"The city of Mittlerstadt, Germany, has been hit by a record crime wave this month with bodies stacking up as the mage houses of the world gather to discuss the rules and conventions of the Mage's Guild for the coming year... This week was supposed to be a tool for peace and result in less deaths between mages, but with this many important figures in one place, conflict has broken out frequently. Let's check in with our voice on the ground about the situation."
"This is Connor Arterburry with BBC News and yes, the city of Mittlerstadt is currently one of the most dangerous in Europe. Not because of the usual reasons such as gangs or poverty, but because Mittlerstadt is home to the headquarters of the Mage's Guild, an organization which is holding large scale meetings this week. Believe us when we say that these are not normal people. They are not concerned with following the laws of the countries they visit and live in. They care about personal glory and the glory of their own associations, and will do anything to get this. Even lengths such as murder, arson, kidnapping, and more. Some of the crimes committed by mages recently are the most elaborate that German police have seen in years. If you need any more evidence that these so called mage houses are a plague on society, just talk to the Mittlerstadt Police Department."
"We have reached out to the Mage's Guild for a comment and have been told that they are aware of the ongoing crime wave but will handle the issue internally. They refused further comment. Connor, would you say that this is going to have wide reaching effects on the mage houses of Europe and the rest of the world as their crimes are observed by the entire world here during the Mittlerstadt Meetings?"
"I would say this is definitely making a lot of very important people reconsider their tolerance for the mage houses and for magic in general. Modern technology, after all, has already surpassed the capabilities of magic. Many people are starting to think that it's also time for modern society to move ahead from the days when mages were the most powerful people around..."World of Shadows - An IntroductionThe year is 2021. On the surface, things might seem normal and calm. The world is at a relative peace, or as peaceful as it will ever be anyway. The vast majority of people are still concerned with regular things - having a family, performing at work, and generally surviving each day. But beneath the surface, there exists another world of shadows. One where the normal laws don't apply. One where prestige and knowledge are above everything else and where personal disputes still end with body counts, such as in the old days when knights and nobles dueled for their personal honor and glory. In this world, one percent of the population sits above the remaining ninety nine, often affecting their lives behind the scenes with hidden influence that dates back generations or centuries.
This is the world of mages. The world of shadows which is both unforgiving and rewarding at once. Even in the modern day, the mage houses of Europe and the rest of the world hold great power... And to this day, they still fight each other using their greatest weapon - the summoned Spirit, a type of being above humans both in physical strength and in their ability to utilize magic in combat.
But if you were given this power, what would you do with it? Would you fit for personal glory, or some ideal of justice, or some esoteric knowledge? Would you seek glory with one of the great mage houses or would you align yourself with the Mage's Guild and its enforcement of law and order? Would you embrace the darker sides of magic or aim to protect mankind from it?
Welcome to Kage no Sekai (English: World of Shadows) an urban fantasy anime RP inspired by series such as the Fate franchise and Tokyo Ghoul. In this RP, you can experience the world of mages for yourself - either as a member of the Mage Guild's prestigious Mittlerstadt Academy, which trains their next generation of enforcers and rulemakers, or as someone else in a number of side plots that will pop up over the course of the RP.
Members of this academy are given just about everything that one could need to become a successful mage. Housing, instruction from great minds, the best equipment to work with in training, and experience using their skills in the field. The pressure, however, is immense. The Mage's Guild acts as the public face for magic in this world - and is the faction responsible for keeping its users in line with the rest of society, as well as dealing with anomalies such as supernatural entities and rogue summons. And the role of the academy, of course, is to train the Guild's agents to perform their duties. It's not an easy job. Workplace dangers include demons, rogue mages, vampires, and more. If one wants to become a prominent mage, however - or protect the world from the effects of bad magic by any means necessary - joining up with the Guild and going through their academy is one of the best ways to do so.
Will your mage make it through this academy and find glory? Or will they bow out from the challenge or succumb to the forces of darkness?
