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[OOC] Steam City Revelation Information Thread

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[OOC] Steam City Revelation Information Thread

Tips: 0.00 INK Postby Kurokiku on Thu Dec 23, 2010 5:16 pm

Greetings once again, friends, and welcome to the Revelation Info Thread. Here, I will be including information on the setting of Revelation, its history, layout, lore, and systems, plus anything else someone asks me about that I think it might be a good idea to post here. Please do not respond within this thread, but divert any questions to PM, or the (as yet nonexistent) general OOC thread.

Warning: Massive info dump to follow.

~Kiku~
The Canticle of Fate: Silver Lion Stanza
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"Though I am flesh, Your Light is ever present,
And those I have called, they remember,
And they shall endure."

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Re: [OOC] Steam City Revelation Information Thread

Tips: 0.00 INK Postby Kurokiku on Thu Dec 23, 2010 5:53 pm

The Steam City of Revelation

1. Schematics:

a) Revelation is a floating city, suspended a few miles above the desolate wasteland that was once earth. It is unknown how the large chunk of earth and stone the city rests upon became suspended in the first place, but it is now maintained by massive engines that run on solar power and wind energy. The mechanism of these engines is unknown to anyone but the scientists who design and maintain them, which is to say that if anyone likes coming up with awesome technical details or even mildly-plausible babble, by all means do so and it shall be included here. For now, we're going to say that the engines generate antigravity, which is the same way shyships manage to stay afloat as well.

b) The city is comprised of districts, which align in concentric circles. At the center of the city reside both the wealthiest citizens and the most noble occupations. It is here, in the Nexus, where one would find the royal palace, the Parliament building, the Marchfield Laboratories, and the estates of most nobility and their families.

The Nexus is part of District Alpha, which encompasses wealthy merchants, nobility of all kinds, some of the more renowned scientists' private residences, and the commercial centers that only such people might frequent. It is generally a quiet place, with many more lush, verdant gardens than one could find anywhere else in the city. Far from the more industrial sector, the residents of Alpha enjoy a generally smog-free existence, and have available to them every amenity that science can design or money can buy.

Beyond Alpha lies District Beta, home of the enterprising middle class. The streets of Beta are far more bustling than those of any other district, and it seems for all the world that the sector never sleeps. Entrepreneurs and Guildfolk alike make their homes and lives here, most never crossing into Alpha in the span of their entire existences. Those who run the city would have the denizen of Beta represent what all citizens should aspire to be (aside from themselves of course). Taverns and other places of relaxation and socialization are common sights in Beta, as most residents are well-off enough to enjoy such pursuits, but never quite so wealthy to buy their way into Alpha.

Gamma district is home to most laborers, the servant class, and those who do not hold steady employment, instead seeking to earn what they might by preforming streetside shows in the upper districts (occasionally with the assistance of accomplices, who will use the distraction to fleece those who are not quite generous enough with their donations). Gamma folk are not often well-regarded by others because of this, and some of the upper crust refer to their district as "the sector of charlatans."

If Gamma houses the crooked, Delta contains the dregs. Often referred to in common parlance as the Ghetto, Delta is a primarily industrial area that seems always to be covered with a layer of grime. The air is periodically treated to remove contaminants, but this does not stop a large portion of its residents from dying early deaths of lung ailments, especially since most of them cannot afford the wands or doctors necessary to ensure otherwise. Aside from the working poor and the homeless, Delta has recently been infused with the released magi, bringing both some relief in the form of magic for those who cannot buy it and also a good deal more unrest.

Outside of Delta lie the Agricultural Domes, specially-run greenhouses engineered to provide maximum crop yield from minimal space. The domes are climate-controlled and thus a variety of foods can be grown, and animals raised. The domes are run by a delegation of scientists, who have been trained to specialize in the maintenance of these most essential systems.

c) Transportation in the city is primarily by public train, the state of which is generally determined by the district of service. Special trains are used to ferry some employees (such as the Agricultural Engineers) across district lines, but for the most part, service is intra-district only. A few wealthy persons own small steam-powered craft of their own, which can run without rails. Skyships, capable of much larger-range expeditions off the floating city, are owned exclusively by the Crown, but have fallen largely into disuse of late.


