Editing Mystic Empyrean

Mystic Empyrean is a [[Narrativist]] with similarities to [[Exalted]] in that you play demigod like beings setting out into a broken world to repair it after a fuck huge disaster sometime in the past. The game has an elaborate system for establishing "Realms" (worldlets that are fragments of Empyrean), npcs, "Nascent Tribes" (mortal races that while not necessarily human, are comparable in power to humans), wonders (magic items), and Eidolons (the player characters and demigod like beings similar to them). There is no single GM, but rather players pass GMship counterclockwise around the table as turns proceed clockwise around the table. The idea is that each player gets to make actions each "turn" including the GM who is also a player, amazingly, it tends to work out pretty well, with gameplay resembling a collaborative story telling session more than an actual pen and paper roleplaying game.

==The Fluff==
===What Happened===
A thousand years ago, everything was awesome, and all seven elements were in perfect balance. Empyrean was an infinite world spanning in all directions, with Grand Cornerstone, a ten mile tall pillar of gemstone, set at its center. Then, suddenly, Grand Cornerstone exploded into a million billion little bits, and all of reality shattered. Into the cracks came the grey and black mists of Aether, which proceeded to devour all of creation, annihilating entire Realms and bits of history, eradicating them utterly. A thousand years have passed since then, and this is where play begins.

===Cornerstones===
Every bit of reality that was blown away and devoured by the Aether was stored inside of crystals called cornerstones. Each cornerstone is a fragment of Grand Cornerstone. Cornerstones break down into a few specific types, those that contain realms, those that contain entire concepts of creation (Laws of physics and cornerstones of civilization and such), and those that contain powers for a single individual. Finding and unlocking cornerstones is the primary goal of Mystic Empyrean, since they are key to rebuilding creation. The will of those unlocking a cornerstone seems to effect the realm that is pulled out, so there is a very personal stake for those unlocking realm cornerstones. Those who do so will change what Empyrean is and what it was, altering creation to their whim, leading to conflict over Cornerstones.

===Inhabitants===
At the top of the food chain are the seven great elemental spirits. Each of these guys embodies a different element and is displayed as a different animal. Since each element represents very different things emotionally and intellectually within the world of Empyrean, each of these spirits also embodies those things. So the Fire spirit is a lion who embodies conflict and force, and encourages all of these things. He doesn't care which side is in the right during a war, nor does he care who wins or loses, only that the war is fought.

Below them are Eidolons. Eidolons are beings who are literal embodiments of their emotions. The player characters are Eidolons. Eidolon's are physical embodiments of their personalities, and depending on how they act, an Eidolon will change apperance and even develop new powers. So a Bloodthirsty Eidolon will start growing armor and weapons out of their body, eventually becoming an unstoppable killing machine, but so consumed by their blood thirst that to maintain their immovable-object armor and unstoppable-force in-grown weaponry, they have to kill a sapient being in combat every few hours or lose their power. Eidolons can either be born from nascent beings who are consumed by their personalities and thus undergo some sort of apotheosis, or they can be born out of thin air to fulfill some need, desire, or widely accepted thought.

Then there are Nascent, who are pretty much everyone else who is fully sapient and what we might consider "mortal". They're the NPC's for the most part, making up the unwashed masses. They might have special powers, but these are defined by technology or by biology, not by their personalities.

Next are Aetherlings, beings from the Aether who live to destroy and undo all of creation, attempting to spread the reach and taint of Aether across what remains of Empyrean. They can be massive and terrible, the size of continents, or they can be slinky and sly, infiltrating governments and cultures of Realms to undo them from within. They are all but unkillable, immune to Anima abilities (eg: Everything the player characters are likely to have on them) and most "physical" objects, requiring that they be buried in the bed rock or otherwise killed by Aether based weaponry and abilities. 

===Where We Are Now===
Basically, where once there was a giant world of adventure and perfection with a single history and set of physics, now there are dozens, if not hundreds or thousands, of individual realms all separated by giant swaths of Aether covered wasteland that bar passage to most beings. Each realm has it's own history, it's own laws of physics, it's own materials and animals and cultures and technology that are separate from all the other realms and at the same time connected back to the initial event, the shattering of Grand Cornerstone. The player characters seek to rebuild Empyrean in their own image by locating and unlocking Cornerstones.

==The Crunch==
The game is pretty much all story telling with game play elements slapped on. Game Master-hood is passed around round robin style each set of turns so that everyone has a chance to play their character, and conflict resolution is handled by a deck of cards.

===Eidolon Stats===
Eidolon's have a Personal Balance of elements, which is determined by what traits they have. Their traits are defined by how the player roleplays their Eidolon. After each session, depending on how long the game lasted, the players all get a certain number of points to distribute amongst their stats. They get one point to themselves, and all other points are placed by their fellow players who decide based off of how the player character was roleplayed. Thus, munchkinning is all but impossible unless the entire party agrees to it.

Each Trait has an associated element and power, and 4 grades of power. It advances a grade of power every 7 points put into that trait at the end of sessions (from emerging, to superficial, to deep, to overwhelming). As they grow in rank, they grow more and more powerful, until they eventually have some disadvantage tacked on at the end to counter how powerful they are (as explained above, with an overwhelmingly Bloodthirsty Eidolon being required to kill a sapient every few hours or lose their power until they kill someone again). Each time they grow in rank, they add another point of the appropriate element to the Eidolon's personal balance, which determines how many redraws from the deck the Player Character can make. Eidolons can also burn Anima, reducing their personal balance until the end of the session to automatically succeed or boost an action. When an Eidolon burns Anima, the element they burned is added to the Realm Balance until the end of the session, making actions related to that element easier to preform for everyone.

===The Balance System===
The Balance System is based around a set of 9 different cards. 7 Elements on a wheel, Anima Cards for critical successes (always in the players' favor), and Aether Cards for critical failures (always against the players' favor). The composition of the deck is effected by the Realm in which the PC's find themselves, while the number of redraws per action the PC gets is determined by their own stats.

When attempting an action, the current GM assigns an element to that action. For example, a direct attack would get Fire as it's element. The elements are set up in a wheel. If the player draws fire, that's a "Success And" or a total success. He succeeds at what he's trying to do, and something else that's good happens. If he draws a card that is placed to either side of fire on the elemental wheel, then he gets a "Success But" or an outside success. He succeeds at what he's trying to do, but something else happens that mitigates it. One more space away from Fire in either direction would be a "Failure But", or an outside failure, where the character fails to do what he wants, but something good comes of it anyway. Finally, he might draw from either of the two elements placed directly opposite of Fire on the wheel, which would mean a "Failure And", or complete failure, where not only does the character fail in his attempted action, but something else bad happens on top of that. Drawing an Anima is automatically a total success, and drawing an Aether is automatically a total failure, without the option to redraw.

The Realm, or world, the PC's find themselves in determines the balance of the deck. Each realm has a certain number of points distributed amongst the 7 elements. This determines the deck composition for the Realm, making certain actions harder or easier based on the prevalence of a certain element in the realm. Eidolons can alter the Realm Balance by burning Anima, as explained above, adding cards to the deck.

Eidolon's Personal Balance gives them the ability to redraw from the deck a certain number of times for appropriate actions. So for our fire action here, if our Eidolon had 3 points of fire in his personal balance, he could redraw 3 times trying to get a fire card, unless he drew an aether card first.

==See Also==
[http://www.mysticempyrean.com Mystic Empyrean Website]

[[Category:Roleplaying]]