As you can tell from reading the above sections, this RP is about the world of mages in a setting where magic coexists with the modern world. The main focus is on the Mittlerstadt Academy that operates under the Mage's Guild, training the next generation of agents to enforce law and order on the world of magic.
It's both an academy RP based around character interaction and an urban fantasy adventure RP which will feature plenty of fight scenes as well as interesting villains and intrigue behind the scenes, both in and out of the academy. The setting revolves around two types of characters - mages and spirits. Mages have a wider selection of magic to use but typically summon stronger fighting to do their fighting for them. In combat, the majority of mages only act in support of their spirits rather than fighting with their own abilities.
Both mages and spirits are playable and most of the time you will apply for and play as both, when making a student at the academy; one character will be the mage, and the other will be their spirit. The former could be considered the brains while the latter is the brawn. Additionally, multiple types of magic exist within the world and multiple species are playable. Below, you'll find more information on the RP, the lore, and how it all works.
Guide to the Magical ArtsMagic. The magical arts. Sorcery. Alchemy. Occultism. Whatever you want to call it, these practices have been with us for quite a long time and have shaped the world that we live in, either obviously or in the background. Magic can refer to any number of different abilities which can vary greatly from one another, but all in all, only about one to two percent of the world can use magic. It’s hard to get an exact number because there’s some people out there who can use magic but not in any consequential way. While these mundane magic users exist, however, there are also many more powerful mages who can achieve feats that are believed to be impossible through science.
At its core, magic generally works by channeling mana, or energy from the Ether, another realm connected to our own. Once used, it takes time to store more of this energy in one’s body. This finite amount of storage is what separates a more powerful mage and a weak mage. Powerful mages have more ‘mana batteries’ in their body at the cellular level which allow them to store more mana and therefore use their abilities more often without running out of fuel. They also can cast more powerful spells if their power level is high enough, that a weak mage wouldn’t have enough batteries in their body to store up the energy for.
The average amount for a ‘professional’ level mage is about 600 while a master might have 1000 to 1200 batteries, with some nonhumans recording up to a few thousand in rare circumstances. More batteries can be gained over time, through training and use of magic. In a way, it’s like training a muscle.
Below, you'll find more information on how magic works and the specific nuances of it.
Shining Academy On A HillAt the center of the world of magic has long been the Mage’s Guild, the organization that acts as the governing body for the ‘rules’ of magic and takes responsibility for helping to keep the users of magic in line. Such a job is a demanding one. It requires dealing with powerful mage houses who step a bit too far out of the shadows and bring their conflicts too far into the forefront, stopping threats from supernatural entities of both the humanoid and non human kind, controlling magical threats such as demons and vampires, and managing relations with a public that contains many who think magic to be outdated.
Because of the demands of the job, Mittlerstadt Academy was established in 2008 to train the agents of the Mage’s Guild to do their job effectively. The place doesn’t just do training for existing agents but also trains new ones who are just entering the force, with new members coming in each year to begin their careers with the Mage’s Guild. Currently, the Guild is looking for field agents who are mages themselves, believing that it takes mages to control mages, and that the magic world will have problems respecting the authority of regular humans. This has shown in their recruiting policy, with recent classes for field agents being made of mages entirely.
The city of Mittlerstadt itself is located near the middle of Germany, and that’s somewhat symbolic. The city has been at the center of the magic world too, just like the Mage’s Guild has. The city, part of the Thuringen province of Germany, was home to famous mages in the old days who helped it to become what it is today. Now, it’s become the headquarters of the Mage’s Guild, with these headquarters being located only about six miles away from the campus of Mittlerstadt Academy, which itself is located within a scenic forest on the outskirts of town.
