The first thing that you'll need to send in for an rtj is a general concept and general idea of race, magic, background, abilities.  This game has a very wide spectrum of what is permissible, but I'd still like to give the green light before you waste time producing an entire character profile.

Characters in this game will represent the brightest and most promising users of magic from across the world, and possibly other worlds, called to assist Cinnaria in these dark times.  As such, the scope of what your character may be is quite wide.  They could be an aged human archmage from the crumbling eastern empires, or an elven spirit shaman from the enchanted forests, a dogheaded master of the desert sands, or a centaur forest talker, a summoned genie of great power or a sphinx of untold wisdom, a master illusionist with ink for blood, a shugenja beholden to the dragons of storm and wind, or a half-merman fisherman who communes with the horrors of the deep.

The limit of race is mostly left to your imagination, as long as it fits the tone and scope of the game.  This is a fantasy game, so something better suited for a sci-fi game may not fit.  Also, this game is going to have a slightly dark, more serious tone, so something too comedic or cartoony will not gel well.

As for power limit, speaking in terms of games like DND, characters will be the equivalent of mid to high level, depending on their focus.  While they may be viewed as masters of their chosen arts, they are not the greatest magicians ever, nor do they have absolute control of any magical phenomenon.  This means that, even though the players will be quite powerful, they WILL encounter more powerful, more dangerous beings.  So do not expect your character's power to never face a challenge.  In fact, expect it, and use it as a means of growth for your character.

Three things will need to be kept in mind for your characters and their backgrounds, however.

1. This game will revolve equally around investigation into magical mysteries and dealing with the fallout of those mysteries on the lands of Cinnaria.  This means that your character must at least be capable of interacting with humanity in social situations.  Beings that are incapable of communicating or are too big or grotesque to fit into a ballroom, won’t be feasible for the story unless they have a consistently reliable means of circumventing the problem, be it a homunculus that speaks with their words, or the ability to alter their form.
This doesn’t mean that your character needs to be highly proficient in social situations, but a character incapable of even participating would be left out of a significant chunk of the game.

2. The player characters of this game will all be quite capable in terms of magic and personal ability.  But the game is also designed to allow them to grow and adapt to the new threats and magics they face.  This means you will want to create a character that has room to grow and develop in their abilities.
It also means no one player will have magic that far out classes the others.  This means magic focuses like “manipulating magic” or “augmenting other players abilities” or things like time or fate manipulation will not be allowed.  Players may have access to some things that may get close to these types of abilities, but no player will be given the ability to alter or overpower another character’s magic on principle.

3.      Cinnaria is the most powerful continent in Arca.  Many of the magical beings in existence beyond its borders, such as dragons gods, powerful wizards, etc, are individually more powerful than any Cinnarian, but no people or nation or race could stand against the might of Cinnaria's armies.  Hundreds of thousands of men with muskets, cannons, and horses could dominate the world if they chose to.  So while characters may view Cinnarians as backward or ignorant about magic, and they very much are, they are still incredibly powerful nations that no other people really wants to anger.
This message was last edited by the GM at 19:16, Mon 21 June 2021.

Once a player's character idea is approved, they will need to submit a rough draft of a character profile.  This is as follows:

Name: This is a bit obvious, but a good name fitting the characters background and society is an integral part of any character

place of origin/species: another one that is pretty self-evident.  Depending on the race, this information might need to be fleshed out a bit, to describe to the other players exactly what the character is.

physical description: This should not only cover things like height, weight, etc. but also mannerisms, clothing, and anything else that would be noticeable to someone meeting the character.  Try to give the character's description a sense of the character's personality and keep the character's abilities in mind as well.
personality: This is a more direct description of the character's outlook and personality.  How the character acts, how he views life, how he views magic, are all important aspects of the character.

