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Revision as of 01:21, 28 June 2009

NewHorizons is a continuation of the Darkabode, Orphic, ThirdCity, and Epic RP's. Much of the original structure of DarkAbode was maintained in the creation of NewHorizons, though much has been added as well. For a brief introduction into some of the differences between this RP and its predecessor, you can view this log (please note, however, that this log is only a brief overview, and will thus not provide all the details about the RP).

Rules

NewHorizons follows most of the same basic rules as the DarkAbode.

1. This RP has a no tolerance policy for God Mode roleplaying. God Mode roleplaying is most simply defined as ownership of a character who is a God and/or a character which can perform God-like feats with no visible effort. The only Gods or God-like characters permitted are under the control of Caelestia.net, Artix Entertainment, or the NewHorizons staff. Players may not enter God-level characters into the RP.
2. Do not bunny other characters. Bunnying typically consists of allowing your character to successfully control the movements of another player's character against that player's will. It's notable that this rule does not apply in reverse, if necessary the staff of NewHorizons reserve the right to bunny your characters at any time for any reason.
3. Character consistency is a must. Your character's behavior, mannerisms, mood, etc should not change overnight. Unless your character has already been shown to be consistently and dangerously erratic.
4. Violence against other player characters may be met with reprisals as deemed necessary by the NewHorizons staff.
5. Do not disrupt the enjoyment of the other players.
6. Any gains in power must be acquired in-character through the mechanics in place for such (see the Obtaining Equipment and Training section). Determining new powers for your characters on your own will be met with severe punishments.
7. The staff of NewHorizons have the final say in all matters surrounding the RP. Players are welcome to appeal the decisions of the staff, but are granted no guarantee in the success of their appeals.
8. Above all, respect your fellow players and the staff of NewHorizons. Failure to do so will not be tolerated.

Setting

In the DarkAbode RP, during the final manipulation of the World Tree by Cerras, it is revealed that the Planes of Instability (a phenomena of primal creation, alteration, and limbo that became trapped on Caelestia in that prime material plane's relative youth at a period before Eldron and even Falerin's birth more then 35000 years ago) had in fact become trapped by a predestination paradox caused by the explosion of the Dhe Ehmn's Elevator. The elevator, a world and time spanning artifact of bygone creation that is said to have been left by the Dhe Ehmn themselves, was used by the Abode's denizens to try to travel through the badly broken timeline and into the past to try to stop Cerras before it is too late. Its explosion and the saturation of the seekers with pure alteration energy casts those in the wake of it outside of time and space itself.

Unfortunately the war between the Seekers and Cerras resulted in Cerras's victory, as in her fury, Cerras attacked the metaphysical representation of the reality tree itself in an attempt to burn it to the ground and destroy all of reality. In this process the worlds of the seekers and countless others are obliterated, nearly half of the tree of reality on that side of the tree being destroyed. Cerras's victory is short lived, however, as her own actions lead to a feedback loop that ultimately provides the means of her utter destruction. Yet reality continues to burn, and it appears as if nothing can stop its complete breakdown.

Two young Terrans appear named Stephen and Daniel inexplicably appear in the space between worlds, having become lost near their own home in Lebanon, Pa while walking to a corner store. While these boys are not Dhe Ehmn at the time, Falerin suddenly demands they be allowed access to Dhe Ehmn technology and given a chance to "play a video game" to save creation. Falerin indicates that the two are the fulfillment of some important prediction, and even beyond these current events, they will play a great part in the Caelestia to come.

By their intervention, reality was essentially rewritten, but other than their own Terra, the only reality the boys are at all familiar with is Caelestia itself, so they leave many dangling threads that reality itself tries to integrate and merge, making sense of the mess created.

