This War of Mine


This Story is completely fictional, and simply based on a time of strife and darkness in South Africa. Any resemblances to actual people, or events are simply coincidence. The city this takes place in is completely fictitious.

It was 1994, though I remember it like it was yesterday. Apartheid had been over, but some were still upset about it. No one thought it would ever erupt like this, though. Some men and women had grown fed up with the government; they wanted Apartheid reinstated, and they’d do anything to do it. Thousands of people just rose up one day, with rifles and artillery that they had slowly acquired since the end of Apartheid. It was chaos for the first month that they took over the city, as they executed anyone who stood up to them, or simply because they felt like it. The citizens of the city retreated from the streets during the day, to escape the scorn of the rebels who had taken over. They only moved at night, attempting to take what they could without being shot. Then, the South African Army came with their artillery, missiles, tanks, and automatic weapons, but they were disorganized, ill trained, and unable to truly take the city and wipe the rebels out quickly.

Shells dropped from the sky, blowing craters into the streets, holes into houses, and the power went out in many places. The city was under attack once again; the South African Army had come to free them...hopefully. But freedom was a long way off, and who was to know it would take a whole year for the siege to break, the rebels to finally be wiped from our city, and for us to rebuild. During this year, it was hell in our city, as neighbors fought each other for food, and soldiers committed grave acts against both men and women, breaking them. Hundreds committed suicide, simply to escape the agony of living in this place. Stepping outside during the day was like signing your own death warrant, or worse.

You thought you found a place of relative safety, a place where you and others worked together to survive through this hell that surrounded you. Day by day, scavenging and scraping by, you worked not to die in this pit of despair. Did you though? Did you survive? Or did you succumb to the dangers that beset you with every waking and sleeping breath?

---

This RP is set in a city in South Africa shortly after the end of Apartheid in 1994, and lasting into 1995. Your goal is to survive the rebel onslaught of your city until the South African Army beats the rebels away. Your characters will be people who lived in the city before the rebel attacks and are mostly ordinary citizens. You have all found each other after flocking to a large house that was mostly abandoned. Though it is shelled a bit and some of the walls are blasted out, the door can still lock, most of the rooms are intact, and the structure is stable. Some tables are still in place, there even still seems to be a generator in the basement, and a bench with some simple tools left behind.You have all chosen to stay in this place, maybe for a feeling of comradery, protection, or simply because you have nowhere else to go. You are here now, here to survive.

This roleplay delves into disturbing issues of morality; this is a serious roleplay. There will be insinuations of horrible things having happened or happening. If you cannot be an adult and take these things maturely and seriously please don’t bother to apply. This roleplay is not for the faint of heart.

Rules

1.Maturity is a must. I put this on here first, because I feel it is the most important. If you can’t take this roleplay seriously then you don’t need to be here.

2.This is my roleplay; it’s my baby. I’ve thought very long and worked very hard on this. I have set it up a certain way and I am not going to change it on a whim for you. What I say goes in this RP. Please respect that.

3. Respect each other, this shouldn’t really have to be said, but I’m gonna say it.

4. While this RP is dark and mature, delving into targets not normally delved into, it goes without saying to not break the rules of the site while roleplaying this RP. FTBs and vague insinuations will do without bringing sexual roleplaying and such into the RP.

5. This is a high casual/low advanced RP, therefore posts need to be of a decent quality. A two paragraph minimum per post will be expected.

6. No Gary Sues/Mary Sues. No character is perfect. No former military characters; I want this to be average Joes and Janes. I’d really rather not have police officers, but one may happen.

7. Any items to be found during the course of the RP will be put forward by me and decided by your character whether or not you take it. It’s the easiest way for me to make sure no one is just getting anything they want.

Character Sheet

---

Name: Luit Nicolaas
Age: 62
Gender: Male

Appearance:

Luit is a rather small man, coming in at around 5'6, and carries a small frame. His hair, though usually trimmed to perfection, has become unkempt and bushy; like a pale, well worn mop. His eyes are of a pale blue, and are framed by a pair of black rimmed glasses. A keen eyed observer will notice that his upper left ear is missing a chunk - as if someone, or something, bit him there some years ago.

His face is a war zone of pock marks, grey stubble and spider veins. A nose, disjointed at the base so that it trails off to the left slightly, is perhaps his flagship facial feature. Though, despite his perhaps ugly appearance, Luit has with him a warm and full smile that has weathered the ages far better than everything else his appearance can boast of. Although, when Luit does smile, his face ages by another decade due to the wrinkles that are formed.

