map for this RP. Covering Quarmote and around-lying areas, though, are pretty easy. Easier, at least.

While gunpowder or any similar equivalent doesn't exist in Quarmote, the Halderan military's special Exper units use a great deal of scientifically experimental weapons - and being a very large economic force in the country, they also supply the market with technology and chemicals. Minituarization is advanced enough to make analogue clockwork devices the size of a normal watch, and sophisticated artificial coloring chemicals exist. Healer Expers have developed somewhat advanced medicinal technology, and some attempts at Bio-weapons and modified poisons have been successful. Experiments with Nitroglycerin have been performed as well, but due to the lack of control that we as well experienced before Alfred Nobel came along, the use of it is extremely limited. Electricity is accepted as a phenomenon and some understanding of its mechanisms exist, but there is hardly any usage of it due to materialistic limitations.
The spread of the technology is thin, though, because of economical reasons, as well as military secrecy. Some chemical formulas have been sold to major merchants and companies in Peltair, as have some of the more advanced devices, but the sky-high import price doesn't make them very attractive products; and Peltair has little ability to produce them on their own. Similarly, due to the long-time hostility between Haldera and Vassica, with the exception of some naval trade there exists no form of exchange at all between the nations - and least of all with advanced technology, which is the only thing Haldera has to counter the vast Vassican supremacy in military strength number-wise.

I believe the Time-Era question is hard to answer, but mainly what's above should answer it. It's sort of a rough mix, something like a 16-1700's with a touch of 1800's and minus gunpowder and plus lots of weird stuff. At least that's what goes for Quarmote.

To remind you all - desert covers 70 percent of the continent. Mountains make up for another 15 percent; they may be somewhat colder and contain some usable valleys, but little land inside - and only the 15% of the continent, largely consisting of the coastline and some larger lowlands, are usable for cultivation. With the exception of the small mountain valleys, the cultivated areas are the following:
HALDERA:
The Bloodmarsh around Haelsport and surrounding areas; Nath, Telum and the rest of the South; The Alyn and Thevan Valleys around Alcir, and other valleys in the surrounding Sakrim Lardomni mountain range; The land around Lake Osine southwest of capital Osinia, which also contains the royal preserve; and the area between Lake Zamicron and Luthisport in the far east.
PELTAIR:
The Sandisdale valley, and some of the lower valleys in the surrounding Watcher's Range mountains; the entire flow of the Aebairun river, from the west end of Watcher's Range connecting to Fort Milsvide, Ost, Izcrath and Sempara;
the outer parts of the Windmarsh surrounding Ost; the canal delta around Izcrath (these things are enormously spread, and are the sole reason for Izcrath's xbox hueg size on the map, btw); and lastly the Thiram area in the west.
VASSICA:
Casa Boña canal delta (same reason for map size as Izcrath); the entire North-west region which consists of almost nothing but small villages and farms; the South-west region around Tavacruz and Tava-di-Mienna; and lastly the vast oasis spreads around Charn.

Needless to say, "Cultivated Lands" in this case means quite forcibly so - basically, everything that's not built on sand will be torn down and replaced by farmlands, even if it's just a single yard. Water isn't too hard to come by, but the vast part of the land is totally useless for growing anything but Cactae. Scientific efforts have been made with some success to create desert-living hybrids, with outcomes like the Cactus Grapes and Hornwheat. Quarmote is living hard, but it's doing it fairly well.

Thanks to the recent invention of artificial chemicals for coloring, people counter the bleakness of the desert with bright and flashy colors in blue, green, red and yellow. The commonfolk don sand-colored clothing in Vassica, and in Haldera dark-green and gray is the most ordinary. Black is used almost solely for the military and royalties, and due to the abundance of minerals sewed-in metal or metal cloth is quite common, even in the lower classes.
Silk is an extraordinary rarity, that you can get your hands on if you're lucky and rich, and happen to catch a shipment of it - otherwise there is lots of cotton farming round the major lakes, giving the somewhat overly warm wool a good competitor. Expers in Haldera also use synthetic materials at times, when they succeed in making them. City people around the continent also favor the Tesh, a small piece of cloth draped around the lower parts of your stomach, just above or covering the beltline, and covering one's butt. Robes are quite fashionable in Peltair, especially among women, and many are lined with metal ingrams and such. Dresses are somewhat out of fashion, and only the old stickups still use them among the nobility, Finally, the Temple Order of Haelfyre have a loose dresscode of black, red and orange, and masking for all higher priest/esses; Whereas the Church and Knights of Luthar have paladin-style white, steely silver and gold, with some black for the Knights.

