Pandora's Inheritance [OOC] - A Cautionary Tale of Modernity, Humanity and Magic

[HeySeuss]

Taking in new characters until we aren't.
You'll know when that happens, because I'll write something here.



"The Soiling of Old Glory"
by Stanley Forman of the Boston Herald American
1977 Pulitzer Prize Winner

TL;DR List

• Modern-Fantasy setting. 2012 United States, magic has returned.
• Not Twilight or Harry Potter; this has darker political overtones because humans know about magic and various supernatural beings and are scared shitless.
• Magic returns to the world.
• In the United States, the government starts rounding up people with magic.
• By Christmas of 2012, animals and plants, places and things, start to emerge; energy nexuses, mythical beasts, spirits even. Coincidentally, that's around the time the Mayan calendar ends. Some people say it's the end of the world, the Mayans point out it's just the end of an age. Whose right?
• The characters are interned at Nellis AFB's containment camp, similar to the way the Japanese were during World War II.
• The characters will be forced to make some stark choices vis a vis retribution, justice, the law and nature.
• Posting schedule is something like once a week or faster, depending on how it works out, but I try to hold that 'once a week, minimum' rule to give time if needed.
• Advanced Standards.

Table of Contents

• The In-Character Thread will go here.
• IRC Chat - I'm not always here, but I will try to get to questions when I can -- I leave the client open and logged for when I'm not there. If you have an IRC client, /server irc.foonetic.net and the channel is #Saga.
• Kaede Oiga (Loveless)
• Meriel Dagon (Timbre)
• Aurelia Galanis (Raptorman)
• Juanita Calais (inDefiance)
• Important setting info, links and approved characters will go here.

Glossary of Terms

• Emergent, Manifested - Initially an adjective for people, it has since expanded to describe any sort of magically active thing, place or being as of late December of 2011. Emergent people, plants, animals, places and objects all exist. This is the politically-correct term for it in the United States and Canada. There are many more less flattering terms, of course.
• NPC's - Disparaging term for regular humans, especially the people that hate Emergents (such as many of the religious fanatics in the country) used by American Emergents in turn. Particularly popular with the ones that have been caught and put in camps. It was a popular term among roleplayers, before roleplaying games and science-fiction novels were pulled off bookstore shelves during the last couple months of hysteria, and outright banned in certain states, as if they were the reason all this came about.
• Shame-kisser - A disparaging term among anti-Emergent groups, often religious, for people who support the rights of Emergents. It refers to the 16th century myth of one of the rituals of witchcraft, the Osculum infame, involving a kiss to the anus as a show of subservient. It was first used by a famous televangelist mid-sermon, and caught on from there.
• Freakville - Synonymous with the holding camps for Emergents, be they large or small, as run by FEMA and the Department of Homeland Security.
• Pitchfork Party - A facetious term for NPC attacks on Emergents, alluding to peasants with torches and pitchforks, though these days they're more likely to have Molotov cocktails and shotguns.
• Alpha-Omega Type - Classification of the Emergents as given by the DHS upon in-processing at a camp like the Nellis AFB facility. Classifications are as follows:
• Type: Alpha - Confirmed dangerous emergent with abilities that can directly harm someone. These people are processed differently than others -- they are first brought into isolation units for observation and 'testing' before release into the general population. All inmates can be drugged if the guards see fit, but Alphas are almost always drugged to some degree, often on high-dose benzodiazepines.
• Type: Beta - Physically mutated. Currently, people are still undergoing sudden changes, in the camp and outside the camp, which is to say, the process is ongoing. If warranted, this class of inmates is physically shackled, muzzled or otherwise restrained so as to not present a threat to other inmates and the guards.
• Type: Gamma - Emergent with abilities to produce apparitions or alter perception. Also kept on high dose benzodiazepines or some other anti-anxiety/behavior control drug as a rule.
• Type: Omega - General Population of Emergents. Classification to be expanded as trends in emergence are identified.

In Character Info

It's late February, 2013, and the uncertainty of life, often buried deep in the psyche of humanity, is suddenly a raw and very exposed nerve. Things have emerged and the false serenity of society is irrevocably swept away on a tide of the supernatural.

The world is turning upside down. Things are emerging from a long dormancy, their spirits either finding flesh on their own or fusing with the nearest host and twisting them into something else. From the beautiful to the freakish, it was almost as if someone unlocked a spiritual vault and threw the doors wide open, heedless of what would emerge, heedless of the things this force would overturn.

