game question index

[maerchenmods]

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Also know as the Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ), an index of questions and their answers related to Maerchenhaft.

Game Information

What genre of game are we talking about here?

Maerchenhaft is a fairy-tale, fantasy, and magitech panfandom role playing game.

With an open world and game mechanics encouraging player characters to return to the central nexus of Maerchenhaft, events range from the light and silly to the darker and more twisted, much like folktales and fairy-tales may in our world. All events are opt-in by nature, including the overarching world plot.

What's Maerchenhaft's premise?

Slivers of character's essence are being summoned to fill the severely depleted ranks of Fairy Godmothers who keep the world's magic (specifically, Curses formed out of the world's magic) managed.

In short: your character's been blindly drafted as a Fairy Godmother.

What are Fairy Godmothers, and why are they needed?

Fairy Godmothers are individuals with specific magical abilities that allow them to respond to particular kinds of magical complications around the world, though usually Fairy Godmothers cover only a certain region or kingdom. Most of what they deal with are termed Curses: big magic, warped magic, or persistent magic that disrupts the world on some level.

Fairy Godmothers were largely produced from the population of the world until some hundred odd years ago, when numbers of people awakening as Fairy Godmothers started experiencing significant declines. Backup procedures were undergoing research in various Fairy Godmother Academies around the world, but for reasons not known in fact (but with many theories and stories told), each Fairy Godmother Academy went silent and Fairy Godmothers went missing, to not be seen or heard from again. Thirty-five years ago, Maerchenhaft was the last city with a functioning Academy, and then the whole country fell under a major Sleeping Beauty Curse. There were no more active Fairy Godmothers in the world, and magic related issues, small at first, larger as the decades passed, started piling up.

Five years ago, a Fairy Godmother awoke from the population like they used to a hundred years prior. That Fairy Godmother made it to Maerchenhaft, breaking the curse over the city (and by extension, the country), and taking up residence in the Academy. Their tireless work over the last five years has finally led to the summoning of off-world essences to bolster Fairy Godmother ranks.

How does this summoning work?

Summonings work on a cycle, executing one a month. The spell targets individuals with Potential across worlds and universes, siphons a portion of their essence, and brings that sliver of essence back to the Academy. This sliver of essence is implanted into a waiting container, which is essentially a large collection of raw elemental components contained within an opaque glass coffin. Implantation of essence begins the process of forming those raw elements into a proper body.

Once the body is fully formed to match the expectation of the essence, the glass coffin drains of extraneous material, and the glass becomes transparent. At that point, the newly arrived Fairy Godmother must be awoken by a kiss, a lingering effect of the Sleeping Beauty Curse that held the region in thrall for thirty years. For more information on arrivals, please refer to the Arrival Information Page.

How are events structured in this game? Are missions/quests/etc available?

There's a major mod-run event every third month, and smaller provided events in the off months. Please refer to the Game Calendar for the schedule. There's also the Fairy Godmother Quest Board, where incoming requests for Fairy Godmother assistance are listed. Those are free for any Fairy Godmother to take at any time, and are for players to engage with as they please.

Suggestions for the Fairy Godmother Quest Board or for game events can be left on the Mod Contact Page.

What are the communities for this game?

There are three communities:

Maerchenhaft for all Log Threading;
Maerchengramm for all Network Threading; and,
MaerchenOOC for OOC Communications and Memes.

Please make use of your character tag in the form of canon: character name in both the Logs and Network communities.

How do characters communicate with each other? How do they use Maerchengramm?

Characters communicate by use of a Crystal formed of their own magic they woke up with around their neck; it connects them to any number of fellow Fairy Godmothers currently awake, allowing for vocal or thought transmission. For the most part, transmissions must be willed; accidental transmissions to individuals or a group are still possible.

As of now, there is no written or visual form of communication, but should Fairy Godmothers work on it ICly, both are possible!

What is this Crystal?

A construct of pure magic your character generates with when their body forms in Maerchenhaft. The Crystal acts as a translator and communication device, as noted above, but also functions as a focus for Fairy Godmother magic. The Crystal can be used to store magic, or can be the focal point of magic cast by a Fairy Godmother, such as an illusion or pocket-dimension storage space. As the Crystal is keyed to its creator, it cannot be manipulated by another Fairy Godmother without permission from its creator. Crystals can be reshaped with magic by their Fairy Godmother.

What a Crystal looks like depends on the person whose magic it was formed from. Players are invited to be as creative as they like in determining what their character's Crystal looks like, or if it has a specific shape. Characters will notice a change in their Crystal if they've been in game before, or if they've died in game. These two conditions do not produce the same change in a character's Crystal. Previously in-game characters will have a new Crystal in shape or colour, while characters who have died in game will have a visibly missing piece of their Crystal.

Are there language barriers?

Yes, but as long as characters have their Crystal on them, anything they hear, see, or touch will be translated for them at no noticeable delay. However, as they did not learn any of the local languages, if that Crystal's translation fails at any point, only characters who've independently studied the local languages, or characters with gifts for language and a steady magic supply, will be able to understand what's being communicated in full. Charades are encouraged for the rest.

Are canon updates possible?

Yes. Please fill out the relevant form on the Canon Updates, Hiatuses, and Drops page.

Canon updates occur as either a series of nightmares experienced by a character over the course of a week, or the character falling into a deep sleep for two to three days before awaking with their new canon memories and any significant physical alterations from their update. As their bodies belong in this world, it's their essence that's gathering more information from the rest of their selves back in their canon worlds, and updating how their body here reflects their expectation there.

Fairy Godmother Information

What is Fairy Godmother magic?

A Fairy Godmother's magic allows them to use their canon powers and abilities, or gives characters access to a power or ability unique to them in Maerchenhaft. This magic also enables Fairy Godmothers to absorb excess magic in an area. As a character grows more familiar with Fairy Godmother magic, their ability to manipulate it in specific ways increases: OOCly, we see this reflected in the possible AC Bonuses related to magic spells.

