Life.

What is life?

Is it the act of a child being born? Is it the tragic passing of a beloved elder? Is it simply sitting around having fun with loved ones? Is it something as simple as a tiny kitten mewling for milk? Is it something as dark as mass murder? Is it something so fragile that a single act of nature can wipe out an entire species?

Death.

What is death?

Is it the end of all things? Do you shut your eyes and dream forevermore? Do you simply sit underground and return to nature? Is there an afterlife? Are there gods? Are there next lives? Can a mortal who has died become a god? Can a god who dies become a mortal? Is Death just the next step of living?

Balance.

Where there is life, there is death. Where there is sorrow, there is joy. Where the feeblest fall, the mightiest rise. Where one path ends, another begins. Death is never the end of all things, life is never the start of all things; they are one and the same, an endless cycle of existence. Life and death spiral around each other, inserting themselves into the other side and back out again in a ceaseless dance of balance. The living always die, the dead always live.

The Universe Is Balance.

And that is our Academy’s Motto.

Were you once mortal? Did you live a full live full of love and joy? Did you have a short life filled with despair and sadness? Were you born into the world of the gods by blood? Is your father the god of some world? Is your mother a Planar God, ruling over a Dominion of wind? Are you just a lost soul in the Ether looking for a place to belong? Then welcome.

Welcome to the Ethereal Arbiter Academy.

And welcome to Leyline.

I am the Evil Bunny.

Some of you may have played my games before, some of you may have read them. My latest game was Resonating Spirits, and I must say it was the best work I had done for these boards until now. And yet, it did die. It seems the games that I base off of other anime or manga, or other stories in general, seem doomed to fail.

So at the end of RS, I received many requests to make my own, fully original game. What sparked from those requests was Leyline. This is going to be my first shot at a fully original world, pulled out of my mind from no reference, no animes, no games; it’s all mine. So be you one of my old players looking for another Bunny project, or be you a new player I’ve yet to meet, you are all welcome to apply.

So just what is Leyline? Leyline is a game about gods, or more to the point, about a certain set of gods that maintain the balance of the cosmos, The Arbiters. The threat? If a world has too much evil, such as murderers and thieves, at best the society collapses and at worse the entire planet dies off. If a world has too much good, too many people giving out money, a justice system that is so strict that even the innocent suffer, the same unraveling can occur. Even neutral threats such as limited resources or apathy can endanger an entire world in a large enough amount. It will be your job to tip the scales back to balance, because if too many worlds become unbalanced than the entire galaxy can break, if enough galaxies go down the entire universe can unravel and everything will cease to be.

You’ll fight as god will amazing levels of power, using weapons called Shifts that can transform during battle and a magic system called Runes that will basically let you take simple building blocks of powers and combine them in will powered spells. The spells will do what -you- want them to do. Character creation can be as complex as you wish, or so simple that all you’ll need to do is roll the dice. Role-play interactions will be intense, as decisions need to be made as a group and some gods may choose violence over diplomacy. Beyond this, Leyline will sport what I am calling a waypoint storyline… I have multiple branches of the story written, and as the players it will be you all who guide where the game goes. Want to join the bad guys? I have scenarios written for it. Want to destroy an entire planet? Hell that’s part of the job description sometimes. And if you think you’ll be stuck doing RPG like job board missions for the entire duration of the game… you’ll be sadly mistaken. The job system is only the tutorial for players… the real game starts once you’ve earned a few levels.

This games theme is balance, in all aspects ranging from story to powers. Will you level quickly and take multiple low power talents and spells? Will you level slowly and gain access to high levels of power ups? Will you take a middle path? All things are possible in Leyline. I’ve even got a system in place that will allow players to freely leave and enter the game, cause in my other games when a player has to leave I’ve always found myself scrambling to either make an NPC of an important character or else change the storyline.

I’ll also be doing something new with this game. I’ll be making art for it; meaning that when we hit critical points of the game or have important characters introduced I’ll be drawing those characters or entire manga-style scenes into the game. I’ve even gone so far as to make those amazing NPC only battles either extremely quick so nobody gets board, or highly detailed if the players decide to jump into the battle.

At the moment, depending on the pace I manage, I’m looking at about two weeks before I get the sign up threads up and running, and I’ve got a programming nerd, a pyromaniac ferret, and a weapon wielding fiancé to keep me on track ^_^

Posting schedule will be 2-3 times per week on the high times, once per week in the low times, with extremely flexible options on scheduling for players that might need to go off for a week or two. With pre-guided waypoints and my drawings prepared ahead of time, I don’t see this game slowing down more than once a week in the worst of times.

So, while we wait, I’ll be posting this as an OOC and interest thread. Everyone is welcome to come read about the game, post questions that I will answer to the best of my ability (meaning avoiding spoilers), and check my progress on the game. I have 7 separate posts to complete for the sign ups and a variety of small drawings to go with it. I’ll be posting progress as I go so even all my prospective players can keep me going on it.