Magic came back on September 23th, 2012 (the equinox); people suddenly manifested abilities. Some changed shape to mishapen or supernaturally beautiful beings, others manipulated energies by their will and mind. Society was not prepared, and fell into all sorts of social unrest, including lynchings, riots and vigilantism. Not everyone was grabbing a shotgun or gardening tool to go after these newly-minted 'Emergents' but there was a torrent of hate on the TV and on the radio, a furious argument about how to respond.

Irrationality won out, as it almost always does when fear sinks into the mass psyche.

Initially, at the behest of the more vocal and hardline group of Americans, yelling for the government to 'do something,' especially with people taking it to their own hands and 'doing something' themselves, often with encouragement through the internet or the radio or the pulpit; vigilante violence against Emergents. These people, backed up against the wall, lashed out -- their uncontrolled, sometimes dangerous talents gave the newscasts of these incidents a horror movie feel, especially as the media played up the most extreme example, partially for ratings.

There was, of course, a chance for the government to stand up to this trend, but instead the government did two things; they put a law into effect recognizing that Emergents were not human, and therefore not accorded the rights of the 14th Amendment -- the Supreme Court shot down the challenges, and then used the National Defense Authorization Act of 2011 to justify deploying military force, under the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), specifically the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), to start rounding up Emergents, as they were being called, to be placed in containment camps, often on military bases, "for the protection of everyone involved." Darker rumors swirled, that the various governments of the world were frantic to understand these forces and dead set on controlling or containing these disruptions.

In December, right before Christmas (the 21st, the Solistice, as well as the prophesized end of the Mayan calendar/start of a new age), suddenly the animals and plants, things and places, started to show emergent traits; limited phenomena at first and then a buildup to a crescendo point. Many Emergents felt it in their bones, but most of them managed to conceal this feeling of burgeoning power, a sudden increase in these newfound things they do. They know they are hunted and being kept, and so they keep their own secrets from a secretive government. Quietly, affecting a degree of docility, the inmates at Nellis begin to plan...

Out of Character Info

I'm pretty loose on character ideas, but ideally the characters are still figuring things out. I'm loose on what magic entails, but let's keep this level-headed and avoid munchkinism. The plot is almost more about how people react to the situation than what they can do with magic.I haven't gone into the details of how magic has affected the world, or, at least, I haven't gone into more detail than I've had to; part of this is because I want to flesh that out in a plot.

The idea of this RP is how people would adjust to the sudden emergence of magic in society, and I've tried to set up a confrontation, but I am not guiding the story into bottlenecks of that sort; rather, I am trying to get a feel for what the players will want to do with this story, and how to fit that into the overall story. Suffice to say, this is more like 'Carrie' than 'Blade'; I'm not so interested in having long-established secret societies of vampires and werewolves emerge from the woodworks to take over the world. They, like everything else, are a fairy tale that suddenly shows up, and those people that do turn into them are as new to it as anyone else.

(That's strictly to avoid another Underworld/WOD type cliche of vampires secretly running the world-- there's plenty of those elsewhere. This is about something different.)

As said, I'm not going to be terribly strict about characters so it's just a matter of posting up what you want and playing, so long as it's tasteful, balanced and doesn't sparkle. I'd ask that we keep it from going overboard on the powers, as everyone is, at this stage, discovering them in a world where even a little bit of it is a huge advantage over the rest of humanity. Preferably, characters will be somewhat based on mythology in some fashion; I think that is a little more tasteful. Based on, but not in the sense that they have to conform to every element of the story. I think I'd prefer to say that the characters are the basis of the legends, not the other way around, in this setting.

The plot will involve questions of politics and culture, rights and law and morality at the bottom line. The players will, as a result, need to be mature about it and remember that this is fiction, even if it is based on modern life as we know it. It's still fiction, and we have to take license with it. This is a dystopia, a speculation upon the worst that can happen.

This is a setting I have used before in other RP's, even on other boards, that I've worked on for a couple years. It addresses the question of how the world would react if magic were to suddenly spring into being in the world, what would occur if normal people were suddenly able to wield these powers and if some of them were to turn into beings out of the fairy tales and myths. There are, of course, stories that deal with the supernatural existing in secret, forming cabals and ruling the world with their advantages...or having romances with drab girls in rainy towns in Washington State; this isn't one of those stories.

In the end, the roleplay is about human nature, a combination of political thriller and fantasy, a sort of "Martin Luther King and Muhammad Ali meet Merlin" scenario. It may even be "Mao Zedong meets Medea," or "Che Guevara meets Circe." Will those people with magical gifts allow themselves to be pushed around? Will they justify the worst fears of their most vocal opponents and try to use their powers to take over? What can the government do? What will the government try? Who will provoke whom? Will the shot heard around the world be fired again? Will it be a civil war?