Magic also infuses a Fairy Godmother's uniform and powers the illusionary wings that uniform manifests while a Fairy Godmother is on quest.

Fairy Godmothers also have an ability called Transference that activates in certain situations. For more information on Transference, please refer to How does magic travel work for the Fairy Godmothers?

In a broader sense, Fairy Godmothers heal faster than normal people and have greater endurance when their magic is well supplied. Their magic levels will dictate their energy levels and access to their powers and abilities, so keeping magic levels higher is of personal benefit. Magic can be used to craft new spells and talismans and technologies or to try and brute-force break through magic barriers or curses.

What can Fairy Godmothers do in a general sense?

In a broad sense, Fairy Godmothers heal faster than normal people and have greater endurance when their magic is well supplied. Their magic levels will dictate their energy levels and access to their powers and abilities, so keeping magic levels higher is of personal benefit. Fairy Godmothers can use their magic to craft new spells and talismans and technologies. They can also try and brute-force break through magic barriers or curses.

Fairy Godmothers are also capable of giving Blessings to individuals, locations, or objects. The strength or side-effect of these Blessings will vary, but it's advised by Tamnaeuth to keep them more open to general interpretation instead of a narrow focus; a Blessing is giving the magic around a person a guided purpose to flow toward over the course of their life. Blessings can feel like a curse if applied too narrowly or literally, and a Fairy Godmother could be asked to help take away a Blessing granted to an individual, location, or object when that Blessing has caused more trouble than it's worth. When taking away a Blessing, the Fairy Godmother handling its removal will take on that Blessing for a period of time.

Fairy Godmothers are gifted with inventing their own personal magics, where their intent guides the way a magic form grows or the way they choose to apply said magic. It takes months to continue to grow those skills, but to a Fairy Godmother with the inclination, pursuing new avenues of magic is always possible.

Fairy Godmothers have their own limitations, outside of the way their magic stores deplete on use: they cannot give life back to one which has died (independent from necromancy or similar arts), they cannot enslave the minds of others (and have increased resistance to the same), and they are easily influenced by curses or the expectations that magic in an area may carry. For example, if a region has magic rich in a certain type of story, such as Cinderella or the Swan Maiden, Fairy Godmothers may find themselves pulled into those storylines in some form, and having to navigate their way through by wit and magic so that they're not drawn to the same conclusion as the originating story.

As Fairy Godmothers spend more time in Maerchenhaft's world, and participate in solving wide-scale curses away from the city of Maerchenhaft, they'll also gain increased recognition of their achievements from the Academy. This means for each large scale event they participate in away from home, they'll gain increased access to the Academy Library, and the notes and information on higher level magics contained there-in. This includes access to the research notes for the magic workings responsible for their being summoned here in the first place, and the construction of their Maerchenhaft bodies upon successful summoning. It may also include information on why some destabilise and are left unable to wake.

What is a Fairy Godmother's uniform? What kinds of wings do they have?

As each Fairy Godmother arrives without clothing, once they're wrapped in their borrowed robe and make their way to the Academy proper, they're directed to the Seamstress. The Seamstress is not a person, but rather a room containing a series of order forms and fabric swatches and a well groomed bear with a perchant for flower crowns. It's here that Fairy Godmothers may order clothing according to their personal tastes. Or attempt to: what ends up delivered to their room might not be exactly what they had in mind.

This is also where they're required to place their Fairy Godmother Uniform order, finding they won't be able to get rid of the order form that follows them around appearing on surfaces everywhere they look until they fill it out and return it to the Seamstress's desk.

When in uniform, magic will manifest lovely and useless illusionary wings on the Fairy Godmother's back. Those wings can be of any kind, from bird to bat to reptilian to insect-like, and of any size, and may change each time they go on a Fairy Godmother mission based on player preference. To get real wings, which really work, a player must submit that Activity Bonuses on their character's AC Post. For more information about Activity Bonuses, please refer to What are Activity Bonuses?

What are Fairy Godmothers expected to do?

Fairy Godmothers respond to Curses, first and foremost: when magic has gone wild in some way, and the local population can't handle the effects on their own, Fairy Godmothers handle it. Major events will deal with traveling to distant locations to handle large-scale Curse issues that have arisen in the two continents that Maerchenhaft watches over, while minor events will relate to smaller scale events happening closer by and on smaller scales.

Curses may be literal curses, or might be influxes of dangerous magical creatures, or supernatural disasters of various kinds. Fairy Godmothers need to use their own skills and their inherent ability to absorb ambient magical energy to solve these situations and set areas back to rights.

There's just one caveat... because Fairy Godmothers absorb magical energy, they're also prone to becoming cursed. To counteract these outside influences, Fairy Godmothers will need to rely on contact with each other to purge the curse from their system using their magic.

What's this about contact with another Fairy Godmother curing them of a curse?

Positive physical contact with another Fairy Godmother causes their magic to synchronise, subsequently breaking the effect of an outside curse. Some forms of contact generate mana more quickly than others, such as hugs and kisses, while handholding works at a slower but steady rate, and high fives and fist-bumps disrupt weak curse effects at best.

Positive contact helps to recharge Fairy Godmother magic reserves even when not in Maerchenhaft, though eventually, Fairy Godmothers will need to return to the Academy as the recharging becomes less and less effective.

Can a character become permanently cursed?

Yes. After events (both major and minor) have been completed, players can opt to have their characters be permanently cursed in some manner related to the finished event. All curses from past events are kept on file in the Academy's library, so characters who came in after a certain curse event are still able to become cursed through contact at the library, should a player wish to select that curse as part of an Activity Bonus for their character. For more information on Activity Bonuses, please refer to What are Activity Bonuses?

This is an optional system to allow for players to alter their characters over the course of their time in game. No events themselves cause permanent damage or change to player characters without player choice.