Seeking something equally full of alteration energy as the current outside of time location, reality does what it can, tracing back the path to the very explosion that created the Plains of Instabilty and casting them there. Reality then begins trying to stitch itself together, and in doing so, merges these threads into the Plains of Instability, with all of the many worlds merging into Caelestia. This causes the Plains to spill out and cover all of Caelestia proper, forming a "super-world" of sorts, with Caelestia's original topography intact, though now broken up by chaos storms, plains of pure limbo itself, and new lakes, rivers, and even oceans that never before existed. Further, each of the merged worlds becomes represented by an area within the new chaos, this area being metaphorically described as, and in many ways being physically similar to, an island in a vast new sea of chaos on this new expanded Neo-Caelestia.

The lives of those who existed on those many destroyed worlds and their entire histories begin to play out in this new timeline, with many thousands of years passing in mere moments from their perspective. Because of the relative completeness, Caelestia proper's own history remains relatively unchanged until the end of the Farpoint Era, whereupon the aforementioned expansion of the Plains of Instability takes over. For the integrated worlds, however, it is a mish mash. Their timelines are integrated and weaving throughout The Plains of Instability being shattered, breaking the worlds into segments and regions. The history of their entire time and space is rewritten, including the lives of those who lived therein.

The abode residents, trapped outside of time and their original worlds completely uncreated, are uncreated themselves as the nature of Cerras's victory takes hold. Their entire lives are undone and remade. Yet, in either an act of karmic mercy or a final cosmic joke, because they are outside of time when this occurs, reality attempts to integrate their minds, and being unable to do so, shoves those old minds into those of the new timeline's bodies. This erases the memories of those new versions, including their entire history, and instead replaces it with the memories of the original timeline that, now, never was.

Entering the New Setting, from a Mechanical Perspective

Initially all of the individuals present for the previous setting were transferred to the Ardendor Arms apartment, in an integrated version of Seattle Prime, but have since been relocated to the "New York City" apartment of David Viara. This is the starting setting for new characters. The "anchor" of the abode and the free-form RP at present are both fixed here.

Characters are stripped of their weapons, armor, and skills/magic. In addition, the changes to reality have completely rewritten their character's current history, though characters retain their knowledge and their memories of their original history. Their new history, however, is completely unknown to them.

Character Creation

There are twelve critical stats in NewHorizons.

• Physical Power - This stat is rolled for any physical attacks or efforts. This is normally a number between 0 and 50 for normal (non-God) characters.
• Psychic Power - This stat is rolled for any psychic attacks or efforts. This is normally a number between 0 and 50 for normal (non-God) characters.
• Magical Power - This stat is rolled for any magic attacks or efforts. This is normally a number between 0 and 50 for normal (non-God) characters.
• Alteration Power - This stat is rolled for any attacks or efforts exerted through sheer willpower. It is a form of Dhe Ehm manipulation, quite simply, "willing forth" objects or changes to reality. This is normally a number between 0 and 50 for normal (non-God) characters.
• Phyical Resistance - This stat is rolled for defense against physical attacks or effects. This is normally a number between 0 and 50 for normal (non-God) characters.
• Psychic Resistance - This stat is rolled for defense against psychic attacks or effects. This is normally a number between 0 and 50 for normal (non-God) characters.
• Magical Resistance - This stat is rolled for defense against magic attacks or effects. This is normally a number between 0 and 50 for normal (non-God) characters.
• Alteration Resistance - This stat is rolled for defense against any attacks or attempts to alter reality. This is normally a number between -5 and 50 for normal (non-God) characters.
• Baseline Physical Health - Represents your character's normal physical health when at full strength. This is normally 100% (though it may vary as necessary).
• Current Physical Health - Represents your character's current physical health. This is normally between 0% and 100% (though it may vary as necessary).
• Baseline Mental Health - Represents your character's normal mental health. For a normal individual, this number varies between 50% and 84%, with values of 85%+ representing a character which is approaching a nirvana-like state and values under 50% representing somewhat more unstable characters. Here is a full guide: 100% represents 'Pure Nirvana', 85-99% represents 'Approaching Nirvana', 50-84% represents 'Mentally Stable', 40-50% represents 'Minorly Unstable', 30-40% represents 'Unstable', 11-30% represents 'Psychosis', 0-11% represents 'Catatonic', and any value below 0% represents 'Profound Disturbance'.
• Current Mental Health - Represents your character's current mental health. This value cannot be higher than the baseline mental health of the character.

