Yeah I really have no clue, but I really want to continue this series, despite us not finishing The End Times. I was thinking a story within the Magus clan. Instead of rping as the good guys, maybe its time to rp as the bad guys...only problem is...it may be difficult to round all the original rpers.
Or maybe even time-skipping ahead in The End Times...or should we just let the classics die...? =(
You guys wouldnt believe I read each and every topic/post that has ever had to do with WoA, even the Dark Sands. I realized the story was so action packed and glorious it was like living in our very own anime series...-cries- anyone else down for it?

The goal I had in mind for The End Times was to overwhelm players with a enemy that was far bigger than the actual antagonists involved...that, and make sure each and everything character within the party fucking hated each other to the point where they wanted to kill each other...but yet they had to keep in mind they were the only ones capable of saving Alsta...shit was awesome man...

I'm up for reviving Alsta (though there is an RP at the moment that takes place in Alsta's future. Holy Shield, I believe it's called, but it's kind of died).

I've always thought an introduction to the Magus Clan would be interesting. Like it started as some old order of magical researchers, who eventually grew powerful enough to govern there own city. They began preparing for all out war when a small group of them rebelled and went on their own way. The group quickly branded themselves as the Magus (later the Magus clan) and began working to sabotage their old order and protect the rest of Alsta.
Eventually the whole thing leads to a war in Morento (is that what it was called?) The magus win and set up their tower, and over centuries they become just as bad as the old order and the rest is history.

It really is a brilliant world to write fiction in.

I'm all over it, I like the idea of making this story a sort of how the Magus built up to what they were. I don't really have much to add that you guys haven't already said. Only thing I can say is, if you guys want me to, I can try dragging Angelic-Fairy back to the forums for this RP.

You've got mad stamina to read through so much.
There must have been like a thousand posts in total for everything before The Dark Sands.


Exploring The Magus Clan could be a pretty cool idea.
I'm all in for it!

Although, I'd reccomend fleshing out the Gods and Godesses from way back in the initial sign up topic.
Something I should have done long ago but neglected.
Although, I'll say I'm glad I left them vague at first.



If you want to do something based more on the magical side of Alsta, the spirit pacts and religion will have to inevitably play a largish role of some kind.

I was never good at the magic stuff and spirit pacts and whatnot...which is why I never created a magic user =/

In act III I tried to have Damien become Gervaros (in a manner of speaking) where he became so deluded with power that he began thinking of himself as god. When Daniel took over (which we never got around to RPing) I was going to use time travel/retroactive magic to create a god (daniel) who influences events throughout all of history so that he can be born (paradox win) but he's eventually stopped by Oliver's mana draining capabilities.
That was the plan anyway. It neatly wrapped up where all magic and gods came from, but then destroyed the creator at the same time, in a near paradox bubble. Since we never got that far though it's possible for us to base an RP on actual gods.

Depends what is canon.

How is she doing anyway? Havent spoken to her in a while.

From what we've been talking, she's been fine. She quit RPing here quite a while back because she was busy with exams and what not. That and she's been lazy and doesn't really come to the forums much so usually she will only participate in RPs I manage to convince her to join...That and she's very picky. -cough- Anyways, i'll end my rant here because if she sees this later she'll murder me with a wooden spoon.



Oh, that reminded me. Me and Fairy did some private RPs set in the World of Alsta and we went with that ending in it. The process of sealing away Gervaros pretty much drained Oliver out to the point where he would die, not immediatelly though. What was left of his mythril wing would slowly start fading away as he lived, since that thing was what was keeping his life at the moment and then when it disappeared completely, he died. Before he kicked the bucket, however, Oliver founded a small "mage-only" (Except for Dixie) city where he intended to rebuild the Magus clan from scratch, possibly with clearer visions this time and without the corruption.

Of course I don't expect people to accept this ending as "canon" since it was a private RP, but it's one option...Maybe this small settlement grew and remained it's mage only code, even forcing children born there to take the pact upon reaching a certain age. The rest of the world then continued it's existance without magic, focusing instead on technology...And yeah, stereotypical Mage X Technology war. Just one idea i'd like to share with you guys.

