Thank you very much for showing interest reader. Regrettably as of now I will not be accepting character sheets from anyone who has not already stated their interest. If you are interested in joining Blackout 2030 please feel free to state your interest and should a place open up I will be in contact.

Welcome to the year 2030 AC. Society as we know it is dependent on technology to survive. Technology is integral to our culture, our supply chain, our wellbeing. There is almost no facet of human life that is not, at some level, altered or determined by technology.

On December the 31st 2029 the world stood jubilantly primed for a new decade of growth and expansion, the vast majority unaware of the lies, tension and deceit lying just below the surface. Despite its initially calm appearance the world was primed for war and, in the opening hours of 2030, technology worldwide simultaneously shut off in a disaster known simply as "The Blackout.". Without the technology humanity had come to depend on society quickly began to break down. Rioting started in the streets and the few institutions that remained organised chased their own tails trying to make sense of what is going on. Amongst this all a lone team of UN sleeper cells has been awakened, their mission; alleviate the effects of The Blackout, seek out the source, destroy it. You are one of these sleeper cells.

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Ok. This is the second interest thread for the roleplay Blackout 2030 following a disappointing turnout from the original interest check (which I do not feel did justice to the effort placed into the OOC.). I am immensely grateful to those players who did take the time to progress from my previous interest check to the OOC the link for which is at the bottom of this post.

This roleplay is based in the near future of the real world and I have done and will continue to do quite a lot of research into technology we are likely to see in the future. Obviously I cannot predict the future, I can only make educated guesses as to what will happen, and so some of you may disagree with various elements of the setting. I cannot help this I merely ask that you respect the setting I (with the help of friends) have set up. I am however always open to new ideas and suggestions.

Your team will be of fireteam to squad/section size and most definitely not conventional soldiers. The team is designed to operate unsupported for extended periods of time and must be capable of blending in with civilian populations if necessary. The team members were originally planted as sleeper cells to be activated only in times of crisis and as such lived ten of twelve months as civilians with the other two dedicated to learning the skills required. Characters will have one general "civilian" specialisation such as engineering or medicine and two specific combat specialisations such as sniping or driving. They will begin equipped with some gadgets (this is the future. After all.). More information is provided in the OOC.

As always in life I am afraid their must be some rules. The ones I am putting in place are below:

• Please respect one another. You may or may not like one another but it benefits no-one if your dislike of one another brings negativity into the OOC or IC threads. Try to bear in mind that it is hard to perceive tone of voice from text so messages which look pretty mean may have been said in jest and come off badly.


• Players must post once a week minimum or state that they are not posting in order to maintain the flow of the roleplay. If you are dropping out of the roleplay please tell me! I reserve the right to use the characters of players who have dropped out or not posted within two weeks.


• Please do not auto-hit without express permission. An auto-hit is one in which the attacker also determines the effect his attack has e.g. Jack swung his hammer and knocked off the Orcs head. Most of the time auto-hitting will be permitted to provide simplicity in play but from time to time I may not extend that permission to ensure appropriate damage scaling. This may apply to the first round of combat to give players a sense of what they are fighting or to "boss" battles. In the event auto-hitting is not permitted please say what and how your character is attacking and I will determine the effects of that attack.


• Should two characters be drawn into a lengthy conversation that does not involve other players please try to place it in a collaborative post. This prevents the thread being filled with posts unnecessarily.


• God-modders and power gamers will be warned to change their ways or, at worst, be ejected from the game. It is meant to be at least a little difficult or what challenge is there to overcome. Try to balance your characters with the other existing ones to avoid outshining one another.


• Hailfire is the gm and, ultimately, what he says goes. He does not like to enforce things on people but if it necessary for the sake of the setting, gameplay or the people playing he will.

Before posting in the OOC please state your interest here and send me a roleplay sample via pm. A link to some of your existing IC posts from other roleplays will suffice if you are already an active rper.

I look forwards to roleplaying with you soon!

Please feel free to check out the OOC before stating your interest.
http://www.roleplayerguild.com/topics/12041/posts/ooc?page=1#post-251608

Oh yes. Im already reading, but hell yeah I'm in. I haven't really started back on the site yet, but I have been a part of the guild for two (three countin this) years now. I had a post count in the 6k's I believe and mainly participate in High Casual rps. If you'd like I could try to find some of my old stuff.