2. Populace

a) Guilds: The economy of Revelation works on a system of Guild apprenticeships and trade alliances. Each Guild has one Guildmaster, a senior member who has proven themselves both a master of the craft and a savvy leader. Such people act as liaisons between their craftspeople and the legislature. A Guildmaster's task list is lengthy, and it is no overestimation to say that the success or failure of their endeavors have far-reaching consequences. These folk are supported by the upper echelons of journeymen, those who act as teachers and resources for the others. Newer or lower-ranked journeymen have the largest degree of independence from the Guild; it is they who most often run the shops and stalls that sell their wares, and they who make up the largest segment of any guild populace. At the bottom reside the apprentices, sent to Guilds either by their parents (with a fee suitable to the occupation) or else recruited on the basis of natural talent for the craft.

There is a Guild for just about every occupation imaginable, from smithing to weaving to assassination or medicine. Conspicuously missing is a Scientists', Magi's or Industrial Workers' guild, however, and not every merchant is in the corresponding Guild. These organizations are overall quite advantageous to belong to, however, as one of a Guild's many functions is setting prices which all members adhere to, and also negotiating business deals with the government, a source of many lucrative contracts. Non-Guild merchants are rare and don't often last long. Obviously, controlling all of this gives Guildmasters considerable power, but members can hold them accountable, since the leadership is an elective position.

Certain members of Parliament rely on Guilds for their own profitable enterprises and investments, and thus their lifestyles. It is not mistaken to assume, then, that there has been more than one occasion where a Guild affiliation has determined a vote by itself, and such ties are rarely ever entirely inconsequential.

The Assassins' Guild is the single most powerful Guild, and the Guildmaster is as formidable an opponent as one could ever hope to meet. In popular parlance, this Guild is referred to as the Minstrels' Guild, or simply "the Guild." What it actually is and does is an open secret; there are few who do not know, but fewer still who would dare to speak the truth aloud, for fear of inviting death to their doors. In effect, the Guild members serve not only as hired killers, but as spies, thieves, and Revelation's police force. Assassins are employed by the Crown to rid the city of criminals swiftly and silently; petty criminals and those with nonviolent offenses are exiled to the outer districts, and anyone else is much more literally 'disposed of.' Oddly enough, the Assassins are concerned enough with keeping up their front that each member is required to have some degree of musical skill, and occasionally they do take jobs as actual minstrels. Their business is booming; being a member of the nobility necessitates endless uses for someone who is skilled in the manner of the Assassins, and though careful laws and agreements prevent one from taking out a contract on someone of high status, there is still much spying and thieving to be done if one wishes to maintain one's own power.

b) Nobility: The nobility usually becomes that way by heredity and more importantly money, but they only ever stay in their positions of prominence if they are smart, cunning, and charismatic enough to do so. The royal family is the only line that works on heredity alone, and whether or not the heir has these qualities often determines the strength of the Crown versus the Parliament in any given generation. The current Queen is having some difficulties, but she is far from incompetent. In the past, Kings and Queens both benevolent and tyrannical have reduced Parliament to a ridiculous show, and the less apt have transformed their crown into little but a symbol.

The monarch serves as head of the city's church as well, though with the advent of a scientific worldview that is becoming ever more popular, the utility of this role is decreasing, and has become secondary to the Crown's function in the political arena. Though things are constantly shifting about, for the most part Revelation has a constitutional monarchy, the constitution itself granting certain rights to both Parliament and the Guilds. Some basic things are afforded to citizens as a whole, but magi and convicted criminals are conspicuously absent from even the most basic of considerations.

Parliament itself is a notoriously esoteric, often underhanded affair, and at any given time, actual duties of the legislature per law encompass only a small part of its dealings. Members are often assured of their personal fortunes by involvement in Guild investments, research funding, and the like, and no member is a completely "objective," self-contained vote. Those noble children who will not inherit their parent's fortunes are often employed in these very same occupations, further strengthening the connections. Needless to say, this leaves some groups of people quite far out of the loop, and competing interests are often dealt with by outside means, notably the employment of assassins.

