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Hey! So here is the idea I have come up with for the setting/context for our RP. I will hold off on my character profile or any in-character posts until you’ve had the time to review this and add any input, or make suggestions. Also since I am awesome I didn’t come up with a name for the country or world yet, so you should help me with that, throughout the idea summary I just wrote __ to refer to the country. (Shut up, I don’t even care). But yeah, this is what I got so far:

The overall setting is an alternate world, specifically a single country, __ (name ideas?), that’s heavily based off of the time period of the industrial revolution in Europe. As such, the new technology of this country is highly advanced for the context and time period. (Yay steampunk!) Much of rapid development is a result of alchemy, a practice which has been gaining acceptance and a considerably honorable reputation over the past century. The current social structure of B__ is class based, and the presiding government is an oligarchy of wealthy noblemen. That being said, the average citizen is middle class, and although poverty and unemployment exists, it is not a major issue at the time because the country is thriving off of its advances in industry.

One of the major plot points would be the ___’s involvement in colonialism. It is a fairly powerful and progressive country with respect to its neighboring regions and __’s government has secured colonial rule over several of the less-advanced territories. The reason for this colonization is not directly revealed to the public beyond typical mentality of exploitation-colonialism (to gather indigenous resources of the area thus boosting the economy and trade). But the government’s true agenda is to search for and gather a specific compound that will allow them to synthesize the elixir of life. – I am pretty sure I explained this earlier, but it’s basically a mythical item sought by alchemists which grants eternal life.

The government has an organized company of alchemists that essentially operate as a “military” structure. There are two types of alchemists employed by the government: the traditional chemist-alchemist who works in laboratories to develop new technology, medicine, and weapons, as well as a field-alchemist or agent who uses a looser “magic-like” alchemy and weapons in a defensive/offensive manor. Of course within each type there are different specializations and subtypes of alchemists. Many agent-alchemists are sent to the underdeveloped areas after their training to deal with the natives being colonized as well as continue their “search of resources”. Some chem-alchemists are also sent out on duty, but most remain in __, working government-run laboratories.

Another thing that will possibly come up is the various resistance groups. Obviously the largest of these will be rebel groups from the areas being colonized, but I think an underground resistance group in __ is a possibility too. Most citizens accept the government at this point in time, so most likely these people would be seen as crazy conspirers, but it is definitely an idea we can explore and could possibly come in to play. That being said, I personally don’t see the society as a dystopia or anything, while the government is obviously kind of corrupt, most people are incredibly happy with their situation and living condition, and the only people being oppressed are the ones being colonized.

I don’t know why I decided to focus on the society structure so much for setting up this RP, but if you need any clarification on the steampunk or alchemy aspects please let me know. I think we can pretty much wave our hands around on the whole “magic” alchemy thing, there should definitely be some limits. Alchemy is kind mostly based on science and mythology, so we should make some sort of effort to keep it related to that. I think it can work if we are creative, for example, if you wanted your character to be able to have the ability to revive people, they could have some sort of manufactured item that allows them to send an electrical pulse into a dead body, momentarily bringing them back to life or something. (I know, kind of a really ridiculous example but you get the point that we can basically just do what we want “with rationale”).

Um, so yeah hopefully the idea makes sense. I know I kind of set up a huge framework, but I figured we can take it in any of the directions that we really wanted to. And PLEASE if you have more ideas or want to narrow the down and flesh it out a bit more, I would love that. Hopefully it’s not too general or cliché sounding. I have a background and “path” planned for my character so that he can be a part of the major ideas going on in the society and it will hopefully help when I post his character info and stuff in my next post, but yeah let me know your thoughts now so we can incorporate both our characters to work in the setting.

And yeah, you need to help me come up with a name for this ******** country, lol. I was thinking about something that started with a “B” – Bascovia? DOES THAT SOUND LAME? I don’t ******** know, I don’t write, I’m not creative you need to help me. XD

Also in case you were wondering, my character is a guy. His name is Owen and he’s probably about eighteen, much more about him will be coming later even though I have his character already laid out in my mind.

So, thinking about this stuff, I think as a plot hook, or at the very least a quest path, would have to end in the main country, then the main capital. I think we should start off in one of the colonies, for character and plot establishment, probably come up against some sort of resistance, and get given a reason to head back to the capital. This would allow for us to explore all of the environments the world has to offer. We really don't have to narrow down the world. The only thing we really need to think about is the type of people being colonized from my point of view. Like, what is their relation to us and what sort of culture do they have?

