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[if you prepare spells that don't belong to your specialization]

I've seen this done before, and I found it to be a really cool mechanic: to put it simply into words, the bonus slots of a specialization wizard should only be available for that specific school. This would make it so that specialization wizards feel slightly more like true specialists. When you see a fighter with a Greatsword specialization, they're going to be using a Greatsword all the time. But when you see a wizard with an Illusion specialization, it's not always the case that they use illusion spells so often.

To sum up my idea in a single sentence: if you prepare spells that don't belong to your specialization in say, your bonus third circle spell slot granted by the specialization, you should lose that slot.

===================================================

EXAMPLE:

if you are an Evocation Specialization wizard, and you have, including the bonus spell slot given by specializing:

Circle 1: 4 Slots
Circle 2: 3 Slots

And you prepare:
Circle 1: 4 Endure Elements
Circle 2: 3 Invisibility

You should, after resting, lose 1 slot of each spell, because the BONUS slots are not being used on Evocation school. This would result in only 3 Endure Elements and 2 Invisibility casts in total.

However, if you'd prepare, for example:

Circle 1: 3 Endure Elements, 1 Burning Hands
Circle 2: 2 Invisibility, 1 Combust

Then you don't lose any slots, and you get to use them all.

I second this! Good idea.

Throwing in my support for this. Sometimes they just close too early when I'm in the middle of typing something.

[hide=Rosebud's Bloom - Dramatis Personae]Dramatis Personae

Sir Richard the Courageous of Skybloom
Dame Emelina the Adamant of Velstra
Squire Biggins
Orentid Strategos Sarah the Butcher
Dark Sorcerer Hamdan the Djinn-Master
Mufti Salman of the B'aarat
Capitano Marco Alessandro of the Banda
Koz'Rath the terrible Djinn
[/hide]

[hide=Rosebud's Bloom - Act One, Scene One]ACT ONE - SCENE ONE

Narration: Five months into the dreadful siege of the Well. The camps of Peerage houses Great and Lesser teem with activity. Men are uneasy, and the path to the wastes from the City-That-Was is littered with bodies. We begin at the camps of Great House Velstra, and their vassals- the Household of Skybloom.

Enter Richard with a smile and Emelina in a somber mood:

Richard: Lo' the siege lasts long...
Emelina: Far too long, Sir Richard dear. The men starve.
Richard: And what misery in it, Dame. Waterskins made into sandskins... Nevertheless; the Sky shall Bloom!
Emelina: A bloom? It'll wither dead 'ere long.

Enter Biggins in a hurry, dreadfully afraid

Biggins: Masters, masters! The Orentids have come to address by the ramparts!
Richard: Aha! See, they come to surrender!
Emelina: Let us not be hasty judges, Sir...

Enter Sarah with personal attendant

Attendant: FOOLS OF THE WILTED ROSE! THE STRATEGOS SARAH SPEAKS!
Sarah: Curs of the Rose, long have you assailed our grand fortress. No longer. We grant you mercy in retreat- your deaths shall come.
Richard in fury: What ho! I shall make myself a trebuchet and toss my gallant self above your machicolations at once! Surrender to we valiants, or else!

Enter Hamdan

Hamdan: Or what?
Hamdan's hands crackle with sorcerous powers terrible. Squire Biggins faints with fear and is ferried away.
Sarah: We have spoken! Glory to the Queen!

Sarah and Hamdan leave
[/hide]

[hide=Rosebud's Bloom - Act One, Scene Two]ACT ONE - SCENE TWO

Richard and Emelina entreat with the B'aarat priest Mufti Salman in distress

Richard: The men starve! When shall the Sultan's men arrive?!
Salman: I am afraid sir there is a great deal of tro--
Richard, in outrage: Enough of that! Excuse after another excuse! Our men have made the sands crimson in sacrifice! When shall the Fourth Legion come?!
Emelina: Sir Richard- halt. This outburst reflects upon you poorly.
Richard: They hide, the craven fools!