Noble children who present magical inclinations are almost always immediately disowned, and they are never allowed to inherit.

c) Scientists and Engineers: Scientists are the backbone of Revelation. These highly-educated, technically-gifted individuals design and maintain the engines that keep the skycity afloat, as well as the trains and skyships that serve for transportation, and dozens of other minutiae of infrastructure. Perhaps the greatest accomplishment of the scientists, though, is the manufacture of a synthetic version of the magical energy that magi are born with the ability to control. Depending on the individual aptitudes of the student, a fledgling scientist may choose to specialize in any one of a number of subfields.

i: Agriculture- One of the most necessary subfields is that of the Agricultural Engineers. These vital technicians are responsible for the design and maintenance of the climate-controlled domes. Much of their work is fairly day-to-day, and they must have both good working knowledge of their systems and the troubleshooting ability to deal with unforeseen problems.

ii: Transportation- Those that work on Revelation's transport most often deal with the trains and track infrastructure, and as such they generally have the greatest mathematical skill among their peers. Still others work in design, mostly of the steam-powered smallcraft owned by nobility. A select few are in charge of maintaining the fleet of skyships the Crown retains. a small subset of these folk deal with the city's antigravity engines.

iii: Manatechnology- This highly-theoretical field contains perhaps the largest mix of personalities. Some Manatechnologists are highly-respected, and the head of Marchfield Laboratories is one such person. However, the discipline also contains the less-reputable sorts: eccentrics with strange obsessions or the truly "mad" whose theories have gone too far over the thin line dividing this sort of science from magic itself. Scientists are not magi by any means, but Manatechnology is the field dealing with a more systematized explanation of magical phenomena.

iv: Weapons technology- This field most often includes the truly innovative minds, and though they do indeed often specialize in weaponry, the name is something of a misnomer. Anyone who focuses their attention to creating new ways of doing things is lumped here, unless they deal with Manatech. These inventors have recently discovered the mechanism for firing small balls of lead from reinforced metal barrels by producing a powerful but small combustion reactions, for example, but it was also a "Weapons tech" who invented the current water treatment schema.

As with Guilds, the power of scientists over the lifestyle of Revelation's citizens grants them some sway with Parliament, though the connection is a bit less direct.

d) Mages: Magi comprise a tiny segment of Revelation's total population: less than 1% all told. In the days when the Earth was whole, it is said that the magi brought it to ruin through their vainglory and presumption. Legend has it that they angered the gods, and the whole world was punished. When the genetic trait of magic began to show up in the population of Revelation, then, the magi were all removed from the city, contained in a place known simply as the Facility. There, they were allowed to learn the control of their abilities with the understanding that they would never be allowed out of the square mile or so that made up the Facility. Fifty years ago, the last King decided that this treatment was inhumane, and managed to bully Parliament into banding with him to see the magi released, and the Facility converted into a school. Most of the magi had long been disenfranchised, though, and have been forced to take up residence in the poorest quarters of the city. Their abilities have brought relief to the people there, and their less downtrodden spirits have in some cases taken to flagrant 'rabble-rousing'.
Last edited by Kurokiku on Thu Dec 23, 2010 10:16 pm, edited 2 times in total.

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Re: [OOC] Steam City Revelation Information Thread

Tips: 0.00 INK Postby Kurokiku on Thu Dec 23, 2010 8:27 pm

Magic

Magic in the world of Revelation works on a sliding scale of oppositions. Two, actually. It is probably best explained with a visual, which is a shame because I don't have Photoshop and my MS Paint skills are laughable at best. So... picture a compass rose, complete with four cardinal directions. The further north you get, the less south you are, right? Obviously.

There are four types of magic, and they consist in two oppositional pairs. Pair one (your north/south axis, if you like) is Healing/Combat. Pair two (or east/west) deals with physical/metaphysical magic. If you are extremely good with combat magic, you're extremely bad at healing. No exceptions. You can be very average at both, if you like, so neither north nor south. If you are better than average at physical manipulation, you will be the same degree worse than average at metaphysical sorts of spells. Think of each axis as 100 percent. If you're at percentile 87 for one skill, you have to be at percentile 13 for the other.

A mage's aptitude for these things seems to be a function of the combination of genetics and personality, but it's mostly predetermined at birth.

The four branches break down something like this:

Combat magics are those that deal with destruction. Combustion, some elemental control, and basically anything that can be used to harm another person fits in here. Lower-level spells are most often simple things like the ability to hurl a fist-sized fireball. Advanced spells deal more with the very destructive; that same combustion spell at 90% Combat proficiency would likely be enough to raze an entire building.

Healing magics are pretty much exactly what you think- the ability to treat illness and wounds. Low-level healers can mend cuts and bruises, more proficient folk can keep an ally from the brink of death, though at no small risk to themselves.

Physical magics are those that effect the environment without explicit combative applications. Air and water purification spells, the ability to help plants grow, even the forced movement of a lock mechanism... all of these things are the physical mage's purview. As with every other branch, scale and effectiveness depend on aptitude.