Those are some pretty impressive stats Invictus and I am glad you are interested! If you haven't got any role-play materials to sample yet a short original fiction will suffice nicely. Sorry to have you jumping through hoops but I find players willing to put in that little bit more effort earlier on are more likely to stick it out longterm in a roleplay.

Do whatever is easiest for you. Find some of the old stuff or write some new. I'm looking forwards to seeing what you come up with :)

Haha, sure thing. I'll send you something, and old Character sheet with one of my patented page long bios or something new. I gotta look at what I have in my google drive.

Thanks invictus.

I am mega excited this rp is receiving interest! One thing of note though. People are skipping straight from the interest check here to the OOC. As grateful as I am for your interest and participation I would be doubly grateful if you would take the time to post you're interest here and send me a roleplay sample before posting on the out of character thread. It helps me as a gm get a measure of how you play and helps reassure me that, if you are willing to put in the effort now, you will do so later. A link to one of your existing IC posts, a detailed cs you have made in the past or a short original fiction will work just fine. Thank you all very much for being here!

Hello Hail, I will probably be doing some more digging in on this RP before I join but I am most certainly interested.

Thats awesome dude. Glad to hear it. No pressure to play if you decide you don't like something in the OOC. I know you post to a decent standard so dw about the sample if you do decide to join. I Look forwards to hearing from u again.

Is this the RP that you said you were working on a while back? So far I am liking everything it is quiet the read which just makes me like it even more. And aww I had a whole screen play written up, it was going to be beautiful with love, betrayal, loss, sex, explosions, death, more explosions, rebirth, more sex, some dog with a birthday hat on and maybe even a chimp...maybe...maybe...but alas it is gone.

I was working on it a while back so probably. I'm glad you like what you see.

i'm totally interested. I'm a huge fan of technology, and have always been fascinated with post-apoc's -especially the ones where man's reliance on technology is poked at by having it abandon him in-explicitly- i'll have to check out more as we go, but you have a few hoops for me, so let's see if i can find you a decent writting sample/cs or some such. been an rper for years, but my archives are splotchy as i've changed computers a few times, and had my most recent one -the one before this one- stolen! but, alas, that's life, and the world turns on heedless of our personal miseries, so as they say, let the games begin!

alright, here goes a character sheet:

i think i'll just work up the one i intend to use for this rp, as the creative juices are flowing in this direction right now, lol.

Name: Edard Wayne Lindsey
Alias:
Nationality: Irish
Gender: Male
Age:28

Appearance:

Height/Build:5'4", athletic, 135lbs [american, sorry, i'm not used to the metric system, so I have no idea what the conversion will be for his weight in kilos or whatever the prefered unit is for you guys in the rest of the world. I'll promise not to be bigoted if you guys won't be predjudiced against this 'colonist', heh.]
Skin tone/color: lightly tanned, which is about as far as anyone of Irish decent can really get, lol
Hair colour and Style: brown, worn in a ponytail and goatee/ moustache and 'soul-patch'
Eye colour: Blue, sometimes grey [natural] wears contacts that white out his eyes while on missions, and proscription contacts besides, with the left having full eye-net capability [i.e.: the AR functionality] with the earpiece driver worn in the right ear.
Scars/tattoos/birth-signs: Triquetra tattoo on right shoulder
Fashion: Tee and jeans with leather jacket, vest, belt and boots, beanie [casual], button-down shirt and slacks with silk vest, overcoat and loafers [dress] cargoes, combat boots, hoodie, fingerless gloves [tactical]
Voice: low, but not deep, with a slight drawl

Personality: upbeat and witty, sarcastic. He tries to find the positive light in even the darkest situations, having seen firsthand that to let the darkness within overtake him, is to consign himself to an existence only a few shades better than living death.