When creating a character, you come up with your character's mental baseline and inform the staff (who will either approve it or not). If you wish for your character's baseline physical health to be below 100%, you may ask the staff and provide your reasoning for this (it is their decision whether to approve it or not). You then have a choice of these two options to determine the values of your Power and Resistance stats.

1. You may create your own character build. You will be granted 75 points to assign between the four Power and four Resistances stats. Please note that all stats will have a baseline of zero if you choose this route (except Alteration Resistance, which starts at -5).
2. You may roll to determine your character's stats in the mechanics channel for NewHorizons. The command for this roller is '#hscores'. Once you have rolled your stats, you are then given the option of removing 4 points from any stat (as many times as you wish) in order to obtain 2 points to allocate whereever you want.

Once you have decided on your stats, the staff will decide whether to grant your character final approval or not. Once granted final approval, you are permitted to enter the RP. Remember that, in accordance with the setting, your character is granted no weapons, armor, or magic/skills of any kind.

This RP uses the DarkAbode's questionnaire and follows the rules of the original RP in regards to character creation (you may have one character without a questionnaire at any given time, all others must have an approved questionnaire submitted to the staff), which you can find here. When you have finished it, you may submit it to abodecharsubmission@gmail.com for approval.

Sessions and Campaigns

Most of the time, the gameplay is continual (it is always running, 24 hours a day). However, at various times of day, the NewHorizon staff may deem to run the RP directly, in what is typically referred to as a 'session'. Sessions are the only opportunities (under normal circumstances) to obtain equipment or to gain experience points (XP).

Typically, sessions are staff-run. However, players can submit their own ideas for sessions. Player submissions for sessions must include as much detail as possible, including (but not limited to) the following:

• A brief outline of the session.
• A list of all the major locations visited during this session.
• A list of all major NPCs and enemies. If the enemies are major/significant enough, a list of their abilities and a set of stats for them is a very good idea.
• Any rewards obtained throughout the session (currency, equipment, XP, etc).

Once all the details of a session have been worked out, players may submit their session ideas to abodecharsubmission@gmail.com for the staff's approval. If approved the players will directly run the session with the aid and the assistance of the NewHorizons staff.

In addition to stand-alone sessions, staff and players also have the option to run a entire campaign of sessions, which tell an overarching storyline. These may run in additional ancillary channels if required, and may be run either on-demand, or at fixed scheduled intervals. Approval for player-run campaigns requires:

• Previous consistent history of running multiple sessions successfully.
• Complete approval of campaign content.
• Overall history of non-problematic roleplay.
• Staff oversight and interaction at all times and at all levels of the Campaign.

Even in player-run "Sessions" and "Campaigns", staff maintain the ultimate say about what may or may not occur.

Combat, Skill Checks, Resistance Checks, and Actions

Any action during combat, during a challenge, or in the midst of a task that involves a sufficient test of ability or skill, or that otherwise which requires sufficient interaction between two or more characters (PC or NPC) will be rolled.

This RP uses a dice pool system for rolls which is a mechanic roughly based on, but considerably modified from, ideas strongly present in those of White Wolf and Shadowrun.

To perform checks, a player types the following command into the mechanics channel (#NH-mechanics):

#hz <dice> <difficulty>

• Replace the word <dice> with the number of dice being rolled. Typically you can determine this by dividing a Power/Resistance score by ten, and then rounding to the nearest whole number (Exception: If you have less than 5 in a score, you are still given the minimum of one die to roll. However, the Dhe Ehmn will automatically boost your difficulty to make success more difficult). The Staff will inform you if there is some exception or modifier here.
• Replace the word <difficulty> with the difficulty of the task being performed. This is a number that will be assigned by the staff, will be commensurate with the complexity of the task, and will also take in mind several other factors including how high your scores are.