How are Fairy Godmothers tied to Maerchenhaft?

Fairy Godmothers created in the way the player characters have been have a time limit in which they can be away from their point of origin. That time limit is roughly one month of healthy energy levels, if they use no magic or powers or more-than-average abilities of theirs. If they're using magic or powers or more-than-average abilities, and are traveling with another Fairy Godmother, coming into positive physical contact with that other Fairy Godmother will act as a recharge of sorts for their magic, with diminishing returns over time for up to a month's worth of normal energy levels.

Eventually, they'll be incapable of using any magic or extraneous powers or abilities without returning to Maerchenhaft and recharging their magic, or better yet, coming into positive physical contact with another Fairy Godmother while on the Academy grounds.

Think of Fairy Godmothers as having a magic rechargeable battery: that battery starts out fully charged, with each use of powers/abilities/physical exertion draining the battery over time until it eventually has no charge left. They won't keel over when their magic hits zero, but they will be exhausted and vulnerable to outside influences (such as curses) and attacks. If a Fairy Godmother fresh from Maerchenhaft with full magic comes to meet them, they'll again be temporarily boosted! Until both their magic reserves run down again.

Can Fairy Godmothers travel by magic?

Fairy Godmothers have a limited use power referred to as Transference (read: it's teleportation) that works in a few ways:

1. Fairy Godmothers can use Transference from the Maerchenhaft Academy to reach a distant location where a Curse is causing chaos. They leave from the Transference Hall, and don't require any particular amount of experience in order to use this method.
   
   
2. Fairy Godmothers can use the Transference Hall to travel to and from any location keyed into the Transference Hall, such as former Curse locales. This is a one way trip unless a Fairy Godmother carries a talisman for returning home, which will return them to the Transfernce Hall upon activation.
   
   
3. Fairy Godmothers needing to return to Maerchenhaft immediately can use Transference to return to the Transference Hall. There may be times this does not work, but those times are currently unknown. All their magic is drained by this effort.
   
   
4. A Fairy Godmother with sufficient practice can use Transference to travel to and from any location they've broken Curses at before. They can also bring one to ten fellow Fairy Godmothers with them if they leave from the Transference Hall, or bring however many they can physically carry if they do not.
   

Characters who have their own form of teleportation are able to teleport freely, but with a cost in magic, just as with any other ability or power use.

Why should Fairy Godmothers go on quests, big or small?

The first reason is to increase their magical endurance, meaning your character uses less magic to perform tasks or use skills or powers the more quests they've participated in.

To gain merits. Merits are a seemingly arbitrary system tracked by the Academy, which provides characters access to different levels of the Academy Library, as well as distributes local currencies to individual Fairy Godmothers. The number of merits an individual has (read: the number of quests a character participates in) equates to the number of curses they've helped break. While merits themselves cannot be transferred, the local currency merits have been exchanged for can be given to whomever.

Higher levels of the Academy's library contain the research notes and theories for how to send essence back to its origin point is somewhere in that library, but no one yet has found it. OOCly, the reason why is because it's at the highest level of the library, and no character, PC or NPC, has access yet.

Merit is tallied in a Fairy Godmother's Crystal. Merits can be paid out from the Academy Treasury on request in local coinage to purchase things in the city of Maerchenhaft, or in currencies for countries a Fairy Godmother will be visiting. Generally assume participating in large events has a large payout, and small events a smaller payout. Fairy Godmother Quest Board quests earn about the same amount of merit as smaller game events.

Characters can look for work in Maerchenhaft itself to earn goods by barter, wages, or to avoid the use of merit payouts at all.

Player Information

What are the player caps or limitations?

There are currently no player caps. If they're necessary for the sake of ease of modding in the future, it will be instated at that time.

• Players are allowed to app one character per round.
• Players may have a maximum of two characters in the game.
• Players may only have one character in a given cast.

Is there a player age limit?

Yes. Due to potential themes, particularly those including violence, as well as a sex-friendly environment, players must be 18 or older at the time of applying to the game.

What time ratio and timezone will game events be following?

The In Game to In Real Life ration will be 1 : 1, while game related events will post according to UTC.

Find the current time in UTC here.

What is the pacing like?

Slow to medium. Large scale location-changing events happen every third month, and smaller events happen in-between.

Player chosen Fairy Godmother Quest Board quests may be completed at any time.

When does the Test Drive Meme (TDM) go up?

On the 3rd of each calendar month. The TDM is considered game canon, and is how incoming characters are introduced to the game's environment and the who, what, where, and why of their new circumstances.

When do reserves open?

On the 3rd of each calendar month. Reserves are held through the following application period, then released.

Are challenges allowed?

No. If a reserve has been placed, only the reserver may submit an application for that character during the associated application period.

When do applications open?

On the 7th of each calendar month. Applications close on the 10th at 11:59PM UTC. Applications begin processing as soon as they start coming in.

There will be one OOC Introduction Post in the OOC Community for all new players once applications have been closed.

Activity Information

What are the activity requirements?

Commenting to the Permanent Activity Check-In Post for each of your characters by the last day of each calendar month by 23:59 UTC.

There are no AC warnings. If a player has not posted to the Hiatus Page to claim a hiatus for that month, any character without an AC Comment for the month just ended will be swept. They may be reapped in the following app cycle.

How do hiatuses work? How do drops work?

Hiatuses must be declared on the Hiatus Page in order to excuse a player from AC for that month. ICly, a hiatus can be explained as a character being on autopilot, or participating in a short term Fairy Godmother quest of the player's deciding.

Drops are when a character's essence returns to wherever they're from, and manifests as the character falling into a coma-like state in Maerchenhaft. Characters in this state are brought back to their glass coffin and placed inside, as the magic there is able to preserve their form indefinitely. Coffins with a dropped character inside become semi-transparent, and yes... can be visited by active characters going forward.