Metaphysical magics mostly involve the casting of wards, defensive shields, and the like. A ward is any spell used to alter what comes and goes from a space. Some muffle sound, for instance, reducing the possibility of eavesdropping, while others will simply trigger when someone crossed a threshold, alerting the casting mage to the presence of an intruder. Very accomplished metaphysical magi can glimpse brief flashes of possible futures, the past, or present events far away.

This visual representation was designed and executed by Anno Domini, so the credit for it is all his.

Here.

In addition to natural aptitude, education often determines the effectiveness of a mage. A highly-educated spellcaster with a wide knowledge of spells with 30% metaphysical capacity could probably make a better low-level silence ward than an untrained one at 60%, but would never be able to see the future.

Magic is far from all-powerful however, and casters must always beware of the amount of energy they are expending. Their human bodies, while altered in their capacity to control magical energy, are not by any means the perfect conduits, and too many spells in succession will drain them to the point of unconsciousness and even death, if they are not careful. Amounts of spells are not on a strict "x per day or y will happen" system, because some spells naturally require more than others, and using spells of an opposite affinity from one's own is naturally harder.
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Re: [OOC] Steam City Revelation Information Thread

Tips: 0.00 INK Postby Kurokiku on Thu Dec 23, 2010 8:45 pm

Wand Technology

Within the last fifty years, a team of Manatechnology specialists and Weapons Engineers combined their knowledge in what has been hailed as the single greatest scientific accomplishment in Revelation history: the use of a special synthetic form of magical energy known as "Mana" to create devices which allow non-magi to cast spells without the energy cost that this means for a 'natural' caster.

The devices, which have a highly-technical name most often forgotten in favor of calling them 'wands' are thin, cylindrical pieces of metal that have been charged with Mana in a particular way, which corresponds to a spell. As a safety rule, each is activated only by a highly-specific sequence of motions, which are more basic or ostentatious depending on the designer. Generally, each wand is charged for 2-5 uses, with higher numbers corresponding to a more powerful or dangerous spell.

A drawback to the use of wands versus natural magic, however, is that the spells are never as strong as they would be cast by even the most inexperienced mage, given the inferiority of Mana to natural magic. Also, none of the most advanced spells are understood completely enough to put them into such form. As a result, while many of the more useful everyday spells are now available for use by non-magi, no spell above 25% proficiency in its field had been yet produced in this manner. There is no limit to the number of times a day a person might use a wand, though, and the common ones, such as basic healing spells or intruder-detection wards, have wide applications, making them quite a popular commodity indeed.

Unregulated by a Guild, the production of these has been kept lower than capacity, and any but the simplest are prohibitively expensive for almost anyone outside of District Beta or the Assassin's Guild.
Last edited by Kurokiku on Fri Dec 24, 2010 1:12 am, edited 2 times in total.

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Re: [OOC] Steam City Revelation Information Thread

Tips: 0.00 INK Postby Kurokiku on Thu Dec 23, 2010 8:55 pm

A Brief History of Revelation

Long ago, when the Earth was fertile and the population great, prosperity reigned. The people lived lives of contentment and peace, paying thanks to the gods daily for the blessings with which they had been endowed. Some people, however, were not satisfied with even this, claiming that men should not be subservient to gods, but should take up control themselves. It all began with one man, who in his writings proclaimed that one day they would come: those strong enough to master themselves, to force the gods to bow before their might. None believed him at the time, but centuries later, in an age more prosperous than ours could ever dream to be, a group of discontents came across the man's writing, and also his research.

It was they who figured out how to put his calculations to work, and they who first discovered the Gift within themselves. With command of supernatural forces that none could see, they rose up, proclaiming themselves gods, the next level of humanity. Their vainglory would prove to be their downfall, however, and the Makers grew tired of their defiance, their presumption. They had given us everything, and now there were those that grew dissatisfied even with this.

Retribution was swift, the Earth itself destroyed for the sake of punishing a few. One goddess, however, bestowed mercy upon a small segment of the population and allowed them to live, giving them the technology to build the floating city. It was named Revelation after the prophetic dreams of its creator Elisia, beloved of the goddess and enemy of the magi, and she became its first Queen. All spellcasters were thought eliminated during the period of Revelation, but it seemed that this was not so. Controlling forces beyond them had mutated the very being of some people, and that control was passed on occasion to their children as well.

In the generations following, magi began to resurface, and, fearing much the same outcome as the epoch before, Elisia’s successors took harsh precautions: locking the magi away from the rest of the world, that they might never again come to view themselves as gods among men. Only recently have they been released, and the oldest among them still have the memory of the Facility as prison, not just a school, burned into their minds. The world is rife with tension.