Richard leaves in rage

Salman: I am but a priest.
Emelina: I know. I apologize for my comrade's anger. I beg you to pray for him and I both. This journey has been hard on us all.
Salman: B'aara smiles upon you all. You, distant children. Those Ibithals have long been excommunicated. They are disowned.
Emelina: If only they would be bereft of their holdings, as they have their ties.
Salman: The Wheel shall spin. In time.
Emelina: Let us pray.
[/hide]

[hide=Rosebud's Bloom - Act One, Scene Three]ACT ONE - SCENE THREE

Inside the Well, things too are in disarray. There is no end of troubles in the Wastes. Neither outside the great walls of Ephia, nor within.

Enter Marco, Sarah, and Hamdan. Each upset in their own way. Things are tense here.

Marco: No.
Hamdan: Fool! You bargain outside your reach.
Sarah: You bleed us dry like thieves. The Queen has offered you rats a home, and this is how you pay her kindness?
Marco: The Banda does not work on charity. Pay the dinars.
Hamdan: Wretch, I've heard enough!

Hamdan raises his staff and readies a spell of horrible nature

Sarah: Hamdan, stop!
Marco: I was clear.
Marco moves to stab Hamdan in the chest, Hamdan with a gasp and a croak disappears with a flash of darkness, a gate of hellfire ferrying him away.
Sarah: Insolent traitor! What have you done?!
Marco: The Banda works for the highest bidder. You and your Queen, Strategos Sarah, are -not- the highest bidder.
Sarah: MEN! ATTEND ME!

Exit Sarah and Marco.

Narrator: The Banda, having received an offer from the cunning and shrewd Dame Emelina, have long since switched allegiance. This night was the night that decided everything.
[/hide]

[hide=Rosebud's Bloom - Act One, Scene Four]ACT ONE - SCENE FOUR

Enter Emelina, alert and armoured and Richard asleep in his tent
Emelina: ARISE, RICHARD! The gates open!
Richard, waking up groggily: What?!
Emelina: You utter fool! The charge's begun!
Richard: But how...
Emelina: No time for questions! This- this is the hour of glory! ONWARDS!
Richard: Very well then... Sound the trumpets! FOR THE CORSAGE!

Exit Emelina and Richard

Enter an injured, bleeding Hamdan.

Hamdan: Gah... It seems... it is time... Awaken, O' Koz'Rath, servant of Pra'Raj!

Enter Koz'Rath, standing tall over Hamdan with arms crossed

Koz'Rath: Son of B'aara. You have come to me in your time of need to aid. But I require my master's geld.
Hamdan: And what... shall that be?
Koz'Rath: Your soul, wicked man.
Hamdan: So be it...

Hamdan smashes his staff against the floor. Koz'Rath speaks a blasphemous tongue incomprehensible to mortals. Hamdan keels over and dies with a croak.

Exit Koz'Rath and Hamdan
[/hide]

[hide=Rosebud's Bloom - Act One, Scene Five]ACT ONE - SCENE FIVE

Enter Richard, Emelina, injured in battle but fighting valiantly

Richard: The day is ours! The Sky shall Bloom, hurrah! We've won it all, hurrah!
Emelina, with a gasp: The Sky shall do more than Bloom, Sir Richard dear...
Richard: What mean you?
Emelina points to the sky in horror. Richard gasps and falls to his knees, tears streaming down his face
Richard: There is no mercy here...
Emelina: No... No, there is not...
Richard: Where... is that accurst Fourth Legion?
Emelina: Not here, Richard, I'm afraid friend. The day is ours, aye, but I reckon all the day's blood too- shall be ours. We have given it all.
Richard: Truth... In... Action...
Emelina: Yes, dear friend. Yes...

Narrator: The dark sorcery of the Arch-Heretic's student, Hamdan, has led to the Great Flood. Many died and perished that day. Brave Sir Richard and Dame Emelina's sacrifice great that day. Yet, they live in our hearts forever. In our hearts.
[/hide]

[A stack of plays, both terrible and mildly-less terrible all with the signature and obnoxious perfume of Palamon]

[The White-Hare, Master Poet, Playwright, Hospitaller, Faithful B'aarat, Hero-Aspirant]

[A parchment adorned with a crimson wax-seal and fantastical embellishments and carrying with it a flowery-scent lies a-waiting wherever its predecessor first sat]

[hide=Fancy Letter]Filthy, detestable cretin of the wastes's backside!