What are character reapps like? What if I'm not the original player?

If you're the original player of a character you've dropped or had swept, upon reapp, you can decide if they recall their time in Maerchenhaft from before or not. If they remember, they may have spotty recollection at first, but eventually will remember everything you wish from their prior time in game.

If you're a different player, your character won't recall their prior time in game, but as long as you're playing them from the same canon source, they'll wake up in the same coffin as before. The stability of essence pulled from other worlds and universes is like that, unfortunately.

If you're reapping a character you dropped, that someone else played and then they dropped, you can have them remember their time from when you first played them in game. The same difficulty in recalling applies as it would to a standard reapp.

What are Activity Bonuses?

Each time a player submits AC for their character, they can also select up to two Activity Bonuses (one Bigger, one Smaller) for their character from the Activity Bonuses page. No extra activity proofs need to be submitted to claim your character's Activity Bonuses for the month. Some Activity Bonuses are stacking.

Character Information

What are the character caps or limitations?

There are currently no character cast caps or total game character count caps. If they're necessary for the sake of ease of modding in the future, it will be revisited at that point.

Are there any restrictions regarding new canons?

Yes. We ask that players wait one month from the release of a new canon, or two weeks from the release of new ongoing canon material, to app a character from that new canon or to app/canon update with information from that new ongoing canon material.

If a canon has been released in a non-English language but is due for release in English within the month of it's non-English release, please wait until a month after the English release to apply. Otherwise it follows the same standard as above.

Is there a character age limit?

Ten (10) years of age, mentally and/or physically. Consider how much your character is able to handle on their own, and how appropriate that character is to app into a game where they'll need to be functionally independent some portion of the time. If you have a character under the age of 10 who would be able to handle themselves in this game environment, ask about their potential appability in the comments of this post.

Characters who are biologically young but have adult mentalities do not need to be ten years of age; species with faster maturity rates do not need to be ten years of age. Take ten as the benchmark for developmental maturity for your character.

Is there a character age limit for engaging in sexual situations?

Yes. Fifteen (15) years of age, mentally and/or physically. Characters who are trapped in pre-pubescent bodies are likewise asked to not engage in sexual situations. No sexy babies, please.

Are there any other limitations regarding sexual situations in game?

Yes. Please do not engage in any in-game non-consensual (non-con) sexual situations. Not between two Player Characters (PCs), not between a Player Character and a Non-Player Character (NPCs). NPCs may be engaging in these things, but Fairy Godmothers will find they cannot.

Willingly consented to roleplay or kinks previously agreed on between characters are perfectly fine. Please don't use dub-con as a way to try and get around non-con being disallowed in game.

Are OCs allowed? What about OCs from established canons?

Entirely original characters are allowed. Original Characters from established canons are allowed in cases where a player is creating their own malleable protagonist in either a video game or tabletop roleplay context, or where the OC has no relationship of any kind with any of the canon cast. Original Characters from the Maerchenhaft setting are also allowed, though they're a slightly different kind of Fairy Godmother.

Are canon AUs allowed?

Yes. Canon AUs of characters are allowed, and should be self-contained. As in, within an AU, references back to the original source canon should not be made unless explicitly the same between original canon and the AU canon.

Are adaptations counted as canon AUs?

They may in some cases; it depends on how different the adaptation is from source material. When story elements have been changed, such as plot lines or character personalities or timelines, an adaptation may be considered an AU of the original source canon.

Are fanmade AUs allowed?

No, they are not.

Are doubles allowed?

Character doubles are allowed when they come from separate canon sources or backstories, and no more than two versions of any character will be allowed in game at one time. For example, there are numerous alternate canons with Spider-man/Peter Parker as a character, yet only two versions of Peter Parker may exist in the game at the same time from separate canon sources.

When it comes to malleable protagonists, such as Warriors of Light from FFIV or the Warden or Inquisitor from Dragon Age: Origins or Dragon Age Inquisition, multiples are allowed as long as their backstories are separate and unique. The concept of Alternate Universes is recognised within Maerchenhaft ICly, so such is not beyond the world's ability to explain.

As doubles are allowed, players are responsible for ensuring they're confident and comfortable playing a character who may receive a double in the future. If you are not, please do not app a character with feasible canon AUs who can be brought into the game.

Are CRAUs allowed?

Yes, as long as they've retained their core personality from canon. If they've experienced personality changes to such a degree as to be unrecogniseable to close fresh from canon castmates, then they're not allowed.

My character has died in canon, and is not existing as some afterlife version of themselves. Are they appable?

Yes. Their essence was captured from the moment of their death, and may now be the only portion of their consciousness retained across the universes, or may not. Who knows?

My character has unique dietary restrictions. How might those be addressed?

Dietary needs can be handled on a person to person basis. Need certain rare metals to eat? Need a recharging station? Need specific kinds of flesh? Any raw ingredient can be provided by a character's Cloth of Plenty, which they receive on their arrival. How much it tastes as expected will vary, but generally improve over time.

If you have specific dietary needs for your character you'd like answered, please ask so below in comments.

My character is not humanoid. Will they change form on entering the game?

Short answer: no. Long answer: no character is forced to take on a humanoid form, but as a player, you can decide that your character has been forced to take on a humanoid form if that's something you wish to play with. You may also opt to have your character gain a secondary form through game-play, which could then allow them to have a humanoid form in addition to their natural form.
In the case of characters who have no physical body of their own, they will be given a physical form according to what makes the most sense for the player.

My character is very large. How is this handled in game?

To begin with, your character will be sized down to a maximum of about 3 metres/9 feet tall. To regain their original and true size, they'll need to either locate/purchase an item of restoration, learn Restoration Magic Spells, or ask a character who has learned Restoration Magic to cast such on them.
If they're able to switch between full-size and reduced-size with ease will be up to player discretion. Whatever is most fun and easier to play for them is great.