Gold, silver and coppers mainly fill the roles of coin metals, and also as trading stock in raw form. Mineral names are the same as ours, at least in Imrish - in Nimaxari and Vassican Nimaxari however, they have different names (naturally, since it's an entirely different language).
And the equivalents of "magical metals" such as Mithril, are different alloys that either through treatment by science or Ra impregnation has attained certain abilities. Pure scientifically modified materials are extremely rare in Quarmote as of today, but even more so are the Magitech Alloys, since their existence is unheard of and not in the least understood. The "rare metals" used in common mechanics however, are materials such as Wolfram, Lead and other Rare Earth minerals.

The Periodic table is pretty similar, yes. To make it easy, and yet hard, for me, I've been constantly trying to link together the pieces of the puzzle between our physical laws and the principles of EWAR - it gives me some free ride, but it's also one hell of a work making up magic-stuff that works with our laws of physics - or at least most of them.
Granted, there are some changes in both names and minerals, but essentially the stuff is the same.

Literature is a pretty advanced process by now, and since a few years ago all Halderan military reports are made on a standard-issued typewriter. Not field reports, of course, only those made in base, but still. As I said, the world at large is around 17-1800-ish, so yeah.

And the Arts & Culture department - well, that's a bit of a problem. Someone once made up the idea of Opera, but everyone hated it, so now it's just a singing practice. Theaters are quite well-seen, but exist only in the larger cities - where they do, though, spectacular light shows and some extraordinary Special Effects can be seen in usage, though.
Fireworks are pretty advanced as well, but due to the lack of gunpowder or any reasonably good equivalent they are fueled with pressurized Hydrogen gas or organic variants as Methane or Propane, which of the former is produced only in the ancient Flood Gate of Waterhill, by unknown procedures - and the latter are taken out of organic distillation processes as byproducts, or distilled out of imported petroleum. The trouble with the fuel thus makes fireworks a very expensive thing and an extreme rarity, but the massive amounts displayed at yearly festivals such as Reld Tide (midsummer) and the Midwinter festival Ëlithein Uvéni Eldara (which translates roughly to "Burning the Shining Fires") makes them a spectacular and exciting rarity for the citizens. The process of coloring flames is well known, though - for example, the southeast watchtower of Osinia, Seastower, burns its lighthouse-like flame with a blue color during the whole winter.

The calendar system is roughly the same as the corrected Gregorian calendar - based on an older system from before the foundings of the Quarmote kingdoms, the 365 day year is divided up into twelve 30-day months. The final 5 days of the year are assigned no month, as they are literally "moonless"; neither moon, nor sun rises over Quarmote during the deepest midwinter, during which not even the southernmost parts of the continent gets to see any light at all besides the stars and the brights fires of Ëlithein Uvéni Eldara, which are held during these pitch-black days.
Days are measured in 24 hours with 59 minutes and 60 seconds each, but AM and PM is replaced by the Zenith/Midnight system, Which is parted as such: 00:00 - 05:59: Midnight & Past. 00:00 is midnight, with anything after that being x hours and x minutes past midnight, just as normal. The last 30 minutes are sometimes changed to "x minutes to morn shift" instead of 5 hours and x minutes past midnight.
06:00 - 11:59: To, Fore & Zenith. With 12:00 as Zenith, x hours and x minutes to Zenith makes up this stretch. As said before, though, some refer to 05:30 - 06:30 as "morn shift hour", and give it past and 'fore as for that.
12:00 - 17:59: Zenith & Past. Same rules as above, and "eve shift hour" falls between 17:30 and 18:30.
18:00 - 24:00: To, Fore & Midnight. Same rules as above, and "eve shift" between 17:30 and 18:30.

Astronomy is mainly used for charts at sea, but those are pretty advanced - and the observatories on the high platforms in Sakrim Lardomni, the Hilt and the Watcher's Range give excellent positioning statistics for the entire year. The Heliocentric model has been in use for the entire lifetime of the three nations, and some observations of other planetoids in the close vicinity have given good ideas of how the world cycles around the sun and functions on a cosmic level - however, there exists no real big interest for astronomy as a science, and it is still mostly viewed as a tool for navigation at sea and land.