I must say, your horrid letter took me quite by surprise. Why, the shock had me reminisce of T'Chun's roving madmen of yesteryears long since past, or the oafs that brought the fall of the Eighty-Eighth diocese. Ah, life is truly a Wheel, I must proclaim my faith once more-- it spins and spins in a cycle; the scullion dung-eaters such as yourself shall forever appear from the burrows like frenzied rodents with nary a thought in their small, utterly tiny brain. I wager, foul sir, that if it were for the Rat-Catchers' guild, they'd have snatched you from your rotten behind and tossed you into a pit with the rest of your comrades. Alas, it seems the rat has now become a worm, and the reviled cultist a droll cannibal. How the times do change, if ever in a cycle; with adjustments from the spokes of the wheel.

I shall say that if you were a fair and noble maiden the prospect of feasting upon my most gallant hunk of meat would not be out of reach. Alas, my goodman, I prefer fairer company! Such woe for you, and as I am sure, many others about the Disc. Now, onto the most exciting bit of literature you've no doubt had the pleasure of beholding since your birth. My life's memoir. Unfortunately, I've better business to go about than wax poetic to a drooling cannibal, so it shall be brief!

I once was a pageboy of small means. My father a carpenter, and my mother a nurse. In the Eighty-Eighth diocese. At a young age I saw them rot and wilt away from the plague, my valiant mother's efforts leading to her untimely doom. One of the survivors of that great Sanctis Order, my mentor Sir Tancrede d'Beaumont, took me under his wing to teach me, a meagre freedman's boy, the ways of swordplay and all things chivalric. I was much the riotous lad in those days, my boyhood consisting largely of disobedience, whippings, and hectic demands.

My superior at the time, the Squire Gilles Guilbert, was much the source of affection, and had secretly took to teaching me the ways of calligraphy and reading- much to my master's displeasure. Those years were hard, truly so, exiles from a land bereft of both King's love- that damnable git what tossed away our fealty- and of its own dignity. I had never much cared for the way of Knights. What good did they do for us, having seen the horrors of the Eighty-Eighth and what became of my mother? My craven father ran away to the Steadings afar, prostrating himself to some ungainly, bulbous laird there no doubt, I cared little for that man.

This all changed with the coming of the Cinquefoil Rose. I was a young lad then, but even I saw it from the rear of their charge- creeping like the mischievous young chap I was at the time. How they dashed away the plague's minions, how they cleansed the land and ended that rotten curse. It was then that I transformed, as my former homeland did. From a corrupt boy with little care for the good of one's word and responsibility, to a darling servant. No Small God of the Ninety-Nine or beyond had saved us that day. It was the will of man and their efforts 'gainst what was foul that did.

Long after the Ring-Fall, my master and I wandered. Horrors emerged beyond our comprehension. The walls that kept us trapped, akin a womb now became our tomb in their absence. Lizards came to retake what was once theirs, cultists such as yourself crept from the crevices of the Devil's nether-regions. I had never been much to give interest to my master's drillings and teachings, but that day I would have died if not for his incessant shouting and correcting of how to hold a shield and swing a sword. B'aara bless that man. He was a harsh teacher, but there goes not a day without the world itself weeping at his death. Rest his soul.

Many years after, and it was all a blur, I was a young lad no longer. Guilbert was long dead and I had assumed his position in our makeshift band, and we were but five leagues away from Ephia's Well. Alas, fate was cruel to us, and my good master returned to B'aara's arms that day, that Arch-Daemon thirst having murdered him. I took his ring and oath, and though I shall never be so worthy as to take his title and name, I live on with his memory.