Biography: bullied unrelentingly as a child, [third of four to a single mother] for any of a plethora of reasons -such as the use of words like 'plethora' in everyday speech- he spent many of his formative years as a wallflower-type. Realizing however, that life was not meant to be a spectator's sport, he decided to get off the benches and onto the field as he grew into a young adult, harvesting and cultivating skills that helped to hone his body as much as his solitary lifestyle had allowed him to hone his mind -he's fairly well read, though he seems to be the only one in the world who knows the weight of a leather-bound book in his hands and liked it- such as parkour, aikido, -much as most would prefer 'harder' styles, he was a bit fearful of how much of his own darker instincts and traits might pervert his use of such styles, opting instead for a more disciplined, more spiritually focused art- hiking, backpacking, and survivalist camping -the art of enduring the elements with as little gear as necessary- rounded out his pre-UN lifestyle.

Having been told from various sources that he was a nobody, and would never amount to anything in his life, you might imagine his surprise when he was selected for a special UN Taskforce for his survivalist skills. He'd really thought nothing of the months he'd spent touring european wilderness with nothing but the items he could strap to his body, drop into his pockets or belt pouch, or fit into his rucksack -an old, beat up leather pack reminiscient of Indiana Jones- but apparently in a world as addicted to it's technology as his Uncle Jerry that no one in the family has seen but everyone talks about is -or was, if indeed the rumors of his death are at all to be believed- addicted to heroine, someone who could just walk away from it all without a single qualm was exceptional, apparently. And, so, after a para-military indoctrination process and a promise to report for training during proscribed months out of his year, he was encouraged to act as though he wished, so long as he kept his head down, took their close combat courses and followed his orders. Keeping his head down had never really been difficult for him anyway, and following orders didn't bother him in the least as it actually served to give his mostly aimless life a bit of purpose. The combat training he was uneasy about at first, but found he liked both the style and the instructor, after the entire first session was spent in a tea house just going over the philosophies and backgrounds of both men, as his instructor viewed martial arts as self defense first and last, and if the self doesn't feel the self is worth defending, it will not learn any style as well as it could. through the instructor, Ed would incorporate Krav-Maga, Jiu-jitsu, Muay Thai, and other styles he at one time felt were too 'hard' to be tampered with, considering his decades-long suppressed aggression and has found that old anger there and ready for him to use during the courses.

Civilian Specialisation/Job: Pays the bills as a machinist, making parts for robotic versions of animals people keep as pets for a guy who has a personal cat-sized fire-breathing dragon with it's own built-in wifi hotspot.
Combat Specialisation: Wilderness survival/CQC [close quarters combat]

Weapons and ammo: Xiphod [read:hidden blade] with a stun-gun built-in on left forearm.
Equipment:
Standard issue is:
-Augmented reality system. The UN prefers agents wear the contact lens version of these for concealability however for agents who refuse these AR is available in numerous designs of eyewear.
-Bivi bag. An enclosed, waterproof sleeping bag designed for sleeping outdoors unsheltered. This one comes with a second removable layer of insulation to allow adaptability to different climates. When the bag is closed an integrated mini-tent at head level provides some headroom.
-Coms set/camera. This is usually head mounted in a discreet manner such as a bluetooth style headset or similar and is the primary means of communication with the groups handler as well as between characters when out of hearing range. The camera's mounted within transmit images to the handler and can be made to take a still for later use at the click of a button. The headset can also be used to transmit images into the AR system by the handler.
-A 40 litre rucksack with chest and waist straps. These come in various colours, shapes and styles to avoid operatives looking too uniform and help them blend in. They are usually rugged and waterproof.(Customise to taste. May be replaced with a bigger or a smaller one as desired but be sure you can carry what you have.).
-Fixed bladed utility knife and sheath.
-Rations. Enough food to last four days used sparingly.
-beyond the general issue, Edard has the following: Weighted sap gloves, to add extra weight to his punches, his Eye-Net contact lense [facilitates the AR with a micro-screen built into it, worn on the left eye] and a belt-pouch he uses for a drop-bag.
Gadgets: his undershirt harvests body heat and converts it into electrical energy stored in a wrist-watch device actually built into the left sleeve. The xiphoid he wears is a modern-tech version of an old weapon, adapted to include the stun-gun feature as a less-than-lethal option, as well as a composite armor plate on the back of the gauntlet holding the blade that flips up to reveal a tablet style micro computer onto which he's stored all the data he's found to be crucial to his survival forays, which he goes on with an express purpose of observing what few animals actually remain alive in the world so the other geniuses that work for his boss can make the robots that much more realistic, and though his employer has often and repeatedly offered Edard any one robot of his choosing with free maintenance and software updates for life for all his hard work, he has just as often politely refused, though he is slowly warming to the thought of a companion.

