Edit: Please do not post in this topic anymore. Feel free to refer here, but the RP has been created and is located here. Please post anything else in the OOC thread. Thanks!

I'm planning to do a roleplay based around humans making contracts with otherworldly beings. This RP is designed to handle Faustian themes (insofar as giving up one's soul in exchange for services and/or self-destructive arrangements) if that's the direction players want to go, but at the same time, nobody will be forced to. These are not purely "deal with the Devil" contracts; it depends solely on who's making the deal, so some may be and some may not be. Also, while the being could take the role of servant, familiar, or bodyguard, it could also pose as a companion, relative, etc. Some deals may be skewed more towards equality.

I'm going to go through with this RP regardless of the interest shown, but I'm still working on everything, so it might not be for a little while. I figured I might as well throw this up and see who's interested. It would also be nice to brainstorm. The setting's getting rather solid, but there is room for suggestion. I have some ideas for conflicts, but I'm not sure what the main plot should revolve around yet. By the way, players will be expected to use proper grammar and spelling, and there will probably be a need for people to be involved in plotting and planning even as the RP plays out.

Now onto the premise. In an original world with a Victorian aesthetic, humans can use magic, but it's very basic compared to the magic of other worlds. Most people regard those other realms as nothing more than legend. However, a select few know the truth. Ethereal beings, known collectively as Visitors, lack physicality in the human world without first making a connection with a human. Via a contract, they can be summoned.

Why on earth would a powerful magical being, some of whom even possess realms all their own, bother with the human world, especially when they could wind up relegated to the place of servant or familiar? Normally it's because the connection is just as fruitful to the Visitor; many Visitors are able to use the connection to bolster their own abilities. They may feed off a human's life force, energy, magic, emotions, etc. Others are more creative with their terms. If a summoner gets lucky, the cost may be almost negligible. Some Visitors merely wish to visit Earth out of boredom or distaste for their native world; some are even banished or threatened such that they must make a quick connection or else. Others visit out of tradition or habit.

The ultimate boost to a Visitor's power is to gain dominion over a human soul. Not all choose this route, but some are unafraid to barter for one. Of those who take souls, some may simply consume it; others may use the soul as a servant of their own. Because a human soul is the person's essence itself, it can only be yielded after death. Most soul contracts are set such that the Visitor serves until the natural end of the human's life. However, a human (usually only those of the most desperate or hopeless variety) may agree to a set number of years, after which he or she will either take his or her life or allow the Visitor to do it.

In the end, the details of the contract and the relationship of those bound by it will depend entirely on the wishes and personalities of the individuals involved. Thus, in this roleplay, players will need to work out who's partnered with whom as well as the why and how of it between each other. You could probably also play both parties of a particular pair if you really wanted to and felt you could handle it, but I think the interaction would be better if people didn't.

Roleplays like this where people will be paired can pose some difficulty if things get lopsided, but there's not much helping that. If people need it or want it, we could have several Visitors to one human or vice versa, and if anyone winds up unpaired, I could probably come up with a character to play against them. Additionally, everyone doesn't have to be paired up. There could be outsider humans, either in cahoots with bound humans or none the wiser (perhaps to find out over the course of play), and perhaps we could even work out some rogue Visitors, though that would take special creativity. I was actually thinking a rogue Visitor or one attempting to go rogue could be a good focus for the plot.

In case you haven't gathered, this RP will take a lot of cooperation on the part of the players. Again, a fair amount of discussion will probably be necessary in order to set up character connections and plots. I do have some things planned, but I am entirely open to character-driven conflicts, plot suggestions, etc. Please do throw your ideas at me. If I know what kind of characters I'll have to work with, that will help me work out a plot and/or subplots suited to them. Please also let me know if you would like suggestions or have questions about the setting.

I hope I didn't scare everyone away with all the text. >_>

As I've already stated several times previous over MSN, I am very much in favor of this idea. In fact, I already have a character picked out for it, and with a few tweaks to her abilities, I definitely think that she'd do well. I can even have the breeds explanation still saved if anyone would be interested in playing a gryphon from Mirrakai's world, just in case. You can definitely count me in!

