New Mage Type: 'Onmyodo'

[Rui]

Type: Onmyodo
History:

Within this land of ours, everything you see before you has a spirit all it's own, irregardless of whether you can see it or not.

Shikigami; artificial spirits called forth from an object, animal, or plant, and sealed within a paper talisman. From that talisman, they can then be called forth to attack, defend, or otherwise support their master.

This particular form of Magic was born approx. 12 centuries ago; created by a court astronomer in an Eastern island nation. Born with inordinate amounts of magic power, he had been quickly taken from the streets where he was born, and brought into the palace where he was trained to read the stars. Many years later, a war broke out and the palace belonging to the ruler of those lands was being set upon by the forces of their enemies. Seeing that their army was about to be defeated, the Astronomer began to beseech the local guardian deities for their assistance. Whether his prayers were heard or it was simply an Epiphany, that man came up with an answer.

Calling upon his natural Magical talent, and his firm belief that everything around him had a spirit, he summoned forth the Guardian Spirit of the castle and the surrounding lands. The sight of the spirit alone was enough to break the momentum of the encroaching forces and give the defending army a second chance to fight. And by adding the might of the Deity to the remaining strength and renewed vigor of the defending army, they were able to fight off the enemy forces. They later went on to defeat the other army, and became the sole ruling force of the Island Nation.

But that's beside the point. The technique that the Astronomer used that day soon after became the basis for an entirely new form of magic: Onmyodo. This form of magic is divided into three branches, the first two of which use the same basic technique that the Astronomer used. The first Branch are the Shikigami Riyousha(Shikigami Users); Mages who call forth the normally dormant spirit of an animal, plant, or inanimate object and then place it within a talisman, often made from paper or cloth. From there, the Shikigami can be summoned whenever the user wishes for whatever the task at hand may be.

The second branch of Onmyodo are the Direct Combatants, called Onmyoji. Onmyoji are rumored to be the first form of Onmyodo practitioners; they are broken into two Sub-branches. The first are the Spirit Manipulators, they focus on calling forth spirits, primarily of the human variety and using their magic to temporarily combine them with their weapons to create a superior magically-based weapon. The Second Onmyoji sub-branch are those who use talismans like the Shikigami Riyousha, called Majiken(literally Magic Sword). But instead of using them to hold spirits, they use the talismans as a medium to cast lower rank magics to restrain or otherwise weaken the opponent, they combine this with typically non-magical combat to finish off the target. The Third branch of Onmyodo have no name, and are rarely seen directly participating in combat. They focus on using their skill in their special arts to create unique weapons, often with greater power against magic and magical beings.

Branches:

Shikigami Riyousha - 0

Onmyoji - 0

Spirit Manipulators - 0

Majiken - 0

'Spirit Blade Smiths' - 0

Items:

Name: Shikigami Talisman(Lv1)
Level: Greenhorn
Description: a paper or cloth strip that measures 1.2 inches wide by three inches long. They most often have a simple Buddhist chant or prayer written on them.
Price and Availability: Free with each new Lv1 Shikigami Created

Name: Shikigami Talisman(Lv2)
Level: Feeble
Description: a paper or cloth strip that measures 1.2 inches wide by three inches long. They most often have a Buddhist chant or prayer written on them.
Price and Availability: Free with each new Lv2 Shikigami Created

Name: Shikigami Talisman(Lv3)
Level: Mediocre
Description: a paper or cloth strip that measures 1.2 inches wide by three inches long. They most often have a simple Buddhist chant or prayer written on them.
Price and Availability: Free with each new Lv3 Shikigami Created

Name: Shikigami Talisman(Lv4)
Level: Intermediate
Description: a paper or cloth strip that measures 1.2 inches wide by three inches long. They most often have a simple Buddhist chant or prayer written on them.
Price and Availability: Free with each new Lv4 Shikigami Created

Name: Shikigami Talisman(Lv5)
Level: Destructive
Description: a paper or cloth strip that measures 1.2 inches wide by three inches long. They most often have a Buddhist chant or prayer written on them.
Price and Availability: Free with each new Lv5 Shikigami Created

Name: Shikigami Talisman(Lv6)
Level: Devastating
Description: a paper or cloth strip that measures 1.2 inches wide by three inches long. They most often have a Complex Buddhist chant or prayer written on them.
Price and Availability: Free with each new Lv6 Shikigami Created

Spells:

Spell Name:Spirit Summoning
Level: Greenhorn
Range: 3cm
Description: The most basic Onmyodo technique, and the only one that all three branches are required to learn. Using their magical ability, the user calls forth the spirit of an object. Shikigami Riyousha typically use this to call forth the spirit of an inanimate object, animal, or plant. Onmyoji often only use this once, to call forth their partner Spirit(may be human). Spirit Blade Smiths use this the least, using it to call forth the spirit of their creation once completed. Once the spirit is called forth, they then are able to prevent it from falling back into the state of 'Perpetual Sleep' most spirits are in before the use of this technique.
Drawback: cannot be used for combat purposes without consent of all parties involved in the thread. Cannot be used on living people without their consent.
Limit:Onmyodo Universal Spell

