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Hidden 8 yrs ago 8 yrs ago Post by PentagonWhite
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It is more useful to appeal against a thunderstorm as against the terrible hardships of war. War is cruelty, its glory is all moonshine. It is only those who have neither fired a shot nor heard the shrieks and groans of the wounded who cry aloud for blood, vengeance and desolation. War is hell.
-Engraving beneath a statue of ‘Cump’, God of the Traction City of Cleave-Land

A thousand years after the Sixty Minute War, this quote hs proven deficient. The unimaginable exchange of firepower that marked the end of the world as it was not just hell. It created hell. In the aftermath of the titanic struggle between the American Empire and Greater China, the world is a wasteland. The very Earth buckles beneath the scars of the war, and has left only desolation and danger for those humans who still have the gall to carve out lives for themselves. Mountains explode with volcanic fury, the sea-bed, bared of its water, shakes and festers. Great ice-sheets encroach from the north, and the swirling deserts morph like foul organisms far to the south. Humanity, in its infinite capacity for adaptation, has been forced to innovate or die, and so they have created the great cradles which maintain them in the ashes of their homeworld.

TRACTION CITIES




The world is too volatile and fickle for permanent settlement, or so the ancient wisdom says. On the Great Hunting Ground, the land which the ancients called 'Europe', the Traction Cities, from the great metropolises of millions to the scavenger-towns of a few hundred, scurry with the power of ancient engines, sustained by great works of artificial agriculture, engaged in the great sport of Municipal Darwinism.



The weak are eaten by the strong. The great cities area always looking to expand, to scavenge ancient technology and bolster the population of either their citizenry or, in the cases of some cities, their slave stock. Other cities are the most prized catch of them all, and so a great food chain of municipalities war on the Hunting Grounds, each day a struggle to survive knowing there is always someone bigger than you, some threat to take you from your position of power and wealth.

Meanwhile, rumors fly on the Hunting Grounds, borne by airships and traders, of dangers encroaching on the status quo. Massive cities from the West, having crossed the Radiation Ocean, greater than any seen before, and an Anti-Traction League in the East, determined to tear down the last hope of civilization. The cities of the Great Hunting Grounds, whether they know it or not, face a dangerous chapter in their history, and only wise leadership and sound guidance will see these final bastions of humanity crawl into a new golden age.



OOC

Hello there, and welcome to an unorthodox Nation RP! In this RP, players will take command of a sovereign Traction City and guide it to great and terrible things, among the ruins of knowledge and civilization in a steampunk-esque new world. Nations will face trials and tribulations as new forces enter the ecosystem of Municipal Darwinism, and will always have to be watching for enemies seeking to consume them and strip them down to the chassis.

The world is based, mostly, on the Mortal Engines quartet by Philip Reeve. Reading these books are by no means necessary, or ever recommended, but there is a wiki with information that will be cleaved to during the game. For those not familiar, there is a briefing on the world here:



Cities are mostly based on Pre-War cities, though the history is so garbled that most of the lineage has been forgotten. The great Traction City of London still rolls across the northern Hunting Grounds, but has satraps like Tunbridge Wheels and Wolverinehampton and to aid it in its fight against Panzerstadt-Breslau.

The RP will be somewhat unique, in that the scope is simultaneously smaller (with nations being at most a few million people in a single city), and much larger (since nations can move and interact at will across a wide swathe of territory). War, politics, romance, rivalry and adventure are all being promised, and I think this can be an excellent vehicle for good storytelling. Please, let me know if this sounds at all interesting to you!
Hidden 8 yrs ago Post by Marquise
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Ah, fantastic! I loved the Mortal Engines books, and I think it will make a superb setting :) . Definitely interested in taking the helm of one of these vast behemoths.
Hidden 8 yrs ago Post by Skylar
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Haven't read the books but extremely interested in the premise and nation game idea. Count me in!