This sounds interesting- count me in. I'm definitely up for a character-driven RP. I was thinking one of my characters might be a naive, frustrated heiress trapped into a 'good match' of a marriage by her family. Summoning a Visitor would be a desperate act of rebellion and a last-ditch attempt to escape her forced marriage. If the Visitor was male (insofar as they can be), an unhealthy, dark romance could also be a possible subplot?

I think I might also play a Visitor in another pairing, if there's one available.

Luna- Hurrah! Yes, from what you've said, Mirrakai will work perfectly.

NorthernSoul- I think that idea works very well. Yes, Visitors can be male, and romance will be welcome in the RP. As for the nature of Visitors, they can be just about anything, possessing either gender (or both or none if people want to get a little more out there) and coming in a variety of species that reflects the vast amount of otherworldly realms.

I have plans for a slightly similar character, though only in that she turns to a Visitor to escape a fate determined by her family. She has a rare talent for potent healing magic (something which, at an advanced level, is rare for this setting's humans). However, she must take on the injury or illness herself. Her parents have always pressured her to use the ability but never for anything permanent. Now, she's caught the eye of a wealthy political figure who's losing his sight. The temptation of being favorites of this figure is too much for the parents, so they're pressuring her. She plans to run away, but she doesn't think she can do it alone. A Visitor is the only one she feels she can turn to.

Hmmmmm. I may have to ressurect an old character of mine, Bertram Drake. I based him heavily on several of Basil Rathbone's roles, so I ended up with a sort of darkly charming character. In purely gameplay terms, very heavy on fire and smoke themed magic, with a flair for creation magic. Obviously, he'd play best as a Visitor. NortherSole, he may make an interesting partner for the heiress.

Okay, here's what I'm thinking. He's been to this world before, summoned by someone who wanted to learn magic, and found that he liked the human world. Bertram's goal was, and has always been, a desire to find interesting worlds. Sort of the way idly wealthy people pursue hobbies to keep themselves occupied. He trades away knowledge freely in exchange for a "ticket" to new places.

I've got a habit of cooking up characters when I get bored (which is most of my time), so I'm comfortable running a few characters if we end up with an imbalance between Visitors and Summoners.

Oh God. You most certainly did not scare me away with the text!

Marionette, your idea is simply stunning. I hardly ever read a roleplay idea and go 'must join if I can!' but I did this time. I agree, it'll need a lot of player co-operation and planning right through, but I've seen it done on this site well - both things.

From what I can tell, so far we have two Summoners and one Visitor for sure. I'm not entirely sure which side Lunaria is thinking of playing but I'm toying with a Visitor myself as well. Ideas are starting to form already!

The only thing that seems unclear is the underlying plot itself. You suggested a rogue Visitor but that sounds a little loose to me. I'm drawing from His Dark Materials here, but what if everytime a Visitor accepted a contract and travelled from their world to this one, it tore a little hole in the main world and that strain is now being felt as the world is being compressed under the powerful magics of the other worlds.

A main protagonist would be ideal here, as someone who has taken advantage of the rifts to come across and try to dominate a fairly magically weak world. The Summoners and Visitors being played could then choose to help, hinder or have nothing to do with this main danger. It would be subtle at first no doubt; differences in the world's weather or events. Sort of like a quick acting but gradual magical global warming.

Darn it, I nearly got some work done!

EDIT: Monroe suggested this for plot: Possibly a summoner who barters their soul for greater power to do all sorts of nasty things.

Ooh, consider my interest piqued! Imehal turned me on to this one, insisting I at least take a look at it, and I'm glad she did. I think the basis sounds quite interesting. The only problem I see is the lack of overlying plot; this seems likely to dissolve into lots of little onexones unless some event or edict pulls them all together.

I think I'm most interested in playing a Visitor. I don't have plot or backstory or any of that good stuff figured out yet, but I would probably end up (if you'd have me, that is!) playing someone male, with an air of entitlement, a mean spirit, and a snarky personality. I feel like playing a trouble maker, but maybe one that could possibly, maybe be convinced to do the right thing in the grand scheme of things. Maybe. If it served him and/or would bring amusement to him and/or embarrassment to someone he doesn't like.

