Union: The Bloodstained Seals (Plot)

((This is a plot idea I've been tossing around in my head, and anybody is welcome to join.))

Recently, inquiries have been made as to information about a set of magic artifacts known as the "Bloodstained Seals". Naturally, inquiries lead to rumours, and rumours spread like wildfire among the metahuman community.

Hearsay-((Information which a character may have simply heard by word of mouth, without any attempt of their own to research the matter.))

The Seals, so the the rumours say, were created in times long past to provide a method with which anyone, even a god, could be threatened. Though the secrets to their workings have long since passed and the knowledge of them is all but forgotten, their power remains.

Individually the seals are unremarkable, and not worth the effort it takes to aquire them, but combined their true potential is unlocked.

The inquiries coincide with those about seemingly unremarkable pieces of bloodstained paper.

Looking into it-((Information a character would easily find if they actually put some effort into looking up the seals.))

Information has risen- or possibly been fed into the system- as to how to identify the actual seals. It's not too difficult for anybody with the right information and magical senses.

It also seems that some magic groups have already been identified to own some of the items- it's likely one of these were the ones responsible for starting the inquiry. The Circle of Thorns is thought to have at least one, and the formerly-minor villain group known as the Legion have at least two, one of which was stolen from the Midnight Squad. Other groups, such as Arachnos, the Cabal and the Carnival of Shadows, have not given any indication as to whether they hold any.

The seals work as any sealing item would, with the exception that power from a sealed creature can be leeched by the user for his or her own ends. More powerful beings require more of the seals to be used at once, but the effects are multiplicative- a regular human soul would barely require a single seal, a powerful devil around five, and an archdemon would need at least twelve.

The seals are supposedly, like any set of magic artefacts, located across the world, if they've not been found already. They were scattered by the last people to use the seals, and their resting places are often heavily guarded by what they left behind.

The seals were made with what is often catergorised as forbidden magic, based off the eldritch powers of demonic pacts.

Digging Deeper-((Information a character would only be able to access with specialist contacts or resources- high ranking members of the Midnight Squad, those with vast libraries of information, etc.))

The power leeched by the seal can be "chained" to power the binding of another entity.

The power the seal leeches is roughly equal to that which it seals, but a willing entity bound by them will actually provide more power than they would normally.

The actual number of seals is unknown. Records indicate at least 10 seperate seals, likely more.

Breaking a seal will result in the creature it bound being released, as one might expect. However, the twisted magic of the seal will cause them to lash out at whoever did so- whether they are enemies or not.

The sealing rite used will actually displace the victim from reality while the Seal is active. How it accomplishes this, and the exact details, cannot be found via simple research.

Analysis-((Information gleaned from analysing the Seals in person- obviously, this requires the character to own or have access to one.))

The Seals do not react well to being shifted through time and space- in other words, teleporting them can have unpredictable results. It can lead to an outburst of power, possibly hurting the teleporter, causing the teleport to be misguided (such as ending up a few miles off target), cause the user to be teleported minus Seal, shut down the teleporter...The list goes on, and it's nigh impossible to predict what will happen. It can even result in the Seal being destroyed.

However, the above note can be counteracted, given enough time to prepare. Thorough analysis of the Seal will result in being able to find a secure method of teleporting it, although this requires, as noted, significant preperation time, and will often be limited to teleporting it from a single location.

If one has two or more Seals, he/she can use them to locate others more easily. The more Seals one owns, the more precise and powerful this is, to the point it can break scrying defences if one has gathered enough (at least four); however, one must be in close proximity to the Seals for the detecting spell to work.

The Seals are in fact capable of creating a small pocket dimension, in which the victim is sealed. Stronger beings may be able to break free.

Motives-((Some general reasons characters might want to join, just suggestions- by no means exclusive))

• Putting away a long time adversary, for good or ill.
• Dealing with an entity to powerful to be killed normally.
• Protecting the seals from those who would use them for their own ends.
• Taking the seals and controlling the distribution of them, making a profit in the process.
• Researching the artifacts and trying to discover their secrets.

