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I think we should do several man Versus man's (mixed together with the occasional man versus self) and tie them into a man versus machine where several individuals in the city are trying to prevent, or accelerate, something that was set into motion long ago.


hmm..

I only have magic at the moment though, and no substance to fit behind it.

What we need are characters, and the knowledge of where our story is going to begin. Now, assuming we're both entertaining the notion that this should be a retrofitted sci-fi (where there exists a world more advanced than the primitive world the characters currently exist in) I was hopping that we could fit my concept of an electrically powered secret city in the era of the renaissance.

I might have to dig a little to ensure that our outside world appears fairly accurate, I feel it's worth it; I can think of no time better time for magicians and sorcerers to conjure up a world more advanced than their own.

as for the specific characters...well I haven't thought of many. The closest I have to a character, is a wizard who uses a deck of playing cards to create mischief in which ever world I imagine him.

Any thoughts?

Ohh no I'll keep the playing cards, but I think I'll have him use them like tarrot cards on more than one occassion - thanks I totally forget about fortune telling.

hmmm..Im sorry that next part is a fine idea, but I'de like to keep this in the mannor of ancient fairy tale magic, where people could only search for spells, but never explain nor analyze them.

The gauntlets may make a nifty idea though...onlt not to be worn...no, only to be idolized. They could still be the source of the elctricity of this secret city, but I would much rather have them as a figure of power for those in control.... I like it...

hehe.

and when I said "substance" I meant the foundations of the story, but that was really a mistake on my part for not elaborating well enough. Sorry ^_^

Do you have any characters in mind?

[edit: I don't think I've ever been on at the same time that you were when you posted something.]

I'm still willing to work on one, just like most of the other times someone tried to start a collaborative. That is, assuming this thread is still active, of course.

We want to start off with something simple because we don't know eachother's writing styles well enough to do something complex and realistic, or atleast, I dont think we can do it well.


I was thinking of a fantasy sort of thing set in the renaissance to start us off....

but it's anyone's game at the moment so if you have a better Idea I would be happy to adapt to it.

^_^ fantastic.

Don't worry about the research for now (When the time comes I'll dig up all the neccessary infromation and highlight the important parts for everyone.)

For the time being, just tell me what you think the story should contain.

Hmmmmm

I suppose the best thing I can come up with, it to tell you that this world is a place where magic is in fact real, and only unseen to those who do not look hard enough.

To be honest, as a scientist I want this to be an otherworldly thing where magic is granted by means of the good graces of pandimensional beings, but as a story teller I know that this may be cumbersome for our purposes.

Regardless, we must have rules. If not to guide our story, then to restrict and guide ourselves. I will lay down such rules, and leave them for you two to scrutinize. Make note though: I wish the origins of magic to be speculated and not set down in stone. You may give evidence and hints, but I would rather you not ever explain it's true mechanics, as its ambiguity is good for intrigue and a tool I do not wish to relinquish just yet.

The rules are as follows and set up so as to tie into a viable network of secrecy.

1. No person may have pure magical abilities (what I like to call spellcraft) This may be debated and upturned if required, but I would rather have it that a spellcaster requires a connection to this world along with the spell, or what have you, to do magic. This concept is imperitive to the gauntlets being the center of power.

2. Animals may follow mythical mechanics and or magical mechanics.

3. Enchantments can do just about anything.

4.Those enchantments which cause death must require that you trick the target into initiating the enchantment (This is again in line with the Grimm set of fairy tale mechanics.)

5. Those objects which are involved in spells must be exotic or used in an inconceivable way (or else magic would be common practice at this time.)

6. In line with this, a spell must take some item used in the incantation. To help explain why magic is so scarce, this should be the exotic and difficult to find item.

7. Length of a spell is dependent upon the author. For good practice, though, every spell should be reversible. Random spells, however, may be a tad bit difficult to redo.

8. teleportation is hard to do. If no one objects, I would like to instill chaos mechanics in this idea (chaos is a mathematical principle which states that small errors will eventually lead to severely large deviations later on) and have the destination of the person based on something that's nearly random. A practical set of rules would be that the mechanics rely on where the person wants to go, which stars are in the sky that night, which directions that person is pointing their middle and right most toes, and so on into the realm of speculation.