Abilities: So that the game has a bit of structure to allow players to grow and to face challenges, I will be using a simple system to gauge the power of each character.  The player character’s strengths and weaknesses will be rated in a scale of 1 to 6.  1 is a basic and capable understanding of the subject, while 6 is the greatest possible mastery, rivaling a god of that subject.  Players will be limited to a maximum of 3 to begin, with a 4 possible only in rare circumstances, with abilities that won’t directly overpower the game.
For each category of strengths, your character will begin with 9 points to distribute.  This allows you to begin with a minimum of 3 abilities, though I don’t recommend having 9 at level 1, as it may spread your character far too thin.

magical strengths: One of the most important aspects of the character.  This covers what magical abilities/arts the character has.  Characters in this game will be some of the more capable magic users in the world, so their magic should be quite potent.  For the sake of a game that is fun for everyone, magical strengths should be limited to 3, possibly 4 areas of expertise.

magical strengths could be anything from necromancy to mental manipulation to elemental fire to summoning to divination to spirit channeling to magical devices.  The limit to this sort of strength is only your imagination and what seems reasonable to the GM, and the game is geared for a wide and diverse set of abilities.

In terms of power level, the narrower the focus, the more powerful it can be.  If the focus is something like offensive fire magic, then the user will be quite proficient and deadly, like a high-level mage in a setting like D&D.  The opposite is true as well.  Broad categories can be given, but they will only be of moderate power.  So, a strength of general wizardry would cover a much broader range of spells and abilities that are not as powerful as a close expertise.

magical weaknesses: The character's magical strengths have to be offset by weaknesses.   These must be roughly equal to the magic strengths and can even be thematically linked to specific abilities.  You need 9 points of magical weaknesses, equal to your magical strengths.
The character’s magical weaknesses can be something along the lines of a prohibited school or area of magic, if the character otherwise has a broad knowledge, a specific magical weakness like a fire mage being vulnerable to ice magic, some sort of magical restriction or taboo like not being able to touch dead flesh or the mage's magical powers will be lost until he can purify himself, or some other sort of mystical limitation.  As with everything else, this can be worked out between the player and the gm.

personal advantages: This area is the mundane equivalent of magical strengths.  This covers anything you want your character to be good at that could give him an advantage in game, that is not magical in nature.  It could be a broad historical knowledge, or expert fencing skill, smooth, charming manners, or a beautiful singing voice.  Whatever you want your character to be able to do much better than the average person.  Like magical strengths, players have 9 points to distribute among the abilities, and they are capped at 3, though 4s may be a bit more possible in this area, depending on how narrow the strength is.

personal weaknesses: The counterpoint to personal advantages.  This should cover areas that the character is worse at than the average individual, or areas of personal problem.  It could be bad hygiene or an uncouth manner, a total lack of fighting skill or a lack of knowledge of anything outside his own home village.  These should be designed to offset the advantages listed above, though they do not have to be directly related.  Again, 9 points are required here as well.

other traits: This is for any other unique, unusual traits of the character that stand out beyond his personality.  Perhaps the character always smells like cinnamon incense, or his eyes glow in the dark.  It could also be an unusual manner of dress, or the tendency to speak in riddles.  Things beyond simple personality traits that you want the character to be known for.

Background: This area should be a few paragraphs fleshing out where the character came from, how or where he might have been trained or otherwise gained his abilities, as well as any other important events in the characters life.  Feel free to embellish the story, but the GM will likely alter it a bit to make sure it fits into the setting properly.

plot hooks: This is a place for the player to suggest ideas for plot's they'd like to explore.  Every player needs to produce at least 2 of these, ideas of what they'd like to do, and further plot hooks can be developed in cooperation with the gm.

Once this profile is submitted, the gm will look it over, and ask for adjustments as necessary.  When it is finished to satisfaction, the player will be added into the game.

Explanation of magic and power levels in game

To better help players understand how magic will work, and how character's strengths will work, I will give a bit further explanation.

Take a wizard character as an example.  Say his magic strengths are general wizardry, abjuration (magic defense and counter magic), and divination.