There are different coinages for each nation, but they differ little in value - and due to the abundance of metal, the coins are almost always made in pure coin metals as silver or gold, with no alloying process. The Halderan Crowns are somewhat heavier than their Vassican and Peltairan counterparts, though.

Being a continent largely made up of deserts and mountains, Quarmote has some pretty distinct wildlife.
I'll let you in on a secret: Quarmote wasn't originally like it is now. Once it was a frozen land, ravaged by Glaecim's twists of mood and the Raevaesh storms. And with little life having been "imported", there aren't much animals that were natural to the environment from the beginning. Indeed, most of Quarmote's wildlife are the results of man-ipulations -w- on the wildlife that survived the very, very swift environmental change that the continent went through - Cactae, for example, are extreme modifications of Fir trees, bred to survive in desert grounds.

As a result of most wildlife being man-bred results of what previously was arctic resemblants, you won't have to worry much about poison. While there doesn't exist much stuff that is dangerous to humans by nature. Cactae can of course be pointy, but that's another thing.
Anyway, the most interesting flora is yielded by the deltas and wetter lands such as the Halderan south. There are few big forests on the continent, but smaller ones spot the coast and riverlands like dots on a leopard. Quarmote's trees aren't very special for the most part, but the abundance of some of the rarer species such as Red Talpfer - famous for its ever-crimson leaves - the silver-leafed Talmian’s Lament, the dark Tulevin and the Coronet Oak - one of the biggest tree species in the world - make its leaven forests havens for much wildlife and also, very pretty. That is a stark contrast to the great forests' stark miles of nothing but Fir - the Corkan Forest is quite close to Tolkien's Mirkwood in moodyness - and the ranges of twisted, stickly, bush-like Fyelborch covering the mountain plateaus, fighting against the wind from birth.
One mentionable rarity, though, is the Ashwood tree. It is small, rarely over 4 meters tall, and its stickly branches yield only a few, dark-green leaves. But the wood itself is worth more than its weight in gold - the coal-black ashwood is very light, very durable, and thus an ideal material for construction of smaller mechanisms or longbows. Its characteristic smell of burnt charcoal also keeps it from being popularized among nobles, and thus exploited and turned extinct.
Also, on dishes. Most vegetables and stuff exists either in normal or cactus mutant form. In the latter case substitute the first 2-4 letters for ca-/cac/cact, like cucumber -> cactabre (ok, spelling change, but whatev) - or potato, which is grown in both normal and mutated form, which is called sand potato.

A few weeks past midwinter in Quarmote means roughly 2 hours of sunlight daily, and the temperature stays at a quite comfy 25 degrees (well, relatively comfy at least) during the dark hours, with a peak at some 30-ish at zenith. Summertimes can peak over 50 degrees in midday in uncultivated areas, though, and since the sun's up almost all day long it normally stays over 30 degrees at all times; with the exception of the high plateaus and mountains, where cold winds can draw things down below 20 even in midsummer. The coldest place on Quarmote is Sakrim Lardomni in Haldera, with the coldest temperature ever recorded there being 10,4 degrees, by the head of the Icy River on the South Plateau's lake - as you can understand, the normal rule of "deserts are cold in the night" don't apply to Quarmote in general, for reasons confidential. Wait, I'm ranting now again, ain't I?

All in all; Nothing in that design covers too little for wintertime Quarmote, as there's virtually no sun to shield yourself from at all - but when the summer - or the vernal equinox, even - comes, you'd better get ready, and pray to Haelfyre for the Expers to have invented sunblock. ^^

News for you guys, it's now spring in Haldera...and Expers HAVEN'T invented sunblock. >:3

Anyway. While we're on the language topic I guess I should inform you of the language status in EWAR. Most of the world uses the modernized Imrish language (which is what in the books, and here, are written as English); This includes Haldera and Peltair. Vassica, however, is sort of like France in their ability to speak other languages than their own. Most Vassicans only speak their native Nimaxari-va, or Varis as it is called among the locals, fluently - aside from those living in the more connected cities and routes (such as the Pilgrimage route, the Capital and the port cities) most locals can only speak a few words in Imrish understandably. Again, think France.

NEW!!!

