Urban/Natural mix Fantasy campaign with Isekai components -- FABULA ULTIMA (Interest Check)

My role as Game Master is to present obstacles and put the PC's in situations of risk and danger, but you should not think of me as an adversary. Rather, I aim to make the protagonists (that's you) shine throughout the story.

If there is a "win condition" here, it might be to create a memorable and dramatic story, and enjoy the presence and creative spark of everyone present.

This game does not concern itself with realism or seeming real. It enhances a light-hearted, bizarre, and "videogamey" feel in both tone and mechanics. The rules and character options do not exist to simulate physics, but to enable experimental narrative and the use of mechanics and abilities in unique interactions. We are here to "build our own JRPG" together. That being said, I have described my world as having some deep-seated darkness, and once your characters interact closely enough with the beauty, that darkness will come forth.

There is no predetermined plot, scenario, or "adventure" here. Your actions, motivations, and objectives will drive the story forward, while I as GM react to your choices and place obstacles on your path to help shape it. I have a base premise I'd like to kick off, but once you're on the path of discovering fantasy worlds hidden behind the mundane, which ones you choose to enter, and what time you spend in each, is largely subject to your ambition.

The heroes of Fabula Ultima are destined to accomplish great deeds, and will only meet their end when you as the player deem it appropriate. That said, the price of defeat will often prove steeper than death -- a major part of this game will be discovering how your heroes rise from failure and learn to work together in order to accomplish what would be impossible alone.

Much like Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest, Chrono Trigger, Secret of Mana, and Tales of Symphonia, the Fabula Ultima system reaches its peak in the battles between your heroes and my bosses. Clever coordination and flexible teamwork will be key to victory against threats that encourage you to find answers in your sheets, yourselves, and your friends.

The world is an ancient and dangerous place: cities and villages separated by vast wilderness. The land is dotted with crumbling fortresses and shrines, and past civilizations and ages of darkness have left behind a world of powerful artifacts and cryptic legends.

Villages, castles, and city-states are among the few areas that are not literally crawling with monsters, brigands, and hostile creatures. Villains, powerful antagonists casting their shadow over the land, are far more dangerous still.

The world may be in danger, but its inhabitants are still divided by ancient grudges, religious schisms, memories of war crimes, and the conflict between magic and science, among less common causes. Bringing these communities together may prove essential in your quest.

The entire world, everything around it, and all that lies within it, are born from a vast flow of spiritual energy and shall one day return to it. Anyone who can manipulate this energy is a force to be reckoned with.

Science and magic represent two different ways of studying and manipulating reality. One concerns itself with the tangible, with matter, and the other with the souls dwelling within the world. Miraculous machinery might be hidden beneath the ruins of an ancient civilization, and even the most powerful wizards will often make use of vehicles and airships.

While not everyone in your party will be noble paladins or virtuous paragons of justice, even the thieves and dark knights among you have a fundamentally good nature and can be trusted to do the right thing when the situation gets desperate. All that matters is the strength of each hero's spirit.

Dramatic plot twists will happen when the protagonists are present on the scene, and the great powers of the world will pay you special attention. Your determination, likewise, will allow you to achieve the impossible, such as defeating an empire or slaying a false deity.

This game is built upon discovery. Your heroes are complex and sometimes tragic figures, and your journey will change you forever.

The story unfolding in the mundane, "real" world you come from is darker and more serious in tone than the typical Fabula Ultima tale. It revolves around the exploitation of natural resources, unchecked and ruthless scientific experimentation, and the abuse of power from the wealthy elite. However, this may be something you rarely see, as your characters are escaping that reality into the Hidden World, whether that was their intention or merely a necessity of the quest.

Your home takes the form of a literal "above and below", where the gleaming towers and sprawling complexes built with the wealthy in mind steal the very sun from the vast majority of the people who struggle in the projects, hole-in-the-wall stores, and grungy alleys below. The world beyond your home city is a dreary expanse between such towns and cities, and we will not be going there, for the adventure we seek is Vertical.

All magic in your homeworld is thought to be gone, suppressed and destroyed long ago, to the point that almost all of you (or perhaps all) believed it to be fictional before finding your first fantasy world. The powers of creativity, intent, and passion are tools of the elite, harnessed into a shape that is easy to wield, but cannot easily upset the balance that sustains the rich and influential. The stream of souls has been gravely wounded and corrupted, so that most people believe people leave this world forever when they die.

The primary drives pushing you to explore fantasy worlds, and then calling you back to address problems in your "real lives", stem from these powerful figures in your homeworld trying to control your family, friends, and peers. Many people still see these figures as ideal leaders and self-made saviors, and will gladly be exploited and oppressed by them in the vain hope of gaining their favor. The growth you attain in the Hidden World will embolden you to come home from time to time, and make a stand in this place where your sword, shield, and spells seem not to exist.

The stories you will find by delving into these fantasy worlds will often revolve around warmth and community, seeking harmony with nature and beasts, and the tragedy that befalls when the hearts of people grow so dark that they twist and corrupt the world they live in.