Without inheritance or financial means in the world of today, the magi are often forced to take up residence in the Ghetto, among the outcast of Revelation: the petty criminals, the infirm, the lepers and the poor.


Note: if this history seems dissatisfying and/or incomplete, there's a reason for that. It's what's taught in schools throughout Revelation.

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Re: [OOC] Steam City Revelation Information Thread

Tips: 0.00 INK Postby Kurokiku on Fri Apr 29, 2011 10:19 pm

A summary of some important events from Revelation: The City in the Sky

Revelation: The Cure takes place approximately one year after the conclusion of the events of The City in the Sky. Anyone seeking to join The Cure should have a basic understanding of the major formative events, even if their character does not. For this reason, I'm providing a very basic summary, though reading of the previous IC thread is highly encouraged. It can be found here.

The absolutely must-know information is as follows:

Amidst an argument in Parliament over a possible revision of the Constitution to include more rights (or less) for magi, a powerful politician and supporter of mage's rights was murdered. The death of Marquis Adam Goldwater left an empty seat in Parliament, and the fact that it was clearly an assassination turned heavy scrutiny upon Amon Gregory's Guild.

The official investigation was conducted by Parliament, but the Princess Loki and Sir Gregory both felt that it would be better conducted by people who were actually interested in discovering what had happened. To this end, as well as for the aim of securing herself Goldwater's vacant seat, Loki allied herself with the radically pro-Delta politician Lord Caelin Taylor, and was asked to find the nobleman an heir in return.

The official investigation led to the arrest of an man named Eos Selene, a former assassin and currently homeless drunkard. He was originally caught and brought in for assault, but the fact that he was a pugilist led him to be suspected of the murder, since it was made to look like the work of manual strangulation. The less-official investigation knew differently,though, and Loki and Taylor visited Eos in his jail cell beneath the Facility, eventually releasing him.

Amon, meanwhile, met with an agent of his, Etzel Vasili, an assassin working as a physician for cover, and acquired not only important information on possible poisoning agents that could have actually been used to commit the murder but also information on a possible test case, a man who had stumbled into a free clinic run by a mage-healer named Pandora Elling, whom the doctor had been observing at the time. The combined efforts of Pandora and Etzel had managed to save the man's life, but it was the doctor's supposition that he had received only a diluted dose of the toxin Goldwater had been injected with in full.

Knowing that only the Guild and Marchfield laboratories were capable of producing such a toxin, Giacomo Vernazza, a Manatechnology specialist and weapons inventor was brought into consult as well, and Loki extended her reach also to a friend of hers, unaware of the Princess's true identity, who had been casing a nearby estate for valuables on the night of the murder. Scheherazade, the thief, eventually admitted to having seen a one-eyed man close to Goldwater's estate as she fled the area.

A meeting was called between all the parties involved, with the intention of solving the matter once and for all. Unfortunately, the meeting was attacked, and a couple of the attackers escaped to provide information to their employer- David Gilgamesh, a staunch political opponent of both Lord Taylor and any who want equal rights for magi. Unbeknownst to any but himself, Gilgamesh is secretly manipulating a revolutionary faction within Delta, run by a mage named Aram Azazel.

Though those present at the meeting all escaped with their lives, none of them are safe, and all have been the targets of more than one attempt on their lives since. It has prompted various reactions from those involved, but all of them are too far in now to have any hope of avoiding involvement in what is yet to come.
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Re: [OOC] Steam City Revelation Information Thread

Tips: 0.00 INK Postby Kurokiku on Fri Apr 29, 2011 10:39 pm

More on Magi

Recent research, pioneered by Dr. Prometheus Vanderbilt of Marchfield Laboratories, has led science to a deeper, but still incomplete, understanding of magic. In particular, Vanderbilt has focused on the immune systems of mages, and has discovered that they process magical energy much like ordinary people process food or disease. It to a certain degree sustains them, but over-processing can cause a mage to become very ill or even cause death. Magi are naturally able to process the energy into different things, which leads to the observable specializations (healing, combat, etc.). Dr. Vanderbilt's hypothesis is that this sort of "second immune system" is linked to genetics, which explains why mages tend to beget mages and so forth.