If his Dutch name wasn't a giveaway, Luit is a white man. In his youth, he was considered a handsome Boer ; in his old age, not so much.

As the Vicar to one of many Anglican Churches of the city, (St. Francis Church), Luit wears a double breasted cassock with a black full collar shirt and white clerical collar underneath.

His shoes are ordinary black leather and smart looking, though they've lost their gleam over the last few days.

Current Health: Injured (recovering from treated shrapnel wound to left side of chest)
Current Mental State: Depressed
Current Emotional State: Angry

---

Personality

---

Temperament:

Luit is a man of action, and is not one for standing around waiting for God to come to him. He's happiest when he's doing something, and dreads sitting or laying down unless it's time for sleep. He is rather quick to anger, but this anger is almost never seen... perhaps owing to his religious beliefs. If he finds himself in a situation that has him seeing red, then he'll more than likely turn around and walk the other way - or block the offending individual from his consciousness.

He is always eager to help others; again, his religion probably plays a key part of this mentality. Often he has found himself in trouble, having given away the last of his food rations to a more needy individual than himself.

Luit's warm smile is the cornerstone to any social interaction. Whether preaching to the masses from a church altar, or talking an angry young man out of running him through with a crowbar, the smile is always there.

Positive Traits:

Negotiator - This man brings a bible to a knife fight. Not to say he always wins!

Priest - No one would shoot a Man of God. Would they?

Negative Traits:

Old - Physically weaker than his younger countrymen, and his immune system isn't what it used to be.

Thou Shalt Not Kill - Has a deep aversion to violence. Do not count on him to back you up in a fight, and do not count on him to put up a fight if you attack him.

Speciality Traits:

Man of God - Will seek comfort in his beliefs in times of need, and will not become suicidal or broken.

---

History

---

Luit Nicolaas is an orphan, given to the Anglican Church before his brain was capable of recording memories. He was brought up in a relatively lax and caring facility, where he and other orphans were tended to by the kind but often stern hands of nuns, and the complexing words of priests. With God being the only thing the young Luit really knew, thanks to what some would consider his slightly suffocating religious environment, it was perhaps natural that he pursued work in the Anglican clergy when he came of age.

Always, Luit tried to be one of Christ's true followers. Racism was not an issue for him, though it perplexed him that many priests from several Christian denominations, including his own, made such a thing an issue. Such blind hatred for your fellow man, because his skin colour did not match yours, angered Luit to the point where he turned his back on the etsablished "White Only" institutions, and made a humble attempt to connect with South Africa's black community. Though he initially struggled to gain acceptance, it was through determined charity work that he was finally able to gain the love and understanding of those he sought to help.

After Apartheid formally ended, Luit was successful in petitioning the Anglican Communion for the funds required to build himself a modest church in the centre of the city.

During the first service, which was a rather racially diverse affair, a group of armed men burst into the church and fired into the congregation with assault rifles. St. Francis Church never held its second service after that, because by the time the victims' bodies were lowered into the ground, the rebels had swept through the city in force.

St. Francis Church became a refugee centre of sorts in the first days, but (what is suspected to be) a Government war plane hit the structure and levelled it, killing a hundred men, women and children, and leaving scores more injured. Luit survived the massacre, but has been haunted by it ever since. He now stumbles through the war zone looking for reason behind the madness; he questions God on a daily basis, but in doing so, draws closer to him by aiding anyone he can.

Current Equipment: St. John's Bible.

EDIT: Somehow missed out the actual personality criteria. I've replaced it with "Temperament".

Name: Nobody knows for certain what his real name is. Everybody just calls him Kiki, a play on the Japanese word meaning monkey.
Age: About 19
Gender: Male

Appearance: Kiki has thick, somewhat fluffy, brown hair that reaches his chin and is usually worn loose and wild. His eyes are round shaped, large, and blue-gray in color. He has fair skin that doesn't have much in the way of permanent markings. Lots of dirt and bruises, but only one scar. If you can call it just a single scar. A mess of what appear to be knife marks criss cross his throat, its such a jumbled mess that you can't tell where one line begins and another ends.

He possess long, lanky limbs and fingers. The skin on his hands and feet is rough and calloused. He's small for his age and slight of build, with a baby like face that makes him look more like he's just become a teenager than a young adult. He has average white teeth that are mostly straight, but not perfect, there's a small chip missing out of one his front ones, but its so small that most people don't notice it.
Height: 5' 2"
Weight: 107lbs
Build: Very very skinny, to the point that people think he's unhealthly, but he isn't.
Current Attire: Denim jeans that hang on his hips and scrap against the ground because he's too short for them, a black tank top that is tucked into his pants over which is a thin, long sleeved, dark green, button up shirt that is usually left unbuttoned. There's a simple black belt that holds his pants up and what appears to be a red checkered bandana wrapped around his upper left arm. Like usual he is barefooted.