The characters, of course, are in a holding facility on a military base; the Federal government thinks they have them entirely locked down. They, of course, have things up their sleeves. It is anticipated that there will be an uprising, but it will be character decisions that dictate the course of that uprising, the road they intend to take. Will they justify atrocity with self-defense, or will they be better men and women than the men and women that put them in the camp?

Character Sheet

A brief note on characters: this RP is intended to be psychological and political, so if you want to play a combat-monster badass, this isn't for you. I prefer characters that have conflicts and problems, issues galore because no one goes to a place like Nellis and undergoes what is going on in this setting completely on balance.

The other thing to be aware of is that characters need to be rooted in mythology, rather than just D&D stuff. It can be loosely based, but I really want to see some thought into a cultural or geographic connection to their abilities. Egyptian, Greek, Norse, British Isles, so on and so forth, try to find something in folklore and mythology to jive with the concept. I mean, if you want to do a sorcery type, you should consider specifying it to a culture or that character's perception of the power. I'm not saying that to limit things so much as to add a rich layer to it; even the Harry Dresden novels involve a degree of cultural significance in the abilities.

For people actually changing into mythological beings, this is important as well; that change should conform to a mythical basis or at least relate to it (extra points for the Gorgon ).

That said, a couple limitations; vampires are out. There are plenty of vampire RP's out there, go find one. No uberbeasts like dragons and the like. On the other hand, if a character wants to have a relationship of some sort to a dragon (not familial), well, we'll see what you have. I have thoughts on the subject, but I won't poison the well.

Name:
Age:
Gender:
Ethnicity/Ancestry: (Consider ethnicity in the light of mythology as well)
Hometown:
Appearance: (particularly identifying markers/abnormal traits)
Classification: (See above on classificiations in the glossary section)

History

Suggested Items: Former occupation, education, arrest record, etc. Places they lived, significant events in the character's life. How they wound up interned at Nellis AFB and what their experience has been as an internee (In some cases, experiments are run on 'alpha' classification internees. Nothing invasive in the vein of Joseph Mengele...yet.)

Psychological Profile

If the history is written properly, this should be a breeze; I would like your character's views of the politics, authority, themselves and the various types of non-emergent human, ranging from the anti-emergent extreme to the complacent middle to the well-meaning few allies Emergents have.

Abilities/Powers/Magic

A description of what abilities the character has, or at least has manifested to this point. Characters should be largely still beginning to only discover their abilities, for the most part. I do not require everyone to have abilities...in fact, for the most part, the abilities are involuntary and not always controlled because the people are just encountering them. It's entirely possible a parent might enter the camps with their child...but other than that, I can't see a reason why non-Emergents would be in the containment camps.

[Raptorman]

If I wish for my character to combine certain aspects of two mythos would that be potentially acceptable?

[HeySeuss]

Well, let's see what you have and then we can discuss. I don't want to commit to anything before I see the sheet, essentially.

[Raptorman]

I mean more, is it inherently an issue to do so? I am working on the sheet now

[HeySeuss]

Fixed the IRC Chat Link.

Much props to Raptorman for letting me know.

[Loveless]

Just going to put this character sheet of mine here, for reference.


Name: Kaede Oiga
Age: 19 years old
Gender: Female
Ethnicity/Ancestry: Japanese
Hometown: Orlando, Florida
Appearance: Kaede stands at an average height of 5’6”, having a lean and slender body in spite of that she doesn’t really do a lot of sports. True to her Asian heritage, she has slightly wavy jet black hair which reaches to the middle of her back, framing a delicate face and matching with her dark brown eyes. Unlike other Japanese though, her eyes were round and she has natural double eyelids, making her look somewhat like a Pan-Asian. Kaede is mostly seen wearing comfortably, consisting of just a plain and loose T-shirt with jeans and a pair of sneakers; something adorning a hoodie sweater. Also, she mostly have her black hair tied up in a high ponytail, and she wears a pair of silver framed glasses over the bridge of her nose.

Classification: Gamma

History:

Kaede’s parents moved to Florida from Japan before her birth. She was born from a pair of loving parents who wanted to provide everything they could offer to their only child. When she became five years old, her father met with an accident and passed because of it. Of course, both wife and daughter mourned for their loss, but that was just the beginning of a huge change.