The common theory is that magical energy is something ambient in the world, though exactly where it comes from is unknown. An explanation that is gaining ground is that such energy is given off in a raw form simply by things that are alive. Since most people have no use for the energy, their bodies simply reject it. A mage, on the other hand, is capable of processing this raw essence into something that the human body will not reject, and then forming it into something new by an exercise of will, often expressed in archaic tongues. Spells themselves, according to this theory, are therefore not actually necessary, but a way of forcing the mage to concentrate sufficiently on a given outcome.

Scientists in Manatechnology have found a way to artificially recreate this process with the use of extensive machinery which mimics what a mage's body does naturally, and through this, mana is created. Like normal magic, Mana must be then directed to a specific purpose, which is where the wand apparatus comes in. By designing a wand a certain way and inscribing the appropriate words upon it, the scientist exercises his will in the same way the mage does. Mana is always inferior to natural magic, but the advantages are manifold. Strangely, it seems that magi can absorb and use mana much the same way as they do raw magic, but not if it has been released from a wand as a spell. If the wand is broken without the activating motions, though, it's fair game to a mage's talents. It should be noted that since it is artificial, Mana tends to react strangely with magi, and though usable, it often makes them sick afterwards.

Most of this is still theory, however, and science may never have a full understanding of exactly how magic works. As one mage puts it: "That's kind of the point, isn't it? Magic is that which cannot be explained any other way."
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Re: [OOC] Steam City Revelation Information Thread

Tips: 0.00 INK Postby Kurokiku on Fri Apr 29, 2011 11:06 pm

The Cure

Considered by some the second-greatest discovery of esteemed genius Dr. Prometheus Vanderbilt (Mana being the first), The Cure wound up playing a much larger part in history than the scientist ever intended.

Intent

The original purpose of The Cure was to expel toxins from the body that led to Wasting Lung, a largely Delta-based disease that caused symptoms ranging from coughs to muscle atrophy to death. Since conventional medicine had no way to cure the sickness, Vanderbilt hypothesized that magic might be able to help, and found a healer in District Delta who had been treating the disease with impressive success for a number of years. Of course, one person was highly insufficient to cure all cases of Wasting Lung, especially when the environment encouraged easy relapse due to the high levels of industrial smog in Delta.

Vanderbilt, therefore, intended to create a cost-effective, Mana-based cure. In consultation with the healer he found, Vanderbilt developed many new theories on magic, and with these in his intellectual arsenal, he knew that any cure would have to find a way to bypass the body's natural resistance to both Mana and magic, much like an ordinary healing wand did, only more effectively.

Eventually, he found it, and the first case of Wasting Lung was cured by Dr. Vanderbilt's serum. Unfortunately, the subject displayed a number of side effects, that while not precisely averse, were cause for concern.

Side Effects:

The subject displayed an increased sensitivity to magic. After some tests, Dr. Vanderbilt was able to determine the following:

-Subject was somehow aware of the presence of nearby magi, as though he could sense the natural process of converting raw magic into usable energy.

-Subject exhibited decreased resistance to magic of all kinds. The effects of healing magic were amplified to twice normal effectiveness, according to Elling. The effects of combat magic were not tested for obvious reasons, but since the same occurred for both Physical and Metaphysical magic, it is safe to assume that subject would be more vulnerable to direct attacks on his body. A fireball might not do him any more damage than usual, perhaps, but subject would likely be weak to any sort of technique that assaulted his system directly, such as a bioelectrical surge. Physical condition does not seem to be altered in any significant way.

-As a correlary, subject exhibited increased wand proficiency, able to use them approximately with twice the effect of a non-mage, bringing standard wands up to about 40% of equivalent natural magic and the well made ones exactly to 50% of a mage's capability with their methods.

An Accidental Discovery

The use for which The Cure would become famous though, was as a "cure" for an entirely different problem: the "disease" of the magi themselves. Revelation had long held a confrontational history with magi, and as Dr. Vanderbilt discovered upon testing a small amount of it on Miss Elling herself, it had the effect of completely cancelling her magic altogether. For the next hour, she was without any of her usual powers, though the effect did wear off without any notable long-term damage.

Based on this data, it was calculated that the same dose used to cure someone of Wasting Lung would be enough to leave a mage without his or her powers for twenty-four hours, and knock them unconscious, besides. Needless to say, as soon as word of this usage spread to Parliament, The Cure was immediately ordered to be mass-produced by several Lords, most notably David Gilgamesh. Largely withheld from people with the disease it had been designed to cure in the first place, The Cure was Revelation's first major example of biological warfare, and it was the very same thing that finally forced the magi to revolt.

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Kurokiku
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