TO VENUS
Venus, as you can see, the IR is heavily a free form roleplaying affair.
It is a power struggle between a number of different factions, in which the future of Oerth (the World of Greyhawk campaign setting), and perhaps the future of Krynn, Toril, and other worlds will be decided.
In any roleplaying situation where you are threatening another In Character, or making statements of action In Character, you need to know how much power you have to back up where you are saying and doing.
If you wish to attack another Power, for instance, you most certainly need to know how strong your Power is, and how strong their Power is!
That is where Power Level, or PL, comes in.
PL was the first of the home rules I created for the IR, and it - basically - tells you how much muscle you have to back up any statements you make on the board.
Your PL comes from your countries.
In your case, it comes from the Kron Hills and the 15 odd Emerald Order Enclaves scattered around the continent of Oerik.
Giving you somewhere in the neighborhood of 300 PL, which puts you on a par with most of the other members of the Alliance of Oerth, who are your friends.
However, there are ways to increase your PL, and so to have more force, and a bigger say, and - to be blunt - a bigger hammer to smash the idiot yonder to pulp with.
One way is to Advance Your Civilization.
Another is to research 10th and 11th level magic.
In order to do this, you must understand Turns.
- - -
The IR is run in Turns and Interludes.
A Turn lasts, generally, for 400 posts (or 2 threads on this board), and last one month In Character - that is, regardless of what is posted, one month passes on the world of Oerth during that Turn.
All fighting, and most action, occurs during Turns.
Interludes use up only a few days In Character, and no fighting is allowed during the Interludes.
However, as you may have seen, intensive roleplaying and plotting occurs during Interludes, and the IR can be won or lost with words and the pen, and not with the sword and the bow (or gun, or nuclear weapon, etc. ad infinium.)
It is during the TURN, however, that you allocate your Power Level (PL).
It is during the Turn that you need to do so.
UNLESS YOU SPECIFICALLY STATE OTHERWISE, ALL YOUR PL IS CONSIDERED TO BE IN THE FORM OF ARMIES.
So, if you do not send me a Template, I will assume all your 300 odd PL is in the form of troops, who will fight to the best of their ability to protect your countries and secret holdings.
You may, however, choose to allocate PL to Advancing Your Civilization or Magical Research.
IF YOU DO THIS, THAT PL IS NOT DEPLOYABLE AS ARMIES.
IF YOU USE ALL OF YOUR PL FOR ADVANCING YOUR CIVILIZATION OR MAGICAL RESEARCH, YOU HAVE NO ARMIES AT ALL!
If attacked, you would be almost instantly overwhelmed, since there is nobody to protect you.
So, bear that in mind, as I explain the following:
Advancing Your Civilization:
For every 3 PL you allocate to advancing your civilization, your civilization (which currently stands at about 1560, to use the historical European equivalent) advances one year further into the Renaissance, Enlightenment, and Industrial Revolution.
Every time your Power advances 10 years in such a manner, EVERY country you possess gains PL, permanently.
Your Power becomes a more powerful Power, permanently.
Countries marked (S) gain 1 PL permanently.
Countries marked (M) gain 2 PL permanently.
Countries marked (L) gain 3 PL permanently.
Countries marked (LL) gain 4 PL permanently.
The Union of Oerth has used this tactic to make themselves 10 times more powerful than they were at the beginning of the IR.
In your case, every country on your roster has a marking of one of the above, and it will gain PL accordingly, each and every time you advance those 10 years.
For example, let us say you had 15 countries, and all of them were marked (L).
You paid 30 PL (3 per year) to advance your Power 10 years.
Each country would gain 3 PL permanently, so you would gain 45 PL.
Your total PL would by 45. If you previously had a PL of 200, you'd now have a PL of 245.
Magical Research:
10th level magic is awesomely powerful (although Kalanyr might dispute that ...)
With it, your armies fight better.
With it, you can move ALL of your armies to any place on Oerth, instantaneously - otherwise, they must march on foot or horseback, or go by ship (if they are really lucky, Kaboom can ferry them by his skyships or they can go by dragonback, but don't count on it.)
With 10th level magic, you can throw a Catastrophe once per turn, destroying one of your enemy's countries.
With 10th level magic, you might even be able to block a nuclear attack.
With 10th level magic, you can prevent all scrying of you and your Power, so the enemy does not know what you are doing or planning.
And 10th level magic can do a lot more than that ... basically, you would have to explore it's limitations by trial and error, but trust me when I say the limitations are way out there.