My character doesn't sleep in canon. How would canon updates work for them?

The same as for other characters. As their form here in Maerchencraft is home-grown, so to speak, they're influenced by remnants of the Sleeping Beauty Curse from thirty-five years ago. Your character now is capable of achieving sleep cycles which mimic REM, if only for purposes of canon updates or game events.

My character has a power or ability linked to something specific to their world. Do they have access to that power or ability here?

Not at first; characters need to have adapted to the feel and function of magic in Maerchenhaft first. Players can ask for the Activity Bonus called "Adaptation" to grant their character access to abilities or powers otherwise restricted to their world.

This includes access to temporarily summoned creatures, though the magic cost of such summonings will drain the Fairy Godmother completely after each individual summoning. To circumvent this, look into the Summoning Magic line found in Activity Bonuses.

My character has more than one soul or has an attached being to their body/soul. Would that second soul/creature come with them to Maerchenhaft?

Maybe! This depends on two factors: how necessary that secondary soul/creature is for your character's survival, and how you, the player, want to play your character. If the secondary soul/creature can be apped as their own character, consider bringing your character in without them. However, if you bring in both at once, and later agree to someone else apping that second soul/creature contained within your character, that second soul/creature will de-possess your character and not recall their previous time in Maerchenhaft.

Can my character's familiar/summons/pet come with them?

No. Your character must summon their familiar, summons, pet, or other companion creatures after gaining either an item allowing the summoning, learning to use Summoning Magic, or asking another character with Summoning Magic to summon for them.

Application Information

Are there limits on how many applications are received in an application round?

Yes! Application rounds are capped at 30 applications, subject to change.

My character was injured/dying/dead before arrival. What happens?

Characters wake up stabilised, and as healed as the player wants when it comes to injuries that character expects to have. If they were dying, now they're stabilised as well.

What can my character bring with them?

Nothing! They wake up naked in a glass coffin with the lid off and a warm Crystal hanging from a cord of pure magic around their neck, having been (platonically, by default) kissed awake. Their powers will be on the fritz for the first fifteen minutes or so to belay immediate over the top destruction, but slowly come back to full power.

How does my character arrive?

From your character's perspective, they wake up muddle headed lying in a glass coffin naked with a warm Crystal around their neck. This Crystal feels familiar, and should, since it was formed out of their magic while their body was being formed, and is attached around their neck on a string made of pure concentrated, braided magic.

They may have seen who kissed them awake, or they might not, but once they're out of the low-sided coffin, they'll find a pair of straw slippers and a clean robe nearby in this small crypt-like room they're in. The entrance to the room is a wooden door that opens to a cliffside path and open air. They're apparently nestled directly into a cliffside overlooking rolling hills with trees and a castle-like structure visible in the near distance.

That's the Academy, and you're now here. The Crystal around your neck can be removed, thrown away, or left behind, but will ultimately find its way back to you as it's made from your magic. Which is probably a good thing, since it functions as both your communications device and your translator, amoung other things!

Are character powers capped?

Not by mod request, only by player convenience. For the first fifteen minutes after waking up in their glass coffins, characters won't have access to any power or ability that isn't based purely on physical strength or training, and even that will be wonky as this is their first time awake in Maerchenhaft. After those fifteen minutes, all powers will be fully available as the player sees fit.

However, characters must use magic to use their canon powers and abilities, and their magic supply will drain down to nothing fast, especially early on in their waking life in Maerchenhaft. Natural restoring of magic takes time, where-as coming into positive physical contact with another Fairy Godmother increases the speed of magic restoration by a factor of up to ten.

My character has no special powers. Will they gain any?

Yes! Upon awakening in Maerchenhaft, your character now has one power or ability of your choice. This should be included in the (Conditional) Maerchenhaft Power portion of the app.

What happens if I'm asked for revisions?

You'll have 48 hours to submit revisions in a response. Your application will then be processed to completion.

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Further questions? Please ask in a comment below! Please do not jump into a question thread you did not begin. If you have a related question, please link to the original question thread and make a new comment for your question. Thank you!

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Comments

[terraria]

Two questions, if I may! I think I've read everything, but apologies if I missed the answer to these.

1. If a character needs some sort of catalyst to do canon abilities with (ie. wands from Harry Potter) will they be able to bypass that? Or will they be given another instrument/have to get it by rewards/etc?

2. If a character already has functional wings, will the wings on the uniform still appear? Or will they just be another set of useless wings/something else entirely?

[maerchenmods]

But of course!

1. When it comes to using a catalyst for canon abilities, the answer is: any of those are possible! Play with what's most fun for you. They could find they're able to access their abilities without their catalyst now! They could find they're inconsistently able to access their abilities without their catalyst, and only gain consistent and full access once they obtain a new catalyst/get their usual catalyst via rewards. Or they could find they have no access to those abilities whatsoever without that catalyst, which can then be brought in world via the Activity Bonus Rewards system (either the summoning item, or Summoning magic skills).

2. Much like above, the answer is: yes to any of those! You can have a second set of (useless) wings, or have what would usually be illusionary wings become some other kind of illusion, such as a tail. Or, that illusion could disguise their functional wings to give them another appearance while not impeding their functionality! Also, if a character cannot usually disguise their wings, while in uniform, they'll find their uniform is capable of disguising their wings at will.

[lostherstrings]

How would robots or other constructs (golems, animated puppets, etc.) be handled?

[maerchenmods]

Is this concerning how they're reconstructed in game? Their physical form may either be true to canon (as much as possible, if they're constructed from single-instance unique material, they're going to be less uniquely crafted here), or may now be a flesh-based form, or even a mixture of both depending on what the player prefers. Of note, it's possible to play with being cursed into a flesh-bound body within game, but the game setting doesn't require them to be put into a flesh body to play.