By the way, the game will have 7 characters in it, so when you create your character it will act as your audition. There are no reserved spots for this game, even for my best friends, so everyone has to try hard. If you don’t make it in the first round, keep your character sheet, cause someone may leave the game or I may need a recurring villain or three later on ^^

So, let’s open up the floor for questions.

By the way, the sign up posts will be posted as “Years” in the Arbiter Academy. You complete each year by reading the info and graduate when you turn in your character sheet. You’ll be starting the game on your first day being an Arbiter.

=====================

Current Game Progress – Day 1

Game Intro Post – Completed

Game Sign Up Posts – 0/7 Completed

Next Goal – Classroom Year 1 Post; Knowledge (Thread for basic game systems, plots and history)

Looks interesting. I'll keep an eye on this thread though most of my questions will likely be answered by the rest of your posts. This is my way of making sure you know I'm reading!

Woah! I've been looking forward to this getting off the ground and now we can see the runway! Sweet. I'll see what I come up with and I'm looking forward to more info.

I've had an idea for a character that would be perfect for this game... and dang it, I'm not RPing in any game right now except as a GM (sorry APOTD guys, I know!). So I'll definitely be up for it.

Question.

Would you all like me to post each part as I make it, then combine them all into a new sign up thread when its all done? I figure it'll be better for planning and allow people to get ideas as we go, as well as not be bombarded by a ton of text.

What do you all think?

That sounds like a good idea to me.

Well, I guess I'll come out of retirement for this. If you insist.

fine either way, personally

Can't say I understand how this is going to work but it's sure interesting enough to arouse my curiosity. I'll start brainstorming on character ideas while I try and make sense of things.

First question, how is combat going to work, exactly?

Intriguing.

I have a few ideas that might be worth trying out.

As always you got me around. ^^

Second question. How much more powerful will a fully realized Arbiter be than a normal human being? Third question. Same as before, but this time the human we're comparing to is a well trained expert in combat like a black beret or some other manner of military special forces.

I ask because there is a character idea I've been looking at field testing for a while now and whether or not I can use it here is entirely dependent on the gap of power between an Arbiter and regular human beings.

Well, alot of your questions will be answered in the next sign up post Kajin, but here's a basic breakdown to get you started.

Combat is going to be turn based, but very open. You'll be trained to play to your stats, which will determine the base of your ability. Your stat, a number 1-10 (at least at first) will be added to a simple d10 roll. If it's high enough, it succeeds, too low and it fails. Defense will work the same way, single rolls vs single rolls. So say, you want to pick up yonder island and chuck it at your foe (and no, Im not exaggerating, you can do this), the roll will come from your stat for attack power, Kata.

Want to run circles around your foe and make them dizzy? You'd attack with your stat for speed, Beat. Using a magic attack? Rune. And so forth. Actually I may as well post the stat names now just so you all know. So here's a sneak peak ^^

Kata [The Attacking Stat – Effects the Body and the Disciplines]

Flow [The Defense Stat – Effects the Energy In and Around the Body]

Read [The Perception Stat – Effects Detecting Objects and Foes]

Beat [The Speed Stat – Effects the Pulse and Movement of the Body]

Rune [The Magic Stat – Effects Rune Types and Powers]

Will [The Resistance Stat – Effects Rune Defense and Duration]

Fate [The Luck Stat – Effects All Life and Destiny]


As for the terms of power? Well we are talking Gods vs Mortals here. I don't think a mortal could lift an island out of the water and use it at a throwing star =P You will learn more about the difference between gods, mortals and spirits in the next post. Keep your eyes open for the explanation of Weave. There will be points in the game where a mortal might attain the same level of power as a god, but for this games sake even if you were a human or mortal in life, as an Arbiter you'll be a god and tiers above the rest.

Honestly in the original concept this took as a video game, I had the main character on a storyboard layout jam a spear into the earth, peel up a 50 foot thick square mile segment of ground like an orange and flip it over a cliff like a coin to take out the baddies base, instead of invading it.

If you want a better comparison however? You could fire off a tactical nuke at an Arbiter and the god could use the radiation as a topping on his next pizza =P There will be exceptions to this rule in game, but they will be in the people you encounter, not in yourselves. As it stands however, no matter how high the technology or magic humans can't hold a candle to Arbiters.

I hope that helps!

Yeah that helps. Unfortunately it completely scraps the character idea I had going. Gonna have to think of something else.

Useful. But - is it just me, or are these all physical stats? (Except maybe the magic ones and Fate). What stat do I use to talk the enemy into selling me their guns at well below market value? Or to plot a ballistic trajectory for my thrown island over their magic wall?

...wait, that's probably going to be answered in Year One.