Free Starter Item and Spell

Name:Scout-type Shikigami Talisman
Level: Greenhorn
Description: a paper or cloth strip that measures 1.2 inches wide by three inches long. They most often have a simple Buddhist chant or prayer written on them. This type in particular is a special type that creates a small-scale 'chibi' copy of the user about one 10^th normal size to be used for scouting or communication. It's maximum effective range is about 1.2 Kilometers, and it can communicate between threads, though only if the two threads aren't described as being beyond the range limit. The Range limit also doubles with each of the user's level ups. Has no combat ability.
Price and Availability: Free, starter item

[Rui]

To Staff: should this be accepted, I'd like it if you would keep track of people in this Mage type using the list I provided.

Also, could someone PM me the character customs I had open when the site closed? Or were they deleted?

[Count Dracula]

Uh.. Shaman king? Also, which character custom to be exact? Like your character bio?

[Rui]

sorry, there was supposed to be an 'and' in that sentence. I'd like both the character and the customs I had open when the site closed to be PMed to be if at all possible, and/or the customs moved back to open customs section please.

And yeah, the second branch, Onmyoji, is a knock off of Shaman King, but the Shikigami Riyousha is based off of several anime and manga, as well as the traditional abilities that real-world Onmyoji were supposed to have.

[Artificial Intelligence]

Your old character bio is in the Old bios section. Custom...uh let me look around. On your custom. Just from skimming through it, it don't seem all that bad and possible to be accepted. However, we shouldn't accept new custom types yet. However, this don't seem like any other type we have in archive to work on. It like a maybe right now. Let me ask around and see if the others be Ok with it.

[Rui]

kk, thanks

and I already checked, I can't find anything on my old character. He wasn't accepted, but I'll try again.

[Count Dracula]

I sent it over pm...he was moved in archive before we had old bio board. Gonna look for your old customs.

[Rui]

thanks

[shadeimpulse]

Can I get an example of the actual spirits that might be summoned at each level? From the spells you listed I still have no real idea of how powerful each level would be.

[Count Dracula]

Oh uh, one thing. Is not also like a stellar mage? Where you summon something and they all do the work? Hope not lolz.

[Rui]

sorry.

More or less they'd fall into one of three catagories: Magical Creatures(which have innate abilities that they can use without draining the user's magic, however, they are much more limited in what abilities they can gain as they increase in strength.) Magical Arms(which, while alive, have very limited intelligence, and are treated as if they were a magical weapon/armor of some sort) and the third are Psudo-mage(which are treated much as if they were ordinary characters, however they have no innate abilities and have to use already-accepted mage types as a basis for their abilities) While all three types may be quite varied, in the end, they all drain a stated amount of Magic from their master per turn, which determines their power and ranking. Like usual, this cannot exceed the owner's rank. In addition, any non-innate ability one might use, such as magic, drains the required amount of Magical Energy(I'mma just gonna call it Mana from here on out) from the owner, meaning they can become very draining in a very short period of time.

And yeah, there are similarities to Stellar Spirit Mages, however SSM use keys to summon pre-existing spirits who dwell within another world, while Onmyodo summons a pre-existing spirit from a source in this world and then seals it within a paper talisman in order to be used for varied purposes. In this way, they are semi-permanently bonded to the master, and are partially a reflection of their abilities and personality. At least the Shikigami users are. The other two are much different.

My new bio has a few examples of the three types. Kurogane's a Magical Arms, Raiko is a Magical Being, and Yukiko's a Psudo-mage

[Artificial Intelligence]

Mhm...Not sure. Post the level thing's as shade said. seem rather confusing.

[Rui]

Well, first I'd like your assistance in working out the system for them. As I said before, they drain a certain amount of energy from the user per turn, and can drain more to use spells and such. What I need help with are limitations on how many you can have at a time, interactions with other mage types, and such. The other two types are fairly self-explanitory. But I know the Shikigami users need some expansion.

[Count Dracula]

Well, certain amount I say green horn, 8 turns...feeble, 7 etc etc for how long. 5 for how long...if you do a full shaman king deal. It could actually work better for you than all this other stuff your trying to add into one type lolz. Or have only two branches that are more close.

[Rui]

Personally, I was thinking more along the lines of they expend an amount of Mana per turn equal to their rank, and the user can have as many as they want, for as long as their Mana holds up. Another thought I was having is that they could control the amount of Mana put into their Shikigami, adjusting it up and down as the situation at hand warrants, which would also alter the abilities of the Shikigami, ie; battle is going on, player A has a shikigami out and is supplying it with a Moderate level of Mana, therefore the Shikigami is treated as a Moderate level character, or whatever. Character A is themselves a Master level mage, though they are hiding it. Player B is fighting back with their own character who is one rank above the Shikigami's current level. As the battle turns against the Shikigami, they increase the Mana supply to their maximum, a Master Level amount per turn, increasing the level of the Shikigami to master level; however now Character A can keep the Shikigami active for fewer turns as the amount of Mana supplied has increased several fold.