From PagodaWiki

Over a thousand years ago, the world languished under the dominion of a being known only as The Dark. From the mysterious Umbral they came, the Dark and his Nocturnex lieutenants, and with the terrifying power of their mysterious shadow-magic they bent the human race to their will, slaughtering and enslaving until all the kingdoms of men were theirs alone. Fifteen generations of man were born and died during this time, living their short brutal lives without ever seeing the sun or the stars, the sky blotted out by the overwhelming presence of the Shadow.

Heroes arose, as they frequently do during dark times. In accordance with ancient prophecy, a group of powerful individuals threw off their shackles and, aided by a number of legendary aetheric artifacts, assaulted the heart of The Dark's domain. With their mighty skill and powerful magic they beat back his forces, slaying several of the Nocturnex before coming at long last to the center of the Umbral Rift, where the Dark itself awaited. What exactly happened there is not known, for the heroes would not speak of it after, but all felt the earth shake with the force of it. The Dark was destroyed or banished from this world, and the stars returned to the sky.

But that is not the end of the story.

According to the prophecy, the man who led the heroes would become the leader of the new free world, a High King to rebuild human civilization. But there were six heroes, not one, and the prophecy did not speak of the destiny of the other five. Among themselves, the other heroes came to a decision - in order for the new world to thrive, the leader must be strong. Therefore, they would not interfere or challenge the kingship, directly or indirectly by presenting themselves as an equal hand in the salvation of the world. Instead, they would support their companion and the newly freed human race from the shadows. They would fade into obscurity, allowing the king to become the glorious golden savior while they stood on guard as secret, silent watchdogs.

One thousand years later, the descendants of those five still keep watch.

etc. etc.

Contents 1 Characters 1.1 Heroes 1.2 Villains 1.3 Others 2 Setting 2.1 History 2.2 World 2.3 Society and Politics 3 Plot Arcs and Planning

Characters

Heroes

Just basic thoughts on archetypes for now, will make full pages later

• Magdalene Levins - The Knight

• Nico Deveraux - The Thief

• Rowan Oak - The Vet

• Soren Talgarde - The Mystic

• Serra Talgarde - The Artificer

Villains

Others

Setting

History

World

Elements of Magic (Second Shadow)

Society and Politics

Astra Empire History and Politics

Class and Society in Spiral

Other Lands

Plot Arcs and Planning

• The Whisper Bottle - Introducing our characters: A simple sting operation intended to capture a member of the Empress's staff who has been selling aetheric devices stolen from the royal household to organized crime elements goes wrong when the item in question turns about to be a sentient artifact - and dangerous. (Why was that even in the household? Where did it come from originally, why didn't it act before, etc.)

• A major official goes missing and is believed kidnapped by a radical group. It turns out that this is a feint to draw the Order out of the country so an enemy country can make an assasination attempt on the king's son.

• Wheels within Wheels - Bringing in a major arc villain who'll probably last us awhile. The Empress's eldest son and heir apparent has fallen ill with a mysterious and ostensibly magical disease. The crew stands by to help seekers of a cure until its discovered that this is an assassination attempt. A major, dangerous enemy of the Empire, who is currently imprisoned awaiting execution, says he knows of a cure, but to get it will risk an international incident - an ancient formula jealously guarded by another nations theocratic government. (The formula does not do what the terrorist says it does - what it'll actually do is have him switch bodies with the prince, putting him in a place of power and allowing him to destroy the empire from within. He or one of his minions gave the prince the disease in the first place, they'll stop it once the switch has been made. The formula is actually a Shadow artifact, not a "spell" in the traditional sense, so as to prevent the mystics from figuring it out. From this point for several arcs ongoing the Prince is actually a villain, influencing his parent into what will eventually become a war with another country.)

• Saving Face - A series of murders in the Capital comes to the crew's attention when a major military officer falls victim - the murderer is cutting off his victim's faces.

• The Tournament - The King's Champion is largely an honorary position of advisement, but with conflict with some other country brewing a decision is made to find a real champion to serve in the event of a war. An ancient tradition of a tournament is decided. Leading up to and during this a number of hostile groups are trying to manipulate the tournament to place their patsy or assassin next to the king, the crew must make sure that the champion they prefer is put there instead. (Possible twists - the crew is successful but it turns out their preferred champion was already bought out and they somehow were prevented from knowing this. One of the crew must become the champion themselves, etc.)

• A section of the capital city is "taken hostage" so to speak by a group of radical dissidents who get out of hand.

• Protecting the enemy ambassador, drug problem in the empire (source? magical origin) Main character actually a traitor (maybe just over one particular issue), truth about the founding of the order and where they come from, Each of the CORE FIVE (or six or whatever) has an ancient aetheric artifact birthright from the founding, etc.

• Lunatic master of second shadow abilities finds a way to defer payment of material loans until it finally catches up with him and he attempts to pay by invoking a plague on thousands of people. We find out that he owned/maintained quite a bit of physical infrastructure without others being aware, via this massive amount of matter manipulation that he was stacking up over years. Given that the heroes defeat his scheme, this becomes apparent as said infrastructure comes crashing down. Presents the conflicting theme that maybe the plague was necessary because stopping it killed people anyways.

• Just to note down my thoughts from the other day til we get this better organized - One of the things I want to establish is that there is no right or wrong in many of the conflicts we can go into. I'm envisioning the country being something like the British Empire - huge and nationalistic and somewhat imperialistic, not really evil so much, but prone to messing things up around the world. Our characters, such as they are, are largely loyal to this Empire as a matter of course - one of their little sayings amongst each other should be "Personal isn't the same as Important." Basically they mostly recognize that this is their job and people are counting on them to do it. Emphasis on MOSTLY. There will be arguments for and against throughout.