If an overlying plot is an issue, I could run a villain in addition to Bertram. Hmmm. Thinking...

Initiating Villain Generator...
Processing...
Complete.

The Iron God. Enters worlds by choosing a victim and driving them to the edge of sanity with constant whispers in their mind. Once they have been bent far enough, he demands that they summon him. Should they resist, the whispers grow to screams until they submit. Once brought into a world, he sets about trying to conquer it, keeping his Summoner alive as long as possible in order to maintain his link to the world.

Appearance: A dessicated corpse, bound in iron. All that shows is the head and face, but it is obvious that the limbs are missing. The iron shell is set into a massive mechanical body. Steam pistons power arms large and strong enough to tear cars in half and legs powerful enough to support the body.


Okay, maybe not the Iron God, but something along those lines. Eh? Thoughts?

I don't know how well a dessicated corpse would fit in a Victorian-esque society. I DO like the idea of an antagonist though. Perhaps, like Imehal was suggesting, a Summoner gone bad? It would be hard to destroy a god, especially one with steam piston arms that can tear apart cars.

Everyone- Ahh! I'm sorry for not being quicker with responding to posts, but I got distracted (as I am wont to do). I'm really glad people are
interested! I also agree with the general sentiment that there needs to be more of an overarching plot, and the fact that I don't have one yet is one of the reasons I decided to post an interest check instead of going ahead and creating the RP. I've put a fair amount of work into the idea so far, so I figured there was no point in rushing now. xD I tend to get setting down first and then plot. Aside from that, I often like very loose plots, but I want something a little more tangible for this. Experimentation running similar games has me pretty convinced that that's the best way to go. Given the fact that personal goals figure into the details of the contracts so much and that I'm encouraging character-driven conflicts, a uniting element is probably needed to make the big picture go anywhere.

Hmm, let me explain a little more about the setting itself first before I delve into plot possibilities. First of all, as mentioned, the aesthetic is Victorian, and the technology level is roughly the same, but the world is going to be original. I'm thinking late Victorian as far as technology goes in particular. Culturally, the society will be slightly less prudish and somewhat more gender equal, but decorum will still be important. Basically, it'll be close enough that we have the atmosphere but not so close that we need to sweat terribly hard about keeping period behavior. There will be more information on the physical setting when all is said and done, but hopefully that's enough for everyone to get a good idea of it. If anyone needs anything more specific, ask away.

I've also begun to shape the nature of magic in this universe and the logic behind how things work. This is what I've come up with. Originally, everything was one, and all the magical energy was constrained inside a tight shell around a core, but there was too much to be held in. There was a mighty explosion, and this created the many realms. Only the core remained in its original location, and in this realm lies the human world. Because most of the magic shattered outward, this is why the human world is less magical than other worlds. The fact that everything used to be whole is the reason why things can be summoned to the human world; each realm still maintains a vague spiritual connection with it. Technically, a human could be summoned to another realm, but for practical reasons it's not a very good idea. The power that a human soul possesses would place the proverbial target sign on his or her head. Aside from that, whereas a Visitor can return home, in most circumstances a human cannot.

Similar connections exist between some of the realms, and some much more strongly than others; some Visitors can travel freely among several different ones. However, many worlds are not connected to others at all.

Iron Ork- The character you described initially sounds like it would work quite well. It's also good to hear you'd be willing to help even the numbers if we need it.

Perhaps, if you're interested in playing a villain, you could scroll down a bit and see the plot I've proposed in response to Imelhal's ideas and see if there's something you could fit into that idea?

Oh, and I should probably note (and this goes for everyone; I actually meant to mention this in the first post, but I fail >3>) that characters should have a human form, a glamour, the ability to shield themselves from the eyes of all but their Summoner, or something along those lines that allows them to go amongst regular humans without being spotted. Contracts are a very secretive thing. Again, the general public regard other realms (outside of religious contexts, but religion generally professes that the god(s) or force(s) are either secretly present on the human world or else in one to a small handful of specific realms, not countless, and have nothing to do with it directly) as pure legend, nothing more. Those who publicly profess belief are thought of as eccentric at best.