In addition, any robot or construct relying on an external power source to recharge will find it's no longer necessary, as their Fairy Godmother magic now keeps them charged. Getting low on magic means they're also low on energy and so on, much as with their fleshy counterparts.

[tetractys]

Are characters of all genders Fairy Godmothers? Or are others Fairy Godfathers, Fairy Godparents, etc?

[maerchenmods]

Yes, all characters of all genders are Fairy Godmothers! It's a title, so in this case, we'd be talking to the esteemed Fairy Godmother Bill Cipher. Characters are free to call themselves whatever they like, but the only recognised title for who and what they are in-world will be Fairy Godmother.

[immature]

re: doubles

how about if the doubles are the same character, but different ages? in the Osomatsu-san movie, the whole premise is the main characters, who are adults, go back in time and meet their younger selves. these younger selves have their own movie, which could possibly be seen as an AU, or not. the teen and the adult would be two separate characters, but technically the same person. my friend and i were talking about this and thought of really funny scenarios so we are hoping this is okay.

many thanks for your answer! cute set-up you've got here.

[maerchenmods]

Things like this are best handled on a case by case basis. And in this case, looking a bit more into the film plot, with how the adult characters are time-traveling in a pseudo memory world landscape, then it would be possible to say that the younger selves they meet in this context can be treated as AU versions of themselves.

As the two of you have discussed this and both know you'd want to play out these two versions of the character against each other, there's no reason to say no!

[fruitknife]

Two questions:

Where and how can one buy a weapon?

Say your character technically has a canon power, but also Very Good Reason to not want to use it (Shinji's control of his Persona is tenuous at best; losing control has already gotten someone killed). Does that fall under conditional arrival powers, or do they have to suck it up and deal?

[maerchenmods]

And two answers!

1. From anyone with weapons to sell, with the closest source being the city of Maerchenhaft. How is a matter of the usual exchanges: purchasing, bartering, or bargaining. It's possible they could leverage being a Fairy Godmother to get given a weapon from a merchant or craftsperson, but the person trying would need to be in uniform and likely would find it would be in exchange for offering a blessing (over a baby, a wedding, any kind of celebration).

2. This falls under the category of: either can work, choose which you'd find most fun to play! One caveat: if he gets a conditional power, he'll find his canon power no longer works. He can always look into regaining that canon power later on in game if you would like him to, but to start it would be a direct exchange: new conditional power in exchange for his canon power.

[cranelike]

Hey! The game looks really great, I'm excited. I have some questions,

1. the character i'm looking at apping is the spirit of a sword. the sword is his true form and his spirit is directly tied to it. i'm fine with him not arriving with it in game and maybe regaining it later but i just want to know how this would work in game. is the bond between spirit/sword just cut in the game all together? is it partial? would he regain the connection if he regained his sword? i'm honestly fine with anything but i just want to have an idea of how to approach it since the connection is important to him.

2. my character is a spirit and it's kind of assumed that, as a result, he's stronger/faster than the average human. his only other real skill is swordsmanship. basically, he doesn't really have special powers besides just being stronger than the average person. would he qualify for a conditional power or does above-average anime strength/endurance count as a power?

[maerchenmods]

Let's see about getting you some answers!

1. In this case, and the case of any spirit bonded to an object that remains in their home canon universe, there will still be a bond felt, but it's very weak and thin. When they likewise summon their object, in this case your character's sword, that bond will feel completely restored. The reality is they're summoning a fragment of that sword into Maerchenhaft, just like they were summoned, so having his sword arrive won't mean his sword completely disappeared from back home, though it would be difficult for characters to know that right now.

2. It's fair to have him gain a conditional power when arriving in game! Above average strength/endurance could be considered it's own power, but without it being notably improved and unique to him versus others of his kind, then he's fine to be given his own unique power here.

[softheartedshizun]

Question about the cloth of plenty, it can provide raw ingredients, but is that only plants and animals? Could it provide other “raw” ingredients such as elements? I assume salt would be one, but could copper? Or Mercury?

Basically can they play chemistry set with it?

[maerchenmods]

Characters are absolutely welcome to play chemistry set with it, though the Cloth of Plenty wants to provide food, and so some results will be amusingly tailored in that direction: imagine asking for gold, but getting delivered gold flakes, as used in some culinary creations.

But yes, technically, as long as you can argue with your Cloth of Plenty that this is definitely an ingredient for some kind of dish, it can, technically, provide it.

Please don't try to go sink any economy based on metals...!

[used_realtears]

So I'm thinking of apping Nobita from Doraemon here, and was wondering a few things about activity rewards for him:

1. Technically he could get back all the gadgets Doraemon has access to by regaining the 4D pocket by itself. Would this be allowed, or would he have to regain each object individually, or something in between?
1a. Dumbish question-one of Doraemon's gadgets is basically the same as a level three Cloth of Plenty. Would regaining said gadget on its own immediately be allowed as a way to skip having to upgrade the starter Cloth multiple times?
2. There's a lot of side Doraemon content, but the nature of the series means a lot of it can be considered to have happened at some point. Should I make it clear in my app which side content I'm using?

[maerchenmods]

Thank you for your interest! Now, let's get to answering those questions...

1. In this case, it would be separate regains, but that's related to how the summoning actually works: the item or creature being summoned is being reconstructed here in Maerchenhaft, so if there's a great number of items in a storage space, each of those would have to be recreated as well. So it's just getting into being larger magic! That's not to say that you'd have to only bring in one item at a time going forward, but for the initial regain just the 4D pocket and one item of choice within it would make more sense for how summoning works in game.

1a. Yes, absolutely! That would be perfectly fine.

1. You can include any reference to side content you plan on using where it has a notable impact on who you're apping, but generally speaking, it's fine not to when it's a loose basis for how things happened at what time, just that most probably did. Main content is most relevant!

[cranelike]

Are there limits to the kinds of weapons that can be found in game? Basically, is it only western weapons or can I reasonably find a katana or some other style of sword?

