As loosely mentioned before, I'm planning to make a travelling skyship with a ragtag crew angling towards adventure. What I'm looking for is feedback, additional ideas, nifty explanations to tuck in, potential rivals, auxillary branches - anything and everything! The goal of this thread is to keep discussion neatly accessible, and I very much plan for this to be something the board as a whole can own and develop.
Now then, there are two groups to discuss:
The Faction
Purpose: To explore and study Khy'eras in its entirety.
That's it. I'm keeping this vague on purpose, with the notion that there are multiple branches with more specialized motivations and interests. The idea is that everyone in the faction pursues this large-scale goal from a different angle and with a completely different skillset, for maximum variability in however people want to participate.
Example Branches, pending good lore-fit:
- adventurers, who travel beyond the borders to map the Neverend in all its danger
- scholars and researchers, who unravel the overlooked mysteries of realms already discovered
- outposts, colonies, and couriers, to maintain the push into the Neverend
- merchants, specifically interested in finding and founding the quickest routes between realms
- diplomats, who keep the whole thing running smooth - note that these function both internally and externally, some prioritizing contact with new groups entirely, and others steeped in political intrigue as they negotiate the powers of established Khy'eras
- privateers and bounty hunters, because there are bound to be pirates and fugitives who seek refuge in the Neverend
- Anything else! This list is hardly exhaustive.
Each branch has its own hierarchy to keep their interests focused, with the highest members of each forming a council to keep the faction as a whole moving in tandem. Chapters are supposed to have their own separate, branch-agnostic faculty focused simply on day-to-day operations, however it is frequently the case that chapter and branch hierarchies intersect; each city has their own personal interests, after all, and some branches have a suspiciously high number of higher-ups hailing from a given chapter. Therefore, unofficial branch HQs have developed with a reputation for promoting their own and playing the political game, while other branches remain decentralized and focused on the individual and their merits. Regardless of the layout, branches must accept recruits of any race and nationality; it's only some that have been accused of over-politicizing the highest echelons.
Proposed Names:
- The Compass Council
- The Rose Council
- The Explorer's Guild
- The League of Exploratory Gentlemen (( you said it, I'm putting it up! :p ))
- Any other marvelous ideas! In addition to a name, I'd also like a defining trait, something like a particular colour scheme, a given icon, a flag, etc. Any unifying visual that people can use for characterization or otherwise.
Possible Religious Influences:
- Archaicism
- Ixaziel - Nature, beasts, land, gardening
- Ny'tha - Night, stars, moon, dreams
- Pheriss - Ocean, rivers, voyage, sea creatures
- Idolism
- Ahm'Kela - travel, earth, cartography
- Kelorha - The wilds, fauna
- Lahiel - Weather
- Veditova - Knowledge, language, communication, mind
Specific Wanted
Premise: The crew of a travelling skyship. I'm open to what branch they belong to, ship name, any defining characteristics, and all of that fun jazz! Some of the roles below will vary based on the specific branch, but for the sake of a starting point, I've considered general adventurers and ruin spelunkers. It's all negotiable.
I'm open to the ship's backstory, but I would like to keep the characters as freshly recruited as possible, and I'm very keen on using an NPC captain to start - who is then succeeded by whichever character planned for that role, however they'd like it to happen. My goal is to keep this crew's story focused on developments and growing together, rather than relegating everything to backstory, and the rise of the new captain is a powerful moment that can start us off on exactly that foot.
But of course, I'm open to suggestions if someone has a better idea! Some backstory considerations could be that a difficult sponsor commissioned the ship, giving everyone a source of conflict and a possible backstory tie-in to a few of the individuals, and I think it would be funny if the ship was 'cursed' in some fashion or considered a bad posting; naturally, every single task would be easy in theory, and then 1,000x more difficult in practice because Murphy's Law struck at every opportunity.
Roles to Consider:
- Captain
- Mechanic (( Could reasonably have a few or different specialties ))
- Pilot
- Navigator/Cartographer
- Medic
- Liaison/Diplomat (( I'm imagining lots of bureaucratic moaning about monthly reports... ))
- Field Specialists (( I'm not sure what to call this exactly; they're the people with martial and survival skills who really shine when the team's on the ground, and during flights just kind of help out with basic tasks. Bodyguards, professional cold weather trackers, "I'm really good at not being crushed by boulder traps" - those kinds of people. ))
- Field Researcher
- Logistics (( Cooking, supplies, armoury, additional First Aid - the "don't worry, at least I remembered to bring toilet paper" backbone of the group. ))
- <Your contribution here!> I'm sure I've overlooked some jobs, and in the interest of RP and RL constraints, I think it's perfectly reasonable to have a revolving door of "as needed" people who only join for missions here and there. The goal is flexibility and an open invitation for all kinds of characters to participate, even the ones who don't want to commit to the faction as a whole.
Let me know what you think, and all your marvelous ideas to expand upon this!
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Interested Roles:
- Leiven Loramrai - Field Specialist
- Roan Mohan - Potential Navigator, Face, and/or Generalist; guaranteed Entertainer
- Simon Kinsley - Field Researcher
- Tika - Mechanic & Alchemist