RolePlay onLine

The Politics of Magic

The Politics of Magic, or The Tales of Young Magicians of Quality

Premise:  Llanthry College, and its sister Wyverly College, were the preeminent and prestigious institutions for teaching Young Magical Boys and Girls of Quality within the whole of the Union. While magic was commonplace within that strange realm, it was stratified into different layers. Common Magic was the everyday, practical sort of magic available to any lowborn commoner or subject of the realm. Guild magic were secrets closely guarded by the guilds and mostly used by magewrights.

However, High Magic was the body of powerful spells and powers upon which the realm turned. There in the hallowed halls of Llanthry and Wyverly, the sons and daughters of the aristocracy and the landed gentry learned the rare and precious magical skills known only to the upper classes of Society. Yet will these be enough when war and ruin come once more to the Circles of the Known World?

Notes: This game is inspired by many, many, many different Regency-era fantasies, including Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrel, The Magicians and Mrs. Quent, and The Lady Trent Memoirs, among others.

It is also a game about a magical school in a society where magic is entirely commonplace, though very restricted. The struggle between the classes, between upstairs and downstairs, will be interesting to see explored in the setting of a magical school. But even the lowest born commoner has access to some sort of magic.

Yet, this is also, perhaps most importantly, a war story. A great conflict is brewing on the horizon, and the students attending these magical schools will be caught up in the middle of it.

System: I am more interested in characters and story than in system mechanics. As such, while this game uses a home-brewed system, the fiction will often triumph over mechanics. I will always go the path that makes for a better story.