That is frankly brilliant Nicsp It would be pretty great if you could write up the end of act III with what you did in PMs. I've always loved how the RP has an exciting history, but became history at the same time. I think an RP from the new Magus Clan would be pretty great as well, especially if we reference how it was founded. It'll have the living breathing history that we'll all be aware of.
Hell, one of the main plot points could be the discovery that the Magus clan was once evil - and one of the technology based cities launching a preemptive attack out of fear of history repeating itself.

Who knows, but I'm itching for another Alsta RP.

Hmm, that reminds me, did we ever have any Natural mages with any mutations?
I think someone might have signed up as one for Dark Sands, but not for The End Times, that I can remember.



I kind of wish I did for The End Times.

Aggie's day-glo red hair was a mutation. Mild, and easily explained away as a dye job, but a mutation none-the-less. I remember Kaydius was also meant to be sort of a weird looking dude, though not monstrous.



Forced pacts? That's pretty heavy. A pact is twenty years off your life, that's enjoying retirement, watching your grandchildren grow up. Many people consider those the best years of one's life. I imagine there'd be some resistance to that policy (possible character concept there?)

That sounds awesome. However, we have to question the Magus Clan's reason to exist. Ofcourse they're a group of gifted magic users, but I had this idea where the old order (the 'good' Magus Clan) was fighting against someone more powerful than them. Everyone knows our previous characters fought the "new, evil" Magus Clan, but what turned some of the members against one another. There has to be a force that the old order fought against...and maybe that somehow can tie into everyone's idea. If you're in a clan, no one becomes a traitor without some type of influence.

Perhapes Gervaros could be that force?

There was another idea I had with Nicsp's rp. Perhapes the old order had to do the same thing Nicsp's Magus Clan had to do. Drain all mana from surrounding places in order to prepare for Gervaros's attempting to take the old order of mages. Wanna know the sexy thing in this part? our characters can play the mages who were indoctrinated by Gervaros and fight the old order (who were the 'good' Magus Clan)

Like Nicsp said a war between Magic and Technology. Perhapes Gervaros had already existed and maybe searched for a way to exist again. I'm thinking like maybe Gervaros didn't have anything to do with magic at all because all he was something who dwelled in technology. Like at mad scientist or something...That would explain the war between Tech and Magic with the old order.Gervaros ends up indoctrinating members of the old order to have someone to fight with on the inside and maybe Damien was somehow connected to that indoctrination.
Sorta of like Sovereign from Mass Effect. Or the Illuminati vs The Catholic Church lol.

Gervaros could be the one responsible for our characters defuncts. Aggie's red hair, Damien's lust for power, Nobu's Diagan indifference. While people in Alsta walk around being happy and living their life...they're not aware that there was just one single scientist, who managed to turn Alsta into his own image, by using the Magus Clan.

Similiar to the old concept of an enemy of the church who managed to take the title as Pope, and destroy the church from the inside.

That would be one insane plot, and would require a lot of working out the details on our part. Not to mention Nicsp would have to post up pretty much everything that happened after Act III stopped.
I'm for it if everyone else is (though I can't for the life of me tell if you mean past or future ) but it might be better to open up the whole story again.
Alsta worked fantastically when we all made our own plot lines and somehow (as if my magic) a real incredibly complicated and marvelous storyline began to erupt. It sort of fell apart when we decided on an ending and all went for it.
Perhaps it would be better if we set a prequel (or sequel) a few generations after or before the events of our old gang, and then just see what happens. It sounds stupid, but it worked the first time.

I for one would love to play as Franklyn (I never really got to develop him that much, and I actually did build a nice little back story for him) who I intended to be a whole messload more powerful than Damien towards the end of his life.
Then again, it would also be nice to play as some mutant, or even a non-magic user for once (though I do love magic )

Of course we also have a few dangling plot lines:
The Ruined Ones
The Faceless One (A god Damien sometimes mentioned)
The Origin of The Magus Clan (as discussed)
The Future of Alsta (as also discussed)
The Origins of the Gods (Not including Gevaros)
The Origins of the Species (Why are there so many diverse races on Alsta?)
The Aether (It's some kind of spirit world, intwined with magic, and timeless. It's sort of a cross between an afterlife and the consciousness of people - mostly mages.)