If you end up publishing this summarized version of my life's tale, do make certain to send a portion of the profits to an order dedicated to purging the world of cannibals and their rancid feastings. It shall bring me much joy. And if you, in your folly, realize the wrongdoings of your cannibalism, then merely send for me a letter with your true identity and we shall arrange for a ceremony to absolve you of your horrific deeds. I do partake in the myth of a second, or even third chance at times- hopeless optimist that I am.

- Palamon of Saint-Allard
The White-Hare, Master Poet, Playwright, Hospitaller, Faithful B'aarat, Hero-Aspirant

P.S. No, I will not eat your meat, you git.[/hide]




[hide=Plain Text Alternative]Filthy, detestable cretin of the wastes's backside!

I must say, your horrid letter took me quite by surprise. Why, the shock had me reminisce of T'Chun's roving madmen of yesteryears long since past, or the oafs that brought the fall of the Eighty-Eighth diocese. Ah, life is truly a Wheel, I must proclaim my faith once more-- it spins and spins in a cycle; the scullion dung-eaters such as yourself shall forever appear from the burrows like frenzied rodents with nary a thought in their small, utterly tiny brain. I wager, foul sir, that if it were for the Rat-Catchers' guild, they'd have snatched you from your rotten behind and tossed you into a pit with the rest of your comrades. Alas, it seems the rat has now become a worm, and the reviled cultist a droll cannibal. How the times do change, if ever in a cycle; with adjustments from the spokes of the wheel.

I shall say that if you were a fair and noble maiden the prospect of feasting upon my most gallant hunk of meat would not be out of reach. Alas, my goodman, I prefer fairer company! Such woe for you, and as I am sure, many others about the Disc. Now, onto the most exciting bit of literature you've no doubt had the pleasure of beholding since your birth. My life's memoir. Unfortunately, I've better business to go about than wax poetic to a drooling cannibal, so it shall be brief!

I once was a pageboy of small means. My father a carpenter, and my mother a nurse. In the Eighty-Eighth diocese. At a young age I saw them rot and wilt away from the plague, my valiant mother's efforts leading to her untimely doom. One of the survivors of that great Sanctis Order, my mentor Sir Tancrede d'Beaumont, took me under his wing to teach me, a meagre freedman's boy, the ways of swordplay and all things chivalric. I was much the riotous lad in those days, my boyhood consisting largely of disobedience, whippings, and hectic demands.

My superior at the time, the Squire Gilles Guilbert, was much the source of affection, and had secretly took to teaching me the ways of calligraphy and reading- much to my master's displeasure. Those years were hard, truly so, exiles from a land bereft of both King's love- that damnable git what tossed away our fealty- and of its own dignity. I had never much cared for the way of Knights. What good did they do for us, having seen the horrors of the Eighty-Eighth and what became of my mother? My craven father ran away to the Steadings afar, prostrating himself to some ungainly, bulbous laird there no doubt, I cared little for that man.

This all changed with the coming of the Cinquefoil Rose. I was a young lad then, but even I saw it from the rear of their charge- creeping like the mischievous young chap I was at the time. How they dashed away the plague's minions, how they cleansed the land and ended that rotten curse. It was then that I transformed, as my former homeland did. From a corrupt boy with little care for the good of one's word and responsibility, to a darling servant. No Small God of the Ninety-Nine or beyond had saved us that day. It was the will of man and their efforts 'gainst what was foul that did.

Long after the Ring-Fall, my master and I wandered. Horrors emerged beyond our comprehension. The walls that kept us trapped, akin a womb now became our tomb in their absence. Lizards came to retake what was once theirs, cultists such as yourself crept from the crevices of the Devil's nether-regions. I had never been much to give interest to my master's drillings and teachings, but that day I would have died if not for his incessant shouting and correcting of how to hold a shield and swing a sword. B'aara bless that man. He was a harsh teacher, but there goes not a day without the world itself weeping at his death. Rest his soul.

Many years after, and it was all a blur, I was a young lad no longer. Guilbert was long dead and I had assumed his position in our makeshift band, and we were but five leagues away from Ephia's Well. Alas, fate was cruel to us, and my good master returned to B'aara's arms that day, that Arch-Daemon thirst having murdered him. I took his ring and oath, and though I shall never be so worthy as to take his title and name, I live on with his memory.