Her mother then had to struggle to earn money to support the family, through many long hours of work and thus leaving Kaede home with hired nannies or with the neighbours. Fortunately, their neighbours were a very nice bunch and treated Kaede with upmost concern and affection. But sadly, she could not see her mother very often and when her mother does return home, Kaede would mostly be asleep in her bed since she would have to rise up early for school the next day.

When she turned 12 years old, Kaede realized that her mother brought home another man along with her and introduced him to her as a potential fiancé. The man was a nice enough person though Kaede was against the whole idea that the person could replace her late yet dearest father of hers. Despite her disagreeing with the idea, her mother married with the said man. After a few years, it was all dandy and fine. But it was only when her step-father lost his job and was desperately trying to find one, mostly being stuck at home to accompany his young step-daughter. The nightmare truly began from there.

Her step-father showed his true colours, especially when Kaede’s mother was not at home and busy with work and only with him and his step-daughter alone. He abused her; slapping her whenever she did any minor mistakes, beating her without apparent reason until causing her much bruises upon her body, and having to arrive to school with bandages on her body.

But even then, her daughter never spoke a word to her mother out of fear for her husband might cause more harm upon her and also being able to inflict the same harm upon her dear mother. The school staff and even their neighbours tried to talk with her mother about this situation but yet she seemed to be blindly in love with him and would not accept nor believe their words despite seeing the many bruises her daughter had. This went on until she reached the age of nineteen and she was blossoming into a beautiful woman. It was then that her step-father took a step and begun to molest her, letting her become his outlet for sexual release. She endured though she would cry herself to sleep in her bed after.

One night, her step-father went into her bedroom when she was sleeping. He surprised her as she arose from her sleep; he reeked of alcohol, and she knew he must had been drunk as he tried to tear off her clothes. She struggled, and she received a slap across her face because of it. Her screams were heard from her neighbours through the walls, and despite them knocking the front door harshly, demanding entry; her step-father persisted.

It was then she realized something odd, especially when her dark brown orbs noticed some sort of shadowey figure hovering above. Perhaps it was her sanity finally crumbling down after all the abuse and mistreatment she received, but she reached out to the figure, pleading for help, for mercy. As if the figure heard her wish, black shadow hands extended out and wrapped around the neck of her step-father, strangling him and pulling him off from her. Oddly, her step-father could not see anything other than feeling some invisible hands around his neck, dragging him off of Kaede while cutting off his oxygen as he was strangled to death. During that moment, her mother had entered into the room after coming home frantically as she received calls from her neighbours to be greeted with such a sight. Her husband now presumably dead, in the air while her daughter could only watch with horror before the limp body was released to fall upon the floor heavily. Her mother fell to her knees, scampering to her husband and tried to shake him, hoping to feel a sign of life. It was futile.

Horror and fear etched upon her mother’s face as she began to scream at her only daughter, calling her a ‘monstrosity’ and thus breaking Kaede’s heart. Despite she trying to explain to her mother, and also that her husband had attempted rape upon her, her mother did not believe her and she called in the authorities and turned her in. That was how she ended up in Neilis.

Psychological Profile: Kaede suffers from mild-to moderate depression; especially from what had happened during her childhood and also recently with her mother turning her only daughter to the authorities. Despite that, she still held a small inkling of hope that her mother would snap out of it and would forgive her and thus accepting her back although that could mean she was just being naïve to think of that. Kaede definitely does not trust other people easily; understandably from what she had experienced. Even through all that, she still held a somewhat small smile upon her face when having to speak or facing others like her; and thus giving out a somewhat friendly atmosphere. Also that she seems more wary of the opposite gender, feeling more nervous and anxious if they are around her. If people would touch her, she would flinch away as she dislike bodily contact.

Kaede does despised herself as an Emergent as she sees herself as some sort of freak but yet she even more despised on how the government was handling others like her; sending them to camps like Neilis without doing much of help to them even though they really needed it. But then again, she did understand the normal humans fear towards them and only concluded that it was their fear that made them irrational with their decisions; something like how her mother had acted as well.


Abilities/Powers/Magic:

Summoning:- Without Kaede really realizing, she could somehow summon ‘spirits’ or ‘familiars’ to her being and to control them to do her bidding. Problem is that, she is still uncertain how she could summon any of them or how many of those ‘familiars’ she actually has. She isn’t even so certain whether these could be some familiars or perhaps like a solidified of something like ‘imaginary friends’ in a way. Also was that, she could only see these familiars though reports had been brought in that sometimes people could see some sort of animal figure around Kaede’s neck though they could be just from their imagination. With Kaede’s eyes though; as she would described, she sees like a form of a shadow fox or cat who likes to have itself wrapped around her neck.