Current Health: Healthy

Current Mental State: Curious and confused

Current Emotional State: Scared

Personality: Kiki is expressive, one can always tell what his mood is by simply looking on his face. He has to be considering the fact that he can't talk. He's curious, so curious that it sometimes outweighs caution. He tends to act before he thinks, getting him into some trouble. He's always positive and always smiling, his smile tends to be contagious to other people. He isn't super trusting of other people, but once does trust somebody he's as loyal as a dog. He has about as much energy and patience as a puppy though, as in, not much at all.
Positive Traits: Strong willed, hard worker, always smiling, expressive.
Negative Traits: Mute due to injury, overly curious, accident prone unless he's climbing, stubborn, easily frightened, reckless.

Specialty Traits: Excellent climber. Near perfect balance.

History: It is obvious by looking at Kiki, or Matthew Turner as his name really is, that he wasn't born in South Africa. Though he hasn't told anybody, and it would be impossible to know without hearing his voice, he's originally from England. He began growing up as a normal boy with a love of climbing things and learning. But that soon changed. It was a typical day in second grade, his class had just come in from eating lunch outside. That's when the man dressed in black came in. In an instant everything went to hell. The man killed their teacher and four students before anybody could stop them. Along with giving light injuries to six others, and seriously wounding two. One of which was Kiki.

Kiki spent an agonizing year in the hospital recovering. During that time he learned three very important things. The first was that he would never be able to speak again. The second was Sign Language. And the third was that man had done it because the teacher was an
ex-girlfriend and he wasn't entirely right in the head. The blade the man used was kept as evidence until the trials were over and he was sentenced to death. Then Kiki requested it so he could remember what had happened to him. They let him have it and he's always carried it around with him since them.

Once he recovered, his parents, who felt guilty that the whole thing had happened and didn't want to have to look at their mangled son, shipped the boy off to South Africa to go live with some relatives who were missionaries. Not much changed growing up after that. He still climbed, he still learned, he still matured. He was just a little lonelier without his parents or friends.

Current Equipment: A small backpack that contains a notebook and a pen so that he can communicate with people who don't know sign language, a half full pocket sized lighter, and a reuseable water bottle that's just been refilled. He also has with him a dagger that he's kept since he was in grade school. It just so happens to be the one that took his voice.

Name: Mr. Charlie Westcott
Age: 44
Gender: Male

Appearance: A white man from the US. Charlie has grayish-blonde hair short enough to keep it above his ears and forehead. He was born with deep sapphire-blue eyes that, now he is starting to age, have began to fade into a duller sky-blue. His face and skin is relatively free of any blemish; though his skin has become a little dryer and darker over the years while in Africa. His teeth are white, but not perfect, and despite his use of chap-stick, his lips stay relatively chapped.

His attire consists of nothing but jeans, a simple collared shirt,a leather jacket, and high quality shoes that were made to be walked in day after day. His style ceases to change regardless of the weather or occasion, although he did own a suit for those special meeting with those he respected. His fingers, arms and legs are double jointed, though his thumbs are the only thing he abuses to show off to the little kids.

Height: 6'2
Weight: 154lbs
Build: thin, but not disgustingly. He has a small belly to show that his metabolism has gone down in his age.
Current Attire: Jeans, shirt, leather jacket, tennis shoes. Although his jacket is deeply faded and has a hole or two on the inside and around the pockets. His shoes are also worn, but they still are in great shape considering.

(These states will change depending on what happens throughout the RP)
Current Health: Healthy
Current Mental State: Broken consciousness, but otherwise intact
Current Emotional State: Non-existent, on the verge of a meltdown.

Personality:_________
Positive Traits: Intelligent, Caring
Negative Traits: Non-responsive, Easily convinced, Shy, Insane (the repetitive kind, not the crazy kind)

Specialty Traits: Good scavenger, no morals

History: Born and raised in 50's America. A product of Maine, Race or color never became a big deal for him and his family. That said, his community was predominantly white and unaffected by worldly concerns. Charlie was always a quiet child, leading him to few friends, but always busy outside playing in the woods or fields. It wasn't until he entered high school that his education became important to him. It was there he found his love of math and astrology.