This part in particular. Maybe we can pick out what really intrigues us and somehow mold it all together. Here is what I think will make a great story:

The origins of the Magus Clan
The faceless one
The Aether

does anyone wanna discuss this in the IRC chatroom?

WHAT?





I honestly kind of want to do everything...So I won't pick out any, not yet at least.

One thought that occured me last night before I went to sleep (Which also got my brain working and ended up with me not sleeping that much in the end.) is that, since we already started working with time travel in this, maybe this new Magus Clan that Oliver founded, during the war against the Tech based society, for some reason needed to go back in time to avoid some kind of catastophre or something else of the sort. With such, they went back in time and dealt with the problem, but since they were stuck there, they decided to continue their magus clan in there, then forming that Magus clan that one day will become the corrupted one and-

The unofficial rules of time travel (according to my original resolution to that plot) was that any paradox undoes itself. IE: When Gervaros/Daniel/Damien (Whatever the hell it was) messed up our timeline to create himself, he accidentally made Oliver have the ability to drain all his power and seal him away, or however it was it ended...

So any paradox forms a loop in the timeline rather than a circle, where the paradox can always be undone retroactively (EG: You go back in time to shoot your grandfather, but the repercussions of this event lead someone to be there when you go back in time, and that person will explicitly know who you are and what you intend to do, and will have the power to stop you - but only if they want you). If you've seen the Director's Cut of Donnie Darko, this'll make sense, it's a similar idea.

We don't have to use this, but it gives everything a nice twist.
This means that when the Magus try to stop the disaster, they will endanger the life of someone with the capabilities to stop them, and they must defeat that person.

Hmmm, I just thought up a rather nice plot. Not brilliant, but if anyone's interested...
There is a fourth race on Alsta (it'll be explained) that is magical by birth alone. They work alongside the Magus, and have the ability to open portals in time (that's that explained). They all worship the same God, a God who grants wishes. A God knows as The Faceless One (things get interesting). Suddenly people of the other three races start dying out, and everyone turns to the Magus and the Magical race to find out what's going on. They discover it has something to do with the Magical race (naturally) and travel back to the birth of the race, to meet a man known as Lord Loryn - the prophet of The Faceless One.
This is where we come in, hot on the murder mystery of three races facing extinction, searching for the prophet of a wish-granting God, in a barbaric world before the civilizations arose.

I could post more, or if no one likes it we can go with one of the other billion ideas floating around.

The Ruined Ones were intended to be (explained and) created in the storyline of Dark Sands, so you could always bring their origins into it if you want to have the story take place after The Dark Sands (The start of it at least lol).




A murder mystery in a barbaric Alsta!
Tribes of people all over the place, to be saved or crushed!

I like this idea!

I was thinking before Dark Sands, or possibly during a dark age that occurs after Dark Sands (too many darks in that sentence...)

They're not necessarily Ruined Ones, just beasts that roam around killing certain people and sparing others. They actually have a more werewolf like mythos, I just called them Ruined Ones as a link to the other RPs.
They're basically just monsters.


It's truly quite a depressing story in the end, but it ends with the formation of the Magus clan, and less than four races remaining in Alsta.

Barbaric Alsta eh? sounds awesome! But if our characters are the ones searching for the mystery murder, would that technically consider us to be the good guys or bad guys?

Oh man, I'm so ready for this. I already have a character in mind.

Edit:
Hmm...what about this:

(In General) Good mages vs. Evil mages/Technology all happens before the Dark Sands
- Other than the four other races we already know previously, there were another set that have been extinct.
- The extinct races was what made up the "Good & Evil mages"
- Before the evil mages, the "good mages" governed the barbaric civilizations so there would be peace among clans (which could explain why people think the "evil Magus Clan" are their saviors or whatever in our previous role-play.)
-Technology finds its way in the mix, fucks everything up (which explains the technology in our previous rp: Ships, weapons etc.)
-Evil Mages reign, take over the civilizations that are now extinct and look to do the same thing in the role-play we already knew.

For the sake of adding to history, I'll post what I had in mind for a grim ending to Dark Sands.