[maerchenmods]

You absolutely can find many different styles of swords in game, particularly in Maerchenhaft. There are a number of smiths in the city, and a handful who all speciaise in different techniques when it comes to sword-smithing, including several different length swords which are similar to katana and wakizashi. There is a noted favouring of swords which are more efficient to use on horseback, and also a larger market for long knives meant for handling more domestic situations than for weapons—the largest collection of swords in the city can be found in the Garrison, between their armoury and their Sword Museum. The Garrison is also the largest buyer of weaponry within the city.

There is not a large manufacturing industry in Maerchenhaft when it comes to weaponry, though there is elsewhere in the world, which accounts for a good number of imported stock found at the docks, at the weekly markets, or in the shops dealing with foreign wares.

[noencore]

A couple quick questions I had for clarification.

1. With the level of technology and magic is it reasonable to assume the fashion is a mix steampunk and fantasy?

2. With the level of technology would it be possible for Piers to get his hands on a microphone and stand, possibly powered by his magic to function without needing electricity? So he can sing and be loud but also so he can use it kind of as a magic wand and help channel his magic.

[maerchenmods]

1. This is entirely reasonable to assume!

2. Yes. Yes he can. He can absolutely do this. He can also expect that at least one local Maerchenhaft radio host will try to get him to come sing for a live show sometime in the future, though as most broadcasts by radio wave are limited by magical interference, his audience will stay within roughly the outer city limits.

[yellecaster]

OKAY, since I'm eying this game and I've got some questions, I may as well toss them at you guys while they're on my mind!
Sorry that there's a whole hell of a lot, but better to ask all this stuff now for other potential applicants than not ask at all, probably!

1. "A Fairy Godmother's magic allows them to use their canon powers and abilities, or gives characters access to a power or ability unique to them in Maerchenhaft." How exactly does the Maerchenhaft specific magic... work? Like, can it be something as vague as "dark magic" as long as it's not OP, allowing stuff like manipulating shadows and turning into one or the like? Or does it have to be something more specific, such as one simple spell for turning into a shadow? Should it be based on what's on the AC bonus page, or is it more freeform than that?
Or is it something else entirely?

2. To go with that, how does getting better with that innate magic work? It seems like it's based on AC bonuses (such as upgrading for more ways to use that magic or gaining extra kinds of magic to use), but can characters just get innately better via practice without the AC bonus as well?
Of course, I mean something like spending a few months to go from struggling to maintain a ball of water to being able to handle that ball of water like it's what they're born to do; not something like suddenly gaining the ability to make steam as well as that ball of water, or suddenly needing less magic to do things. Those would obviously be an AC bonus, I'm pretty sure!

3. When it comes to the uniform and the wings, are the looks 100% up to players or do they have to adhere to a certain sort of style? For example, do they have to look similar to what's in that order form that's linked on the current TDM, or can they look however we'd wish? (This is for the artist in me who just likes to go wild, of course.)
Also, leather: yea or nay?

4. Summons! How they work seems to be a little vague on the pages where they're mentioned; I understand that they're AC bonus only (I... think?), but other than that! Do they have their abilities from canon, like Morpeko and its Aura Wheel? Is it tied to anyone's magic, or do they have their own sort of magic reserve? Is there a time limit to how long they stay summoned, or do they just stick around indefinitely?

5. And a small setting question even though I'm not even in the game, just because this one always interests me about fantasy games; what kind of non-sentient animals can people find around the setting? Normal everyday stuff like cats and dogs, or are there things like little dragons flying around and such?
Basically, if a player went pet shop hopping, are they just gonna run into hamsters and fish? Or will they possibly find lava-dwelling salamanders and domesticated phoenixes (or things like that) mixed in with it all?

[maerchenmods]

This is here to answer questions, so let's see about getting some answers!

1. It can be as vague as "dark magic", yes. The AC bonus page provides some conceptual guidelines, as in magic takes time and practice to grow more proficient, but there's no limit to what people can have their characters learn. The general idea is that any big magic should take a lot out of your character, and after enough practice, smaller magics no longer take as much out of them as they did at first.

2. AC bonuses are just that: a bonus, and a kind of framework to say "these are things your character might learn/acquire/otherwise engage in." Any character consistently practicing will in fact get better at magic they're working. The idea that some magics are easier to replicate or perform with experience is akin to getting better at resource management: what a character started out experimenting with they eventually can achieve with no magic "wasted" in the process. Big magic still takes a lot magic to achieve, so should be self-limiting in that sense; players being reasonable is about all it requires in the end.

This also means characters can learn several different magics, just with less success simultaneously: practice makes perfect, so time is the only real way forward on that front!

3. You're welcome to go as wild as you like! Conceptually it's more having something robes/dress/overcoat-like, with the wings of some type visible as desired. The link provides a basis for an idea, but doesn't have to be the only idea (and hasn't been, based on what players have been running with in game). Something robes/dress/overcoat-like with wings is a mark of a Fairy Godmother, but the particulars can be whatever makes you happy! Leather is 100% okay.

4. Summons as far as AC bonuses are summoning creatures or items or places from one's home world to Maerchenhaft; slightly different from creatures which are summons themselves. So in this case, summoned creatures retain their abilities once they're summoned to Maerchenhaft, which can either be through AC bonus items or via learning or asking someone who has learned magical summoning.

Once a creature, spirit, or elemental is summoned to Maerchenhaft, unless a character has a pocket dimension to keep them in, they're permanently around, if not always in an actively summoned state. They might run off to keep themselves entertained if they're so inclined, or hang out all the time, or find a similar realm in Maerchenhaft to where they usually exist when not-summoned in the character's world.

As far as abilities, they still have those abilities! When they're being used as a summon (when a character is using that summon in order to achieve something for them), the magical cost of their abilities is pulled from the summoner (the player character) along with the summon's magic reserve. In theory, over-using a summon will drain a character's magic reserves dry. "Releasing" a summon, so that they're not actively in use, is the only way to stop the mutual magic leeching.

