Welcome to Gaia! ::

*These are the three basic categories that the Church has classified for the new forms of power. I gave some examples in the descriptions, but don’t think you have to stick to those examples. Feel free to make your own types of skills – just make sure you explain it well for us!*

1. Holy Power – Sanctioned by the church. It is basically just power derived from the light (moon, stars, sun), but the church considers it a gift from God to help them fight the so-called demons. The demons themselves call it Light Craft, and some of their own people have this ability as well (though it does seem more prominent in humans).

2. Extra-sensory Perception (ESP) – A general term the church uses for people with overly sensitive or excess mental capabilities, such as telepathy, telekinesis, empathy, future-sight, and so forth. Since it has been around for centuries, the church does not consider it “witchcraft” as long as it does not use any tools of the devil (example: an oracle using Tarot Cards would be considered “evil,” but one who just gets visions would be considered a “gift from god”).

3. Craft – Called “witchcraft” or “black magic” by the church. It is any power taken from a source other than a person’s own mind or the supposed Light of God. Typically this refers to drawing power from the Elements (fire, water, earth, and so on), but it can also include things like illusionary craft, voodoo, necromancy, and others. Shadow Craft (taken from darkness) is also included in this category and called “Hellfire” by the church, even though it is just a parallel of Light Craft.



Innate – Abilities and sources that the person is born with or has a natural affinity towards. It is a skill that will typically manifest between birth and the age 18, but still takes work to control and properly develop. People typically only have one innate ability, though there are exceptions. There are three major examples of this: (1) direct connections between abilities, like water/ice; (2) subtle connections between abilities, like necromancy/shadow craft, or telekinesis/telepathy; (3) it's even possible to see "mirror elementalists," such as water/fire.
We (the mods) shy away from multiple innates, but if you can produce a convincing argument, we might change our minds.

Learned – An ability that a person is taught over time. Although they can become quite skilled with learned abilities, no one can use these without some sort of medium or charm. Examples of this would be things like using dolls for illusion magic, or Craft circles (think “Fullmetal Alchemist”) to invoke the powers of the earth. And so on. ^^

*Note: Craft and Holy Power, although they’re technically derived from outside sources, are channeled through a person’s body and therefore require that person’s own energy and life force (“ki,” if you will) to properly manipulate. This means that, if you start throwing around some big spells, you’re going to get tired. So keep that in mind if you find yourself in a battle, and use your Crafts accordingly.

There are four basic levels of education, though not all are mandatory, and many have options.

(1) Primary (K-6): Mandatory everywhere settled by the Church

(2) Secondary (7-10): Mandatory in the cities and the larger towns, but in the villages most children go straight to work, helping their parents with farm or craftwork.

(3) Upper Level
[a] The military (6+ years) – outside of the Church's fabled Demon Slayers, the nations also have small military forces who work somewhat like police forces. They also protect the areas from potential demon invasions or insurgencies.
[ b] Vocational school (2 years): "apprenticeship" to a particular technical occupation, such as carpentry, mechanical engineering, or plumbing.
[c] College preparatory (2 years): what we consider "high school" – a general study of more academic subjects (history, literature, mathematics, etc.), though the student tends to focus on a particular area of study that they will pursue at University

(4) University (4+ years): Very much like ours now, though the degrees have different names, and are often less specific.



In an effort to create a more unified world order, the Church created its own monetary system which is used worldwide (or at least in any place with Church influence). For a while the system used coins, but recently (about 50 years ago) the Church decided to return to riskier but simpler paper money. Banks exist throughout the Church-run world, allowing for loans and “credit” of a sort, though as of now no credit cards are in existence. Many people within the cities do use a checking account, though.

People in the outer villages and in the wilderness rarely use hard money; most of them would still be on a trade-based system. Also, it’s likely that some of the “demon” races, particularly the ones who have retreated entirely from human civilization and created communities of their own (such as the vampires of Nova Scotia, where Raven originates), have their own monetary systems.

The Church’s system is fairly simple, using only one type of currency (sort of like with the Euro or the Yen). The technical name for the money is a “Luminarium” or “Luminariums,” (after a Latin word for “light”) but most people call them “lumens” or even “lumes” for short. The symbol for it looks like this: װ , but when you’re writing it in the RPG just use two lowercase “L”s (so twelve lumens is ll12).

For simplicity’s sake, the lumen converts pretty easily from the American monetary system, so just keep this in mind when you’re writing about it:

1 lumen – 10 cents
10 lumens – 1 dollar
100 lumens – 10 dollars
1,000 lumens – 100 dollars

And so on. Again, for simplicity’s sake, the value of the lumen is about equal to current American money as well, so when you think “What can I buy with ten stupid cents?” you can think the same thing about “one stupid lumen.” ^_^

Technology

Transportation & Luxury Items – Fossil fuels have gone the way of the dinosaurs, so needless to say the world has seen some big changes in that category. Electricity is present, but generators consist primarily of hydroelectric dams, solar panels, and wind-generators, so there’s only enough to create steady power in the main cities (Manhattan’s outcast population has also Gerry rigged a generator, so there’s some electricity there, too). Within the cities, technology is relatively up-to-date – appliances, electric trains, and even computers fill the offices of the wealthier citizens – but outside of the city limits, the world is basically in the 16th century. The very rich have ethanol-powered cars, and the semi-rich have ethanol-powered scooters. Everyone else either takes the train, if they’re in the city, or gets around on bicycle, horse, and foot. Boats and zeppelins, but no airplanes, and certainly no spaceships. No satellites, either. Telephone lines only run through the cities and some of the larger surrounding towns. It’s a tale of two worlds, really.

Weaponry – As far as heavy artillery goes, most of the larger sources of destruction (heavy bombs, tanks, etc.) have died with the fossil fuels, but that doesn’t mean the humans don’t have some dangerous tools. Pistols, semi-automatics, laser guns, even super-charged, oversized tasers… and a few special weapons you might want to make yourself. ^_^ Bombs exist, but most are the homemade types using chemicals rather than gunpowder. Overall, though, weaponry consists of hand-held machines.

Demons typically shy away from technology, because it tends to cut them off from the sources necessary for their Craft (which is why innate power is rare in humans who live in cities). Most of them will use traditional weapons such as swords, arrows, and the like, but some don’t mind bigger artillery.