Imelhal- Lunaria's discussed some things with me privately and plans on playing a Visitor to the healer girl I mentioned above. I also have at least one more human character in mind, but someone else may already be playing against him. I'm not sure yet.

Hmm. I've never read His Dark Materials, but that's an interesting idea. However, I'm not sure how well it fits with the theory I've started regarding the universe's magic. I know you didn't have access to that before and I apologize for that, but I thought including it in the original post might be a little too much. In any case, the way I think of it, the magical energy in this universe is happy anywhere as long as it can freely move somewhere else; by nature, it would not pressurize unless trapped. It would simply move elsewhere. It tends to move into things and people now that they exist (I think life in the realms was also the result of the initial explosion) because they make good vessels, and so the greater amount of magic there is around an area, the more magic its inhabitants have naturally absorbed. Things also have a threshold; it would be extremely difficult, but you could channel so much magic into something or someone that it too would explode. It would definitely not be pretty. Again, this would not occur naturally, since the magic would simply move somewhere else if one thing were occupied. Magic can be manually drawn from one area into another, but the aptitude to do so is based partially on the amount of magic that has surrounded the creatures (more magic present develops a greater magic threshold and greater ability to draw magic). As a result, Visitors can continually draw as much magic as they need to supply their powers from the reaches of their realms, but humans simply don't have the aptitude to draw that far or that much magic.

Hmmm. Perhaps the goal could be to somehow supercharge the connections between a realm or realms and the Earth (er, I realize I keep defaulting to "Earth" for the human world, so I'm just going to keep saying that) to the point that Visitors could travel there without a contact. At that point, they could swarm Earth in numbers and take advantage of the humans. Perhaps with some effort a few rogue Visitors could manage to get through without a contact, setting up camp in Earth to start charging from that side as well and trying to set events into motion which would help further it (perhaps political events, or else they could try to draw the other Visitors into their plot; not to mention, some of the contracted Visitors could be involved already, and some humans could be in on the idea). Then the ability to help, hinder, or ignore the situation would come in.

Monroe- I really like the sound of a character like that.

Awww, no evil god of Steampunk? Oh well, I was just tossing ideas around. I do that a lot.

Okay, how about a combination of Rogue Summoner and Visitors looking for an open door to Earth v2.0? Possibly a summoner who thinks he can get something out of the deal, maybe he's convinced himself that he can control the sudden influx of magic so he can... something. Personal goals can be figured out later.

Also. The ultimate in villain creation techniques.
Clicky

Firstly - Yay, more information! This is clearly a lot more thought out than I had originally anticipated and don't feel bad about my idea being made largely redundant by the world; I was just throwing it out there as a suggestion. I like how the worlds work and it's an interesting dynamic for certain.

I think keeping a bit more than you were thinking of the society's etiquette would be ideal, as I can imagine some characters not being subject to society's norms anyway - my character is forming into a working class gal - keep the prudish, but ease off the sexual divisions a little. There's no fun in such a roleplay without tension after all and seeing as most of these Summoners are winding up to be women anyway, it'll add a little extra when it comes out that these suppressed women are actually some of the gifted ones.

Magic doesn't seem to be a thing that is ignored or that humans are unaware of, despite their lack of apititude with it, am I right? That's nice and clear now. I like your 'creation' theory; it's simple and original without over complicating matters at all. Worlds being linked is a nice theme.

Explaining a sudden new individual in these people's lives is prolly going to be the main driving point of the roleplay at the beginning. I reckon we should have at least everyone in the same city or area, otherwise this is going to get really divided, really damn fast and then it won't matter about the overlying plots.

Ah, I didn't mean to enquire about Lunaria's character - I assumed that it was understood by someone, if not me! ^_^

That was a lot of information about the magic and I think it could have prolly used a break in there somewhere, but it was useful! It helps explains the magic of the world and the capabilities of the inhabitants as well why my idea falls through.

I like your idea for the overlying plot though and I think we should focus on getting that down before we think anymore on the characters because without the plot, this is going no where. It might even be the case of one of the Vistors making a bond with one the Summoners is part of the group that travelled through to increase the energy charging.

