http://www.nextgenrpg.com/content/faust-chronicles

Now Casting Submissions are open until Friday, July 24.

The Faust Chronicles is a small low powered campaign with skilled investigators
thrust into deadly situations. Centered in London, the team will travel through
out the UK, possibly to other countries with a strong possibility of crossovers
in the future. The focus will be on character development, how the characters
cope with constant exposure to corrupting influences, and character interaction,
perhaps more so than other campaigns.

System and Pace: The Faust Chronicles is first and foremost a collaborative
piece of fiction, not a game. We will not be using any specific game system to
build characters or adjudicate scenes. It's all about the story, the flow and
the characters.

Due to my own personal time constraints the official pacing of the game will be
slow, at best I can only commit to one official game post a week. The players
may post as little or as much as they like, you'll have as much creative control
to drive the story as I do.

Tense: The Bulk of the game will be writtne in 3rd person past tense. Solo
fiction pieces, blog pieces, journals etc, can be written in whatever tense you
like, but for consistency, the official game pages will be in the 3rd person
past tense.

Importance of the Player Characters: The characters will be central to the
campaign, though not necessarily known outside of their organization. While
definitely heroic, these characters will not be considered heroes. Simply
because of the nature of the threat, they will be tasked with keeping their
activities out of the public eye as much as possible and will rarely receive
public recognition for their efforts. While saving the world from evil, they
will be doing it one soul at a time.

World Description: While the world is a comic book world primarily based on the
world today, the world of the Faust Chronicles has some slight, if significant
differences. The main being that magic exists, is very functional and carries a
heavy price to wield. Other dfferences include metas, comic book technology, and
creatures of myth and legend still secretly roam the earth.

The Story So Far: Throughout humanity's history, stories abound of wondrous
objects of power that bestow gifts of strength, speed, and grace on the bearers.
The fabled sword Excalibur, the Holy Grail, the Ark of the Covenant, and Jason's
Golden Fleece are but a few examples. Heroes always wielded these objects,
strong and just people who use the powers and abilities gained for the good of
humanity. Once these wondrous artifacts have served their purpose, they are
usually set aside, hidden and protected, to prevent their power from falling
into the 'wrong hands.'

Few, if any, tales tell of the other side of the coin. As sure as there is
light, there is also darkness. Fell weapons; rings; rods; objects that twisted,
corrupted and damned their bearers are not the stuff of legends; they are the
stuff of nightmares. Throughout time, these objects were coveted. Some yearn for
the power the objects provide, willing to brave the corruption for they
themselves are corrupt. Others search to find these objects, destroying them if
possible, to remove their taint from the world. Most of the items of legend and
myth had faded from memory, their power waning and finally disappearing as the
level of magic and belief in the world declined. During the early stages of the
decline, several societies both secular and non-secular in nature sprang into
being, to try to find and remove these darker objects from the grasp of the
general populous.

Some attempted to destroy the objects; others just stockpiled them, standing
vigilance against any that might try to obtain them. As magic declined, so did
the vigilance and interest in many of these orders until only one remained, the
Order of the Phoenix.The society's members were from all lifestyles, peasant,
noble, clergy, and university. As belief waned and interest turned towards the
sciences, the Order moved quietly into the background of mainstream society. The
objects were secreted in hidden and protected vaults throughout Europe, with the
largest Cache being kept in a sealed and guarded vault in London.

The Order fell into near obscurity, its membership cut to a handful of carefully
selected and initiated members. During the early 20th century, a sharp rise in
the world's cycle of magic began to concern the remaining members of the now
renamed Phoenix Foundation. The items they had been guarding for centuries began
to become dangerous again. Their greatest fear became reality almost overnight.
A new recruit from the emerging spiritualist movement succumbed to the
temptation and appropriated that which he had pledged to guard.Under the
influence of one of the more powerful objects designed to sow chaos and
disorder, the recruit, an Edgar Faust, opened a curio shop in Surrey. Using the
objects he had taken as inventory, Faust sold and distributed the cursed objects
to unsuspecting residents and tourists.

The Phoenix Foundation finally tracked Faust down, but his original stock was
gone, the only piece left was that which had him enthralled. A struggle ensued
for Faust's soul. Unfortunately the Foundation representative failed and both
lost their lives, though the object in question was destroyed.

Nearly a century of search and research led the Foundation to only a small
percentage of the more than 200 objects stolen by Faust. With the emergence of
magic and metas as more prevalent, the potential for disaster has increased
exponentially. It was clear that the old methods of investigation and recovery
were not enough to prevent disaster. The Phoenix Foundation began its search for
the best and brightest the mundane world has to offer. Unwilling to reveal
itself and it's mission publicly due to society's general disbelief in matters
mystical, the Foundation has decried the use or recruitment of the more powerful
metas due to the publicity surrounding them. Instead, they turned again to the
areas that best served them in the past, the Universities, the clergy, the
police and military.

Local Relations: Police, fire departments and other governmental agencies are
more than willing to take the characters' calls, but may not respond as
expected. The characters will be part of a private foundation with no police
powers and treated like any normal citizen. The Phoenix Foundation is considered
a well-respected non-profit organization, helping various charities and public
good works. Its members are respected, if considered slightly eccentric.

Morality: While the campaign premise is black and white, the characters will be
tasked with recovering cursed objects, many of which corrupt and slay, not only
the users, but innocents around them. The characters will have to make hard
choices and deal with the consequences of those decisions as they affect their
own lives and the lives around them. This has the potential for adult rating,
all such files will be marked as such, though we will make a serious attempt to
keep the bulk of the campaign pg-13.

Realism: The Faust Chronicles, while based on the supernatural, will be a fairly
realistic campaign but with some opportunity for cinematic efforts. Characters
will not die unless they prove themselves too stupid to live or are going out in
a blaze of glory. However, the going will not be easy.

Outlook: The campaign will be dark in tone, as the characters will be battling
cursed objects and people who have succumbed to the evil influence of these
objects.

Seriousness: The campaign will be fairly serious, though a creative player will
find chances to inject some humor through character interactions.

Continuity: While the character development will be serial, the campaign
scenarios will be episodic in nature with some serial portions. The character's
actions, successes and failures while not readily apparent, can and will have
impact on future episodes.