He soon went into college with a major in astrology, but ended up failing out. Still determined to get a decent education, he then switched over to get a teaching degree for mathematics. He started first teaching at local grade schools, but then moved to the state college to become a professor. Charlie never married, leaving him bored and longing more, so on a spur of the moment decision, he left to go teach kids in Africa. It has been about four years since he moved before this tragic time had befallen him and his community.

Current Equipment: His leather work briefcase, a calculator, plenty of paper, 4 black pens, one red pen, and some candy mints.

So far so approved.

come on let's see those Cses peeps

Well this beginning to be a bit discouraging.

I'm still here and interested ^ ^

Sorry about the delay. With finals and moving home I've been busy the past few days but I have some time now to finish things up. I'll have it up within the next few hours.

Sorry about the delay. I hope adding in a few words in Chichewa here and there will be fine with you (don't worry translations will be provided) as well as a child NPC (but feel free to have him become sick, maimed or even killed as things progress)

Name: Alile Williams
Age: 28
Gender: Female
Appearance:

Height: 5’ 7”
Weight: 135
Build: With a decent medium build, the muscles she built during her time spent in Malawi hasn’t gone away.
Current Attire: Alile has on a simple dark blue cotton skirt, a pink t-shirt and a pair of simple flats. She wears a simple silver band for a wedding ring and a white head covering.

Current Health: Healthy
Current Mental State: Forcing herself to stay stable for child’s sake
Current Emotional State: Worried about her husband who was separated from her

Personality: Being someone that likes to hear her own voice, Alile can be quite a chatty person and is open in making a new. She is quite caring to those in need especially when it comes to children and the elderly. However even with these traits Alile is far from being a pushover. She can be quite hardheaded at times, even if the point she is making is wrong.

Positive Traits: Strong-willed, Motherly towards those younger than herself
Negative Traits: Doesn’t understand English idioms and sarcasm, Wary of white people, Stubborn

Specialty Traits: Good cook, Multilingual (fluent in English, Afrikaans (one of the two official language in South Africa) and Chichewa (language in Malawi))

History: Even as a young child Alile could remember the Mzungus (white people) coming to her village in Malawi with stories about a man living in the sky and would often come to help the villagers. Although as a child she didn’t exactly understand the importance of this god-man that had magical abilities to come back to life and was born without a man, she knew and understood who the Mzungus were. Hailing from a place where everyone was rich and happy and where death and AIDs wasn’t as prominent, Alile knew she wanted to go to the magical place called America or England.

It was due to this deep admiration of the Mzungus that she first met Peter. Three years older than herself, Peter moved to Malawi with his parents who worked on opening a clinic to provide service to those in and near the town. Although Alile was often busy caring for her younger siblings (her being the oldest child out of five) and Peter assisting in the clinic, the two took care in making sure to see each other whenever they were free as the two became close friends. Besides the month of December while Peter and his family returned to England to visit relatives, the two pretty much grew up together through their childhood and part of their teen years until Peter went back to England the December before going to college and stayed there.

As the months went by Alile waited patiently for Peter to return but after months turned into years of not hearing a word from Peter, the idea of him returning and the life they planned to have together started to fade away as she turned her attention towards what she would do with the rest of her life. Often working alongside Peter’s parents, Alile spent her time caring for the children in the orphanage.

However one day a rumor started to spread that a new Muzungu came to the village and was staying at the William’s clinic. Curious in seeing if this was another one of Peter’s relative Alile went to investigate but was surprised to see that it was Peter himself returning after he finished college and a few years of work in England. After six years of not seeing each other, the two started off on a rocky start but soon the friendship they once had returned which quickly followed by the two falling in love and marrying about a year after he returned. They lived in Malawi with both helping in the orphanage as well as the clinic while Peter worked as a freelancer and would send articles worldwide about the country. This job was what brought the Williams to South Africa. With the end of Apartheid quickly approaching people were interested in hearing more of what was happening and so Peter, Alile and their three year old son Jack (named after Peter’s father). However even though the Apartheid was over legally by the time the three arrive in South Africa, it was far from over concerning the citizens. Being a black person was difficult and even more so being married to a white person and living in an area with a higher concentration of white citizens. Although she didn’t achieve her dreams of leaving Africa, her childhood dreams were shattered as she saw how some the Muzungus treated her but for the sake of her husband’s job and her unwillingness to return back to Malawi with her tail tucked under her she has been enduring.

Current Equipment: A small satchel, child sized water bottle (half used), a few used crayons

APPROVED! A few more people and I'll get this beast started. If everyone is still around.

I'm still here :)

I'll have mine up today.

*cough cough*