With general sorcery this character is able to perform abilities which would fall into the realm of spells from 1st-4th level or so in a DND game.  Moving smaller items through telekinesis, detecting the presence of magic, hypnotizing a weak willed individual, firing a bolt of lightning or fire, summoning a fighting creature.  All of those things would be fine.

If, however, the player wanted to summon a major demon, or incinerate a fully armored and powerful warrior with a stroke, or control the minds of an entire crowd, that would be outside his abilities.  But with the focus in abjuration and divination, far greater feats of scrying and detection, as well as defense, would be possible.

If this character came into contest with another character in game, and pitted magic to magic, he would be expected to be able to defend himself from magical attacks most of the time (unless his opponent is truly powerful), and he is also expected to be able to divine great amounts of info.  But if a Spirit of a dead king appears before him, he better find someone with necromancy as a focus or something else that would allow communication, because that is outside of his level of power.

When magic and characters are directly pitted against one another, whichever has the higher rating will be assumed to come out on top.  If they are equal, then the winner may depend on the player’s choices and creative thinking, or a simple roll may be required to decide the victor.

The same goes for mundane strengths and weaknesses.  All characters are assumed to be fairly capable at most mundane pursuits.  They can write, dance, give speeches, and defend themselves from common ruffians without problems.  But if they want to, say, impress the entire ballroom with their dancing skill, or seduce a jaded Sultan, or sway a rioting crowd to their point of view, or duel the grand master of a blade order, then success would only be possible if that area is covered by one of their strengths, and like magic challenges, whichever character has the higher rating will come out on top.

As the game progresses, I think it will become easier for each player to get a better idea of what they are capable of.  When writing out a post, it is probably a good idea to frame magic use as something you are attempting instead of actually succeeding, if you are at all worried, I might not allow it.

Using the above character as an example, lighting a candle with magic, or retrieving a book from a high ledge would be successful without consulting me.  In the same way, creating a powerful magical shield or using magic to divine the location of a comrade would also be something he could expect to succeed in.  But beyond that, it might be better to describe that he threw a fiery attack at an enemy, not automatically assuming it will kill.  The other option is to check with me privately to see if you can do something and I'll be happy to tell you before you post.  These methods are probably the best way to avoid having to edit or remove a post, after I step in to tell you that you can't accomplish what you wanted.

Over-all, the characters in this game are very capable, but they aren’t the most powerful in the world.  Not yet, anyway. some of the mightiest in the world.  So, most of the time, you'll be able to do exactly what you want with the magic your character possesses.  Only when challenges of even greater power raise their heads will failure become a possibility.

These are examples of characters to help players create their own.  One is designed to be magically balanced, the other much more specialized.  These characters may or may not end up in the game, depending on what player characters are created.

Name: Jabali Oto

place of origin/species: Human, sacred watcher of the Hungala Tribe, from the wilds of N'gotha

physical description: Jabali is a tall, slim man of wiry muscle and deeply weathered skin.  His skin is an even deeper color than the burnished bronze of his kinsmen, with a red-ish cast that sets him apart from humanity.  His hair is a long mane of dark, kinked braids, and his eyes are a pale gold in color.  He stands with a regal bearing, and wears the beaded vest and clothing of his station with pride.

magical strengths:
Chosen of Rackash(Elemental Magic) -3- Jabali bears the mark of his people's deity, Rackash, the Fiery Lion God of the nearby Volcano of Utosi.  This has given him power over fire and earth, which he uses to provide for his people.

Chosen of the Dead(Spirit Magic) -3- Jabali speaks with the ancestors of the Hungala, and acts as intercessor between his people and the many spirits of the wild and chaos.  This has gained him many friends among the dead and the spirits of the animals and wilds of his home.

Keeper of the Horn of Hungala (Magic Defense) -3- As the Sacred Watcher of his people, Jabali carries the hereditary relic the horn of Hungala, the sacred Rhino that carved the paths for the Ornos river which is the lifeblood of his tribe.  This horn grants him great physical stamina and protects him from enemy magic.

magical weaknesses
Pride of the Hungala -3- Jabali is the living representative of his people not only to the mortal world, but to the worlds beyond.  This responsibility forbids him from acting in a manner shameful to himself or his people, or he risks his gifts being forfeited back to Rackash.