• The Circle of Thorns
• The Harbinger of Woe ((@Echo 13)) and, by extension, her minions, The Legion- holding 2 Seals
• The Midnight Squad
• Incendria ((@Laniatus; By necessity, presently off screen))- Holding 1 Seal.
• Fateweaver Venom ((@Nitro v. IV)), and likely by extension, The Krimzon Guard- Holding 1 Seal.
• Cassandra Baudin ((@Fea))-Contact, rather than an active hunter. Hero's in need of info or tip offs can head her way.
• Bad Moon Rising ((@Kornak7)) / Edward Witchvale ((@Kornak7))
• Doctor Desecrator ((@Royal One))- Holding 1 Seal
• Sullivan ((@Transmission))
• The Thunderer ((@Thunderrar))
• Erez'Zul ((@Thunderrar))
• File ((@Brightwel))- Holding 1 Seal.
• Panzer Kommandant ((@Aerial Assault))- and by extension, at least a faction of the 5th Column.- Holding 1 Seal
• Glorianna ((@Irrelevant))
  

Something that can deal with a unkilling being of immense power? Venom is going to be all over this.

I’d suggest you maybe delay actually starting anything up now though, since we’ve just (more or less) wrapped up the Carnie plot, and am now dealing with the aftermath so I don’t really want to jump straight into a new plot. I imagtine there will be others who feel the same.

Well i have a few toons that would be interested in such, one a Vill, one a Vig, both magic orgins, cant think of any heroes that would leap in.

Given what the seals claim to be able to do i am guessing your looking at highlevel /powerful characters invovlment, which often leads to blance issues, ie Venom backed by the KG makes it hard for lone operators to do much as an example

Are you looking at a slow burn plot or an all action fest ??

Oh and no Lucy would not go near them..she already knows how to "reduce" her foes, from her backstory.

Ooo, looks interesting! I have a couple of heroes who'd definitely get involved as soon as they heard about that!

Primarily, I'm thinking of Cassandra Baudin - a magic researcher and teacher at PCU. Also thinking of Fea aka Shanna Connell who has very strong views on demons and what should be done about anything connected to them.

OK after careful pondering, no dice were involved , i will offer up my WS for this one, he may not be a magic user but he does have good personal reasons for being interested in the Seals. He trades under the name Bad Moon Rising for masked matters which is his secret hero ID, but also operates publicly mask-less as Edward Witchvale. He keeps the two IDs very seperate.

This is why we can't have nice things.

Or, at least, why we can't email them to Nitro


I may bring somebody in to play for this. Depends on whether I feel ready to bring the group into proper play yet.

This sounds like something that would be entirely awesome, Would it be cool if I brought in Erez'Zul and the Thunderer?

Hmn. Interesting...

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zwillinger GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Captain_Photon NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.

Alright. I think there's enough people on the list now to kick things off.

I intended to start this week, but it's turned into a very busy week for me. So I'm aiming for the plot to officially "start" next week.

So prior to that time, I'd appreciate it if I had an idea of what characters are going to be doing, so I can prepare AE missions or such.

If anyone wants to hold off entering for now, that's fine. Join when ready

At the moment the AE to-do list are a couple of relatively-generic missions involving going into a temple/complex/underworld and retrieving one or more seals. If people have requets, please send them to me!

So to recap; if people can give me a heads up one what they're doing and what they need by Monday, that'd be great. Echo out.

Hello Echo

Bad Moon Rising aka Edward Witchvale will be at the trying to do the Digging Deeper stage, however his lack of magical contacts , and the fact he is working alone will have caused him, problems. So he is more than willing to work with anyone else that he finds also to be investigating the Seals.

Depending on how he meets these other he will stick to either his BMR or Edward persona, the two are kept separate like each other’s secret ID.

BMR is a costumed Hero were as Edward is a shady investigator of “strange” things. Though both display clear powers identifiable as those of a WS, they act differently.

His reasons for investigating a purely personal, and he will not disclose them at this stage.

Kornak.

While normally I balk at the prospect of revealing Venom’s motivation to anything, I don’t think it will be much of a reveal that she would love to have a reliable weapon to deal with the otherwise indefatigable and very hard to neutralise threats she keeps having to deal with.

Probably try and obtain a seal or seals and reverse engineer it, or, failing that, finding out how they work.

Erez'Zul would simply be after them for his own selfish needs, pretty much to gain more power and use on his enemies.
He would use the Triplets to gather information on the locations of the seals but would go to fetch them personally.

The Thunderer wouldn't come into it at first until it was made clear Erez'Zul had resurfaced and was involved

Alright, to put it out there, the Krimzon Guard have gotten one of the seals, so we can probably consider that plot started.

I'm going to keep a post of who has how many Seals on the main post- I can trust you to use common sense as to which your character would know about.

Cool,

so how do the rest of us start to do things , also is there going to be a thread for us to post our " what happened" bits or do you want to keep everything in game ?

Kornak