Since it didnt really go anywhere, assume the almost worst.
Uxire's army destroyed most of civilisation on Nobarg, the island the story took place on.
Celmphar falls to ruins in the end, Celmphar was the strongest power on Nobarg, so its safe to assume everywhere else was burned although small amounts of people survived by hiding in some Sand Rats Outposts scattered throughout the desert.
(In Holy Shield, Celmphar was mentioned in passing by a character as being a future excavation site, if there was a good ending, the inhabitants of Celmphar would have died out for other reasons, probably caused by a rebellion due to the type of moral the city had with its own race of people. You could go out, but not back in.)

Any survivors probably sailed to the main island Veratsta (Anyone got a better name for the main island?) and traveled to one of the few towns or cities to start a new life. Welstarm and Silishala had to deal with the bulk of his army, so they didnt have any troops to spare in defending the smaller island and probably had no idea what was happening on Nobarg at the time.

Uxire (the big bad) was killed by our characters (Not important how), but our characters probably also went to the main island, save for Leon who died horribly.

Conclusion, bad guys won overall that time, a lot of deaths.
For the sake of continuity, the reason the events of this story are not mentioned
In the main storyline is because it was very sad and something no one would really want to talk about despite being 1000 years before them.

Uxire himself ruled the ancient world (not literally ruler, he was just a very influential person due to his skill in battle as a warlord and his army of warriors, I'm sure there would be an official high power on some form of throne).

Would that (the Ancient Age) actually be considered the same time period as the Barbaric time period?
If so he'd probably be a leading military power at the time.

If the Barbaric Age takes place after the Ancient Age, he'd likely be a nightmarish tale of some kind or partly forgotten.

I think the barbaric age could take place after Dark Sands.
My idea was that this fourth race (who depending on the outcome of this RP might not exist at the end, it is time travel based after all) worships a very real 'Faceless One' who is possibly existent in the future, but very real in the past.
I don't want to give away much, but the Faceless One made a kind of wager with the gods, and he has been given three rules that he must follow. He is physically incapable of breaking any of these rules, but so long as he follows them he has powers unimaginable. The gods themselves turned their back on the world with the happening of some great tragedy (Dark Sands).
The Faceless One is a final bargaining chip. If he can prove that mortal lives are not worthy of existence, then the gods will not protect those mortals. If he cannot prove this, then the gods will return.

That's revealing more than I wanted to.
The barbaric age is simply a time during a great fall of technology and magic, where corruption is rampant and civilizations have fallen apart due to lack of guidance from the gods and their own evil actions, and only one figure remains as a myth/saviour. The Deity known as the Faceless One, who can grant any desire - for a small price.

I like that idea.

Alright. I was thinking if one of us could start writing a plot. Then after we write up something, we send that to the next person who can then put their ideas in the plot. Take the plot the previous person wrote, and write your own mix in it.

Not quite familiar with the World of Alsta, but if you guys are going with the pass the plot along thing, I can act as Editor or something.

I think I outlined a nice little plot here (or introduction) and I have much more. The problem is that revealing all of the plot would make the RP kind of dull and forced. I think it'd work better if the game is freestyle. It starts with a plot, but then the GM has to improvise a plot based on what the characters do. If anyone else wants to do it, sweet. If no one else does then I'll take this one (it'd be an honour) unless of course someone else has another plot?

I think it'd ruin if we openly edited the plot before playing the RP.
However, I purposefully didn't name the 'fourth race' or describe their culture (other than natural magic, a single founder, and the faceless one for a god) because I was hoping you guys could do that.
The name of the place we arrive? You guys can decide.
What it looks like? You guys can decide.
What the monsters look like? You guys can decide.
Any tribes that exist? You guys.
Any threats, dangers, safe places, current affairs? You guys.

I've made a basic little plot, with a few twists here and there, but (much like the original Alsta) I'm going to keep the good stuff secret.
Of course, I'm more than open to other ideas. I've only ever run one RP and sadly the activity died down *cries viciously*

I'm willing to go along with this. You have some pretty awesome plot decisions. I'm just ready for the rp lol.

Well We'll let everyone else have a moment to decide, and then I'll set up the sign-up thread.
Got to be worth a shot right?

Yeah. Hopefully everyone will be down for it.

I'm good with whatever is fine with you guys. Looking forward to it.

No one else decided yet...?