She could actually summon different spirits, but the number is unknown and each of them had yet to reveal themselves to her. For now, with the familiar which she now has; she sometimes converse with the invisible familiar to have it reply though of course, people around her could conclude she was just mad. She described the voice to be somewhat hoarse, a bit husky but to be of a male's voice, perhaps.

Because she did not really show her power, the authorities are uncertain about her though many reports of seeing the figure around her and such by other people, and all the description by them ended up too similar, they categorized her as ‘Gamma’ for now.

Note: I know this power can seem like too powerful, and so I would like to say that, she can only do this when she is concious. Knocked out and such, and she's pretty useless. Guess that could apply that when she sleeps too, I feel.

This familiar summoning power is based on the onmyoji, specialists in magic and divination from Japan. Practitioners of the onmyodo can summon ‘shikigami’ to serve them and to do their biddings.

[Timbre]

I would really like to do a character with telekinesis or similar mental capabilities, however I could be convinced to do one based off of a japanese mythical creature, the kitsune, if you would rather it be more mythology based.

[Silverpoint345]

Name: Mesophil Relican
Age: 16
Gender: Male
Ethnicity/Ancestry: Welsh
Hometown: Cardigan
Appearance: A quiet, almost reflective teen. His expression indicates further understanding along with a little fear.
Classification: Omega

History
The son of a reptile biologist, Mesophil was raised upon a belief in adaptation and evolution. As such, when his powers first started to emerge just a few months after the Equinox, he believed them simply be enhanced abilities to help his survival. Before they started to appear however, Mesophil viewed the emergents in much the same way as the rest of the world; he saw them as monsters, cruel and violent. When his own abilities developed, Mesophil quickly fled into the surrounding countryside, fearing for his life. Attempts to capture him were unsuccessful as he used his powers to avoid detection while distancing himself from danger. Eventually, his luck ran out and he was captured, an error that he regrets deeply. At first he was placed in a standard camp alongside other Omega class Emergents, however his enhancing abilities made escape easy; he simply waited for a chance to escape, using his abilities to locate loopholes and errors to exploit. After a number of escape bids, all of which ending in his re-capture, it was decided that he should be placed in a far higher security camp for the protection of the public. He was moved to Nellis where he has been ever since.

Psychological Profile
Mesophil is quite liberal in his views on the various groups that exist, holding beliefs that relate to his time as a regular human. He views Emergents as individual cases rather than as a crowd, accepting that despite the harmlessness of many, there are dangerous cases who are a threat to others. In a way, he still harbours a slight fear of other Emergents, though this fear has been altered towards Alpha class Emergents. While Mesophil dislikes the way that the world governments handled the events of the Equinox, he also accepts that it is simply part of human nature to fear difference. He does not view himself as dangerous, and believes that one day low level emergents will once again be accepted into humanity. It could be said that Mesophil still believes himself to be human, albeit with enhanced abilities. He does not know much of the Extremist groups, except that which he learnt from other inmates, and his general view is that they are a threat to all and an example of human nature at its worst.

Abilities/Powers/Magic
Mesophil believes his powers to be mere enhanced abilities, an example of instant evolution. He has hyper-sensory abilities that he can manifest at will, however he is unsure of the full extent these powers reach. For now, he is capable of using his abilities to take in the environment around him at an extreme level; detecting hidden objects, nearby people and even cracks or flaws in his surroundings. The exploitation of said flaws allowed him to escape numerous times from various camps, as he made use of holes and errors while avoiding detection. In addition, his abilities make him a perfect tracker, capable of locating and avoiding others with ease. He calls his abilities the 'snake whistle' technique, and they are activated at will, allowing him to feel the environment around him fully for quick bursts. While his abilities have no real dangerous properties, his numerous escape bids earned him a place in Nellis where it was believed that he would be unable to escape.

Okay, there's my character bio. Hope it's all okay!

[Select]

Would the origins of a character's abilities affect their behavior and cognition? I'm thinking of something in line with Moloch, and Canaanite religion; Moloch was the chief deity in this pantheon, and advocated child sacrifice through fire. So, the ability would have something to do with fire, but would the doctrine and nature of Moloch have any effect on my character?

[HeySeuss]

@Loveless; approved.

@Timbre; there doesn't have to be a cultural context for your character's ability.

@Silverpoint345; how did they even discover your character? Also, why is he in the US? What is his embassy doing?

@Select; the degree of this effect is up to you, unless there is something wrong in the sheet, then I will notify.

Sorry for grammar/spelling, this is posted from my iPhone.