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The rules for magic, as requested, are as follows and set up so as to tie into a viable network of secrecy. [this may be changed per request by those collaborating with me - quite easily might I add.]

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 central 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 the ides of 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 spells.

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 contexts. 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 that require not 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 guidelines. This, however is a rule.

Are we going to decide on an ending beforehand, or have a plot outline? Or would you all just rather play it by ear? I think I used that figure of speech correctly... Anyway, my vote would be cast for having some kind of vague outline. Only because, for just about every story I have tried to write without one, it has ended up in some ridiculous, far flung direction. So... mostly for my benefit : P Of course if you guys would rather not have one I'll just have to find another way to keep myself on track.

Go ahead and give us the idea, don't be afraid to give commentary, as once we know the idea we can tell you if it will work or not smile and plus it sounds pretty decent to me.

Playing it by ear never seems to work, but I have other measures in mind that should give you just as much creative freedom as that might.

I like the idea of a vauge outline, and I doubt that a story could work without one, but we also need a vague ending to reach.

We have to decide what will trigger the ending, otherwise our paramaters would be too few and there would be all mannor of disagreements later on on who is to do what and so on. Where the ending and outline should be vague in most aspects, the trigger should be precise and specific. This event is the trigger, the signal of the end. Before we can make that event though, we need names, we need to know who's who.

This is the part where we make up characters


Should you be uncertain about where you want to fit in this story, see the post bellow, labeled in the color corresponding to research done. Please note that the section of refferences and allusions will coincide with whatever those of you who are writing agree on in the research done section. If you want to add anything to research done, be it some knowledge off the top of your head, or something you have researched in the hopes that it would help you move along in the story, and, or, contribute to the general foundation of the story, just let me know and I will be more then happy to add it under your name.

What I've worked up so far is this:

A girl names Rebecca is the only daughter to her modest father. Her mother died young and her father does his best to take care for her. 4 years ago he got a book off a traveler and became obsessed with it. A year later he died. Rebecca blames the book, but she can't explain why she thinks that. The contents of the book, she thinks, is completely rediculous. In present day she's accused of being a witch and she manages to escape with a sack full of random items and the book. She runs to a supposedly haunted house hoping that those who are chasing her won't follow.

In this house she finds that ghosts really do exists, at least 3 of them. One's just evil looking but doesn't do much while the other two are poltergeists. They try and run her off, but she's stuck between them and the mob outside. One ghost tries to attack her directly but can't because she's wearing a quarts necklace that negates his ghostly capabilities when near her. He knows this b/c he was a magic user in life and explains that is how poltergeists get the ability to move things, b/c of the magic inherent in them. Quartz also negates that but it usually causes the crystal to fog and break and thus become useless. I chose quartz because those are actual homeopathic properties of the crystal, except in reference to energy rather than magic.

Her bag is strewn on the floor and he notices the book and offers to help her. He says he knows a safe place for her to go and wants to lead her to the secret city, even though she isn't a magic user. He promises that he can pass her off as one. The other ghost mentions that he's not supposed to go there either, since he's been exiled in life and death, but is ignored. So her new traveling buddy scares off the towns people and they set off on their long journey.

That's the beginning. I have some more worked out but I don't think it'd be any fun to expose my entire plot first thing. Still, it's gonna take a WHILE for them to get to an entrance that she can pass through. Plus, the main focus point of the story (the book) doesn't effect anything else either. Well.. in the beginning at least. It's not even supposed to exist and very few magic users know about it. Only the old ones who enjoy tall tales.

Also, I was gonna add in the fact that it's a bad idea for a magic user to know a normal person's true name so Rebecca gets a nickname. Aaaaand, my story part will have lots of random humor, because I love it so. No worries, it'll still be action packed and riveting. Because I rock. wink

Thoughts?

Okay, done.

^_^ So first off: I like it. Your outline grasps the basic supersitious concepts of magic that I wanted to make real in this world. You may want your character to have a stronger taboo about the book though. If Rebecca is being prosecuted she should have a strong superstition to parellel the superstition of the society she lives in. Make no mistake, I still like everything about that book and her relationship with it, I am only asking that you be sure to emphasize it.

The ghost thing sounds wonderful, but you may want to describe them more apearing subtly - if that wasn't your intention, that is. Ghosts should hardly be visible except out of the corner of your eye, and even then it should be difficult to see them. Remember I want to make a world where the stuff of magic and superstition seems almost plausible, but just untangible to those who do not look very closely.

ERmm and this last bit may seem curious, but I would appreciate it if you found some way to capture the ghost and put it under her servitude instead of making it amiable and kind. Upon doing so you could introduce the book after the ghost has revealed to her some secret about escaping the enchanted and or haunted house. This is more in line with myth and lore, and also lets you keep some parts of your story secret (in this instance, tricking the ghost into staying with her makes his undoubted faithfulness next to her later on seem like a sudden change in heart and nature as opposed to a ploy to lead her to some place to her own benefit.)

Everything else works wonderfully, and if anything I have suggested doesn't work well with what you have in plan you may ignore it without a second thought.

Regardless, thanks for joining by Vixen ^_^


[psst: by the way, anyone can use magic in this story, it is only knowledge of magic or the lack of it which permits you or stops you from performing magic, respectively. So you may want to call them magicians, but really you can call them anything seeing as most names usually just reffer to people who use black magic, and are likely to be misused by any who take the real meaning of a word for granted.]

Hey hey hey, If you didn't notice, I've already put up a general story line - I'm just waiting for input. I haven't been posting too often becuase I edit the new material in, as opposed to wasting organized front page space.