5. More heavy on the "normal" everyday stuff, with oddities found regionally. When it comes to pet-type animals, they still need to be relatively easy to caretake. Could you find salamanders that enjoy living in fireplaces, thus require their owners to always have some kind of fire burning? Yes, as an exotic pet. You can get reasonably creative with any non-sapient animal roughly dog sized and smaller being available through more exotic pet stores. Sapient species might share some traits with these exotics, such as small firebirds may be similar to larger, sapient phoenixes, but both can (and do) exist in world.

Characters might also get sold fakes! Go wild with thinking up what might be out there, and what might not be what it seems.

Note that within Maerchenhaft and its surrounding territories (towns and villages and such), no sapient creatures of any kind are for sale.

[trustheart]

Is it possible to reimagine a character's abilities for the setting, instead of just using their canon abilities in a straight translation? This would be for the purposes of balancing Chris along with the start of the game, as she's extremely strong by her particular canon-point, as well as me also thinking it'd be interesting to have her master a new set of abilities.

[maerchenmods]

Yes, if this is something you'd like to do for a character, you definitely can. Working to balance her canon powers and leaving her open to mastering new abilities is fine!

[dragonhoodie]

Before I go hog wild on my app, I wanted to ask if the magic/ability I was thinking would be allowed: what I'm thinking for raihan is a sort of transformation magic. Namely that would let him eventually transform into a complete dragon form when he actively uses it after a few AC bonuses down the road. He'd accomplish this transformation using a magic item (I was thinking it's an item of clothing, potentially).

Normally (and to start with) he'd just have a few more draconic traits like a smattering of scales etc and an overall human appearance. This would be what he'd start with, including some stronger than normal traits that would go along with it (sharp claws, fire breath, etc.)

Let me know if this will work, if not I'll go back to the drawing board! Thanks in advance for the time you take to answer this!

[maerchenmods]

This will work fine! He can live his slow dragon transformation best life.

[coppercoin]

Aside from past curses, what kind of things can be found in the (lowest levels of) the Library? Are there other sources of books?

Cheng Qian is not focused on trying to find a way home - though confirming that only essence is taken and things back home are not missing him will be nice - but he's absolutely thirsty for knowledge, especially of the magic system/s in this world.

[maerchenmods]

The lowest level of the Academy's library is also filled with firsthand accounts (journals, diaries) from prior Fairy Godmothers, which is more useful to learn about the variety of things they faced, handled, or their day to day lives, and only every so often mentions their magic working. Otherwise it's also focussed on various creatures of magical origins, with conflicting descriptions, and several nods to being sourced from different cultures around the world, but mostly in the southern continents.

The University at the Garrison in Maerchenhaft has an extensive, more academic library, which might give him more information about all kinds of in world things--the exception being much insight into Fairy Godmother magic, versus all other kinds of magics theorised or proven to exist.

There are also a good number of bookstores, which can have academic materials, but also often have more fiction than nonfiction available.

Learning about the Fairy Godmother magic system will be more easily pieced together from the Academy's library, and while there's no one convenient textbook, and most the magic spells or magic manipulation books assume a level of understanding that characters usually don't have, he can find, study, and practice with that information to success over time! Trial and error to get him started, and then proceeding from there.

[espritdecorpse]

For great justice, I am asking this very serious question:

Are there pornographic books anywhere that characters can find? If someone were to ask the Cloth of Plenty for porn, would they get questionably shaped items? Inquiring minds, etc.

[maerchenmods]

There are all kinds of pornographic books available in Maerchenhaft, and things which could be taken as pornographic in the Academy Library. Those materials are truly more related to medical texts or depicting habits or rituals of different peoples, magical creatures, or the like. Requesting the Cloth of Plenty for porn might get him questionably shaped items (mm, mm, vegetables), or fruits, or cream, or edible oils, or processed chocolate, or prawns. So many prawns.

[yellecaster]

Quick question before I start making plans for the latter half of the event: could a character with level one Enchantment be able to enchant their own flying broom/sword/carpet/what-have-you?
Obviously it'd still be janky to control and would probably run off of her own magic to use, but man, I wanna fight some worms, yo!!

[maerchenmods]

Yes, this is entirely possible! With the wonky nature, too, which she can smooth out by the time she levels up her skill with Enchantment. Ride, Marnie, ride!

[levelthreehooligan]

Heya!

I'm interested in this game as my Warrior of Light is about to be homeless for a while - I wanted to ask this question!

I've seen that you said you allowed Canon-compliant OC's like Malleable protags and also doubles from Alternate Universes - I'd like to app Pinya here as a WoL and was wondering what the limitations were?

Thanks ♥

[maerchenmods]

Hello! There really shouldn't be any limitations to face when applying with a WoL, though overall we might limit that to two characters expressly apped as WoL and any other FFXIV OCs simply being part of the world as a whole. It would more be a case of noting what being a WoL means in terms of abilities and so forth on the app, versus if Pinya were any other particular lalafell.

Does that help answer what you wanted to know?

[soul_cypher]

A bit if a complex question:

A friend and I are interested in applying. The characters we wish to apply with would fall under malleable protags, from the same game, but they are completely different in their back stories. This would make them doubles, which we see are allowed.

However we would like to play them as Soul Twins; a canon compliant situation, in which a single soul is divided into two separate bodies. It literally does nothing extra other than the soul twins feel incomplete, unless they find each other.

[maerchenmods]

Our apologies for the delay in answering! Catching this in the inbox now.

As far as this goes, it sounds fine to run with! No reason not to have fun with playing them in that situation, since you both are wishing to do so from the start. Get your soulmate tropes worked in! Making a note of it on the app is all we'd ask for, for record keeping purposes.