Campaign: The Champions of Kar'Kaish

The Champions of Kar'Kaish

This is my proposal for the first true GM-handled RoKK RP. The main purpose of this is to keep roleplaying fun, alive and well for RoKK, and show active roleplaying content and quality for prospective members to see.

The Setting: Eleven years ago, the Goddess of Death, Acria Xes, unleashed her terrible powers upon the land and people. Villages and caravans disappeared overnight, the only markings left being the rubble and terrible signs of destruction. Small fortresses were destroyed, the guards never to be seen again. News and rumors spread from country to country. Many feared the power of this malevolent god, while others were completely disbelieving or actually revered her. The targets of destruction were random, yet the instances drew closer and closer to the shores. Eventually, as the stories are told, the Goddess of Death crossed the vast seas on a bridge of ice, carrying with her a large army of spectres and animated corpses. She eventually arrived at the walls of the Conclave during the dead of night. The Conclave itself, reeling from the results of a recent power struggle, was ill-prepared for such a sudden attack. Their fabled defensive abilities were somehow disabled, and the walls fell from the cliffs as if cards blown by a gentle wind on the side of a table. The mages fought hard and held fast even as they were beset by dead, devilish horrors. The earth responded to their spells by rising up in sharp spikes beneath them, the air by leaving their lungs, the fire by scorching their bodies, the water by freezing them in ice. Many died, but enough were able to hold the undead horde at bay that a small group of the most powerful mages were able to force their spells upon the Goddess. Though it did not seem that she was ever wounded, she eventually retreated, a large fraction of the Conclave lost in destruction. It is said, though, that these mages were so powerful, that they did indeed harm the Goddess, for shortly after there was no longer a sign of her existence. Cults praising her name formed across the lands, holding sacrificial rituals to bring her back, believing that she had simply expended her power. Despite their efforts, she has been absent from this world for ten years, and many teenagers of the day remember when, as a child, their mothers warned them not to play outside when it was late, lest the Goddess of Death take them in the night.

The Plot: Acria Xes never really became a Goddess, let alone that of Death. She simply completed the Scythe of Souls and became the Avatar of Elemental Bloods. Driven by her insanity and her hatred of Sazil and the Conclave in general, she forced her way towards the Conclave, destroying anything and everything in her path. Her fight with the Conclave and the energy required to defend herself from their spells weakened her, and she left to recouperate before going back. However, during this time, she stumbled upon Timilis Maximi, who had a second generation Elemental Blood (Brought about by the acquisition of the Avatar of the Elemental Bloods). By a folly of her own that was designed to simply obliterate Timilis, she herself was obliterated, and Timilis received ownership of the Scythe. She had already attained the status of Half-Life, Half-Dead, and therefore could not simply be killed. The powers of her individual Elemental Bloods scattered along with her ashes, and eventually formed into gems of raw elemental power. Various groups, including the Cult of Death, have gotten a hold on some of the Elemental Gems, though any connection to Acria is hypothetical and unfounded at best.
The main focus, though, is that there exists powerful beings on Ara'niel, or those who have the potential to become powerful, that stand out over their race. Kar'Kaish, acknowledging that Acria is possibly her favorite mortal (and somewhat immortal) to ever exist, and that she was the single greatest force of entropy in a long time, has toyed with the idea of bringing her back. However, simply bringing her back is somewhat against her personal rules, although Acria isn't technically dead. She therefore designed a plan to cause entropy to gain entropy, a concept that is overwhelmingly likable to her. Acria could naturally be brought back into existence as a whole once again if the gems were all collected at a single location. Rather than collect them together herself, she will convince the aforementioned powerful beings to do so more or less for her, disguising herself as an extremely powerful yet mysterious and vague goddess, as well as forming her own god-like agents as messengers. She will also convince a second party of the powerful beings, depending on their relative attitude and “alignment”, to find and hide the gems at the corners of the continent, ensuring Acria is never brought back into this realm. The two forces will act against eachother, until one side is victorious. On one hand, Acria is brought back, and the oh-so-lovable entropy she naturally provides once more gives Kar'Kaish her fix. On the other, the gems are hidden away, but those with the knowledge and/or ambition may set out to get the stones themselves, forcing the victorious force (in this case) to defend the gems. Any sort of prolonged defense across generations would cause younger members to covet the gems themselves, creating entropy within the defense, and may develop into something more. If Kar'Kaish ever bores of it, she always has the “Go-And-Get-Them-And-Put-Them-Together” card to play again. Knowledge of Kar'Kaish's actual existence and intentions are OOC, of course.

The Roleplaying: Characters that choose to participate will be visited by the disguised form of Kar'Kaish and attempted to be convinced by her to participate in her schemes with promises of whatever their ambition might lead them to want. They will then be commanded to do various things, whether it to proceed directly to acquire a gem, or to meet up with others who she also commands. Depending on their morality (more or less, anyway), it will be determined as to whether they'd like Acria to be back again (And serve under her, or try to usurp her, whatever they like), or for her to never exist again. Commands will eventually be given based on those convictions, where the real Good versus Evil will come to life.