Something I like, which I think would fit in, is the whole spiritual vs. scientific approach. Like, the have different forms and ways of using alchemy, but they call it different things and it is a different sort of profession, like a witch doctor as opposed to just an alchemist. Their proximity to stronger alchemic components could be a benefit to them, allowing them to have both different body attributes and perform more powerful alchemy. However, the main country's willingness to use man-made machines to synthesize and combine with the alchemy (if we were to assume the place of colonization had an issue with this sort of sacrilege) allows their's to be both more adaptable and more portable. They would probably be more geared toward offensive uses, being a military sort of state as well.

And here's a bit on my character:

Owen is a young man of 18 living with his moderately large family in the main-land. Physically, he is kind of a lanky, scrawny guy especially for an agent-alchemist. He has shaggy black hair with sideburns is - which he thinks are really cool but actually look kind of ridiculous - and a bit of a peach fuzz beard because he is often too lazy to shave. And since this is steampunk and we are ultra-concerned with cool fashion, I can say that he has kind of a grungier steampunk look. He mostly wears an outfit that's sort of a mix of a military style and a classic formal suit - tattered black leather jacket littered with pockets, white shirt with a tie, a buttoned military harness, and combat boots. (Ok, fashion indulgence over, now some backstory). He grew up with four younger sisters and his single-father after his mother passed away when Owen was about 12. She died during child-birth of his youngest sister. His father works as a laboratory chemist for the government and he is actually renowned in his field for developing some cool substance (which I totally haven't decided on yet). Anyway, this allows the family an upper-middle class life and a good standing in society. Owen has some conflict with his because he is incredibly afraid of disappointing him. Their relationship is quite distant because his father is constantly consumed in his work. Owen feels pressured as the only son to follow in his father’s footsteps as a government employed chemist, but throughout his education and upbringing he realizes that he has little talent in this field. He’s kind of a confused individual in that he doesn’t feel like he is particularly smart or good at anything. For this reason he decides to leave his family without telling them and signs on for training to become a field-alchemist. Currently he doesn’t specialize in any sort of weapon, but he does have a couple items he received as gifts from his father as he was growing up. The thing he uses most often are special gauntlets that give him incredible strength, and because he is kind of an idiot as offense he usually just picks up any ridiculously oversized objects around him and throws them generally all this does is create ruckus and the wrong type of attention. He will most likely find an actual weapon that will be compatible with his gauntlets later in RP. A lot of people in his unit see him as a dopey kid, which he is at times but mostly just for comic relief and because he can spontaneous and eccentric. That being said, he can also have moments of intelligence and real strength. Despite his interpersonal conflicts he has an incredible will to do what he thinks is right and help people. He is a classic “good guy” protagonist at heart he just kind of sucks at actually getting stuff done. He becomes an agent-alchemist in the hope that it will help him realize his true talent in life, which he hopes would make his father proud. He also doesn’t know much about the underlying situation, and given his background he trusts the Boscovian government and he believes that supporting their efforts will help his country.

So, my guess is that RP will begin not long after Owen’s training has ended and he has deployed with his unit to one of the colonies. I imagine the environment to be somewhat rural but not completely underdeveloped or anything. There are still legitimate towns, but the people look down upon the use of alchemy to create weapons or overly-complex technology. They practice alchemy in more of a (religious ?) or spiritual setting, using the elements and resources of their land. In this respect their take on alchemy is a bit more fantasy/magic based I guess. Ok, so hopefully this is enough background to work with, if my character’s situation or any of the ideas don’t necessarily work with your character concept we can rework it, since I feel like I have just been typing a lot of random ideas in the hope that it will work out, lol. Also I don’t have too many ideas on the colonies yet so if you want to, feel free to run with it and include anything that will work to benefit your character’s story or the plot ideas so far. Anyway yeah, let me know and maybe we will actually start RPing soon. XD

Ok, cool! I think that it will be easy for our characters to relate given some of the similarities of their past. I have also decided to name the country that they are in (one of the ones being colonized) Rael. (I'm pronouncing it "Ray-all"). So yeah, give me a sec and I will go make a new thread with my first RP post.