02-12-2008, 09:26 AM
Many hundreds of years ago, war was fought not just with spears and catapults, but with magic as well - and the various states waged war between themselves without restraint, confident in this power. The result of this was that their resources were exhausted, and their governments collapsed.
The War of Eight Princes left China in ruins, unable to defend its borders from the northern tribes.
A century later, Europe was plunged into the Dark Ages.
Over the next few hundred years, all the world's magical texts were systematically destroyed, so as to prevent similar disasters in the future. By the time of Genghis Khan's domination of Asia and the Renaissance in Europe, the reality of magic was all but forgotten. For centuries thereafter, even though numerous references to the martial use of magic were discovered in otherwise completely reputable and factual sources, it was all still regarded as myth and superstition until the twentieth century, when one surviving magic text emerged.
It was destroyed during World War II, but momentous discoveries had already been made with its help - that magic was genuine, not just an artifact of superstition, and that the spells themselves were living, energetic things. Furthermore, not everyone could use them: there was an inborn talent required that very, very few possessed.
But the most important discovery was this: when a spellbook was destroyed, the spells did not simply fade - the longer ones might break, and their pieces scatter, but the spell would survive by attaching itself to a living thing, preferentially a human.
Since this discovery, the world's nations have been working to try to restore the old spellbooks by acquiring those who carry these spell fragments - sometimes by legal methods, and sometimes by false arrests or kidnapping - and psychologically reconditioning them so that their spells can be extracted.
The world's largest facility for processing those carriers under the age of 18 is the U.S.-owned Westin Cove facility in Guam. The students there are mostly of American and Canadian origin, but some Japanese and Filipino children are processed there as well. Westin Cove functions as a school as well as a spell-recovery center, since it can take years to prepare a spell fragment for extraction.
The main western campus bears more resemblance to a prison camp than to a school, however. From the outside, it appears as an impenetrable nest of barbed wire, surrounded by gun towers and patrolled by attack dog teams. It's in this place that the story begins.
THE RULES
1. All in-character portions of your post must be fully literate. Your character may use slang or improper grammar when speaking, of course, but that doesn't mean that you are allowed to leave off capitalization (since how do you not use proper capitalization when you're speaking?) or not punctuate where necessary, however. You can be as illiterate as you like in your OOC comments.
2. Respect your fellow players. That means no powerplaying (i.e. puppeteering their characters without their consent) - anyone guilty of this will promptly be punted from the RP and henceforth ignored.
3. Before you start making RP posts, please post a bio including your character's name, age, number of years spent at Westin (if they're a new student, put "0" or "incoming" ), what sort of spell fragment is thought to be contained within them, and any relevant information about their background. Incoming students are assigned to an upperclassman who acts as their "mentor," keeping an eye on them and helping them acclimate to Westin; if you are playing as a new student, you can also pick an upperclassman to be mentored by. Ideally, I'd like to have at least one upperclassman and two new students before I start up the game.
4. When drafting up a profile, things you might want to take into consideration include the fact that the overwhelming majority of people with spell fragments cannot actually use the magic, even if the piece is complete enough to use at all. Mages are every bit as rare as those with spell fragments, and the odds for the two occuring in the same person aren't good at all.
5. Just because the setting is so bleak, that doesn't mean you can't be creative and have fun. Remember Milton's words: "The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven." ^_~
As for my character,
Name: Kaihod
Age: 16
Spell: Complete integral fire component - either a mostly-complete attack spell or a verse from another spell which can also be used independently.
Years at Westin: 8
Background: Kai barely remembers what life was like before he came to the facility - a mixed blessing, since his father was an abusive alcoholic. Were he an ordinary case, he would have left Westin years ago; however, he demonstrated the ability to actually use the spell fragment he possessed - something incredibly rare, since spell fragments are not known to bind to mages. Many of the other students fear him because of this power, and because of how his long stay at Westin is said to have warped his mind - but his teachers know him as a model student, and one who inspires others to be on their best behavior as well. In theory, all of the above would mean he's entitled to privileges far above those of the other students there; however, he's on probation, for a still-unrevealed reason. This is the first time in six months he's been selected to serve as a mentor.
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