Probably going to be a artillery-heavy city of somekind, in the vein of Redcon, Cannon Fodder (anime), and the Inverted World (another good moving city story)
Hidden 8 yrs ago Post by Ashgan
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I don't know the books but this actually sounds really cool! I'm definitely keeping my eye on this. Will there be more information if/when the OOC goes up? I'm wondering, for instance, how traction cities even came to exist and become a thing in the first place. Seems like too ambitious and advanced a project for a people that's been returned to a new technological dark age. Not to mention there will almost certainly be all kinds of little details-questions that come up sooner or later. A map would also be helpful; I realize it's based on Earth, but you did mention that some oceans have evaporated so the topography has probably changed significantly from what it is today.

As said though, this is absolutely interesting to me. Flavor-wise I'm probably leaning towards doing something water-oriented, maybe one of those floating cities you mentioned.
Hidden 8 yrs ago 8 yrs ago Post by Dannyrulx
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Ah man, I loved the Mortal Engines books. Quick question, what's the current status on ODIN and MEDUSA?

Edit: Oh, and heavier than air travel.
Hidden 8 yrs ago Post by PentagonWhite
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@Dannyrulx

We're not keeping to canon, I figure if you want to rationalize it we're a few hundred years before the series picks up, when the Great Hunting Grounds are a little more populated. As such, there's no canonical archaeotech working, but that does not mean that you can't find some spicy Old World technology and go bananas with it. As for things like heavier than air flight, computers and all sorts of other technological advancements, they have not been re-invented, but once again that is the sort of thing that very well might happen in the RP if things go well.

@Ashgan

I'm afraid I'm not much of a cartographer, but I'll do my best to get a map up soon. As for an OOC, well, it'll be up in a day or two. I've got some real-life work to get done, but it seems like there's sufficient interest. As for how traction cities came about: there needs to be a little suspension of disbelief for the things, they're not exactly logically water-tight, but they're very useful for narrative purposes. The actual explanation is that London was the first city, and it was formed only a few decades after the Sixty Minute War, having dodged enough of the munitions to still exist. It had to dodge volcanoes and earthquakes, and so it used some now-forgotten technology to get itself on treads. Other cities followed, and now the mechanisms of turning static settlements to traction cities is lost, but people can still make new traction cities with enough scavenged technology and elbow grease.

Hidden 8 yrs ago Post by Dannyrulx
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Can I have a electric-powered macguffin called ZEUS?

Cool cool. Probably gonna have a university-style city like Cambridge obessed with collecting knowledge with a shitton of explosives strapped to it.
Hidden 8 yrs ago Post by Marquise
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Ah, I see academic rivalry on the horizon :) . Such fun! Sniping over College Council minutes, bickering over High Table, cannonfire broadsides and daring airship raids.

@PentagonWhite, will we have to contend with the Anti-Traction League at all?
Hidden 8 yrs ago Post by PentagonWhite
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@Marquise

Yes! Once again, I won't be touching canon (mostly because on a second read of the books, it turns out my tastes have changed from when I was eight years old), but I always find that some sort of threat makes Nation RPs more likely to continue. So many times it is just player nations and nothing much happens until they peter out. You'll have the Anti-Traction factions moving in from the east, while great American behemoths arrive from the west. Fun!
Hidden 8 yrs ago Post by Marquise
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Haha, I know what you mean! It is a shame that Philip Reeve wasn't able to get a publisher for Mortal Engines as he originally envisaged it; he had to cut out a lot of things to make it child-accessible, apparently.

American...behemoths...

Ready the airfleet!
Hidden 8 yrs ago Post by Dannyrulx
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Oh sweet Jesus. Prepare for Detroit to be this rundown shithole of a city full of underbelly guys.
Hidden 8 yrs ago Post by Marquise
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And Pittsburgh really will be the pits...
Hidden 8 yrs ago Post by PentagonWhite
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So I'd like a few more than four to start, but no matter what I'll get the OOC up soon so we can keep the momentum going: I'm sick of NRPs fizzling out after too much dilly-dallying.
Hidden 8 yrs ago Post by Marquise
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A few more people might join up when the actual OOC is posted, you never know :) .
Hidden 8 yrs ago Post by PentagonWhite
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