Ice quenches the fire -3- The fire magic that Jabali wields is much less effective against those beings empowered by ice, as they are natural opposites.  He is also much less effective dealing with ice magic.

The hatred of the Past -3- Not all spirits that watch the Hungala are benevolent.  Jabali bears the ire of one of his own ancestors, a great and evil witch doctor that to this day, seeks to disrupt his work.  This spirit seems to know when Jabali is vulnerable and seeks to cause him anguish.

personal advantages
A man of the wild -3- Jabali is a skilled hunter and tracker, that has lived most of his life in the wilds of N'Gotha.  He has a great deal of knowledge about survival and dealing with the threats of nature.

Calm voice of his tribe -3- Jabali has spent over thirty years acting as the guardian and adjudicator of his tribe.  He has learned to speak with authority and with compassion, and is a great mediator and judge.  He knows how to find a solution that will please both sides of an argument.

Spirit Guides -3- Jabali is accompanied by a virtual menagerie of animals, chosen of the spirits to give him aid and protection.  Hyenas, cape hunting dogs, Birds of prey and even a leopard, all follow his command.

personal weaknesses
Purity of Body -3- Jabali has to follow several taboos that forbid him from certain behavior, as is expected of a holy man of N'Gotho.  For instance, he can not touch the dead flesh of another human without having to ritually cleanse himself, he must give aid to those who ask for it with proper respect, and he can not eat the flesh of an animal he has not killed himself.

Stranger in a Strange land -3- Jabali is not a product of the developed world of Cinnaria.  He knows next to nothing of the technology and culture he now finds himself in, and his appearance and mannerisms set him very much apart from this world.

Children in their proper place -3- The Hungala people live in a very organized society, with every member of the tribe fulfilling his chosen role for the survival of all.  Among the Hungala, those that are not married, children and young men and women, do not have the right to question those older than them.  As such, Jabali usually dismisses the viewpoint of most young people, and has a hard time accepting young adults as authority figures, even if they happen to be royalty.

other traits
Unusual Appearance- Jabali has dark red-black skin and pale gold eyes, a product of the touch of Rackash.  it is impossible to mistake him for a normal human being, and those with magical training can guess at some of his abilities just by appearance.

Tendency to talk to himself- Jabali often speaks to himself in hushed whispers.  On closer listening, it is actually only one side of a conversation, as if he converses with beings that are not visible to the naked eye.

Background Jabali is the first son of Jamori, the previous chosen of Rackash.  he is the most recent in a long line of guardians of the Hungala tribe, and his power places him among the greatest who have ever carried that title.  He has traveled from the far land of N'Gotho after a he was granted a vision by the spirits, showing a great calamity on the horizon.  It did not take long for him to receive word of the events at Valvaste upon making contact with more civilized peoples, and that led him to the city.
This message was last edited by the GM at 17:09, Mon 21 June 2021.

Name: Sturmir Wyrmslayer

Place of origin/species: Dwarf of the Blue Stone Mountains, along the northern edge of the great steppe.

Physical description: This large dwarf stands at five feet even and is a good three feet wide.  He has a full head of dark hair, pulled back into a braid down his back.  His skin is leathery and tanned and his eyes are a striking pale blue.  A scar runs down one side of his face, just missing his eye.  His beard is long and braided as well, forked into three ends that are held with several alternating gold and copper rings.

His clothing is usually incredibly finely made, and is decorated in gold and copper, as well as the reddish-gold scales of Yusurv, the mightiest wyrm Sturmir ever killed.

Outside of formal occasions, Sturmir wears a suit of plate and scale armor that is frankly magnificent to behold.  Laminated a deep copper in color, with gold trim and edging along the scale, the armor shimmers with every ripple of movement.

Sturmir is a jovial individual, unlike most of his kin.  He seems to get a kick out of laughing in the face of danger, and is more open with outsiders as well.