Ra: Usage among Sub- and Sentients

The force that drives the world forward is known as Ra. It connects the astral souls of the living to this world, and is what nature feeds on.
In the beginning, Ra was one - unstable and vibrant, it was harsh to handle. Life had hardships sustaining itself from this violent force.
Eventually, Ra began to unravel. As trees and plants learned to feed off only a small, special thread of Ra, its flow eventually separated from the rest. And the souls of the living began spinning their own threads from their own flow, it too separated. Soon there were eleven flows of Ra separate from that which were in the beginning - and the flow of original Ra was stable enough to go on without splitting any more. The thirteen different kinds of Ra were known of as such - "By the Black of the First Day's Dark; the White Thread was Left Behind; with Ten Shades of Gray in a Cloud; spawned off the Red Fyre of Origin."
The flows of Ra were named after the elements they empowered. Thus the "Ten Shades of Gray in a Cloud" were Luthra of the light, Vaeshra of the weather, Nimra of the cold, Yalra of the leaves, Domra of the earth, Mienra of the water, Eldra of the fire, Imra of the wings, Aephra of the winds, and Raira of the lightning. The "Black of First Day's Dark" would be Morkra of the darkness, and respectively the "White Thread Left Behind" would be Ra Qinyin, the Power of Creation, the remainder of the original Ra, Ra Phyrei, which in turn is the "Red Fyre of Origin".
(Note on Ra-type names: These are the direct translations of the words' meanings, and thus have somewhat misleading descriptions. For example, Yalra would more properly fit in as the Ra of the plants - while the meaning is obvious, the wording makes it complicated - and most importantly Imra, which actually is the aforementioned Ra type used on the astral plane, having little at all to do with "wings".)

Magic would be the usage of Ra by sentient or subsentient beings to promote their own living and cause.
Among living organisms there exists four distinct categories. These are:
Breathers: Beings to which a certain type of Ra is essential for their existence. Examples would be plants, who are, aside of water, absolutely dependent on Yalra to sustain their life.
Binders: Beings that can, if they possess more Ra than they need to sustain themselves, bind Ra within their astral soul and from there channel it into their body, to empower their growth and own structure, and/or use it to their own wish (as magic).
Channelers: Beings whose astral souls have a Conduit capable of drawing Ra from the astral plane and using it both to sustain their life, and to their own wish (as magic).
Sources: Beings whose astral souls have a Conduit capable of tapping Ra directly from the Flow and in some cases produce a Flow of their own, channeling Ra from the Flow to the astral plane, as well as using it to sustain themselves and to their own wish (as magic).

There are also various hybrids, such as Channelers who can Bind Ra, Breathers who produce their own Ra, and so on, but the above four are the classes all beings originate from.

Now: Breathers are incapable of using Ra in other ways than to sustain themselves. Thus they are the only ones who cannot possibly use magic.
The Binders are varying. While they all benefit from extra Ra, only some can use it directly to their own wishes, as magic. Others merely become bigger in size, or gain peculiar abilities from strange mutations. This is by far the most ordinary case - and thus, what you refer to as "Monsters" are normally Binders with powerful Ra reserves.
A few beings intelligent enough to rise above sub-sentient levels are Binders, but the majority of sentients - including all Humans - are Channelers. There also exist a few sub-sentients who are capable of drawing Ra from the astral plane. Thus, creatures referred to as "Mythical Creatures" and "Magical Beasts" are normally Channelers.
But just as all Binders do not gain Ra reserves during their lives, not all Channelers use their Conduits to draw Ra for their own wishes. This is because of the fact that the Conduit, upon forming, is sealed; The end gate connecting to the Astral plane is simply not open. A Channeler whose Conduit is not open is essentially a Binder or even Breather, since they have to rely on intakes from the existent plane to supply them with Ra. Various Channeler types require different methods to open this gate - for example, with humans, certain emotional factors need to be reached for the gate to open. This mechanism is to protect sentients not strong enough for Ra usage, from doing so - while convenient, drawing Ra off the astral plane stresses the construct of the astral soul, and faulty usage is capable of causing heavy, even fatal, damage to the soul itself.