Every location and vista is deeply immersed in vibrant colors and populated by great beasts and monsters. Cities are few and decrepit, and roads are old and left to nature's reclamation. Small villages and narrow paths abound. As you venture into ruins or deep into the darkest forests, you find an alien life and magic that is cold and terrifying. What you find there was not meant to be seen, or remembered, ever again...

Magic in these fantasy worlds is strongly tied to nature, life, and the elements. The traditions of magic are largely oral, passed down from elder to apprentice, and a mystery to most people. The magic found in the ruins, however, is cold and artificial; a remnant of an age of golems and machinery that defied and angered the forces of nature, and a reminder of where you all came from.

In these worlds, antagonists will tend to be disastrous calamities or ancient and powerful monsters. When the antagonist is a person, they will often be misguided or acting for what they believed to be good for their community. The "true enemy", however, cannot see reason.

I will keep a running tally of the Fabula Points that each of you possess, which can be spent in certain situations to change your fates. That page will be kept separate from the ongoing Chapters, and can be accessed at all times with ease.

This game uses d6s, d8s, d10s, d12s, and d20s. When a notation rises such as "roll 1d6 + 1d10", that means you will take one die of each type and add your rolls together. When the game uses the term "die size", it means the number of faces on that die. So if it says to add the die size of your Willpower, and your Willpower is a d10, you will be adding 10 to the quantity in question.

I intend to rarely, if ever, force the hand of a player, and will endeavor not to push you toward a specific event. Your actions and objectives guide you, and I populate what you find as you go. I will seed elements of potential plot into the Homeworld and each fantasy world, but how those enter and blend together is up to you finding them and giving them your attention.

A scene is a segment of gameplay with a beginning and end, focused around a specific character, obstacle, or conflict. They split the game into manageable "time sections" and act as a "stage". Characters who are not present in the scene cannot have an effect on the story, and anything in the scene is important by virtue of its presence.

I introduce the scene and describe the situation, "framing the scene". Who is present? What time is it? Where are we? What creatures, items, or other elements are here for you to interact with?

Players then flesh out the scene by interacting with what was described, pushing the story forward. I describe how the environment and NPCs react. Characters may also enter and/or leave the scene, provided I as GM agree. I also establish whether a situation must be resolved using Checks, Group Checks, Clocks, or conflicts.

I can end the scene at any point, wrapping things up with a short description. I will typically do so when the situation has been resolved or gameplay has moved to a different time or location.

The end of a scene always heralds the beginning of the next, even if the two are separated by a period of time that we blur past or summarize at the start of the new scene.

If I want, I can present a scene in which no Player Characters are present, and in which the Players are spectators. This is called a Game Master scene, used to foreshadow an event, introduce a future threat, or show a Villain in action.

Multiple scenes form a session. By original design, a session is meant to last four hours. For our purposes, this will obviously not be the case. In my experience with Gamers Plane, I anticipate that the forum equivalent of a "four hour session" will be about a month of real time. We'll see when we get going what our pace becomes. That being said, anything the rules say transpires after four hours of play, I will be administering in intervals of one month each, or less if players turn out to be rapidly responsive. Fabula Ultima is designed to shine over the course of approximately 20 to 50 game sessions. If we play at that rate, the campaign will likely end in about 2 to 4 years of continuous play. There are rules to speed up a campaign, and I may employ them if I feel that is necessary.

Traits
Identity - A short sentence that sums up your character's general concept. You will have two, but only one will be true at a time. Your first Identity is your Homeworld Identity, and applies when you are not in a fantasy world. It could be something like "Grad Student", "Disgruntled Janitor", "Former Captain", or "Class Clown with a GED". Your second Identity is the form and assumed "history" you will take on after crossing the threshold, and until you return home: your Fantasy Identity. This could be something like "Sky Pirate", "Queenless Knight", or "Eccentric Crackpot". You may change either or both of your Identities later, if you feel like your character has developed enough that an Identity is no longer fitting.
Theme - A strong ideal or sentiment that drives your character's actions, such as Anger, Justice, or Ambition. You only have one of these at a time, and it helps define and unite both your Identities, but can also change as your character evolves.
Origin - This is where the character comes from. While your Homeland Identity has the Origin of "Planet Earth" (all of you do), your Fantasy Identity lacks an Origin as it is a magical transformation. Your character will resemble people from a certain part of the Hidden World, but will not actually come from among them in a historic sense.
While playing, you will be able to invoke your Traits to improve your odds when rolling dice.

Bonds
Heroes need connections to grow stronger, and Bonds represent that. A Bond can be tied to one to three emotions, each belonging to a different pairing.
Admiration or Inferiority
Loyalty or Mistrust
Affection or Hatred
For each emotion in a Bond, the strength of the Bond is increased by 1, up to a strength of 3 if you have one emotion in each pairing. Just like Traits, Bonds can be invoked to improve the result of your die rolls, and they can also boost your ability to help allies. A character can have up to six Bonds at a time.

(this Spoiler will be edited further as I have time and energy, so please check in on it)