Magical strengths:

Physical Might -4- Sturmir is the mightiest of all dwarven warriors, and his strength and constitution are legendary among his people.  The tales say he is unkillable, and his many battles with wyrms in the high crags seem to support this claim.  He is as strong as any five men, and his endurance is virtually unending.

Magical Resistance -3- The power of the dragon’s blood has made Sturmir highly resistant to magic.  He can endure dragon’s fire, and the cold of the ice trolls.  His body seems to repel any magical attack, and magic that is strong enough to overcome his resistance will be significantly weakened.

Magic Sense -2- His decades of hunting dragons, and the magic now embedded in his blood, have made Sturmir capable of sensing inherently magical beings, and even powerful magic in the air.  He often describes it as a spiced scent in the air, or an itch in his skin.  The more powerful the magical being, or spell, the easier it is for Sturmir to sense it.

Magical weaknesses

Magically nullified -4- Sturmir’s magical resistance works both ways and makes him effectively immune to all beneficial magic as well.  He can not take part in his people’s battle chants or hymns, and no healing or transformative magic will work on his body.  If he is made part of a larger magical ritual, he will disrupt the magic like a stone cast into a calm lake, and may cause destructive adverse reactions.

Blood Dependent -3- Sturmir’s strength and abilities came from having Yusurv’s blood flow into his own.  Now he is dependent on the blood of the dragons to survive.  He has a store of alchemically refined wyrm blood to keep him going for a time, but anything that disrupts his ability to access the blood would cause him to rapidly lose his magical and physical abilities.

Dragon Hatred -2- Sturmir’s status as a wyrmslayer has made him anathema to dragons of all kinds.  They can instinctively smell Yusurv’s blood in the dwarf and know that he has killed many wyrms.  Most dragons will see him as a sworn enemy, and few would tolerate his presence.

Personal advantages

Skill of arms -4- Sturmir is a mighty warrior, and his skill with the axe and spear are considerable.  He has centuries of experience with weapons of all kinds, and even has knowledge of firearms.  Few could best Sturmir in single combat, and combined with his magical physical body, he is one of the deadliest individuals in arca.

Great hunter -3- Sturmir is a natural hunter and tracker.  Having spent half his life hunting the wyrms of the high crags, Sturmir can track almost any prey across a variety of terrains.  He can also survive in the harsh wilds.

Well equipped -2- Sturmir bears the great poleaxe Sorrow, forged of dwarven steel and tempered in the blood of a wyrm.  His armor is crafted of steel and dragonscales, and like everything else he carries, is of the finest quality.

Personal weaknesses

Deadly Fate -4- to the dwarves, the path of the wyrmslayer ends in death.  As such, Sturmir believes he is destined to die, and does little to avoid it.  This can often stifle his ability, or desire, to protect himself.  All will end in fire for Sturmir, and at his age almost welcomes it.

Distrust of magic -3- despite his personal situation, and his brother’s skills, Sturmir distrusts the use of magic.  He sees it as a necessary evil, but if given his choice he will avoid it, or find alternate ways of accomplishing the same thing, even if they are far less convenient of effective.

Warrior’s pride -2- Sturmir is proud of his accomplishments and his people and does not take disrespect.  He will defend his honor with his blade and will not hesitate to insult others who he finds offensive.

Other traits

Dwarven appearance- Sturmir is a dwarf, a race known in the northen lands of Arca.  Those peoples that have contact with the Blue Stone Mountains know that dwarves are industrious and fierce, but outside of those lands his appearance may be alarming.

Background

Sturmir was born the be a king, but his father’s hold was destroyed by the great wyrm Yusurv.  He and his younger brother dedicated their lives to hunting and killing the beast, and after two centuries they were Successful.  Now Sturmir serves other dwarven clans as a wyrm slayer and protector, and it is this role that has brought him to Cinnaria.  If this new threat is magical in nature, Sturmir feels he will be needed for the battle to come.