Hey Azariel. I'm glad you are interested in this roleplay and look forwards to seeing your sample(s) or original short fiction (should you choose to write one in the place of a sample). Some technology will still be operational so its not totally back to the stone age but enough tech has been knocked out that society as we know it cannot function normally. The time frame is a bit tight now but if you can get a sample and a cs approved before tomorrow afternoon (uk time) when the IC will be launched you should be golden.

Hope to rp with you soon!

what do you think of the cs i put up as a sample, or is that not the kosher response?
heck, even if it ain't kosher, what do you think of it?

Sorry! Didn't see that there. It's kosher although I do have a some queries and a pointer for the cs (which is fine btw).

The first query is when you say cqc do you mean combat in close proximity to opponents or literally contact which requires physical contact with the opponent using the body or weapons. Both could be combined into a cqb specialisation if desired.

The second query relates to the stun gun. Is that a melee weapon or can it operate at range? If it can operate at range how far and by what means?

The pointer relates to your weapons. I seriously recommend you take at least one firearm. It is not the end of the world if you don't however. It could be a result of your black market contacts bailing or something which would give you the challenge of acquiring/borrowing a gun in game.

CQC is a more immediate/melee range focus, but i see some wisdom in at least having a pistol/sidearm as he bloody well can't start lobbing bullets at people who won't get close enough for a fist and can't be snuck up to. i just don't know much about the different kinds and styles of firearms available even today. and it's a immediate range stun gun. allows for 'taser-punches' and i'm thinking of having him upgrade with a second on the right wrist later on. i chose cqc since we seem to have a lot of firearms guys, and it ballances the sniper well. who better to watch the sniper's back than someone who doesn't even need a gun to put enemies down and can be just as stealthy? that's my thoughts on it, anyway. i hope that answers your queries, and if you have any firearm reccomendations, do feel free to share, sir.

I understand the uniqueness of the character and it will definitely be useful to have someone with above-average proficiency at close quarters. You are right however. Something to protect yourself at range would be a good idea.

Hmmm... in terms of weapons you might want to look into a handgun, a compact smg or, in your characters case, an automatic shotgun.

I assume you at least know a little about handguns so won't present an example.

The http://www.israel-weapon.com/?catid=%7B89B2D388-821D-424D-B8AB-CB619D165202%7D is a good example of what to look for in an smg. At just 12 inches/30cm long and being very light it'd be easy to conceal and its rate of fire and size make it great at close quarters.

An automatic shotgun would be devastating at close ranges but their effective ranges generally max out at about 50 or less metres for short barrelled versions (which have the upside of being more likely to hit and having the potential to hit more than one opponent at close ranges). This seems like a good fit for your character. Theres a list of existing auto shotties at the bottom of this page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatic_shotgun

Note. A gun is not essential. As I said it might be interesting having a character who, for whatever reason didn't start with a weapon and had to pick one up in game. You may well find some of the weapons you'll be facing early in game would suit your character and you could always borrow one.

i like the idea of a shottie, I'm thinking the ASAS-12 would fit him best. maybe it could be a gift from his instructor? maybe with this quote engraved on the buttstock?

It is better to be violent, if there is violence in our hearts, than to put on the cloak of nonviolence to cover impotence.
-Mahatma Gandhi

The USAS-12 shotgun is fine although bear in mind that at about a yard/metre long its gunna be a monster to hide. In terms of the gift thing it is possible I guess but only really if he happened to be on the training course when the blackout occurred. Agents in the uk aren't really supposed to possess guns when not on active duty.

wow. a meter long? that would be a hassle to hide. would it be something he could carry in a case broken down and reassemble it in the field?

Not quickly I am afraid although yes. It could be stripped down and put together. With the right preparation you could have the gun ready when u need it and use a pistol for self defence. Alternatively i think there is a version with a folding stock/he could add a folding stock which would knock about thirty centimetres off. It could be hidden in the rucksack then. Just about.

I'm going to have to sleep now I am afraid.