11th level magic is much more difficult to obtain than 10th level magic.
But it is much more powerful.
I am still considering it's limits - but it is worth saying that with 11th level magic, the whole of reality as it is known can be turned upside down.
For example, the climate at Oerth's equator can be turned, permanently, into an arctic climate.
The climate at Oerth's pole, can be turned, permanently, into an equatorial climate.
Entire continents can be blasted, or sundered apart, by the wrathful use of 11th level magic.
11th level shields will block nuclear explosions, antimatter explosions, and even the weapons of superscience from films and books of the science fiction genre.
To obtain 10th level magic, you must obtain 50 points in what is called the Magical Arms Race.
For every 10 PL you spend, you gain 1 PL in this race.
It is that simple: you spend 10 PL, the 10 PL is spent, and you gain 1 in the Magical Arms Race, and that 10 PL is considered used up for the turn.
But ...
For every 10 PL you spend on this research, you lose 2 PL permanently from your Power.
The research is incredibly dangerous.
It has this tendency to kill those who try it.
It has this tendency to cause extraplanar beings to appear that eat the researchers, then the building they were in, then the city the building was in.
It tends to cause explosions that level countrysides, not to mention the mages and castles the research was being done in.
It is also extremely costly in terms of gold spent, time consumed, and it is labor intensive, requiring vast numbers of mages and their helpers.
Thus, the 2 PL penalty lost.
The Technological Arms Race:
This is not something you spend PL on, but it most CERTAINLY affects how much power you have to back up your statements!
The Technological Arms Race tells you how advanced the weapons are your Power has.
A rating of 3 in the TAR indicates you have flintlock pistols.
A rating of 18 indicates you have weapons from the late 19th century.
A rating of 25 indicates you have your first crude nuclear weapons (not to mention jet fighters, and other nice things like that.)
How do you get these things?
You gain 1 point in the Technological Arms Race every Turn, automatically.
No need to spend any PL, no need to even bother with it. This 1 point is automatic.
However, up to 3 other Powers may share their technology with you, and for every one that does this, you gain ANOTHER point in the Technological Arms Race.
Thus, you can gain up to 4 points in the Technological Arms Race, every Turn.
Of course, the Powers sharing with you will probably want you to share back.
You may share your technology back, with every Power in the IR if you wish, or just those you select.
The Roster:
At the beginning of every Turn (not Interlude) is something called the Lists Post.
I created it, and my SN appears next to it.
You can't miss it, for it is the length of a short novel.
Currently, I have a rough draft of the List Post already on this board - it is marked Turn 6, Do Not Post (everyone, can you help Venus find it?)
Take a look at it.
There, you will see that:
You are entitled to create a Player Character, who could have a PL all of his or her own, up to 20.
You are entitled to have 16 PL in Non-Player Characters.
There is a complete list of all your countries, under the name Venus (and everyone is listed in alphabetical order.)
There is a summary of your Power at the bottom, along with your total PL (ignore all the numbers that add up to it - only the total PL is really important.)
You will see the Technological Arms Race, which tells you how advanced your weapons are.
Then you will see the Magical Arms Race, which tells you how close to achieving 10th (or 11th) level magic you are.
Then you will see the Planar, Undead, Monster, and Construct Arms Races.
Simply put, these represent numerically the value of the hordes of monsters and Planar beings all the Powers are summoning to help them in the war.
You get to select 3 Planar Races to help you in the war yourself. Any 3 races you want, so long as you don't pick Planars who are both good and evil.
Note that nobody is in the Undead Arms Race anymore - well, almost nobody. Acererak (Maudlin is playing him) managed to take over all the undead, so nobody is summoning them anymore.
Finally, you will see the Advancing Your Civilization list, and the historical equivalent your Power is at.
Last of all, you will see the Red Goo rating list.
This shows which Powers are dabbling in the use of the perilous Red Goo and Red Steel, and just how much they are dabbling in it.
And that covers the basics of the IR.
Everything else is just a lot of talk.
- - -
Templates:
You need to send me a Template
All you need to do in that Template is tell me:
How many PL you are spending to Advance Your Civilization
How many PL you are spending on Magical Research (the Magical Arms Race)
The rest of your PL is automatically considered to be in the form of armies
You may, if you wish, specify where your armies are and how strong (what PL value) they are.
You also must tell me who you are sharing technology with.
That is the basic template!
Edena_of_Neith
