DEVA

DEVA!

DEVA! is a bombastic game with HIGH ENERGY, RIDICULOUS CHARACTERISTICS and EPIC ADVENTURES. Players are students in a Magical Academy for Gifted Youngsters and have a wide variety of improbable gifts – from super strength to mech suits to amazing boosts caused by the Power Of Friendship! Each session, the students will be faced by problems that have beset the school and trying to deal with the Villain Of The Week.

What is a trope? A trope is a recurrent theme or motif that comes up a lot during different media. You may have heard of things like the Mad Scientist (The exceptional yet bonkers scientist)  or the Brotherhood of Funny Hats (A secret society that is inexplicably eccentric). In DEVA!, you are encouraged to embrace these tropes in a way that will create a fantastic game.

Setting

The Defensive Education’s Victorious Ascent program founded a High School for Gifted Students – Victorious Ascent – based at the edge of the small, leafy suburban town of Summer Oaks. The nearest city is the capital of Castleburg where most of the students (and indeed most of the antagonists) hail from.

How the pupils are gifted has never been properly defined and yet it is understood that there is a rigorous recruitment process. What no one will tell you is that much of this process involves Recruiters being called to police stations to deal with angsty teenagers who’ve accidentally let all hell loose, the Headmaster witnessing a display of great skill on the street or at a convention of some kind, or other seemingly random invocations of the hand of fate.

The variety of these gifts is somewhat endless. Some students have fairly simple, straightforward gifts like being SUPER STRONK or REALLY FAST. Some of them have managed to make machines that they use as their pseudo-bodies. Some have MAGIC SWORDS or POWERFUL ARTEFACTS. And, of course, someone can create fire in their hands….0

Time period is now, but cooler. Most present day things will exist in setting but feel free to ask a ref if you are unsure. Some established technologies include mech suits and Cool Guns that Fire Lasers and Stuff.   Future tech can exist in setting but please check with a ref first.

As places filled with so many eccentric, belligerent and skilled people go, the Victorious Ascent program is often afflicted by troublesome outside invaders. These problems are usually solved by the feisty and skilled youngsters that occupy the school. Some might see this as an unreasonably high demand for the students, however the school understands this to be a “learning exercise”.

Characters

Characters will all be students at Victorious Ascent as part of the DEVA program aged between 16 and 21.

They will have some sort of defining characteristics that would make some suitable for an academy for gifted students. For example, a mech suit, magical powers, crazy technological skills, some sort of prophecy on their head, a deal with a demon, bad things just keep happening around them etc. This can be aligned to a specific trope but it’s not necessary.

Any significant digressions from these characteristics (with the exception of Villains) should be discussed with the refs before submission.

A link to the questionnaire can be found here → https://goo.gl/forms/JrfGr2hOMlcjG89x2

Villains!

After the Pilot, players will have the opportunity to submit ‘villain’ characters with a defined goal, which will take one or two weeks to complete/be defeated/leave. These may interact directly within DEVA, or may have narrative effects until the final confrontation; villains are DPC (a directed player character – a character with direction but not full control by the refs)  roles with guidance from the refs. Villains will be submitted through a separate villain submission form – however, this is not available for the pilot.

Players are encouraged however to introduce backstory nemesis/rival elements which the refs may or may not introduce into the system. Talking about your villain ideas with the refs or submitting (in future) ‘spare’ villains is encouraged.

Other things we need to say

Please send in spare ideas!!! There’s so much space here but our imaginations will wear out.

We are trialling a new style of combat for BIG, DRAMATIC, BOSS fights (FULL POWER). More information about this will be released along with the release of character sheets.  This will be in addition to smaller, pettier, mook fights (short skirmish) using standard ANTICS combat.

Google Drive

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0BwTUENq6EvJzUU43eUJhZmh1Q2c – the game’s public documents