The dice will then roll a ten sided die for each die in your 'dice' pool. It will then compare the dice rolled to that target difficulty in the following manner:

• Any rolls that are higher then the difficulty count as a success.
• Any 1's indicate a critical failure. Each 1 will reduce your success count by 1.
• Any 10's are automatically re-rolled and summed as phenomenal successes. This allows the player to beat difficulties that are higher then ten, though at a much reduced probability.
• Finally the tally is calculated for a net success count. Some actions will require that you have more then one success. Other actions will suffice with just one, with additional successes indicating particularly good skill at the attempt.
• If at any time the result of a roll is more failures than successes, a botch occurs. This means that something has gone totally askew in the initial attempt. Most always these botches will be quite bad, and the more negative the net score, the more bad they will be.
  • Note: There are rare exceptions to this. These occur when a player, for whatever reason, actually desires to fail in their attempt. A good example being in cases where a player's natural resistances are actually working against them, i.e. when one's body is resisting an effect the player actually wants to take hold. In these cases, the botch signifies that the player's body not only accepted the affect (for which simple failure would have been sufficient), but that the effect was especially effective and profound.

Resisted Actions

Generally, any task that is directly taken against another will also give that individual the capacity to resist that effect. To determine the final outcome, the total number of resistance successes is subtracted from the total number of offensive successes. If the number that remains is positive the offensive action succeeds, if it is not resistance succeeds.

Initiative

It is sometimes becomes necessary to determine the order in which actions occur. In this case, initiative¹ needs to be determined.

Time during these events becomes divided into combat rounds² (roughly 10 seconds), and tenths of combat rounds are called "inititative rounds". Furthermore, ten combat rounds are called a turn, with the later term used to described events of longer then ten combat rounds in duration (i.e. you become paralyzed for 3 turns and 2 rounds).

When this occurs, a single ten sided die is rolled, either for each group or each individual (at the staff option). Actions then occur on "initiative rounds" in ascending order starting at 1 and ending at 10 (or 0). Competitive actions that occur on the same initiative round will either have a second die rolled to determine which resolves first, or will be simultaneously resolved.

Because of the fast paced nature of combat, even prior initiative round actions that may have killed the character do not necessarily negate the character's ability to act in a given combat round (this will be determined by severity, the distance between initiative rounds, and the whim of the staff).

Please note that while, realistically, combat rounds do not allow much discussion because of the detailed time involved in making action declarations, and given that the character nature of roleplay is considerable, fluidity is generally allowed here. Entire conversations may occur in what, temporally in-character, is actually only 20 seconds. This fluidity of combat time is an artifact of the need for an initiative mechanic, and is a well established tradition among experienced gamers, but may take some suspension of disbelief and some time getting used to.

¹It is VERY important to pay careful attention to this section. While the terminology is similar to many other systems, the specifics may in fact vary. It is your responsibility to verify your understanding of timing. Do not complain to staff that you do not understand when things happen to you, you miss your actions, etc. Especially if you have made assumptions and not actually read!

²While these are referred to as combat rounds, this may occur during any challenge that requires time resolution, not just combat.

Obtaining Equipment and Training

All characters in this setting begin with no equipment or skills. Equipment must either be purchased or found during a session (at the discretion of the NewHorizons staff). Equipment will vary in its usefulness (again, subject to the discretion of the staff).

In order to improve your character's stats or teach your character skills, you will be required to train them in-character. The staff of NewHorizons will provide NPCs to train with. Training will have two major costs/requirements:

1. An XP cost (see the XP Types section for the specific type of XP you'll need to train any particular stat or skill). For stat training, there is a baseline for training (though your requirements might be higher if the NPC so chooses). For skill training, it will vary based on the skill being trained.
2. The character will have to train for a certain period of time in-character.

Your character will get five chances during that training period in which to learn the necessary information required to complete the training. During each chance, you will be asked to roll dice to determine if you have succeeded in completing your training (see the Combat, Skill Checks, Resistance Checks, and Actions section). Please note that you do not regain any XP if you complete the training with less than five of your chances used up, nor do you regain your lost XP if you fail all five attempts.