Source beings are extremely rare. Throughout history, only a total of 11 source beings have had their existences confirmed - of which 10 are known for certain to be left to this day. However, those that exist are as close to immortal as one can come - since they can tap off the Flow, they have access to Ra Qinyin - one of three Ra types not existent in the astral plane. The other two are, of course, Ra Phyrei - since it does not exist in its complete original form anymore - and also, Aephra.
The reason for Aephra's absence from the astral plane, however, takes a bit of explanation.
As mentioned above, throughout history a total of 11 Source beings have had their existences confirmed. The Source beings in question are the ones referred to by sentients as the Gods. While what humans believe about them normally is false, they DO have one very important task - and that is the one of distribution of Ra. For they are the only ones capable of supplying both the existent plane AND the astral plane with large amounts of processed Ra. The term "processed" in this case means, not directly off the Flow - and thus, possible for living beings to handle and make use of.
Each Source being is tasked with the procession of one Ra type - the task of separating it from the Flow and making it into a form usable for living organisms - thus, eleven Sources means eleven processed Ra types available to normal beings. As the threads of Ra from the Flow are vastly different from each other, each procession is different - and thus, one Source cannot, even if capable physically (as in his astral soul can take constant processing and drawing of two different Ra types off the flow, which is HIGHLY unlikely even for a Source), take over for another Source if one was to be missing from their task. And the Sources, as the sentients they are, all have their own interests - and clashes occur constantly. And with the Source of Aephra, Ezaku, the God of Winds, missing for unknown reasons since little more than a millennia, very little processed Aephra exists on the existent plane, and none at all on the astral plane, as of today.

[NejinOniwa]

FUUUUUUUUCK

I just translated a poem to Nimaxari.
It took me 3 hours, and I had to make lots of new words (mostly out of and derived from old ones, though).
I almost died. But anyway, here you go, since this thread needs some fresh meat too once in a while.

TZAKAIAL IRA VIXAYENNA

Y Anath
Phsekaeiphna phrerain xan
Rum bel senmer two R'eynae, skatho two lasai
Zium bain two ureynie, zium anaer two keshain
Eyna lament, qinlamyennai aemorpharain two l'atrom
Aviantin zium moti azan be kaeiqiei luým tarnarainatarlain
Ephardai xalomin, xaroitin, hanlacoitin laxhy chargadia two aiyenai
Azan i anlirthiam alnorosyenna ira jiuza Uhrodhiem zie rehen Ki Kaei.

Added after 19 minutes:

for those wondering why i did this shit, the original (eng ver) is the intro-something poem to Stealer of Memories, EWAR Book 1, and I wanted to know how it sounded in its "proper" language.

[NejinOniwa]

With the main thread gearing up for launch, discussion, characters and questions go HERE. If anyone new wants to enter, please do moar is moar, and I'll be keeping the stage as open as possible, to make sure you can enter freely at any time. Post up and get going!

[Alex S]

Just to be clear, are we fighting for the Vassicans or against them?
Your first post in the game is vague, and has clues pointing to either choice, but seems to be more headed for: "we are on the Vassicans' side."

[NejinOniwa]

Hell no! Sorry, must've been tired while writing; -w-;


Just to make things clear, the Vassicans are the bad guys, and we discovered they were vassicans (which they were trying to hide and sneak us into their lair and kill us) and thus we're gonna kill them and save the poor civilians in their evil lair of doom.


Crappy start, I know. But it gets better. I always have hard times with starting things up, and the LOL IT'S AN INN opening always seems to fail...

So; Kill/Chase Vassicans.

Added after 25 minutes:

And to clarify even further:

Vassicans VS Us + some grunts

[Seamore]

Craaaaap, I've been going several days overnight playing exelica and planning and executing my nephew's birthday, I missed a day. Hope can still catch up.

Nejin, want to ask, you said before that all character are forced to be a party from the start. Does that mean we at least know each other or just at the same time by coincidence?

[Vaereth]

Yeah I forget to ask the same question before to post my topic ;047
But I thought it is logical that if we are in the same party we know each other...

[NejinOniwa]

That might be logical, but the world never is, ne?~

Let's do some last-minute storywriting, then.

As I tried to say, the Vassicans plan to drag miserable refugees together, kill them and dump them in random places in the cities to create random chaos. Seamore's chara, being ex-mil, acquired some reports on suspicious activity around, looked it up, jostled up a gang of people who didn't seem like entire ragtags who could stand their own in a fight, with a few hint-hint's and wink-wink's making them ready for the fact that shit was suspicious and going on. Just waiting for a sign, and it came quick enough, and thus, Seamore is mission leader, sorta, for the Vassican Base Takedown mission. Kind of. Anyway. So you pretty much know nothing (not even names - that'll come later), clean slate, etc. except that you all seem pretty capable in the eyes of an ex-mil. So yeah. Finish shit up as fast as possible, d00ds!