We could even screw up the lines of morality and say that they're doing it to save their world, which puts them not in the bad guy positions - just the wrong side to the human's one. It seems like both your and Northern's characters have the potential to be noble born which means that's how they could be involved in the plot - their betrotheds are perhaps 'in' on the situation.

So, in much the style of my help, hinder or gtfo method, I think plot, setting then characters is the order we should proceed in.

I like the idea of the villains' having a noble purpose. It makes them a bit more realistic. So.....

How about the villains are exiles from their own world(s), and want to turn Earth into a sort of gateway world for them to use as a stepping stone to other worlds? Maybe Earth is like a hub at center of a wheel, with other worlds along the edges of the wheel. Other worlds connect to only a few other worlds, but Earth connects to many. This would be why summoners on Earth can bring in Visitors from so many other worlds. Visitors would need help to travel along the spokes, so to speak, hence the need for a summoner in the first place. But if they can draw enough magic to Earth, then the gates are thrown open, allowing the Visitors to come and go as they please. The downside is that this lets in anyone, including the dark and terrible entities that have been locked away.

Everyone- Wheeee, plotting. It is probably best to see where we can go with the plot and where that leaves us in regards to characters. I'm gonna talk about everything plot-related at once rather than commenting on your suggestions individually since it makes more sense to address it at the same time.

I definitely do like the capacity for the antagonists to be driven by nobler goals. I'd still like to leave it open to villains driven by less noble causes. I like providing options. xD Anyway, perhaps a couple of different realms are working together, the nobler because it has no other choice than to work with a realm driven by powerlust and greed if it wants to save itself. That could give rise to internal conflict within that side: common goal but wildly different mores, and perhaps both entities know that once all is said and done and the gates are thrown open, full scale conflict amongst themselves is likely or even inevitable.

It would be interesting for some of the summoners to be on the side of those who would open the pathways, either being tricked into it and not understanding what it would cause, believing it would benefit them regardless of the repercussions, or simply wanting the downfall of humanity. We could even scrap the concept of rogue Visitors entirely if enough Summoners are motivated to help.

My female character is of high society, though her family is on the lower rungs of it. That's why her family is so very adamant that she heal the politician, even at the cost of her own sight, because it will gain his favor and increase their standing. I had thought of using him as an NPC, at least, so it is possible that he could get involved. Additionally, the other human character I have planned, while not genteel, could be used to that effect.

As far as looking at it like spokes around a hub with partial connections among themselves, that's basically what I was going for. That's also what I meant as far as "supercharging" the pathways. I had originally meant that the Visitors would only be opening the pathways to their own worlds, but the idea of opening them all up is an interesting one. Given the nature of some things in some realms, all hell would really break lose if each and every inhabitant of the realms suddenly had access to a multitude of valuable human energies, lives, souls, etc.

Iron Ork- As I was envisioning it, the world isn' steampunk, it's more straight Victorian in terms of technology. Then again, if people really liked the idea of it being steampunk, I wouldn't be entirely opposed to that, either.

Heh, I've read that before. It is a pretty good guide.

Imelhal- I apologize for the information overload. Worldbuilding is my addiction and probably my forte (if that wasn't obvious already xD). I don't often get too technical, but sometimes my mind gets going on certain things.

As for etiquette, what I mean is not so much that things would be completely open. It's more like fashion discrepancies would be present (a little more unisex, a little more skin permissible, but not too much and still with the Victorian aesthetic; in the case of fashion it might be a little closer to the steampunk take), women would have more options as far as living independently goes, private sexuality (as long as it's kept truly private) would not be interfered with, etc., but it still wouldn't be entirely free of prudish ideals, not to mention other mores. Prostitutes would still be very looked down upon, children would be at the mercy of their parents or at least very heavily pressured into obeying them, decorum and morality would be valued highly, etc. Perhaps it could be a period of transition in which society was becoming more open, but the idea was still controversial for a large segment of society. That could lead to even more conflict, I think, because in any given situation you might have a mix of openly opposed ideals.

Humans can use magic and do so openly, but Visitors have the capacity to do much, much more. Of particular note is the fact that strong healing magic is very rare among humans. That's about as much as I know right now, but the rest can be worked out later/as it is needed.