Under normal conditions for stat training, you will be given a difficulty of seven to beat on your first roll, six on your next two, and five on your last two. This might vary if the NPC in question gives you a more/less difficult method of training (subject to the discretion of the staff).

In the case of skill training, the difficulty of the roll will vary based on previous knowledge (for example, you will struggle learning to drive a bus if you don't know how to drive at all, so your difficulty will be much higher).

XP Types

This RP uses a series of colors to identify experience points (or XP) obtained during the course of play. Some types of XP are character-based (meaning only the characters present during that RP obtain the rights to use that type of XP), others are player-based (meaning they are given to the player, and can be used on any character that player owns). What follows is a list of some of the many XP types available to obtain during gameplay. Please note this list is not complete and new colors may be added at any time (and that the staff needn't necessarily tell the players what that new color does).

Character-Based XP Types

• Colorless = Generic XP that is used for a variety of things. Most notably, it is used for skill costs or exchanged to obtain character-based stat XP.
• Ultrablue = Used to increase the Physical Power/Resistance of a character.
• Charmauveochrepucia = Used to increase the Psychic Power/Resistance of a character.
• Octarine = Used to increase the Magical Power/Resistance of a character.
• Lime = Used to increase the Alteration Power/Resistance of a character.
• Red = Red XP gives you wiiiiiings! No, seriously. For 10 minutes, the character grows a pair of absurdly small wings but can nonetheless fly with them. (NOTE: All players who have Red XP have until August 1, 2009 to distribute this XP to their characters, or lose it forever!)

Player-Based XP Types

• Mauve = The player may re-roll one of their previous rolls at the cost of one mauve. They can also spend 2 (or more) to re-roll someone else's roll, provided they have that player's permission to do so. Use of mauve XP is subject to the discretion of the NewHorizons staff.
• Chartreuse = For every point expended, one player character is revived from death. This effect can only be activated at the time of the character's death. Be warned that this only revives the target from death, it does NOT heal them (that is, they will only have 1% HP upon their revival, not full health).
• Magenta = For every point expended, this strips a hostile target's roll of one success. The hostile target cannot resist this effect. If the expenditure of Magenta lowers your opponent to a botched roll status, their roll is simply re-rolled instead (much as if a mauve had been expended on a willing character).
• Burnt Umber = For every point expended, one success is added to your roll. This only negates simple failure, it cannot negate a botched roll.
• Super-Ochre = For every point expended, raises the stats of a character by two points. This effect is only permitted to be used during character creation. (NOTE: All Ochre points currently count as 'Super-Ochre', but this effect expires on July 1, 2009. After that point, all super-ochre becomes regular ochre.)
• Ochre = For every point expended, raises the stats of a character by one point. This effect is only permitted to be used during character creation.

XP Conversion Rates

While in-character, chances will be offered for a player to exchange certain XP types into other XP types. Below is a list of some of the known exchange rates. Please note that these exchange rates are only loose figures. They will increase based on the NPC offering the exchange.

• 10 Colorless XP = 1 Character-Based Colored Stat XP (this means either Ultrablue, Chartreuse, Octarine, or Lime only).
• 1 Ultrablue = 10 Colorless XP
• 1 Chartreuse = 10 Colorless XP
• 1 Octarine = 10 Colorless XP
• 1 Lime = 10 Colorless XP

Other Mechanics

It is now important to have a system that accounts for natural healing rates. Base rate of any wounded character is 2% per day, if they spend the day in rest (this means that no physically strenuous action has been taken on the part of the character), evaluated at the end of each day. Should there be another character with healing experience assisting the injured character, this rises to 3% but must be role played. Any wounded character who is not played during the course of a day receives only the lower base rate, without regard to whether a healer is present or not. Keep in mind this is only a base rate and conditions such as disease, poisons, or strenuous activity can cause this to be lower or even slip into the negatives. Some conditions may also increase this rate. As an added danger, characters who do not receive treatment from a healer after injury may continue to lose health percentages, due to bleeding and other complications, regardless of the base healing rate.

Additional Resources

• List of Characters and Character Stats
• List of Player XP Awarded
• List of Character XP Awarded