Added after 10 minutes:

Also, I might've mentioned this, but I'd like to avoid the "WITCHCRAFT! AUGH!" stuff in the future, so if you'd keep those extrapolated abilities to a minimum, I'd be thankful. Most Vassicans and Halderans have some sort of minimal experience with the supernatural, mostly from either divine Orders; however, the abilities they posess are damn me nothing compared to what we unleashed in this first pilot battle, so, yeah.

Also, I might've been a little bit too woozy in my intro narrative, the agents were supposed to be like, 5 people, so yeah, the one who launched himself off the cliff was the last guy. Kinda. But, screw that, who cares!

Current status of battle/campaign will be posted here, updated as regularly as possible.
THE CURRENT STATUS IS:
Battle: VS Vassicans
Enemies: 10/15 (1 captured, 4 dead)

Tarak: Rear
Ageha: Frontline, in battle
Alex: Frontline, in battle
Choco: Hiding in a tree
Auri: Off-screen with prisoner

[Vaereth]

Btw do we need some more captured vassicans?

[NejinOniwa]

I think we're fine. Like I said, slack on the Abilities. Regular weaponfighting is what we're to be doing in mainstream...Keep the one you have down and that'll do, I think -w-;

[icerain]

Hello ^^ Should we post character menus here? If so then I will post mine.:
Name: Icerain
Gender: Female
Class: Well, girl who heals people...
Race: Immortal girl race thing
Age: 700
DOB: 4th Month 26th day 617 A.F.K.
Height: 152 cm
Weight: 41Kg
Origin: Another dimension
Appearance: She has short black hair and glasses and usually wears a lace dress.
Personality: She is shy and barely talks. She prefers to stand on the side and support. She also communicates well with people but rarely speaks out.

Background: She comes from the other dimension. In her very very long life, she has practiced a lot of things and is very good at them now.


Status
Strength 10
Dexterity 13
Intelligence 20
Karma 12
Mind 18

Abilities
Healing 19
Dodging things 14
Communication 12


Initial Equipment
Her dress
Some food and water
Notebook

[NejinOniwa]

With all this /dimension stuff, I think we'll be needing some serious change in environment...EWAR isn't supposed to be any S-level slider magnet, exactly. >_>

Anyway. Ice, you might want to readjust your abilities and stuff. Firstly, only the Healing ability is an ability, the others are Skills; "Dodging things" is an acrobatics-type skill which is included under the Acrobatics skill, and Communication is one of those vague things you can throw with a bunch of other stuffs under your Class skill.
Also, all abilities need some description of how it actually functions. You'd want some of that in there, to describe its ups and downs, limits etc. (Otherwise I have to decide that when you use it, and that might screw shit up)

It should end up like something like this:

Name: Icerain
Gender: Female
Class: Healer
Race: Immortal girl race thing
Age: 700
Height: 152 cm
Weight: 41Kg
Origin: Another dimension
Appearance: She has short black hair and glasses and usually wears a white lace dress.
Personality: She is quite shy and seldom talks. She prefers to stand on the side and support in battle. She is a good negotiator and communicates well, but she rarely speaks out.

Background: She comes from the other dimension. In her very very long life, she has practiced a lot of things and is very good at them now.


Status
Strength 10
Dexterity 13
Intelligence 20
Karma 12
Mind 18

Skills
Acrobatics: 14
Class - Healer: 12 (Includes negotiation, medical treatment, scalpel combat)

Abilities
Healing 19 - (some sort of magical healing I presume, insert description here)


Initial Equipment
Dress
Some food and water
Healer's kit with bandages and ointments
5 scalpels of varying sizes
1 big, knife-size scalpel (for combat use)
Notebook

Here, I made your class skill contain both negotiation (which is what I presumed you meant by "communication") and regular medical healing. I also inserted SCALPEL COMBAT JUTSU, for the lulz, in your class skill (don't go without combat skills in any rpg, ever, however little you use them). Use this as a base if you like, or build your own.


Anyway, PLOT TWISTS AHEAD, so look out, folks. -w-

[Seamore]

Aw man... Conection problem really HURT....Hope I'm not too far behind.

[Vaereth]

Interesting to hear some facts about the king's death.  Why he was killed and is there any organisation which is behind of it?

[NejinOniwa]

Not much. The king was asassinated by Vassican agents who had infiltrated the court and Royal Castle in Osinia; Vassica and Haldera have pretty much been at each other's necks for the 13 centuries the countries have existed, so yeah, lol much.

Added after 14 hours 35 minutes:

Let's not speed ahead so much the others can't catch up, shall we?