Something to consider: If we make magic a rarity among humans, it makes the characters more interesting. The healer becomes a miracle worker, for example. If it's unknown to the public at large, then we develope a sort of shadowy world that lives among the masses. The summoners are suddenly walking a tightrope between power and damnation instead of just being ordinary people looking for an edge. Perhaps the elite know about it, maybe a secret society kind of situation, but the general populace has little, if any, idea what it is or how it works. The summoners working with th rogue visitors become more sinister because they don't care that they walk that razor's edge of damnation, and they take on a Frankenstein-ian air of madness and obsession.




If "Frankensteinian" isn't a word, it should be.

There are definitely a lot of interesting ideas being passed around, but I’m struggling with a few things.

A) I think we can all figure out reasons they might feel personally inclined to choose one side or another, but I’m not sure how anyone would go about trying to stop the gates from opening. Right now this is coming off, to me at least, as a sort of interplanetary border control.

B) What does a visitor actually do with a person’s soul? I originally thought this was where a lot of the plot would be coming from. I’m sorry if you’ve said and I’m not seeing it, or it’s just not making sense to me. If a soul is like a Red Bull for a Visitor’s powers, why don’t they all make that part of the contract, especially since the soul isn’t taken till after the summoner dies? Is this society Christian? Do souls mean passage to heaven?

C) Aside from healing magic, what sort of magic can humans do? How rare is healing magic, and is the rarity pertinent?

Iron Ork- It's not that it's a rarity so much as special ability is a rarity. Everyone's got some capacity, though not everyone knows or cares how to use it. Some people have more capacity than others. The distribution is uneven. People who do have special ability are often coveted for it (which has its upsides and downsides).

Now, summoning magic is secret, and there may be some secret societies that come into play there.

Monroe- Good questions to ask. It's definitely nice to have inconsistencies or weirdnesses pointed out.

A) Hmm. Perhaps it's simply that they've only recently discovered a way to channel magic into the pathways, but it will require complex setup on both the home realm(s) and on Earth. In that case, stopping them would mean interfering with that setup.

B) You know, that is a really good question. The society is not Christian and souls don't work exactly the same way, I know that much. I was thinking that there would be at least several religions around, naturally, but I haven't really gotten to them yet since that's somewhat in the background; the religions are not correct as far as the way the cosmos actually works. Now that I think about it, perhaps a soul is a special form of very concentrated magical energy (but unusable by humans themselves), one that stays permanently with the possessor until death at which time it passes out and will become regular magic energy or perhaps cycling into another human. However, it's imprinted with the essence of the human, so if it's captured by a Visitor before that essence fades and it reenters another human, it can either be absorbed and slowly consumed (perhaps, since it's concentrated and in a different form, it would allow the Visitor to hold much more magic than his or her threshold would normally allow) or converted into a spirit of some sort and used as a familiar or servant. The former case would actually not be so bad on the human, but the latter would mean being at the mercy of the Visitor for the duration of his or her life, which might be much longer than a normal human's.

I'm not entirely sure if any of that makes sense or not. I'm having a hard time coming up with something that does make sense here. Hrm...

C) Healing magic at a very basic level (like, making stomach aches go away, improving colds, healing fairly minor cuts, etc.) is not rare, but to be able to actually heal a substantial illness or injury is. Thus, doctors are still necessary and common to the society. There just aren't enough people who can heal at an advanced level to go around. I'd say maybe one in a few hundred people, and the mechanics and skill level vary even among those. In some cases you've got people like the character I'll be playing, in which case the injury can only be healed by transferring it to the healer. Even when it isn't like that, it tends to be quite exhausting. I think this is because it takes a lot of magical energy to do anything with an injury or illness, even more to neutralize it without transferring it elsewhere.

I know things like magic-propelled psychokinesis, summoning of objects, perhaps even the creation of small objects, the ability to cast mild enchantments on things (making your coin purse only open for you, altering a drink to make it more energizing, making a doll dance briefly, etc.), and enough offensive and defensive magic to defend oneself from non-magical challenges (think the kind of skills that would have developed in a primitive man out hunting and fighting animals) or have a gentlemanly duel with a rather low mortality rate would probably be available to most people. These things too could exist on two levels, one mild sort which is available to everyone and a more advanced ability only a few people possess. Otherwise, I haven't yet explored it in depth. Any suggestions are welcome.