The Groups:
Holders: These are individuals or groups that have already obtained one or more gems. These groups will be NPC.
Seekers: Neutral individuals or groups that have only heard of the gems and want to seek them out to obtain more power. Such groups are guilds, cults, and the Inquisition. If there’s enough of a player base for Seekers, then it will not be NPC only. Inquisition is not NPC only by default (Yes, you can make Inquisitorial characters. Enjoy).
Resurrection Forces: Individuals or groups that have been informed of the true nature of the gems, and have been recruited to gather them in order to bring back Acria.
Vanguard: Individuals or groups that have been informed of the true nature of the gems, and have been recruited to displace them as far away from one another as possible, preventing Acria’s return.
Messengers: Created beings formed by Kar’Kaish that are inclined to focus the various groups on the gems in order to ensure maximum conflict.
Divine: Various gods or god-like beings that wish to obtain the gems. Most in this group are Forgotton Ones who seek to use the gems in order to restore their godhood.
The Gems: The gems themselves want to be found and brought back together, and will attempt to seduce others with power to do so, or spontaneously use their own power to do so.
The Scythe of Souls: The scythe itself is bound to Acria, though, essentially, she was betrayed by it. If the scythe is ever found to be without a wielder, it will use its own power to seek out Acria and/or her essence.

Note: This is, so far, a WIP concept. Feedback and suggestions would be appreciated.

I think, perhaps, we should set strict posting guidelines, for this, and this only. As a way of having something that one can "Always come back and read tomorrow to see what happens". Kinda thing.

I suggest a largely "What If" factor taking part here. Being for all intents and purposes Non-Canon and Council-Only. If everyone involved posts as they should, the constant action should stimulate others to at the very least not think "Nothing is happening".

How would we enforce the mandatory post rules? Every trick in the book couldn't get Doom to post for many RPs (That is, if he participates).

Yes, it is a "What If" scenario. It can also be used to test out some things we've been worrying about, like magic systems. I agree.

Like I say, if people don't agree to, or follow the mandatory post rules, they shouldn't be involved. It isn't that hard to deal with people that don't follow the rules.

What do you mean by mandatory post rules?

Sounds like a big high action adventure rp that I could easily get behind...

However a few reservation...

1st and foremost being a lack of any kind of climatic ending...seeing as Kar`kaish herself is indirectly intent behind the restoration of Arcia, and only toying with the people trying to prevent such, it's really only a denial of the inevitable...which is fine with me in that seems fairly epic when you think about it right, but still a definitive 'end times' action battle thing would be awesome.

2nd being the sheer quantity of people and general paperwork needed to keep something like this going. Not really something that can be handled at this time really, but still something to keep in mind.

3rd and final, being a clarification of who would be controlled by standard people and who would be controlled by GM, who would be GMs and who would be controlling who.

Over than that I like it, and I count the days to when it starts!

Thanks MN.

Kar'Kaish is fine with Acria not coming back with the first go around, just as long as something happens.

There would be a definitive ending battle, or at least skirmishes that render one impossible. One side or another will eventually accrue them all, and they'll have to combat the other groups to do so. The Inquisition would be a major player in this as well, although the possible ending for them would be absolutely hilarious. They would bring them all back to the Conclave City, and then, BAM!, she's back. In the middle of the city. The city that she wanted to kill and then was annoyed at when she figured she couldn't destroy it yet before she was rendered into millions of particles. =)

Of course that's something to keep in mind, but it's also akin to something like a DnD or Exalted campaign, just with a scale to have a lot of people. Initially, it would probably just be me running the show, but in time, it could handle a considerable amount of people with multiple GM's that led groups by acting as the Messengers.

The final clarification is in the works, as this is a WIP.

Alright, good deal.

Another concern I just now came to realize would be the over all length of this...just how many gems are we talking about here?

And would we go about doing this before we finished the current event that I semi heard we were going to renew, or are we just skipping that all together and going straight to this one?

A gem for each element, there being eight.

We'll still continue that, or at least I hope we will. The thing is, this will also be non-canon, as it takes place in the future. The actual canon-version, when we get to it, will be a compilation of the best of however many episodes of this event that we have.

Alright sounds good.

When do you think we could get started on these rps then?

When more interest is to be had, and more ideas planned out.

This can also serve a second purpose. This will span the world of Kar'Kaish, and as such, we would have to come up with the different areas, quickly fleshing out the world.

Alright, we've got more interest Chaos, get a general set up going and we can all jump into it...

NOW MAN NOW!!!

'Cept there's just a couple people actually willing to rp. I'll hopefully change that in the coming months.

Let's focus on getting Kirath off the ground first.

Little things at first. [Supports Crom's statement]