If you end up publishing this summarized version of my life's tale, do make certain to send a portion of the profits to an order dedicated to purging the world of cannibals and their rancid feastings. It shall bring me much joy. And if you, in your folly, realize the wrongdoings of your cannibalism, then merely send for me a letter with your true identity and we shall arrange for a ceremony to absolve you of your horrific deeds. I do partake in the myth of a second, or even third chance at times- hopeless optimist that I am.[/gfont]

- Palamon of Saint-Allard
The White-Hare, Master Poet, Playwright, Hospitaller, Faithful B'aarat, Hero-Aspirant

P.S. No, I will not eat your meat, you git.[/hide]

[[OOC - Regular Text:]]

[OOC - Regular Text:]
[hide]Well known to you, O' sons of B'aara, is sin a-plenty, and yet, seldom do we hear of purity, save for our knowledge of what is assuredly sinful, and therefore, what isn't! Many in the great ash wastes know of the brilliance associated with Ephia's Well and its resplendent water, but few know of the true majesty of Ephia herself! How may we indulge greedily, ignobly supping of such a sacred unction with nary a thought of Ephia herself, the very source of it? Many have heard of the Chalice, but few its true origins. We begin at Ephia's youth.

Ephia was the first daughter of B'aara, our Mother's very first creation of life, melded in Her most holy image in flesh. Indeed, Ephia was so holy, that to witness her was far too splendid for all that beheld her fairness. In her first breath, she turned to face the barren dunes, and the very mountains and clouds did weep at her arrival, for there was no beauty in their realm, yet there stood before them something grander than all the gold, silver, jewels, and pearls of the seas and earth. And they knew then, for they had such wisdom in the ways of time and dreamt long of B'aara's whispers of creation, that the fair beauty of Ephia's mortality shall wither. For all that is living shall die, and they could not bear the loss in grief.

Ephia, in her boundless love, inherited from her divine Mother, at once leapt to embrace all the weeping rocks and the grieving sands. She gazed upon the shimmering seas and raised a hand high to grasp at the clouds above to love them tenderly. T'was then that she spake softly with a voice so hauntingly beautiful, so lovingly soft, that it stilled the howling winds in envy, and would too the silkworms for they shall never weave such sacred majesty. "Do not weep that I shall die, for in death and life there is equal beauty. And my daughters and sons shall craft edifices greater yet. The waste shall be green and gold, marbled shall be the palaces, and blest shall the land be forevermore in peace and mirth eternal. So it shall be. Weep not. Weep not."

And yet they wept and wept for twelve months long, for they knew her words to be false. There shall be no fairer than Ephia, and there shall be but war and terror to come. And B'aara's sweetling Ephia was yet naive and young in the ways of the wastes, and none could dare to tell her of the Arch-Devil's hate and his wicked, terrible power. And so they wept.

In the beginning, Ephia, curious of the vast wastes, traveled far and wide. And it was in the dunes that she saw Warad as he wandered, and upon seeing him went still with fright. For it was the first time she beheld one other than rock, sand, sea, or sky. The Wanderer held his traveling-stick to her and whispered softly; "Child of the Queen, fear me not. Take my stave, and keep it close to your beating heart. For it shall keep you safe on the strait of your accurst destiny. Farewell." And he left her swiftly, for the Wanderer wanders alone.[/hide]

[An ornate and decorated book with gilded embellishments with the scent of dry, dusty paper and myrrh]

[An ornate and decorated book with gilded embellishments with the scent of dry, dusty paper and myrrh]

[Stamped to nearly every board in the Krak and about Hapia's Well, a series of goatskin parchment posters perfumed with the scent of sweet wine and roses promises a brilliant play to behold...]

[Stamped to nearly every board in the Krak and about Hapia's Well, a series of goatskin parchment posters perfumed with the scent of sweet wine and roses promises a brilliant play to behold...]

OOC: Time for the event will be 10th of March ROUGHLY around 8:00-9:30 PM GMT