9. Spells should be based on experimentation, speculation, prior learned knowledge and recorded knowledge.

10. Normal people CAN accidentally preform magic.

11. Things like ghosts and other creatures of the secretive sort should remain rare, and only found when sought hard after (or sought in the place where no one would look.) Ghosts, on this note, can be summoned.

12. We have agreed to set up a world based on the politics and conflicts within a secret city. There should be no unexplained (or rather unmotivated) evil. This would not fit well with our story. Righteousness in light of self perceived cruelty is in line with real world mechanics though, and thus permissible within this context. On that note, please remember context when talking about cruelty.

13. Superstition is a good attribute to keep in mind when designing a magician.

14. Love works much like death in that to make someone fall in love with someone else magically, they first have to trick that person into initiating the spell (clasically by way of potion, food, or something a long those lines. You can be creative though.)

15. There may be things found in nature thatdo not require incantation and merely have magical properties (the best example I can think of being the four leaf clover which prevents one from being tricked.)

16. All prior rules were just guidlines. This, however is a rule.

ZOMG!!!

QUICK WHERE'S THE NET!?!?!?!?!?


EDIT THE FOLLOWING IS UNIMPORTANT

by the way, I found this in Encyclopedia Britanica's article on the renaissance:

According to medieval scientists, matter was composed of four elements—earth, air, fire, and water—whose combinations and permutations made up the world of visible objects. The cosmos was a series of concentric spheres in motion, the farther ones carrying the stars around in their daily courses. At the centre was the globe of Earth, heavy and static. Motion was either perfectly circular, as in the heavens, or irregular and naturally downward, as on Earth.The Earth had three landmasses—Europe, Asia, and Africa—and was unknown and uninhabitable in its southern zones. Human beings, the object of all creation, were composed of four humours—black and yellow bile, blood, and phlegm—and the body's health was determined by the relative proportions of each. The cosmos was alive with a universal consciousness with which people could interact in various ways, and the heavenly bodies were generally believed to influence human character and events, although theologians worried about free will.


These views were an amalgam of classical and Christian thought and, from what can be inferred from written sources, shaped the way educated people experienced and interpreted phenomena. What people who did not read or write books understood about nature is more difficult to tell, except that belief in magic, good and evil spirits, witchcraft, and forecasting the future was universal. The church might prefer that Christians seek their well-being through faith, the sacraments, and the intercession of Mary and the saints, but distinctions between acceptable and unacceptable belief in hidden powers were difficult to make or to maintain. Most clergy shared the common beliefs in occult forces and lent their authority to them. The collaboration of formal doctrine and popular belief had some of its most terrible consequences during the Renaissance, such as pogroms against Jews and witch-hunts, in which the church provided the doctrines of Satanic conspiracy and the inquisitorial agents and popular prejudice supplied the victims, predominantly women and marginal people.

Nay I just suggested that there should be a statue there from when the city was first constructed. Quite the opposite from that, the statue should have its hands held up, pointing in opposite direction. This would imply a conflicting intention of the glove's crafter(s) who would have shaped the gauntlets so that they were riged, and in such a shape that they could fit together so as to be holding eachother.

On top of that I had the idea of the city being divided into five districts, each with a grid only extending as far as the districts limits. Each district would have a powerstation, designed during different time periods, to house and utalize the power of one of the gloves. At our time in the story, there will be no history of any person ever have obtaining both during their rule over a certain district.

[I would like to thank you again for that suggestion though - it gave me a lot of ideas.]

~~~

That's really all I have though. I have done some reading and decided that the mid 1600's are my favorite era for the setting. Elizabethan England will be prefferable as an initial location for the city's entrance, but Germany and France are just as suitable. Indeed, there's no reason why the city can't be connected to several places at once; this is magic after all.

I'm open to any ideas you all may have - as well as adjustments, rejections or changes to my current ones.

[thanks again Galladon (your name is too long : P )(edit: your name, in retrospect, is not to long, but the first bit of it sounds more like a name then the fire does -shrug-)]