The Veil: Life in the Dark World - A Seventh Tower Roleplay

Maturity: Servants/slaves in the Castle; blood and fighting on the Ice (Not too gory, please); some romance. Marriages and children are allowed, but again, not too much detail.
Fantasy: A lot. Just... keep reading.

***Basics on the Dark World***
Rules/Forms/Etc.
Chosen/Underfolk
Icecarls

So, lately, I've been reading this series called The Seventh Tower, by Garth Nix. He made up this amazing new world, and I wanted to make a RP out of it, but since I know not many people here have read it, I'm going to attempt to summarize the main points. It's a LOT more detailed than this, but you could probably go on for 50 pages and not run out of things to say about the Dark World and Aenir...

First of all, there are two worlds: The Dark World, and Aenir. Aenir is the spirit world, filled with fantastic (and extremely dangerous) creatures. For now, we won't have any characters based in Aenir, although the Chosen may eventually go there for a while. I'll get to that later. The Dark World is protected from the bad Aenirians by the Veil, which is a shroud of black that covers the entire sky, blocking out the sun, moon, and stars. Above the veil you can see the sky, but the only way to reach it is by climbing one of the seven towers from the outside, and that's extremely difficult to do, so we won't worry about that either.

Within the Dark World, there are three main groups of people: Chosen, Underfolk, and Icecarls. Let's start with the Chosen.

The Chosen are an extremely large group of people who live in the Castle, at the top of the Mountain of Light. There are seven Orders, from highest to lowest: Violet, Indigo, Blue, Green, Yellow, Orange, Red. At the very top of the Violet Order is the Emperor or Empress. Also in Violet, besides the regular Chosen, are the Imperial Guard, who almost always have broad-shouldered and thin-waisted humanoid Spiritshadows, and guard the Emperor or Empress. The robes that all Chosen wear are white, hemmed with the color of the Chosen's Order. Each Chosen has at least one Sunstone, which are special stones grown in the light of the true sun. They give light, warmth, and if you know how to use it, magic in the form of Light, each shade of each color of the spectrum providing a different task. Violet Light is forbidden to anyone below it. The higher your rank, the more Sunstones you have.

When a Chosen child is born, he or she is taken to Aenir, and his or her natural shadow is bound to a young Aenirian creature. When the child and the creature are taken back to the Castle, the creature becomes a shadow itself, called a shadowguard. The shadowguard can change shape and must protect the Chosen child until he or she turns thirteen. On the Day of Ascension (the day all the Chosen go to Aenir) of that year, the shadowguard is released and the young Chosen must find a powerful Aenirian creature and bind it to their natural shadow, to become their Spiritshadow on the return to the Dark World, for the rest of the Chosen's life. Spiritshadows can slightly change their shape, but not too much, mostly only shrinking and growing. The Spiritshadows need light to do anything, and if either the Spiritshadow or the Chosen dies, so will the other. They also cannot be too far apart, and Spiritshadows usually only talk in private with their Chosen. (It's rather like dæmons from The Golden Compass, if you've ever read that.)

For names, take the first name (for example, Tal) of the Chosen, then the first name of the mother (example, Graile), and then the first name of the father (example, Rerem). Then put them together to create, for example, Tal Graile-Rerem.


Serving the Chosen are humans with natural shadows, called Underfolk. They are automatically assigned to the job of their father if they're a boy or to the job of their mother if they're a girl. They serve that position their entire lives and never leave. They live in the areas below the Red levels, below the castle, mostly. They have no shadowguards, no Spiritshadows, and no Sunstones except the ones that are sometimes fixed to the walls to give them some light. They mostly use lanterns to see.


And finally, out on the Ice, there are the Icecarls. There are many, many Icecarl Clans, but for now we'll only have two. The Clans follow the Selski migration (huge creatures that they need to live) around and around the entire world on huge ice-ships, which are basically ships with skis. Each "circling", or trip around the globe, which they use to measure time, is approximately one year. Most Clans have just one Sunstone, on top of their mast, which they use to see where they're going. Other than that, they use lanterns.

Icecarls have natural shadows. They fear and despise Spiritshadows and know a little of them and the Chosen, though the Chosen don't believe that anything could live out on the Ice. Icecarls have a high sense of honor, and if they feel they've done something dishonorable they will probably "give themselves to the Ice," which basically means to commit suicide by going out into the cold without their furs (jackets) on.

Besides the hunters of the Clans, there are several other groups: Shield Maidens, Crones, and Sword-Thanes. Shield Maidens are an elite group of older girls (about 15 and up) and women that wander around the Ice and help whoever needs it, each Hand (group) led by a Shield Mother. Sword-Thanes are the same, except they're men, and almost always travel alone. We won't have any Sword-Thanes here. Crones are a group of women with a remarkable knowledge of healing and the ability to walk in each other's and other people's minds. There are young Crones, who have blue eyes with a slight luminosity; Crones, who have silver eyes; and Mother Crones, with cloudy white eyes. Each Clan has at least one Crone at some stage, although some have more.





So, I think that's the basics. If you want to know anything more, here's a link to a more detailed Wikipedia article. And if anything is confusing or needs more detail, just let me know.

Basics on the Dark World
***Rules/Forms/Etc.***
Chosen/Underfolk
Icecarls

Rules:

• Fighting on the Ice and some mild fights in the castle is fine, but keep it at a non-vomiting level, please.
  
• Marriage and pregnancies are allowed but please no detail for parts we really don't need to read. You know... yeah.
  
• Follow all of Shad's rules.
  
• OOC talk must be in ( ) or (( )) or [ ] or { } or some other variation of the sort.
  
• Please ask before you start RPing with someone else.
  
• PM me your form if I'm not on.
  
• Please no characters from the books.
  
• On the note of Spiritshadows: It's totally fine to make up a creature from your own imagination. Garth Nix only mentions a few species in the books.
  
• Have fun!

[Just a note on the forms: I'd prefer it if you left the "Chosen form" or "Underfolk form" or "Icecarl form" above the filled out form itself, to make it easier for me.]

Chosen form:
Name:
Order:
Age:
Gender:
Spiritshadow: (if old enough)
Description:
Personality: (optional)
Other:

Underfolk form:
Name:
Age:
Gender:
Job:
Description:
Personality: (optional)
Other:

Icecarl form:
Name:
Age:
Gender:
Rank: (Clan hunter, Shield Maiden, Crone)
Clan: (if hunter)
Description:
Personality: (optional)
Other:


My forms (for example):

Spoiler:

Basics on the Dark World
Rules/Forms/Etc.
Chosen/Underfolk
***Icecarls***

Clan of the Far-Raiders:
Mother Crone: Open
Crone: Open
Hunters:


Shield Maidens:
Shield Mother: Open
Shield Maidens:
Janel - 17 [rattyjol]

(Well this failed... )

(Anyone? xP)

((Hiii. :3 I can't join immediately, but I will! I will! I just need to come up with characters, so. ))

(Yayyyy! )

(-pokepoke- )

((I haven't forgotten! I swear! *innocent expression* I just got sidetracked, is all.

But okay, this time I'm actually going to save the forms and everything into a document. XD That way there's no way I'll be able to get distracted again.))

('Kay, thanku. )