Sounds good. So, if we run with the Hub cosmology, the Gateway Conspiracy, and the relatively high availability of trivial magic, we have a plot and setting. For the specific setting details, how strongly are we going to draw off of earth? Are we setting this in Victorian Europe? Or do we want to spend time on maps, kingdoms, political situations, and various details of the world? I vote for the former, since it lets us just get going.

We are left with one question. How do summoners find out how to summon? Do the Visitors have a way to communicate pre-summoning? Or do humans rely on books, forgotten knowledge, etc?

OK, so I've read through everything here and understood most of what's been said (I think). I agree that there should be a central antagonist that ties together all these disparage subplots/pairings, presumably someone who's working for something that most summoners and visitors (with a few exceptions) would be against. To coalesce some of the good but vague ideas that have been thrown around, how about:


The antagonist (Mr X) wants to draw more magic into the human world (i.e. the 'hub' of the wheel that is at the centre of all other realms) so he can harness it for his own gain- to rule the world, make it a better place, open up gateways to other realms, whatever (his motives can be examined by the RPer who plays him). However, in order to do this, he needs a significant amount of magic to begin with, as Marionette proposed.
So where's he going to get this from?
A Summoner or a Visitor's soul, by definition, is one that is naturally imbued with a large amount of magic. Mr X is unable to gain control of this magic by just killing the Summoner/Visitor (the magic simply disparates). However, when their souls are exposed i.e. by the act of summoning/visiting another realm, under controlled conditions- perhaps in a magic-based laboratory- but only when they are both together, he can strip them of their souls and consume the magic associated with them, leaving them as empty husks.
Therefore, he goes on the hunt, attempting to capture pairs of Summoners and Visitors. There is even the possibility that Mr X is a high-ranking politician. Perhaps he stirs up prejudices against Summoners and their Visitors, inciting public hatred and encouraging people to turn them in. Our characters would have to go underground and figure out a way to stop him. Alternatively, they could decide what's he's doing is a good idea and ally with him in exchange for not being stripped of their souls.
As the plot progresses and more souls are consumed by Mr X, the borders between the realms would weaken and Earth would encounter an influx of rogue Visitors who have made deals with Mr X.

Thoughts?


As for my character, she does seem quite similar to what you'd proposed, Marionette but if we can avoid overlap or repetition, I can still give her a go. Monroe, your character seems as if he could work as her Visitor?
Also, since someone pointed out all of the Visitors seem to be male, I think I might make a succubus-style female Visitor if anyone fancies making a Summoner she could be paired with.

Iron Ork- I was planning on setting it in an original world. All those kinds of details are ones I actually like to spend time on. As I mentioned before, I like to worldbuild, and I tend to feel too constrained in extant historical settings. If we want to get going faster, though, I can yoink and modify a setting I've used before rather than creating a new one. If people really want actual Victorian Europe, I could also go with that, but I had gone into this thinking of a Victorian aesthetic more than an alternate history.

That was another detail I had thought about and nearly mentioned, but didn't want to extend my post too much. xD Probably the original contact was made through dreams, when perhaps the human consciousness is more easily tuned in with. By now, there are surely some people who have had the knowledge passed onto them, but dream contact may still occur.

NorthernSoul- Hmm, being able to strip people of their souls would be an interesting way to collect the necessary magic. Traditionally, a soul could only be yielded via contract, but hey, it's possible the antagonist could have found some way around that. What does everyone else think of that possibility?

Another possibility I was thinking of is that those trying to draw the magic into Earth would, in order to boost the amounts of magic drawn, have to set something up along certain key points; this would amplify the amount of magic that could be drawn. It'd be sort of like a ley line, I guess. Perhaps something about the places would attract or conduct magic energy especially well, so they'd either continually remove energy (so more would be pulled in) or direct energy through it.

I don't think our characters are too close. The concepts are reminiscent of one another, but I doubt they'll turn out similar enough that we'd have to worry about it. :3