To sum things up in the most basic way, the goal of the Mittlerstadt Academy is to train enforcers for the Mage’s Guild, similarly to a police academy would or even a military academy. Applicants to the academy are college aged and typically have good grades, although magical talent is much more valued than performance in traditional school. Rather than usual subjects, almost all of the classes at the academy focus on subjects relevant to the job, such as magic studies, weapons handling, profiling, interrogation, wilderness survival, summoning, anti-mage combat techniques, and more. Those with passing performances are assigned to field divisions upon their graduation after four years, while others may be pulled out of the program early and moved to field divisions for good performance, passing with graduating marks despite not spending as much time at the academy.
All students at the academy live on site, specifically at the Northeast Apartments located just to the north of the main part of campus. Within these apartment blocks each student will receive a one bedroom apartment with a bathroom, small living room, and a small kitchen. Students will be able to furnish their rooms with their own item and will be able to cook their own food if for whatever reason they do not wish to eat at the campus cafeteria or cafe. Students will be paid two hundred dollars a week during their time at the academy, which may be used to buy things such as personal items, things for their rooms, food, etc. Upon graduation, students can expect a large pay raise.
While at the Academy, all of the students are considered to be under the jurisdiction of the Mage Guild’s Division Two, the second of the two Central European divisions based in Germany. From time to time students may be required to test their skills with field work, and will generally do so under the guidance and supervision of this division, which is based out of the Mage’s Guild headquarters six miles to the southeast of the Mittlerstadt Academy campus. These exercises, while they are considered to be a part of training, take place in real combat environments and will test the skills of the students by sending them into the real field in cases of an appropriate skill level for them.
The Magic WorldIf you want to make it anywhere with magic, it’s important to know who your friends and enemies are. There are a number of factions and groups jostling for more power, more knowledge, and more success over one another, and aligning with one faction or another is something that can make or break the career of a mage. The Mage’s Guild, powerful mage families with long lineages, governmental authorities, and even criminal groups are all factions who are either deeply involved in the magic world or have their hands in it to a lesser extent. But before you find out about those factions, it’s a good idea to look back on the history of magic in general, and how the world managed to come to this point.
Applications & App GuideInterested in joining? The process isn't complicated but there are some things you should know before filling out the application. Firstly, read the thread. It might be long and you don't have to memorize every detail but if you apply without reading certain parts of the thread such as the magic information sections, you're going to be unprepared and might not know how to fill out the magic parts of the application properly. Reading the thread will also make you aware of what kind of academy this is. This isn't a high school nor is it a regular college, and those are things that you can miss if you skip straight to applying without reading the lore. You don't, however, need to memorize all of it. You just need to know the core concepts of the RP as well as the magic system.
Second, consider which application to use. The student application is your basic one and is used for all students of the academy. By default it includes two parts, one for a mage and one for a spirit, but you may cut one part or the other out if you've reached an agreement with another player to play the other half of the pairing. This is highly not recommended because if that player goes inactive, neither character can do much in a combat situation and replacing a spirit or master in general isn't something that should be done lightly. Therefore, you should avoid pairing up with a partner that could go inactive.
The NPC application is for minor characters that you wish to document but aren't filling out an entire application for. These may be people from your character's personal life who show up during the RP, an enemy in a side story you're running, etc. The Misc Application is for characters who aren't tied to the academy, be they human or spirit. These characters may be used in side arcs outside of the academy's storylines. Note that if you want to run a side story, you should first check with the thread staff to see if your idea is possible within the bounds of the RP and then gather interest before applying as a character for that story. For example, let's say you want to play as a Guild agent who deals with vampire problems. Instead of making the application for the agent, getting it accepted, and then having nothing to do since your character is unrelated to the main storylines going on, you should find someone else or multiple players to play out your idea with before applying.
Standalone characters who are not connected to any storyline, either through being members of the academy or through being involved in a player run storyline, will not be accepted. For example, applying as a dangerous vampire that you already have something planned out for with another player would be fine. Applying as said vampire with no plans and expecting the rest of the thread to accommodate your solo character who has no connection to any ongoing storylines would result in rejection.
Now that you've read all of this, feel free to look below for the rules and applications.